Lionheart

by Kate Roman

  Kissing Ash was revitalizing, as though the essence of the young man filled Roy’s reservoirs, replenished his strength. He felt the blood racing through his veins, senses heightened, the whole world more real than it had been a moment ago.

  Roy’s arousal was sweet fire across his nerve endings. Ash’s hunger was just as strong. Roy could taste it in his mouth, feel it in the controlled urgency of Ash’s body against his. Unable to hold back any longer, Roy dragged at Ash’s waistband until he was able to tear Ash’s pants down and off.

  Ash shoved Roy’s trousers to his knees then pushed him to sit on one of the logs beside the fire. Roy gasped as the rough wood met the underside of his thighs, then forgot the momentary discomfort as Ash straddled his lap.

  Ash made a guttural noise in his throat, then leaned forward. The head of his cock—hot and wet—bumped against Roy’s shaft. With a groan, Roy braced his chest against Ash’s shoulder, then ran his hands down Ash’s back to cup the tight, round muscular buttocks.

  Breathing hard, Ash reached between them, sliding his palms around both their cocks. Roy gave a needy, urgent cry as his meat pressed against Ash’s, then was encircled in a strong hand. With a grunt, Ash slid lower, his ass cheeks pressing into Roy’s hands.

  Roy dropped his head against Ash’s neck, growling his need, rocking his groin into Ash’s clever hands. Ash smelled of sweat and man and something deeper, something wild. Roy couldn’t contain himself; he inhaled Ash’s musk deeply, then set his teeth in the muscle of Ash’s shoulder.

  Ash threw back his head and yelled. His hands stroked faster, harder, sandwiching Roy’s cock against his own, and he started to thrust his hips in time.

  Gripping Ash’s ass cheeks as they moved in his hand, Roy’s fingers skated over Ash’s pucker. Roy released Ash’s neck with a grunt, then pressed his index finger against Ash’s hole.

  Ash froze for an instant, then, as the bare tip of Roy’s finger breached him, began to move again. Slower this time, his breathing deep and heavy, his entrance quivering around the intruder.

  For Roy, it was too much. The heat of Ash against him, the insistent hand on his cock, the incredible tight grip of Ash’s ass all combined with the heady, perfect scent of Ash. He shouted as his load tore free, bracing himself against Ash.

  Ash held him, pumping his own cock with his other hand. His juice spurted across Roy’s stomach and thighs, and he roared his release to the night.

  It was sometime later that they remembered dinner.

  The food was good, and Roy ate hungrily. “I thought we had no stores of meat remaining?”

  “We didn’t. I think this is what you called impala. I got the beast an hour after you left this morning.”

  “You got it? How?”

  “I saw the impala just a few hundred yards away. There was a rifle in the hut, and I knew we needed the meat.”

  There was indeed an old rifle in the hut, Roy reflected, and it was even loaded. But the thing kicked like a mule and threw to the left when fired. “You must be a good shot,” Roy said pensively.

  Ash looked down. “Just lucky, I guess.”

  Just for a moment, Roy saw a golden lion crouched to spring. He knew without going to look that he would find the rifle clean and his ammunition undisturbed. But he nodded without comment and took a second helping.

  “I’m glad you like it,” Ash said, sinking to the ground at Roy’s feet and leaning back against Roy’s legs.

  Roy twined his fingers in the soft gold curls at the nape of Ash’s neck. Ash’s hair was getting longer by the day, turning from the close-cropped cut of an Englishman to a shaggy golden mane. Roy loved it and said so.

  Ash looked up, amusement glinting in his eyes. “I was talking about the food.”

  Roy grinned back. “Oh.”

  Ash settled himself more comfortably against Roy’s legs, staring into the fire. He was silent for a long time, then, just as Roy was about to propose butchering the antelope carcass before it got any later, he spoke. “I’m very glad that you said what you did about your home. That you feel that way.” He lifted his gaze to Roy’s face. “I never thought of Leicestershire as home. I was a fish out of water there. And now, here…” Ash stopped, hesitating.

  With a wry smile, Roy gently tugged one of the golden curls. “Here, you are a lion on the veldt,” he said softly, only half teasing.

  Ash stared, then smiled. “I feel like I belong.”

  Roy pulled Ash onto his lap and enfolded him in a tight hug. “You do,” he said huskily. “You belong to me, Ash, and don’t you forget it.” He kissed Ash hard, rocking him against his body.

  Ash wrapped his arms around Roy’s shoulders, holding on.

  In the end, they sat that way until the cool evening made the hovering mosquitoes fierce enough to brave the smoke from the fire. They hurried inside as the insects’ whines crescendoed, and both applied Roy’s ointment to their exposed skin.

  Roy opened the army trunk that stood under the mosquito-netted bedroom window and brought out two pairs of tropical linens. “I’ve never worn these in polite society,” he said, grinning as he handed one pair of the cream trousers to Ash, “but mosquitoes can’t bite through them.”

  Clad in the linen pants and with their arms protected by long-sleeved shirts, they took the storm lantern outside to where the impala carcass lay behind the hut. It was a good-sized doe, Roy noted with approval: the meat on the stags was inclined to be tough and gamey.

  There was a chunk missing from the rump, more than would have been needed for the stew. The flesh was torn, rather than cut. Roy stared at it for a moment, well aware he was looking at the work of a predator’s jaws.

  Then, conscious of Ash’s gaze on him, Roy cut around it without comment. He sliced the meat cleanly, directing Ash to wrap the good steaks in fresh leaves and setting aside the rest of the meat to be smoked and dried the following day.

  Finally he was done. The hide, as well as a portion of the meat, was set aside as a present to Mambokadzi. The native hunters kept her and the village well supplied with meat, but for Roy, it was more than just politeness. The old woman and her people had taken him in as a stranger and cared for him as though he was one of their own. They’d probably saved his life and certainly saved his soul, and it was a debt Roy knew he could never repay.

  Once the meat was wrapped and stacked away from marauding insects, Roy stood, rolling his shoulders back. His linen pants were gray with dirt and streaked with blood, as was his shirt, and Ash, who’d been carrying the meat to store, was covered in gore.

  “Put the big pot on the fire to boil,” Roy directed. “I’ll fling the carcass outside. Otherwise the black ants might come in the night.”

  Ash raised an eyebrow, and Roy indicated himself, then Ash. “Bath,” he said succinctly. Ash nodded with a wry smile and went to obey.

  Roy gathered the unfortunate impala’s remains into a length of canvas and let himself out onto the veldt. It was a quiet night and clear, with no sign yet of the rains that would soak the land over the next few weeks. Roy listened carefully, poised by the gate in case any large predator had smelled the blood and was nearby. But there was nothing. It was a time of plenty on the veldt, and all the beasts were evidently busy with their own hunting and uninterested in the leavings of man.

  He dragged the bundle a couple of yards from the gate—after dark it was too dangerous to take it farther, but when the sun rose, he’d take it a half-mile away. Roy usually did his butchering at the kill site to save the blood and mess in his camp attracting predators. But providing they cleaned up carefully, the deviation from his habit wouldn’t cause them concern.

  Back inside, Ash had the large water pan slung over the fire. For once, water wasn’t in short supply. The water-butt was full after the recent rains, and there was plenty more to come in the next weeks.

  Roy went back behind the hut and, using his butcher blade, scraped clean earth over the bloodstained dirt where the carcass had lain. He covered it seve
ral inches thick, then tamped it down well. In the African heat, any other course of action would have them overrun with insects by morning.

  He finished the job by scattering the dried leaves of a native flowering plant that Mambokadzi called umckaloabo over the place. The plant was considered a native cure-all, and Roy had found that the leaves, when dried with lavender, repelled a wide cross-section of insects.

  When he returned to the fire, the water was pleasantly warm. Roy nodded approval. “Let’s take it inside.”

  “Inside?” Ash raised his eyebrows. “I thought we would wash out here.”

  Roy grinned at the young man’s naïveté. “Mosquito nets,” he said, and Ash’s eyes widened. Without further comment, he followed Roy into the hut and carefully ensured the mosquito netting over the door was securely in place behind them.

  The large water pot was a little over a foot deep and wider at the mouth than the base—big enough for a man to stand in. It wasn’t the most comfortable of baths, but by standing in the warm water and sluicing and scrubbing with the aid of the ladle and a cloth, it was certainly effective.

  Roy stripped, gesturing for Ash to follow suit, and then took two thick hessian sacks from a trunk. He laid them on the packed-dirt floor before the water pot, and held a cloth out to his lover. “You first.”

  Ash climbed hesitantly into the pot. “Like this?”

  Roy nodded, picked up the ladle and sluiced a scoop of water over Ash’s shoulders. “Wet yourself down, then scrub.” He squatted and dunked his own arms in the bucket, then slid his hands up the backs of Ash’s calves.

  Ash yelped, then giggled and took the ladle himself. He tapped Roy gently on the shoulder with it. “We’re washing!”

  “Uh-huh.” Roy looked up, grinning, then took the soap and lathered his own arms. “I am, see?”

  With a snort, Ash ladled more water over himself, then took the soap from Roy. He started lathering, the bar of soap gliding over the swell of his bicep and across the planes of his chest.

  Roy watched appreciatively. Ash seemed absorbed in his task, but the small smile that played around the corners of his mouth showed he knew Roy was watching. He took the soap lower, moving his feet as far apart as the cramped bath would let him, and a small moan escaped Roy as he watched Ash harden.

  Licking his lips hungrily, Roy reached forward. He slowly slid his hands up Ash’s inner thighs, feeling the muscles trembling under his hands, and grinned. He dipped his own arms in the water again, sluicing soap and grime away, then returned to Ash’s legs.

  Wordlessly, Ash held the soap out to him. Roy took it with a smile, dunked it in the water, and applied it to good effect. The lather was slick on Ash’s skin, the white suds contrasting with the golden hue the sun had turned him. Roy rejoiced in the feel of Ash’s developing muscles under his hands, the firm calves, the hard thighs.

  His high, round ass.

  Roy didn’t even try to suppress a groan, and Ash moaned an answer as Roy’s soap-slick fingers slid between his cheeks. Roy pressed gently at Ash’s hole, circling on the soft flesh. Ash cried out softly as Roy teased him, finger sliding in and out, barely breaching his rim each time.

  Ash’s cock was pointing proudly upward now, thick and swollen, the blood-dark crown capped with a drool of pale precum. His musk hung heavy in the air, tantalizing, and Roy knew he couldn’t wait a minute longer. He fumbled for the washcloth and soaked it quickly, then cupped Ash’s balls with the warm, damp cloth. Ash gave a strangled cry and Roy continued, rinsing the soap away.

  Then he leaned in and delicately lapped at the tight, round sac. Ash quivered and Roy licked again. He knew Ash was burning with need, knew how close Ash was, and it was arousing him beyond reason. He pulled back for a moment, staring up at the sight of his young lover. Head thrown back, Ash’s eyes were closed, face contorted with the perfect agony of need. His lithe, wet body gleamed in the pale light from the lantern.

  As Roy watched, Ash opened his eyes. He stared down at Roy, feral, hungry, then closed a hand on Roy’s shoulder in a strong grip. “Please,” he growled.

  Roy stared for an instant into the blue-and-gold eyes and felt his senses start to spin. He grabbed the base of his cock, forcing the tide back, and tore his gaze away, breathing hard. Ash did things to him he’d never believed possible.

  Getting himself back under control, he took Ash in his hand, steadying the hot flesh. Slowly he guided the thick crown between his lips, savoring each moment. Tasting Ash, feeling him. Breathing him.

  Ash’s hand tightened convulsively on his shoulder, and Roy took him deep, sucking hungrily. He could taste Ash on his tongue, bittersweet and perfect, and Roy felt his tide rising again.

  He stroked his own cock in the same rhythm he was setting with his mouth. Ash howled completion in the same moment juice exploded on Roy’s tongue, and Roy drank him down, lapping softly as he teased out Ash’s last drop. As Ash sagged against his shoulder, Roy leaned into him and stroked himself faster, panting with his need. A few quick pumps was all it took before his own cum striped the side of the bath and Ash’s knees.

  * * * *

  Roy lay awake late into the night. Ash, clean and soapy-smelling, hair still damp from the bath, was pressed against him with Roy’s arm wrapped tight across his chest. Roy had tried once to shift his arm, and Ash had awoken in an instant, snuggling in closer with sleepy, wordless grumbles. Roy had soothed Ash back to sleep by stroking his neck and hair, and Ash lay peaceful now.

  Roy wished he too could be so unworried. The more he thought about the meeting at Thornside, the more uneasy he felt. Gerald Haywood was a vindictive man and Roland a cruel one, and if there was one thing they loved above all else, it was killing. Every male lion in a fifty-mile radius was liable to be another trophy on the Thornside study wall inside of a month, and Roy couldn’t help but be afraid.

  They wanted the pale gold young lion most of all. Roy’s rational mind shied away from stories of shape-shifters and spirit animals, but he knew in his heart that the lion was no ordinary great cat. And whatever happened, the Haywood brothers could not be allowed to harm it.

  Even hunting it brought peril. A Thornside party prowling the veldt meant a greater risk of Ash being discovered, and there was no way to explain away Ash’s choice to forsake his family and live with Roy: no way that would satisfy the white population, anyway.

  Roy had no illusions about what would happen if they were discovered. His own eccentric living style was tolerated because of his medical expertise, but if the district officer chose to make trouble, he’d have the colonial government—and probably Haywood’s hunters from the Cape—down on him like a ton of bricks. He’d be arrested on some trumped-up charge, accused of “going native,” and he and Ash would be separated.

  Roy would die before he let that happen. Instinctively, he tightened his arm around his lover.

  Ash rolled over and nuzzled Roy’s neck sleepily. “Go to sleep,” he murmured.

  Roy kissed Ash’s forehead softly and rolled on his side, holding Ash loosely against his body. If necessary, he’d take Ash across the Zambezi and into the wilder country to the north. But before that, he resolved, they’d consult with Mambokadzi.

  Maybe she could turn them both into eagles. The thought wasn’t exactly comforting, and Roy pushed it away, resolutely closing his eyes. If flight was their only option, he’d do it on two feet with a pack on his back and Ash at his side.

  One way or another, they’d make it.

  Chapter Fifteen

  A column of men marched in the shadows of the moonlit foothills. Two natives led the procession, each carrying spears; behind them, side by side, marched two white men in the garb of the English hunter. Then came a solemn procession of native bearers, each with a bundle on his head.

  Following them, two natives carried the carcass of a lion. Limp in death, the magnificent head hung down, the eyes seeing no more.

  The men who went first checked the ground with every step, stopping now
and then as though to scent the wind in the darkness. Though they looked left and right, they never looked up.

  They never saw the golden lion standing motionless on the moonlit ridge above, watching their passing intently.

  Roy saw everything from a point high above. He was dizzy with the height, floating, his body burning and weightless as though in the grip of fever. He reached out for the living golden lion, yearning, yet the lion ignored his presence.

  In the valley below, the men walked on, straggling away from the hills, marching toward a lone baobab tree standing silent on the veldt. Still the golden lion watched. These men meant harm. They smelled of blood and iron; they carried the body of his brother, and yet he appeared unconcerned.

  A huge black bird appeared in the sky, gathering speed as it approached the column of men before suddenly diving, passing mere feet above their heads. Its angry scream echoed across the veldt, and as one, the natives dropped their burdens and turned and ran.

  The bird soared up, leveling off beside the ridge where the lion watched. It hung motionless for a moment; then, at last, the lion moved. Seemingly paying no attention to the bird, he picked his way cautiously down off the ridge and paced slowly toward the men on the veldt.

  The two natives with spears had returned and stood looking about them nervously. One of the white men was shouting, and both brandished rifles. Of the rest of the bearers, only two had returned, and the fury of the white men seemed directed at them.

  The dead lion lay at the foot of the baobab, paws trussed, dark mane stirred briefly by a current of air.

  In the moonlit grassland, the golden lion was nearly invisible. He moved slowly through the vegetation, mouth slightly open, gaze fixed on the men. None of them noticed his approach, so intent were they on their woes.

  A hundred yards from his quarry, the lion accelerated. From a silent shadow in the grass, he was suddenly a live wire, approaching at lightning speed. As he ran, he roared, and the sound seemed to come from every direction at once.

  With shrieks of terror, the men fell back before his approach. The natives dropped to the ground, cowering, but the two whites raised their guns.