Chasing Thunderbird

by J. Leigh Bailey

  I smacked his shoulder. “Naked. You. Now. Me too.” Apparently extreme lust eliminated my ability to speak in full sentences. I tugged at the elastic band of his briefs with one hand while I tried unsuccessfully to push away my own pajamas. By this point I was whimpering in need.

  With a quick, hard kiss, he started to push away. I tightened my hold on his underwear in protest, and he chuckled. “Naked can’t happen if you don’t let me move.”

  How could he be talking coherently when I wasn’t even sure what my name was?

  Reluctantly I loosened my grip, and he went back to shimmying his way down my body. He made sure to caress my straining dick with every peak and valley of his abs. Pushing up enough to slide a hand between us, he captured the waistband and tugged my sleep pants carefully past my hard-on. Because he was moving too fricking slow for my sanity, I wriggled and kicked until the pants came off entirely. Using my foot, I flung the flannel aside.

  “Now you,” I commanded. But wait. Feeling him was amazing, but it wasn’t enough. I wanted to see him. “Lamp.” I pointed to my bedside table, though the gesture was probably useless in the nearly pitch-black darkness.

  He chuckled and stretched over me, reaching for the light. He nipped at my chin along the way. “Bossy.”

  “Whatever. Hurry.”

  “I’m in charge here.” He rocked his hips, and it became quite clear that his maneuvering had lined us up again, face-to-face, groin-to-groin.

  “Oh fuck.” I closed my eyes and tried reciting the periodic table. If I didn’t get some kind of control over myself, I’d end up coming before we’d gotten beyond heavy kissing. Embarrassment over shooting like a teenager aside, I wanted more with Ford. I wanted to do everything, to try everything. The desperation of the moment, coupled with the dark and the heat, made the whole experience a little surreal, and I was terrified this would be a onetime deal. Once the haze of lust cleared, he’d realize this was a bad idea and back away. If this was going to be my one shot, I wanted as much as I could get.

  I heard the click of the lamp. I blinked my eyes open and found myself nose-to-nose with Ford. In the dim golden glow, I could have sworn storm clouds brewed and lightning flashed in his dark irises. It took my breath away.

  “What do you want?”

  “Touch me?” I’d meant it to be a demand, but it came out as a request. Nearly a plea.

  “Anything you want. Any way you want it.” Ford laid a trail of biting kisses interspaced with hungry licks of his tongue all the way down my neck and chest, stopping periodically to tease my nipples or lurch up to take command of my mouth again. It was frantic and hard and wonderful. I’d have given anything to live in this moment forever.

  Even as his mouth and teeth were sending me into orbit, his hands launched me further. He stroked and massaged the muscles along my abs and sides. Then he reached down to palm my leaking cock. He squeezed and stroked my length, and that was all it took.

  “Oh damn. Oh fuck. Ford.” I fisted my hands into the sheets and held on tight as my body bowed. Later I’d be mortified by the speed of my orgasm, but in that moment I could only soar on the waves of ecstasy that racked my body.

  Several panting, heart-pounding minutes later, I could think again. Ford was still braced above me. I reached up to push back loose strands of hair that had fallen into his gorgeously flushed face. Then I cupped his jaw, dragging him down so I could plant a gentle kiss on his lips. I wanted to convey my gratitude, and my embarrassment, my that was the most amazing thing ever reaction.

  His cloth-covered dick pushed against my hip, and I remembered that, while I had gotten off, Ford still hadn’t. I tapped his shoulder. “Flip.”

  Eyes blazing, he complied. In an effortless move, he turned us so he was on his back looking up, and I knelt over him. I huffed out a laugh, surprised by the casual display of strength. Maybe it was a shifter thing, or maybe Ford was just that strong. He certainly had the muscles for it. And now that my brain wasn’t scrambled by hormones and need, I took advantage of cataloging each and every curve and dip of muscle and tendon. Damn, he was big.

  And I got my answer about his underwear. No tighty-whities for him. Nope. His briefs were black. Should have known. And the flared head of his dick pushed past the elastic band at the top, which was about the sexiest thing I’d ever seen in my life. I swiped my thumb across the tip, capturing the precome pooling there. Ford sucked in a hissing breath, and it was his turn to fist the sheets at his hips.

  Finesse was beyond me. I had to touch, to taste, to give him the same pleasure he’d given me. I yanked at his underwear, freeing him to my gaze. He was long and hard, and I wasted no time in taking him into my mouth. His taste exploded on my tongue and I groaned, sinking farther over him. I wasn’t particularly experienced in this, but he didn’t seem to mind as I used a combination of suction and gliding tongue to drive him crazy. He grunted and cursed, palming the back of my head. He didn’t push for more, for which I was grateful, and my hair was too short for him to get any kind of grip. I loved the connection—it might have been all in my head, but it made me believe that he knew it was me there, not some random dude blowing him.

  “Shit, Simon. So good.”

  The rough praise alleviated my residual insecurity, and I redoubled my efforts. Soon Ford writhed under me, and I wrapped my hand around the base of his dick to keep him from going deeper than I could handle. I felt him swell and throb even as Ford used his grip to nudge me away. “Shit. Coming.”

  I pulled my mouth back but used my hands to jack him. The slickness of my saliva and his precome eased the way, and I sped up, brushing my thumb at the sensitive bundle of nerves just under the cockhead with each stroke. His shout as he came echoed around us like thunder, and his semen splashed over my fists and onto his belly.

  When he’d stopped twitching, he dragged me up his body until I lay draped over him. I didn’t protest the stickiness of his cooling come between us. He had to have tasted himself when he kissed me, but it didn’t keep him from exploring my mouth. If he wasn’t going to worry about it, who was I to? A couple of minutes later, he pulled back and pressed my head to his shoulder.

  I sighed, contented as any cat, and let exhaustion and satiation lull me into sleep.

  Chapter Ten

  A DUCK quack startled me awake. The only thing more startling than the quacking was the strong arm draped across my stomach. Strong arms rarely made an appearance in my bed.

  “The hell?” a drowsy gruff voice rumbled behind me.

  Oh my goodness. Ford. Ford was in my bed, with his arm wrapped around me, holding me against that amazing body that I’d enjoyed so much the night before. How could I have forgotten, even for a second, that Ford was here?

  Another duck quacked.

  “Simon, why is there a duck in your bedroom?”

  “It’s my grandpa.” The words tumbled out, Ford’s callused hands kneading my side enough to scramble my already jumbled brain.

  Ford huffed, a sort of silent laugh that warmed me. “Your grandpa is a duck?”

  “That’s my grandpa’s ringtone.” I rolled—reluctantly—away from him and reached for the phone on my bedside stand. I scooted up against the headboard and hit the green icon to accept the call. “Hey, Grandpa. What’s up?”

  The bed rocked as Ford stood. He shook back his tangled hair, the dark strands spilling down his naked back. I focused in on his equally bare ass. He didn’t seem to have any modesty as he headed out of my bedroom.

  “Simon?”

  Shit. My grandfather’s shaky voice reminded me that I should be paying attention to him and not on my—who? My hookup? My student?—and his gleaming body.

  “Sorry, Grandpa.” I glanced at the alarm clock, only then noticing the time. It wasn’t even seven yet. Way too early for a chat. “Is everything okay?”

  “Yeah, yeah.” He coughed, the phlegmy sound breaking my heart a little. “I wanted to catch you before you left for work.”

  “Yeah? What’s
up?” I hated that my first thought when I saw a call from his number was that he’d gotten worse and the end was near. Or, worse, that it wouldn’t be him at all, but a doctor or my father calling to let me know he’d passed.

  “That Smith guy called again.”

  “Really?” I flung the comforter over my lap. I couldn’t talk to my grandfather while naked as a bird. Just no. “What did he want?”

  “He still claimed to have something of interest to our family. Kept it a little vague, of course, but he expressed a renewed desire to speak to one of my representatives. I played up the feeble old man thing. It worked. In fact, he suggested that perhaps my ‘bright’ grandson might be willing to meet him to discuss things.”

  “Really, now. That is interesting. I didn’t know you could pull off the feeble old man thing. At least not in person.”

  He coughed, and I cringed.

  “Hate to say it, but it’s getting easier to play the feeble old man. Not sure it’s playacting anymore.”

  “Did he leave any contact information this time?”

  “No, but he asked for yours.”

  “Did you give it to him?” Not that I would mind. In fact, I’d have preferred it. Better that this Smith guy and I connected without my grandfather as go-between.

  “I’m a feeble old man.” His wheezy breathing took away from his self-deprecating humor. “I’m probably senile too.”

  I snorted out a laugh because that’s what he wanted. Of all the issues that came with cancer and age, senility hadn’t struck yet. “So what did you tell him?”

  “Told him to google you. Isn’t that what all the cool kids are doing these days?”

  This time my laugh was genuine. “You, Grandpa, are a menace. I love that about you.”

  We chatted for a couple of minutes about his health and my job before I let him go. I wanted to keep things normal for him, but I was worried that someone was using my grandfather to get to me. I was going to get to the bottom of this, not just for my sake, but for his too.

  When the call disconnected, I looked toward the bedroom door, where Ford leaned against the frame. He’d put on some clothes, thankfully. The last thing I needed now was the distraction of his gorgeous body while I tried to wrap my head around some dude calling himself Smith—I somehow doubted Smith was his real name—phoning my grandfather out of the blue. Twice.

  “Everything okay?”

  “I think you were right about this having to do with my research on thunderbirds.”

  “What changed your mind?”

  I’d known on some level that my refusal to accept that someone was after my thunderbird notes was more wishful thinking than anything else. But it didn’t make any sense. Why now? Why me? My family had been searching for decades. It’s not like I’d made any new discoveries or posted any claims or sightings on the online forums or cryptozoology sites. Of course, I was a scientist, and there was no evidence to support the hypothesis that this chaos was thunderbird related. But there were too many coincidences for it to be, well, a coincidence.

  “Someone contacted my grandfather—my dying grandfather—claiming to have evidence that at least one of my family’s sighting claims was real. But see, my whole family has been searching for any kind of documentation for years. If the evidence existed, I have to believe we’d have found it. But now, when all these strange things keep happening, suddenly the proof is there? I don’t buy it.”

  Ford moved into the room and sat on the edge of the bed. I folded my legs to give him more room. “What kind of proof?” I couldn’t quite read the expression on his face. It was definitely serious. Maybe cautious? At least he wasn’t looking at me like I was a crazy person.

  I faced a conundrum. If I went into detail about my family’s experiences with wild claims and disappearing proof, he’d probably think I was as crazy as my bigfoot-chasing great-grandfather was. And I’d had an amazing night of sex with Ford. I really didn’t want him to think I was loony at this point.

  Screw it. He’d have to accept me, or not, eventually. Better to find out.

  “Back in the 1890s—”

  “So you’re going full-on backstory, huh?”

  I could tell he was trying to lessen the tension, but now that I’d opened this can of worms, I wanted to get it over with. “One of my ancestors killed a bird. A big bird. A unique bird. The local newspaper ran an article, complete with a picture, because no one had ever seen anything like it. No one was calling it a thunderbird then. That came later. But, anyway, the morning after the picture was taken, the bird—which they’d had hanging in a barn—was gone. No one saw anything. No one saw anyone near the barn. Nothing. Then, over the next few weeks, every single copy of the newspaper with the picture disappeared. All of them. Granted, it was 1897 in Arizona, so it’s not like there were thousands of copies. But still.”

  I’d been watching my hands throughout the explanation, afraid to see what Ford’s reaction might be. I couldn’t hold back my curiosity, though. I peeked up at him. His face had paled a bit, and he’d pressed his mouth in a grim line. Damn it, he was going to say the same thing everyone who’d heard the story over the last century did. That disappearing evidence was awfully convenient. And that the bird was either something like a condor or that my relative had been drunk or hallucinating or something. We’d been getting along so well—putting it mildly—that I wanted him to take me seriously. If he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, I wasn’t sure I could handle it.

  He didn’t ridicule me or my family or try to rationalize the situation, though. Instead, he met my gaze. “And the guy who called your grandfather said what? That he had a copy of that paper?”

  I nodded. “That would be weird enough, but according to my grandfather, the caller, who calls himself Smith”—I appreciated that Ford snorted at the bad alias attempt too—“indicated that he wanted to meet with me.”

  Ford nodded as though I’d confirmed his own thoughts. “You’re right. That can’t be a coincidence.”

  Our eyes met and held for a moment; then Ford said, “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Sure. I’m a fan of questions. It’s how you learn things.”

  “Why are you so intent on proving thunderbirds exist? I get that your family’s been searching for generations, but why you? Why still?”

  I needed to find the right words to explain it. It was more than family obligation, but how to convey that? “It’s true that no one would blame me if I followed in my father’s footsteps. He grew tired of always being linked to the family quest. The family curse, he calls it. It’s been hard to be taken seriously, especially since our interests and aptitudes seem specifically geared to a career in academia, when a whole slew of relatives have made a mockery of their careers. But I’d always had a thing for birds. Maybe it was because I spent so much time with my grandfather. And, yeah, I’ve been curious about my family’s record. I mean, the chance to discover a new species of animal is captivating. But I didn’t intend to make it my life’s work like my grandfather and great-grandfather did. Sure, I did the research and studies in my spare time, but it wasn’t my goal, my quest.”

  “What changed your mind?”

  “Two years ago, my grandfather was diagnosed with lung cancer. He practically raised me because my parents were too busy being gratified by their child’s genius and the prestige it brought our family to spend any noneducational time with me. He’d been there for me my entire life, without fail. And now he’s sick. The radiation and chemotherapy treatments weren’t enough, and now it’s just a matter of time before the lung cancer takes him. His one regret is that he was never able to redeem himself after his thunderbird research and presentation were compromised. He wants—needs—closure. Closure I can bring him if only I’m able to confirm that a rare species of bird, with a very distinct, unique anatomy, exists. And I’m running out of time.”

  I blinked to ease the prickling in my eyes. Then I looked up to gauge Ford’s expression. I don’t know what I expected to see—
maybe patronization—but I saw regret. Maybe that was worse than ridicule would have been.

  “What happens if you don’t discover your thunderbirds?”

  I huffed out a sigh. “Then my grandfather dies with the world thinking he was a deluded scientist, or, worse than that, a charlatan.” I swiped my hand across my face. I’d kept my tears at bay, but the stinging in my eyes persisted.

  MY phone sounded again, breaking through the tension of the moment. This time the noise indicated the alarm clock notification. I swiped the screen to silence it. “And with that, I have to get ready for work. I’ll do some research this evening to find out what’s going on.” I tried to shake off the melancholy. It was better to be proactive in figuring this shit out than to wallow in impotent misery.

  Ford shook his head. “Come to Buddy’s when you’re done for the day. I have to work. I can’t skip out of another shift, and we need to talk. I’m waiting to hear back from someone who might have some insight.”

  “One of the calls you made last night?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Who’d you call?”

  “Family.”

  I sat up straight, ignoring the comforter that pooled in my lap. “You have family who might know something about this? About which part? And who?”

  “You ask so many questions.” Ford yanked a fistful of his hair. I knew it was a frustration-based gesture, but at that moment it only drew attention to the fact that he didn’t wear a shirt.

  I dragged my eyes back to his face. “I’m a scientist. It’s what I do.”

  Ford’s nostrils flared and his eyes blazed. For a second I was taken back to that instant last night. A wave of hot and humid air flowed over me. Pretty sure it was the heat of the memory and not my potentially malfunctioning thermostat.