The Tales of the Wanderer Volume One: A Book of Underrealm (The Underrealm Volumes 4) by Garrett Robinson (elon musk reading list TXT) 📕

He said I looked pretty good. My mind kept returning to that, and my stomach knotted with excitement.

And he said I could share his tent. Didn’t he?

Maybe I didn’t want to start this day again, after all.

* * * *

Fresh air is really tiring, you know? I never realised how much. A stroll over the hills, a pub lunch and a game of one-on-one football, and I was in bed by nine. That is, in Max’s bed. Well, sleeping bag, actually. They have that design nowadays, you know, where you can zip two of them together and make a double. It’s very efficient.

Listen to me, the field and trek salesman. I’d never imagined this day ending up the way it did. Or let’s say, I hadn’t dared to hope.

At the end of the astonishingly tiring day, we had an al fresco supper of cold meat, bread and fruit at the camping site. We sat comfortably on the blanket at the tent’s opening, munching slowly, drinking a couple of beers, chatting about what we’d seen and where we’d been. Nothing serious, nothing tense. But we were watching each other all the time, just like at breakfast, and just as coyly. Max said he hoped I was having a good time and I nodded back. He might have been asking me to prostrate myself on a local burial mound dressed in cow shit and brambles for all I cared. By then, I just liked nodding to him. His cheeks were shiny after the day’s outdoor activity and his conversation much more relaxed than the technical troubleshooting sessions at work. And he hadn’t teased me about the collapsed tent more than half a dozen times. I was in seriously besotted mood.

And he liked me too, I was pretty sure of it. He kept grinning at me, shifting nearer each time he reached for more food or drink. The light dimmed over the fields slowly and sweetly, the day’s sun seeping into the horizon with a rosy glow. The air smelled of cut grass and hedgerow flowers. I stopped wondering how I’d fill the evening without the telly, and when my mobile phone bleeped a warning it was running out of battery, I pushed it away into my bag. My heart beat seemed slower, my breathing deeper. Or maybe that was because of Max.

It seemed we were both nervous that way, when in all honesty you both want to do it, and you both know you do, but neither wants to look like they’re desperate or predatory. Max made some joke as to when I was going to start hyperventilating, and I laughed and said I reckoned the Town Mouse had given the Country Mouse a good run for his money on the football field. After all, he’d never have scored that second goal if I hadn’t been distracted by a pheasant darting out of the trees and across the grass like it was late for the last bus. When Max didn’t knock that witticism back to me, I paused and stared. His eyes suddenly darkened, then he curled a hand behind my neck and pulled me against him for a kiss. A long, wet and greedy kiss. And another.

Supper was rushed, after that. Desperate and predatory wasn’t the half of it. And soon we were cuddled up inside a sleeping bag that was plenty big enough for two slim young men to stretch out, except those young men actually wanted to get up close and personal.

I had to admit, the noises were still odd, or the absence of them. None of the normal city traffic or sounds of a twenty-four-seven life. Just the crows calling the night in, the occasional sheep bleating in a distant field, the scurry of unfamiliar night animals under the trees.

However, inside the combined sleeping bag, it was far from hardship. If I really wanted, I could imagine I was at home with the central heating humming in the background and the Chinese takeaway three doors away. But after a while, when Max’s mouth slid away from mine and he started licking his way down my chest towards my belly, I wasn’t interested in imagination at all. He was strong, the muscles living up to their promise as he gripped my hips. Dirty talk was exciting in his soft West Country burr. His grin—the delicious one—felt even better when his mouth was wrapped devotedly around my dick.

“I’m not usually that loud, you know,” I murmured. An hour or so after the exciting scrabble for nakedness, exploration and orgasm, we were clasped together warmly in the sleeping bag, both of us having come very satisfactorily and very enthusiastically. Twice. The taste of his sweat was still on my tongue, salty and tantalising. “Good thing there’s no-one else camping in this field.”

He snickered and yawned, and I was secretly proud of having worn him out. “Yes, damned good,” he agreed, sleepily. “But I made sure of it. I know the farmer who rents it out.”

Made sure of it?

“And I’m sort of glad my tent collapsed,” I said. “It got me in here with you.” I laughed, rather awkwardly. “I still feel stupid about that.”

“No need,” he whispered in my ear. “I made sure of that, too.”

“Are you saying it was your fault, my tent falling down?” His hand crawled around my waist and his lips were damp against my cheek, which was pretty distracting, and in all the right ways. But he was confessing to setting me up, wasn’t he? What a bloody nerve! “What the hell did you do?”

“Just accelerated things,” he said, softly. “Just got tired of fixing your hard drive and never getting more than a smile.”

I swallowed hard. “You’ve been interested all this time?”

He made a huffing sound. You took your time, it implied.

I was suddenly nervous. “You didn’t read any…graffiti about me, did you?”

He laughed, dismissing my nonsense. “No.” His