Ben blew out his cheeks, then closed his eyes and tipped his head back to the weak autumn sun. It was very, very hard to argue with someone who was so incredibly beautiful. It was a fundamental human instinct to respond to such perfection, to want it, to be drawn to it. Aleksey studied the tanned skin on Ben’s arm where it ran down to the bracelets he wore—the AK47 hammered metal and the leather Best Daddy in The World.
He put his forehead down on his folded arms.
He felt a hand land lightly on his back. ‘Is this the first time ever we’ve both been wrong at the same time?’
He turned his head to Ben to consider this question. ‘What would it mean if I said I think it is?’
Ben smiled. Then flicked his ear. ‘It means you have to say sorry.’
‘Why me first?’
‘Them’s the rules.’
‘Huh. Just remind me again—what am I apologising for?’
Ben gave him a hard sideward thump with his body, and Aleksey laughingly said, ‘I’m sorry.’
Ben stayed with their arms touching. ‘Yeah. Me too. Don’t be a backseat driver.’
‘Don’t keep getting my name wrong.’
‘Oh, my, God! Seriously! I’ll call you what I fucking want! You used to make me call you sir!’
‘Well, how about you go back to that then and do what I ask you to do when you’re driving my—hey. Don’t walk—’
To his astonishment, Ben actually came back. A bit too close, if truth be told. Aleksey leaned away from the furious expression.
‘Whose car? When I’m driving whose car?’
Aleksey swallowed. ‘Ours?’
Ben smiled then, and even if the sun was a weak autumn one, the illumination of the day brightened considerably. Aleksey ducked his head and repeated genuinely, ‘Sorry.’ He snagged Ben closer with a pinch of the warm cotton fabric of his shirt. Ben leaned once more on the rail and they stood, arms pressed together, watching the islands grow nearer.
If they’d been alone, or if it were another kind of world, he’d have kissed Ben. But in some ways this was better. No one could now look at them and have any idea what they were to each other. That was private, and the privacy only intensified the simmering passion.
* * *
Chapter Nineteen
Perhaps feeling more intensely than usual how fragile everything he had was, and how hard therefore he’d better work at keeping it, Aleksey suggested they all go for dinner and spend one night in the hotel before they set off for Guillemot. Instead of their usual restaurant, they went to a pub which was renowned for locally sourced food, and in particular seafood from the waters around the islands.
It was particularly pleasant sitting in the cool September garden which led down to a pristine golden-sand beach, which in turn was lapped by twilight-indigo water. He’d realised it might be a good idea for them all to have a few drinks, or more than a few, so let Ben and Squeezy keep the rounds coming. They weren’t getting drunk—he had better plans for Ben that night—but it was relaxing, feeling once more his drug of choice easing out the kinks and knots of his personality. He was more willing to let the other three laugh at him, which in turn made Ben switch to his defence, so by the time they got back to their hotel room they were both entirely buzzed by little more than admiration of themselves. And that took the seriousness out of the love making—some of the intensity too, but neither regretted the loss. They squabbled, laughed, rolled, realised too late the deleterious effects of alcohol and admitted defeat curled in each other’s arms, watching the stars appear over the ocean through the open windows.
If he had to choose between being Benjamin Rider-Mikkelsen’s best friend with no fringe benefits, or his lover but also his enemy, Aleksey knew with complete certainty that he would give up sex forever to be the one this man just liked the best.
‘My head is spinning.’ The voice came out muffled from where Ben’s face was pressed into his neck.
‘That is because you are getting old and no longer have hollow legs.’
‘Cheers.’
‘You once drank twenty pints in the space of an hour. I counted.’
‘Ugh. You spent our first four years together entirely pickled.’
Aleksey chuckled. It was too true to refute. And it hadn’t just been alcohol. ‘It is why I am so well-preserved now.’
‘I think it’s the salt.’
