Ben stilled for a moment.“Russian?Emiliawasin Russia.I was in Russia.Emilia was the princess in the mist with the hair like fire.I remember Emilia.She was just a kid…She…” He looked down at Nikolas’s sparkling eyes and hit him again, just because he could.He lay alongside him on his back in the moonlight, cold, naked and wet.
“You utter bastard.”
“Ack, you needed the exercise.You’re getting fat.What did she say before you broke my phone?”Nikolas prodded gingerly over his nose as he spoke.
Ben was too busy trying to sort memories to reply.A girl.Trees.A river.Snow that made him happy.And that was the memory that then became crystal clear—the two of them making love in the snow.“Oh.”He turned his head.He’d chased a stranger up this tor, but beside him now was Nikolas—still indistinct, distant, as if seeing him from the wrong end of a telescope, but Nikolas, nevertheless.The man he’d lain with somewhere in the snow and kissed until his lips had been swollen from the rub of stubble.Herememberedhow he felt about that man.He wasn’tfeelingit now, but he remembered it, and that was overwhelming.
He grabbed Nikolas and began to kiss him again, wanting that swell and friction on his lips.Nikolas tasted of peat and cold air.
He tasted of desire.
Ben mouthed into the kiss, “I remember you.”
* * *
Chapter Twenty
Guilt was a very easy emotion to provoke in Ben Rider-Mikkelsen.Nikolas made a huge fuss about his phone, whilst secretly glad it was broken so he could update it with the latest model.He was incredibly touched later that day, however, when Ben appeared with the old phone mended.Nikolas had never owned anything stuck together with electrical tape before.It was rather novel.If he tapped the phone a few times first it actually worked.Ben claimed Harry Black could fix anything: he’d used it once or twice on his bike.That had led to a deep frown and a hesitant,
“Do I still have my Suzuki?I guess not.Ten years.Fuck.”
Nikolas smiled.He liked giving Ben Rider-Mikkelsen pleasure—he liked annoying him more, but giving pleasure was good as well.
“Have you not been in the garage?”
“You have a garage here?”
“Youhave a garage here.”
Nikolas led the way back toward the stables and then down to the tennis court.Ben stopped to look at this for a while, but Nikolas was impatient to show him what was in the garage.
Ben fell in love with his urban-chic monster as quickly and completely as he had the first time he’d seen it.
“When did I get this?”He was running his hands over its matte perfection.
“For yourthirtiethbirthday.”
He glanced up quickly.“You bought it for me?”
Nikolas shrugged, remembering the complex emotions he’d felt leaving for Russia with Gregory.
“Come.I must return to London for a while and find myself a new computer expert.”When in the wrong, when feeling guilty, throw the culpability out to someone else.Ben immediately apologised yet again for Kate, and Nikolas magnanimously nodded his head in acceptance.He actually did need a new computer expert.He had a feeling he and Kate wouldn’t be working together again.
Ben trailed after Nikolas into the bedroom.Nikolas was packing a few things and drawled, “No,” amused.
Ben, whose eyes had been focused on the bed, immediately protested, “What?I wasn’t thinking that!”
Nikolas snorted.“Yes, you were.”
* * *
Ben couldn’t argue.He had been thinking about sex again.He sat on the bed, watching Nikolas.
What the fuck?Again.
But seriously…what the fuck?
Aman.
