Albert knew all this, of course, but he found himself lulled, almost hypnotised by the sound of Henry’s voice and the motion of his fingers playing over the rock. He repressed a shiver as Henry continued to speak.
“The rocks in this area are red sandstone—very soft. This landscape of valleys and peaks, which might almost have been chiselled into the ground, is made by the action of wind and water on the sandstone. As it is worn away, the bones of the earth—the hard fossils hidden within the soft rock—are exposed. See here? Where there is a patch of dark, glossy rock at the surface of the stone? That means there are bones hidden here. And we can extract them, like surgeons.”
His enthusiasm was infectious, and Albert found himself starting to get excited about the find. He passed their packs and the squares of waxed canvas up to Henry, then hoisted himself up onto the rock beside him.
* * * *
Henry tried to keep his eyes on the find, but he could not help but notice the play of the muscles in Albert’s arms as he clambered onto the rock. The hollow beneath his ear as he bent his golden head over the hidden bones was exquisitely erotic, and he ached to reach out and touch it, to feel the warmth of his skin. He swallowed hard and tried to concentrate on unpacking his tools.
They worked in companionable silence for almost two hours, chipping away sections of rock with their chisels until the basic shape of the find was exposed. Then they scraped the red sandstone carefully away from the larger bones to expose the skeleton, finally graduating www.total-e-bound.com
to coarse hog-bristle and then fine, slender mink brushes to expose the delicate bones with as little damage as they could contrive.
“It’s some sort of small therapod,” Henry said, studying the birdlike skeleton critically.
“And its jaw is almost intact—look at those rows of sharp little teeth!”
Albert swirled a soft brush in the tiny dinosaur’s eye socket and leaned over to blow the dust away just as Henry ran his finger along the hyper-extended curve of the fragile creature’s neck, where it had thrown its head back in its final death spasms. Albert’s breath was warm and unbearably erotic on Henry’s palm and wrist, and he shuddered, froze.
He glanced up and their eyes met, locked. Albert’s pupils dilated and his lips parted as though in shock. Henry found himself staring at that tender, pink mouth, unable to look away, desperate to taste it. A wave of pure, unadulterated lust swept over him and he reached out, suddenly, just as Albert swayed towards him, clutching at his hair with desperate fingers.
Henry kissed him open mouthed, and he responded hungrily, pressing closer. Henry wrapped his arms around Albert’s ribcage and crushed him more tightly to his warm body and they swayed on their knees together.
Henry pushed his tongue into Albert’s mouth and caught his breath when he responded with a tentative slide of his own tongue, warm and slick and alive.
Henry sank down onto his haunches and lifted Albert to sprawl across his lap, a soft, sweet, arousing weight. Although Albert trembled in his arms, his uninhibited reaction spoke of pleasure, not fear. Henry took a huge, labouring breath and drew away.
Albert uttered a mewl of protest and tried to follow his mouth, but Henry placed his lips to his throat, nuzzling, nipping gently at his collarbone. He reached up with suddenly clumsy fingers to undo the buttons on the other man’s shirt, fumbling as he slipped them from the buttonholes one by one, exposing skin that was fever-hot and delicately flushed.
He made a low, guttural sound of pure lust as he felt Albert’s nipple crinkle against his palm, and suddenly the other man was like quicksilver in his arms, writhing and gasping, pressing feverish kisses to his lips, grazing his lower lip with his teeth, sliding his tongue into his mouth and making wild, uncontrolled sounds of wanting.
Henry groaned, “Oh God, Albert. Oh
God
,” as he lay back on the rock and Albert rode him down, their lips locked together. Henry felt the rigid length of Albert’s cock against his stomach. His passion was astounding—it nearly undid him.
They kissed almost violently, and Henry twisted his body, rolling over Albert so that he was on top of him, half supporting his weight on his hands. He rolled his hips, pushing against him rhythmically, trying to slake the ache of wanting that pooled in his hips.
Albert clutched at him more tightly, digging his fingertips into his shoulders so hard that it hurt—but Henry barely noticed the pain. He was blinded by the sweet, drugging feel of Albert’s mouth on his, by the half-hard, half-yielding warmth of his body and the insistent feel of his hands, now grasping his shoulders, now running down his spine. Albert clutched at Henry’s arse, writhing underneath him in a primal, instinctual movement, and Henry groaned and gasped, so hard that he was beyond all reason, and he pressed against him, frustrated beyond measure by the layers of clothes between them.
“Henry!” Albert gasped. “Henry!” The sound of his voice, breathy and wild, brought Henry back to his senses like a dash of cold water as the late evening sun beat relentlessly on their writhing bodies.
What am I doing? What sort of man am I?
Disengaging himself almost roughly, he scrambled to his feet and turned his back to the half-dressed young man. He braced his shoulders and spoke. “Albert, get dressed.” He did not trust himself to say more; wondered as it was if Albert could hear the tremor and the longing in his voice. He clenched his hands into fists and waited.
* * * *
Stunned by his lover’s sudden withdrawal, humiliated and ashamed, Albert struggled upright, his legs weak and shaking, and drew his shirt closed over his naked chest. He fumbled to fasten the buttons that only minutes ago Henry had undone as he had kissed him, tenderly, passionately. Despite the lingering red rays of the evening sun, he felt cold.
“Henry? I…” He blinked back sudden tears. “Did I do something wrong? I thought…”
I
thought you wanted me
was what he had intended to say, but Henry cut him off, his voice seeming brusque and distant, a million miles away from the gasps and groans of passion he had voiced as they had lain together on the red rock, heedless of everything but each other.
“The whole thing is wrong,” Henry said.
Albert felt as though he had been struck. Henry’s mouth, his tongue flickering against his palate, their hips locked, had seemed to him right—so utterly right. But he should have www.total-e-bound.com
known that he was too impulsive for a serious-minded man like Henry. It wouldn’t be the first time his passion had got him into trouble…though this
kind
of passion was new to him.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and his voice hardly trembled at all.
Henry spun to look at him with an odd expression in his eyes
“Let’s secure the site,” said Albert. “It wouldn’t do to let the elements undo all the good work we have done here this afternoon.” He would show Henry that he, too, could be sober-minded and sensible.
Henry held his gaze for a moment, looking, Albert thought, wretched and confused.
Then he nodded.
They worked quickly and almost in silence to fasten the squares of waxed canvas over the exposed skeleton, but it was not a companionable silence this time. The air between them was charged with electricity and they were both very, very careful not to allow their hands to touch.
But, as they worked, Albert’s thoughts became clearer. He hadn’t done anything wrong.
Henry had kissed
him
—twice now. Henry wanted
him
, he must. It was only his sense of propriety making him hold back. And Albert wasn’t going to let that happen.
It was then that the skies opened and the rain came down.
A rolling boom of thunder and a whipping gust of wind that came from nowhere was all the warning they had before the air took on an eerie, washed-out, purple-grey colour and a violent rain lashed down, the drops drumming and dancing against the parched red stone.
Within moments they were soaked to the skin. Albert looked at Henry’s startled, affronted expression, at the rainwater beading his eyelashes and dripping from his neatly groomed moustache, and his natural exuberance got the better of him. He burst into helpless peals of laughter.
After a few moments, Henry joined in. Laughter lines creased the corners of his eyes and he clutched his stomach as though trying to hold in his mirth. “Wh—why…” he gasped, in between fits of laughter and gulps for air. “Why…when I’m with you…do I always get w-w-wet?” And he lost his composure again.
Both men sobered as lightning whip-cracked across the sky, coinciding with the rumble-growl of thunder, a sign that the storm was immediately overhead.
“Come on,” said Henry, in that sensible voice of his, though Albert thought his tone still held a touch of amusement. “We need to get to shelter. Your father won’t be pleased if I get you struck by lightning.”
His father wouldn’t be pleased if he knew they had been kissing, thought Albert. But he wasn’t sure how much he cared.
Hoisting their packs, heavy with rainwater, onto their shoulders, they began to half stumble, half run through the torrential downpour. The wind whipped their words away as they breathlessly shouted laughing encouragement to one another.
The rain came down so hard it stung Albert’s face, and the wind stole the breath from his lungs as he stumbled through dust churned into heavy red mud by the storm. His boots and trouser cuffs were caked with the rusty clay, his clothes drenched, and his limbs began to feel heavy as he struggled onwards. Though they must be nearing the camp, he could see barely more than three feet in front of his face. He began to shiver as the ferocious wind, warmish though it was, blew through the soaked, translucent fabric of his shirt, and he wrapped his arms around himself as he stumbled onwards.
Henry trudged beside him, not shivering but holding himself very rigid in the blustery weather.
Albert tripped as his foot caught on a rock he did not see. Henry’s strong hand caught him by the arm. They floundered the rest of the way to the camp together, leaning against the wind, feet sliding in the red mud, wet through and increasingly exhausted.
Henry’s tent was closer than Albert’s, at the edge of the camp, and they bumbled through the heavy, wet canvas flap and into the relative warmth and dryness of the interior.
It was a large tent, high enough for a man to stand up in, and with a cot on one side and a couple of orange crates arranged as a makeshift chair and desk on the other. The rain drummed thunderously on the canvas roof. Henry collapsed gratefully onto the orange-crate chair, and Albert slumped to the floor at his feet. He hung his head, running his hand through his wet curls, and looked up when he heard Henry groan wearily.
“Are you all right?” Henry’s blue eyes, tired-looking, held warmth and concern.
Albert smiled at the usually dapper Henry, slouching filthy and dishevelled on his makeshift seat.
“Tired.” Albert smiled. “Cold. Wet.” He pushed each boot off with the opposite foot, not bothering to unfasten them first, then stripped his waterlogged socks off and left them balled on the floor.
Henry hauled himself tiredly to his feet and went over to his trunk, where he rummaged for a while among books and neatly folded clothes before coming out with a three-quarters-full bottle of brandy that glugged appealingly as he tipped it from side to side.
He returned to his seat and took a healthy swig of the potent liquor, then wiped the neck of the bottle on the lap of his shirt and offered it to Albert. He smiled at Henry’s fastidious gesture, when they were both wet through and caked in red mud almost to the knees, when, never mind a shared bottle, Henry had had his tongue in his mouth only an hour before.
Henry’s tongue, strong and slick and muscular, swiping his lower lip, playing gently against the
ridges of his palate, sliding against his tongue with long, slow, thrusting languor…
Albert fumbled and almost dropped the brandy bottle as he took it in rain-slicked fingers. The liquid was strong and fiery and burnt his throat, but it did make him feel a little warmer.
They drank in silence for a while, drying out, tired from the events of the afternoon, passing the bottle back and forth between them. After a while, Albert leaned his head sleepily in Henry’s lap.
“Albert…” Henry said in warning tones.
“Shhhh,” said Albert, and sat in silence for a moment longer, savouring the heat of Henry’s thigh against his cheek. Then he said, “What happened this afternoon—”
“Should not have happened,” Henry interrupted, but he did not move to rise, or to move Albert’s head from his lap.
“That’s not true.” Albert was surprised by how strong and sure his voice sounded.
“You’re saying that because you think it’s the proper thing to say—the proper thing to do.
But it isn’t.” Greatly daring, he reached up and softly stroked the bulge of Henry’s cock with the back of his forefinger. “You’re a proper man. A good man. And you published against my father because you thought it was the proper thing to do.”
Henry shifted slightly and started to speak, but Albert said, “Shhhh,” again. “You were right,” he continued, “it
was
the right thing to do. You were standing up for truth. You were working for the good of science. But pushing me away, when it’s what we both want,
isn’t
the right thing to do. It
isn’t
truth—it’s lies. You aren’t standing up for anything—you’re working against love.”
“Love?” Henry said it in a choked, wondering voice.
“Love.” Albert stroked Henry’s cock again, and turned his head into his thigh to suck the rainwater from the still-sodden fabric of his inseam. He felt Henry tense and quiver, and he reached to unbutton the other man’s fly and release his half-hard cock from the confines of his trousers.
“Albert, no…” But Henry’s voice was barely more than a whisper, and his cock stirred and stiffened as Albert took the darkish, silken tip into his mouth and sucked softly on it.
* * * *
Albert licked Henry’s cock with tentative, kittenish strokes, lapping up the sticky fluid gathering in his slit.