Marine Handsome

By R.W. Clinger

When Gary Islip, a full-time writer for the e-magazine Guns & Target, meets the ex-Marine next door, things become interesting between the two men along Lake Erie in Pennsylvania.

As Islip spies on Keith Rutger, he becomes infatuated with the stud. Truth is, Islip thinks the ex-military man is beyond sexy ... more like Marine Handsome. So how can he mind his own business and ignore Rutger? In short, he can’t.

On hot summer nights, Islip can hear Rutger's fearful screams, obviously from nightmares. Islip soon learns Rutger has PTSD after serving in Afghanistan. Surprisingly, Rutger confides in Islip, explains his condition, and the two become friends. Islips start helping Rutger with the dilapidated Cape Cod, and also assists him during his nightmarish PTSD episodes.

When the summer ends, though, will Rutger head back to Maryland after a season in Lake Erie? Can they remain friends or, better still, move from friends to lovers?

• Language: English
• Publisher: JMS Books LLC
• Release date: Apr 2, 2019
• ISBN: 9781634869393

R.W. Clinger

R.W. Clinger is a resident of Pittsburgh. He has a degree in English from Point Park University of Pittsburgh. His writing entails gay human studies, and includes the novels Just a Boy, Skin Tour, Skin Artist, Soft on the Eyes, Pool Boy, and The Last Pile of Leaves. He has published many stories with Starbooks Press as well as The Weekender, a novella with Dreamspinner Press. His gay mystery, Cutie Pie Must Die, is published with Bold Stroke Books. For three years he has held the position of managing editor for the literary magazine, The Writer’s Post Journal. For more information, please visit rwclinger.com.

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Marine Handsome

By R.W. Clinger

Published by JMS Books LLC at Smashwords

Visit jms-books.com for more information.

Copyright 2019 R.W. Clinger

ISBN 9781634869393

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Cover Design: Written Ink Designs | written-ink.com

Image(s) used under a Standard Royalty-Free License.

All rights reserved.

WARNING: This book is not transferable. It is for your own personal use. If it is sold, shared, or given away, it is an infringement of the copyright of this work and violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, with the exception of brief excerpts used for the purposes of review.

This book is for ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. It may contain sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which might be considered offensive by some readers. Please store your files where they cannot be accessed by minors.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Published in the United States of America.

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Marine Handsome

By R. W. Clinger

We meet on purpose. I hear noises in the empty Cape Cod next door, which sits approximately two hundred yards beyond the line of narrow woods that separates the two properties. No one has lived in the Cape Cod for the last three years since Helen Rutger died of a heart attack on Christmas Eve at the age of seventy-three. I knew she was childless and willed the house to her sister, Evelyn Rutger. I met the sister once, who wasn’t impressed with my lakeside town of Templeton, which sits next to Lake Erie, hidden in the Pennsylvania woods.

What the hell? I say to myself, listening to hammering, a drill, saw, and other tools at work on the Rutger property. I exit my study, rush through the house, and step into the beating sun.

We meet at the end of July in the middle of the afternoon. The temperature feels like one hundred degrees. It’s sticky without a cloud in the sky. Rain isn’t expected for another two days.

I bolt to the property line, step into the woods, and surround myself with tall oaks, lush maples, and slim birch trees. Again, I hear tools at work: more hammering, a circular saw, and a rumbling drill.

I see the Cape Cod through the woods: smallish in size, dilapidated with broken windows and missing shutters, weathered because of abandonment. Beyond the Cape Cod is the green-blue lake: motionless and beautiful, at peace during the hot day, a surreal painting created by a young artist.

We meet…

I see the stranger working on the three wooden steps that lead up to the Cape Cod’s portico and bleached red front door. He’s massive with suntanned skin, an onyx-colored crew cut, 240 pounds of all muscle, six-four frame, and tapered waist. I estimate he’s thirty-three years old and not a native of Templeton since I’ve never seen him before. He wears khaki green shorts, shin-high socks, and military boots with black laces. He slams nails into freshly cut oak boards, wipes his brow because of the heat, and turns around to fetch a canteen of water.

I view his bare torso and face for the first time, which causes my limp package of beef between my legs to stir with excitement and become somewhat hard. The man is beautiful: onyx-colored eyes, stubble on his rugged cheeks and chin, slightly crooked nose because of a few breaks, and broad shoulders. His torso is ripped with abs and dark hair. The man’s nipples are the size of plates, and his navel is perfectly dented and furred.

I stop in the woods approximately forty feet away from the handsome stranger. Here, I watch him take a drink from his military canteen, one chug after the next. He tilts his head back and pours water onto his chiseled face. The liquid rolls down and over his forehead, cheeks, and the cords that line his neck. Zigzag tracks of the water roll over his sculpted chest, over all of his abs, and into his khakis.

Jesus, I whisper, open-mouthed and now completely hard between my legs. I can barely keep my sexual composure together, overheated. I can’t remember the last time I saw a man who was as handsome, masculine, and unbelievably sexy. Without a single thought in mind,