It was exactly what he’d tried to avoid happening by not telling Ben what their relationship had been.Worried what this might be doing to Ben’s fractured mind, he asked tentatively, “Do you feel all right?Andrea Gillian insisted—” He was silenced by a sudden kiss.Ben slid off his stool and pressed against him.Nikolas opened his thighs and took Ben between them, lifting his legs, wrapping them around the knotted sheet.Incredibly, Ben lifted him.They tumbled to the floor.Nikolas tried to say he didn’t fuck in the kitchen, but it was too late.Ben had freed him and taken him into his mouth.
It was Nikolas’s favourite thing, and he lay staring up at his perfect chrome pans, freshly polished by his cleaning service that day, and couldn’t have stopped what happened if he’d been a saint.He was far from that so it did happen.He shot hard and fast.He would have returned the favour, but he wasn’t sure he could move.He heard a rustle and click-clicking then saw Radulf from upside down.Radulf licked his face.Nikolas would have advised him not to if he’d thought about it.The dog sneezed at the odd taste and padded over to the door, wagging his tail hopefully.Ben stood up and offered Nikolas his hand.Nikolas accepted the gesture and waved at Ben’s sheet, which had slipped once more.
“I’ll take him out.”
“Wait for me.”
They were awfully polite.
Ben shot back to the bedroom he was occupying and re-emerged wearing some jeans and pulling a sweater over his head, then hopping into shoes.Nikolas handed him his jacket.Ben thanked him civilly once more, and they stepped out onto the moonlit gravel.Radulf went off to conduct his own business, and they stood together under the vast dome of stars, stamping for warmth, while Nikolas lit a cigarette.He tipped his head back and blew a stream of smoke into the cold air.
Ben was still watching him.
Again, Nikolas thought he might be.
Finally, he sighed.“Just say it, Benjamin.Whatever is on your mind.I’ve heard most of your odd pronouncements over eight years.I don’t think anything you say will shock me.”
“Me fucking Kate shocked you.”
Nikolas winced and began to turn away.Ben caught his arm.“I thought so.That kinda answers my question about what we are, doesn’t it?”
“Does it?”
“Tell me!”
“We’ve been together nearly nine years.”
Ben staggered slightly.“Nine years!You and me?Together?In a rel…That’s…and Kate knew?Why did she do it?”
Nikolas took another drag on his cigarette.
“It goes back a long way.It’s my fault in some ways.I deliberately pushedusunder her nose.I’m a bad man, Benjamin.You’ll remember this when you regain your memory.I was…impressed with myself that I had you and she didn’t.And I think recently it has been playing on her mind.”
“Huh.”
It was Nikolas’s turn to eye Ben warily for a moment.“I wish now I’d told you when you first came into the kitchen in London.When you asked me who I was, perhaps I should have told you.You don’t seem as disturbed by this as I thought you would be.You were more surprised after the first time we fucked, I think.Shocked, I seem to recall.Actually, I think you might have vomited.”
Ben shook his head.“Bollocks.That’s not true.”
Nikolas grabbed his arm.“You remember?”
Ben shook his head.“No.But I knowthat’snot true.I must have been thinking then what I’m thinking now…” He demonstrated what this was by taking Nikolas’s face firmly in his hands and kissing him, his tongue demanding entry.He mumbled something into the kiss then pulled further away, his nose wrinkling.
“Are you sure I like you smoking?”
Nikolas nodded.“Very much so.”He took a long drag and resumed the kiss, the smoke now shared between them.Ben laughed and plunged his cold hands into the back of Nikolas’s trousers, and that was so familiar Nikolas had to stop for a moment and just hold him to regain his equilibrium.
Ben embraced him tightly until they heard Radulf returning and they began to accompany him back to the house.“I’m not staying in that other room.”
Nikolas ruffled his hair.“No.You’re not.”
“But this is going to be difficult for you, isn’t it?I mean, this is all new to me, so everything is confusing…but it’s me butnot mefor you.Does that make sense?”
“Yes, it does, because I’ve already thought it myself.You but not you.”
“I may do things that hurt you but I don’t know I’m doing them—like Kate.Fuck, I can’t believe I did that now and in your house.That’s not like me.”
“No, it’s not.I suspect you were very expertly manipulated.”
