He stretches out over me, his chest warm against mine. I can feel the friction of his skin, the fine hair of his legs against my own. He is so much heat in a world that has been cold for so long.
"Tell me if it hurts," he whispers, his mouth finding the sensitive skin of my neck.
"It hurts anyway. Make it mean something else."
He reaches down, his hand sliding between our bodies to find me. I am already hard, a physiological response to his proximity and the sheer, intoxicating reality of our escape. He wraps his fingers around the base, his grip firm and steady.
"You're so hot," he gasps, his lips brushing my ear. "I thought you were going to be cold forever."
"Touch me," I command. The voice of the interrogator returns, but it's a plea now. "Nikolai, touch me."
He begins to move his hand, a slow, deliberate stroke. He isn't rushing. He is savoring the contact, his eyes locked on mine as he watches my reaction. I hiss through my teeth, my hips making a small, aborted movement toward his palm. The pain in my side flares, a sharp reminder of the bullet, but it is drowned out by the rising tide of pleasure.
"Like that?" he asks, his thumb swiping across the head.
"Yes."
He increases the speed, his other hand fisting in the sheets beside my head. He is leaning into me, his weight a grounding force. I can feel his own cock pressing against my thigh, hot and leaking.
"I want to taste you," he whispers.
He shifts his weight, moving down my body. I watch him go, my heart rate on the monitor climbing into a frantic staccato. He avoids my bandaged side with a surgeon's precision, his mouth finding me with a hunger that makes me cry out.
The sensation is a demolition. His tongue is wet and rough, his lips tight around me. He takes me deep, his hand working at the base, and I feel the control I’ve maintained for seventeen years start to shatter. This isn't a procedure. This isn't a data point. This is the unmaking of Alexei Morozov.
I reach up with my right hand, the one that isn't connected to the IV, and find his hair. The short, bristly strands are a shock under my palm. I pull him closer, my fingers digging into his scalp as I thrust up into his mouth.
"Nikolai," I groan, my eyes rolling back.
He doesn't stop. He works me with a desperate, worshipful intensity. I can hear the sounds of his mouth, the wet friction, the hitch in his own breathing. He is crying again—I can feel the warm drops on my thighs—but he doesn't pull away.
I am close. The pleasure is a white light behind my eyes, a pressure that needs to break.
"Come for me," he says, pulling back just enough to look at me, his face flushed and wet. "Show me you're alive, Alexei."
I grab his shoulder, my fingers bruising the skin, and I come. It is a violent, shaking release that leaves me gasping for air. The monitor lets out a sustained, high-pitched alarm as my heart rate exceeds the set limit.
He doesn't move. He takes everything I give him, his mouth closing around me again to wring out the last tremors.
When he finally pulls back and collapses against my chest, we are both trembling. The monitor continues to beep, a frantic reminder of the life we just reaffirmed.
"Safe," he whispers into my neck.
"For an hour," I correct.
"Then we make it two."
He cleans us both with a damp cloth he retrieves from the tray, his movements gentle and thorough. He avoids looking at the bloody gauze on my side, focusing instead on the skin he is tending.
When he is finished, he pulls the blanket back over both of us. He lies with his head on my shoulder, his hand resting over my heart.
"I didn't know who she was," he says after the silence has settled. "When I called. You just said K-7. I thought maybe I was calling my own executioner."
"Katya is the only person in the world who doesn't exist on a Baranov ledger," I say. "She knows how to hide. She taught me that survival is a series of disappearances."
"Is that what we're doing? Disappearing?"
"Yes."
