Five

He was still sprawled out on the bunk when Declan turned back to him after washing up at the corner basin. Declan wet a cloth and was about to toss it at Elliot, but stopped. 

He let his eyes travel over Elliot’s broad frame. His soft cock curled sweetly to the left, nestled in a thatch of dark hair peeking from the gap in his trousers. His large, strong hands lay open and relaxed on the bunk, his palms turned up to the ceiling like he was receiving an offer from heaven. 

At his broad chest, a sprinkling of hair visible through his half-unbuttoned shirt and open vest. His sharp collarbones and the long line of his throat, late afternoon stubble shadowing his cheeks. 

Finally, at Elliot’s face, and those hazel eyes gazing back at Declan, as dear to him as the day Declan’s father had married Elliot’s mother. 

Declan had never spoken out loud any vows like the ones his father had made to his stepmother. But he’d made them in his head several times, whether or not Elliot knew it. 

When he’d realized on his father’s wedding day that Elliot was his to take care of for the rest of his life. 

When he and Elliot had come together that very first time, after Elliot convinced him that he wanted Declan the same way Declan had always wanted him. 

When Elliot shifted the first time and Declan was there for him, the way he wanted to always be there for Elliot. 

And today, on the Chinese New Year, with the fortune from his cracker crinkling in his pocket. 

Instead of tossing the wet cloth at Elliot, Declan crossed the short distance to the bunk and used it to wipe Elliot’s face and chest, then gently cleaned the rest of him. He dropped a series of short kisses on Elliot’s soft cock, a spot right above his navel, at the hollow of his throat, on both eyelids, on the tip of his nose, and finally, on his lips. 

Elliot curled a hand into the hair at the nape of Declan’s neck and kissed him back. 

“You’ll be home in a few weeks, won’t you?” Elliot asked. His eyelids drooped as Declan buttoned his trousers and shirt, then rolled him gently on his left side, the side Elliot preferred sleeping on. 

“Yep,” he promised. “I’ll be home before you even miss me.”

“Miss you already,” Elliot murmured. He pulled his knees up toward his chest to fit in the bunk. Declan brushed a lock of hair from his face and tucked it behind his ear. 

“Not as much as I miss you when I’m away,” Declan said softly, even though Elliot was already asleep. 

No matter. He tucked a scratchy wool blanket around Elliot’s shoulders and closed the door softly as he left the cabin. 

A passing band of sailors—probably the Concordia’s crew—were singing a popular tavern song, and Declan whistled a few bars as he left the wharf and headed back toward Chinatown and his crew. 

Whether his fortune cracker’s message was by coincidence or magic, Declan sent silent thanks to whoever wrote it for sending him down to the wharf this afternoon.

The Concordia would make it back to Port Townsend before the Black Dove, but as long as Elliot would be waiting there for him, he couldn’t wish for better fortune.