Higher Ground by Becky Black (most read books of all time .txt) 📕

which told him Zach still needed some attention. At once he got off and rolled Zach onto his back. His cock was still hard, and dark against his pale skin. Adam swallowed it up. He didn’t mind the awkward position, just plunged down and took it in as if he’d been waiting for this chance. He had been. Since the first time, he’d longed to taste it again.

Zach lay back, a forearm across his eyes, the other hand on Adam’s head, buried in his hair, gripping it convulsively but not hard enough to make Adam stop. Couldn’t stop. Zach was already so close. Adam took the cock in deep, into his throat, and Zach’s body shuddered in climax. Adam tasted the climax as he’d fancifully thought he’d tasted his own in the air. No fancy this time. He tasted the salt, the other unidentifiable tastes that were Zach, felt the warmth flood his mouth and throat. Zach collapsed back with a long moan, limp as a noodle, and Adam flopped down beside him.

“Adam,” Zach said. “Would you do something for me?”

“You might have to wait a few minutes,” Adam said. “I’m not seventeen, you know.”

He felt Zach laughing silently and put a hand on his chest to feel it shake. In the dimness, Zach turned to him, and Adam could just make out his features, the glint of his eyes, the flash of his teeth.

“What do you want me to do?”

“Could you check outside the tent and make sure the island didn’t sink while we were doing it?” Zach asked. “Because I don’t think I’d have noticed.”

Adam joined in the laughter and gathered Zach into his arms to kiss his laughing mouth, silencing the laugh, feeling a smile take its place.

“That was so good,” Zach said, so close his words were a breeze against Adam’s face. “Thank you.”

“You certainly are the most well-mannered boyfriend I’ve ever had. Always saying please and thank you.”

“My parents taught me to be polite. And I imagine you’ve heard ‘please’ a lot.”

“Don’t flatter me,” Adam said. “My family brought me up to think I was the little prince. Flattery goes to my head.”

Zach stroked Adam’s hair and kissed him softly. “Boyfriend,” he said after a moment. “You called me your boyfriend.”

“I guess you are. Everyone else seems to think so anyway,” he added, thinking of what Korrie had said to him when he was driving her to the meeting.

“I know. Simon thought we were together. I mean together for a long time. Established.”

“Really?” Korrie and Simon? Adam didn’t know what to make of it.

“He asked me if we were considering having children.”

“So that’s why you asked me about kids.”

“Yes.”

Adam felt adrift suddenly. Or beyond control. Like a dream he had sometimes had of driving a vehicle whose brakes failed. “We’d better get some sleep.” Zach stiffened in his arms, then moved away.

“Right. I’m sorry.”

Sorry. Another polite word which went with please and thank you but not as pleasurable to hear.

“It’s just…” How to explain? “Everything is moving so fast. We shouldn’t let the situation make us act hastily.”

“No. Quite right.” He’d turned his back to Adam. His voice came from a distance.

Damn, Adam didn’t mean to appear to reject him. He wanted Zach, and when this ended, he wanted to stick around and see where they could go. He reached out and touched Zach’s shoulder. Zach turned back without speaking, but he did lie down close to Adam again and let Adam zip them both into the sleeping bag.

“Zach,” Adam said softly. “When this is over, we’ll have all the time we need to work things out. Whatever you think, we’re not mayflies.”

Chapter Fourteen

“People keep looking back,” Zach said quietly to Adam as they ate lunch.

Adam frowned. “What? At us?”

“No, they keep looking back down into the basin, at Arius.”

They’d climbed high enough that the basin spread out below them like a map. This morning, Zach had seen a lot of people looking back down at it.

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Adam said. “It’s natural. The climb’s getting harder.” The grass under their feet had grown thin, the vegetation sparse. There were no more trees. Soon they’d be walking—and sleeping—on rock.

“The novelty has worn off,” Zach said, thinking of what Simon has said about Amina and her routine. “Especially for the children.”

“Yeah. Kids don’t mind an impromptu holiday from school for a couple of days, but now they’re missing home.”

“If we’d just hear something from someone coming to pick us up. Even if they said they were days away, it would be something.” Zach tossed down the plastic plate he’d been using for his lunch.

“The Franes will keep monitoring. Something will come through.”

“Unless the council has turned them back somehow.”

“You heard what Visha said. They have to check it out once a distress call is sent. It’s the law.”

“And if the Institute tells them not to come? The outposts all work for them; will they defy the Institute?”

“We did.” Adam smiled.

Zach stopped scowling and returned the smile. “So we did.” His frown came back. “But we know the danger. They don’t.”

“Then we’ll have to hope they’ll obey the law.” Adam drank from his water bottle and passed it to Zach to finish. “Try not to worry about it.”

Zach tried as the group went on after lunch, but he couldn’t help himself. Every time he saw someone look back down the mountain, he worried. Every time he heard a child crying or complaining, he worried. Whenever he glanced at Simon or Visha to see them monitoring their radio but getting no signal, he worried.

The worry poisoned his day. The sun came out again after an overcast morning, chasing the clouds away from the lavender-colored sky. In his daydreams, he and Adam were alone here, and he could tumble Adam into the grass. Adam would laugh. He laughed so much. If they got off this island, Zach wanted to get hold of a book of jokes and tell all of them to