Title:Saving His Soldier

Author:  Kay McKinnon

Publisher : Spunk Books

Release Date: Januari 1st, 2016

BLURB

In the summer, Sawsup Island is a tourist mecca, with a beachfront historic inn overlooking the waves of Maine’s Atlantic coast. In the winter the only guests who visit are the seals. And that’s just the way the island’s year-round resident and recluse, former Navy SEAL Connor Thorne, likes it.

Now the Inn has a new owner, and they’ve hired a caretaker to stay there through the winter. The guy is nothing but trouble. First of all, he gets sea-sick just looking at the ocean. Second, he’s far too cheerful and social. And third—Thorne can’t stop thinking about him.

Veterinarian Zach Keegan is not a handyman, but when the opportunity arises to stay at the Maliseet Inn on Sawsup Island for the winter months, he jumps at the chance. His fiancée has just cheated on him with his brother and Zach is ready to be isolated, with no family to bother him and nothing but his memories for company.

When Zach nearly burns down the inn during a violent winter storm, it is Thorne who reluctantly comes to his aid. With only each other for company, they give in to a night of passion. As their feelings for one another deepen, slowly their broken hearts begin to heal.

But Zach is adamant he is not gay, no matter what he and Thorne shared and when he’s ready to leave the Island and face the world again, how will Thorne live without him now he has let Zach into his heart?

Zach coughed hard enough to vomit, but it didn’t clear the smoke from his lungs. His throat burned. He needed to put out the blaze, needed… needed…

He sank to the floor where he discovered the air seemed a bit clearer and he sucked in a breath. But it wasn’t enough, and it was hot, and he just wanted to close his eyes…

Suddenly, there was the clatter of claws on the hardwood floor and frantic barking. Zach heard a shout, then a clang and a foamy roar. The fire went out with a regretful hissing. He lay still on the floor and wondered at how the CO2 looked kind of like a blanket of fake snow. Like the crap he and Aaron had sprayed on the windows at Christmas when they were kids. Huh.

A figure dropped down beside him, and lifted him up, then up again, over his—its?—shoulder and carried him, hanging upside down, up the stairs, pausing a moment before moving into the open door of his suite.

“Doc. Doc? Jesus, please…” Thorne—that’s who it was, Zach realized hazily—dropped him down onto his couch. “Are you all right? Can you talk? Here, let me get you some water.”

Thorne got up and hurried to the bathroom with a step, drag, step, drag sound. Zach stared at Thorne’s snowy, wet and sooty footprints on the rug and wondered if they would be hard to clean. He didn’t have much time to think about it, because Thorne was back in a moment with cup of water which he practically forced down his throat.

Zach coughed, spluttered, and pushed it away. “I’m all right!” he snarled, feeling kind of bad for snapping. But Thorne was here, and how had he known Zach needed help?

“Let me see. Are you burned?” Thorne fell to his knees. He had a cool, damp facecloth and he moved it over Zach’s face and neck, then yanked on his shirt. “This is in shreds from sparks. Let me see if you’ve got any burns. Are you sure you’re all right? You could be burned. I need… I need to check.”

Thorne pushed open his shirt and wiped his chest and belly in long, smooth strokes. “You’re okay. You’re not… you’re not burnt. You’re all right.” He blinked.

“I am. Really,” Zach answered, feeling disoriented and so happy to just have another human being in the same room with him. “Are you really here?”

“I think I am. I’m kind of asking myself the same thing. Here… let’s push this off your shoulders and arms…”

In moments, Zach was naked from the waist up, and Thorne was leaning over him, wiping his skin with that damp facecloth. He let him check his body and even leaned back so that Thorne could swipe at his stomach once more with a gentle touch.

“I think you’re okay,” Thorne said softly, more like he was reassuring himself than Zach. “I got scared when I saw you lying there like that.”

“I couldn’t breathe.” Zach nodded.

“How are you breathing, now?” Thorne paused. “You… you can breathe, right? You’re sure? You’re not burned?”

“No. I’m fine!” Zach wished he’d stop asking that. “Throat feels a little raspy. That’s it.”

“Keep drinking water,” Thorne told him. He sort of tossed the damp cloth through the bathroom door, and stayed there, kneeling on the floor and staring at Zach’s torso like… like he wanted to memorize it.

Amy had looked at Zach like that, once. Before she got bored with him and decided she liked his brother’s body better. “My fiancée cheated on me with my brother,” he heard himself tell Thorne. “She’s my ex, now. Him too.”

Thorne’s eyes met his. The edges were red—irritated by the smoke, Zach thought—but they were such a sparkling shade of blue, ringed by long, dark lashes. He hadn’t noticed, before.

“I’m really glad you’re okay,” Thorne said.

“Me too. I guess I shouldn’t have used the kerosene.”

“Definitely not.” Thorne licked his lips with the tip of his tongue, and his gaze fell to Zach’s crotch.

Ordinarily, Zach thought, a man staring at his crotch wouldn’t do anything for him, but under Thorne’s blue-eye consideration, his dick suddenly began to swell. Especially when Thorne licked his lips again, and then bit his lower lip.

“I… I don’t suppose you might want to just stay here, tonight? Because of the storm? So you don’t have to go out in it?” Zach asked, not really sure if he was asking what he thought he might be asking, because he’d never even considered asking such a thing of a man, before.

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