The Faller by Daniel de Lorne

Author:Daniel de Lorne [Lorne, Daniel de]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Gay romance
ISBN: 9781644050453
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Published: 2018-12-08T07:00:00+00:00

CHRISTMAS DAY and Boxing Day were about fun, about discovery, about freedom and about becoming closer than was wise. Then, when the twenty-seventh dawned, the last safe morning in Jack Tapper’s arms, the illusion that this was their camp came down with a thud as resounding as any of Jack’s axe strikes.

They woke, they ate, they washed, and they headed to the cut together, stopping along the way to kiss beneath this still-standing tree, to rut against that trunk, before they got busy carving sleepers out of a majestic jarrah. For Charlie, it was the greatest pleasure and pain to watch Jack’s beautiful body do what it was made to do, the sweat glistening along his muscles, seeing the straining strength of him. Wondering whether he’d ever get to experience it again. Gentle rebukes got him focused back on cutting sleepers, but it wasn’t long before he stopped to look again. Not just for the lust of it. Not just for the beauty of it. But also to retain the memory, to shore it up in his mind and lock it away so it could last the rest of his days, however many there might be. Soon enough the outside world would intrude again in the form of three loudmouthed, hungover sleeper cutters, and Jack would be back to his silent locked-up self. And Charlie…?

Charlie would be alone, in pain, and afraid for his life.

Business as usual.

Fred, Doug, and Sam arrived back in camp well after noon, nursing sore heads, lugging crates of supplies, and looking about as festive as a half-dead wallaby. Jack and Charlie heard their approach long before they reached camp, and so they parted—slow, reluctant, neither one of them willing to go back to how they’d been—and returned to camp separately, Jack first and a little while later Charlie once the work was done. His palms were raw, and the flies had been a nightmare.

At least he’d have no trouble getting the men to believe he’d been working.

Not that they’d given him a single thought since walking off into the trees four days earlier. They gave him a couple of grunts hello but barely looked up. Fred threw him his sack of supplies and some shrapnel in change—minus a carrying fee that Charlie would have gladly paid ten times over, considering how good his Christmas had been.

“You managed to not lose a hand while we were gone.”

He gave Fred a short laugh. “Done all right, thanks.”

He walked to his tent, keeping his eyes away from Jack’s but imagining the heat of his gaze on his back. He put his new supplies away until the intensity faded, a slow departure like fingers caressing his skin and drifting away one by one. It would be fine if the others thought badly of him; he’d be damned if they were going to turn on Jack as well.

His attention fell on the book of poetry; he tucked it deeper into his pack and buried it under supplies.

When he risked turning,

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