Objects Of His Obsession (14 page)

Benedict groaned at the
finality in Evander’s roughened voice, knowing that he’d made a decision. And
the man was hung like a horse, to use a vulgar but accurate phrase. Which left
… as good as it would be to have his mouth on Evander’s prick, Evander’s on his
again, as they’d done the other night, it wouldn’t be enough.

He needed that cock up his
arse.

And then he remembered and
laughed, twisting away from Evander and stalked off to the bathroom, his prick
bobbing with every step.

“What the fuck are you doing,
Ben?” Evander demanded, sounding half amused, half exasperated.

Benedict returned, having
rummaged through the contents of the beaten up canvas washbag that the maid had
left, as he had requested, alone. And that, simply because its contents were
too mundane, too battered to be spread out in the marble and tile magnificence
of that room.

He tossed a small, half empty
jar onto the bed and Evander scooped it up, examined the faded label.

“What is this?”

“Amongst other things, coconut
oil. Occasionally I get too much of the sun and fry myself to the point of
peeling. That stuff is excellent for it and may … just serve other purposes
quite well.”

Evander’s turquoise eyes were
amused as he unscrewed the lid. “How useful.”

Benedict grinned. “Not exactly
why I first bought the stuff, but damned glad I did now. You see the benefits
of consorting with an archaeologist? We are prepared for every eventuality.”

Evander burst out laughing, and
somehow that laughter felt good, even in the midst of the crackling sexual
electricity between them. “Dammit, I enjoy you, Ben,” he growled, smiling. “You
make me laugh. I don’t think I’ve laughed like this in the middle of a fuck
before. Never thought I would. Wouldn’t have thought it was possible. But I
like it.”

“Still want me?”

Turquoise eyes blazed. “Always.
And more.”

~~***~~

Just before dawn Benedict
turned in the tumbled bed and stretched, aware of the deep, well-used aches in
his body. For a moment he felt a sense of dislocation.

Couldn’t recall where he was.

Thought, for an instant, he was
waking in the small bedroom of his house back in Cairo, with its narrower, more
spartan bed. No luxuries there. The mattress harder.

And as he caught the white
gleam of the marble mantelpiece across the room, he remembered.

This was England. His home that
no longer felt like home.

And turning, he saw that Evander
was slipping from the bed.

“You’re going,” he said,
needlessly.

Evander nodded, lit a match,
and touched the flame to the lamp by the bed. The light it gave was enough for Benedict’s
eyes to easily follow his movements as he paced gracefully about the foot of
the bed, gathering his scattered clothing.

Benedict could think of nothing
to say. There
was
nothing to say.

It had been an incredible
night.

It could not be repeated.

And he would be leaving before
too much more of the morning had passed.

Still, weight propped on an
elbow, he watched as Evander dressed, ran his fingers through his disordered
hair as he turned and paced back to the bed.

He gave Benedict a hard, rough
kiss that nearly tore apart every good intention, every decision he had made.
And then just as abruptly, Evander pulled away and strode to the door.

He paused there and said, “I’ll
see you at breakfast, Benedict. But I would say that we’ve already said our
goodbyes.”

Benedict swallowed. “Yes. I
will miss you, Evander.”

Evander gave him a smile that
in the golden lamplight held its own mystery. He nodded that raven dark head,
and very quietly, opened the door and left the room.

Benedict rolled onto his back
and flung a forearm over his eyes.

“Jesus,” he whispered to
himself. “Hell. Hell and damnation.”

And because there was nothing
else left for him in the pre-dawn hours, he ran his mind through the memories
gleaming in his mind like diamonds. Glittering with all the allure and beauty
of the man he had created them with.

Evander had lied, last night.
Or this morning. Depending on how he viewed it.

Lied, or something damned near
it.

He’d told him he’d known what
he loved, what he needed.

But he hadn’t, not fully.
Because what he’d needed was to never have to go. For that night never to end.
For life,
the rules,
to be different.

But in those last hours, Benedict
hadn’t cared. Those strong fingers, coated in the coconut oil mixture, had
worked so wickedly to prepare him. Stretched him, opened him up, one, two
fingers becoming three. And found his prostate and massaged it until Benedict’s
hands had gripped his biceps and he’d been begging incoherently.

Evander had rolled onto his
back and drawn Benedict over him.

Benedict had stared down, sun
bleached strands of hair falling down over his eyes as he’d watched Evander
slick the oily mixture over his cock.

His big, so beautiful cock.
Suddenly Benedict’s lungs were so tight he could scarcely breath and he ran his
palms over Evander’s muscular chest with its smattering of black hair, hair
that arrowed down to the glistening, distended source of his pleasure.

Lips parted on a shallow
breath, Benedict, straddling Evander, had read in those turquoise eyes exactly
what the other man wanted of him.

He’d grasped the base of Evander’s
cock and brought the broad head to his hole. Eyes fixed on the man beneath him,
watching him, face flushed with the heat racing between them, he gasped a
little as he felt Evander breach him. Felt that sweet, burning stretch. Slowly
drove down on that length.

He lifted himself a degree,
drove down again. Amber eyes fixed on the face of the man who was the source of
all his pleasure.

His obsession. His love.

Oh yes, Christ and the angels.
His love.

Finally he bottomed out,
gasping at the sensation.

His cock buried deep within Benedict,
Evander shifted, lifting an arm up to pull Benedict’s mouth down to his. He
kissed him deeply, his tongue driving against Benedict’s as the other man’s
body adjusted to the invasion.

Finally he released Benedict’s
mouth. It was only to press his lips against the bruise he’d marked Benedict’s
throat with that morning.

“Why can’t you be,” Evander
murmured, “Some academic, happy to lose himself in Oxford? Happy to lecture and
exhaust himself in research?”

Eyes shut tight against the
twinned pleasures of Evander’s cock, stretching, throbbing in his arse, its
length damned near coming up to his throat, the throat that Evander was
rebranding, beautiful, cruel lips pressed hard against the kiss he’d bruised
there, Benedict caught his fingers in Evander’s short cropped, blue-black hair.

“If I lived like that, I would
die,” he muttered. His eyes opened and he dragged Evander’s head back to look
into those astonishing eyes. Not lapis lazuli, not that sublime, blazing blue
that every time he saw it, brought him back to Egypt, but turquoise, Evander’s
own, nothing he’d ever seen another possess. “I need the life I have there. I
need the hunt. The discovery.”

“The taste of eternity,” Evander
murmured, dragging a hand through Benedict’s hair, pushing it back from his forehead,
all the better to see into the clear, warm brown eyes fixed on his. “Not just
reading about history, but surrounded by it. Living it.
Making it
.”

Benedict bowed his head in
submission. “Yes. I do. All of it. You understand me too well.”

“From that first glimpse,” Evander
gritted. “Then understand this. If this is to be our last night together, I
will lose all faith in you if you do not fuck me hard. Beginning now.”

Benedict’s eyes had opened wide
on Evander. And then he had done exactly as demanded, driving on him, learning,
shifting his angle so that the broad head of that cock dragged over his
prostate, pushing him. Pushing himself, pushing Evander.

Evander, whose fingers were
gripping his hips bruisingly hard. Who released one hip to pump Benedict’s
engorged cock in rhythm to the man riding him. Evander, who, finally, teeth
gritted, gave in to the pleasure Benedict was inflicting and came, with a
guttural, rough cry, fingers flexing on Benedict’s prick. Benedict felt his
climax, the thick washes of seed pumped into him, and rode him through it, his
passage slicked with it, fighting hard against his own orgasm until it hit him
with a force he’d never known.

Eventually he collapsed, folded
over his lover, both of them bathed in heat, the scent of fresh sweat and semen
on the air. Benedict’s seed smeared across both their skins. The musk of their
fucking all about them.

It was a perfume that Benedict
breathed in deeply, vaguely aware of Evander’s hand stroking his back.
Fingertips tracing the deeply packed muscle, the indented line of his spine.

I am going to lose my mind, he
thought, euphoria fading and reality returning.

Evander laughed softly. Pushed Benedict
back, off him until he slid in a damp, sweaty heap on the mattress.

“Don’t look so dejected, Ben,”
he drawled, some of that aristocratic drawl, and all of that command returning.
“The night is not over.”

Benedict glanced hazily at him,
and then down the length of that lean, muscular body, all six foot two of it.
To a cock that was barely softened.

Hell
. But in the best way–

He swallowed, feeling his
slowing heart picking up its beat. Begin to hammer frantically against his
ribcage. There was a wicked invitation, intent, in that commanding gaze. In
that still-roused cock. That cock that had hardened further even as he looked.

Eyes fixed on Evander, Benedict
gave in to that command. Moved, knelt, knees spread wide, his weight on his
forearms.

“I had dreams,” he whispered, glancing
past his shoulder, voice a thread of sound. “Of you taking me this way.”

Without a word, Evander covered
his sweat damp, eager body with his. Bit at that shoulder. Hard. Another
bruise. “We must share the same dreams,” he said roughly.

And with no more words, he’d
broached the entrance to Benedict’s body, and any care for his state gone, was
pounding his cock into him, dragging Benedict back to meet each thrust.

And right at that moment, Benedict
completely lost himself. Drowned in his senses, in that moment. And loved that
loss.

And Evander’s total and utter
possession of him, body and soul.

August 1898, Cairo, Egypt

Benedict slumped back in his
chair, wiping a hand over his face.

The stinking heat meant that no
work would be conducted at the site for months. It wouldn’t cool to tolerable
conditions, the dig season begin till November and carry through for months
well into the following year. And God knew, there was enough to be done before
then. Wiping a palm down his khaki trousers, he then spread the papers on the
massive wooden desk before him.

Paperwork.

Such had been Hamer’s
punishment for his quiet – at least quiet on Benedict’s side –
discussion with him when he’d returned to Cairo.

His time in England cut short.

The breeze, warm as it may have
been, was welcome as it came through the broad spans left by the rows of French
doors opened onto the deep, shaded balcony.

He lifted his head, taking in a
deep breath.

Every scent that came with that
warm breeze good to him, those both good and those redolent of the less than
savory. A clear reminder of just where he was, and why.

His thoughts clearer, he
reached for the cooling mug of black tea by his hand and scowled at the
notations Paul had made about one of the retrieved pieces yesterday.

Not quite right. Goddammit.

He rubbed with some irritation
at his forehead.

This season was to be his last
with Hamer, after near five years. And it would be Paul Blackwell’s second. Blackwell,
whom he told Hamer would be well able to replace him once he struck out on his
own.

Not that he’d voiced it in
quite that manner to Hamer.

His thoughts went to the man
heading the group that were backing his escape. His strike out, onto his own.

They went to the first and last
London meeting he’d had with Lucius Kingsley, Kingsley, amateur Egyptologist,
mining and railroad magnate, and wild eccentric. It had been a good meeting.
They’d previously been introduced in Cairo late the year before when Kingsley had
been a visitor to the tomb, Hamer his host.

Hamer hadn’t much liked Kingsley,
dismissing his interest in the find as only as deep as the cheap thrill that
many gained from it. Thought Kingsley interested in the flashier aspects. Not
the ancient life revealed beneath the glittering surface. Hamer’s tour
conducted only as a piece of diplomacy, for Kingsley was well connected.