Chapter 15 #3
“Yes.” Vitaliy sat as though to brace himself with both feet. “Of course, legally, you do.”
And otherwise than legally? Everard thought greedily.
“Is more than a shore wife would have, come to think,” Vitaliy mused, then looked suddenly worried. “Why are you unsure of this?”
“Er, well… can it be quite… legal?”
He watched as Vitaliy’s realisation dawned.
“Oh,” Vitaliy said. “Oh. No, that is different too.” He peered at him, concerned. “I did say that, no? That fucking is not a requirement of the partnership?”
“Well—er—not precisely,” Everard admitted. “No. You had said something of sharing a bed…?”
“And we are.” Vitaliy looked scandalised. “I could not oblige sex from you too! Considering all you have already given up. And what of the lieutenant?” he asked shrewdly. “Are not you and him…?”
Oblige sex from him! It was almost laughable.
“No, Preston isn’t… Well, there’s no understanding—but that is a separate issue from you and I,” Everard said firmly. “And I don’t know that I would call it obliging you. For my part. In fact, I wouldn’t call it that in the least.”
Vitaliy leaned forward, elbows on knees, his expression keen. A physical, yearning representation of Please always say what you want.
Everard said quickly, “I might yet… want that. So long as you do. As long as you have done. Have wanted that.”
Vitaliy nodded understandingly. “That. I think the answer is yes, I do and I have. But please say what? I prefer it direct.”
Everard blinked.
Vitaliy smiled innocently. “As you perhaps remember.”
Did he ever. “I… Yes.” Everard cleared his throat. “I want to stay,” he said. “I want the press. And I want to… want to share your bed. Again. Not only intermittently. Not just for sleeping; for fucking. While you’re awake, I mean. I’d wake you whenever might be needed—”
“Direct enough,” Vitaliy said, and pulled Everard close and kissed him.
It began fierce, then turned cautious at once, tentative and restrained, until Everard reached to the cursed-ribbon–bound hair and tugged firmly. He felt it best to remove any doubt. He was all-in, every piece.
Vitaliy understood. He groaned, plush lips opening; he tasted of spice and pepper and coffee. His skin was still soap-soft; he’d commandeered Thom’s excellent shaving services early this morning.
Everard kissed along the sharp jaw to curly sideburns and back again, down, and delighted in this further shared thread of companionship, of connection.
He kept on kissing ’til Vitya was cursing, trying to lean back and pull him onto his lap simultaneous, and the man had an arm locked tight around Everard’s waist.
Everard drew back, breathing hard, and made a wondering glance down to the crate beneath them; looked up and saw Vitaliy considering the same. Their eyes met, and Vitya nodded.
“Eh, not quite a bed?” he said, and they both giggled.
There was some shuffling, tantalisingly brief contact of firm warmth beneath linen; a scattering ping-plink-plink of nails across the floor. Vitya lay back and shifted one large thigh to the side. Everard found his way between salt-streaked boots to sink his hips precisely where they belonged.
The ship creaked, block and tackle and decking and mast; beneath them was the more-immediate strain of the crate as it did its best against their grinding.
Vitya had a one-handed grip of the plank edge nearest his head for leverage, and was pushing up.
Everard had grip of Vitya himself, fingers clutching where neck met shoulder, pulling his too-clothed self forward and back, trying to press every bit he could against the taper of warm muscle beneath.
“Jesus sainted.” Too much clothing; too little air. He felt desperate, a sailor upon first stumble into a brothel, sort of desperate, without due cause. He pushed up onto both hands. “Can’t—not much more of that. Undo your blasted breeches?” he pleaded.
Vitaliy laughed softly and complied. Like D’Arcy, he didn’t wear drawers. It was delightful.
Everard’s mouth burned with spice; fellatio seemed sadly out of the question. He stared down, wishing it were otherwise. Then Vitaliy helped with the buttons of Everard’s own fall, quick and unerring, and Everard decided this was an adequate solution, after all.
He reached down with his right hand. Vitaliy pushed up and touched his forehead to his in… sympathy? Memory? Who knew, but Everard appreciated it—and then Everard pressed their pricks together and went to work.
Vitaliy was so present, clutching at him everywhere, kissing and biting and writhing beneath him, Everard wondered how or why anyone could’ve ever continued on when he was disturbingly asleep.
Lackwits—idiots—worse, he called them. Meanwhile, Vitya was there, and his, and there, his head went back, and there, that flush—
Vitya pulled him in for a blazing-hot, all-consuming kiss.
It disturbed the rhythm, though neither of them cared.
Even so, Vitya soon seemed frantic; he broke free to simply moan.
Everard levered up, pushed forward and down within the guide of his fingers, slowly and deliberately, and watched Vitya’s shudder start in his thighs and tremble up, out of gasping lips.
He was quiet, so quiet, one felt almost obliged to watch, so as to miss nothing. Not that it was a hardship.
As things got dire, Vitya shifted to put a boot down flat on the floor to brace them, and Everard made room in the tangle of thighs and hands to let him thrust, let him to abandon. He worried again for the crate beneath them, even as he wanted to test it further.
In the end it held fine, complaining only once under the onslaught of Vitaliy’s slow, rocking tremors and great inhales.
His head was thrown back again, his eyes shut tight, hair splayed loose everywhere in his drive towards crisis.
Everard held them together, all coordination gone. He could only watch in awe.
“Sant Jesús,” he muttered. “Vitya. You’re beautiful.”
Vitya’s eyes flew open, shined and blue-black, just for a moment; they fluttered shut as he went suddenly rigid all over, trembling, teeth deep in his lip.
“God, yes, come,” Everard said.
Vitya came with a groan Everard wished he’d been close enough to swallow. He leant forward to try and catch the last of it—and Vitya’s lips against his, the rush of spice and breathy heat on his tongue, the extravagant new slickness between them yanked him, tumbling, over the edge.
Eventually, he could breathe again.
“Jesus,” he said. “And that just frigging?”
“Mm.” Vitya smiled, looking half-stunned, half-asleep. He still had eyes closed, and his broad hands wrapped tight around Everard’s knees. God, but they were both a mess.
Feeling mellow, quieto, satisfied regardless, Everard said, “At this point, I think you may have to maroon me.”
“What?” Vitaliy murmured. “Who has threatened that?” He frowned. “No.”
“To get me to go, I mean.”
Vitya relaxed. “Oh.” He snorted. “No,” he repeated. “That is not an option.”