Jonah had already seen the scar on Sacha’s neck. He reached for the lamp and bathed the room in a golden glow. Sacha sat up slightly, and parted his hair, revealing a curved scar on his scalp. Breath caught, Jonah traced it with his fingertip. “That’s big. I can’t believe you can’t see it through your hair.”
“It is old,” Sacha said. “Long time ago, but my head hurts sometimes since then. If tired, if I do not eat enough. Sometimes if I come too hard as well, so it is always a danger with you.”
“Has that happened? Has fucking me given you a migraine?”
“Once,” Sacha said, his lips twisting in a smirk. “The second time we were together. I put my tongue in you, then I fucked you. I did not know it at the time, but it was…a lot for me.”
Jonah searched his memories of that heady night, the long hours they’d spent hunched over their computers, and then the breath-taking orgasm Sacha had bestowed on him. He scoured every image that flashed through his mind but found none that clued him into Sacha’s discomfort. “I wish I’d known you were in pain.”
Sacha propped his head on his hand and stared at Jonah with his unblinking hazel eyes. “Why?”
Because I love you.Jonah shrugged, sidestepping the impact of the startling realisation that it was true—he really did love this infuriating man. “Because you shouldn’t have gone through it alone.”
“I wasn’t alone. You were snoring beside me.”
“I don’t snore.”
“How do you know?”
“Because you’re smug enough to have told me a dozen times by now.”
“That is maybe true, but why do you want to know I have a headache when you sleep?”
“Maybe the same reason you asked me to stay with you last night.”
Comprehension dawned in Sacha’s gaze. He reached out and cupped Jonah’s cheek with a hand that was now warm, alive, because dear god he’d seemed half dead last night. “I think…”
“What?” Jonah whispered. “What do you think?”
“I think, perhaps, that you are right, Jonah Gray.”
A smile split Jonah’s face in half. He tried to contain it, but didn’t care that he failed.
Sacha smiled too, droll and wry. “I do not know what amuses you so. You are not funny.”
“I know. Butyouare.”
“And how is that?”
“You don’t like it when you lose control of anything…even something as wholesome as this?”
“Wholesome?”
“Yes. We can be good for each other, Sacha. You have to believe that.”
“Oh, I do.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes.” Sacha pulled Jonah towards him. “But there is nothingwholesomeabout the way you make me feel right now,luchik.”
Jonah let Sacha draw him closer until their bodies were pressed together, chest to chest, limbs entwined, hard lengths straining for release. “You still need to tell me what that means.”
“What?”
“Luchik.” Jonah cringed at his pronunciation. “You’ve been saying it since we met and I have no idea what it is.”
Sacha’s slight smirk softened. “I will tell you soon.”
