He’d woken up a few mornings with a heavy cock and remnants of dreams featuring long legs wrapped around his hips and a tight ass clenched over his dick. Since their kiss a few days ago, they’d gone back to merely talking without Dee giving him any sign of wanting more than a corner of Finnegan’s patio to play in. But there were lingering glances, speculation slicing through the man’s dark blue eyes, and Sionn had a hunch it wouldn’t be long before they either soared or crashed and burned.
As he stirred the cream through Dee’s coffee, Sionn heard the man begin to play. He’d left the pub door open a crack, caught on the open dead bolt, rather than close it behind him. A few chords in, and Sionn recognized the sound of a beer bottle neck slide on the guitar’s strings. He didn’t know the tune, but Dee began to sing in his rough, growling voice about finding himself on the crossroads, searching for a devil to take him in.
He was about to make a fresh pot of coffee when Leigh nudged him along. “Go take that out to him. I’ll make some more.”
“You sure, Leigh girl?” He grinned at her lascivious wink. “Stop being a letch. I’m just taking him a cup.”
“Yeah, I’m sure.” She sighed, going back to her inventory. “And if all you’re taking him is coffee, then I’m going to be very disappointed in you, Sionn Murphy.”
Dee didn’t look up when he put the mug down on the table near his elbow, but gave Sionn a slow nod, his fingers tripping over the guitar’s strings. Sionn pulled up a chair, turned it around, straddled its seat, and rested his arms on the high back. Balancing his own coffee in one hand, he sipped at the strong brew, listening to Dee work through another song.
The fog had thickened in the time he’d been in the pub, and misty wisps lapped at Dee’s raised boots. Sionn couldn’t see more than a foot beyond the railing, and the soup was turning dark, a harbinger of a heavy storm rolling in from the water. A choppy thrush rumbled under Dee’s playing, the ocean grumbling angrily at the approaching weather.
Ten minutes passed before Dee stopped playing, shaking his fingers loose when he reached for the mug near him. Sipping at the coffee, he made a face at the cooled liquid but didn’t say anything until Sionn leaned forward and plucked the cowboy hat off of his head.
“Hey!” He made a grab for it, but Sionn reached behind him and set the hat down on the table. “Dude, not cool. It’s cold out here.”
“Then why aren’t you wearing a jacket, eh?” Sionn saluted him with his mug when Dee hissed in frustration between his clenched teeth. “It’s seven in the morning, boyo, and you’re already out here singing to the seagulls. Leigh thinks maybe you’ve got something you need talking about, so talk to me, then.”
He got a good clear look at Dee’s pretty face when the man leaned back and studied him, his eyes hooded and wary. Something about the man’s raw, frank gaze was familiar, tugging at Sionn’s memory. Handsome didn’t quite describe Dee’s face. There was a sensuality to it, a rough sexual bleakness to his somber features. There was loss there, and the man’s full mouth seemed too set against anything happier than a wry smile. Then in a moment, it was all lost in a tousle of black when Dee ducked his head and his hair flopped back over his brow.
Still, Sionn was left with an unsettling feeling he’d seen Dee before the guitarist had wandered into Finnegan’s, but damned if he could recall where.
“Is there something bugging you, Cowboy?” Sionn briefly wondered if there was anything in the office he could make the man put on to keep warm. The pub seemed to be a way station for lost jumpers and jackets, usually left by tourists more intent on making the ferry than picking up after themselves. More than a few times when it was cold, Leigh’d given Dee a jacket to put on when the wind picked up, but he never seemed to be wearing a coat when he needed it. “Other than maybe Leigh’s coffee. ’Cause I’ve got to tell you, she can’t brew it for shite.”
He wasn’t certain if Dee even heard him. The man sat stone-still for a minute or so, not even flinching when a brown pelican emerged out of the fog and drifted low over the sidewalk on its enormous wingspread before banking back into the soupy air.
“I’m scared, Irish,” Dee whispered. “There’s so much shit following me around and… I don’t want to track you through it too but… when I come here… and you’re around… I feel quiet inside. And fuck me, if I don’t need that quiet.”
Speechless, Sionn reached for Dee’s mug and took it from the man’s hand. Their fingers touched, and Sionn frowned, not liking how cold Dee was where their skin met. He forgot about digging up a jacket for Dee out of the infamous lost and found. His tongue was thick with words he wanted to say—everything from yes to I’ll keep you safe—when the cup he was holding shattered into powdery bits and something solid thunked into the wall behind them.