Bone Idol (13 page)
Albert looked at Henry’s body, dappled by the golden beams of early morning sunlight that slanted in through the window. Outside he could hear the street-sellers calling out to passers-by, offering milk and hot sausages, shoe shines and sprigs of lucky heather.
He leaned over and pressed a kiss to Henry’s slightly parted lips, smiling as his lover stirred sleepily and his eyes fluttered open. He licked a path down Henry’s throat and nipped sharply at his collarbone, then soothed the spot with his tongue. Henry took his hand and guided it down to his cock, hard and ready for him. Albert wriggled down his lover’s body, dipping his tongue into his navel and chuckling as Henry squirmed and writhed. Then he took his cock into his mouth, working his tongue against the underside of his shaft, eliciting a low, heartfelt groan.
Henry worked his fingers through Albert’s curls, holding him closer and pushing his hips towards him so that Albert had to open his mouth wider and take him deeper. His cock was already sticky with fluid, and Albert relished the slick saltiness on his lover’s skin before pulling away and wrapping his hand firmly around his shaft.
Henry parted his legs further and Albert pumped his cock as he bent his head to take one of his bollocks into his mouth, rolling it gently with his tongue, then sucking. Within moments, Henry tensed and cried out, his cum splattering his belly and spotting Albert’s curls. Albert raised his head and laughed, fingering his hair and scrunching his nose up with mock disgust.
Moving quickly, he straddled Henry’s hips and took his own cock in his hand, pumping it with quick, sure strokes that soon made the base of his spine tingle and an aching tension set up in his balls. He threw his head back and gasped, rubbing himself harder and faster as the sensation built, spreading through his body, a crescendo of the sweetest, wildest music.
Henry took Albert’s free hand and sucked the thumb into his mouth, working the pad with his tongue, then applying tiny, fluttering kisses to the delicate, blue-veined skin of his wrist. They laced their fingers together, holding on to one another as Albert worked frantically towards his climax.
His rhythm stuttered and he jerked as he shot strands of his semen over Henry’s chest and belly. Then he collapsed against him, both of them sticky and sated. He heaved for breath, eyes closed and body humming with the pleasure of his orgasm, while Henry stroked his hair, carefully smoothing a damp strand back from his brow.
By the time they had recovered, washed and dressed, Albert was ravenous. Their housekeeper was visiting her sister in Manchester, so unless they intended to breakfast on tea and biscuits, they would have to go out.
As they passed a boy in a flat cap and boots several sizes too big for him, hawking the morning edition of the newspaper, Henry stopped dead in his tracks. “Albert,” he said urgently.
He fumbled in his pocket for a coin and flicked it to the lad, then took a copy of the newspaper, ruffling urgently through the pages for the story that had caught his attention.
Albert looked on, bewildered by the look of horror and astonishment on Henry’s face.
“What is it?” he demanded, as Henry allowed the pages to fall unheeded to the floor, his features frozen with shock, his eyes staring at nothing. A gust of wind caught a sheet of newspaper and blew it away down the street. He shook himself, suddenly, returning his attention to Albert. “It’s Maude,” he said.
“Maude?” Albert couldn’t imagine what their friend, sweet and mousy and incredibly kind, could have done to get her name in the newspaper. Sudden hope blossomed in his chest as an idea struck him. “A divorce…?” he began. It would be a scandal, of course, but it would be by far the best thing that could happen to her.
Grimly, Henry shook his head. “That bastard Dawlish,” he said. “He’s had her locked away in an insane asylum.”
Albert gasped. “No! She’s no more insane than you or I.”
The newspaper boy was watching them with goggle-eyed interest, much to the impatience of a self-important man in a shiny suit and a bowler hat who was trying to attract his attention to buy a newspaper.
“Of course she isn’t. But if he’s convinced them that she is he’ll have control of her money—every damned penny of it.”
“We have to help her!” Albert exclaimed. His knees felt weak, and he wished there was somewhere he could sit down. “An asylum’s no place for her. I shudder to think…”
“He won’t get away with this.” Henry’s expression was dour and determined. Albert had seen that expression on his face before. It was the determination that had thwarted Gideon’s plans for blackmail. It was the determination that had protected an old man’s reputation, regardless of the personal cost. It was the determination Henry brought to digging for dinosaurs. And now, Albert knew, he would bring that same determination to digging for the truth. Gideon Dawlish would pay.
Coming Soon from Total-E-Bound Publishing:
Graham’s Gift
Em Woods
Released 26th December 2011
Excerpt
Stupid, stupid holidays
.
Graham Wolsken slammed the refrigerator door shut, the sound loud in his empty cabin. He almost dropped the can of Coke he was holding under his arm, but managed to get the bologna and provolone cheese to the counter before he sacrificed his last pop.
He slid open the bread bin for his standard has-no-nutrients white bread and pulled out two slices for his sandwich. No doubt Victor and Alex would be all over his ass about it if they saw. Trent too.
Clenching his teeth, Graham flicked the wooden bin door closed.
Another loud bang in
the emptiness.
He sucked in a deep breath. Idiotic thoughts like that caught him off guard.
Exhaling slowly, he let the old hurt go along with the air from his lungs. “Trent’s not here anymore, Graham. Get over it already.”
And talking to himself never helped, either, though that was a far shade better than hanging out in his head with useless thoughts of a dead lover.
He brushed his hair out of his face, blowing at it when it fell back again. Graham added a mental note to stop at the barber shop in town next time he went for groceries.
He slapped together the sandwich in quick, practised movements, cracked the top of his Coke and carried the duo into the living room where he’d set up a small table by the fireplace. The place was barren even by his standards, but he never seemed to find the right style to fit when he stopped in the furniture store in Newberry.
That was one thing about the Michigan Upper Peninsula. ‘Retail America’ automatically assumed any furniture had to be…what had that sales clerk called it?
Rustic.
Yeah. Hell, he’d get a splinter in his foot the first time he propped his feet up on one of those tables to relax.
So he made do with his lone suede couch and the mission-style coffee table he’d made from an oak tree that lightning had struck down in his back forty last summer. He liked his stuff smooth, soft, comfortable…just the way he liked his men.
Graham sat his drink down a little too hard, splashing Coke on the small pine folding table he’d arranged for his meal. He cursed under his breath and headed back into the kitchen for a napkin. What the hell was it about Christmas that made him wish for what he didn’t deserve?
Cripes
.
Even if there had been no Trent, he held no delusions about his ability to get a man.
He’d been lucky that Trent had wanted him. Graham hated that his hair was always unruly, not to mention stick straight and shit brown. His eyes didn’t even have the decency to be something amazing like blue or green, though his parents both had blue eyes. Nope.
Again…shit brown. And he was built wrong, too. His mom called him
lithe,
but that was just a fancy word for too damn skinny.
Nothing any of the pretties wanted to look at, that’s for sure.
Hell, when Trent had begun to pursue him, he hadn’t believed it. They were kids then, just graduated from high school, and no way could someone as beautiful as Trent, who had blond hair and green eyes with a tan that stayed all winter, go for someone as plain as Graham. Turned out there wasn’t much Graham wouldn’t tolerate to keep Trent happy.
The sting of tears pulled Graham out of his maudlin thoughts. He shook his head and snatched a towel from the cabinet next to the stove.
This
was why he hated the holidays. It only served to remind him of what he had failed to protect. What he couldn’t fix.
Stalking back out to the living room, he punched the button to turn on his radio. Too much silence made even the sanest man turn crazy at Christmas.
Jingle Bell Rock
filled the silence, lifting his mood, whisking him away from the worst of the memories from that winter six years ago.
He sang along with the tune as he wiped up his spill, then the next one as it changed on the local radio station. The girl working the night shift sounded perky and Graham envied www.total-e-bound.com
her that, more than a little. He sank into the sofa, enjoying the heat radiating from the fire in the natural stone fireplace just a few feet away.
His eyes had just drifted shut to Elvis’
Blue Christmas
when he thought he heard the crunch of metal and crack of wood. Graham jerked upright, his breathing laboured from being startled awake by the sudden noise. He jumped to his feet and turned off the music, straining to hear another sound.
His breath was harsh to his ears and it felt like an eternity as he waited.
But nothing further came.
Oh God. Now I’m hearing things.
Right then, he resolved to drive over to the cabin Victor and Alex had commandeered for the holidays the next morning. He’d been alone too long. That’s what it had to be. He dropped back down on the soft couch, propping his head in his hands.
Counting to ten didn’t help slow his heart so he pushed from his seat and went back to the kitchen, taking the towel with him. He tossed it into the laundry room on his way past, and then set about making some tea. He tried hard to keep his mind focused on what he was doing, not giving himself a chance to turn to the thoughts that wanted to intrude.
Like…what if he hadn’t imagined it? What if someone was out there like Trent had been? And here he was, ignoring them.
He unceremoniously dumped his drink in the sink, not bothering to rinse out the cup like normal. Pulling his coat and snowsuit from the peg by the door, he tugged them on over his sweater and jeans before he stepped into his boots. Graham grabbed his key from its hook on the cabinet and opened the rear door to the frigid air outside.
He grunted low, his breath stolen by the cold as he pulled on his hat and gloves then wrapped his scarf around his face. It wouldn’t take much for someone to freeze in this weather and Graham had already wasted more time than necessary. He flung the door wide on the closest shed, bracing it open against the wind.
The edge of the tarp covering his favourite snowmobile fluttered around the sleek machine. He gripped the front and ripped it off before dumping it on the ground behind the machine. Swinging a leg over, Graham slid the key into the ignition, refusing to think of what he might find out there tonight.
The engine roared to life, purring under him like the well-tuned animal it was. He twisted the handlebar and gunned the snowmobile from its harbour. An icy blast of rain and snow stung Graham’s skin as he sailed over the heavy snow that had already accumulated in the hour since the blizzard had begun.
Please. God, please just let whoever it is be okay.
It took maybe fifteen minutes to manoeuvre his way down the steep hill that his cabin sat on, and by the time he reached the bottom, he’d become convinced that he’d imagined the noise, like he’d originally thought. Then a glimmer of red caught his attention from the culvert to his right.
Carefully he steered in its direction. It never wavered nor dimmed in the time it took for him to navigate to its source. Once he got close enough, he realised it was one of the tail lights on a tow truck.
How the hell…?
Graham pulled his ride as near as he could get to the up-ended truck, then tested the snow to make sure it would hold him. He crept to the driver’s side door, brushed the snow from the window and peered inside.
Dreading what he would find, convinced someone would be sprawled across the steering wheel, it took a moment to comprehend that there was no one there.
The cab was empty.
Shit.
That meant whoever had been driving this beast was now on foot in the worst snowstorm so far this season.
Damn it. Just…just, damn it. Not again.
Pre-order your copy here:
http://www.total-e-bound.com/comingsoon.asp
About the Author
Paige Turner is an Englishwoman who believes very firmly in the restorative power of tea. Paige likes to write MM love stories with a difference—whether it’s boy-meets-boy in a hot historical or mortal-meets-monster in an erotic otherworld, she thinks that everyone deserves a happy ending.
Paige loves to hear from readers. You can find her contact information, website and author biography at
http://www.total-e-bound.com
.
Also by Paige Turner
Tempting Temps: Temporary Trouble
