Page 125 of Rears & Vices

“You are mine,” Vitya said again. “So, to answer you with the truth: Preston didn’t threaten me. He did not have to. We came as soon as we could. We flew.”

“And then nearly flattened Galveztown,” D’Arcy said cheerfully.

Vitya shook his head. But he was smiling his tiny smile.

“We shot into the water—no casualties.”

“There is generally a line,” Everard agreed. “Murder is a good one.”

“Generally,” D’Arcy muttered.

“No casualties,” Vitya said. “Except… almost…”

D’Arcy’s hand on Everard’s squeezed.

Except almost him.

Vitya pressed close again, breathed out shakily. “I understand now what I did to you then. The worst thing. And⁠—”

“Vitya,” Everard said. “It’s done. It’s past. Thank you for rescuing me. I love you. Kiss me, please.”

Lips brushed his again, this time with the faint promise of a sweet, warm tongue. It was not nearly enough.

D’Arcy seemed to agree. “Vee,” he groaned, in a shattering plead; Vitya drew back, leaned onto one hand, and, eyes closed, accepted D’Arcy’s hand in his hair, his hard, frantic kiss.

Everard stared up. “Hell.” He swallowed. Really, he needed his blood elsewhere than… “Did this happen… often?”

“You left us,” D’Arcy said, at last, breathless.

“I— You— I did. But I… I regretted it from the second I stepped off the Sévère. And every day thereafter. Every minute. Every⁠—”

“No,” Vitya interrupted. “Not often.”

He leaned and kissed Everard once more: a gentle transference of passion, no less powerful for its delivery.

“But yes,” he murmured. “Don’t leave us behind again, please.”

Thirty-Eight

June, 1817

Everard had tried everything.

Significant glances, meaningful brows. Early-morning advances, post-dinner suggestions. Even once—skirting danger, given he couldn’t guarantee Vitya would be the first to walk into the printing parlour—his printing apron and nothing else.

But no.

Surely, Vitya’s eyes went wide, huge in his face, darkened not just with kohl; his hands shook as he approached, every time. He’d sink to his knees and use those lips and sweetly, carefully take the edge off, or push pricks together and slowly drive them to it, any other number of blissful intimacies—so long as Everard was seated or lying or in no way moving or otherwise exerting himself. And it was all wonderful.

But Vitya would not fuck him.

Everard recognised that some men’s preferences didn’t align with putting their pricks into arses—D’Arcy, a notable example, liked only the reverse—but Vitaliy was absolutely not one of those. He shared preferences with Everard, which was that sometimes he wanted to fuck and sometimes he wanted to be fucked, and they were usually fantastically well aligned—usually.

And he wanted to fuck him. There was no doubt.

But Vitya also had an iron will. Consequently, also an iron prick. Everard woke to it pressing against him, hot and pulsing and growing, and Vitya’s hands pulling, pushing, clasping him close, his lips open and soft against Everard’s skin. Every time, Everard gritted his teeth—for he would nonetheless keep his promise—and woke him, knowing it would mean the man would divert to hands and mouths and thighs or worse, retreat, would slide out of the cot with a soft final brush of a kiss and regretful murmur over his skin.

After weeks and weeks and weeks of convalescence and being fed and watered and being too weak to sit up without pillows and his joints aching from lack of movement, Everard merely wanted to feel alive.