Fifteen
Caiden
It’s been three days since I nearly kissed Arseny Zakirov behind the barracks, and my brain hasn’t shut up once.
Three days of pretending nothing happened.
Three days of pretending I don’t remember the exact feel of his hand on my back, his breath on my mouth, and his eyes on my lips.
Three days of lying so hard to myself, I should probably be court-martialled for it.
The lads are either snoring or out trying to drink themselves frostproof, and Niko’s still buried in some officer meeting. I should be asleep or writing up the most boring morale report in the history of NATO.
Instead, I’m walking loops of the perimeter like a fucked-up wind-up toy with anxiety. The chain-link fence rattles faintly every time the wind hits it, and the floodlights throw harsh yellow cones across the snow, turning my breath into bursts of white smoke.
I jam my hands deeper into my pockets and keep moving. I’m too aware of every thought, twitch, and stupid memory of his mouth so close to mine I could taste his breath.
We didn’t even kiss. That’s the messed-up part. If we’d crossed that line properly, at least I’d have facts to work with. Yes, you kissed a Russian sergeant in the equipment shed, Caiden. Congratulations, you’ve achieved ‘disaster’ on hard mode.
Instead, we just hovered, suspended in that tiny space between maybe and definitely. My brain keeps replaying it on a loop. You almost kissed him. You wanted to. He wanted you to.
I stop walking and lean my shoulder against one of the fence posts, exhaling hard. This isn’t just about him, I know that much. This itch has been under my skin for years.
Every offhand slur in a barracks or joke about “batty lads” and “pervs” is thrown around like punctuation. Every time, I laughed along or stared at my boots. You learn how to look, how not to look, and keep the wrong parts of yourself zipped up under the uniform.
I managed it for years.
Then I got flown to Russia and dropped on a base with Niko Zakirov and his chaotic little brother, and suddenly all my carefully stacked boxes are on the floor.
Niko, with his stupid gold-ring grin and his engaged-straight-dad energy, whom I can’t even be properly in love with because I actually like him and because life is cruel.
Then there’s Ari. Who is... what, exactly?
A problem, temptation, chaos gremlin with a smirk?
He’s been in my space since the briefing, picking at my seams, poking my soft spots, always seeing through me.
I should stay well away. Instead, I’m out here in the dark thinking about his mouth.
“Losing it, mate,” I mutter under my breath.
My voice fogs the air, then vanishes. “Get a grip.”
Footsteps crunch somewhere behind me and I close my eyes. Please just let it be some random patrol I can salute and escape. Someone who isn’t— “Leaving the country without permission, Varrik?”
Oh, fuck me sideways.
He picks the exact second my guard’s down as if he’s been here the whole time waiting for the right moment.
I turn my head and see him walking along the perimeter track toward me.
His hands in the pockets of his field jacket, snow caught in the mess of his hair, and I spot a fading bruise along his jaw that pulls my gaze like a magnet.
He stops a couple of metres away, but that’s still too close. I can see the grey in his eyes even in this dirty yellow light. “Just getting air, Sergeant,” I say.
“Mm.” His gaze flicks briefly to the trees beyond the fence, then back to me. “You’ve chosen a very dramatic place to breathe.”
“Didn’t realise there were assigned oxygen zones.”
“There are,” he replies. “You’re in the brooding corner. Dangerous levels of thinking happen here.”
A huff of laughter escapes me. “I’ll try to keep it under the legal limit.”
“What’s the punishment for overthinking where you’re from?”
“Ah, they send you to a therapist,” I say. “Or war.”
He snorts. “We skip the first step.”
The wind knifes between us, and I tuck my chin in, fighting a shiver. He notices, of course. His eyes narrow slightly, tracking my shoulders and the tight set of my mouth.
“You look like shit,” he says conversationally.
“Thank you, Sergeant,” I reply. “I’ve been working hard on it.”
“You’ve been walking around all day like your clothes are made of barbed wire,” he adds. “Even for you, that’s a lot.”
I grit my teeth. “Been watching me that closely, have you?”
He gives me a look that says ‘obviously.’
“You flinch every time someone gets too close. Today, you even flinched when Niko put a hand on your shoulder. That was new.”
Heat crawls up the back of my neck. “Maybe I just don’t like people touching me.”
“You don’t mind it normally when it’s him,” Ari says quietly. “Or you didn’t, before.”
Before we nearly kissed. Before I grabbed his shirt and confessed I wanted to. My mouth feels dry. “You’ve been taking notes, have you?”
He shrugs one shoulder. “I get bored. You’re interesting data.”
“Glad I can contribute to the great Russian boredom crisis,” I mutter.
He steps a bit closer, nibbling at my personal space, poking the line to see how tightly it’s tied. “What’s wrong, Caiden?” he asks. “And please don’t insult me by saying ‘nothing.’”
“Nothing’s wrong,” I say anyway.
He raises an eyebrow. “You are a catastrophically bad liar.”
“Says the man who lies for a living,” I snap.
He hums, conceding the point. “Yes, but I’m good at it. That’s the difference.”
His gaze drifts over my face, calculating my expression. “You packed your bag earlier.”
My stomach drops. “You were in my room?”
“Your door was open,” he says. “And the room looked like you were preparing for a hasty extraction. Very... British.”
I look away. “Maybe I like being organised.”
“Maybe you were distracting yourself from something.”
I laugh. “Do you psychoanalyse all your allies, or am I special?”
His mouth quirks. “You are very special.”
“I was thinking about home,” I say quietly. “About what happens after this.”
“And?”
“And I don’t know,” I admit. “About any of it.”
His face softens slightly. It’s subtle. If I didn’t spend half my time staring at him, I’d miss it. “Home will still be there,” he says. “This will not.” He gestures vaguely around us, stepping closer. “Men will change. Bases will close. The weather will always be shit.”
“Comforting,” I say.
“I’m full of comfort,” he replies blandly. “It’s not the place you’re worried about, is it?”
His gaze drops to my throat, watching my Adam’s apple bob as I swallow, then back to my eyes. “Why do you care?” I ask, meaning it to sound sharp. It comes out tired instead.
He holds my stare. “You are in my brother’s orbit,” he says. “That makes you my problem.”
“Your entertainment, you mean?”
He considers my words, then tilts his head. “Sometimes it’s the same thing.”
I shake my head, exhaling hard. “You’re unbelievable.”
“So I’ve been told.” Silence drops between us. Somewhere behind us, laughter bursts from the direction of the barracks, then fades. “You should go in,” he says eventually. “You look like you’re freezing.”
“I’m fine,” I lie.
He steps closer again. This time, I step back into the fence on instinct. The problem now is that I’m pinned between metal and him with no effort at all. “What are you doing?” I whisper.
“This,” he says quietly. “I’m doing this.
” His hand lifts slowly. If I really wanted to, I could step aside or swat him away.
But I don’t move, I’m frozen in place. His fingers grip my jaw.
They’re warm and calloused, but too gentle for the way my nerves react.
He turns my face a little, angling me toward him, and the base noise falls away like someone turned down the volume.
“Tell me you don’t want me,” he says. “Say it properly, and I’ll walk away and never touch you again.”
My mouth opens to reply, the stock phrases line up automatically, drilled in by years of survival. I don’t want this. I’m not like that. This is wrong. This is dangerous. His thumb skims my bottom lip, and my thoughts scatter. “Say it,” he murmurs. “And mean it.”
I drag in a breath that feels like it’s scraping against my lungs. “I —” I start. Ari’s eyes are fixed on mine. “I don’t —” His lips ghost over mine and fire flares low in my stomach.
“Don’t lie,” he says, gently. “You don’t know how.”
There’s no decision or strategy, just a surge like a dam giving way. One second, I’m pinned to the fence with his hand on my jaw, and my half-formed excuses rattle around my head. Next, my fingers have fisted in the front of his jacket, I’m pulling him into me, and our mouths crash together.
He makes a half-shocked, half... something else sound, and it’s swallowed instantly by the press of lips and teeth.
My eyes slam shut, and everything narrows to heat, contact and the rough scrape of stubble.
For a few seconds, his body goes tight and still as if I’ve managed to surprise the unflappable Sergeant Zakirov.
Then his free hand slams into the fence beside my head, his palm splaying against the cold metal, caging me in and kissing me back, hard enough to steal what little breath the cold left me.
Everything else falls away — the snow, the fence, the base, the rules. There’s just the crush of his mouth on mine, the sharp drag of his teeth on my lower lip, the taste of smoke, coffee and something that’s just him.
He presses in, his knee nudging between my legs, and his body solid and hot against mine. A sound escapes me, and he swallows it, turning his head to deepen the kiss. His tongue brushes my lower lip, and my whole body lights up when I let him in.
He kisses like he fights, it’s brutal, precise, and mind-altering.
Our mouths slide, clash, and find a rhythm that feels terrifyingly inevitable.
The heat floods my veins, chasing away the cold, and my hands — which are still fisted in his jacket — loosen enough to slip inside, and up over his chest. He makes another approving sound into my mouth.
Some rational part of my brain is screaming at me, “You’re on a base, you’re outside, you’re visible, you’re insane...
” but it’s drowned out by the roar of electrified need.
I angle my head, chasing him when he tries to slow the kiss, greedy now that I’ve finally given in.
His fingers slide up to my nape and tighten in my hair.
It’s a small, possessive tug that sends a lightning bolt straight through me.
I didn’t know I liked that, now I know I do.
He pulls back a little — enough that his lips drag over mine — and rests his forehead against mine.
I suck in air like I’ve been underwater. “Fuck,” I whisper. It comes out ragged. “I... fuck.”
“You finally did something interesting,” he says softly.
God, I need to kiss him again. My hands flex against his chest, my fingers curling into the fabric.
He feels hard and solid under my palm; it feels better than I ever imagined it would.
This is real, it’s actually happening and isn’t some fever dream conjured by stress, cold and loneliness.
“Arseny,” I say, his name is pulled out of me and something sharp and pleased flashes across his face at the sound.
“Do that again,” he whispers, tightening his fingers in my hair more.
“Do what again?”
“Kiss me, and touch me like you mean it,” he breathes. I drag him back in, and my lips find his with less desperation and more intent this time. It’s slower, deeper, and I kiss him like I’m not sure when I’ll get to do it again, as if I might be shot for it at dawn.
His mouth opens under mine, greedy and welcoming. The hand on the fence stays braced, keeping the world at bay while he uses the other to keep me trapped exactly where he wants me.
I don’t want to be anywhere else because for the first time in days, the noise in my head goes quiet. There’s just him, his mouth, and my heart hammering against my ribs like it’s trying to rewrite my entire life.
And the terrifying, exhilarating realisation that I’ve just crossed a line I can never uncross.