Digging Deep (Xcite Romance) (6 page)

‘Yes.’ Harrison shoved his hands back into his pockets, fiddling with the trowel he kept in one, and a brush in the other, trying to deny to himself that his palms suddenly felt empty. ‘And I’ve been thinking, what if Linda was the one on the other end of Candida’s cell? What if she is using Miss Infection to check up on you? She never believed there was nothing in Candida’s claims that I’d slept with her. If she believed I was two-timing her, this could be her revenge.’

The headache that was brewing thanks to the glare of midday was abruptly worsened by the hammering of renewed confusion in Beth’s head. ‘That all sounds like paranoia to me. Why would she? I’m nothing to do with Linda. She is a senior lecturer, and I’ve only just got my foot in the door academia wise. I am of no use to Linda
at all
. I don’t have plans for supremacy like she does. This is what I love.’ Beth jabbed finger at the countryside around her, and then, with a feeling of helplessness, tried to inject some humour and lighten the mood. ‘Apart from the extreme heat and cold, of course. I can’t see me falling in love with Africa.

‘Look, Harrison, I adore ground level archaeology. I can’t think of anything worse than climbing up the ivory tower of power, spending most of my working life in an office shuffling paperwork, and sucking up to people to try and extract dig money out of them. I want to be a real, dirty hands and muddy knees sort of an archaeologist.’

Harrison’s head tilted to one side, his face a mixture of pride, relief, and lust. ‘You do?’

‘Well yes, of course.’ Beth took a hefty draught from her water bottle. ‘I want what I always wanted. I want to excavate the lost and make it found! I am
not
Linda. And trust me on this, once I am away from here, Candida will not be featuring on my Christmas card list.’

Turning abruptly, she looked directly into Harrison’s eyes. ‘To clarify the important part of this conversation, you fancy me, and – as you must have noticed – I like you too. But you’re worried I’ll screw you over like Linda did?’

‘Not any more I’m not.’ Harrison laid a hand on each of Beth’s cheeks. ‘I’m sorry I thought you could be like her for even a minute. I overheard Candida, and …’

Beth cut over his excuses. ‘You seem to be saying sorry a lot for the assumptions you’ve made about me due to gossip in the last 24 hours.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘There you go again.’ Beth rose up on her tiptoes, and took hold of his rough-stubbled cheeks. ‘Enough now. Enough.’

Harrison’s lips hit Beth’s on a mutual collision course of desperation to taste each other again. To experience a proper kiss, to wind his tongue around hers as his hands slipped to her chest, cupping her breasts through the layers of material which were insubstantial enough for him to easily determine the outline of her bra, was an experience he had, only moments ago, resigned himself never to have. Now it was happening, his cock was responding accordingly.

The high temperatures temporarily forgotten, Beth moaned yieldingly into his mouth. Unable to keep her hands to Harrison’s face alone, reckless of the fact that they could be discovered by any passer-by, Beth eased her fingers down his front, feeling the bulge of his shaft beneath his shorts. All the images she’d had of what his dick would be like, what it might feel like, how it might taste, crowded into her psyche in one go. She needed to know now, before they found Candida, and she did or said something else to ruin things.

Deftly unzipping his fly, Beth slid a single fingertip into the gap, tickling his length though his boxers.

‘Oh God, Beth.’

‘Do you want me to stop?’ Panting slightly as she spoke, Beth wasn’t sure she could stop even if he asked her to as she sidled more fingers upwards, edging down the waistband of his underwear enough to get her palm wrapped around his length.

His penis sprang free easily, and as Beth cradled his pleasing weight in her fingers, Harrison’s kisses became more savage, his stubble burning her, his hips thrusting forward.

All his intensions never to do this with Beth, let alone do it in an open space where anyone could walk past, dissolved in the sensations of her hold, which compressed and loosened over and over again, until he thought he’d explode in her grasp.

Hearing the adjustment in his breathing, Beth fell to her knees. She didn’t wait for permission, but engulfed his length in her mouth, mewling with delight as Harrison rocked forward, filling her throat without gagging her.

Salty, sweaty, and yet sweet, Beth inhaled his delicious taste and texture as she sucked, driving him on, mindful of the lack of time, and desperate to see if his come was as flavoursome as she suspected it would be. For a second she held back, and smiled into his amazed eyes. ‘I see you are hung like an
ass
, then!’ Before refocusing on her work, inching herself nearer to him on her knees, she tucked another digit into his boxers, digging down so that she could stroke his backside as she worked him off. ‘And your
arse
feels gorgeously taut as well!’

Half-laughing, half-stunned, Harrison stared in astonishment at the woman before him. Knocking her hat to the floor, he trailed his hands through her curls. Their softness, despite their constant exposure to sun and sand, was as smooth and satisfying as he’d dreamed they’d be.

Suddenly it was too much. The idea of what they were doing, and the fact it was Beth pleasuring him with extreme finesse, his penis deep within her throat, caused Harrison to act. With a stifled cry, he began to move with her. ‘Doll, I can’t hang on, I …’ Pumping twice against her mouth, his load cascaded from his cock.

Beth consumed the gloopy liquid in quick gulps, its creaminess soothing her parched throat. Then, business-like once more, she neatly wiped him off before popping his penis back inside his shorts. Peering up at him as she cleaned stray speaks of come from her chin with a tissue, Beth asked, ‘So, do you think I am as slutty as Candida says now I’ve done that, or am I perhaps simply a girl who is rather keen on her co-supervisor, a man whose work I’ve respected for years? And who I have, despite my better judgement, got the serious hots for,
and
who, right now, I want very badly indeed. Which is a shame, because we have work to do. Now come on.’

‘Linda said you were shy.’

‘Linda said a lot of things.’

Harrison’s mouth was still wide open in awe as Beth strode purposefully over the last few hundred yards to the olive groves. He wondered just how wet she was, and if her panties were damp for him. Who’ve you been kidding? he asked himself. This English chick isn’t Linda. She’s something a bit special.

Chapter Six

Resisting the temptation to cup her hand in Harrison’s as they looked for the students who should have been in view already, Beth reverted to their conversation as if the previous few minutes hadn’t happened. ‘The thing is, I can’t think of anyone who’d want to check on me, or who, if they heard what Candida had said down the phone, would believe them. Everyone at home, apart from Linda apparently, is lovely. And I don’t know anyone on your side of the water, so I can’t see how I could have upset them.’

‘Exactly.’ Harrison knocked back his Stetson as he spoke, showing a band of perspiration on his forehead. Not for the first time, he made Beth think of a movie cowboy. ‘At first, I thought that maybe Candida had set me up. That she’d followed me to the garden, and there hadn’t been anybody on the end of her cell at all.’

‘Why would she do that?’ Beth, her hands on her hips, stepped up onto the raised bank at the side of the field  and scanned the olive grove, which was spookily devoid of human life. ‘You said Candida spoke as if she was responding to someone on the end of the call, answering questions and stuff.’

Harrison sighed. ‘She’s quite the little actress, and I wouldn’t put it past her to have invented the whole thing. However, the more I think about it, the more I’m sure there was someone there after all.’

Saddened by how quickly their moment of passion had been diluted by thoughts of Candida, Beth said, ‘At the risk of repeating myself, why would Candida want to get you to believe that I am untrustworthy?’

Harrison spoke with inflexible deliberation. ‘I told you, she is basically my stalker. She’s been a pain in my butt for ages.’ Harrison’s voice lowered an octave as he gestured around them, to where he was expecting Ryan and Candida to appear any second.

‘I can’t see what Candida pretending to have slept with you has to do with her hating me!’ Beth said, as he took hold of her hands.

Harrison snorted with a combination of exasperation and regret. ‘’Cos she feels threatened by you, of course.’

‘What?’ Beth spluttered against the mouth of her water bottle. ‘That’s stupid. She’s younger than me, prettier than me, has a tan I would kill for, and a better body shape than mine by miles.’

Tilting the brim of his hat forward to shade his face, Harrison shut his eyes and took a deep breath. His annoyance at his student transformed into frustration at having to reassure Beth again; an act that seemed insane to him considering what she’d just done to him. ‘I will say this once more, doll, so listen up. Candida is younger than you, but otherwise don’t talk crap. You knock spots off her and you know it.’ With barely a pause for breath he added, ‘And the reason she is here is simple.’

‘Simple?’ Beth faltered. Had Harrison really just said that? Did he really think her more attractive than Miss Infection? Struggling to hold down her personal feelings, her mind travelled back over every conversation they’d shared since she’d arrived in Tunisia. ‘Am I being really thick here or something?’ Beth shook her head in bewilderment. ‘How come Linda’s actually met Candida over here? This is a one-time dig for second year students only.’

‘Usually it is, but Candida’s an exception. She’s a final year student, not a second year. This is her second visit to this site.’ Harrison clawed a hand through his hair with the air of a man who’d had his fill of this particular student. ‘I will tell you about it, although frankly I’d rather talk about that blowjob. Fuck, doll, you are
hot
at that! In the meantime, we must be getting within earshot if you see what I mean.’ He lifted Beth’s chin up, risking a quick kiss on her paper-dry lips.

Despite her body’s desperation to draw him closer, Beth kept some distance. ‘You’d bloody better.’ Her cheeks were infused with two burning peaks, her pussy was too damp to ignore and her chest on fire. She felt awash with messy emotions she had no time to deal with. ‘Where the hell are they?’

Harrison’s frustration at their circular conversation twisted into anger at the stupidity of the whole situation as he barked, ‘I have no fuckin’ idea. Where did you tell Ryan to start the walk from?’

‘Field one, the first we came to, then to progress north.’ Beth looked at the map of the square grove area. ‘Even if they were going way too fast, and have reached field three, we should at least be able to see them in the distance by now. This is why we should let them have mobile phones on site!’

‘Doll, if Candida had her cell with her,
no
work would be done at all. Ever.’ Harrison scowled. ‘There isn’t even any equipment lying about. Where are the measures, find trays, and stuff?’

As they stood on the dividing mound of earth the farmer had built up between the first and second field, a clammy trickle of foreboding oozed down Beth’s spine. ‘What the hell are they doing, and why have I got a horrible feeling that whatever it is has nothing to do with picking up shards of pottery?’

‘It’s quarter past 12. If they’d gone back to the house we’d have seen them pass us. If they have any sense they’ll be sheltering from the sun for the next hour.’ Harrison pointed into the distance. ‘Maybe they packed up all the equipment and took it to the shack at the back of field three when it got too hot to work?’

Beth, trying not to speculate if their problem charges had walked past her and Harrison when they’d been otherwise engaged, was sceptical. There were no newly made holes in the crumbling earth to indicate that measuring posts had been pushed into the ground any time recently, and although Ryan might be a show-off, he was a good archaeologist when he wasn’t pratting about. No way would he have missed the two large pieces of terracotta Samian ware she’d spotted only a few metres behind her.

‘Well, whatever they’re doing, it isn’t working. Even if Candida has thrown a strop and persuaded Ryan to down tools, they have to be somewhere. That shack seems a good a place to hunt as any.’

‘At least we’ll be able to escape the sun for a moment.’ Harrison’s silent feet walked a little faster. ‘I wasn’t expecting to be out so long, I’m almost out of water.’

‘Should I go back and check the others are OK?’

Not wanting Beth to leave him while the air of unresolved business hung in the air between them, and privately hoping they would enjoy some time alone in the hut, Harrison said, ‘if we haven’t found them by half-past 12, then we’ll head back. We can trust the other students to act like adults without us.’

‘OK, but let’s stick to as much shade as we can. This climate is affecting my moods and judgement. I swear I’ve never been so short-tempered or irrational in my whole life!’

Before he’d considered the consequences, Harrison asked, ‘Is that why I got a blowjob then? You forget your common sense due to heat exhaustion?’

Beth stared at him, her smile not quite reaching her eyes as she tried not to be hurt by his comment. ‘No, I did that because I wanted to.’

He watched Beth as she trudged on, her eyes fixed on the shack that belonged to the farmer who owned the groves. ‘Did you know that when you blush your freckles get darker? The urge to trace my finger over your nose to join up the dots is huge.’

Glowing a richer crimson, Beth said nothing. Every time she thought she knew where she stood with Harrison, either professionally or personally, he threw some other revelation her way, be it good or bad. The idea of him tracing a fingertip over her skin wasn’t helping her to keep the level head she knew she needed. ‘Um, no, I didn’t know that.’

The taste of him was lingering temptingly at the back of her throat, and no amount of water from her dwindling supply seemed to take the intoxicating texture and aroma of his shaft from her lips. Beth knew, however, that until she’d learnt more about what the hell Candida was up to, she mustn’t let herself to be diverted by the pull at her groin or, more worrying still, the tug at her heart, which felt less like just a crush with every passing minute.

‘There’s no sign of them,’ she said. ‘So tell me, why
is
Candida here? I have to know now before my imagination fills in the blanks and makes things even worse than they are already.’

‘The bottom line is she’s here because her father is the head honcho of Harker International who, as you know, fund this dig. The only condition attached to the money was that Daddy’s little princess comes here to work each season.’

‘Seriously? Is that all? I was expecting something sinister after all this hassle!’

‘That’s all.’ Harrison held out his hand beseechingly, ‘Hey, doll, call me old-fashioned, but there’s no one around to see us. Can I at least hold your hand, because being so near to you and not holding you is driving me nuts.’

As the humidity of the open fields wrapped around her, Beth squeezed his palm encouragingly, ‘I’m glad you want to hold my hand. I want to hold you too. I want us to do a lot more, actually, but this has been a hell of a 48 hours. One minute I’m dreaming of what our bodies could do together, the next I’m accused of doing similar things with a student in my charge!’

Not sure whether to laugh or allow his imagination to run away with him, Harrison could barely breathe out his words. ‘What sort of things do you want us to do together?’ He gazed at his companion in avid awe.

‘Apart from the fact that I intend to discover exactly how good it feels to have your dick inside me, you are not going to find out how far my fantasies about you stretch until we’ve found Muscle Boy and Miss Infection, and cleared this nonsense up once and for all. Are you sure there’s nothing else I should know before we find them?’

Marvelling at the fact that Beth had been fantasising about him as much as he’d been dreaming about her, and wishing his brain wasn’t so focused on his dick, Harrison braced himself. He knew he had to tell her about the final flourish to Candida’s garden phone call. If he didn’t, and she found out later, he’d lose Beth before he’d ever really got her, and that was a risk he didn’t want to take.

‘I’ve agonised over whether I should have told you this after I heard Candida’s call. I didn’t because I genuinely believed the last bit of her conversation was stupid gossip; an extra twist of nastiness to embellish her tale to whoever was on the end of the call. But, having seen how Muscle Boy behaves around you, and having got to know you better, I realise that I’ve got everything backwards. It wasn’t the part about you having an affair with Ryan that I should have focused on – that was pure jealousy, I’m afraid. It was the other bit of her conversation.’

Beth suddenly felt as if she’d come down with a dose of 24-hour flu ‘What other bit?’

‘Promise you’ll hear me out before you go completely nuts?’

‘No.’

Sharply blowing out a lungful of sticky air, Harrison began to explain. ‘Ryan has a bet on with someone back in the UK.’

Beth hardly wanted to ask. ‘What kind of bet?’

‘That he’ll have sex with you before the dig’s over.’

She felt herself blanch. ‘I guess that explains a lot.’

Placing a finger gently over her lips, Harrison nodded. ‘That’s why he’s been so attentive. The fact he hasn’t been giving you room to breathe is nothing to do with his guilt over breaking of the mosaic. He did that deliberately so he could suck up to you. It wasn’t an accident.’

The last remaining blood in Beth’s face drained away. She felt faint, and for the first time in ages it was nothing to do with the scalding temperatures. ‘I’ve been feeling like the whore of Babylon, and all this has been about is some juvenile bet!’ Although she kept hold of his hand, her words could have cut ice as she demanded, ‘You didn’t think I should’ve been informed of this last night?’

‘Sorry, doll. I almost told you, but I didn’t want to make things worse than they were. If it helps, I honestly haven’t heard any rumours about it amongst the kids.’

Unaware that she was clasping Harrison’s hand so hard her nails were beginning to cut into his flesh, she mentally processed the implications of Candida’s phone call and Ryan’s bet. ‘And what do you propose we do to sort this out?’

Harrison, not wanting to let go of her, even to escape the increasingly painful grip of her fingernails, clocked Beth’s determined expression. It was time for action. ‘First, we have to find them. Then you must find out if Candida has told Ryan what she’s up to and why.’

‘And how the hell do I do that?’

Harrison grimaced. ‘You’ll have to make Ryan think he has won his bet. You’ll have to seduce him, and get the information out of him in the process.’

‘You have
got
to be kidding.’

‘And I –’ Harrison drew himself up to his full height, his jaw set, his face grim ‘– will have to do the same with Miss Infection, because I’m willing to make a bet of my own. Whoever Candida is reporting to is the same person that Ryan is gambling with.’

‘You think Linda’s behind this mess, don’t you?’

‘Doll, this has got Linda’s signature all over it.’