His Horizon - Con Riley Page 0,110

loves you.”

“I know.” And wasn’t that complete certainty another sign that Jude needn’t worry?

“You’re just snippy because you like being the only one who gets to showboat for our guests. Now Mum’s back, you’ve got some stiff competition.” Jude dropped a kiss on Rob’s lips before standing. “You’ll have to find something more exciting to boast about than winning a cooking contest if you want more attention than she’s getting.”

“More exciting?” Rob sniffed. “Not sure it’s possible to beat her survival stories. All that catching fish by hand, or making seawater drinkable by reverse osmosis… how am I expected to wow customers with that for competition?” He sighed and pouted, but his gaze was as warm as ever and Jude loved him for it.

“Maybe you need some customers of your own.” Jude extended a hand to pull Rob to his feet. “Come on.” He tugged his boyfriend, his partner, the love of the rest of his life if he was lucky. “It’s time I gave you your birthday present.”

Instantly, Rob was wreathed with smiles. “You got me something?”

“Of course I did.” Jude led Rob through the shadowed hallway, past the bar and kitchen, and opened the front door.

“When?” Rob asked with a whisper, speaking aloud once Jude locked the front door behind them. “It’s been far too busy for you to go shopping and I would have noticed any deliveries arriving.”

“I didn’t need to leave Porthperrin to get you a gift.”

“Ah.”

Rob turned towards the boatshed, only stopping after Jude grabbed his wrist and asked, “Where are you going?”

“To bed, for what I’m guessing will be a birthday blowjob from my favourite sailor.”

“Maybe later.” Jude guided Rob in the opposite direction, slowing at the bottom of one narrow alley after Rob dragged his heels.

“Please tell me we’re not going to the gallery.”

“Why would we be going there?” Jude asked, quieter again, as they passed cottages where Porthperrin’s new breed of tourists slept instead of under canvas.

“Because you might have bought me a painting,” Rob explained. “But the only person who needs a portrait of Louise in her birthday suit is Marc, not me.” He added, “I’m not saying that she isn’t lovely, but the only Anstey I want to see naked is a whole lot taller.”

“Pretty sure my dad’s straight,” Jude joked in a way he could never have imagined before Rob had stormed through his life, changing every single aspect for the better. “And he’s already married.” Jude stopped outside a home that once had been full of an expressive French family he used to find hard to deal with. Now he did his best to be just as open as them. “This is your present if you want it.” He turned a key that Marc had given him with his blessing. “Only it comes with some conditions.”

“Which are?” Rob sounded guarded until Jude turned on the light, illuminating a room that had him gasping. “Wait…. Is this…?”

“Where Marc lived with his parents? Yeah.” Jude watched Rob take in the artwork, walls covered with views of a beach that no longer existed, captured forever here in floor-to-ceiling murals.

“Wow.” Rob sounded reverent, his voice somewhat shaky as he turned in a slow circle. “Is this really what it looked like?” All Jude could do was nod. Rob crossed the room to hug him. “None of the photos I saw did it justice.”

His embrace lasted as long as Jude needed, finally able to look at everything Porthperrin had lost with Rob beside him. He said, “There’s more,” before taking Rob on a tour of rooms, each one revealing aspects of a place Jude would sail the whole world over to come back to. Rob admired each room, from the kitchen that featured the woods where they foraged, to a bathroom painted so many ocean shades that Jude couldn’t hope to count them. They ended in a bedroom, bare apart from more art painted onto the plaster.

“Now this…” Rob traced a line bisecting a wall where dawn-pink brush strokes met sea-blue. “This is one horizon I could stand to look at for a long time.”

“That’s the condition I mentioned.” Rob stopped tracing the line and went still. Jude continued, saying, “You could if you wanted. Look at that horizon every day, with me, right here. Only you’d have to stay for longer than you agreed with Louise last winter. A lot longer, if we ran this place together.”

“As…?”

“As a hotel, as a retreat, as whatever you wanted. Seems like there’s never enough rooms