Harlow climbed the sandstone ledge and used her hand to shield her eyes from the sun. She surveyed a vast expanse of barely vegetated rock and sand, bound only by distant blue mountains shimmering on the horizon. It wasn't noon yet, but already the heat had spawned dust devils that danced on the ground and towered into the blue sky.
I stopped the rock drill and took my hat off to wipe away the sweat hanging on my eyebrows and on the tip of my nose, and I watched her. Dana Harlow was long and tan; she was a perfect, sinewy desert rat with sun-bleached hair that just fit into short pony tail.
"Powell," she said, and turned to where I watched her, "Let's call it a day and send everyone back to Holbrook." I didn't disagree. We started before dawn that morning, so we'd already put in six hours of work; any more time in the growing heat threatened the volunteers with heat exhaustion.
The dusty site that we were excavating in eastern Arizona had been known for years—ever since a local rancher found bones weathering from the soft mudstone along the side of a broad arroyo. He called the University and the site was stabilized with concrete and preserved until now. We broke the concrete away and our job was to peel back the layer of sandstone that covered the fossils so we could see what was there.
Harlow kept her eyes on the crew as they worked under sun shades that stretched over the site, and she talked so that only I could hear, "If you play your cards right then I might even lay you tonight, but only if I'm on top this time."
She walked away, and as I watched her go my fingers twitched with the desire to peel off her khaki shorts and her bikini top—to strip her down to her tan lines. She and I were a lot alike; we both enjoyed the sex, but we were both too competitive and controlling to admit it.
It was almost a week earlier when I got carried away in bed and stuck my dick into Harlow before she was ready. That led to an argument, and we hadn't shared a bed since. I didn't think the drought would last very long, and I was right.
Harlow called off work, and we ate lunch with the crew under the sun shades. It was Thursday—the end of the week for the volunteers—and they were in a talkative mood. I walked them to the crew cars when the food was gone and the chatter wound down. I made sure they were all hydrated and happy.
Harlow cleaned up on the site while I was gone and got a better look at the day's results. I found her studying the Late Triassic-aged mudstone we exposed by drilling, then breaking and removing three or four feet of sandstone and shale. I bent over her shoulder to watch and asked, "What do we have?"
"It's another skull." she said, and dusted some grit out of the empty eye socket. "That makes at least five individuals. At a glance, they look like Theropods, but I think they're too big to be Coelophysis. They could be something new."
I had to step back when she stood and turned to face me. She used my first name as rarely as I used hers, but she used it when she said, "Frank, this site could be another Ghost Ranch. It could make our names. The preservation is incredible."
I warned her, "Don't get ahead of yourself. The budget we have right now isn't going to get us very far. Our only job is to get enough information to justify a bigger budget. I doubt that will make anyone's name."
Harlow and I were post-doctoral fellows in vertebrate paleontology. We worked at different universities and different museums. Until a few months ago, almost all we knew about each other was that we disagreed. The faculty positions that we both wanted were hard to get, so we each used our social contacts, and the question-and-answer periods and discussion boards at every conference to jostle for an advantage.
Then our departments pooled their resources into one proposal to explore this site. We were funded and found ourselves assigned to co-manage the summer field operations. The first thing we ever agreed on was that our senior investigators, Lillian Thayer and Tom Hamlin, must share an odd sense of humor.
Harlow glanced away. "You're right," she said, but she glared at me and went on, "If there's any chance for early success, I going for it, whether you're with me or not."
Her defiance was pure Harlow—it was one of the things I liked about her. When she looked up at me her scent penetrated my senses and my desire for her suddenly boiled to the surface. To us there was something illicit in the attraction we had, so we hid it from the volunteers and we hid it from Thayer and Hamlin. In retrospect, we even denied it to ourselves by turning it all into a game of control.
I reached to touch Harlow's shoulders then stopped myself with my hands poised in the air. I said, "You know that Thayer and Hamlin are coming up with the GPR results, right?" I searched her face, looking for a reaction then went on, "We may not have time tonight. I want to do it right now."
She hesitated and said, "You know we're both a sweaty mess, right?" She waited for me to acknowledge her and then she said, "Then damn the heat and the grit."
My hands fell on Harlow's shoulders and I took her mouth. The touch of her tongue, her breath on my cheek, and her hand rubbing at the front of my shorts all excited me. She turned her head to break our kiss, and I read desire written on her face. It must have been etched on mine.
There was no place better to take Harlow down than right where we were. She squealed in surprise when I laid her on the fossil slab, but I covered her mouth with mine and thrust my hand into her shorts.
Harlow pushed my mouth away and gasped, "Oh God, Powell!" and kicked her feet apart. Her cunt was hot and wet. I had two fingers into her when she grasped the hair at the back of my head and pulled me back.
"The deal was, I'm on top." she said. I was four inches taller and probably fifty pounds heavier than Harlow, but I let her roll me on my back. She climbed on top and straddled my thighs then freed my cock from my shorts. Her hands were rough from hard work, but when she wrapped them around me I hardened so fast that it made me groan.
She was leaning on my chest with one hand and had my cock in the other when a grin parted her lips. "I warned you, so no complaining," she said and pushed her shorts and her panties down. I knew what Harlow liked, so I wasn't surprised when she swung her knee over my face and pressed her smoothly shaved pussy to my mouth. After a morning of working in the heat and the dust, her feminine taste and scent were uncivilized—distinctly strong and sweaty. She leaned forward to take my cock in her mouth and I'm sure she found my scent and taste to be no better.
