“Assault with a deadly weapon!” Reid cried out, laughing as Nikolai began tickling him under his ribs.
“My ass is getting fatter, is it?” Niko growled as he attacked his friend. He really didn’t care that he was basically naked while assaulting him.
“And your muscles are getting smaller!” Reid chuckled as he squirmed beneath Niko’s mighty fingers. His face turned red as he struggled to breathe.
There was nothing sweeter than listening to his best friend laugh. God, how he missed that sweet sound. He fucking loved the guy.
Laughing, Niko eased himself down onto Reid, settling his naked body between Reid’s spread legs. He had just finished showering and was lying on the bed in only his underwear.
“This is nice,” Niko said, staring into his best friend’s soft blue eyes. With his hand, he gently brushed a few stray hairs away from them and across the side of his forehead.
“It is.” Reid looked up at Niko. His lips stretched back as a smile lit up his face.
The man was gorgeous when he smiled at him like that. Niko vowed he would do everything possible to keep that stunning smile on his face forever.
“I want you to know that I am serious about us. I want to be with you. Without you, I always felt like something was missing. It wasn’t until I ran into you again that I realized what I was missing was you.”
Reid stared up at him with so much love in his eyes that Niko thought he wasn’t going to be able to contain himself.
“If you decide that you don’t want to stay here in Baton, then I’m coming with you back to LA,” Niko continued.
“You’d really give up your life here to be with me?” Reid asked, running his fingers through Nikolai’s golden hair.
“I’d do anything for you.” With that, he leaned in and captured Reid’s lips in a kiss.
They spent the next hour enjoying each other’s bodies. Nikolai took Reid’s dick all the way into the back of his throat as he swallowed down the man he loved.
There was no questioning it—Niko’s heart belonged to his best friend. It always had. He was just too blind to understand what it meant earlier.
Around two a.m., they finally snuggled into each other and drifted off to sleep. The cum that dried on their bodies was a reminder that they belonged to each other—marking their territory and each claiming the other.
31
NIKOLAI
Ten Years Ago
The satin sheet lay casually over Nikolai’s bent leg as he rested his back against the headboard of the bed. Next to him, a woman in her fifties lay sprawled out on her stomach, softly snoring as she rested after her third orgasm of the night.
Across the room, Jean-Carlo stood next to a small table, butt-naked, biting into a strawberry as he scoped out the assortment of fruits and cheeses laid out before him. He reached for a cube of cheese and popped it into his mouth before he turned and walked back toward the bed.
“Say what you want, but this woman knows how to entertain,” Jean-Carlo said with a Spanish accent.
He slid into bed on the other side of the woman and lifted his arm when she cuddled into him.
“I think we are the ones who are supposed to be entertaining her,” Niko responded, his voice a little rougher than he intended.
Jean-Carlo glanced over at him, about to say something, but seemed to change his mind.
“Sorry, I’m just worried about Reid,” Niko added.
The man nodded, seeming to understand where Nikolai was coming from.
“Yeah, we all miss him.”
That wasn’t entirely true. Mikhail and his boss didn’t seem to give a shit that one of their earners was missing. You’d think that they would be out scouring the city, looking for one of their top earners. He was a member of their elite Diamond Squad after all. Or did that not really mean anything to them in the end?
Niko stared ahead, jaw tense as he ran through the scenario once again.
