Twenty-Three #2
“Fine,” he says. “You want to survive? Here’s a survival tactic for you.
” He steps even closer till our bodies touch, chest to chest, his thigh brushing mine.
I grip the desk with one hand to keep my balance.
“I’m done chasing,” he says quietly. “You don’t want this?
Say so. Properly. I’ll walk out that door, and I won’t touch you again.
I won’t look at you any longer than I look at anyone else.
I’ll find someone who isn’t terrified of wanting me and let them ruin themselves instead. ”
I feel his words ignite something ugly and petty inside me. “Find someone else, then,” I hear myself say. “If it’s all the same to you.”
There’s a split second where I see it, the hurt I didn’t think he could feel, before it turns into something sharper. “As you like,” he smiles. “Plenty of pretty mouths on this base. I’m sure one of them will be very... accommodating.”
The anger in me bubbles up. One second, I’m leaning back against the desk, fists clenched, heart in my throat.
The next my hand is in the front of his shirt, and I’m shoving him, slamming him back into the filing cabinet hard enough that the metal rattles.
He grunts, more in surprise than pain, his hands flying out to catch the edge of the cabinet behind him.
“Don’t push it,” I snarl. I don’t recognise my own voice.
His eyes narrow, the heat flaring through the grey.
“There he is,” he says softly. “I was wondering where you’d gone.”
“Shut up,” I growl. “You want me to stop pretending?” I pull him away from the cabinet, then shove him again, harder, pinning him to the cold metal with my forearm across his chest. “Here it is,” I say, breath coming in hard and fast. “I hate you.”
“Liar,” he whispers, smiling.
“I can’t fucking stand the thought of you putting your hands on anyone else. It drives me fucking crazy.”
That wipes the smile off his face. For a moment, we just stare at each other, breathing hard. His gaze flicks down to my mouth, then back up again. “Then don’t let me,” he says.
That’s it. That’s the point of no return.
My hands replace my forearm, keeping him pinned to the metal.
Then I surge in and kiss him. It’s like hitting something with a sledgehammer; our teeth clash, and he says something in Russian into my mouth.
His hands come up, fingers curling hard into the back of my neck, and he yanks me closer so hard my ribs slam into his.
The world collapses down to the taste of him.
I pour everything into the kiss. Three days of avoiding him.
Weeks of taunts, tension, the almost-kiss, and the actual ones.
Years of pretending I don’t look at men, that I don’t want what I want.
Every bit of fear, anger, and hunger. It all slams out of me through my mouth, my hands, and the way I press him into the cabinet like I’m trying to fuse us through steel.
He makes a low sound in his throat that shoots straight down to my balls. When I finally drag back for air, we’re both breathing like we’ve run a sprint. “Detka,” he says hoarsely. “Careful.”
“Don’t tell me to be careful,” I snap, already dying to pull him back in again. “You started this.”
He huffs out a breath that might be a laugh. “I didn’t start this,” he says. “Always so dramatic.”
“Shut up,” I say again, but softer this time.
I grab his jaw and drag him down into another kiss.
This one is worse. His mouth opens under mine, and I fall into it, into him, like there was never any other outcome.
His tongue brushes mine, and I clutch him harder, making the cabinet bang the wall with every small shift.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, there’s a running list of consequences. If we’re caught in here, this is my career. If the wrong person walks in, this is our lives. But the part of me that cares about that is drowned out by the feel of him pressed against me.
The filing cabinet quickly becomes a problem. I don’t know who moves first. It’s a tangle of hands and half-swallowed cursing. One second, he’s pinned against metal, the next I’m shoving him sideways, stumbling with him until his thighs hit the edge of the desk.
Papers skid under his hands as he catches himself, and pens roll off, clattering to the floor. He sits on the desk, breathless, legs bracketing mine. “Fuck,” he says on a laughing exhale. “Look at you, so aggressive.”
“Don’t,” I warn, dragging his shirt up with both hands. “Don’t start.”
“Too late,” he murmurs. The hem of his shirt meets resistance at his belt, then gives when I pull harder.
The fabric comes up over his ribs, baring his skin to the cold air, and I pull it all the way off, suck in a breath.
I’ve seen him naked in the showers, but this is different.
His chest is pale where the sun never touches, his muscles carved by a life that’s never allowed him to soften.
There are scars, pale lines, a puckered mark under his ribs, and a small circle near his chest that might be a bullet wound.
I want to ask, but now is definitely the wrong time.
His breath stutters when my fingers brush his skin. “Caiden,” he whispers.
“Shut up,” I breathe, and lean in. I kiss his throat first, because I’ve been staring at it for weeks.
The spot where his pulse hammers, the curve where it meets his jaw.
He tilts his head back immediately, and a low sound escapes his mouth.
My hands splay over his ribs, thumbs brushing the edges of old scars.
I drag my mouth down, teeth scraping lightly along his collarbone.