Dash and Dingo (20 page)

“Something like that,” he finally admitted. “They never stuck around.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Dingo told him.

Henry pulled away. “Don’t say that. Please.”

Dingo sat up. “What?”

“Just don’t say something like that… unless you mean it.”

“I don’t say things I don’t mean,” Dingo said firmly. “You should at least know that about me by now.”

“But who knows what happens from here?” Henry asked. “Maybe it’s too soon—”

“You think too much; that’s your trouble.” Dingo reached for him and claimed a kiss. Henry relented, opening immediately so Dingo’s tongue could touch his. He let himself fall against Dingo’s chest, and when they stopped kissing, he rested his head against the broad, furry shoulder. It was the best pillow he had ever had.

“I’m sorry the other times weren’t good for you,” Dingo said softly.

“They should have been.”

“It doesn’t matter now,” Henry reassured him. “At least now I know how it can be.”

“And how it will be from now on.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. In case you haven’t noticed, Dash, look at what you do to me.”

Dingo pointed down his body, to where his legs were twisted around the sheets but his cock was making a noticeable tent amongst the folds.

Henry gave a short laugh. “I can’t believe I do that to you.”

“Well, believe it. I’ve wanted you since that day in the office when you wanted nothing more than to chuck the git from the colonies out.”

“I didn’t think you were a git. I wanted you as well. I was just scared you would find out.”

“Why?”

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“Because I didn’t know you were like me.”

“What, queer?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I think I just proved I am.”

Henry laughed again. “I suppose so. I think I have your father to thank for this.”

“How?”

“He tried to hint on the docks, when we left, about you.”

“They knew I was fixed on you, but I told them not to interfere. You know what parents can be like, though.”

“Actually,” Henry admitted. “I don’t.”

“Your parents don’t know about you?”

“Of course not!”

Dingo whistled. “I know it’s not exactly something you can shout from the rooftops if you want to survive, but your parents at least should know.”

“My parents aren’t like yours, Dingo. They wouldn’t accept me like yours do.”

“Then they’re bloody idiots.”

“At least I can hide behind the great English tradition of eccentric bachelor uncles. It helps if you wear glasses and work in the academic field.

No one asks awkward questions.”

“They might come around. Mine took a while.”

“
Your
parents?” Henry asked in surprise.

“Time helps. It’s not exactly the kind of thing you wish for your kids, is it? Not exactly an easy life.”

“You make it look easy.” Truth be told, Henry was a little jealous of that fact.

“No sense making it hard on yourself.” Dingo ran his hand along Henry’s body and rested it against his backside. “All I know is this feels good and it feels right. Don’t you feel it?”

“Yes,” Henry replied in all truth.

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He had never been happier. Or more eager for his chance to love Dingo in return. Trying not to dislodge Dingo’s hand from his bum, Henry thrust his tongue into Dingo’s mouth, delighted when the other man submitted eagerly to the ravishment.

The first time they’d touched each other against the wall barely counted, and when Dingo had taken him, Henry hadn’t had time to explore his body first or even to savor his own physical sensations; it had seemed so fleeting to him. He was determined to take his time and embarked on an exploration of Dingo’s body, so desirable and yet still unknown despite the intimacy they had shared.

Dingo responded most favorably to the kisses and licks Henry bestowed in his slow progress down his torso, moaning without shame for more. Henry circled his hand loosely around Dingo’s erection, feeling the hard flesh slide against his palm as he kissed his way along the defined ridges of Dingo’s abdomen, feeling the muscles flex under his lips.

He lifted his head, smiling at the expression of blissful ecstasy on Dingo’s face. There was no doubting that Dingo wanted this too; his body undulated in search of Henry’s touch, and his cock stood erect from his loins.

“So eager for me, aren’t you?”

Dingo opened his eyes a slit and stared at Henry with an intensity that shook him to the core. “I want to feel you inside me. I want
you
.”

Just to hear that from another man made Henry tremble with the profound meaning of this moment. He laid a hand on Dingo’s lean hip, feeling the strong muscle moving under the skin with restless need. He wanted to give back to Dingo what the man had given him, some sense of the sureness of their coupling, the need to join with him so that there was no separation between them.

Instead of dragging Henry from his exalted mood, the mechanics of preparing Dingo to take him seemed to heighten the experience, lifting it to a sacred ritual of sorts; the slippery feeling of the oil, the intimacy of touching the other man in the most secret of places, the way Dingo moved instinctively to accommodate Henry’s wishes. That moment when Dingo bent his knees, inviting him in, and Henry lined up his cock, pausing, wanting to make sure he wasn’t doing anything the wrong way, and Dingo’s imploring cry for him to hurry.

Dingo cried out again as the head breached him, and Henry stopped in alarm, but Dingo grabbed him by the hips and motioned him to continue. The intense silken heat that enclosed him as he slid into Dingo’s body, the hardness of Dingo’s shaft trapped between their bellies as he moved, and the

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lift of Dingo’s hips as he met each thrust all ignited Henry’s ardent desire into a flame that burned like the heat rising off the pliant body beneath him.

A hand cupped his head and drew Henry down so that Dingo could kiss him before crying out as his orgasm began. Henry’s arms trembled when Dingo’s muscles clenched around him, drawing his climax from him. As he spilled his essence inside Dingo’s body, Henry lost himself in rapture, unable for once to think; he could only feel, and it felt so right. And then he was falling into darkness, anchored only by Dingo’s arms and legs wrapped securely about him.

“The best pillow ever…” Henry mumbled, aware that it was warm, sweaty, and somewhat hairy. His pillow began to shake, and he heard the familiar rumble of Dingo’s laughter transmitted through the solidity of his chest.

“At least you’ve found some use for me.”

Henry reared up to protest but ended up kissing those tempting, smiling lips instead, chuckling himself at the absurdity of it. “You’re a most satisfactory pillow.”

“I’d hoped for bed partner at the least,” Dingo said with a comical pout.

Henry snuggled closer, enjoying how Dingo’s fingers dug possessively into his flesh. “You know damn well that you’re that.”

“Well, I don’t,” Dingo said. “One can’t tell if one’s satisfying one’s partner unless he
says
something about it.”

“You were very satisfactory in that department,” Henry said primly. He yelped as Dingo slapped his backside. “Hey!”

“Give up the reserved British understatement, Dash, and tell me if it was good for you.”

Touched at the note of uncertainty in Dingo’s voice, Henry opened his eyes again. “You know perfectly well it was the most extraordinary experience of my life, Dingo Chambers. How can you even wonder—”

“Not everyone likes the same things,” Dingo said. “Now that you’ve tried it, you might say, that was pleasant but not for me, thanks very much, old fellow. Pip, pip and all that, now piss off.”

“It’s far more extraordinary to me how a man like you could even look twice at me,” Henry declared indignantly. Dingo seemed to be so eminently

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desirable to him that he couldn’t imagine how every person who met him wouldn’t vie to have him.

“A man like what?” Dingo sounded truly incredulous so Henry decided he needed to spell it out.

“Handsome, muscular, courageous, gay, cheerful, exciting, bigger than life—”

Dingo took Henry’s face between his hands. “Don’t underestimate yourself. You are an incredibly beautiful man, Henry. I wanted you the instant I saw you.” Dingo ran a hand down Henry’s flank, the shiver of response rousing his own desire once again.

“But I’m skinny, and I wear glasses—”

“You’re not skinny; you’re slim and lithe, with a swimmer’s build. I’d never have guessed you sat behind a desk all day.”

Gratified, Henry said, “I try to keep fit.”

“Besides, a timid man wouldn’t have jumped at the chance to come to an unknown country, facing unknown odds to find and save an unknown animal.”

“With an unknown companion,” Henry said, smiling.

“Let me introduce myself again,” Dingo said, lowering his head to kiss Henry. “I’m Dingo Chambers.”

Pausing for breath between heated kisses, Henry murmured, “Pleasure to meet you. I’m Henry Percival-Smythe.”

Dingo chuckled. “Still not willing to claim your name, Dash?”

Henry smiled but concentrated on Dingo’s body before him. He would never have thought that he could become aroused again in so short a time, but Dingo was more than happy to prove him wrong on that score.

Despite the excitement of getting closer to the thylacine at some point that day, it was a disappointment for Henry to look at the made-up bed the next morning as they began preparing to leave.

He didn’t know when he and Dingo would be able to share each other again, especially out in the middle of the forest and with another man in tow.

Which reminded him….

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“So is Jarrah….” Henry hesitated, unsure whether it was sporting to ask about Jarrah’s preference when it came to bed partners.

“He’s going to point us to the most likely area, where the tiger has been spotted by his people,” Dingo said, shoving a shirt into his bag. “He’ll stay back here, just in case.”

Henry didn’t want to ask in case of what. “That’s not what I meant.”

“What did you mean then?” Dingo looked at Henry and came to him quickly. “We were never lovers.”

“Then how does he know about you? When he first saw you, he said you were like a cat who’d gotten into the milk.”

Dingo shouted with laughter. “More like the cat who got all the cream.”

He cackled at his own ribald wit and sobered slightly when Henry only smiled politely. “We’re alike, you see. Scorned by the general population. But he wears his difference on his skin, where all can see it. Ours isn’t so easy to spot. Makes us a bit safer.”

Bitterly, Henry said, “It’s hard to say which ‘normal’
men hate more, men of color or queers.”

“Doesn’t make a bit of difference when you’re at the end of a rope,”

Dingo agreed. “He stays safe by playing the darkie, and we don our camouflage before we go out the door.” He released Henry and stepped away from him. “Just remember, I may not be able to touch you out there, but I
want
to.”

“Thank you for that,” Henry said. He hoisted his bag. “What are we waiting for?”

“Dammit! Only one night.” Dingo’s face crumpled a bit, but then he put on a bright smile. “Well, let’s get moving. We’ve a tiger to find.”

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Henry was surprised that when they went down the stairs, Dingo skirted the bar room and headed directly to the kitchen. Another Aboriginal man was there, cooking at the large stove. He didn’t look up when they entered the kitchen but jerked his head slightly toward a tiny table covered in oilskin, tucked behind a refrigerator. Two covered plates were on the table, as well as a steaming coffeepot and two mugs.

Henry and Dingo ate swiftly in silence. Dingo slipped a bill under one of the plates and rose without a word. The dark-skinned man kicked a box as he crossed the kitchen with a laden tray. Dingo waited until he had passed through the swinging door to lift the box, revealing a wrapped package, which he stowed in his pack.

“Food. Ready then?” he asked softly.

Henry nodded and followed Dingo out through the beer garden and thence into a narrow alley.

As Dingo had said, the town was crude and small, particularly in the back alleys that they walked through to get under the cover of the trees. With one glance around, Dingo stepped suddenly from the path into the underbrush, disappearing where Henry would have thought there was no ingress. He followed without giving himself time to think. The shock of the green dimness under the trees after the dazzling sunlight blinded him for a moment, but then his eyes adjusted, and he followed Dingo, trying to step where he did, perceiving that the other man chose a path on fallen leaves, skirting dead twigs likely to snap underfoot.

Dingo obviously had spent much time in the forest, for he moved soundlessly, and Henry was cross with himself for clumsily brushing against the leaves. He could hear the rustle they made against his clothing, but he couldn’t move with the same care and still match Dingo’s pace.