Twenty-Nine
Caiden
I wake up already touching him. It takes my brain a few seconds to catch up with that fact.
I surface in pieces, warmth first, then weight, then the dull ache in places I didn't know existed. There’s a solid shape under my arm, and the first coherent thought I have is ‘shit, I overslept.’ The second is ‘what the fuck is that?’
I blink at the pale ceiling with the unfamiliar wooden beams, and light seeping through thin curtains instead of the dull concrete and fluorescent hum of the barracks. Right. Cabin. Off base. Weekend. Ari.
Then last night hits me in one big, full-colour wave.
My hand spasms where it rests on his bare stomach, my fingers splayed just below his ribs. I look down and see the fine line of hair vanishing beneath the blanket, and I cut the next thought off so violently that my whole body flinches.
Don’t think about it — which is pointless, because that’s all my brain can think about.
The room smells like him; the sheets are a mess, and my body is a map of evidence from last night.
There are harsh red marks — which will no doubt turn into bruises — in the shape of his fingers on my hips; there’s a raw pull in my thighs, and the deep, satisfying soreness of having been completely destroyed by him.
My sleep-muddled brain supplies a helpful flash of memory. His voice in my ear, the rough Russian spilling out of him as he pushed inside me the second time, or was it the third? And that string of curses, I secretly learned the meaning of weeks ago.
“Yob tvoyu... blyat...” I’d pretended not to understand, because if I’d let myself react properly, I think I might’ve shattered on the spot.
I lie there, staring at the ceiling and trying not to combust. My leg is tangled with his, and my calf is hooked over his shin. At some point during the night, I must’ve rolled into him, because I’m half on my front, half draped over him like he’s a very smug, very dangerous body pillow.
One of his arms is under his head, the other is around me. His hand rests over the back of my shoulder, and his fingers are spread possessively against my skin, like he fell asleep holding on.
Do not read into that.
His breathing is slow and even, his chest rising under me in a steady rhythm. There’s a bruise on his collarbone where I bit him, and my face heats just looking at it. There’s another faint mark along his throat.
My marks. Well. That’s... yeah. That’s a thing that exists in reality now.
The ache that flares in my balls is inconvenient, satisfying, and terrifying all at once.
Last night felt unreal. Like something I made up.
Except I didn’t, because here I am, still wrapped around the beautiful Russian who fucked me so thoroughly my soul temporarily vacated the premises.
I want to laugh, or cry, or get up, and walk into the snow and never come back.
Instead, I shift my arm a little, trying to ease some pins and needles out of my fingers. His skin twitches under my arm, he makes a little humming sound, and his eyelashes flutter. He doesn’t open his eyes, but his arm tightens around me for a second, then relaxes again.
Oh, that’s... that’s unfair.
I lie there, frozen, with every nerve ending buzzing.
The smart thing would be to extract myself carefully, go to the bathroom, and put some distance between us before my brain does— exactly what it’s currently doing.
Under all the embarrassment, lingering arousal and bone-deep exhaustion, a new, horrifying thought is forming.
I like this.
Not just the sex — that’s a whole separate category of ‘what the actual fuck is my life,’— but this. The warm, heavy comfort of him in my arms. The way our bodies fit, as if we’ve done this a hundred times, and the way my pulse — which has been a jittery mess for weeks — feels weirdly steady.
I like him. Obviously. That much stopped being deniable weeks ago. He’s infuriating, sharp, funny, and alive in a way no one else is. Even when he’s being a menace, he makes me feel like I’m... there. Not just a uniform or a rank.
My fingers press in unconsciously against his stomach, and somewhere between my hand and my chest, a new feeling rises. The second I think it, my heart slams so hard that I feel a little dizzy. The words rings around my skull like a damn gunshot.
No. No, that’s... that’s dramatic. We’ve known each other for what, weeks? We’ve spent most of that trying to choke each other out or pretending not to look at each other’s mouths.
No, that can fuck off right now. There’s no way.
Except, I go back, like an idiot, flipping through the mental footage.
The yard — the feeling of him watching me from the fence like a laser sight — to his face last night above me.
He was open in a way I don’t think he realised.
Grey eyes, hair fallen over his forehead, mouth soft and wrecked when he groaned my name, the way he held my face like I was something fragile, while he absolutely was not gentle with the rest of me.
Yeah. The word stops sounding dramatic and starts sounding... inevitable.
Right on cue, another inevitability sneaks in.
Six weeks.
The number sits beside the word like an explosion.
Six weeks and I go home, back to my unit, my barracks, and my country.
Back to pretending this part of me doesn’t exist. And then what?
Nights staring at the ceiling, avoiding my own reflection, making myself small enough to fit inside other people’s expectations?
What happens to him? What happens to us? Does ‘us’ even exist outside this cabin, these stolen moments in broom cupboards and shadows? What is this, exactly?
My first instinct is to roll away and put physical distance where I desperately need emotional distance. But my arm won’t move. It’s like my body has mutinied and decided that, just this once, it’s going to take what it wants and deal with the fallout later.
He shifts again — it’s a tiny movement — and he mumbles something in Russian; his voice is hoarse with sleep.
It’s quiet enough that I shouldn’t hear it, but I do.
“...ostan’sya...” Stay? I know the word.
I learned it deliberately; it was one of the first things I put in my secret Russian stash, back when his language was just a puzzle and not a set of curses poured into my ear while he was all over me.
This is very, very bad. I feel like I’m standing in front of a door half off its hinges.
I can keep holding it shut, but my arms are getting tired, and eventually, it’s going to fall off.
If I say it, even just in my own head, properly, it’s over.
There’s no going back to pretending he’s just amazing sex, arguments, and good distraction.
I squeeze my eyes shut and take a slow breath through my nose, trying not to wake him with the hysterical noise my lungs want to make. Okay. Fine. Say it. Acknowledge it. And then what? Nothing. That’s the only answer. I do nothing.
Don’t tell him. Don’t let it leak into my voice or show on my face.
He’s dangerous enough with what he already knows about me.
If he had this... he’d own me. Completely.
He’d never do it on purpose, but that’s not the point.
I’d hand him my everything and then resent him for the fracture when I have to leave.
He’s made it clear — in his own feral way — that he wants me.
Physically, definitely. Emotionally... sometimes.
Maybe. It’s hard to tell with him; everything looks like a joke until it suddenly doesn’t.
But that word? That’s something else. That’s heavy and future shaped.
That’s a word that doesn’t belong in this little cabin on the edge of nowhere, wedged between a deployment and an expiration date.
So, I won’t say it. I’ll just carry it. Quietly. Until these six weeks are over, and I can unpack it somewhere where it won’t explode. Easy. Sure.
I shift again, just enough that my nose brushes his shoulder.
He makes another sleep noise and rolls onto his side, dragging me with him like an inconvenient extra limb.
Now we’re properly tangled. His knees bracket mine.
His arm tightens around my waist. “Stop wriggling,” he mutters; his voice is rough with sleep, and his accent is thicker than usual. “You’re worse than a cat.”
“You’re awake,” I say, my voice coming out scratchy.
He huffs against my hair. “Have been for five minutes. You breathe too loudly.”
“Thanks,” I say dryly, relief and panic colliding in my chest.
He laughs, and the sound vibrates through both of us. “You’re welcome, detka.” Baby. Great. I stare at the wall I’m facing. The wood is rough and pale, with knots like little eyes. “Are you going to let me up?” he asks eventually. “Or are we staying like this until we die?”
“I’m comfortable,” I mutter, which is true, and also absolutely not the point. He hums, then his thumb rubs an absent little circle on my side. It sends a bolt of heat right through me.
“Caiden,” he says. It’s unfairly soft. “Are you all right?”
No, I’m not. “Yes.”
“You’re lying,” he says calmly. “Again.”
“Not all of us can be professional liars, Sergeant.”
He snorts. “I only lie to people who deserve it.”
“So, everyone,” I mumble into him.
“Mm. Especially you.”
“That’s comforting.”
“Good,” he says, and I can hear the smirk. He doesn’t push. That’s the worst part. If he pried, if he tried to dig, I could snap at him, deflect, or start a fight. Instead, he lies there, letting me pretend I’m okay.
We stay like that for another few minutes, and my heartbeat gradually untangles itself. It still feels wrong, somehow, that this is allowed and I’m allowed to have this — a man whose heartbeat I can literally feel against my palm.
“If we don’t get up, you’re going to be too sore to move,” he warns. The way he says it sends a full-body shiver through me. His hand slides a fraction lower on my hip, his fingers brushing one of the marks he left. “Already regretting your choices, detka?”