Varian Krylov (27 page)

“But also, Michele began to be different with me. He had a sadistic side, and it came out, more and more. All the things I had told him before about the other clients he began to use against me, to make me do the things I hated most. He took pleasure from 254

embarrassing me, from treating me like something he owned. And sometimes he filmed us while he did these things.

“I was thinking every day of ending our arrangement, of finding another cheap little room somewhere, of going back to the line if I could still find no other work. One day I told him this, and he beat me. So badly that I knew I could not go the line for a long time, because I looked so bad. But when I healed, I waited until I knew he would not come for a few days, because he was away with business, and I left.

“I got a room in a different arrondisement—a different neighborhood—and sold myself at a street corner far from where I'd worked before, hoping he would not find me.

And a few weeks later I was lucky to find a job washing dishes in a cafe. It was less money, much less, but after Michele I could not bear to be touched by the men who paid for me. And already I had saved enough, I thought I could help my parents.

“You can imagine, I had been lying to them about my life in Paris. Every week I called them and told them stories about the people I worked for, running errands and doing small jobs. Now I called, and my mother would not come to the phone. After a little time my father told me why. Michele had used the address I had given him when I believed he was helping me to find a way to bring my parents over. When he had returned to Paris and saw I had left him, he had sent them the video tape he had made of us.

“My father told me that my mother had watched it all. Almost an hour of the man fucking me and doing much worse, because she had the idea some bad man had kidnapped her child and was doing these things to him by force, that if she watched the tape maybe she would see the bad man's face, or see some sign of where her son was 255

being held captive. But at the end of the tape she saw her son, naked, relaxed and laughing with the anonymous man holding the camera.

“My mother was a very religious woman. In her eyes, for a man to have sex with another man is a bad sin. But my father, he is irreligious. Strictly rational. And he told me, after he'd told me what he and my mother had seen on that tape, that he had known for a long time that I would be with men. What hurt him was that I had given myself to a man like Michele who would take such pleasure in degrading me, a man who would do a thing like sending that tape to the parents of his lover.

“I had misjudged Michele. I had tested him, when I told him I would leave. I thought possibly he would threaten me with something like what he did. But in the end, he did not use the tape to keep me. He only used it to hurt me. To make sure that if I would not love him, that my mother and father would not love me. He broke my mother's heart simply to punish me, not because he loved me, but only because I hurt his vanity.

“So my parents never came to France. I have been back to Algeria twice, and stayed in my parents' home, but after that day my mother never spoke to me again. And three years ago, she died.”

“Khalid.”

Some physical force seemed to pull her to him, where he'd gone to lean against the gray-white trunk of the olive tree. He gazed down at her with his placid eyes and kissed her wet cheeks, then pulled her carefully to him.

“I could have told you, simply, that I'd been betrayed by a lover. But I don't want you to think I said 'no' to Galen because I was afraid he would betray me that way. I love Galen. I trust Galen. It's just that what happened before, I thought I could not forget 256

that, and do that thing Galen asked of me with sincere pleasure. And I don't want to do anything, with him, that is a lie, That is why I said 'no' to Galen.

“And with you, Vanka, at first I said 'no' to you, also. But how sad you looked, even before I said the word, I think, the moment you sensed I would refuse, you looked so broken. I saw it was not only for fun you asked that of me. I knew what your scar was. I knew, from Galen, that you were keeping very quiet about your illness, not only to him, but to all your friends, your family. And I imagined, then, something like the truth.

That things were changing for you. That you wanted this . . . memento of how you were then. And you'd been so sweet, so tender with me that afternoon, I think some deep . . .

affection for you washed away my bad feelings about doing that. So I really wanted to, that day. With you. And truly, once we started, I forgot that ugliness from the past. I didn't think of it once, while you were with me.”

She couldn't resist reaching up with both hands, molding them to the contours of his cheeks and jaw, or fixing her eyes on his. Awe, adoration, something swelled up in her, like helium was flying through her veins, almost lifting her from the ground.

“Does Galen know all this?”

“Yes. He knows my story, from Paris. And I think he understands why I let you film us together.”

* * * *

“Unconscious is more like it,” Galen half-whispered, setting Vanka's dishes in the sink. Eight o'clock had gotten to be her regular bedtime since she'd started the chemo.

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Behind him, Khalid's faint footfalls came closer, until Galen could feel the heat of the other's body. Panic flared. Galen turned, already almost pinned at the counter.

“Khalid,” Galen warned.

“Keep quiet,” Khalid came back, his voice soft, but demanding compliance. “If you take it easy, Galen, I won't have to fight you, and Vanka won't hear anything.

Adrenaline flooded his chest. Fuck. This, happening here. Vanka just down the hall. As Khalid moved to close the few inches separating them, Galen wedged his hand between them. Instinct.

“Galen. Put your hands on the counter. Otherwise, I'm going to tie you. And if Vanka stirs, I might not be able to get you untied quickly enough.”

Galen took his palm from Khalid's chest, and gripped the counter behind him.

“All day I've wanted you Galen. I've hurt with wanting you, almost from the moment I arrived this morning.”

The heat, then the firm, living pressure of Khalid's body pressed against his chest, his groin, his thighs. Galen flexed, but stayed still, letting Khalid bring his mouth to his ear.

“From the time you opened the door Galen, I felt you needing this.”

Heat flamed across his cheeks, and Khalid's grin—not his serene smile, but his teasing, sadistic grin—bent the full, soft lips inches from his face.

“All day, I felt you needing this. Just as I know now, without touching you, that you're hard for me. Aren't you?”

At the challenge a fresh flood of heat surged through him, as if to prove Khalid right.

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“I know how I'll find you, Galen, when I touch you. I will even make you a bet. If, when I put my hand to your cock, you are not hard, I won't fuck you.” These last words Khalid whispered at Galen's ear in a throaty growl put the steel in his already aching erection, and when the press of Khalid's hand curved against him, Khalid's grin widened.

“Then I will fuck you.”

Khalid squeezed, then let go, and Galen panted through the rush of throbbing blood so he wouldn't groan out loud. Deft, slow, Khalid began rubbing him through his jeans. Clutching the counter harder and harder Galen hoped, hoped.

Khalid's hand, the one not stroking him, combed into his hair, caught a fistful.

And then Khalid's mouth was on his mouth. Galen turned away and Khalid yanked him back to his mouth with that fistful of hair and bit his lip.

“Be good, Galen. Be good, and we'll be quiet.”

Khalid's trembling urgency, the hand on his cock, the grip on his hair all had Galen hard, panting, wanting. But it was hard to be still for Khalid's kiss, to let Khalid touch his lips with his, tease his tongue with his. Until Khalid sank into the kiss, breathing hard, his whole body seeking. Then Galen couldn't do anything else—he had to taste Khalid, feel those full soft lips under his mouth, the sensuous writhing of that tongue against his.

“Keep your hands on the counter, Galen,” Khalid breathed, then started working Galen's belt open. “Good boy.” Khalid caught the girth of Galen's hard cock in the curve of his hand over the smooth dark fabric of his boxer briefs. Galen fought the urge to 259

thrust against Khalid's slow-stroking hand and bit his lip against a whimper of need.

When Khalid took his hand away, Galen nearly groaned.

“Turn around, Galen.”

His heart swelled in his chest, beating hard, fast, adrenaline making his hands jittery as soon as he let go of the counter. Galen strained to hear any noise, any sign Vanka might be awake. But beyond the kitchen, except for the crickets outside, it was silent.

“Open the cupboard on your left. Get that bottle of oil.”

Galen did as Khalid ordered.

“Open it.”

As he worked the bottle open, it was obvious his hands were shaking, and Galen was relieved to set it down.

“So nervous, tonight. Tu as peur que Vanka nous trouvera ici. N'est-ce que pas?”

“Yes.”

“And also, that is why you're so hard. Why your want is so strong, tonight. Yes?”

Galen didn't answer. When Khalid took hold of his jeans and dragged them down, Galen caught and held his breath. The bottle of oil disappeared from the counter, then reappeared. Tense, hardly breathing, Galen waited. The length of Khalid's taut, warm body pressed up behind him, a strong arm cinched across his chest, holding him, and Khalid drove up into him, forcing the air from his lungs.

Both Khalid's hands slipped up under Galen's shirt now, stroking and raking his chest as he fucked him in slow, deep thrusts, Khalid's breath already ragged, his whole body taut, quivery. Both of them taut and quivery.

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Then Khalid stopped, stopped writhing up against him, stopped pumping into him, stopped teasing his nipples and mouthing his neck, and he said, “Admit it to me, confess to me you want this. That all day, this is what you've wanted.”

“No,” Galen panted back. Refusal and denial.

“I want my confession, Galen. If you won't give it to me, I'll take it from you.”

Galen kept silent, almost confused whether he did it out of resentment or want.

“Yes, you'd like that better, wouldn't you?” Khalid growled, driving hard into him, fucking him now with fierce heat, every thrust jolting Galen so he had to work hard to keep his knees from banging into the cupboards, had to focus on letting the breath from his lungs quietly, not grunting and groaning the strain and want provoked by the urgent pumping of Khalid's hips.

Desperately hard, heavy with need, his neglected cock swayed and bounced as Khalid jolted him, every growling pant driving a fresh surge of want through him, until he parted his lips, almost ready to beg for a touch, for release as Khalid gripped his hip and his shoulder and went almost still against, him, shuddering, flexing against him in three final, quivering pulses, his trembling heat finally sagging against Galen's back. Galen bit back a whimper of frustration as Khalid's cock slipped out of him.

“Stay still,” Khalid said coolly when Galen bent to pull up his jeans. Then, a moment later, after Khalid had done up his fly and buckled his belt, “Now, turn around.”

Galen turned, met Khalid's golden gaze, watched his eyes wander down his body.

“My god, look at you,” Khalid sighed. “Really I don't need more proof than that, do I?” he said, glancing down at Galen's aching hard-on, then back up to meet Galen's 261

defiant gaze. “But as you know, I am a greedy man. I often take more than I need, don't I, Galen?”

Of everything, this was always the hardest, for Galen. Enduring these taunts.

“I'm going to take your confession now, Galen. I'm going to take it on my knees. I won't tie you. But Galen, if you do even a small thing to push me away, if you take your hands off that counter, the next time Vanka is in the room with us and I'm in the mood, I promise you, Galen, I'll take you down, and I'll fuck you right before her eyes.”

A cold bolt of genuine fear shot through Galen, twitching his cock and making him take a tighter grip on the edge of the counter. A smug grin curved Khalid's lips, and then he sank to his knees.

God fucking damn it, his need was so bad, and Khalid just teased him, barley brushing his soft lips against him. Unthinking, just needing, seeking, Galen pushed his hips out, wanting Khalid's mouth beyond shame, beyond reason. But the wet warmth he knew was there hovered out of reach, tauting. So he wouldn't grab two fistfuls of Khalid's hair and force his mouth down on his cock, Galen gripped the counter tighter, and waited.

Finally, god, finally there was a faint, warm, wet touch. Tongue. Then lips. A convulsive shudder rippled down his body as Khalid's hot, wet mouth enveloped his aching cock.

Taunting, torturing, Khalid barely moved over him. So soft. So slow. Galen was sobbing as much as moaning, his want so painfully outstripped the teasing hint of relief he was getting. He'd never, god, fuck, never come like this. And every time he flexed his hips, dying to pump into the grip of Khalid's full lips, to feel the firm brush of his tongue 262

against the length of his cock, the lips seemed to soften, the tongue drew back. Only when he stilled did Khalid caress him a little with that tormenting, moist heat.

“Please. Please.”

He didn't care. He needed. And, at last, Khalid gave him just a little more, just enough, brushing his soft wet tongue against him, pulling all of him deep into the wet heat behind the full, strong lips, until the unbearable pressure in Galen's groin went tight and blew apart and he was arching back and clamping his jaw against a loud, fierce growl of release.

A vague pain. The edge of the counter carving into his back. Galen straightened his trembling body, opened his eyes. Khalid's placid, laughing eyes, his tranquil gaze.

Fingers raked into his hair, and Galen gasped as Khalid pinned him against the counter, his pelvis pressing against Galen's just-spent, super sensitive cock.

“This is the last thing I'll demand of you tonight,” Khalid breathed, then took a long, deep kiss. Galen tasted Khalid, laced with his own flavor. This part always hurt.