Nikolas Mikkelsen wasn’t going anywhere.
* * *
Nikolas got the message things were changing fairly loud and clear when he returned from fetching Radulf from Barton Combe.At first, he thought it was an odd trick of the light on a glass house as there appeared to be a huge tree in his immaculate living space.
As he drove down he realised therewasa huge tree in the house.
Ben had cut a blue spruce from the grounds and dragged it in.A fourteen-foot blue spruce.He’d propped it up against the glass and tied it to one of the steel rafters.“I’ll buy a stand this afternoon.”
Nikolas nodded.
“When I buy all the other decorations.”
* * *
It was one of the disadvantages of owning a large house, Ben quickly discovered, that there were a lot of rooms to decorate once you got going.Nikolas could have told him this, had he been consulted, for he’d lived in a very large house for ten years, which his ex-wife had filled every Christmas with vast swaths of tasteful greenery, candles and artful ribbons in a subtle off-white (she’d told him it was called Antique White but it looked more like Piss-on-Ice White to him).She’d employed a firm from London, and the result was always exquisite.Upon reflection, Nikolas decided he preferred Ben’s style.It was haphazard, to be sure, but it was exuberant and enthusiastic—and Ben did it all himself the following afternoon while Nikolas was out riding.
All Nikolas was required to do was to come and admire it—the tinsel, the lights, the life-size illuminated reindeer…the fake snow sprayed on his beautiful floor to ceiling windows.He professed a pleasure and delight he didn’t wholly feel, until he went to their bedroom to change.Walking toward his swim lane, which joined the main house to their private area, he saw Ben had bought and lit hundreds of floating candles and launched them onto the still water.Each one was reflected in the glass surrounding the pool, and the light was thrown back by the December darkness.It was one of the most beautiful things he could remember seeing for a long time.Except for one thing.He went to find Ben Rider-Mikkelsen, so he could admire fully and truthfully the only beauty he needed and one he’d taken for granted for far too long.
Ben was in the billiard room with handfuls of tinsel yet to be used, pondering.Nikolas ignored this, didn’t ask, and went up and pressed himself against Ben’s hard body.It was one of the distinct advantages, he reckoned, of having sex with men that their bodies were so hard and angular, and invited being thrust against.He still remembered what it felt like to embrace the softer kind of body.It hadn’t come with the frisson of danger this did.Males of any species didn’t fuck lightly.It was a dangerous occupation, and grinding now against this hard killer held a delight—“Ben, put the tinsel down, please.”
He ran his hands up under Ben’s T-shirt, loving the feel of his ridged abs.Nikolas began to manoeuvre Ben toward the table, his intent clear.Ben suddenly twisted to one side, an evil smirk quickly whipped away when he faced Nikolas.“This must be just like our first time.Is it?”
Nikolas frowned.“You don’t remember?I thought you had all your mem—”
“Well, I don’t know, do I?I don’t know what I can’t remember…It’s still mixed up.See,” he snagged Nikolas’s belt and tugged him a little closer, “I remember being invited in for a game of billiards and actually being worried I didn’t know how to play.But apparently I seduced a happily married man.It’s so confusing.I don’t know what to believe.”
“Hmm.That is a worrying memory loss.What are you going to do about it?”
“I thought I’d try jogging some of those memories back.Bend over the table.”
“But—”
* * *
Ben pushed Nikolas into the position he wanted and forced himself hard against Nikolas’s backside.It was an uncomfortable way to lie; he knew this well enough.“I’m trying to see if this feels right.Happily married man bent over…well, I haven’t got one of those, you’ll have to do…and me unzipping behind him.Hmm.Yes, this might be right.Let’s just lower…” He pulled Nikolas’s jeans and shorts down just enough to expose what he wanted.Then he smacked him hard.“Happily married man should be fighting back a bit?He’s being seduced!”
Nikolas snorted.“I’m beginning to understand your lack of success with women.”He dutifully put up some resistance however.Nikolas never did anything by halves and fighting back took on a whole new meaning when he wanted it to.He swung around, caught Ben’s waist and propelled him to the ground.Ben would have scrambled out from under and got away, but Nikolas seized his belt and Ben cursed, falling back to the floor.Nikolas was on him, lying heavy, pinning Ben’s wrists down.
Ben shook his head.“Now we’re reverting to the version I’m confused about.No happily married men present at all, and me not seducing anyone—me, in fact, being fucked by the man I thought was sizing me up for a job.”
“I’m not surprised you’re confused then.Pity there’s no one you can consult to tell you the truth of that encounter.”
Ben flipped them, forcing Nikolas’s wrists down, using his superior weight.“I don’t need anyone to tell me anything.I’ve decided my gut instinct works pretty well.”
“What does it tell you?”
Ben sank totally onto Nikolas’s body and kissed him, pulling his lower lip into his mouth, teasing it with his teeth before releasing it.“It tells me neither of us had to do any seducing whatsoever.That we both knew what was going to happen when you asked me if I played billiards.”
“I think your memory is improving.”
They kissed for a while, but they both knew what they really wanted and that the kissing was only a prelude to this, which was an imperative now.Ben felt consumed with need for Nikolas, a desire to be inside him beyond his power to deny.
Without any effort at all, Ben could switch in his mind from seeing the Nikolas he’d known and loved for eight years, to seeing a new and very strange boss who sent daggers of lust into his groin just looking at him.It was incredibly exhilarating to have his passion for Nikolas confirmed.It wasn’t an aberration, because it had happened again, and Ben knew it would happen over and over, however many times they met as strangers.
Nikolas began to reverse their positions as they kissed, working them so he was on top, but Ben shook his head.Very slowly, with deliberate intent, he turned Nikolas face to the floor, half lying on him to hold him down but leaving all his beautiful rounded flesh available to be explored, conquered.Forced hard into the carpet, Nikolas groaned at the delicious friction, and the sound took Ben down to a place where all he could hear was roaring need in his ears, a rush of adrenaline, and then the incredible tight grip of pleasure as his cock forced its way past resistance.
He pulled out and felt it all over again…and again and again—his whole body consumed by the sensation, blind, deaf, just great waves of building intensity in his balls and cock, and his own backside now aching to be filled as well, throbbing with emptiness, which drove him on to the place that awaited him at the end of the climb.
