Spectred Isle (Green Men #1)(35)

Saul moved his other hand, and found a hard hip. Randolph stilled for just a second, then jerked him close with a muffled grunt.

Then they were kissing wildly, mouths open. Saul felt his hat tossed aside, a hand in his hair, the other sliding down his back. He managed to release his death grip on Randolph’s arm in order to get a hand to his face, cupping his smooth-shaved jaw. Mouth to mouth and tongue to tongue under the sunless sky, kissing for dear life in a dead land.

Randolph pulled his mouth away with a gasp. Saul, instinctively alarmed, attempted to step away, and felt Randolph’s hands tighten, stopping him. “Don’t go anywhere.”

“Are we safe?”

“No, but there’s nobody around.”

Saul let himself lean into Randolph’s strength. He hadn’t leaned on anyone in a very long time. “If you meant to raise my morale just now, it worked.”

“That wasn’t what I intended to raise.”

Saul laughed aloud, and felt Randolph’s shoulders shake. “I have to tell you, that worked too.”

“So I notice.” As well he might, with their hips pressed close. Saul could feel Randolph’s arousal as easily. He pushed forward almost without intending it, rubbing himself up against Randolph, and heard the low groan.

“Hell’s teeth. Saul.”

“Is there really nobody here? Because—”

“I don’t know what there is,” Randolph said. “I’m not sure where we are. I feel the urge to lay you down and make love to you till the sun sets, if it ever does, but I can’t help thinking we should get out of here first.”

“Yes. Of course.”

Randolph did not let go. “I’m exerting common sense and self-control, you understand. Were we not rather up a gum tree...” His hands slid down Saul’s flanks. “You have been occupying my thoughts for some time.”

“I’m sure you’re aware it’s mutual. To be clear, when you gave me your card—”

“I hoped you might turn up on your own account, yes. And you will be very welcome to do so once we’re out of this—whatever it is. But, and I hope I won’t sound too eccentric, I’m not sure how good an idea it would be to fuck on this road. I have a feeling that once we start, we might not stop. Which doesn’t sound like the worst fate in the world, but...”

Saul could feel it. Randolph’s hands on bare skin, his mouth, bodies moving and twisting with pleasure. He wanted to kneel, to let himself be taken, to lose himself in panting and sweat. To give his body up to Randolph and be endlessly, helplessly, timelessly fucked till they were nothing but wanting and spending, wanting and spending, an expense of spirit in a waste of fens.

“I think I see what you mean,” he said. “Is it—well, a trap? In the same way that one shouldn’t eat or drink in this sort of place?”

Randolph leaned back to get a look at him, brows tilting. Saul shifted. “Well?”

“Just impressed at your capacity for acceptance. I abominate whining in the face of facts. People who stand there moaning, Oh, this is impossible, it can’t be happening, ignoring whatever horror is hurtling toward them because they’d rather not know. So tiresome.”

“You told me you were unsympathetic. I didn’t know the half of it. Good Lord, man.”

“What? I’m delighted at your mental flexibility.”

Saul wasn’t sure he deserved that. The realisation of Randolph’s nightmarish, impossible truth had been creeping up on him for a long time and he hadn’t wanted to believe it. If anything, he was accepting it more easily now because he’d been here before. He knew what it was to feel dreadful awareness dawn like the pitiless desert sun, illuminating everything he thought he knew and scorching it to ashes.

Last time one man had betrayed him. This time his entire known world was a lie but he had one man standing by him. Saul was almost afraid to realise how much better that felt.

“You’re being a brick,” he said inadequately. “Thanks.”

“Nonsense. I can’t think of anyone with whom I’d rather be stuck in an endlessly recurring loop of bloody bogland. That said, shall we get out of here?”

“Let’s. How?”

“Absolutely no idea.” Randolph released him, and they both stooped to retrieve discarded hats. “Hmph. Well, the road just goes on. Shall we see what happens if we leave it?”

“What might happen?”

“We might break out of the loop. We might find ourselves in another loop. We might emerge somewhere, or somewhen, else. It might be exactly what they want us to do. I tell you what.” He hung his hat on the waystone. “Let’s walk on and see what happens to that.”

“All right.” Saul wasn’t at all tired. Or hungry, thirsty, or in need of relieving himself. That, he felt fairly sure, wasn’t good.

Randolph shot him a sideways look. “I did mean it, you know. Your upper lip is an example to us all.”

“Oh, well. When one expects terrible things to happen for long enough, it’s almost a relief when they do.”

“If you were expecting this, you could have bloody warned me.”

Saul grinned. “Hardly. No, it’s just that things were all going too well. Major Peabody, a safe berth. This feels more how it should be.”