Inside darkness, p.3
Inside Darkness, page 3
“What do you have in mind?” His voice rumbled low, awakening parts of Cam that had been repressed for a long time.
He didn’t trust himself to speak. Shit, he shouldn’t trust any part of himself at this point. But that didn’t stop him from nodding toward the door, grabbing his backpack, and leading the way outside.
Though the sun had set several hours ago, residual heat still lingered in the air as Cam headed toward his cabin with Tyler Ang in tow. Bringing someone back to his cabin—a man, no less—ran counter to the central principle that had protected him in the field for the past ten years.
Just drinks, Cam told himself. Nothing had to happen. Like Patsy had said, it couldn’t hurt to chat with the guy.
As Cam held the door open, his heart raced at the knowing look he received from golden-brown eyes under strong eyebrows. Cam’s mouth went dry, and he ground his teeth together against the heat that tickled his skin.
“Nice place.”
Cam lit the kerosene lamps, slowly turning up the flames until they threw flickering light against the walls of his cabin. His bed was little more than a cot, and the only other pieces of furniture were a small table and two chairs, one of which served as his nightstand. He removed the books and the bottle of water from the chair by his bed and brought it over to its partner, then went to his closet to dig out the bottle of whiskey he kept stashed there.
“I hope neat is okay with you.” Cam poured the amber liquid into two plastic cups stolen from the staff kitchen.
“Sure. I imagine ice cubes are in short supply around here.”
Cam grunted as they settled at the table. Tyler Ang’s tall frame sat slightly slouched in his chair, and his long legs crossed at the knee. With one arm thrown lazily across his lap and the other holding his cup on the table, he exuded an easy confidence that was both enticing and irritating.
He studied Cam. Cam studied the liquor he swirled in his cup.
“Thanks for the whiskey,” Tyler Ang said, and Cam nodded his acknowledgment. “We should toast.” He uncrossed his legs and leaned forward, holding up his cup.
Again those eyes, watching him, seeing him. Cam swallowed around the lump in his throat. “To what?”
Tyler Ang’s eyes narrowed as if in thought. “To your many years of service and the sacrifices you made. And to a new future.”
Cam’s heart thudded so loudly, he was sure it could be heard from across the table. A new future. There was no way this self-assured man could know how much the idea of a new future scared the living fuck out of Cam. This had been his life for the past ten years, and there was still so much work left to do. How was he supposed to leave it all behind?
Cam raised his cup and bumped it against Tyler Ang’s in a dull clunk. Downing its contents, he stood abruptly. “I need a smoke.” His hands shook as he stepped outside.
He lit a cigarette and let the acrid smoke fill his lungs as the nicotine worked its way into his blood stream. The red-orange tip of the cigarette glowed in the inky black of night.
“Seems like everyone smokes around here.” Tyler Ang followed him outside and leaned against the doorjamb a few feet away.
“It’s mostly the expats. It’s how we up our field cred.” Cam stared at the burning end of his cigarette.
“By smoking?”
“The more someone smokes, the crazier the shit they’ve been through. The chain smokers have the most field cred.”
“So, are you a chain smoker?”
Cam eyed him through a cloud of gray wisps. “I can be.”
Tyler Ang pushed away from the doorjamb and came to stand so close that Cam shuffled backward half a step. When he took the cigarette from Cam, Cam tried not to focus on the brush of their fingers.
Without breaking eye contact, Tyler Ang took a nice long drag. The cigarette glowed bright, and the crackling burn punctuated the silence. He exhaled slowly, and the space between them filled with gray tendrils of smoke. Gazing at the cigarette with a lazy grin and half-lidded eyes, he said, “God, it’s been a long time since I’ve had one of these.”
“What? You trying to build your field cred?” Cam surprised himself with the hint of flirtiness in his voice.
Tyler took another short drag, with the long white cigarette pinched between his thumb and forefinger, and his lips pursed lightly around the filter. “Maybe. Is it working?”
Cam’s lips parted as his lungs searched for more air. Tyler’s proximity and the thickness of his voice did more to suck the oxygen out of the atmosphere than the smoke that surrounded them. He wanted to kiss those lips and find out if they felt as soft as they looked. He wanted to taste the stinging, bitter mix of whiskey and smoke.
He caught himself right before he swayed into Tyler and those undeniably kissable lips. What the fuck was he doing? About to kiss a man in the open where anyone could catch them? Fear prickled his skin as he cast his gaze in a wide arc around them, pausing in the darkest shadows to search for impressions of figures lurking close by. He didn’t see anyone, but that didn’t mean no one was there.
Turning sharply, he went inside and braced himself, arms straight, against the back of one of the chairs. He only had to keep his shit together for two more weeks. He had done it for ten years, so why did two weeks feel so impossible?
He needed to remember: his actions had consequences, not only for himself, but for the people he was here to serve. Eyes were always watching, always judging—the smallest slipup could mean life or death in societies where being gay was not allowed.
Cam jumped at Tyler’s hand on his shoulder.
“Hey, are you okay?”
No, he was not fucking okay.
He grabbed the whiskey and poured himself a generous shot. He tossed it back and poured another; it would probably be easier to drink from the bottle.
“Whoa.” Tyler took the bottle from him, and Cam resisted the urge to snatch it back. “What’s going on?”
Tyler’s one hand rested on Cam’s shoulder, its heat seeping through Cam’s thin T-shirt and warming his skin. He was right there with his golden-brown eyes, high cheekbones, and full lips. All Cam had to do was lean over a few inches, and he could learn the feeling of those lips on his own, those shoulders under his hands. And yet, they felt like miles away.
For ten long years Cam had watched every word he uttered and the way he said them, looked over his shoulder, and questioned every suspicious glance in his direction. He was so goddamn tired of constantly protecting himself. He wanted to be himself, consequences be damned.
And Tyler was a temptation that Cam didn’t have the strength to resist.
The tip of Tyler’s tongue slipped out from between full lips and wetted them as if inviting Cam in for a taste. Tyler’s eyes were heavy lidded, and the hand on his shoulder squeezed. Cam drifted closer, compelled by a desire he no longer wanted to deny.
The first brush of lips against lips was a tantalizing taste that his body yearned to indulge. And yet he hesitated, held in check by years of conditioning. Tyler must have interpreted his pause differently, because he leaned in to kiss Cam again, ruining Cam’s self-control. He kissed Tyler back like a man carried by the crest of a wave, propelled forward by a force not his own. Cam’s fingers found their way into his thick hair, and he leaned into the hardness of Tyler’s body. They stumbled in Cam’s eagerness until Tyler was backed up against the wall.
God, he tasted good: like whiskey and smoke, and the spices from that night’s biryani dinner. Cam slipped his tongue inside Tyler’s mouth, and he groaned when Tyler’s tongue fought back. He’d forgotten how deliciously good it felt to kiss another man, how his body lit up at the nips and licks they exchanged.
Tyler grasped Cam’s ass, squeezing hard and grinding them against each other. The realization of how much he’d missed this—needed this—sent deep shudders tearing through him. He couldn’t stop shaking.
Cam tore himself away from Tyler’s delectable mouth, struggling for some semblance of control, only to have Tyler kiss and lick at his neck, nibble at his earlobe. Cam let his head fall back, his fight for control no match for the wave of passion carrying him forward.
Tyler pulled Cam back into a tonsil-deep kiss, and the hand that had been clutching his ass drifted around to the front. When the heel of Tyler’s hand pressed against his throbbing dick, Cam let out a cry and jerked. He clung to Tyler, fingers digging into the sloping muscles of his arms.
Then, with a deftness that escaped Cam’s befuddled mind, Tyler unbuttoned and unzipped Cam’s pants and pulled his boxers low enough for his hard, leaking cock to spring out. Cam almost died when Tyler wrapped long, hot fingers around his dick. The foreignness of another man’s touch was so much more stimulating than his own.
He moaned and shook, surrendering to Tyler and to the part of himself that he had repressed to work in the field. It didn’t take long, one tug and then two. A twist of Tyler’s hand across the head of Cam’s cock, and a swipe of his thumb against the leaking slit. And then Cam was coming, his body tensing as he unloaded all over Tyler’s hand.
Shame and embarrassment followed close on the heels of the euphoria of his orgasm, chasing him as he retreated into his familiar dark corner. He pushed himself away from Tyler, and pulled up his pants as he stumbled against a chair. He couldn’t look Tyler in the eye. He didn’t want to know what the other man thought of being jumped by a scrawny, unkempt aid worker, or what he thought about Cam’s sudden ejaculation.
He wanted it all to go away—the impossible demands of aid work, the years of self-denial, Tyler and his all-seeing eyes. He wanted to hide in the distant safety of the darkness.
“You should go.” Cam’s throat was raw.
“Wait, what?” Tyler’s sounded raw too.
“You should go.” Cam repeated a little more forcefully, backing as far away from Tyler as the small cabin would allow.
“You’re kidding, right? You can’t tell me to leave after something like that.” Tyler held up his hand. “I’ve still got your jizz all over me.”
Cam grabbed a stray T-shirt from where it lay on his bed and tossed it at Tyler. He leaned against the wall, eyes shut tight as a complex mix of hormones and emotions coursed through his veins.
Tyler wiped up his hand and dropped the soiled T-shirt on the table. “What’s going on here? You—”
Cam held up a hand, palm out, ignoring the way it trembled. “Please, just leave.”
“Seriously?”
“Just. Leave.”
Tyler scoffed. “Fine. Good luck with your future.” He spat the words out like a curse.
When the door slammed shut, Cam collapsed into a heap on the chair, elbows braced on the table, head held in his hands. He sank into his darkness, a blanket of safety protecting him against the world. He reached blindly for the whiskey, and instead his hand landed on the soft fabric of the soiled T-shirt. Cam couldn’t snatch his hand back fast enough, his eyes flying open at the abrupt reminder of what he had done. His brain suddenly registered the smell of his semen and the lingering scent of arousal, pungent in the enclosed space of his cabin. Pushing away from the table, he barely made it outside in time for his stomach to force his dinner up his throat and onto the dusty Kenyan earth.
Two weeks later, Ty set his carry-on bag on the floor of the lounge and dropped into an empty seat facing the tarmac at Heathrow Airport.
He was late in returning to New York, but the change of plans had worked in his favor. The colleague who was supposed to cover the start of trade talks between the US and the UK had a wife who’d gone into early labor, and Ty had happened to be there to step in. Two foreign reporting assignments in a row—things were looking up.
Ty was exhausted, but it was the good kind of exhaustion which came from work he enjoyed and that contributed to something worthwhile. He would welcome the exhaustion any day of the week over the monotony of muggings and car accidents in Chinatown.
He’d gotten some good stories the past couple of weeks. His favorite was the one with the school children singing and dancing, a spot of joy in a roster of depressing stories. There was a foreign correspondent position opening soon; if he could polish this raw material to a shine, there should be no reason why they wouldn’t give him the job.
Something flashed in the window overlooking the tarmac, and Ty caught the reflection of a figure walking behind him. He snapped his head around but couldn’t find that auburn man bun, or the tensed shoulders that swam in oversized clothes. He must have imagined it—what would be the chances?
But, now reminded, his brain wouldn’t let go of the thought of Donnelly and that strange night in the cabin. Ty wasn’t an idiot—he knew why Donnelly had invited him back to that cabin. He’d had all the reasons in the world not to go. Top of the list was not mixing work and play, lower down was that Donnelly wasn’t really Ty’s type. But he’d still gone, because he’d seen something in those bright-green eyes that belied the gruff exterior Donnelly showed the world.
He leaned forward in his seat and pulled out his phone. By force of habit, his fingers took him to Twitter, and he scrolled through updates without really reading them. Instead he replayed that night in his head: the hazy expression of surrender on Donnelly’s face as he came, dissolving into outrage and disgust—not directed at him, Ty was certain of that, though he couldn’t explain why. But then, directed at who?
He tapped away from Twitter and called up the results of his search efforts the past week. There wasn’t much out there on a Cameron Donnelly who worked for the UN. Ty had tried every search combination he could think of, and had only managed to find a bare-bones LinkedIn page and a protected Facebook profile with a picture of Donnelly that must have been taken when he was in college.
Clean-shaven, ruddy cheeks, wide smile, auburn hair cut short and smart, and green eyes that shone even on the small screen of Ty’s phone. The man in that picture was Ty’s type, but that man was a far cry from the Donnelly he’d met in the refugee camp.
The PA system crackled to life.
“Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. This is a preboarding announcement for British Airways flight 175 with service to New York JFK. Please have your boarding pass ready for inspection and your passport open to the photo page. We will begin boarding by zone numbers.”
Ty locked the screen on the picture of young Donnelly and stuck his phone in his pocket. As he joined the line of people inching toward the counter, he brainstormed additional search terms. He was acting like a bona fide stalker. At this rate, he’d end up staking out UN buildings and tailing Donnelly back to his apartment.
“Welcome aboard, sir.”
Ty nodded at the flight attendant with an automatic grin, then checked his boarding pass for his seat number: 15C. Shuffling down the aisle, Ty stopped short before he reached his row.
“You’ve got to be kidding me, right?” He laughed out loud.
Sitting in 15A, by the window, was Cameron Donnelly, with his curly man bun and scraggly beard. He turned from the window at Ty’s exclamation and blinked once. Recognition morphed into surprise, which melted into a frown and lips pressed into a line. Ty bit back a snarky comment and stashed his carry-on in the overhead compartment.
“That’s really your seat?”
Ty sat down. “Yeah. Don’t worry. I’m not trying to stalk you.” An ironic thing to slip out, considering the search results still on his phone.
Donnelly’s jaw clenched as he turned back to the window.
“Didn’t realize the UN splurged for business-class seats.”
“Only for those with enough field cred.”
Ty snorted. Field cred, right, which Donnelly apparently had a fuck-ton of because he chain-smoked.
He waved down the friendly flight attendant—the tag on her uniform said her name was Ann. “Miss, can I get a glass of red wine, please?”
“Of course.” She turned to Donnelly. “And for you, sir?”
“Uh, a whiskey, please.”
“Certainly, I’ve got Johnnie Walker Red and Jack Daniel’s.”
Donnelly hesitated long enough for Ty to notice. “Uh, Johnnie Walker?”
“Excellent. I’ll be right back.” She smiled and headed down the aisle, scooting past other boarding passengers to the galley.
Ty snuck a glance to Donnelly, who was staring resolutely out the window, his expression closed. His nose looked like it used to be straight but had been broken at one point; pale freckles decorated the tops of his cheeks, so subtle they could only be seen by someone sitting close and staring hard. Ty turned away, annoyed at himself for noticing, and yet his eyes kept drifting back.
Donnelly should get rid of that beard, or at least trim it up so he could show off his jaw properly. Or some beard oil, to make it more pleasant to nuzzle against.
Ty jerked his head away and held his chin with his hand as if that would stop his eyes from seeking out Donnelly of their own accord. Where was that flight attendant?
“Weren’t you supposed to have gone home weeks ago?” Donnelly asked, gaze still fixed firmly out the window, his flat tone not giving away any clues as to what he was thinking.
“A colleague of mine was supposed to be in London to cover the US-UK trade talks, but he had a personal emergency. So I stayed an extra week and a half to cover it for him.”
All he got in return was a short, curt nod.
Ann came back with their drinks. “Would you like a newspaper? We’ve got New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Guardian, Daily Times, Financial Times.”
“New York Times, please,” Ty requested, having difficulty returning Ann’s smile.
“And for you, sir?”
Donnelly turned away from the window but didn’t respond. A frown of concentration marred his forehead, and when Ty raised a questioning eyebrow, the response was a nervous flick of the eyes.
“I’m good, thanks,” Donnelly finally offered after the silence stretched into awkwardness. Ann was professional enough to smile and leave. Donnelly drained his whiskey in one swallow. Ty wondered if he should do the same with his wine.
