Ben chuckled. ‘So, you love Squeezy then? You bought him a house.’
‘I think I gave my opinion on him today.’
‘So…not the buying of things. Not intuition. Yeah, six months ago then—and that was only forced out of you because you thought we were going to die.’ Ben flicked his ear. It stung.
‘I was merely regrouping before a dramatic escape bid.’
‘You’re deliberately focusing on the wrong thing. Six months…it’s a long time.’
‘So I need to say it more?’
‘What do you think?’
Aleksey snorted. ‘Good one.’ He pulled away and tapped Ben’s nose. ‘Remind me more often to tell you then. You are very remiss. I’m going to swim. Let me know when some food is ready—and cooked would be appreciated.’
He sauntered away, not needing to see the expression (or possibly gesture) being made behind his back.
That’s just the way they were together.
* * *
That night, it seemed to Aleksey as if Ben were trying to physically wring the confession from him. Ben had waited until he was almost asleep in a perfect spoon, and had then twisted around, pushing him onto his back.
Aleksey felt his shoulders being pinned and Ben’s considerable weight lying on top of him. He’d smirked into the darkness. He never talked during sex and the occasional recent lapse of this rule didn’t mean that liberties could be taken whenever Ben Rider-Mikkelsen felt like it. That wasn’t how this relationship worked.
It gave him an immediate spark of lust deep in the base of his spine when he realised that Ben must have been planning this as they’d readied for bed. As he’d gotten comfortable, wrapped around Ben’s strong body, his chest to Ben’s back, arm loosely over him, thinking about nothing more than sleep, Ben had been thinking about him—his body. Of all the people in the world Ben could choose to be in this bed with, to have sex with, he still chose him. It humbled Aleksey to know this, although clearly he wasn’t about to actually tell his other half this. Self-effacing wasn’t exactly his strongest trait.
He grunted with anticipatory pain when Ben sat up and bounced to get comfortable, his hands idly roving around chest and ribs. Anything could happen. It could be extremely pleasurable, or…not. Ben was in control. They both knew this. Ben’s body was extraordinary, and not just because he’d been blessed with an excellent physique. He put the work in, and this was the result. At thirty-eight, he was possibly at his peak, and he clearly knew it by the smirk that betrayed his otherwise serious demeanour.
Aleksey still had a few tricks up his sleeve he could bring into play if he really felt motivated. But these all involved subjecting Ben to things that Ben wouldn’t inflict on him. So he didn’t do any of them. He no longer felt any need to prove who was meaner or more ruthless—who knew more about pleasure and pain. He showed Ben in other ways how much he loved him, and this confident man sitting on him now was a product of that less travelled path.
He smirked back. He wasn’t going to say it.
It was something of a battle of wills now.
Ben saw the challenge in the quirk of his lips and accepted it.
He flipped him onto his belly and began to slick him up with a licked finger, easing it over his hole, dipping in, making him arch, his shoulders rising from the bed in a graceful curve of spine. He hung his head as the finger penetrated him and Ben straddled him, biting lightly into his exposed neck, then harder, probably marking him. He groaned and Ben murmured, ‘Tell me.’
He almost laughed, but he’d learnt from experience that this never helped his cause, so instead, decided to confuse the issue. ‘You know that is not my way, Ben—to speak.’
He heard Ben’s fury before he felt the effect of it, the gentle preparation below turning into a hard, resounding smack of palm on his backside. Yeah, tell Ben by speaking that he didn’t like to speak during sex. He’d thought that might get a reaction.
Ben put a hand to the back of his head and began to push him down into the pillow. He resisted, and his arms and shoulders were extremely strong, but eventually Ben’s weight won out, and he was forced face first against the mattress. He was being muffled, which was almost funny. He mumbled this obvious contradiction to being able to tell Ben what he wanted to hear, and Ben then had to let him up to hear what he’d said, which he then didn’t repeat.
Ben turned him over once more and resumed his position sitting on him. Now face to face, Ben had to change tactics, and Aleksey could see the gears turning. He reached idly for his pack of cigarettes, but Ben forced his arms back, and pinned them over his head. ‘I could make you give those up.’
Aleksey made a doubtful face. ‘When you were present you might, yes.’
Ben narrowed his eyes. ‘I could add it to your other promises.’
Aleksey didn’t want to call Ben on this bluff, so quickly changed tack. ‘I don’t need to tell you things, Ben, because by not saying them they are actually understood more.’
Ben made a scoffing noise at this fallacy and got more comfortable, lying lower into the hold. It was a mistake. It allowed Aleksey to bring his legs up, twist and throw him off and, still extremely quick when he wanted to be, he lay heavy on Ben’s back. He knew he could probably be dislodged, but he distracted Ben by beginning to stroke his hair up the wrong way, tugging on the strands as he did so, placing bites into the firm muscle of his shoulders. And then he forced himself into the superb body. Ben hissed, then groaned, and was there anything more privileged than to be the one who heard that noise, who brought forth that sound? Aleksey didn’t think so. He pulled Ben onto his hands and knees for better access, and Ben went with it, allowing himself to be exposed and opened fully, to be penetrated and taken.
In many ways, Aleksey knew that this wasn’t love. Not the physical act alone. The love was in the conscious choice to do this only with one person and to know that person also chose only you. The intimacy was in the exclusiveness. The love was everything else they shared, which this was just the private expression of.
As he was thinking these things, his fingers splayed on Ben’s warm back, the pleasure mounting at the base of his spine and spreading, Ben rose onto his knees and in a move Aleksey couldn’t even untangle in his mind, tipped them and swung across him to be riding him, still impaled, and he supine and entirely embedded in Ben’s sweat-slick body. Ben rested his arms on Aleksey’s chest and ground back onto him, making them both groan, and at the sound Ben spread his fingers over Aleksey’s face and in a husky voice demanded, ‘Say it.’
