Higher Ground (17 page)

“Is this role-play?”

“No, I left my eye patch and cutlass at home. Anyway, the only role I want to play is Mr. Adam Gray, the man sleeping with Dr. Zach Benesh.” He leaned down to drop a kiss on Zach’s lips before levering himself up again.

“This is no time for push-ups,” Zach said, stroking Adam’s arms, working his way up from wrists, over forearms, the points of the elbows, on up the biceps to the shoulders. The slow fingertip caress made Adam moan softly and shift on top of Zach, giving some space to his rapidly stiffening cock. He felt Zach’s shift too as it got the room, pressed against him.

“Adam,” Zach whispered, voice so serious. “I want you inside me.”

Adam couldn’t imagine any place he’d rather be. He moved away to find his jacket and rummage in the pocket for the lube he’d brought from Zach’s place. Would they get to have sex in a real bed again? Didn’t matter. He’d have sex with Zach on a bed of nails.

Zach turned on his front as Adam came back to him. Probably easier, though the chance of kicking down a tent pole and bringing the whole thing down on them was still there. He’d done that before and chuckled at the memory.

“What’s funny?” Zach asked, looking back at him.

“Nothing,” Adam said. “Tell you later.” He still had his pants on and managed to maneuver those off without knocking the tent down, only hoofing Zach in the side once. “Sorry.”

“You don’t have to beat me into submission. I’m quite willing. In fact, if you don’t get on with it, I’ll soon be rather beyond willing.”

Adam leaned down over him, spoke in his ear. “You’ll be more than willing in a minute; you’ll be begging for it.”

“I’m hearing a lot of talk and still not seeing any action. Oh!”

Now there was action as Adam slipped a lubed finger inside him. Zach stifled any follow-up to the exclamation, but he groaned loudly when Adam inserted a second finger. Having to stay quiet made it more intense somehow, Adam thought. As if their passion was crammed into a tiny space from which it wanted to burst out but couldn’t. Could only stay there, getting hotter and hotter while they made careful movements and only whispered of their pleasure.

Adam found Zach’s prostate, and Zach bit down on the sleeping bag, and his body moved rhythmically against Adam’s hand.

“Ready?” Adam asked.

“Please, Adam, please.”

Begging in a whisper. Strained and desperate and so sexy Adam could wait no longer. He moved closer to the lantern, and his erection made a monstrous shadow so close to the light. He giggled at it.
Enough to intimidate a man
. He turned the lantern off and maneuvered Zach onto his side, lay spooned behind him, and pushed into him slowly. Zach gasped and pulled one of Adam’s hands around, first just to cling to it as Adam filled him, inch by inch. But then he guided the hand to his cock. Exactly where the hand wanted to go.

Adam couldn’t thrust hard in this position, but he didn’t want to. He wanted to move slow, relish his first time inside Zach. Take the time to run his hand over his smooth, pale skin, kiss his shoulders and back. And stroke his cock, oh yes, he wanted to do that. Zach wrapped his hand around Adam’s, not stroking, sort of along for the ride.
What a ride!

Adam buried his nose in Zach’s hair, which smelled of sweat and lingering traces of shampoo. He needed a shower, but the scent wasn’t unpleasant yet. Just primal somehow. His unique scent Adam felt the need to bond to. To fix on like a mother knew the scent of her child or a dog his master.

That made him open his eyes, and his hand faltered for a moment.
I’m not Zach’s dog.

“Adam? Are you okay?” Concern tinged Zach’s whisper.

“Yes.” Adam realized he’d stopped his slow thrusts. “Fine. Way more than fine.” He wasn’t Zach’s dog. He walked at Zach’s side, not at his heels. Shaking away the unfortunate thought, he moved again, hand and hips, a little harder, making Zach groan.

“Harder,” Zach said. “Please. Harder.”

Adam rolled Zach onto his front, covering him and giving himself more to push against. His thrusts grew harder and faster as the pressure built inside himself. He’d lose control soon, he knew. Even he could take it slow and easy for only so long, and he’d gone well past that point. Zach writhed and gasped under him, unable to get his hand to his cock. I’ll take care of you too, don’t you worry, Adam silently promised.

Zach bit into the sleeping bag. By the time this trip ended, Adam thought it would look like a dog had savaged it. He had nothing to silence him, and he’d always been pretty vocal. Nobody liked to bounce all over the bed and shout about what a good time he was having more than Adam did. But he managed to keep all the bursting energy inside, where it fanned the flames of the heat burning up every inch of his skin. Sweat broke out as if all the yells he was silencing turned into water and burst from his pores instead.

His climax exploded from him, spread like a wildfire, down every nerve and capillary, escaping from his skin with his sweat until the air around him seemed filled with his pleasure. He breathed it. He tasted it.

He found himself lying across Zach’s back, panting, barely aware of collapsing, and he heard the soft moan which told him Zach still needed some attention. At once he got off and rolled Zach onto his back. His cock was still hard, and dark against his pale skin. Adam swallowed it up. He didn’t mind the awkward position, just plunged down and took it in as if he’d been waiting for this chance. He had been. Since the first time, he’d longed to taste it again.

Zach lay back, a forearm across his eyes, the other hand on Adam’s head, buried in his hair, gripping it convulsively but not hard enough to make Adam stop. Couldn’t stop. Zach was already so close. Adam took the cock in deep, into his throat, and Zach’s body shuddered in climax. Adam tasted the climax as he’d fancifully thought he’d tasted his own in the air. No fancy this time. He tasted the salt, the other unidentifiable tastes that were Zach, felt the warmth flood his mouth and throat. Zach collapsed back with a long moan, limp as a noodle, and Adam flopped down beside him.

“Adam,” Zach said. “Would you do something for me?”

“You might have to wait a few minutes,” Adam said. “I’m not seventeen, you know.”

He felt Zach laughing silently and put a hand on his chest to feel it shake. In the dimness, Zach turned to him, and Adam could just make out his features, the glint of his eyes, the flash of his teeth.

“What do you want me to do?”

“Could you check outside the tent and make sure the island didn’t sink while we were doing it?” Zach asked. “Because I don’t think I’d have noticed.”

Adam joined in the laughter and gathered Zach into his arms to kiss his laughing mouth, silencing the laugh, feeling a smile take its place.

“That was so good,” Zach said, so close his words were a breeze against Adam’s face. “Thank you.”

“You certainly are the most well-mannered boyfriend I’ve ever had. Always saying please and thank you.”

“My parents taught me to be polite. And I imagine you’ve heard ‘please’ a lot.”

“Don’t flatter me,” Adam said. “My family brought me up to think I was the little prince. Flattery goes to my head.”

Zach stroked Adam’s hair and kissed him softly. “Boyfriend,” he said after a moment. “You called me your boyfriend.”

“I guess you are. Everyone else seems to think so anyway,” he added, thinking of what Korrie had said to him when he was driving her to the meeting.

“I know. Simon thought we were together. I mean together for a long time. Established.”

“Really?” Korrie
and
Simon? Adam didn’t know what to make of it.

“He asked me if we were considering having children.”

“So that’s why you asked me about kids.”

“Yes.”

Adam felt adrift suddenly. Or beyond control. Like a dream he had sometimes had of driving a vehicle whose brakes failed. “We’d better get some sleep.” Zach stiffened in his arms, then moved away.

“Right. I’m sorry.”

Sorry. Another polite word which went with please and thank you but not as pleasurable to hear.

“It’s just…”
How to explain?
“Everything is moving so fast. We shouldn’t let the situation make us act hastily.”

“No. Quite right.” He’d turned his back to Adam. His voice came from a distance.

Damn, Adam didn’t mean to appear to reject him. He wanted Zach, and when this ended, he wanted to stick around and see where they could go. He reached out and touched Zach’s shoulder. Zach turned back without speaking, but he did lie down close to Adam again and let Adam zip them both into the sleeping bag.

“Zach,” Adam said softly. “When this is over, we’ll have all the time we need to work things out. Whatever you think, we’re not mayflies.”

Chapter Fourteen

“People keep looking back,” Zach said quietly to Adam as they ate lunch.

Adam frowned. “What? At us?”

“No, they keep looking back down into the basin, at Arius.”

They’d climbed high enough that the basin spread out below them like a map. This morning, Zach had seen a lot of people looking back down at it.

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Adam said. “It’s natural. The climb’s getting harder.” The grass under their feet had grown thin, the vegetation sparse. There were no more trees. Soon they’d be walking—and sleeping—on rock.

“The novelty has worn off,” Zach said, thinking of what Simon has said about Amina and her routine. “Especially for the children.”

“Yeah. Kids don’t mind an impromptu holiday from school for a couple of days, but now they’re missing home.”

“If we’d just hear something from someone coming to pick us up. Even if they said they were days away, it would be something.” Zach tossed down the plastic plate he’d been using for his lunch.

“The Franes will keep monitoring. Something will come through.”

“Unless the council has turned them back somehow.”

“You heard what Visha said. They have to check it out once a distress call is sent. It’s the law.”

“And if the Institute tells them not to come? The outposts all work for them; will they defy the Institute?”

“We did.” Adam smiled.

Zach stopped scowling and returned the smile. “So we did.” His frown came back. “But we know the danger. They don’t.”

“Then we’ll have to hope they’ll obey the law.” Adam drank from his water bottle and passed it to Zach to finish. “Try not to worry about it.”

Zach tried as the group went on after lunch, but he couldn’t help himself. Every time he saw someone look back down the mountain, he worried. Every time he heard a child crying or complaining, he worried. Whenever he glanced at Simon or Visha to see them monitoring their radio but getting no signal, he worried.

The worry poisoned his day. The sun came out again after an overcast morning, chasing the clouds away from the lavender-colored sky. In his daydreams, he and Adam were alone here, and he could tumble Adam into the grass. Adam would laugh. He laughed so much. If they got off this island, Zach wanted to get hold of a book of jokes and tell all of them to Adam until he was helpless with laughter.

He’d laugh and then turn serious as they shed their clothes and made love. Zach could feel the sunshine on his naked back just thinking of it. He could feel Adam’s fine, fit body straining against his.

Then they’d eat together and talk the sun down before making love again under the stars and sleeping under those same stars, naked, like primitive men under Earth’s stars a million years ago.

They’d do all that if they were alone out here.

Instead, he worried.

* * * *

Matters came to a head after dinner. People had been somewhat subdued during the meal. Even the irrepressible Professor Korrie was quiet until she ticked off her cat rather crossly when it bothered one of the children. The girl—only tiny and perhaps not used to animals—took fright at the cat and began to wail. Her mother took her away, casting a dirty look Korrie’s way as if it was her fault. Korrie scolded the oblivious cat, and that should have been the end of it, but the little girl’s crying set everyone’s nerves on edge. A few more children began to cry too. A baby in one of the tents shrieked so loud people jumped.

Then it started.

A man Zach didn’t know except as a face in the crowd stood up.

“Okay, Benesh, when are you going to admit you’re wrong about this?”

“What?”

“Nothing’s happened,” the man said. A few people murmured what sounded like agreement. Zach couldn’t deny nothing had happened—yet.

He stood up, Adam rising beside him. And then nearly everyone was standing. Some people started taking the children away. Torres, who’d been sitting by her tent with a mug of coffee, strolled over and stood in a position between Zach and the challenging man.

“His name’s Jones,” Adam said quietly.

“Mr. Jones,” Zach said, “I know this journey is difficult, but I haven’t changed my mind about my findings.”

“Neither have I,” Korrie said.

“You were always a troublemaker, Ann Korrie,” said a woman near to Korrie’s age, perhaps a decade younger. “If the Institute said black you’d say white. Sure that’s not what’s happening here?”

“You think I want to hike up a mountain just to cock a snook at the Institute when I could be back home in my hammock? I might have been a troublemaker, but I was never a fool.”

“Why haven’t we heard from the rescue ships?” Jones demanded. “Shouldn’t they have come by now? They’re not coming at all, are they?”

“If you think we’re in no danger, then why do you care if the ships come or not?” Korrie asked.

Zach took her arm. “Er, thank you, Professor, your support is appreciated.”
But shut the hell up
. He’d heard she’d been quite a renegade in her day—it was why he’d gone to her, knowing she’d never kowtowed to authority—but the disadvantages were showing themselves. The founding colonists had taken courses in conflict resolution to equip them to live in close quarters for years. Zach suspected Korrie had skipped a few classes.

“Haven’t we climbed high enough?” someone called. “Surely the sea can’t rise this far. Can’t we wait here for rescue?”