Sixteen
Arseny
The first thing that hits me isn’t his mouth; it’s the decision.
You can feel when someone makes one, that split-second shift in their body when they stop just enduring you, and choose something.
His hand fisting in my jacket is rough, almost angry, but the moment he pulls me in, there’s this...
click, like a safety coming off. And then his mouth is on mine.
For a moment, my brain just— blue screens.
I’d been braced for a lot of things with Caiden Varrik — A punch in the face, a lecture, or him snapping and reporting me.
I’ve been poking him like a stuck switch, waiting to see what he does when he finally breaks.
Apparently, what he does is kiss me like he’s trying to solve a problem with his mouth.
He’s not smooth at first. It’s messy, hard, and off-centre. His nose bumps mine, like his body overrode his training and went straight to instinct without checking the manual. But there’s heat in it, mixed with frustration, and something that tastes a whole lot like desperation.
I make a noise I absolutely did not authorise, starting somewhere low in my chest and coming out like a half-swallowed laugh, and then I kiss him back.
I’ve been winding him tighter and tighter since he got here, seeing how far I can push before the neat little British thing snaps.
Now he has his hands tangled in my jacket, his body crowding mine, and every molecule of him is screaming, ‘you did this to me.’
God, I’m proud of myself.
His mouth is hot, clumsy, earnest, and I could pick it apart, critique the technique, or tilt my head and fix it.
I slide one hand up the back of his neck, fingers threading into the short hair at his nape, and press closer, taking control of the angle, the pressure, and the pace.
He makes this startled sound into my mouth, like he hadn’t quite processed that I might meet him halfway, never mind take over.
I lick into him, slow, deliberate, and feel him stutter.
He tries to chase it immediately, of course. Tries to match me, to even it up, but he’s a second behind, and I can feel him realising that in real time, like a man who thought he’d already read the map and is discovering new terrain under his feet.
I’m going to make so much trouble out of this.
I drag my mouth back, just enough to breathe, our foreheads knocking together. We’re both panting as if we’ve sprinted. I can see his eyes now, up close and too open, stripped of whatever he usually hides behind.
“Arseny,” he rasps, like he’s surprised the name works out loud. His gaze drops to my mouth again, like it’s magnetic. For a second, I think he’s going to apologise. If he says sorry, I might actually punch him. Instead, I tell him to kiss me again, and he surges in.
It’s better this time. Still desperate, but there’s a pattern to it now.
He’s already learning me, adjusting his angle to fit my mouth, and not crashing our teeth together.
His hand, that had moved to rest on my chest, slides down my side, the fingers skimming my ribs, and his thumb brushes the underside of my pectoral through the thin fabric of my T-shirt.
A hot, electric line lances straight down my spine and my back arches before I can stop it, pressing me harder against him. He swallows the sound I make, turning it into his own, and that’s a problem.
I’d planned for manipulated tension, curiosity, him losing his temper and doing something he’d think about later with shame and horror.
I didn’t plan for the part where once his mouth is on mine, I’m the one in danger of forgetting we’re standing outside.
We’re in the open, where anyone could turn this corner and blow a hole in both our lives, and now my pulse increases for a different reason.
Focus, Zakirov.
I keep kissing him. Obviously — let’s not be insane. But I let the awareness bleed back in — this is reckless even by my standards.
He shifts nearer, like he’s trying to climb inside my skin.
My fingers curl tighter in his hair, and he makes this wounded little noise that hits me somewhere between my ribs and my groin.
He pulls back just enough for his lips to drag along my jaw and move down to my neck.
“You drive me fucking crazy,” he whispers.
“Good,” I murmur. “I’d be offended if I didn’t.” He huffs a helpless laugh that ends in another breathless kiss.
His hand slides to my waist, his thumb pressing into the dip between my hip and ribs, and his body rocks forward against mine. There’s no mistaking the hard line against my thigh.
Okay, now it’s officially too much. All it would take is one filthy whisper in his ear, and he’d follow me straight off the edge.
But then what? Then we’re the story. The rumour.
The cautionary tale. The British Lance Corporal who got caught with his fucked-up Russian superior, and guess which one of us they’d decide was the predator in that particular narrative?
I’ve survived too long by picking my catastrophes; I don’t get to be careless. Not here, not with this. I let the kiss go on a few seconds longer, then I take a breath, plant my palm flat on his chest, and push just enough to put that thin slice of air back between us.
He chases automatically, his body leaning forward, his eyes unfocused, as if he missed the part where I moved.
“Ari?”
“Careful, Caiden,” I murmur, forcing my voice into a light tone. “You’re going to mess up my reputation.”
“Your— what?”
I let my hands drop from him and move a step back. “People think I’m untouchable,” I say breezily. “It’s very useful. I’d hate for them to find out I can be dragged behind equipment sheds by overeager British boys.”
“Overeager?” he echoes as if that’s the point to argue.
“Yes,” I say. “It’s okay, though. I forgive you.”
His brows knit together. “I— you— I kissed you, and you’re forgiving me?”
“Well, you laid hands on a foreign NCO with a reputation for being difficult and then put your tongue in his mouth. Bold choices, Varrik. I respect that. But we should probably not continue the demonstration out here.” As I say it, I glance reflexively toward the corner of the building.
The angle is blind enough that someone could round it and see us before we had time to detangle without it looking like what it is.
His gaze follows mine, and I watch realisation roll over his face in real time.
“Shit,” he breathes.
“Yes,” I agree pleasantly. “Welcome to my world.” He looks back at me, and I can see the conflict there.
He doesn’t want to stop. He really doesn’t want to stop.
But he’s also not an idiot. He understands what getting caught would mean.
Not for me — he probably hasn’t even got there yet — for him.
For his spotless record, his ‘promising’ career and his imaginary, neat little life.
“Ari,” he says again, but the tone is different now. “What— what is this?”
Oh no. Absolutely not. We’re not having that conversation next to the fucking storage shed. “This,” I say, letting my mouth curl, “is me being very generous indeed, and not laughing at you for being terrible at pretending you didn’t want to do that.”
His eyes flare with anger. “I’m not... I’m not terrible at...”
“You’re bad at lying to yourself,” I say. “Which is inconvenient for you but extremely entertaining for me. Go cool off, Caiden. Take a walk, have some water, and try not to pick a fight with anyone bigger than you.”
“I can handle myself,” he bristles.
“Oh, I have no doubt,” I purr. “We’ll... revisit that later.” The way his breath hitches at the word “later” would be embarrassing if it weren’t so gratifying.
“You’re not just going to walk away,” he says, like he honestly can’t compute that I’d let this go without dragging it into a full-on scene.
You poor, stupid, beautiful man.
“Of course I am,” I say, stepping out of his space. “We’re on base. We both have duty in the morning. And I’m not a teenager.”
“What does that—”
“It means I know the difference between flirting with disaster and handing it a written invitation,” I say, tipping my head, then look him over once more for my own private archive. “You want more? You can work for it.”
His jaw clenches, and the muscle ticks. “You’re unbelievable,” he mutters.
“Correct,” I say. “Try not to fall in love on the way back to your bunk, hm? I’m very bad for you.
” I turn before he can say anything, because that’s the only way this works.
If I linger, even for another ten seconds, the part of me that’s still humming with the feel of his mouth will drag me right back in.
I can feel his eyes on my back as I walk away around the corner.
I don’t look back, I only let myself breathe properly once I’m out of sight.
I shove my hands into my jacket pockets and start walking, not entirely sure where I’m going until my feet choose for me.
My heart is still going too fast, in the deep, thrumming after-effect of a near-miss.
I feel wired, like I’ve just disarmed a bomb with three seconds left on the timer — because make no mistake, that’s what that was.
A bomb.
There’s no one close enough to see me, but I keep my face neutral anyway. I’ve practised that look so long it’s practically muscle memory at this point. It’s the one that says nothing touches me, nothing shakes me, nothing gets in.
It is, of course, a lie.
He thinks he’s the one who snapped, lost control, and I’m the one walking away untouched. He has no idea that the only reason I’m walking in a straight line right now is that I’ve had more practice than him at bleeding off adrenaline without showing it.
I cross the yard, past a couple of conscripts loitering near the barracks door, smoking. They nod when they see me, their eyes dropping automatically. I nod back, curtly, and keep moving.