Hearts of England Read online

  "It's a soap set in London—kind of famous here."

  "I like it. Maybe if I watch it I will learn something about living in London," Cory said finally. Ben realised he still stood in boxers in front of his employer with a semi-erect dick and he could feel the blush rising from his toes.

  "Night then," Ben offered.

  Cory slithered up the bed in small sinuous movements, the pull of the sheets on his jockeys revealing more toned skin. "Thank you, Ben. Goodnight."

  Ben opened the door and looked back at Cory who had leant back on a selection of puffed up pillows and kept his eyes fixated to the screen. One of his hands had come to rest on his stomach and was splayed invitingly with the small finger pointing the way to heaven. Ben groaned to himself at the view and then shut the door. Back in his room and under the quilt he thought he had never really seen anything as oddly erotic and yet cute as a half-naked Cory Vasilyev watching a soap opera. Endearing and cute wasn't supposed to make you hard. Cute was just that—sweet. It wasn't sexy or hot or anything guaranteed to give Ben a hard-on. Clearly his dick was focusing on the eroticism of that splayed hand on bare skin.

  Typical.

  * * * *

  Cory pushed his bag to the floor with an irritated huff as soon as Ben shut the door. The bag was so tightly packed with scripts and notebooks that nothing fell out. He genuinely hadn't been able to get the damn TV to work but he hadn't really needed to call Ben in. Cory had his phone, he had his iPad, he could have used either of those. After all, the hotel did display a sign for WiFi. What the hell had possessed him to call in his companion for anything as stupid as a TV? Attraction. That is what it was. Ben was all flicky curly-haired geeky guy and Cory loved that kind of man. Fun to be with. Intelligent. And in Ben's case hot. Tony had been the ex from hell, and that was the last time Cory was entering into a long-term relationship based on beauty. Boy had Tony been a pretty one, but behind the wide, white-teeth smile had been a vast empty nothingness. Ben was gorgeous as well but in a rough and unsettling way and he had a brain. Cory found himself spending more time looking into brown eyes than focusing south of the man's belt. That was certainly a new one.

  Part of him had hoped Ben would be ready for bed and that plenty of that long body would be on show. By the look of what was in Ben's underwear it would seem Ben was ready for more than bed. Cory wondered if it was him that had done that or had Ben been in his room choking the chicken. The guy was hot. Not solid with made-for-movie muscles but lithe and compact and covered in all that cool, pale skin holding together a bundle of unrestrained energy.

  Unbidden Cory's hand was on his own dick slowly bringing his hard-on to full strength whilst watching someone with ginger hair shout at some older guy. When he came over his hand it was a mere minute after the end of the show. He hadn't wanted to interrupt the story, which had been interesting, and he'd always been good at timing things.

  Maybe he should have admitted he was gay and they could have taken it from there. Ben could be laid out next to him at this very moment. Why wasn't he? Cory groaned. He was a freaking idiot. So how to go about this? All he had to do was flash some more flesh, make it obvious he was interested, oh and of course just tell Ben he was gay and available for fun.

  On most location journeys he found someone to be with and here was Ben actually gay and actually interested if his dick was any guide, so Cory didn't even have to go looking for a fuck. Easy, no-complications sex was available in the next room.

  A few days here with maybe some random casual sex with the irrepressible Ben Hyland was something Cory could sign up for but the British man would be the last one. Casual no-holds sex was awesome when you were in your twenties, but he was thirty-one now and spontaneous fucking was starting to wear him down. It was time to do what his brother kept saying he should. Get back to America and organise himself.

  Just because he was gay didn't mean there wasn't a life partner somewhere for him. His brother kept saying that. Cory's reply was always, 'hell, not every gay in Tinseltown was Neil Patrick Harris.'

  He told Josh that but all Josh could say was that he should stop with the casual sex in foreign countries and find a good hot and available American that he could build a life with. Someone who worked in the backrooms of film maybe, a producer, a director, or hell, even a guy who had nothing to do with film but was one hundred percent patient with Cory jetting off to other countries on location searches. There had to be someone like this out there for him. Quick hook-ups were starting to bore him and Ben, if indeed anything happened with Ben, would have to be his last if he was to stay sane.

  He wanted someone special who wouldn't stamp all over him or only want in his pants because of who his brother was.

  When he got home it was time for the search to begin.

  * * * *

  "So tell me a bit about other locations you scout so I know what I need to show you," Ben said. Breakfast was finished and they were both nursing coffee in the empty dining room.

  "Our company maybe does ten or so overseas locations and only for the big budget studios like Sony."

  "What do the smaller studios do then? Do they have scouts?"

  "In Hollywood itself there is this wealth of places that can be used to stand in for anything a script requires. Desert, mountains, high-plains grassland, small-town New England, Paris, downtown New York, London, it's pretty much all there."

  "I'm not imagining there's the Eiffel tower sitting under the sign."

  "No, no Eiffel Tower as such, or your Big Ben, but when you film against green screen you can add enough details to existing Studio City locations to make it seem like you are filming in Paris or London."

  "So why are you even here if, as you say, most of the film could be captured using green screen?"

  "Sony wants authenticity and they're big enough to be able to afford it. They're not saying that the actors will be brought over here, just that test film would provide enough to build the movie around."

  "That's kind of sad."

  "How so?"

  "Imagine the churchyard where Catherine is buried—"

  "I told you I haven't read the book—"

  "You said. But… look, have you not even read cheat notes?" Ben couldn't believe Cory had no idea of the story he was looking at.

  "I skimmed the script." Cory looked hopeful but Ben wasn't reinforcing that lame attempt at knowing the story.

  "But you will read the script in full?"

  "I'll read the parts looking for location."

  "That's not right." Ben wished he could retract his heated statement as Cory looked over the rim of his coffee cup and raised his eyebrow in question. For a few seconds Ben contemplated sitting back in his chair and being quiet. Then the academic in him, the one who loved Wuthering Heights with all of its passion and life, jumped to the fore like a kid high on candy.

  "It was dug on a green slope in a corner of the kirk-yard, where the wall was so low that the heath and bilberry-plants have climbed over it from the moor…" he quoted. "That is the place where Catherine is buried in the book. She had chosen a spot where she could be close to the wild moors of her youth, but her heart was at Wuthering Heights. Unless you have read that passage, if indeed there is any notation of it in the script, then how can you know what you are looking for?"

  Cory leant over the table and very deliberately said, "This is what we pay you for, you show me what I need to know." His voice held a note of affection in that low growl, and the hint of a smile ghosted his lips.

  "Haworth first," Ben stated simply. "We need to get you a copy of the book, or at least a cheat's overview, and I need to read the script."

  Cory stood and stretched, covering a yawn with his hand.

  "Let's go then."

  Haworth wasn't that far from the hotel, and in the space of an hour the two men sat in a cosy tea room on the corner of the high street with tea for Ben, coffee for Cory, and a selection of cakes on a plate. The time may well have been nearing eleven but Ben could no
t face more food so the cake samples on his plate remained untouched. Cory however was digging in and for a moment Ben wondered where the guy put it. Then he imagined that in LA Cory probably ate some faddy Hollywood diet and this was the first real nutritionally valueless food he had eaten in his life. When Cory grinned with a mouthful of chocolate fudge cake Ben decided he so was not sharing that observation with Cory. Not when what he really wanted to do was lick into that mouth and taste the chocolate inside. It didn't help when Cory's tongue darted out to lick a stray crumb. Jesus, he wished the guy would stop doing that.

  Cory, for his part, looked down with one hand on cake and the other turning pages in a full copy of Wuthering Heights. His forehead was creased in a frown. The older English language was sometimes not easy to break into but persevering always helped. Ben had the script lying unopened in front of him. God how he hoped that the movie wasn't going to screw with the story. He hoped that this was going to be a film that choked him and held him in the same thrall as the book, but to open the script and see page one was terrifying him. The front of it was emblazoned with several warnings about sharing and Cory had underlined these when he handed it over. Whilst not a big blockbuster, any details leaked could be costly for the studio.

  Sipping on hot tea Ben finally opened page one and groaned.

  [Ext.] sweeping shot of moors. Some heather. A crumbling house.

  [voiceover] {In the year of our Lord…}

  Someone had scribbled 'James Earl Jones, or same' in the margin on page one. James Earl Jones? Wasn't he the voice of that Lion? And Darth Vader? Ben did not for one minute associate the guy with Wuthering Heights. Oh well. Surely it had to get better.

  Cory was lost. Chapter one and two passed in a blur of information but it was chapter three that was pulling him in. When Ben spoke all Cory felt was irritation at being interrupted.

  "The script is a good interpretation given the restrictions of film and time," Ben was saying.

  "Good," Cory replied then buried his head back in the book.

  "Where you up to?"

  "The ghost bit. Shhh."

  After that Ben seemed to get the hint and Cory managed to get to the part where the book started to focus on Heathcliff.

  "Here," he announced. He stopped reading and poked at the text with his finger. "I want to see what you think Thrushcross Grange looks like. And Wuthering Heights."

  "All in one day?" Ben asked.

  Cory bit back his sarcastic reply as Ben looked genuinely confused at the question.

  "As much as we can," Cory replied. He could always tack on an extra day to his 'few days' he was staying. Tucking his copy of the book into his backpack, he stood, shouldered the bag, and waited. Ben got the hint, scrabbling to pick up the script and the notes and the pencils. Finally both of them were in the car and Cory, following Ben's instructions, pointed it out of Haworth and into the moors.

  The landscape changed even more if that was possible. Haworth itself was softer than the wilds outside of it. From tea rooms and B&Bs the road twisted higher and almost back on itself for miles before Ben finally said they should stop. The images in Cory's head, of a ghostly hand grabbing through a broken window, and the description of Thrushcross Grange and the Heights itself were lodged firmly in his mind, and as he stood outside the car and the wind blew a dance around him it felt as if the story was around him as well as inside him. The wind was cold and insistent and for a second Cory paused and just inhaled the cool English air. Where Ben had told him to stop, some kind of viewpoint off the side of the road, had stunning views from the top of the moors and spreading downwards to the horizon.

  "Want to walk?" Ben asked.

  "Where?"

  "I don't know if it's still there, but when I was studying this book for my degree I found this place. It's about half an hour walk out from here."

  Cory agreed and Ben pulled his backpack from the rear of the car. Both men already wore decent footwear so just pulled on jackets.

  "The weather isn't predictable on the moors," Ben had said back at the hotel. In his rucksack Cory had another jacket, water, food, and various other items Ben had deemed important. Hell, it wasn't like they were mountain climbing but Cory didn't argue. Local knowledge was what they paid these guys for.

  Ben led the way, which gave Cory an interesting view of his guide's ass in form-hugging jeans. He could watch the play of muscles as the man pushed up the incline and jumped the small and numerous running rivulets of water carving into the peaty soil. The farther they climbed and dipped the more remote everything appeared. Apart from a few sheep and some tyre tracks there was little to mark humanity of any kind. After what must have been half an hour, Ben stopped and stood for a while scanning the options for where to go next. Decisively he led Cory over another peak until finally he indicated an outcrop of stone as they passed it.

  "Just past here is this awesome old place that I think would have made a perfect Wuthering Heights." Ben said this and then quickened his pace.

  A thrill of anticipation buzzed inside Cory and he wasn't disappointed.

  A large and mainly derelict house lay nestled between another granite outcrop and a steeply climbing, roughly grassed area. Probably the environment it sat in was the one thing that had protected it somewhat from destruction by storm and snow. Stones upon stones tumbled and piled around what was definitely the remains of a house, Cory was sure. He pulled out his camera. There was no way in hell a camera crew could film anything here but the inspiration for the house would be perfect. Making a note of the longitude and latitude of the place, he began to take photos, following Ben as they skirted the remains and moved out of the back. Behind the house the ground levelled out for a while before sweeping down to where Cory knew the road lay.

  "This could be the kitchen," Ben said enthusiastically.

  Cory looked up at him; Ben was standing on a step of stones, which put him a head higher. There was desire in the guy's eyes. From what he had read so far, this place was pretty damn perfect for Wuthering Heights itself. What was in Ben wasn't pretend and green screen, it was pure passion for what was here and it was real.

  It was sexy and all kinds of hot.

  Jeez. He hadn't even had the whole 'I'm gay' conversation with Ben yet nor issued the standard disclaimer of wanting nothing more than a few days of hot and heavy sex.

  "I'm gay," Cory blurted out. "Too," he added as an afterthought.

  "Okay," Ben replied and then he jumped down the small step to move off. Cory grabbed without aim and managed to snag Ben's arm. With slow, deliberate intent he pulled Ben closer, and for his part Ben wasn't arguing. Long expectant seconds passed. Finally they were so close that even with the sound of the wind outside their small oasis of calm Cory could swear he could hear Ben breathing.

  "Just a few days," Cory whispered. There, he'd said what needed to be said. Thing is, even he wasn't sure what he meant. A few days to kiss and make love or a few days since they met and jeez fuck what the hell is going on?

  Ben initiated the kiss and it was heat and fire and Cory whimpered as he parted his lips and returned the open kiss with equal desire. The taste of Ben intoxicated, his skin cold to touch but his lips hot. The kiss deepened; both men tilting their heads and gripping jackets to hold each other upright. The first spit of rain landed on Cory's forehead and he ignored it. The sensations inside him, just from a simple kiss, were intense, and he needed so much more of Ben. He wanted to climb inside him and hold him close. Rain didn't matter. Nothing mattered. Ben pulled back with a huff and Cory chased for the kiss. He didn't want to stop.

  "It's raining," Ben protested. "Shelter here or go back to the car?"

  Cory contemplated the options with his hands still gripping Ben's coat.

  "Stay here," he murmured then closed in for another kiss. Evidently his body had decided the taste of Ben was addictive and Cory could not get enough.

  Ben was obviously the one thinking straight as, still kissing, he backed them up to the overhangi
ng granite. The rain ceased its spattering marks the moment they were under the shelter. Madness splintered inside Cory as Ben held him and then turned them so it was Cory who was pushed back against the rock. Ben cushioned the press of his back with one hand but Cory didn't want that; he wanted to feel being trapped between rock and Ben. He released the grip on Ben's jacket material and instead crossed his hands around the Ben's back—pulling him that much closer. A small shift from the taller Ben and suddenly they were as close as you could be without removing your clothes. Cory released the kiss and tilted his head back to the rock to breathe the cold rain-tinged air. Ben didn't stop though, he simply took the opportunity to trace a pattern of need with tongue and lips from Cory's chin to his pulse and back. Pushing aside the collar of Cory's jacket Ben tasted skin, and it felt so right, then his free hand was up and under Cory's jacket.

  "Jesus. Fuck," Cory exclaimed at the icy touch of cold hands to warm skin. Ben made to move back with a chuckle low in his throat.

  "It's warmer if we take this back to our rooms," Ben whispered against his skin.

  "I don't want to move," Cory said. "I like it here. Kissing you."

  "I want to do more than kissing," Ben said. Cory looked up into dark brown eyes and a face framed with dark curls and was blown away. The anxiety built in the pit of him at the same rate as lust was rising. This wasn't how he normally felt. With casual hook-ups he normally entertained a few days interlude of satisfying sex. The intensity in Ben's expression, so dark and stormy and penetrating, was too much. Too serious.

  "We shouldn't," he said. Clumsily he extricated himself from Ben's hold and breathing heavily, he took a step to the side and away from Ben's reach. The rain was thick, a curtain that separated the real world of the moors from their hideaway under the rock.

  "Shouldn't what?" Ben asked. He looked confused and Cory didn't blame the guy.

  "I don't want to," Cory stated with finality.