Aleksey sensed that pointing out the complete lack of logic in this wouldn’t help his cause so pretended to be taking it seriously. He could tell by Ben’s expression that he wasn’t fooled and so shook one of his restraints. ‘Well, I’m not going anywhere right now it seems.’ Nodding, Ben began to undo the wrist tie. Aleksey wrinkled his nose, confused.
‘That ends that fun then?’
‘You’re missing the point.’
Aleksey pondered this as Ben reached across and undid his other tether. He rose onto his knees, still fastened at the ankles but now able to stretch and release some kinks. Ben was in the same position and shuffled around so they were face to face, some parts now touching, which made them both glance down for a moment. Ben cupped his face and brought their lips together, and what started as a gentle kiss turned into a hungry sharing of desire. Aleksey ran his fingers over Ben’s short hair and murmured,
‘God, I love kissing you.’
Ben responded by sliding his hand around and cupping one firm cheek, crushing them tightly together and whispered, ‘Do you get it now?’
‘Squeeze harder and I’ll let you know.’ Before Ben could reply, Aleksey pushed him to one side, dragging him into a better position and mounted him. But still restrained by his ankles, he couldn’t get close enough or thrust as hard as he wanted. Ben shoved back against him then did it again. They both moaned at the same time and came, Ben’s fingers clawing the rumpled sheets, and his raking down Ben’s flared ribs. They were both panting when he collapsed upon the hot body beneath him. After a long, blissful moment as he lay on the warm skin, listening to their hearts beating in sync, he heard once more,
‘So, do you get it?’
‘I’m imprisoned for life by my love for you?’
Ben laughed out loud, the sound jiggling Aleksey as he lay content on top.
‘No? Hmm, let me think then. That if I run—leave—again, I’d better do it more sneakily so you don’t catch me and tie me up again? Wait! Ah! I have it—I trapmyselfbut only you can set me free? No! Don’t! I get it. I am that god—the mythical bringer of all knowledge to weaker mortals—ow—chained to a rock—fuck—’ He got no further. While attempting to untie his restraints so he could fight back, Ben got a few savage digs in before pinning him down, this time by weight alone, and penetrating him—hard. One hand on his neck, one feeding himself in, Ben took no prisoners, and even though only one leg was still trapped, Aleksey didn’t fight the entry at all. He lay prone, wrung out but more than willing for Ben to shoot another load inside him. He wouldn’t have gone anywhere else, even if he could.
And in this private confession, he got what Ben had been trying to tell him: restrained, unrestrained—it didn’t matter anymore. They were bound to each other by promises—his to be a good man, Ben’s to believe he was, despite knowing better. Perhaps the wedding had had more effect on Ben than he’d let on. Sitting in that little chapel with the notes of the cello still vibrating through everyone there, he’d studied Ben’s profile as their fingers had been joined between them, and when Martin had saidfor better or for worseit was possible that Ben had heard in this an echo of his declaration to the moron. Weren’t those traditional words the same as saying I don’t care that you have been an evil man; I’ll abide with you even if you bring that evil down upon us again?
It had taken a year, a few dead men and women, more than a few wrecked boats, and one fearsome scar, but here they were. And the pastdidn’tmatter. If its ghosts resurfaced from time to time—a photograph, a piece of music, a mother—they would always face these challenges together. He felt Ben spill deep inside him, grunted at the sensation of the weight collapsing on top of him, and in this wet joining drifted off into a dream where someone was asking him urgentlydo you get it yet,do you get it now, and knew, as you sometimes did in dreams, that this was not Ben’s voice, and the question was one he really did need to get right this time.
***
Chapter Three
The sun had still hardly risen on the tor Aleksey was watching from his warm dent in the bed, when he asked idly, ‘What do you want to do today?’
Ben didn’t reply. Couldn’t really—he had his mouth full.
Aleksey relaxed back, head on folded arms and waited. After their activity so far that morning, he reckoned he’d have a long wait. Eventually, Ben appeared to come to the same conclusion and rose slowly up him, licking as he came. Aleksey repeated his question, and Ben glanced out at the frosty January day, smirking. ‘I’m doing it.’
Aleksey snagged him back to his side and knuckle-rubbed his hair and they lay entwined, just thinking their own thoughts and not needing anyone or anything else. This, however, wasn’t acceptable to other members of the family, and after another few moments, they both heard a familiar click, clicking coming across the swim lane. Aleksey muttered, ‘You’d better take him out.’
Ben snorted. ‘Because he’smydog?’
Radulf climbed up alongside them and settled down to be patiently demanding, as was his self-appointed role.
When they did eventually emerge into the daylight, they were glad they’d been forced out. The sun was low in a cerulean sky, almost blinding in its intensity, despite the lack of real warmth. The dogs began to skitter excitedly over the frost to the empty marquee, sniffing and adorning tent pegs when they got there. Ben, hands in his pockets, suddenly suggested, ‘Let’s go to Timbo’s. I need to take Squeezy’s tools back. We can mooch lunch off them for a change.’
Unable to think of a good reason why he didn’t want to see Ben’s two useless friends, he shrugged and trailed after the other three towards the garage. Within a few minutes, all four of them were emerging from lanes covered in bare branches up onto the barren wilderness of Dartmoor, and it struck him once more how beautiful the place was in all its seasons. It was hard even for a foreigner used to far harsher climes to find anything noteworthy about January in England, but he’d discovered the moors were an exception to this general rule. The tors were stark and desolate, and the entire place held a sense of the slumbering of some great power held in abeyance. He mussed on the theory that if witnessing death made you horny, perhaps excessive sex made you appreciate the deceptively dead landscape of winter-barren moorland. When he saw Ben easing himself slightly against the black leather seat, he grinned, opened his window and breathed in the cold air, pockets of pristine white snow catching his eye as they sped past. Ben had declared the old days gone, that the past didn’t matter, but Aleksey knew the past always informed the present. Whatever good they had sensed in each other, they had discovered it during those years of pain and confusion, of masks, and of lies told in shadows. Here on the moors, just the two of them, it seemed to him as if they relived the essence of those times again: freedom, possibility, passion. He turned to find Ben holding his phone towards him, laughing at his expression as the wind whipped his hair, and a photo clicked. ‘Perfect.’
He smiled self-deprecatingly. ‘I am. I have been reliably informed so. And eyes? Road?’
Ben stowed his phone at this familiar chastisement, and they continued. As they bumped into the cobbled driveway of the old cottage, Tim came to the door, wiping his hands on a tea towel. He frowned toward the back of the car and then stepped out as if to get a better look. Radulf and PB, released from their imprisonment, pushed past his legs and went on a snack mission, as they always did. Ben, fishing the bag of tools out of the boot, called over,
‘Where’s Squeezy? I’ve brought his toolkit back. I’ll put it in the garage.’
At this, Tim suddenly wrapped his arms around his body, turned abruptly and disappeared back inside.
As it was stillhiscottage really, despite generous gestures made to annoy the moron, Aleksey ducked beneath the lintel without an invitation and went to see if a bit more politeness from his employee was in the offing. Tim was indeed boiling the kettle, but this seemed more a gesture of unconscious Englishness than the prelude to doing anything more hospitable. Aleksey sat down, also uninvited and waited for his better half to appear. Ben came in before the silence got awkward and, oblivious to some strange tension thathe’dnoticed straight away, began to raid the biscuit stash.
‘He out? We should’ve phoned first. Sorry.’
Tim nodded, still intent on his unproductive kettle-watching.
