Ben groaned. You should never tempt fate.
§ § §
Help came from an unexpected source later.
Just when it was needed most.
They hadn’t even unpacked the car before Molly had been sick again. This time over herself and her space-age-complex car seat, which they’d left slimy on the gravel whilst they’d carried her in, dripping, at arm’s length—Ben volunteered by Nikolas for this duty as, he’d pointed out quite reasonably, his coat cost over a thousand pounds but Molly Rose had come free.
Ben was too busy to untangle Nikolas and his various annoying pronouncements and took Molly to her assigned bedroom then laid her on the large guest bed.
By the time he was finished, he had more washing to sort than he and Nikolas made in a week.
But then he remembered they had a laundry service…
He rummaged for his phone and made a call. Nazi wealth? Mentally abrading himself for hypocrisy, he went to the kitchen. He desperately needed food.
He was just about to take the first bite of his hastily thrown together sandwich when they both heard a thump and then a wail of distress.
They could both move very fast on occasion.
Molly had rolled off the bed and was screaming on the floor.
Ben forever blessed Nikolas that when something serious happened he made no recrimination at all. Ben didn’t need it. He was berating himself mentally, “You just left her on the bed? You just left her lying on the bed?”
Fortunately, it was modern, sleek and low, and she’d only taken a tiny tumble onto the carpet—shocked but not hurt.
Nikolas tried the tactic he used to distract her father—he gave her a present. But Molly was made of sterner stuff and refused to even contemplate the little red car on wheels she could push along with her feet.
She’d fallen off the bed!
The screeching was beginning to be worrying in a house made almost entirely of glass. Ben glanced uneasily at the ceiling. They heard a noise at the front door and then a voice calling for Nikolas.
Ben looked at Nikolas. Nikolas returned the mute appeal, and at the same time they said, “Babushka,” as if that word summoned a god and not just a sturdy midwife from Siberia.
Babushka took Molly from Ben as if finding them with a howling baby was a normal everyday occurrence. She shushed and swung, rocked and checked, and pronounced Molly was only hungry.
Ben’s eyes widened with derision. She didn’t know the meaning of the word!
Ulyana Ivanovna took Molly off toward the kitchen, muttering to her in Russian, Ben was sure, about the inadequacies of men in general and the two of them in particular. Ben felt an arm slide around his waist, and Nikolas kissed into his hair. “She’s okay, Ben. No harm done. She’s tough, like her father.”
“I don’t cry when you push me out of bed.”
Nikolas laughed. “That is because I am usually tumbling out after you so we can fuck on the floor.”
Ben nodded at the truth of this.
Nikolas tightened his grip around Ben’s waist, kissing down his neck, which Ben tipped accommodatingly to one side.
“Someone knew you would be a good father. Kate registered you as Molly’s father—on the birth certificate.”
Ben twisted around in Nikolas’s arms, holding him off. “Jennifer said Kate didn’t even tell them who the father was.”
“Perhaps she planned to once they were over the shock. However, she forged your declaration of parentage so she could put you down. Peyton has tracked the paperwork for me. I think she intended to tell you about Molly. In fact, I’m sure she did.”
Ben ventured hesitantly, “You think she was going to try and…win me away? From you?”
“I think I may have misjudged Kate—a habit I seem to be getting into with people—she registered you as Rider-Mikkelsen.”
“My God.”
“Yes, that is what I thought. She recognised your…”
Ben smirked at the characteristic trailing off. He loved making Nikolas say things like this out loud. “Go on…”
“Your…”
“Relationship?”
Nikolas smiled and kissed Ben. “Yes, your relationship with me.”
“Wow.”
Nikolas frowned. “You get the significance of this, yes?”
“Duh, of course. What significance?”
“Molly is Molly Rose Rider-Mikkelsen. That’s also her name.” He patted Ben’s backside, hard, as he always did, and followed the sounds of animated Russian to the kitchen.
Ben thought about this for a moment longer.
Molly Rose Rider-Mikkelsen.
Half his. Half Nikolas’s.
And they’d once thought a shared scar could bond them.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Once they’d realised that midwife meant someone who knew a little bit about babies, Ben and Nikolas relaxed into the fact that they could enjoy Molly Rose on their terms. Which meant watching her tear around the tiled floor in her new red convertible, taking her to see the horses, giving her a walk in her back-carrier on Dartmoor, but then the rest of the time—the feeding, changing, getting to bed, general twenty-four-hour care—they could ignore and thus carry on with their own concerns.
As Nikolas pointed out to Ben, they were doing Ulyana Ivanovna a favour leaving her to do all the mundane tasks—she was old and lonely. She was feeling underutilized, missing her home and her friends…
Ben had never heard her say any of this and thought about the very spry fifty year old and all the new hobbies she’d adopted since retiring under Nikolas’s sheltering wing of wealth, but didn’t mention this. He was entirely in accord with Nikolas—Molly was best when she was fed, clean, happy, and handed over for a few minutes of fun.
He even acquiesced with a very happy heart to Babushka’s suggestion that Molly come to the cottage with her for the night. Ben glanced at Nikolas and saw exactly the expression of relief he wanted to see. Neither of them did early mornings, and if they did, they did them inside each other…or coming over each other…
By eleven o’clock that night, therefore, they were entwined on the sofa, watching a movie, and feeling that everything was very right with the world indeed. It was particularly annoying for Ben, therefore, that Nikolas’s phone rang halfway through the film, and he mouthed Peyton as he extricated himself and went to the kitchen for privacy.
Ben wasn’t as inclined to allow Nikolas his own space these days as he’d once been, not after the Jackson Keane debacle, so he followed him and made a big show of putting the kettle on and listening in.
Nikolas started to give him a sour look but suddenly appeared to hear something in the call that took all his attention. He closed his eyes, swallowed, and clicked off.
“What?”
Ben’s question brought Nikolas mentally back into the room, but he still appeared uncharacteristically distracted. He nodded to an offer of tea and sat at the table. “Peyton has discovered where Stefan has been living.”
Ben put two mugs of tea on the table and sat across from him. “Was it a big secret?”
Nikolas shrugged. “No, I suppose not. But I was curious to follow his path from Russia—how he got here, what he does.”
“And?”
“He is living in London in a house that is owned by his grandfather.”
“Well, that’s good then, isn’t it?”
Nikolas looked up from watching the teabag floating in the brown liquid. “His grandfather Anatoly.”
“Oh.” Ben remembered. Anatoly. Sergei Primakov’s friend. “You arrested him.”
“I should have fucking killed him.” Nikolas rose so swiftly the tea slopped out onto the table. He ignored the mess and went toward their private rooms at the back of the house. Ben knew what he was going to do—swim. Nikolas always relieved his stress by swimming.
Ben fetched a cloth and wiped absentmindedly at the spill as he relived once more the anger he’d experienced on Nikolas’s behalf, knowing he’
d been used as a pawn to further Sergei’s political standing, traded around amongst his closest friends and allies. He thought about Molly Rose, her fragile beauty and perfection, and felt an enormous surge of protectiveness toward her that up to then he’d only ever had for Nikolas.
Ben went toward the swim lane as he heard the splash of a dive and slid down the wall, wrapping his arms around his knees. He often kept Nikolas company as he did his lengths. He found it as relaxing to follow the perfect, deceptively lazy, repetitive motions as Nikolas did making them. The swim lane was made entirely of glass, illuminated under the water by blue lights. Nikolas’s expert strokes barely made a splash, but when he tumbled-turned at each end the ripples rolled like blue ink toward Ben, reminding him of surf.
After an hour, Nikolas was done, and he propelled himself from the end of the lane, his shoulders wide, flared, his legs long and lean. He held out his hand for Ben, clearly well aware that he’d been watched, and led him to the bedroom.
Nikolas’s skin was cool.
The exercise had turned the anger and resentment of his painful past into a maw of need. Ben knew this mood only too well. Nikolas needed to dominate and take and thus regain the sense of himself that memories of Sergei always stole from him. At these times, he could be cruel and vicious, and Ben would be left bleeding and more bruised than with their usual games of dominance. He sensed something of this in Nikolas now. Perhaps it was tied up with Molly Rose being with them, Nikolas feeling a sense of unmanning by the baby’s presence.
Ben had experienced something of this and was only too willing to meet Nikolas halfway.
Nikolas shoved Ben to his knees and pressed Ben’s face to his wet swimsuit. It was dark in the bedroom, well past midnight, and all Ben’s senses coalesced to a broad area of damp fabric with something hard and urgent beneath. He bit into the hardness through the cotton, and Nikolas arched back with a hiss of anticipation. When Ben tugged the shorts lower, Nikolas’s cock sprang free. Nikolas didn’t wait for Ben to admire him, or take his time savouring the pleasure to come—he forced him on, surged into him, made him gag, but didn’t appear to care. Ben allowed the transgression for a while, allowed Nikolas to claim and use this throat, rub his cock hard through his clenched lips, but then he pulled off and rose to his feet, propelling Nikolas back onto the bed.
At the same time, he dropped his jeans, kicking them off and crawled over Nikolas, finding his mouth.
Nikolas didn’t want to kiss. He turned his face away and pushed Ben over onto his back, snatching at his naked thighs, his intent evident in the hard, closed-off look upon his face.
Ben sighed inwardly. He knew that expression. Nikolas wasn’t here with him; he was lost to bitter memories and playing out old hurts of which he had no part.
Nikolas rammed into him. Ben bowed and cried out, a genuine and loud shout of pain at the sudden intrusion. He expected Nikolas to wait, to ease into the fucking gently until they were together in the pleasure, but he didn’t. He knelt up and dragged Ben higher for better access and used him.
Again, Ben allowed it.
He didn’t have to. He had a choice. He was stronger than Nikolas even when Nikolas was in this mood, but he acquiesced.
Nikolas worked him as if he were in a porn film—hard, mechanical, and with little passion or connection.
It was that which made Ben end it. It wasn’t good for Nikolas to sink so far back into the past. This was the man Ben had first known, only he’d not understood the provenance of the remoteness at the time. He’d always wondered how Sir Nikolas Mikkelsen could fuck him with such disinterest—never kissing, never wanting to work up to the hard, vicious sex they enjoyed. Now, after all these years living with the man, Ben knew and understood. Nikolas was distant when he was like this because he wasn’t actually there. Nikolas didn’t exist. A broken, bitter man called Aleksey Primakov did, and when Ben was being used like this, he was fucking with Aleksey not Nikolas.
He lunged to one side, escaping the hard thrusts and then brought Nikolas down onto the bed, forcing him to kiss, which Nikolas did, but with a distracted air, as if it was too much bother. Ben lay on him, heavy, the unmovable object which Nikolas battled with his irresistible force. But the matched effort finally squeezed a chuckle out of Nikolas, and then Ben physically felt the switch occur—Aleksey leaving the body and Nikolas coming back to a sense of himself. He felt a deep sigh from beneath him and kissed Nikolas again, and this time it was more than welcomed. Nikolas opened his mouth wide, his tongue finding Ben’s, and Ben could feel the smile on Nikolas’s face, the way his body so hard and taut and tense a moment before was now languid and responsive. He slid a hand between them and rewarded Nikolas by stroking him, squeezing his cock and pulling and twisting his balls gently as their tongues danced and played.
Nikolas rolled them, only able to because, once more, Ben allowed it. Then he was on top, and he entered again, but the contrast with his last thoughtless ramming was so marked that Ben swore and laughed as, inch by inch, Nikolas worked himself in. When he was fully buried, Nik eased down to lie on Ben and murmured into another kiss, “Sorry.” Ben smiled and spread his thighs.
Nikolas once more appeared to lose himself inside Ben, his expression one of intense pleasure, but Ben knew that now Nikolas knew exactly where he was and what he was engaged upon and that he was doing it for Ben’s enjoyment as much as his own. But he was still too serious, almost playing a part for Ben’s benefit. Ben lifted himself up and whispered, “Last man I had in this bed was Tim.”
Nikolas didn’t even falter, his strokes continuing just as they both liked them. “Was he good?”
“Different.”
“Hairier, I’m guessing?”
Ben flung himself back onto the bed, arms stretched out in delight. “He had chest hair.”
Nikolas glanced down at him with a frown. He didn’t look too pleased, as if he hadn’t expected his guess to be confirmed. Ben smirked back mischievously and drew the pattern of the T of hair that had been on Tim’s chest onto his own smooth one, nipple to nipple and then down to his belly button then further and then as far as he wanted to go, taking his cock in hand and beginning to beat it.
Nikolas stared at Ben avidly, but grunted, “The idiot was supposed to stop you from even being alone with Tim aren’t-my-blue-eyes-adorable Watson.”
“No, Squeezy joined in. Best threesome I’ve ever had.”
“Only one you’ve ever had.”
Ben narrowed his eyes. “I had a life before you, you know.”
Nikolas didn’t even bother to dignify this self-delusion with a reply. He dragged and raised Ben onto his lap and got serious.
Ben lost his ability to talk. He’d lost his ability to think, so talking was out of the question.
He felt himself coming. Everything was tingling, imploding before the great rush of release that left them both breathless. Nikolas had frozen above him, only tiny jerks from his hips and the tight clench of his face giving away that he was coming deep inside Ben. Ben watched his own shots coating his hand as he welcomed Nikolas’s hot spurts inside.
The tension in the body above him uncoiled. Nikolas lay down upon him, and Ben brought his arms up to snag him close and hold him tight. Nikolas murmured something, and when Ben prodded him to repeat it, he claimed slyly, “Jackson was completely hairless—everywhere.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Ben was deeply asleep when Nikolas shouted him awake and hit him. Afterwards, Ben forgave him, for he realised they were both involuntary actions, but at the time he woke with a curse and punched Nikolas back.
Nikolas had been asleep and only then woke, but he still seemed in the grip of the dream that had made him attack Ben. He said something in Russian that Ben didn’t understand and only when Ben sat up next to him did he come back to something of himself.
Nik ran his fingers through his rumpled hair and sank back into the pillows. Ben was about to curl back into the warm body when he heard a groan and saw Nikolas fli
ng his arm over his face—a sure sign, Ben knew, that Nikolas was dealing with strong emotions that he wasn’t willing to share. He laid his head upon Nikolas’s chest and could hear the rapid beat of his heart, feel the tension in the muscles. At that moment, Nikolas seemed as fragile as Molly, needing his protection just as much.
He began to stroke his hand around Nikolas’s belly, trailing patterns upon his pale skin until Nikolas caught his fingers. “That tickles.”
Ben propped himself up on one elbow. He brushed away a tear that had settled on Nikolas’s cheek. “What were you dreaming about?”
Nikolas raised his eyes to the tor, visible in the moonlight through the glass above them. “Anatoly.”
Ben had guessed as much.
“He’s just an old man now. He can’t hurt you. I won’t let him.”
He saw a faint smile on Nikolas’s face, but what he said troubled Ben. “You would if you knew.”
Ben frowned and edged closer, one thigh up over Nikolas, shielding him. “Knew what?”
Nikolas sighed. “I dreamt I was back there again. In one of the dachas my father had on the Black Sea. They were all coming for the weekend—his friends, from Moscow.”
“Oh, God, I’m so sorry. Don’t dwell on it. It’s over now. It’s over.”
Nikolas shook his head and began to laugh. It was a desolate sound. “You have no idea.” He shifted on the pillow and caught Ben’s gaze. “I used to look forward to it.” At Ben’s immediate look of confusion, Nikolas elaborated, “The presents they would bring me.” He turned back to centre so he could watch the tor once more. “They liked me. Sergei liked me. Me, Ben, not Nika. Do you see what I’m saying? Initially, he only wanted Nika. You know this. But then he wanted me.” He flicked his gaze over. “I made sure he continued to want me. I revelled in the attention. So many presents.” He chuckled. “I was a whore at twelve years old. I sometimes wonder if I have ever been anything else.”
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