Jurassic Heart (15 page)

I kicked my flip-flops off and ran my toes through the dry grass as Hunter unpacked the food, passed me a beer. I lifted it in a toast, then took a long pull, loving the cool relief trickling down my throat.

As we started to eat, a new band came on stage for their set and immediately launched into a bright, modern, rocky sort of song.

“Hey, this is pretty good,” I said.

“The food or the music?”

“Both,” I said, laughing. “Although I was referring to the band.”

He nodded. “I saw them a few months back, and when I heard they were going to be on tonight, I wanted to come.”

When we had finished the chicken, Hunter made sure the tub was well sealed so we didn’t attract attention from the gulls that were hovering, waiting to swoop on any leftovers. I leaned back on my elbows and kicked one ankle over the other: full, happy, enjoying the music and, against better judgment, the company.

For a couple of hours, that was enough. Not all of the bands were good, and some were much better than others. There was something about being out on one of these warm summer evenings that I loved. It felt good to take advantage of the peace, the chance to be lazy and to let the stress and responsibility of my job just slip away.

When Hunter leaned in and kissed me, I found I didn’t mind. Usually, I avoided any public displays of affection like the plague. I didn’t like watching other people kiss, so I wasn’t about to make someone watch me do it.

Hunter was so sweet about it, though, not shoving his tongue in my mouth but gently pulling my bottom lip between his and angling his face so we didn’t bump noses. It was the sort of kiss that sent my head spinning when I pulled away, and even if I wanted to blame my reaction on the alcohol, I was lying to myself and there was no point denying it.

“Do you want to come back to my place tonight?” he asked when he was done kissing me, his fingertips still lingering on my bicep.

I checked my watch and winced. “I’m doing an educational talk with a group of five- and six-year-olds first thing in the morning,” I said. “I don’t want to be so exhausted I can’t string a sentence together.”

“No worries,” he said lightly.

“I’ll try and stop by in the week sometime?”

“That would be good.”

When the concert finished, he drove me back to the motel, and we made out for at least ten minutes before I dragged myself away with a supreme amount of effort, peppering kisses on his mouth.

Before I’d even reached the door of my room, he’d sent me a message wishing me good night, and I laughed softly to myself, returning the sentiment and switching off my phone. Boner would only make fun of me if he saw me texting all night.

“G
OOD
MORNING
!”
I said with my biggest, most charming smile.

Twenty or so little faces looked back up at me.

One of the best parts of my job was working with kids. My mom had always said if I hadn’t gone into digging, she expected me to be a teacher. I was good with kids, I guess; they shared my enthusiasm for dinosaurs that so many adults seemed to grow out of.

“My name is Dr. Nick Eisenberg. I’m not a doctor like you go to when you’re sick, I’m a different kind of doctor, one who’s a scientist. Hands up if you like science?”

About half the kids raised their hands. That was good.

“Hopefully, by the end of today, you’ll all like science. I’m going to show you around this big field where me and my friends are digging up dinosaurs. Who knows what a dinosaur is?”

The tour had been well organized between myself and the day-care teacher. We had traded e-mails for a few days discussing the sort of topics she wanted me to cover. One of my biggest challenges when talking to little kids was trying to impress the subject of time on them. Most understood the concept of weeks and months and years in an abstract sense. Most kids could tell you they were five or six years old, but the time between being one age and another wasn’t fixed in their heads yet.

The concept of sixty-five million years was easiest put as “a really, really, really long time ago.”

I’d set aside the whole day for educational work. The younger day-care kids, six- to eight-year-olds, would take me up to lunchtime. Then, in the afternoon, I was playing host to the local high school’s summer science program group. They had all opted to come, so I didn’t have to worry about trying to engage kids who didn’t want to be there.

The younger children were easy. We did a big tour of the site where they could watch the team dig and I tried to explain the basics of paleontology, how we worked a dig site and why. Then we learned about carnivores and herbivores, followed by a session digging in the mud, and I rounded the morning off by coloring a picture of a Triceratops. I couldn’t complain. Little kids were awesome.

The next group were twelve and thirteen years old, so coloring was definitely out of the question. Their teacher was a youngish guy, I guessed younger than me, who had an apparently endless enthusiasm for the ancient world. I wasn’t quite sure how much of that enthusiasm his class shared, and quickly split them off into groups to observe real paleontologists at work rather than watching a grown man dressed like a child bouncing on the toes of his shiny white sneakers getting off over dinosaur bones.

Sadly, the teacher followed me instead.

I tried not to be mean to him, either in my head or in person. If the world had turned in another direction, I could have ended up like him, with an interest that bordered on passion but working a steady job to support myself instead.

My rounds with the high school kids finished at three, when their school day normally ended. I’d forgotten this would leave me with two or three hours before members of my team started packing up to leave, and technically, I was up-to-date with my paperwork.

Feeling like a naughty schoolboy, I left a message with River and snuck off in Boner’s car. I was sure he’d make me pay, but the reward, this time, far outweighed the risks.

When I arrived at Hunter’s place, he was sprawled on his couch watching the TV, wearing only a pair of gray boxers. I thought this was a very good thing, but he seemed to be embarrassed when I let myself
in through the open door. “Sorry,” he said. “Wasn’t expecting
company.”

“Don’t get dressed on my behalf,” I said, leaning against a counter. “I’m enjoying the view.”

I pulled out the picture of the Triceratops I’d colored earlier and stuck it to a cabinet with a lump of Blu Tack.

He clicked the TV off and came over, not touching me but getting in close to my personal space. I wondered for a moment if he’d try to kiss me. We were still wary of each other; I regarded him in the same way I did most wild snakes: beautiful but deadly. Not to be approached unless you wanted your hand bitten off.

“Nice picture.”

“Thanks. I made it myself.”

Hunter snorted with amusement. “I take it you had a good day, then?”

I shrugged. “Not bad. I got to hang out with kids. There’s plenty of bitching going on in the team, though. I think it’s because of the heat.” I let my gaze wander over his broad chest again, noticing the faint sheen of sweat. “How about you?”

He hummed low in his throat. “I woke up early and worked for most of the morning. Then I took some time off this afternoon and… amused myself.”

“Well, that’s a disappointment. I came over so you could amuse me.”

He grabbed my wrist (and I thought to myself,
See, snake
) and dragged me through to the bedroom. I kicked my shoes off and scrambled back on the bed while he regarded me with heat in his eyes.

As he slithered up my body, his hands stole under the hem of my T-shirt, then down to play with the waistband of my cargo shorts, eventually dipping down underneath. We stripped each other of our clothes, licking and biting at the skin that was exposed when each item was tossed away. He hissed as I let my teeth linger too long on his nipple, and slapped my ass in retaliation.

Hunter propped a pillow under my hips and threw my underwear somewhere over his shoulder. Then he went to town on my ass.

I guessed our previous experiences had given him some clue as to my preferences when it came to sexual activities, because he just dove right in there with his mouth, kissing around my hole and then attacking it with his tongue.

There was no way I’d admit it, least of all to him, but it was one of the best sexual experiences of my life. He sucked my dick. He tongue-fucked me. He sucked on my balls. He created a new unholy trinity of sex—balls, ass, dick. Two hands, one mouth. All of human evolution had led to this point.

All I could do was lie back and enjoy it. Even if I’d wanted to do anything to him—and to give myself credit, I did reach for his dick a few times—he just swatted my hand away. He started out with a well-lubed thumb up my ass, which was nice for a change, before swapping it out for two fingers. When he learned playing with my prostate just about made me scream, he set about torturing me.

There was something to be said for being with a guy who knows his way around another guy’s ass. He didn’t just straight out poke at my prostate, jabbing at it like some psychotic doctor. He fluttered his fingers over it. He pressed one finger at a time on it, just above, just below. He massaged it with undulating fingertips. He rubbed his knuckles over it. And when I thought I was about to explode, he squeezed my balls and used the shot of pain to bring me back from the edge.

He never used more than two fingers, which would normally be disappointing, because I was more than comfortable taking three, although forgiveness came easy when his fingers were doing such awesome things. It was hard to concentrate on any one sensation; while his fingers were doing a fucking tap dance inside me, his tongue was working over the head of my cock and his other hand was rolling my balls, or he was sucking on my balls while he pumped my dick.

Just for fun, and because I could, I pinched at my own nipples a bit.

Hunter kept me edging for what felt like forever, teasing and tormenting until I was incoherent, begging, and a total mess. When I was close to that edge for the last time, he simply didn’t hold back.

I came with a very manly series of grunts, spilling hard into his mouth while he swallowed around my dick. It was an orgasm powerful enough to wipe me out completely, leaving me more than a little lightheaded and very satisfied.

Hunter certainly seemed pleased with himself as he crawled back up to lie next to me, propping himself up on an elbow and idly playing with the hair that ran in a trail from my belly button down.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to return the favor?” I asked, somewhat breathlessly. I wasn’t sure I was actually capable of doing that. I didn’t have a lot of energy left.

He smiled at me indulgently. “I told you before. I jerked off before you came over.”

That was fine by me. I was content to sprawl naked, his hands still on my body, while the heat outside shimmered. Hunter clearly had some kind of air-conditioning system in the RV, keeping the temperature deliciously cool on my sweaty skin.

I could have quite happily stayed in the same position for hours. Days.

“Have you ever been fisted before?” he asked, his tone easy as you like.

I found the energy to turn my head and gave him what I hoped was a pointed look. “No.”

“Oh. You’re such an ass man, I thought you might be into that. Shame.”

“I came pretty close once,” I admitted. “Four fingers in. If I was inclined to take drugs, one hit of something would probably have got him all the way there. But I don’t like drugs, and I came while he was still messing about with his thumb.”

“Would you let me fist you?”

I raised my eyebrows as high as they would go, then grabbed his hand, pulling it toward me and studying it carefully. He had a wide palm. The distance between his pinky knuckle and index finger knuckle was pretty far. Long, strong fingers too, and his fingernails were neatly filed.

“I don’t know. Your hands are pretty big. I wouldn’t like to say for sure.”

“I wouldn’t hurt you. You know that, right?”

The tone of his voice suggested we weren’t talking about a hand up my ass anymore. A part of me was more comfortable talking about kinky stuff than anything more romantic. I could be romantic, sure. But fisting was sometimes a nicer topic of conversation.

“People have a tendency to say that in order to get what they want.”

He laughed, a short bark. “You’re a slippery one, Nick,” he said, making me think of snakes once again.

I heaved myself up with a supreme amount of effort. As much as I would have liked to lie about all afternoon, I had work to do.

“Do you ever get a weekend off?” he asked as I hopped on one leg, trying to pull my shorts on.

“Rarely,” I admitted. “We work on Saturdays most of the time, and I spend my Sundays writing reports.”

“Jesus, you’re dull.”

It wasn’t the first time I’d heard that sentiment. In fact, the last relationship I’d been in had ended for that very reason. And the one before.