“I know.” Sergei smiled at him, a fond, tender smile. “But I try not to think of the future. What we have now is good. Any more of this is just a bonus.”
Mike dug his elbows into the mattress and pushed up until he was a scant inch away from the man. He dragged his lips over Sergei’s, hooked an arm around his neck. He couldn’t think of anything to say to that. Had a feeling they both wanted, equally, a great deal more than they knew they could have.
He brushed his lips along Sergei’s jaw, exhaled slowly against the man’s ear. “I wish I could give you more.” Mike’s voice sounded rough, hoarse, but he didn’t care a whit. “So much more. You already have everything there is, though.”
“I’m not…I wouldn’t make a good wife, Mike.” Sergei grinned, but the emotion in his eyes was real. “I don’t know what else there is. What we could have. Is there something?” He slid off, then lay down next to Mike, pulling him into an embrace and against his shoulder. “Anything?”
“Wife?” Mike found enough to laugh then, relaxing into the comfort of Sergei’s presence, draping a leg over the man. “Not that. But partnership of the same commitment? Outside the Doctrine, yes. That does exist. Where I come from, nobody assumes you will marry a woman simply because you’re a man.”
“You mean, it’s…accepted?” Sergei frowned, as if having a hard time believing that. “Then what do these men do for the state?”
Mike settled his cheek against Sergei’s shoulder so he could study the soldier’s profile. “Whatever they want. We don’t believe that one’s private life is the concern of the government, so long as it doesn’t endanger the well-being of self or others.”
“And how does it not break down in anarchy? If everybody does what they want—even this?”
“Anarchy isn’t inevitable simply because the government doesn’t control every aspect.” Mike, his brain still fuzzed in a postcoital haze, struggled with the best way to explain it. “When each person has the freedom to choose how to define their happiness, and find fulfillment as they desire, what need is there to fight the governing power?” He ran his hand over Sergei’s chest, resting his palm along the curve of pectoral muscle, feeling the solid thrum of the man’s heart pulse against his touch. “Does a man work harder for being unhappy, unfulfilled? Is he less dedicated to his job, if he is allowed to commit himself for life to another man instead of a woman?”
“For life…” Sergei echoed, and closed his eyes, resting his head against Mike’s. “So much I don’t know about you—not sure I can even ask.”
A faint wave of caution washed through Mike. He studied the contrast of skin, Sergei’s pale skin against his sun-darkened olive tone. Calloused hands, capable of so much. So little. “What do you want to know? Ask something, anything. Doesn’t matter what.” Just this once, I’ll let myself tell the truth.
“Where you’re from, what’s in your past—is there somebody waiting for you? If you can have that, do you?” Sergei just lay there, appearing more asleep than awake, but Mike knew better. More hiding than asleep.
Mike stared at his hand, gaze unfocused. Not seeing. “I grew up on a planet you’ve probably never heard of. Small backwater place with an agrarian society. My parents died in a transport accident when I was twelve. The government placed me in foster care. I went on to the military academies when I was old enough. They gave me structure and focus, as well as education. I’m an orphan, there’s nobody waiting for me.” Anywhere. Herschel probably wouldn’t even blink if he failed to report in because he’d died. Gods, he hated thinking of the past. Never failed to put him in a…mood. Did he even want someone waiting for him? The way he’d been waiting for his parents that day? Fuck.
Mike cleared his throat, stroked his hand down Sergei’s body, mapping the arching bone and muscle of his ribs. “I think…if I could know I’d never fail to return to the person waiting for me, I’d want that.” The jaded tone of his words wasn’t something he could censor out. There were some things in life that couldn’t be guaranteed, and that was one of them. No way to guarantee you’d always be able to return. No matter what your job was. He knew that, but he couldn’t change the way he felt. It was a hard-learned lesson. He could still see the dust kicking up in a plume behind the trooper’s landcar as it maneuvered up to the weather-worn ranch house. The foreman, old and sinewy but still solid as titanium, standing in front of him, arm reaching back to hold the young boy he’d been at his back.
“And nobody who’s not family, either?” Sergei pushed himself up on an elbow, looking down into his face, somewhat drowsy. “I’d wait for you. Your touch, but the other things too.”
Mike felt his heart physically skip a beat. The damned thing stopped, and kicked back into rhythm, and it hurt. Felt like a sonic cannon blasting him in the chest at point-blank range. He rolled onto his back, taking a slow and measured breath, and stared into Sergei’s pale eyes, stunned.
Mike’s brain finally reengaged. The soldier didn’t understand what he was saying, the voice in the back of his head whispered, laced heavily with cynicism. He frowned slightly, knowing Sergei deserved more credit than that. That whatever Sergei felt, his feelings deserved more respect than that.
“You would…wait?”
“Yes, I would. I’m waiting for you when I’m gone. I did last night. I knew I just had to wait it out and let the time pass. It helped a lot.”
Last night. Mike’s eyes narrowed. “Wait what out?” He could sense the sudden change, withdrawal, and reached up to frame Sergei’s face with his hands, holding him with a gentle but unrelenting grip. His gaze flicked to the lividly colored marks encircling the man’s neck. “Tell me, Sergei,” he murmured, voice suddenly rough, low.
“The brother general.” Sergei’s lips tightened. “He’s breaking regulations. I accepted it before. After all, that’s what I am. But after you—I don’t care for it anymore. I told him I was applying for a marriage license. It didn’t go down well.”
Mike studied the man’s face, processing the underlying logic sequence in Sergei’s words. The gears in his brain ground to a halt though. “You’re getting married?” He asked the question carefully, each syllable formed with the instinctive precision that came with years of training. The soldier, falling back on ingrained survival tactics. Emotions abruptly disengaged, his fingers tingling as his grip went lax, hands sliding from Sergei’s face.
“No. I don’t know.” Sergei shook his head. “I told him that so he would stop. I applied months ago. The bureaucrats are slow. You win wars before they tick a box on a form.”
Damn, why did he feel as if he was on one of those old amusement park rides, being flung in circles? “So he would stop,” Mike echoed, lax hand trailing down Sergei’s neck. “You wanted him to stop, and he did this to you.”
“He won’t do it again.” Sergei kissed him. “Don’t worry about me. You are worried, right?”
Mike nodded wordlessly, gaze traveling down the hard, muscled body larger than his. So powerful. He didn’t understand. The rage he’d felt the evening before burned again like a banked fire. He slid his hands back up Sergei’s neck, pulling him closer, so Mike could smother his mouth in another, longer, kiss. The smoldering rage fed the other heat in him, arousal and attraction, desire and something more, something Mike didn’t bother to label. He suddenly wanted nothing except to be wrapped around the man, as close as he could.
Mike pulled back a fraction, studied Sergei’s gaze. “Want you to fuck me. Hard. So I can remember the feel of you in me.”
“The good kind of pain?” Sergei’s lips moved into a small, knowing smile. “I can do that. I want to.”
Mike pressed his body against Sergei’s, hooking a leg over the man’s hip, pulling him closer. “Yeah, the good kind of pain.” He nipped at the man’s lower lip as he thrust his hips into Sergei’s. More than anything, he loved the way the man’s strength and power matched his, the potential existing along the fringes, there in a wispy, intangible way, for Sergei to completel
y overpower him and force him to submit. “Give me all of this,” he murmured, grabbing a handful of Sergei’s solid glut muscles.
Sergei bared a lot of sharp teeth. He took Mike’s wrist and elbow, twisting them to lock his shoulder and force Mike on his belly against the mattress. He moved deliberately, keeping pressure on the twisted arm as he shifted his own weight. His free hand stroking Mike’s back, down to his ass, and back up again, tracing the lines of his lat muscle.
A grunt escaped Mike at the sudden movement, and he closed his eyes. He struggled against the restraint instinctively, without thought, and arched into Sergei’s caress. Didn’t care that it heightened the discomfort in his shoulder. Thought he might be able to buck the man off, if the angle was just right, and cocked his leg, drawing his knee up. No worry of feeling vulnerable or exposed, it didn’t even register that way in his mind.
Sergei breathed against his neck. “I don’t want to fight you, Mike.” Lips, tongue, tracing the shell of his ear.
He opened his eyes, head turned to the side. “Not interested in fighting you, either. I just want to feel you. You, your strength, everything. Don’t want you to hold anything back.”
Sergei knelt between his legs, pushing Mike’s thighs apart with his own, rough slide of muscle against muscle, opening him up. The next thing Mike felt was a liquid dribbled into his crack, smooth, the oil taking his body temperature so fast it didn’t register as cool or warm.
“What I’m holding back right now…” Sergei lowered himself, rubbing his cock against Mike’s ass, oiling himself in the process, while he got fully hard himself. “…is to tie you up and keep you forever…”
Mike moved into the man’s strokes, not bothering to suppress his groan. “If you tied me up right now, I wouldn’t care how long forever was.” He didn’t care about anything else right then. Nothing else existed but Sergei, hard muscle against his, power pitted against power. He wriggled, struggled, just to feel the man retaliate against his efforts. To feel the man hold him, strength confining him utterly, surrounding him.
“Won’t let you go just to tie you up,” Sergei breathed into his ear, then changed the angle of his hips. Free hand prying his cheeks apart, Sergei began to push inside him, the oil allowing passage. It was very deliberate, and once Sergei got inside, he burrowed the rest of his cock with a harsh thrust of his hips. “That…what you want?”
Mike hissed, but the sound turned into a long-winded moan he didn’t bother trying to hold back. It didn’t matter. “No,” he whispered, panting, arching into Sergei. “Don’t stop. Don’t let go. Not even to tie me up.” He was already tied, as surely as if there were magnetic cuffs binding him to the metal bedframe. “Gods, move. Please. Now.” He twisted, writhed, pushing hips back into Sergei, even though the man couldn’t go deeper if he tried, bodies flush, the abrasion of coarse hair against his ass and thighs amping the heat in his blood.
Sergei moved with as much strength as precision—deep and hard, with little finesse, but that wasn’t what either of them wanted. The fierce mating of animals, artless and primal, shaking the bed with every movement. His hand kept Mike’s wrist pinned to his back, but the other hand pushed between Mike’s hip and the mattress, where it took hold of Mike’s cock, offering him a tight fist and friction.
Mike struggled, but his efforts weren’t resistance. Eyes clenched shut, he fought with every muscle in his body, wanting to feel every bit of friction and sensation that he possibly could. Every ounce of Sergei that the man had to give.
Sergei’s ragged breaths cooled his sweaty shoulders. The man was almost flat on him, stomach pressed close to his back. Sergei released his wrist, kept him trapped with his weight. The thrusts slowed as Sergei tried to control, tried to prolong, always a struggle for a man who was impulsive and passionate but never controlled without help from the uniform.
Between Sergei and the bed, the man’s rough grip and cock, the assault on Mike’s senses was encompassing. The weight of him, his touch, his taking, pushed Mike to surrender. With one last grunt of unintelligible sound, he did. Just closed his eyes and lost himself in it. Sweat-slicked skin sliding the length of his body, Mike was sure he could feel each twitch of effort in Sergei’s muscles. Gave himself over to his lover, pulling a knee up slightly to cant his hips and let Sergei’s hand have more room to move.
Eventually, Sergei’s control gave way to something akin to desperation. Every stroke and slide bordering on painful, bone-grinding intensity. When Sergei came inside him, muscles tightened all around him, stroking him faster as Sergei tried to get him over the edge too.
It didn’t take much trying. Mike could feel Sergei pulsing inside him, and it tripped his own pleasure. He came hard, a wordless grunt escaping him, the slide of the man’s hand on his flesh suddenly wet, slick, warm. His muscles clenched so hard he heard his teeth grinding, the sound echoing in his head. Mike turned his face into the pillow and collapsed bonelessly, limp.
Sergei rested on top of him, face against his shoulder, fingers lazily stroking his arm, shoulder on the other side, then down along his ribs. They didn’t say anything for several minutes, just drifted in the come down, listening to the occasional sound from outside.
“You should stay and join the Doctrine,” Sergei murmured. “When this is over. You’d be safe then.”
Mike closed his eyes, then opened them again, stared at the far wall without seeing it. He’d done enough damage to Sergei, though none of it was visible just yet. “Maybe,” he said softly. “I’ll think about it.”
“I can’t protect you if you don’t. I don’t have that kind of influence. Yet.” Sergei rubbed his cheek against Mike’s skin. “And I’d…miss you too much if you left.”
He chewed his lip, silent for a few heartbeats. Feeling the thrum of the soldier’s body against his. “You could come with me, when I go.”
“Leave everything?” Sergei’s voice was neutral, rational, as if considering what “everything” meant. His career, family, the gods-damned Doctrine. Which of those would pain him most to lose? Did thoughts like that trigger some zombie chemical brain-control mechanism? Who knew?
Mike felt torn. A gust of cool air wafted over his bare skin, from gods only knew where. He wasn’t asking anything more of Sergei than the man had just demanded of him only moments before. “I wouldn’t do well, integrating into the Doctrine.” He twisted his head to catch a glimpse of Sergei’s drawn expression. “Do you truly think I would?”
“It’s not so bad.” Sergei’s voice was still neutral. “I don’t see why not, apart from this. But we can break one rule, maybe. Well, we are.” He sighed. “I’ll just miss you.”
Mike closed his eyes again, enjoying the weight and heat pressing him down into the bed. “It’s not so bad because it’s all you’ve ever known.” The security of the familiar was hard to break away from. He knew Sergei was younger than him by a good bit, but he wasn’t so young that reversing decades of inDoctrination would be a simple thing. It would take time, therapy, and it would be ugly.
“And you don’t know it.” Sergei kissed his shoulder. “Let’s not fight over this.”
No, that was the last thing he wanted. Especially with the inevitable foray into the wilderness looming ahead of them. “No, no fighting.” Mike glanced back over his shoulder, a loose smile curling his lips. “I’m sure you have one vicious right hook.”
Sergei smiled. “And you fight dirty.” He rolled off Mike and stretched out next to him, breathing deeply and evenly, the very image of peaceful after-sex. He not so much turned his head as let it fall to the side to look at Mike. He had a way of looking at him that made it difficult to drive any kind of hidden agenda, to not take him at face value.
“Do I?” Mike reached out and rested his palm against Sergei’s cheek, ran the pad of his thumb along the man’s lower lip. Beautiful mouth. Couldn’t stop staring at it.
Sergei’s lips twitched before they opened a little more. “In a fight? I think you would.”
He flinched despite his efforts to remain relaxed, despite his desire to. His fleeting grin was more of a grimace. “That’s because in a fight, the only thing that matters is who’s left standing. There aren’t any rules. Anything goes.” Sergei was a soldier, he should know that. It made Mike wonder just what the Doctrine preached to its military. The Alliance made every effort to teach its CovOps every dirty trick in the book and out of it. Which was why, as soon as he could get away from Sergei, Mike would be passing along to Pat every bit of the detailed information he had about the deploying battalions. It would put both Sergei and himself directly in harm’s way, but it didn’t matter. “So, yeah,” he added, voice strained and soft. “I fight dirty.”
Sergei seemed to consider that for a while, but didn’t seem suspicious. “Will you leave to leave or leave to fight?”
Mike blinked, brain cells still happily swimming in pheromones and endorphins. “Leave?”
“You said you’d leave before you join the Doctrine. Will you just stay out of the way or will you fight us?”
He should’ve told Herschel no. Should’ve told the handler to get someone else to do this. Mike couldn’t keep things separate, couldn’t partition his mind when his emotions were engaged. There wasn’t any denying the fact that they were definitely engaged whenever he was in Sergei’s presence. His brain just spouted things, and it was digging him into a fucking hole. Mike turned away, rolling onto his back to stare at the ceiling. Didn’t answer, because there was nothing he could say.
The truth wouldn’t work. And he was sick to death of spinning the lies together. So many damned shades of gray, the color was washing out of the world around him.
Sergei studied him, then sat up on the bed. After a few moments, he stood and left the room. Mike wondered if he would leave, if he realized what was actually going on, if that was it. But he only heard the toilet a little while later, and sounds from the kitchen.
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