Death's Ink Black Shadow (20 page)

Ben lay back on the sofa, allowing Nikolas to drop things into his mouth, which quickly took them back to where they’d been on the beach by the lake. Nikolas smirked a little at Ben’s eagerness and kissed slowly down his neck. “See, waiting was worth it.”

Ben stretched and arched, the light brushes on the sensitive skin under his ear making him want to purr, but he slyly provoked instead, “All talk so far and not much actual action.”

“Ack, you are too impatient.” Ben closed his eyes, concentrating on Nikolas’s lips moving ever further south. Nikolas was always the one who wanted it hard and fast to start with, his urgency for release into Ben always their driving force. He didn’t point out Nikolas’s contradictions though. He only had one lifetime.

Nikolas removed Ben’s T-shirt as he went. Ben turned his head and glanced out at the tub on the deck. He could smell himself and was pretty sure the odour wasn’t improved by taking off his T-shirt. He suddenly rolled them to the floor and then sprang up, heading for the tub.

Nikolas caught Ben’s shorts, so that solved the rest of Ben’s undressing problem and he ran on, naked, to the deck.

The water was indescribably hot. Ben was English. He swore and shouted and made a fuss. Nikolas, being Scandinavian, slid silently into the bubbling water, his eyes dazed for another reason, which was explained when he grabbed Ben’s hips and pulled him onto his lap.

Ben sank onto Nikolas’s cock with the same perfection of fit as a chambered round. He almost heard a clunk. He let out an imperceptible sigh of completeness and then they were kissing again, Nikolas moving just enough to keep Ben’s thoughts flicking between the two sources of satisfaction.

They were both very close now. The delay, the teasing, the anticipation had left them both on the edge from which there was no return. Ben was attuned to the tautness of Nikolas’s body and saw the dilation of his pupils. He put his arms around Nikolas’s neck, crushing them together further so his cock was trapped and rubbed between their hard bellies and then he was there too, shooting and unloading as he was filled, and their cries of relief mingled and dissipated in the pine-scented air of the forest.

They slumped against each other for a while, Ben still impaled, just one body of hot flesh floating a little in the steamy heat. Ben watched the way one strand of Nikolas’s hair was swishing in the water. He snorted—he’d never thought of Nikolas in the context of swishing before. When Nikolas grunted to know what he was laughing about, Ben murmured, “It’s
very
blond.”

Nikolas grunted again, heaving Ben off his cock and replied testily, “It must be the sun here on Aeroe.”

He pushed Ben to the other side of the tub so he could prop his feet comfortably in Ben’s lap and spread his arms out on the rim, tipping his face back. He was very brown already. “I actually am taking Stefan to Copenhagen tomorrow. Do you want to come?”

“I told you, I think you should spend this time with him on your own. Me being there only complicates things.”

Nikolas muttered something again but whether it was acquiescence Ben couldn’t tell.

After a while, he poked Ben with his foot and ordered, “Go fetch the wine.”

Ben’s brows rose, but the expression was wasted because Nikolas had his eyes closed to the sun.

Ben rose from the water and climbed out of the tub. “Stop.” Ben turned. Nikolas’s eyes were open now, watching him. A smile ghosted across Nikolas’s face then he waved his hand imperiously. “Carry on.”

Ben bent and flicked some water at him, but he liked being admired, so it wasn’t much of a chastisement.

While he was inside, he fixed some of the food Nikolas had bought and brought that out with the wine.

Nikolas was out of the tub and stretched on his belly on the deck in the sun. He appeared to be asleep.

Ben put his armful of goodies down quietly and studied the sleeping form. Nikolas’s scars were very visible on his tanned torso. His backside was pale and Ben could see fine golden hairs glinting in the sunlight, invisible in ordinary light. Nikolas’s legs were incredibly long. They were very lean as well—swimmer’s legs. They were scarred too. He was a study in flaws highlighting perfection.

Ben lay down beside him, staring off into the dark pine trees and wondered his familiar question—if any moment in his life had been this fulfilled. He’d thought he’d reached a peak so many times before, but each time he’d been proved wrong—his path either taking a terrible turn for the worse or other things coming into their lives which added to the journey, making him realise that there had been a lack. But at that moment, Ben couldn’t think of one thing he wanted or needed more than what he had.

He suffered a pricking of unease and glanced once more from the precious thing beside him to the menace of the trees. Something had come out of that darkness once before and almost destroyed them both. Life was intangible. Ben bent down and snagged his fingers into Nikolas’s damp hair and tugged his mouth up for a kiss.

“I was asleep. Fuck off.”

Ben began to chuckle, not reassessing his thoughts about Nikolas’s perfections, just redefining the word itself.

Nikolas swatted him off. He hated being laughed at.

Ben trailed his finger down Nikolas’s spine then stopped just at the final, prominent disc. He could feel the tension for more in the previously languid body. “Shall I stop now, or do you still want to…sleep?”

Nikolas grunted, seemingly his conversational choice of the day. Ben took it for an invitation into Nikolas’s body and accepted.

§ § §

The afternoon turned into evening, as it always did, and they remained on the deck, drinking wine and eating. Ben had begun to feel guilty about Steven, but Nikolas assured him he was busy—he was speaking to some of the people on Aeroe who had known Nina when she had come to the estates with her parents as a child and teenager.

It wasn’t cold, even when it got fully dark, so they didn’t bother to dress, although Nikolas was paranoid about being bitten and kept slapping at imaginary insects on his naked body.

Ben suddenly cried in awe, “Shooting star!”

Nikolas looked up, but he’d missed its tiny, fleeting life. “You should make a wish.”

Ben thought about this for a moment then shook his head. “Nothing left to wish for.” He saw a quick expression cross Nikolas’s face before it could be hidden. “What? You think I’m tempting fate?”

“I don’t believe in fate, Ben. You know that. We make our own destinies.”

“And this from the man who hears his dead mother playing in an empty house.”

Nikolas rolled on his side and propped himself up on one elbow. “Stefan believes my mother was mad, that her insanity passed down to her sons. And, I suppose, him…”

Ben put his finger to Nikolas’s lips as if that could stop the truth and the pain escaping. “Don’t.”

Nikolas gave a small nod of acquiescence, seeming to realise that Ben didn’t want to go down that road. He collapsed back onto the deck. “Look.”

Ben copied his position, on his back, their arms and legs pressed close together, body heat transferring.

The entire Milky Way was spread out above them, an angel shedding grace on its return to heaven.

Nikolas shivered. “I don’t like stars.”

Ben raised his brows in surprise. Nikolas rarely commented on any personal preferences. “How can you not like stars?”

Nikolas turned his head to study Ben’s profile. “I feel insignificant beneath them. I used to watch them as a child and sensed nothing but a cold, remote disinterest from the universe as to my existence. I still feel that. There is nothing.” He shifted his attention back to the sky. “The coldness just goes on and on and on and never stops.”

“Oh.” Ben twitched his nose. He swallowed. It was one of those moments that made him wonder what life would be like with a different companion.

Nikolas put a hand on Ben’s belly, spreading his fingers, seeming to anchor himself on warm flesh. “You fill the absence of God for me.” Once more, he turned his head and Ben copied him, their gazes meeting in the darkness. “I no longer feel alone.”

“How much have you had to drink?”

Nikolas laughed, clearly pleased with life. “Just enough.” He levered himself over Ben, all sinew and cool skin, until he pressed them together, and where their bodies met heat began to rise. As he kissed around Ben’s face, onto his eyelids and up to his hair then down around his ears and sensitive neck, Nikolas murmured, “Did you know that pound for pound the human body gives out more heat than the sun? We
burn
, Benjamin.”

Ben flipped them, now on top, friction increasing the burn. “We always have.”

Cocks met without conscious thought, creating shards of intense delight stabbing through Ben’s groin. Nikolas’s hands travelled south, parting Ben’s cheeks, stretching them, stroking the tips of his fingers over Ben’s sensitive hole. Ben grunted his appreciation and was rewarded with an answering smile through the kissing.

Nikolas spun them again, forcibly turning Ben onto his belly. Ben groaned, knowing what was coming, anticipating the first push of Nikolas’s cock. He was given tongue instead and hissed with need.

Nikolas lay down between Ben’s outstretched legs, his hands roaming up his thighs to his buttocks, stroking and massaging as his face pressed hard into Ben’s arse, licking, biting, demanding entry with his tongue.

Ben cried out, his voice a sharp bark in the darkness, a predator in the forest being taken.

Nikolas heaved himself over Ben, pausing. He blocked out the light from the stars, massive and threatening, and then he slammed home. Ben rose at the waist, his spine bent, arched up on his hands, cock grinding into the wood of the deck, and he cried out again at the pain, and then another shout as it gave way to the best sensation of all. He twisted his head around to watch, saw starlight reflected in Nikolas’s blown pupils, a savage lust upon his face as if he were about to fuck his own god and then they began—the hard penetrations, Nikolas thrusting his hips to hit Ben just right, Ben’s cock crushed and stimulated beneath, and his body filling with urgency so intense that he wanted to howl, lend that sound to the voices of the creatures of the night that they joined under the domed splendour of the starlit sky.

Nikolas suddenly reared back and dragged Ben to his hands and knees. He shoved Ben’s head down, Ben’s arse rising. Nikolas snagged Ben’s hair and rode hard into him, better access now, more depth, and with it more skilful working, finding just the spot that made Ben grunt with frustrated need.

They were both so lean that, spread and joined like this, they fit together like the pistons in Ben’s new, perfectly calibrated engine.

The heat between them was intense. Sweat flicked off Nikolas’s forehead onto Ben’s back, his hands gripping Ben’s waist scorching him.

Nikolas suddenly shifted position again, pulling Ben up to kneeling. Ben’s back was now crushed to Nikolas’s hard, lean belly. Nikolas gave a final few deep thrusts of his cock into Ben’s body and they came together.

Ben’s cock was so high that his release shot in an arc across the deck, catching the starlight and glistening. Nikolas flooded him from behind, only sharp shudders betraying the fact he was unloading deep into Ben’s tight channel.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Ben had something of a shock when they returned to London.

There was a vast hole in the wall of the kitchen and dust and rubble everywhere. And builders.

Nikolas merely said, surprised at Ben’s surprise, “I did tell you.” At Ben’s expression, he added, prompting, “Peyton?”

“Peyton made this hole?”

Nikolas frowned. “He’s not that big.”

“I mean—Nikolas!”

“I told you I was sorting more suitable office accommodation for him.”

Ben went to the gap and peered through past a couple of builders who had stopped hammering and were staring back at him.

He sensed Nikolas at his side. “I’ve bought the house next door.”

Considering the mess, Ben was tempted to say
just as well
.

He could now see through into the kitchen of the property attached to theirs, which was a mirror image. Despite being worth a little shy of eight million pounds, Nikolas’s London residence was terraced, as all mews houses in this part of London tended to be. Something to do with originally housing horses, he’d claimed.

He’d bought out the Saudi owners of the attached building and was now having it converted into a suite of offices and accommodation for Peyton Garic.

The incongruity of Peyton Garic in a mews house in London struck Ben more than it should for some reason, and instead of being furious at finding out Nikolas had, once again, rode roughshod over him, Ben stepped through the opening and went on a tour of their new, extended property.

He wanted to go upstairs, but Nikolas told him that Peyton would only have the bottom floor—indeed, he couldn’t practically manage anywhere else. Now, as Nikolas had pointed out quite seriously, Ben wouldn’t need to be on hand to deliver the takeaways.

Ben wasn’t fooled for once.

Nikolas was distracting him.

Nikolas didn’t want him upstairs.

He dodged and jogged up.

The rooms on the top floor had been combined into one large spacious area. This was also joined to their house through another new hole in the wall, which went into one of their spare bedrooms.

The ceiling of this large space had been removed to expose the arched underside of the tiled roof, and skylights had been fitted so that warm sunlight filled the entire, vaulting room. This enhanced the…colour. Two young men had paused to watch them with rollers in their hands. Ben blinked and spluttered, “
Purple
?”

Nikolas, who’d come up behind him scoffed and informed Ben that it was,
“Sugared lilac.”

Ben dropped his head. He closed his eyes for a moment. “For Molly. This is going to be Molly’s bedroom?”

Nikolas shrugged. “Solid Victorian brick between us. I have no intention of my sleep being disturbed by your daughter. I have enough to suffer from sharing a bed with her—” Nikolas didn’t appreciate public displays of affection in front of builders, so Ben punched him on the arm instead.