"I knew you'd come!” Gil said once his lips were released by Peter.
"Gil, Gil, Gil,” Peter chanted, his voice a pagan litany to stoke the fires already set to flame inside Gil. Gil tilted his head back, giving Peter's hot kisses free access to the powerful arching of Gil's throat. Peter gripped Gil's hips tightly in his amazingly strong fingers, pulling so firmly that Gil lost awareness of all else besides the compelling virility of Peter's body against his own.
"I want you,” Gil admitted, his fingers suddenly in Peter's hair, entwining the silky black strands and taking hold. If that, too, was a statement Frederic Donas's heated kisses might well have brought from Geraldine Fowler's yearning lips, it was also the end result of emotions that had been building inside of Gil Goldsands for as long as he could remember. He had once denied those feelings, arguing that his desire for Peter was nothing more than the result of runaway childhood fantasies, but he would admit to the strength—the reality—of those feelings, now. He would drop the barriers, take the chance, dare to go near the flaming inferno that, while it might consume him, might also release in him a capacity for emotional experiences he never dreamed could be his. Abdul had convinced him that life wasn't lived to its fullest without taking some chances. Gil wasn't prepared to carry nitroglycerin to the edge of a burning oil well, but he was prepared to be more daring than he might once have been. For he had a chance to make fantasies reality, and there could be no denying that Peter coming to him at Thebes suggested a relationship controlled by destiny. Somehow, Peter had been miraculously drawn by the same forces that had intuitively told Gil to come there.
Gil tightened his fingers in Peter's hair, wondering if that conjured moment was only an illusion. Simultaneously, he knew Peter was real. No phantom could feel as Peter felt: hard muscle, vibrant beneath Gil's exploring fingers; demanding lips, raining kisses on Gil's face, neck, and on that portion of Gil's muscled chest exposed by the V of his open shirt collar.
Reaching once again for the tangled blackness of Peter's hair, Gil gently tugged Peter's head back. Gil wanted to see Peter's face, to hold that handsome visage in Gil's eyes, although it was obvious Peter was anxious to return more hungry kisses to Gil's tanned cheeks and neck. “Why shouldn't we have sex?” Gil asked, remembering it was Abdul who had told him something about there being nothing more apt to get a direct answer than a direct question.
"Damned right!” Peter answered. “I can and will make love with you, Gil Goldsands,” Peter said. “In fact, that's all I've been thinking of, lately, and it's been torture for me to think you preferred Abdul Jerada, instead.” He burrowed his face in closer, his tongue moving sensuously against Gil's skin. “Oh, but I didn't really think I had a chance!” He moaned, as if memories of that past misconception might, somehow, deeply mar the heat of the present moment.
"Abdul is a friend,” Gil said, his fingers combing the thick luxurious strands of Peter's hair. The nearness of Peter, the thin cloth barriers that separated their eager bodies, the feel of Peter's skin beneath Gil's palms as he took Peter's face again in his hands—everything—filled Gil with new excitement.
"Oh, Gil,” Peter said, embracing Gil as though he had waited forever to have this very same man in his arms.
Gil was glad to be there; glad to have the perceptiveness to know that this moment was the right moment for defining and cementing their relationship. Before now, it had really been too soon. After Thebes, though, it might well have turned out to be too late; they were so radically opposed in their opinions on the significance of Hierakonpolis as a potential burial site for the Scorpion King that that friction, combined with all of the misunderstanding that had come previously, could easily have spoiled everything for them.
"You know what you make me feel like, don't you?” Peter asked, his smile revealing amusing reminiscence. “You make me feel like a young kid whose recent sexual awareness has him quite ready to make love on sandy beaches, in sleeping bags, on kitchen tables, or even in King Tutankhamen's tomb."
As if on cue, they heard the sound of someone about to intrude on their moment, and they came apart in nervous embarrassment to be confronted by one of the tourist police. In a country whose major monuments had suffered defacement by early Christians thinking to annihilate pagan gods by simply chiseling away their likenesses, and by tourists who thought they, too, might achieve immortality by leaving their names scratched beside those of the pharaohs, there were now more security measures taken in the Valley of the Kings than there ever was when every tomb in the vicinity had been stacked, floor to ceiling, with unbelievable treasures.
"Come on,” Peter said and gave Gil's arm a tug toward the tomb entrance. The policeman immediately began scanning for any damage they might have left behind them.
"He looked as if we were preparing to march off with Tut, stone sarcophagus and all, didn't he?” Gil said after he'd recovered from the blast of scorched desert air that greeted their return to the outside. Actually, no visitor had physical access to the mummy, and any attempts to progress beyond the protective balustrade would have set off alarms to bring someone far faster than it had taken one policeman to stir himself from his lethargy in a spot of rare shade.
"You know, between you and the sun, I'm hot enough to be downright uncomfortable,” Peter said, adjusting the stiffness of his dick into a less obvious ridge in his pants. “Let's find some place cool, quiet, and—yes, please—private."
"The rest house?” Gil suggested. Hardly private, it was the only place within walking distance that offered shelter from sunstroke.
"I was thinking more of my hotel,” Peter said sheepishly. He stopped and turned to Gil in the bright Egyptian sunlight, his eyes so handsomely golden, and his face so handsomely bronzed. “I've a room at the Etap,” he said uneasily. Gil knew the hotel. Its opening had been a great boon to Luxor and had vastly improved available tourist accommodations. It was located almost directly across from the Osiris docking area. “Let's find my driver to take us there, shall we?” Peter said, making it a question that was desperately in need of an affirmative answer.
"All right,” Gil said, flashing a smile that portrayed willingness as well as nervousness. He'd taken one more step toward commitment, and he couldn't help but wish the hotel was far less distant. It would have been easier to let things run their natural course there in the tomb, for there was no longer any chance Gil was going to be able to rationalize whatever happened now by blaming it on passions that had flared out of control on the spur of the moment and had swept him away. Granted, there was more than a good deal of passion involved here, but he was being given enough time to maneuver a safe withdrawal—if that was what he really wanted.
"How did you know I'd come to Thebes?” Gil asked when he'd dismissed his driver and was seated with Peter in the back of the taxi that had brought Peter to the valley.
"Abdul told me,” Peter said. Gil felt a pang of guilt about Abdul, hoping Peter and Gil had treated the sheikh as fairly as Abdul had treated them. Gil was sure he would be forever grateful to the attractive Arab. Without Abdul's help and the sheikh's sane rational judgment, Gil would never now have been en route to Peter's hotel. “He also informed me that you wanted to be alone, but I told him my seeing you wouldn't wait,” Peter added.
"I'm glad it wouldn't wait,” Gil said, his right hand resting on Peter's left thigh, just short of where the bulge of Peter's still-swollen cock ended. The hardness that Peter's fingers felt, at the moment, was merely the hardness of Peter's leg beneath faded denim.
Gil was glad Peter made no comments as their cab sped by the delicate brown terraces of Queen Hatshepsût's Deir al-Bahari. Gil wanted nothing to spoil their moment, not even a vague reference to a dead Egyptian queen who had a peregrine falcon named after her. It made no difference that Gil felt ridiculous about his continued jealousy of the bird, especially when Peter, put to the test, had chosen Gil over it; Gil had seen the attraction the hawk held for Peter and suspected that attraction still existed.
On the ferry, sitting beside Peter, Gil was little bothered by the clouds of blue black diesel smoke continually erupting from the laboring engine to engulf them in greasy foul-smelling fog.
"Damn, I can't believe this!” Peter said and looked ill at ease. Gil found it an attractive change from the confident, arrogant, and sometimes cold face, Peter had so often shown in the course of their brief relationship
"Believe what?” Gil asked, deciding not to mention that Peter looked exceedingly attractive with most of his defenses down.
"That I'm as nervous as hell, feeling like a schoolboy on his first date and not knowing how to proceed."
"Have you thought of merely asking a direct question?” Gil suggested. “A good friend once told me such questions save a lot of beating around the bush."
"Very well, then,” Peter said, turning his golden eyes on Gil with smoldering intensity. “Would you come up to my room and proceed, with me, to fuck and suck our brains out?"
"Sure,” Gil answered, his voice a whisper, not so much because he consciously tried to make it that way, but because that was just the way it came out.
"Bloody damned good!” Peter said softly, running one lazy finger along the inner side of Gil's arm in a gesture at once both innocent and provocative. His eyes focused on Gil's, a sensuous languor weighing down Peter's lids. He smiled and reached for Gil's hand. He took a deep breath that came out sounding very much like a sigh. “Even now, I was afraid you might say no,” he said finally.
"Really?” Gil replied with a smile of his own. “I though I'd made my answer perfectly clear back at Thebes."
Entering Peter's room a few minutes later, Gil walked immediately to the open window. He gazed out upon the contrasting landscape of the steely-gray Nile, the brilliant green foliage along its banks, and the burned earth shades beyond. He was glad they had returned to Luxor for this moment. Not only had it given him the opportunity to decide this was really what he wanted, but it was more fitting that they consecrate their relationship on the east bank of the Nile—the side that had for centuries been devoted to the living—rather than on the west bank which had long been dedicated to the dead. There was nothing dead or dying about the feelings Gil had for Peter. Those feelings were alive and thriving.
"Goddamn, I want you so damned much, Gil Goldsands,” Peter said, coming to stand behind him, making Gil tremble before Peter even touched him. Peter gently kissed Gil's ear, sliding his lips down toward the back of Gil's neck and shoulder. His kiss sent tingling through Gil that danced across every nerve fiber and back again. Peter slid his powerful arms around Gil's waist, locking them in place, while his mouth kissed back to Gil's ear.
Gil was unable to prevent the low groan that escaped him as Peter's teeth closed gently on the lobe of Gil's ear, Peter's breath maddeningly sensuous. Gil helped Peter unfasten the buttons of Gil's shirt when Peter's fingers suddenly seemed too charmingly clumsy to manage the task on their own. If Gil appeared outwardly calm and sure of himself, it was only because he was trying so hard to slow the tumultuous eagerness of his on-the-verge-of-out-of-control response.
Eagerly, Peter, from behind, tugged the finally unbuttoned shirt from Gil's shoulders and gazed at the resulting exposure of tanned and newly muscled back. “Jesus, you're handsome,” Peter said, and his calloused hands, sensuously rough, reached around to rest upon Gil's bare pectorals. Gil's nipples went taut against Peter's palms.
Peter turned Gil in his arms, holding tightly so that Gil's cloth-deprived pecs were pressed hard against Peter's chiseled chest. Peter's kisses became more intense. “Oh, Jesus, yes, yes!” He lowered his face and sucked one of Gil's nipples.
"Peter!” Gil moaned, his hands first on the back of Peter's neck and then buried in Peter's ebony hair. He spoke Peter's name again, just to hear the way it rolled off his tongue, the way it sounded, the way it somehow even seemed to taste so good as Gil shivered with the exquisite pleasure of Peter's continued touch.
Easing his hands along the length of Gil's back, Peter dropped slowly to his knees, his kisses like fluttering butterfly wings against the ridges of Gil's stomach. He undid Gil's belt, unfastened Gil's fly, angled fingertips into the waistband still slung upon Gil's narrow hips. Hooking trousers and underpants with his thumbs, Peter pulled everything down along Gil's lower body, leaving Gil naked and enticingly vulnerable in a puddle of discarded clothes. Gil's impressive cock was a metronome set into sudden motion, its impressive base anchored within the blond pubic hair of Gil's lower belly.
Peter kissed the inside of Gil's right thigh, sending a bolt of electricity that made Gil automatically clamp his fingers onto Peter's shoulders for support and balance. Peter's hands cleared Gil's feet of clothing and shoes. Then, he gently pulled Gil down so that they both knelt on the floor, face to face.
Peter made love to Gil with hands, lips, and tongue, until Gil felt ready to topple sideways from pure pleasure. Then, Peter came to his feet and pulled Gil with him, Peter's continuing firm grip leading Gil to the bed and face-up onto it. Peter kissed Gil once on the mouth before proceeding in a gentle flutter of lips down the length of Gil's naked body.
When Peter pulled momentarily away, it was only to remove his own boots and socks. His eyes never left Gil as Peter's fingers unfastened Peter's shirt to bare muscled chest. When Peter's pants and shirt were shed, revealing all the perfection that had once been hidden beneath them, the revelation provided Gil with yet another rush of electric warmth from toes to hair tips.
Peter wore tight-fitting Jockey shorts. His physique was more powerful than Gil had imagined; so much so that its epitome of masculine perfection and virility held Gil hypnotized. When Peter's powerfully large and hard cock, and pendulously drooped balls, came into view, Gil audibly gasped anticipation and pleasure.
Peter lay down beside Gil on the bed, and the feel of him against Gil, the rock-hard muscle beneath amazingly smooth skin, was sheer pleasure for Gil even before Peter wrapped Gil completely in strong arms and held for the longest time before Peter's fingers finally renewed their sensuous tracing of Gil's body.
Gil had looked forward to this moment with a strange combination of anticipation and dread—anticipation of giving and taking creamy sperm, dread that it might actually end up far less pleasurable than he'd imagined. His anticipation, though, came to the forefront as he willingly joined Peter in a dance whose age surpassed even that of crumbling monuments along the Nile.
As they clamored into sixty-nine position that provided a powerfully hard and masculinely delicious dick for each to suck, their shared experience blossomed within them a deep and abiding primitive sensuousness that lingered from a time past when men had no conception of city or civilization. And in their eventually shared ecstasy of—finally, amazingly, surprisingly, marvelously—simultaneous blasting and swallowing of force-fed comets of hearty sperm, each knew the additional pleasure of selflessly giving and receiving. Joined in their final cataclysmic shudders, they clung desperately to each other. Peter groaned over Gil's cum-spitting dick, and Gil buried his face even farther into the black fur that bushed the roots of Peter's hard-sucked and exploding penis.
"Wow!” Gil responded; he'd reluctantly surrendered Peter's dick but none of the hearty meal it had just served up for him.
"I've been waiting a long time for that,” Peter said, sounding deliriously happy as he lapped Gil's cock from balls to wet corona.
"You haven't seen anything, yet,” Gil promised, smiling like a little boy about to be accused of bragging but confident in his boast. In for a penny, in for a pound. He commenced a renewed sucking on Peter's still-hard dick even as Peter, likewise, resumed eating Gil's still impressively stiff meat. Slowly, gently, and ever so patiently, this time, each took the other back once more to that wondrous world of ecstatically flaming sensations that could only be assuaged, in grand finale, by the fire-hose intensity of simultaneously exploded cum.
CHAPTER EIGHT
ABDUL GOT QUICKLY to his feet and almost
tipped over the table in the process. He looked extremely handsome, extremely vulnerable, and Gil wished there was some way to avoid hurting him. But life, unfortunately, wasn't a fairy tale in which everyone came through unscathed to live happily ever after. Gil felt that the sheikh was certainly man enough to understand that their relationship had never had a future. Besides, it had only been a matter of days since they had first met. While Gil and Peter hadn't known each other much longer, their relationship genuinely seemed to have had invisible ties existent long before the here and now. There was a sense of destiny to their love.
"Whom, I wonder, were you expecting?” Gil asked with a smile, sitting in the chair the ship's waiter pulled out for him. “This is my assigned table, too, isn't it?"
"I thought...” Abdul began but didn't finish.
Oh, Gil knew exactly what the sheikh thought; Gil tearing himself away from Peter to make the sailing schedule had been the hardest thing Gil had ever done. However, he owed Abdul a lot more than simply to disappear without an explanation.
"How's the chicken?” Gil asked, noticing that the food on Abdul's plate was virtually untouched. Abdul shrugged, indicating it was no better or worse than usual; so, Gil ordered the same as the sheikh was having. There was a big buffet of over fifty different dishes, all representative of Egyptian culture, scheduled for the last day of the cruise, but Gil now knew he wouldn't be onboard to enjoy it. Although he had been forced to book all of the way to Aswân, no official intermediary stops for disembarkation, he had already made arrangements to get off the ship permanently at Idfu.
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