42. Astor
FORTY-TWO
ASTOR
My uncle insists we nap and then stay the day and leave in the morning. I’m too mentally exhausted to tell him no. It can’t be worse than returning to school, and the thought of spending the time with my brother makes me happy.
I wake slowly to Rurik’s lips on my neck. He’s warm and wrapped around me, fighting the icy chill of the European spring in a drafty palace. It smells like home, and I’m not sure if that makes all of this worse or better.
“Baby,” he breathes into my ear while his hand slides down to my cock.
“Good morning.” My mind is fuzzy, clinging to sleep, but not in the way it does when I have nightmares of sleep paralysis. This cloudy fog is more like floating, and it feels good.
“I need to be inside you.” He rocks his hips against my ass.
I arch into him, wanting nothing more than to extend the blissful fog.
“Fuck. It’s criminal for you to be this hot, and me not be able to fuck you more.” He strokes me as we rock together, his dick sliding along my ass.
“More?” I laugh, reaching behind me to grab any part of him I can. “I don’t think we could accomplish more and get anything else done.”
“Which means our lives are too busy. We need to stop that.”
I roll my eyes, digging my fingers into his ass. “I thought you needed to be inside me.”
“I do.” He releases me to grab lube from somewhere I don’t see and spreads it over both of us.
“Hurry up.”
“Impatient, baby.” Thankfully, he doesn’t spend a lot of time opening me up before I feel his head pressing against my tight hole.
“I need you.” I push back, forcing his tip past my resistance.
“Ash…fuck, you are heaven.” He latches onto my neck, biting and sucking. “Baby boy, you are so fucking beautiful.”
My skin flushes, still so reactive to every comment he makes.
“I love how red you get for me.”
“Fuck you.” I wrap my hand around my cock, getting close.
He throws it off, then strokes me. “I get to make you come.”
“As much as you want, my love.”
Rurik freezes, and I realize what I said.
“I, umm—”
“Your love?” I can hear the smile in his voice.
“Don’t make it a big deal.” I push back on his dick, trying to distract him.
In a flash, he changes our position, pinning my hands above my head with me on my back, using his body weight to make it impossible for me to move. “We’re going to make a big deal about it. Do you love me?”
I tilt my head back, admiring the ornate headboard. “You are my love…”
He grabs my jaw forcing me to look at him. “But does that mean you love me?”
I try to rock my hips but he pulls out of me. He’s not going to let me talk around this. Did I say it too soon? I can’t read him. Surely after everything he’s done for me I’m not moving too fast.
I start to panic and ramble, “You were just telling my uncle you were going to marry me. I don’t think it’s that far—”
He shuts me up with a kiss. “I love you.”
I melt into his lips, tears welling up in my eyes. “I love you.”
His smile gets impossibly wider. “I’m never letting you out of my sight again. You belong to me.”
“I know I do.”
He shoves a hand between us and lines himself up, thrusting all the way to his hilt. I buck up to meet each one. He rolls his fist over my cock, pushing me over the edge while whispering “I love you” over my lips.
I wrap my legs around his hips, keeping him deep while I paint his abs in my cum. He loses it not long after, flooding me with warmth.
Neither of us moves for a long time, and we might doze. I’m happy just to stay outside of reality.
“You keep tempting the forbidden marshmallow. I’m going to start thinking you’re into it, baby,” Rurik mutters some time later.
I groan. “I hate you.”
“No you don’t. You love me.” The joy in his voice is intoxicating. I don’t deserve his radiance.
“You’re going to use that against me any chance you get, aren’t you?” I fight a smile because I really don’t mind.
“Damn right I am.” He stretches, peeling himself off of me carefully. “Wait…”
“What?” I follow suit, working out the cramps.
“You didn’t go row today.”
“I do occasionally take a holiday, like on Christmas.”
“I thought you couldn’t break your schedule.”
“My entire schedule is in hell after being on a plane and in a different country. I’m not entirely sure what day it is.”
He narrows his eyes. “So you can occasionally not?”
“Don’t try it. My days go better when they are regimented.”
“We are going to negotiate this. Because I like morning sex.”
“Maybe,” I say to pacify him for now.
“I’m putting it in the prenup.” He rolls off the bed, standing to stretch again in all his naked glory. “We take Sundays off!”
“Fuck. Will you fuck me again in the shower?” I get up just to touch him again.
“Baby, you’re saying all my favorite words!”
We wander down to brunch after we’re both clean and thoroughly fucked again, finding that everyone else has already been up for a while.
“Your uncle is quite the host! We’ve already been trap shooting.” King adds a splash of milk to his tea in a way that makes me laugh.
Nik sits with a plate piled high with food and nods in agreement.
“It’s not often we have such amusing visitors!” Uncle Frederik raises his coffee. “You will have to return on your summer holiday.”
“I think they should. I’d like to have you home for a bit, Astor.” Rainier looks hopeful.
“I’d really enjoy that,” I say carefully, trying not to look over at Rurik, not wanting him to say no.
He slides his hand into mine. “Wherever you want to be, baby. I’m just not letting you out of my sight.”
Uncle Frederik bursts out laughing. “I can’t really blame him. Don’t think I would either if I were him.”
Rurik turns towards me, smirking. “Finally, someone who gets it.”
“Honestly, Uncle, don’t feed his delusions.”
“Shall we get Rurik in on some trap?” Uncle stands when everyone has had their fill.
“Hell yes,” Rurik replies, and I wince at the ease with which he speaks to my uncle, but he doesn’t seem to mind.
“How did you realize you’re gay?” My brother asks when we’re out of earshot on the veranda while Frederik takes them for another round of trap. We stayed back to get some alone time.
“I didn’t.” It’s weird to think back on.
“I didn’t want anyone to touch me ever after…
” We haven’t had a more detailed discussion about things, and I hid those parts of myself for so long I don’t even know where to begin talking about them with anyone other than Rurik.
“After all the bad dreams I used to have, probably from the trauma.” I finally manage.
“I couldn’t comprehend being in a place where I’d enjoy anything like that with another person. So it’s really just him.”
The idea of anyone else still makes me recoil, and maybe that would get better with therapy, but I don’t want anyone else. Just him.
Rainier watches him shoot for a minute. “He’s different. Never what I expected for you.”
“I know.” I wince and scrub a hand over my face. “I’m still not sure why he likes me.”
“He doesn’t just like you. You’re like the sun he orbits around. He doesn’t do anything without looking for you.” Rainier glances over at them.
“What, really?”
“Did you not know? Even while shooting. He keeps checking on you, and when he’s close, his hands are always on you.”
My cheeks pink. “I’m sorry. I know. He’s overly aggressive with the touching. He’s going to have to learn some decorum.”
“It’s good for you, I think.” Rainier gives me a knowing smile.
We have to leave too soon, but with promises of all of us returning for at least a few weeks for the summer holiday. My mood drops on the plane because I realize this still isn’t over. Not until they find Mikel.
I doze with my head in Rurik’s lap, but wake with a jolt, remembering everything that’s waiting for me to do back in the states. “Fuck, I forgot the puzzle. I need to finish it.”
“I did it for you.” Viv pushes a piece of paper across the table between us. “Just show up.”
“What? Isn’t that against the rules?”
“I think considering the circumstances, they’ll let it go.” Viv glances at Rurik.
“I think if they don’t let it go, there will be a mutiny,” Rurik says like it’s nothing. “But I’m not going to be the one to say that to him.”
Viv just laughs. “I will.”
“You two are dangerous.” I pick up the finished puzzle.
“That’s half the point.” Viv smiles.
“Locke is calling.” Rurik answers it. “Hello.”
Viv nudges him with her foot. “Put it on speakerphone.”
Rurik rolls his eyes but does it, and everyone gathers around to hear. “You’re on speakerphone with everyone.”
I’m shocked he warned him.
“Great. Did you get it done?” Locke asks.
“Yes. He’s pig feed.”
“Excellent. Things here did not go as well.” Locke’s words are sobering for everyone.
“What happened?”
“The Jackal took a meeting with Mother and I, and I made the case about father. He heard me out, and thankfully, while he doesn’t police what goes on in the hotel, there is a line that is too far even for him.
He told me he’d look into it, and if it was true, he would handle the matter, which lead me to believe he would kill Mikel himself.
But this morning, he called us back to his office and told me he believed everything I said, but that when he went to Mikel’s room, it was vacated.
There’s no sign of him. He’s having his staff search the cameras to see when he left, but that will take some time. I just got out of speaking to him.”
“Fuck.” Rurik lifts the phone like he’s going to throw it but closes his eyes and lowers it back. “Who the fuck could have tipped him off?”
“Could Ash’s father have contacted him?”
“No. We caught him completely off guard,” Rurik says coldly. “Hauled his ass out of bed.”
“Mom and I are going to search the city today to try to figure out what other hole he might have crawled into. If we don’t find him, we’ll search Exitier.”
“You won’t find him.”
“I know.”