by KC Burn
Tartan Candy
By KC Burn
Finlay McIntyre (aka Raven) is a successful adult film star with a penchant for kilts, until an accident cuts short his stardom and leaves him with zero sexual desire, lowered self-esteem, and no job. He knew his porn career wouldn’t last forever, but he wasn’t prepared for retirement at twenty-eight. While trying to figure out the rest of his life, Raven agrees to attend a high school reunion. That’s when a malfunctioning AC unit in his hotel room changes everything.
Caleb Sanderson, an entrepreneur with his own HVAC business, has no idea what to expect when he steps into Raven’s hotel room to fix his AC unit. They’re attracted to each other, but Caleb, closeted, can’t afford a gay relationship, not with his mom pressuring him to produce grandchildren. If he wants to keep Raven—who no closet could hold—he’ll need to tell his family the truth. But Raven has a few secrets of his own. He refuses to reveal his porn past to Caleb, a past that might be the final obstacle to Caleb and Raven having any kind of relationship.
To those who love unconditionally.
Acknowledgments
Several years ago, I was at the RWA national conference in Orlando. Not many men attend the conference, to the point we usually take over the men’s restrooms located near the conference rooms. However, on this particular year, it seemed as though most of the (few) men who attended were wearing kilts. I didn’t know Damon Suede back then, but I’m almost certain he wasn’t one of them. My friend Chudney and I had a little discussion about those kilts, and this idea has been germinating ever since. Chudney, here it is! Took me a while!
In addition to thanking my usual crew for being there for me and performing on-demand edits—Alex, Dottie, and Chudney—I also have to thank Dolorianne for helping me brainstorm. Thanks go to my book club, ZA Maxfield, and Tara Lain for listening to me whine about this particular book, and to my awesome street team, who jump in when I throw out random questions to them!
Also, a special thanks to JP Barnaby, who gave me some additional information about porn stars when I asked. If I screwed anything up, it’s all on me!
Chapter ONE
“OOH, I just love a man in a kilt.”
Raven smiled at the newcomer, pretending he hadn’t heard the phrase a million times since he’d walked into the ballroom. Normally he didn’t mind being the center of attention, but tonight the overwhelming interest in him crawled over his skin like a swarm of fire ants.
No denying, he looked hot. His bright red plaid kilt matched the thick red streaks in his black hair perfectly. It was one of the reasons he’d bought the kilt in the first place, a few years ago. He had about a dozen kilts that matched various hair dyes, but he liked the classic red Royal Stewart. Unfortunately, all the sexy outer trappings weren’t enough to make him forget he wasn’t getting naked with anyone ever again.
Jeremy, Raven’s purported date, stepped closer to him. Close enough to almost slay Raven with his nearly lethal cloud of body spray.
“Jeremy, is that you?” The newcomer was not the first person who’d been surprised by the change in Jeremy since high school. Like every high school reunion Raven had seen on TV and in the movies, a giant poster board at the entrance to the ballroom displayed everyone’s yearbook photo. While Jeremy signed them in, Raven had taken the opportunity to inspect Jeremy’s image. Dude had had a shitload of good plastic surgery done. It was almost cliché: the geeky underdog who’d made it big coming back to his old stomping ground to revel in his new wealth and surgically enhanced appearance. Unfortunately, Jeremy hadn’t let the past go, and his personality bordered on rancid.
“Rebecca? It’s so lovely to see you again.”
Oddly, Rebecca appeared genuinely pleased to see Jeremy, and she coaxed the first happy smile Raven had seen on Jeremy’s face. If he didn’t know Jeremy was gay through and through, he’d have suspected Rebecca to be an old girlfriend or crush.
Rebecca gave Jeremy a hug. “I hear you’ve done well for yourself. You look fantastic.”
When Jeremy slipped an arm around Raven’s waist, he had to work at not flinching.
“This is Raven.”
“Nice to meet you, Raven.” Rebecca seemed nice, around the age his mother would have been, and was fond—perhaps overfond—of pink glitter. Maybe that was only natural, since Rebecca’s name tag proclaimed her head cheerleader. How she was even aware of Jeremy’s existence, Raven didn’t know.
“Raven’s my date. Gorgeous, isn’t he?”
Almost buckling under the strain, Raven managed to keep a pleasant smile on his face while Rebecca chatted, even though Jeremy was treating him like a slab of meat. It wasn’t the first time a guy had done that, and it wouldn’t be the last, but Raven badly wanted to correct the “date” misnomer. For a hefty sum, Jeremy had purchased Raven’s companionship—minus any sex—for the duration of his high school reunion weekend retreat. Raven wasn’t in the business of offering the “boyfriend experience.” Even if he had ever been planning to have sex again, there wasn’t enough money in the world to get him to sleep with Jeremy.
Jeremy’s grand plan had backfired in an unexpected way: he’d thought people would be impressed he showed up with an attractive younger man. He hadn’t anticipated Raven would garner more favorable attention than the changes in Jeremy’s appearance. Hence, his treatment of Raven as if he were an expensive possession.
Raven extricated himself from Jeremy’s clinging embrace and tipped the last of the beer in his bottle into his mouth.
Rebecca smiled brightly—or perhaps drunkenly, it was too early to tell—at them both. “He certainly is. I’m glad you found someone great, Jeremy.”
Sputtering, Raven managed to swallow his mouthful without choking to death or embarrassing anyone.
“Are you okay, honey?” Rebecca’s smile faded into concern.
“I’m good, thanks. Just swallowed wrong.”
Jeremy snorted, and Raven barely refrained from slugging him. Jeremy’s mind was in the gutter—again.
Rebecca patted him on the back and turned her attention back to Jeremy. “We’re seated at the same table for dinner.”
“Lead the way, Rebecca. I’m starving, although if this place is like most conference hotels, we’ll still be starving after our plate of rubbery chicken.”
Raven cringed, but Rebecca just giggled.
“Hey, baby.” Rebecca kissed the temple of an imposing man who was already seated at one of the round tables set for ten.
“I got you a glass of Chardonnay.” Big and beefy was pretty hot, even with the severely receding hairline. Raven peered at his name tag. Yet another cliché come to life. Bret was the quarterback of the team. Would Raven’s own high school reunion be so predictable? Not that he’d ever consider attending, outside of his nightmares.
“Bret, honey, you remember Jeremy, right?”
“Nope,” Bret grunted, and Jeremy looked like he’d swallowed a bug. Dealing with Jeremy’s ruffled ego for the whole weekend, and trying to calm him without encouraging any advances, was going to make this “date” last for-fucking-ever. Raven wasn’t quite at the point of counting down the hours, but he wasn’t far off.
“One too many hits to the head, eh, Bret? I guess what they say about multiple concussions is true.” Jeremy’s tone was jovial, but Bret’s face flushed a dark red.
Rebecca patted her husband’s arm. “He’s the one who tutored me in calculus.”
Oh. Now the Rebecca-Jeremy relationship made sense.
“Right. Him.” With those two words, Bret instantly dismissed Jeremy as a threat, and as a person. If this was how everyone had treated Jeremy in school, then maybe Raven had a smidgeon of sympathy. A nanosized morsel of sympathy. High school could be sucky.
They were saved from too m
uch discussion as the rest of the guests at their table seated themselves and made introductions. Another football player and his wife, a drama club member and her husband, and a couple who were now teachers at the same school from which they’d graduated made up the ten at their table. Most of them, like Jeremy, had moved away from Orlando after graduation and hadn’t seen each other since. Dinner began, and throughout the meal there were a number of awards, announcements, and commemorative videos, so it wasn’t until the meal had been cleared away in preparation for dessert that any real conversation sprang up.
Rebecca’s cheeks had pinkened from the effects of three glasses of wine, and she smiled blearily at him. “Raven, what do you do for a living?”
“He’s in school right now,” Jeremy jumped in before Raven could answer. There were worse things he could have said, but he made it sound like Raven was still in high school.
“Uh, yes. I’m almost finished my business degree.” One last semester in the fall, and he’d be done.
“And how did you two meet?”
With a leer, Jeremy slung an arm over Raven’s shoulders. “Raven here likes to be taken care of. And I was just the man for the job.”
Horrified, Raven felt his jaw drop as heat flashed into his cheeks and an awkward silence fell over the table. With that one statement, everyone at this table either thought Raven was a gold digger or guilty of atrocious taste in men. Or both. He shouldn’t care what these people thought, and he rarely told people how he made a living, but he was proud of what he’d accomplished all on his own.
Raven smiled weakly at the other diners and extricated himself from his seat. “I’m going to go have a smoke.”
Amanda, the drama club member, spoke up. “I love your kilt. Is your family Scottish?”
“Nope. But it sure is easy access,” Jeremy answered for him and slid his hand under Raven’s kilt to grab his ass.
Raven barely held in a yelp of surprise and glared down at Jeremy.
“What?” Jeremy’s eyes widened in overly theatrical surprise. “I had to check to see if you were wearing your kilt properly.”
Raven glanced around the table. Forget awkward silence; Jeremy had just made almost everyone uncomfortable. Amanda looked as mortified as Raven felt.
“Don’t be long, you’ll miss dessert.” Rebecca giggled drunkenly, too soused to notice the undercurrents of tension.
“Eh, skipping dessert will help him keep his weight down.”
Amanda gasped at Jeremy’s cruel words, and Raven’s nostrils flared as he considered if decking Jeremy was worth it. Jeremy seemed completely oblivious to the censure.
When he was able to unclench his jaw, he spoke again. “Feel free to eat my dessert. I’ll be back soon.”
He detoured by the bar to grab a beer before leaving the ballroom. He wasn’t the only one ready for a refill, and there was a line, dammit.
Raven should never have agreed to this stupid job, but it had been good money. Despite the large number of women wanting to touch his chest or just plain ogle him, it would have been bearable if it weren’t for pompous, self-important, and passive-aggressive Jeremy.
The touching was a bit much. Overwhelming in a way it wouldn’t have been a year ago.
There had been a lot of touching—by everyone, not just Jeremy. For an ex–porn star, casual touching shouldn’t be such a problem, but it had been over a year since Raven starred in his last movie. Over a year since he’d had sex. Aside from doctors, nurses, and physiotherapists after his accident, he’d not been touched by anyone in all that time.
He had no family, no boyfriend, just his friends from the studio, but Raven had pulled away from everyone after the accident, and he saw them only rarely. Raven’s colorful appearance had invited a lot of casual touching from people he’d been introduced to at the reunion, which hadn’t much thrilled Jeremy either. Perhaps that was why he slapped a virtual brand on Raven’s ear the moment anyone demonstrated the least bit of interest.
Jeremy had also done about half a dozen underwear checks so far this evening. Bastard. Raven clenched his hands into fists, struggling to keep a neutral look on his face. Happy was too much to ask of him, but Jeremy was footing the bill for more than a couple months’ mortgage, and Raven couldn’t tell him to fuck off. He couldn’t ditch him, either.
Finally, finally, he got his beer and headed out of the ballroom.
His smile came easier and felt less like a mask the farther he got from Jeremy, and he moved with enough purpose that no one stopped him.
Motion-sensitive doors to the back garden whooshed open. Muggy, humid air slapped Raven in the face as he stepped out into the hot Florida evening. Almost immediately, sweat sprang up on his skin. At least his tight-fitted dress shirt was black; no sweat stains would show.
His haven was close. He took a tiny path, ducking the overhanging greenery. The resort treated smokers like lepers, hiding them well out of sight. Not that Raven was a big fan of smoking—it stank up his hair, and he’d seen what it could do to someone’s stamina—but it was a fantastic escape, especially from a handsy client with asthma.
He’d learned a long time ago that pretending to be a smoker gave him an out, a viable, believable reason to hide out that he’d used on more than one occasion. Leaning against a lamppost, he pulled out a battered pack of smokes and a lighter from his sporran and lit a cigarette without inhaling.
Raven held the cigarette down by his hip, tilted his head away from the smoke curling upward, and enjoyed the silence.
RAVEN HAD only managed to tuck his lighter away before another man strode into the smokers’ isolation ward and skidded to a stop upon noticing Raven. Probably expected to have the grotto all to himself.
“Nice kilt.” The stranger appeared about the same age as the rest of Jeremy’s classmates, but wore his dress shirt and slacks with an air of confidence Jeremy could only dream about.
Raven cleared his throat. “Thanks. You here with the reunion?”
“Yes. Go Panthers!” The stranger held his hand up in a fist as he repeated a phrase Raven had heard all too frequently since Jeremy had squired him into the ballroom.
Smiling ruefully, the stranger lowered his fist. “Sadly, it’s been twenty-five years since high school. Are you enjoying yourself with us oldsters?”
Cocking his head to the side, Raven considered how prudent it would be to tell this guy how little he was enjoying this event. Not because they were older—he didn’t care about that. But for all Raven knew, this dude was Jeremy’s long-lost BFF or his business partner or something.
The stranger chuckled. “Don’t worry. It’s okay if you hate it.”
Raven laughed. “Oh, good. Because, yeah, I kinda do.”
The stranger held out his hand. “I’m Mick. Mick Munro.”
Raven reached out, realized he still held a burning cigarette, and quickly switched it over to his left hand before leaning forward to shake Mick’s hand.
“I’m Raven.”
“Nice to meet you, Raven.”
Raven leaned back under the lamp. Mick tilted his head to the side.
“Have we met somewhere before?”
Oh fuck. This was a conversation he didn’t want to have. Not today.
“No, I don’t think so.” Maybe Mick would let it go at that.
“You look familiar. I saw you earlier with Jeremy and thought the same thing.” Then Mick’s eyes widened. “Raven. Of course. You’re an Idyll Fling model.”
Damn. They were going to have this conversation.
Fortunately there was no sudden leer or anything, because Raven wasn’t ready to fend off another advance, even if his new buddy was about a hundred times more attractive than Jeremy.
“Yes. Well, I was.”
Mick tugged at an earlobe, looking oddly shy. “Yeah, you were great. My husband and I really enjoyed your videos.”
A quick glance at Mick’s hands revealed a silver band that could be a wedding ring. Would have been nice to meet Mick ea
rlier.
“Thanks.”
“What, uh, I mean, is there a reason you stopped? The site was a little vague about it.”
Raven shrugged. The studio hadn’t wanted to be definitive about him never modeling again, optimistically believing he’d be back. Nor had Raven wanted to deal with hordes of messages about any sweeping announcement regarding his “retirement.” Of course, he hadn’t expected to work in porn forever, but neither had he expected his career in it to be cut short so abruptly.
“Car accident. It was pretty bad, and there were some complications.” No need to get into the grisly details with a new acquaintance.
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.” Mick glanced at his slowly burning cigarette. “Are you planning to actually smoke that?”
Raven rolled his eyes. “Nope. It’s an excuse to hide out.”
Mick laughed. “That’s why I’m here. I’m not a smoker, either, but I was starting to feel a little hemmed in. So tell me, how does a nice gay boy like you end up with an asshole like Jeremy?”
A nice gay boy. He could kiss Mick for that. So often, people defined him by his porn, and the definition rarely included the word “nice.” Shoulders relaxing at the lack of judgment, Raven took a moment to enjoy an unusual rapport with a man he wasn’t planning to have sex with. It was… delightful.
“I’m here in a professional capacity. Escort-like, but no boyfriend experience.”
“So, you’re an escort now?”
It wasn’t a ridiculous question. Some porn actors made a great living doing both, their movies an excellent promotional tool for their escort services. Some actors had vanilla jobs in addition to doing the movies, and others were putting themselves through college, like he’d done. Some did it because they liked sex, and others did it because they felt they had to, in some way or another. Raven had liked both the sex and the exhibitionism of it all. He liked being popular. But that had all changed at the hands of a drunk driver.
