Footsteps on the stairs.The sound carried clearly throughthe flat, and they jolted apart.He held Sasha’s shoulders.Oneknock came, and then another three in swift succession.Lauriesmiled.A hell of a lot had changed in his life, hadn’t it, for himto have a prearranged signal knock with bloody Interpol.
“It’s all right,” he said.“It’s Kucharski, or one of his men.Don’t be frightened.I’ll be with you.”He pressed his brow toSasha’s.“Not going to let you out of my sight.”
Chapter Thirteen
A pinecoast—a Cézanne coast of impossible blues and golds.Rocky inlets,new moon bays.A wild coast, backed by hundreds of miles of maquisand pine forest.You could walk for a day and not see anyone.Agood place to hide a child.
Lauriehad wondered, looking out to the sea from his room in Elise’schâteau, how long his mother would have held out.Forever,possibly, though he was not sure that Elise could have toleratedher part for long.
A morerobust soul than her sister, she had sat in the Mayfair house andlistened in horror while Laurie told her how Marielle had tried todivert the focus of Clara’s disappearance.Like her sister, she hadfelt the need to offer recompense, but while neither Sasha norLaurie could accept financial help, they did not turn down herinvitation to the Languedoc château.Elise was thinking of movingback there, she said, once Clara was more settled.Of selling theMayfair house, with all its bad memories, if Clara’s trustees wouldconsent, and taking the girl and her mother back to the sunshineworld poor Marielle should never have left.Clara could go toschool with her cousins.
Could Laurie bear that?There would always be holidays.Lauriewould be welcome, together with the young man who would probablystill be referred to with a smiling, politeton ami if he and Sasha lived to drawtheir pensions.
Sasha bore no ill will.He had talked to Marielle on his ownquietly, both of them foreigners on strange English soil.Mariellecould more or less take things in again now, certainly to theextent of knowing she had been forgiven.Better than that,understood, becauseSasha, after all that he had seen and done, was not about tocondemn a mother for loving her own daughter best.They hadn’tknown one another then, he told her.Things would be differentnow.
And so he and Laurie had come to France for their firstholiday.It was Easter, three hard-strapped months since Laurie hadbeen cut loose on the world.Sasha had ordered him, as soon as hehad heard of his latest career move, to dropLes Mizand rediscover his innerHamlet.He would rather they both starve, he said, than that Laurieshould wear out his strength and his talents in any chorus, nomatter how grand.Thanking him dryly on both their behalves, Lauriehad obeyed him.
Starvation had not quite been necessary.They had sometimescome close—though not by Sasha’s standards, who still consideredhimself almost guiltily rich if he had more than a tenner todispose of at any one time.Laurie had landed the role of BiffLoman in a new production ofDeath of aSalesman, developed on the spot a perfectBrooklyn accent, and gone to work.The pay was twice what Jacobshad been able to give him, and his first night at the BloomsburyHall a vivid contrast to his debut, every one of his giveawaytickets eagerly taken—Clara and Elise in the front row, shoulder toshoulder with Sasha in his new, posh jacket, and Jacobs himselfnext to him, bearing no grudges, beaming and mouthing the lines incase Laurie forgot.
Theywere doing all right.Sasha, asylum status granted, was workingtoo, translating for an outreach branch of the Romanian embassy inLondon, gladly helping teach newcomers what he’d had to learn thehard way.In September he would start at college.John Kucharskihad set that up for him, pointing out the necessity for turning hisvarious gifts into paper qualifications, after which, he said,Sasha should come to him again.Interpol and Border UK neededagents who’d seen the system from the other side.Sasha, whoplainly felt that much of his allegiance still lay with that shadowworld, could not imagine being part of the forces that controlledit, but had said he would consider it.At the moment all he wantedwas to work and to learn.
And tolive with Laurie.They had not spent one night apart since Sasha’svery nominal three-day return to the detention facility, just longenough for Kucharski to draw up the paperwork to set him free.Kucharski, anxious to protect his witness, had tried to move themout of the East Hill flat, but both had refused to go.Sasha gavehis evidence, and still they refused.By then they could haveafforded something better, but their associations with theplace—their meetings there, the refuge it had been, thelife-or-death scene enacted in its living room—were too vivid.EvenLuca’s bloodstains on the carpet could not spoil it for them.Theyhired an industrial cleaner to remove them, but Laurie wondered ifSash thought Laurie didn’t see how he sometimes crouched down totouch their shadows, as if they could avert further evil.Theyslept in a passionate tangle in Laurie’s single bed.
TheLanguedoc had come almost as a shock to them.So much light andair—endless green spaces arched over with imperturbable blue sky, aclimate as serenely different as could be imagined from that ofLondon or Bucharest.Laurie had been here many times before butsomehow hadn’t seen it.It had taken him his first real-worldwinter to reveal to him the perfect sunlit fantasy this was.Drenched in scents of myrtle, in the tang of heated resin blowingin from the coast.The Devereaux estate was only three miles fromthe sea.They walked there and back almost every day, often withfamily, alone as often as they could without seemingrude.
Sasha had drawn a little ahead of him among the dunes.Lauriehad let him, happy with the rear view.No one could have taken morerewardingly to sunshine and good food than Sasha.At the end oftheir two weeks in the sun, he was still whip thin but had filledout his hollows in lean muscle.His skin glowed.He hadn’t ownedmuch by way of summer clothes, but Laurie’s fit him now, and themale Devereaux cousins, sardonic and friendly, lifting darkeyebrows at their shared room and declaring that,bien sûr, they’d alwaysknown about Laurence, were happy to share their wardrobes.Today, awhite shirt worn soft with sun and washing and a pair of Lucien’sjeans, whose fit left nothing to the imagination.Laurie, whoremembered the torn parka, the huddle of sweaters beneath which heonce had found the skinny refugee boy, watched him in unadulteratedpleasure.A breeze was coming off the sea, making the blazing daybearable.It stirred Sasha’s hair, made the cotton of his shirtflutter and flatten against him.
Almostunadulterated.Sasha did not run these dunes the way the Devereauxcousins did.Laurie felt an ever-present background note of anxietyrise up and blend with his desire.Stefan Petrica and his vastnetwork of dealers and runners had been most efficiently roundedup, but Kucharski had warned them that such gangs were never trulystamped out.That they should get on with their lives—but watcheach other’s backs while they were at it.The warning hadn’t comeas news to Sasha, Laurie could tell.In the city, the care withwhich he moved, his caution, were not so apparent.Most people keptsharp eyes about them there.Out here, Laurie observed how hisguard was never quite down.He chased Clara up and down the dunesbut stopped before he broached their skylines, ducking down to scanthe bright distances that glimmered all around.On pine foresttracks, he would keep to the tree line—or, more often, subtly makesure that Laurie did, placing himself on his other side, betweenhim and the direction from which any harm must come.He had goneahead now, Laurie guessed, because their path was widening out intoa bay whose far side was bounded by a tumble of lichen-starredrocks, the only direction without a clear view.
SomehowLaurie had never seen this bay before.It was not far from theirusual walks, just half a mile down a white sand track from theforest.Invisible from there, though.You followed the track onfaith and emerged into the bay at the last moment.Sasha had sloweddown as the turquoise sea suddenly revealed itself before him,flashing diamonds and purring up softly onto ivory sand.The beachwas quite narrow, shaded all along its crescent by pines that hadcaught enough soil in their roots for a thick, rich turf to grow,scattered with wildflowers.“Sash,” he said yearningly, holding outa hand.
Sashastopped.He turned to him, and Laurie saw that he was ready too,eyes dark with passion even in the brilliant light, cock liftedexplicitly beneath the worn denim as if he had been waiting forLaurie to end the pursuit.The pine shadows dappled his skin.“Yes,” he said, taking Laurie’s hand and pulling him in.“Where’sClara?”
“Gone back with Lucien.They’ve all gone back.”
“Thank God.”
Lauriesmiled.Sasha kissed him with joint-dissolving intensity, holdinghis backside and gently shoving until Laurie was erect as well,moaning with arousal and discomfort at restricting fabric.“Thoughtyou liked them,” he said, when Sasha had let him go and was deftlyunfastening his shirt.
“I do.They’re perfect, beautiful people.But you can’t do whatyou’re about to do to me with family members present.Or even in afive-mile radius.”
“Bloody hell,” Laurie observed, grinning widely.He wasn’t astidy with buttons as Sasha and removed the white shirt the basicway, seizing its hem and pulling it up and over Sasha’s head.Thesatin-skin chest and shoulders, the stomach beginning its adultmusculature, snatched the breath from him as it always did.He saidfaintly, staring at Sasha, “WhatamI about to do?”
“Requires you to take my pants off.Completely, or…” Sashahesitated, and Laurie saw in the drifting shade that he wasblushing, as if unnerved by his own boldness.“Or I won’t be ableto wrap my legs around you.”He swallowed audibly, looking down,and Laurie took pity even while the shuddering wave of needoccasioned by the words washed through him.He drew Sasha forward,gave him refuge on his shoulder, running a hand through Sasha’shair while he finished in a rough whisper, “Around your waist.Overyour shoulders.Or you won’t be able to…fuck me face-to-face, downhere on the sand.”
Lauriegroaned.His cock leaped.They’d tried most things, once reunitedback in London, and with nightly diligence too.But not that.Notthat, and Sash had been much too discreet a guest in Elise’s houseto be able to let go.They’d been almost chaste in their shared,lovely room.A fortnight could be a long time.
“Oh, God.Sash, I didn’t bring anything.I—”
“I know.Saw you thinking about it; then Clara joined theparty, and…”
“Well.You know what she’s like.She’d have found the tube andtried to use it as lip gloss or something.”
Sasharocked with laughter, his movement and warm breath against Laurie’sear not helping.“We won’t always be fully equipped, you know,” hesaid, going to work on Laurie’s jeans.“We don’t need these off.Just…down a bit.Around your hips.Lovely… We might get caughtshort.We might need to be resourceful.”
“I see,” Laurie gasped, doing his best not to give it up andcome at the touch of Sasha’s fingers.Again, as Sasha sank to hisknees in front of him, looking up at him with brilliant, sea-liteyes.“Emergency sex, is it?Sex in the wilderness?”Sasha’s mouthenclosed him, hot and slow, as Laurie braced himself on hisshoulders, swaying.“Survival sex.Oh, love, be careful.I haven’tgot a tool on my Swiss Army for that, and you’re gonna makeme—”
“No, I’m not.”Sasha sat back, surveyed him for a second.Hisshaft was taut and straight between them, glimmering with saliva.Maybe not quite enough.Sasha leaned in again, without sucking orholding, just getting him wet.The rush of his tongue made Laurietip back his head, buttocks involuntarily clenching, spine goingstiff.If Sasha thought he could hold off, he was wrong, he waswrong.“Hold on to it, Laurie,” he commanded, easing back again,giving him a look of mischief, sharing a memory of a long-drawn-outtease.“We both know you can.The Swiss Army tool in this situationis just spit, I’m afraid, and now it has to be yours.”
