Chapter Eighteen
Quick hard sex on floors was one thing. Deliberately undressing with another man and sliding naked between his sheets was something else.
Even Nikolas was finding it odd, because although it was something they’d done without thought, now he was hyperaware, ultra-conscious of what Ben must be thinking, and consequently found himself stiff and ill at ease too.
He then had something of a brainwave and returned to the kitchen, coming back with a bottle of ice-cold vodka and two glasses. Ben sat up in the bed and frowned.
“We drink vodka together in bed?”
“All the time. I’m Russian, Ben. We always drink vodka.”
“You’re Russian? You told me you were Danish. Do I speak Russian as well?”
Nikolas told him he was an idiot in Russian, and Ben grumbled, “I understood that.”
Nikolas grinned. “That’s because I say it to you a lot.” He filled both—large—glasses to the rim and handed one to Ben. The first taste was beyond describing. It slipped down as easily and with the same sense of coming home as pushing into Ben had earlier.
Ben was sniffing it suspiciously. “Are you sure I like this?”
“Absolutely. Drink up.” He lit another cigarette. They were sitting cross-legged, the bedding tangled around them, and now there was hardly any embarrassment at all.
“What did you do in London? Was it connected to me and this?” Ben tapped on his head.
“In a way. We’re still chasing up loose ends. Nothing for you to worry about. What are you smiling at?”
“Nothing. You look…happy. Do you always look like that after sex?”
Nikolas blew smoke at him. “I don’t know. I’ll have to ask you when you’re back.”
“Was this how it was the first time? I mean, how did we…? You must have…bloody hell, I can’t even imagine what you did to make me…”
“On the contrary, Mr Rider. You seduced me one weekend in my own house. I was a happily married man and completely taken unawares.”
“Really? Huh. Philipa did say you’d been very happy together.”
“We were. It was the perfect marriage.”
“But I seduced you? So, what…? I was your first man?”
“Most definitely you were. Goodness. You had to…teach me.” Nikolas topped them up again and blew some more smoke at Ben, watching the green eyes with their ridiculous long lashes in a whole new light.
He was reflecting he’d started taking Ben Rider-Mikkelsen too much for granted.
Seeing him here, like this, raw, before…
well, before Ben had met him, he supposed, before he’d shaped and moulded Ben into what he wanted him to be…
was something of a revelation for Nikolas.
Ben Rider-Mikkelsen didn’t eat with his mouth full, spit crumbs all over him and fish teabags out with his fingers.
Actually, he still did that, but not with Nikolas’s tea.
Ben Rider-Mikkelsen didn’t casually take someone else—a woman—to bed for the afternoon.
Although it was fascinating meeting this unformed Ben Rider again—in the flesh, so to speak— he knew which Ben he preferred, which one he wanted back.
But speaking of flesh…Nikolas removed Ben’s glass from his hand and pushed him back onto the bed.
He lay above him, braced on one arm, the other hand reacquainting itself with Ben’s familiar features.
Ben held his gaze, which was clearly difficult, for it was piercing and intent, fuelled on vodka and the smell of sex.
Nikolas put a hand around Ben’s throat. “I think it’s time I jogged some of those memories back for you. ”
* * *
Ben had always been physical. Some of his earliest memories were of running wild on the moors, which stretched bleak and dangerous behind his house in Yorkshire.
He’d joined the army, and his love of the extreme had been given a whole new definition.
But all that time, during all that excess, all the agony, he’d always felt something was missing, some peak of ecstasy was just out of reach.
He’d been right. Beyond pain, there was intense pleasure, and this strange new boss of his took him there that night.
* * *
Nikolas showed Ben the direct and visceral link between pain and sexual fulfilment for men, showed them what superb physique could reward you with.
What trust could lead you to explore. Nikolas, of course, had taken Ben on this journey many times, so for him it was not so overwhelming, so shocking.
But he’d never done it all at once to a version of Ben who hadn’t worked up to it suggestion by suggestion, experiment by experiment.
Ben’s body was still the same, and Nikolas knew it better than this half-Ben did himself.
Nikolas also knew Ben’s limits, and he stayed well away from them.
There was a lot he knew how to do within those confines, though.
* * *
By the time daylight came, Ben was as a wrung out rag on the bed, dazed, bleeding, bruised, but in a place in his head he’d been searching for his whole life—running wild, enduring beastings, excelling at selection, thriving on operations—and he’d found it here in a bed with a beautiful stranger he’d known for approximately three days.
He only roused when Nikolas came in with a tray of tea and a large stack of toast dripping in yellow butter.
This tea was in a porcelain pot with matching cups, milk in a delicate jug.
Ben tried to sit up but couldn’t on his first attempt.
He rolled onto his belly and levered himself back up against the pillows.
Nikolas put the tray down and slid into the warm space Ben had vacated. He poured them both some tea.
* * *
“What’s that word beginning with s?”
Nikolas raised his eyebrows. He’d been miles away, reliving the night. New-Ben was even odder than his Ben. “Shit?”
Ben gave him the look. Nikolas laughed. Both Bens in one Ben body. Life threw you unexpected moments of pleasure when you thought all pleasure was done for the day.
“No. The one that means weird.”
“Surreal?”
“Yep. That’s the one. I’m sitting here like this,” Ben clearly felt he didn’t need to point out the injuries, the bruises, the general state of his appearance, “in a bed with another man. A man I don’t know and drinking tea out of the Queen’s bloody china. Surreal.”
Nikolas frowned. “How did you know this was palace china? Did Philipa tell you I stole it?”
Ben’s mouth opened slightly, but he just shook his head and began to work on the toast. “This is really good.”
Nikolas flicked a small wodge of masticated bread off his arm. “It’s the only thing I know how to make.”
“You want?” Ben pushed the plate to him.
“No. Thank you.”
After swallowing and starting on a second slice, Ben challenged conversationally, “So, you gonna tell me?”
Nikolas was stretched out alongside him now, contemplating the tor rising above their heads. “Tell you what?”
“What you really are. Who you are. One thing’s for fucking sure: you haven’t always been a charity whatnot thingy.”
“I was a diplomat. I ran the Ministry of Industries and Minerals.”
“Bollocks and bullshit.”
“Eat your toast.”
Another few slices went the way of the first. “So, do I ever do that to you?”
Nikolas shuddered theatrically. “No, never. I can’t abide pain. I prefer…flowers.”
“Uh-huh. So how’d you get that then? That was a bullet. More than one.” Ben dug into Nikolas’s thigh scar with a buttery finger, which made Nikolas laugh and turn over sharply onto his belly. That only revealed all his other scars. They got poked at and buttered too. “So?”
“Flower arranging is a very dangerous occupation.”
Ben pushed the tray to one side and with an audible hiss of pain sat astride Nikolas’s thighs, just below his hard, moulded backside. He laid a hand there, brushing the tanned skin with his thumb. “Can I…explore?”
Nikolas turned his head quizzically, staring back up at Ben. “You saw it all last night.”
“Not like this. In the light.”
The winter dawn had just arrived in the room, shafts of light illuminating the bed from the glass ceiling.
Ben didn’t wait for permission. He spread his fingers over the cheeks and eased them apart, brushing with his thumbs then using them to explore further, deeper.
Nikolas bent up at the waist, his head hung low, groaning.
It had been a very long night, and he was fairly sure he was now running completely on empty.
Ben lifted up. “Turn over.” Nikolas did.
Ben settled comfortably back onto Nikolas’s legs and contemplated everything he saw.
Nikolas smirked. Not empty at all. Ben’s breathing hitched at the sight of Nikolas’s reviving cock, and he trailed his finger lightly across the tip, held its rigid length as it swelled and filled, tapped it lightly from side to side as it swayed independent now, erect.
Ben scrunched his face for a moment and then slapped Nikolas’s cock hard. He laughed as Nikolas rose outraged and complaining. Ben leant forward and mouthed into a kiss, “I’ve done that before. I remembered.”
Nikolas held him off. Ben shook his head and twitched his shoulder in a tiny shrug. “Just that. Sorry.”
Nikolas huffed and lay back. “Typical,” was his only comment.
Ben laughed, slid further forward and took Nikolas inside.
Nikolas knew Ben was extremely sore because he winced and complained, but he did it anyway until he was settled and filled.
Nikolas folded his arms beneath his head.
They looked at one another, not speaking until Ben murmured once more, “Surreal.” He reached forward and placed his fingertips to the inside of Nikolas’s arm, and when Nikolas frowned in incomprehension, he just smiled. “Cool. I remember that as well.”