14. Fourteen #2
I knew. That was the trouble. I'd been at war with this thing since a half-dead kid turned my hand over in a safehouse and read my gloves like a story. The war was over. I was just the last to hear. I opened my mouth to tell him something, and what came out was the smallest, most defeated sound I’d ever made.
"Aye," he said. "I'm here. I've got ye. Move."
I grabbed his hips and fucked up into him while he rode down to meet me. "That's the way. Fuck, look at ye," he gasped, forehead still on mine.
“Shut. The fuck. Up.” I punctuated every word with a thrust, but even that wasn’t enough.
Fin smiled. "All that fight—”
I’d had enough. One more word out of him and I was going to lose my damn mind, so I pulled his lips down to mine, and I bit his tongue. If he wasn’t going to hold it, then I’d do it for him.
His eyelashes fluttered against my cheek, and he groaned loud and deep as I drove up into him. When I let go of his tongue, he gave me a filthy roll of his hips.
“That's it,” he panted. “Christ. That's it."
“Fuck—” I groaned, head falling back as he started to ride me in earnest. He braced himself against my chest and lifted off of me before sinking back down, and he didn’t stop until I was buried to the balls.
Fuck, I wasn’t going to last if he did that much longer. Part of me hated that and hated him for taking me to the brink so fucking fast. The other part was so far gone, he didn’t care.
I put my hands on his shoulders and started driving up harder while he came down and the sounds…
Jesus Christ, the sounds that filled the room were filthy.
Not just the moaning and the cursing, which both of us were doing plenty of, but the wet, filthy fucking sounds.
I’d never once thought about how sex sounded, but tonight, it was like hearing music for the first time.
I shifted my hands down, wrapping them around his ribs at the chest, and brushing my thumbs over his bright pink nipples. He cried out like I’d hurt him and his cock jumped. A heavy bead of pre-cum spilled over from the slit and flowed down onto my stomach.
Why the fuck was that so hot? Why the fuck hadn’t I ever let myself realize how sexy it was to get someone else’s pre-cum on my stomach? And more importantly, why the fuck had it taken me twenty fucking years to understand sex could be this damn good.
“Aleksi…” Fin’s pale, freckled cheeks were flushed pink, and his lips were cherry red and swollen. “Fuck, Aleksi, get yer hand on my cock so I can come!”
I wrapped my hand around him and gave a few awkward pulls. It wasn’t like jerking off. His cock was…The skin was softer, velvety almost, and warm, but so hard.
For me, I thought. This cock is hard for me. He wants me this badly.
“Aye, yes, fuck…Mmm…” He bit his lip and tipped his head back, and it was the most beautiful fucking thing I’d ever seen.
His cock swelled in my grip and then he was coming, spilling hot and thick over my fist. At some point, he’d gotten his fingers up to his mouth and he was sucking on them as he came. The moment I realized that, I was gone.
I drove into him one more time and let go, and it was nothing like any orgasm I’d ever had before in my life.
Fin’s hole squeezed around me, gripping tighter like he was trying to milk every last drop out of me, and he rocked his hips forward one more time with a small whine that stole the breath out of me.
I thought, for one brief moment, that he might actually kill me.
But what a fucking way to go.
When it was over, Fin collapsed forward, barely holding himself up on shaky arms. "Told ye," he said eventually, into the dark. "Did as ye were told and the world didnae end."
"Shut up."
"Bit late to start playing hard to get." He winced and rolled off me to lie beside me in the bed. “Fuck. D’ye think Gregori heard?”
I gritted my teeth. “If he did, he’d better keep his fucking mouth shut.”
Fin laughed at that, but I didn’t think it was particularly funny. “Oh, Aleksi, ye mad, beautiful vor,” he said, throwing an arm over his eyes. “The only way this day could get any better would be with a nice hot bubble bath and a proper gin.”
“Well,” I said, “I hate to break it to you, but the hot water heater at this address hasn’t worked in four years. If you want a bubble bath, it’ll be a cold one.”
"This is a shite safehouse."
I shrugged and put an arm behind my head. "If you don’t like it, don't shower."
"I'm filthy and covered in cum, ye animal." He cracked an eye open. "Whose fault's that."
I didn't answer. I was looking at the ceiling and thinking about everything I’d been putting off.
Pavel dead. Mr. K in the wind. Nikita still hadn't called, and that was worrying me. I'd hung up on him and then shot one of our own men on Greek turf. There was a version of my future that ended with me six feet deep and Fin… Well, I didn’t want to think about what they’d do with him if I were gone.
"Stop it," Fin said.
"Stop what?"
"Whatever yer doing up there." He flicked my temple. "Ye've gone away. I can hear it."
"It's not nothing, Fin. What happened today? There's going to be —"
"Aye, I know. Tomorrow." He shifted, got an elbow under himself, and looked down at me with his hair wrecked and his lip swollen where I'd bitten it.
"There's always going to be a tomorrow with men like you.
Bills and bosses and somebody wanting somebody dead.
I've been awake for it. I'm no daft." He put his hand flat on my chest, over the scar, the bullet one.
"But it's no tomorrow yet. It's now. And right now ye're going to shut up and let me have ten minutes before the world starts again. Can ye do that?"
My phone picked the absolute worst second to start ringing.
“Fuck.” I started to sit up, but Fin pushed me down.
“Leave it,” he said, almost pleading.
I frowned at him. Then I put my hand on his wrist and shoved him away. “I have to get it, Fin.”
He sighed, and somehow that seemed to make him smaller.
I didn’t understand what was happening, why he was suddenly so upset with me.
What the fuck did he think this was? Some Hallmark movie?
I was a vory. I’d always be a vory. That meant I had to choose work over him, over me, over God if I’d been the religious type.
The organization was all I’d ever had, and it’d be all I had once he moved on too.
The thought made something ugly twist in my gut.
I fished my phone out of my pants to answer it before I could examine that too deeply. “Aleksi here.”
“What the fuck did you do?” Nikita growled in my ear.
I winced. “Nikita, I can explain—”
“Pavel is dead. The Greeks have his body, plus two Italians, and they’re saying it was you. Please tell me this wasn’t you, Aleksi.”
“If you’d just listen to me—”
“Not over the phone,” he barked. “Be at the office downtown in an hour. And bring the Scotsman.”
Something cold slithered down my spine. “Fin?”
“What other Scotsman could I mean? Yes, Finlay.” He hesitated. “And Aleksi, whatever proof you bring me when you walk into that office had better be iron-fucking-clad. Are we clear?”
“Yes, sir. As crystal.”
He hung up without saying goodbye.
I let myself have two seconds to pull my shit together. Well, I thought, it was nice while it lasted. Then I stood and grabbed my pants from the floor. “Nikita wants us at his office within an hour. Looks like it’s cold showers all around.”