Nikolas nodded, and Ben levered him to his feet, snorting faintly at the chain of imaginative swearing that accompanied the move. Nikolas gave him a sheepish look when he was finally moving. “It hurts. I’m too old to be shot.”
“Lean on me.” Nikolas was not too proud to do as Ben suggested, and he limped heavily alongside Ben to the back of the house.
§§§
Ben had dammed the stream at the small clapper bridge. He’d made use of the natural shape of the land to create a deep pool from which water now couldn’t escape, and it was filling slowly. He expected Nikolas to be derisive or laugh at him, but the other man was fascinated and wanted to help, but had to content himself with sitting on the bridge, feet in the almost black water, giving unneeded directions. Seeing him sitting there, brown now from his hours in the sun, hair scrunched and over his eyes in the front, Ben could see a boy running wild on a beach on Aeroe before real life caught up to him. He straightened from his dam building. “I wish I’d known you—Aleksey—you know, on Aeroe…before.”
“You weren’t even born, little baby. Besides, you would not have liked me. No one did.”
Ben chuckled. “And you are remembering what you know about ten-year-old me, yeah? I think we’d have got along just fine.”
“Perhaps. A wild boy on the moors, living rough…perhaps we havealwaysbeen soul mates.” He gave Ben a shy glance to see how this was taken, and when he wasn’t rejected or laughed at, added with a smile, “I planned to reach England once, in my sail boat, but I didn’t want to leave my horse—he was essential to my invasion plans. I tried to persuade him to climb in, too, but the process took so long, and was so unsuccessful that I was caught. Without the horse, I would’ve made it, of course. I had a map and everything.”
“I thought Nikolas was always your crew.”
Nik pursed his lips, sadly. “Nika was afraid of the sea beyond the islands. He wouldn’t come. But in my mind, he was always there—the beautiful one everyone would love and say how clever he was to make such a journey.”
“He wasn’t in the car to France either, was he?”
Nikolas gave an evil chuckle. “Actually, he was. I kidnapped him and tied him to the seat. He cried the whole way.”
Ben came and sat on the bridge with him. “I would’ve come with you.”
Nikolas began to laugh. “I would’ve had to fight you for the driver’s seat, I think.”
“We’d have made it far further than France before they caught us.”
“Ben and Aleksey’s most excellent adventure.”
“But you did love him…?You sacrificed so much for him.”
Nikolas was quiet for a while, watching the water slowly rising up the dark peat walls. “I thought it was love then. Now I know better.” He looked up and pulled Ben into a kiss, running his hands through the dark strands of his hair. “Lie back. I’m not drunk now.”
He wasn’t. Ben lay back in the warm evening sun, skin pleasantly scorched from his day, and closed his eyes as Nikolas caressed his hard cock with his lips, took it into his mouth and then further down his throat. Ben cried out, scrabbling on the old lichen-covered stone as a deep groin ache began. Very tentatively, he put a hand incredibly lightly on Nikolas’s head. Nikolas stilled and came up, staring at Ben, his lips swollen, pouting and irresistibly kissable. Ben snagged his fingers into the long, blond hair. “Just us here, Nik, and I won’t hurt you.”
Nikolas licked his lips, seemed hesitant for a moment then returned to Ben’s blood-darkened cock. Ben left his hand in Nikolas’s hair, careful not to put any pressure on, just lightly scraping and massaging the scalp with his nails. Finally, rising need carried him up and over the edge. He arched, trying not to hold Nikolas’s head down, and came in milky spurt after milky spurt, each lapped up and swallowed.
The effort had clearly taken a lot out of Nikolas. He lay back with a softfuckof pain. Ben lay still for some time, his cock soft on his shorts. He wanted to do something for Nikolas, but the other man just shook his head. Ben looked down and cursed. A few stitches had pulled out, tearing skin, and an ooze of reddish, clear liquid was trickling down Nikolas’s thigh. “I’m okay, Ben. It was worth it. Help me in though. I want to sleep. Tomorrow I will fuck you until you cry for mercy. You will see.”
“Tomorrow, you’re staying in bed. Orders.”
“Do not give me—”
Ben chuckled. Clearly the old Nikolas wasn’t entirely banished. “Shut the fuck up, soldier, and keep limping.”
§§§
When Nikolas woke the next time, he’d slept an entire eight hours of healing sleep, and he was clearly feeling a lot better. He limped down to find Ben and actually asked what they had to eat and wanted to get out in the fresh air. They went to the pool, which was almost full now; the original stream would soon cascade over the top of the bridge. Nikolas sat on the bank, throwing sticks for Radulf to swim for. He was an impressive swimmer, and his mongrel-wolfhound-lurcher-Heinz-variety origins became blurred, so he resembled nothing more than a large otter paddling about. Except possibly for the stick sticking out either side of his muzzle.
The lines of pain and stress had faded from Nikolas’s face. His office pallor had darkened into a golden tan, and his hair had lightened with chunks of gold in the fringe that now fell constantly in his eyes, and which he swept from his face in a boyish gesture whenever it annoyed him. He had refused the pain meds and seemed very content watching Ben mess around with his dam. Contentment swelled visibly to joy when, with a lazy, deceptively innocent stretch, Ben pulled off his T-shirt and continued to build shirtless. Five minutes later, Ben stood and surveyed the deep, black pool. “I think I’m done.” He released the button on his shorts, and they slipped off his slim hips and fell to his ankles. Commando, he stood in the bright sun a little way from Nikolas then slowly walked down into the water. It came to his shoulders. He pushed off strongly and duck-dived under.
From the top, the pool was black, the colour of the peat suspended in it. But, from below, as Ben knew from experience, it was a totally different world. Shafts of sunlight filtered down, illuminating the rocks and pebbles, which glowed with green algae; and the quartz caught in the grit at the bottom twinkled like diamonds. He twisted around and held onto a rock, watching Radulf swimming from below, then turned and swam back towards the bank where everything he wanted was sitting. He wondered how many other people were lucky enough to have an entire universe of need satisfied by one blond-haired man. Ben broke the surface, coming slowly out of the water. Despite the cold of the pool, thinking about Nikolas had sent his blood south, and his cock was long and thick, not fully risen yet, but independent, twitching away from his thighs, defying gravity. He walked slowly up to Nikolas and stood over him, the cold drips of water falling on the upturned face. Nikolas lay back and very carefully eased his shorts down over his bandaged leg. He held out his hand and Ben took it. “Fuck me, Benjamin.”
Ben shook his head. “I’m going to make love to you.” He braced himself over Nikolas, lifting one thigh carefully. They kept their gazes locked as Ben used his water-cool fingers to open Nikolas up. Nikolas arched, and his cock began to swell. It was shockingly pale pink now against his hard, tanned abdomen. Ben added another finger. Nikolas flung an arm over his eyes. Ben pulled it away. “I want to see your face—being made love to.” He leaned up and kissed him, sharing tongues and spit. Then Ben’s fingers found the place that made Nikolas seize Ben’s head, made his eyes go wide and his body tense up like a drum. Ben murmured something meaningless and began to kiss around his face, over his eyes, his neck, his ears. He kept working his finger over the gland, pressing on it, grazing Nikolas’s cock with his other hand, skimming the tip with his thumb, using light strokes to drive Nikolas wild. Then, very slowly, he withdrew his fingers and replaced them, inch by slow inch, with his still cool, pre-cum slick cock. When he was fully embedded, he lifted his mouth from Nikolas’s ear and gazed down at the familiar face beneath him. “I’m inside your body.”
Nikolas creased his forehead fractionally in puzzlement, not used to conversations at such a time. “Yes, you are.”
“Insideyou, Aleksey. Aleksey Mikkelsen.”
