Death's Ink Black Shadow

by John Wiltshire

  Ben bent and flicked some water at him, but he liked being admired, so it wasn’t much of a chastisement.

  While he was inside, he fixed some of the food Nikolas had bought and brought that out with the wine.

  Nikolas was out of the tub and stretched on his belly on the deck in the sun. He appeared to be asleep.

  Ben put his armful of goodies down quietly and studied the sleeping form. Nikolas’s scars were very visible on his tanned torso. His backside was pale and Ben could see fine golden hairs glinting in the sunlight, invisible in ordinary light. Nikolas’s legs were incredibly long. They were very lean as well—swimmer’s legs. They were scarred too. He was a study in flaws highlighting perfection.

  Ben lay down beside him, staring off into the dark pine trees and wondered his familiar question—if any moment in his life had been this fulfilled. He’d thought he’d reached a peak so many times before, but each time he’d been proved wrong—his path either taking a terrible turn for the worse or other things coming into their lives which added to the journey, making him realise that there had been a lack. But at that moment, Ben couldn’t think of one thing he wanted or needed more than what he had.

  He suffered a pricking of unease and glanced once more from the precious thing beside him to the menace of the trees. Something had come out of that darkness once before and almost destroyed them both. Life was intangible. Ben bent down and snagged his fingers into Nikolas’s damp hair and tugged his mouth up for a kiss.

  “I was asleep. Fuck off.”

  Ben began to chuckle, not reassessing his thoughts about Nikolas’s perfections, just redefining the word itself.

  Nikolas swatted him off. He hated being laughed at.

  Ben trailed his finger down Nikolas’s spine then stopped just at the final, prominent disc. He could feel the tension for more in the previously languid body. “Shall I stop now, or do you still want to…sleep?”

  Nikolas grunted, seemingly his conversational choice of the day. Ben took it for an invitation into Nikolas’s body and accepted.

  § § §

  The afternoon turned into evening, as it always did, and they remained on the deck, drinking wine and eating. Ben had begun to feel guilty about Steven, but Nikolas assured him he was busy—he was speaking to some of the people on Aeroe who had known Nina when she had come to the estates with her parents as a child and teenager.

  It wasn’t cold, even when it got fully dark, so they didn’t bother to dress, although Nikolas was paranoid about being bitten and kept slapping at imaginary insects on his naked body.

  Ben suddenly cried in awe, “Shooting star!”

  Nikolas looked up, but he’d missed its tiny, fleeting life. “You should make a wish.”

  Ben thought about this for a moment then shook his head. “Nothing left to wish for.” He saw a quick expression cross Nikolas’s face before it could be hidden. “What? You think I’m tempting fate?”

  “I don’t believe in fate, Ben. You know that. We make our own destinies.”

  “And this from the man who hears his dead mother playing in an empty house.”

  Nikolas rolled on his side and propped himself up on one elbow. “Stefan believes my mother was mad, that her insanity passed down to her sons. And, I suppose, him…”

  Ben put his finger to Nikolas’s lips as if that could stop the truth and the pain escaping. “Don’t.”

  Nikolas gave a small nod of acquiescence, seeming to realise that Ben didn’t want to go down that road. He collapsed back onto the deck. “Look.”

  Ben copied his position, on his back, their arms and legs pressed close together, body heat transferring.

  The entire Milky Way was spread out above them, an angel shedding grace on its return to heaven.

  Nikolas shivered. “I don’t like stars.”

  Ben raised his brows in surprise. Nikolas rarely commented on any personal preferences. “How can you not like stars?”

  Nikolas turned his head to study Ben’s profile. “I feel insignificant beneath them. I used to watch them as a child and sensed nothing but a cold, remote disinterest from the universe as to my existence. I still feel that. There is nothing.” He shifted his attention back to the sky. “The coldness just goes on and on and on and never stops.”

  “Oh.” Ben twitched his nose. He swallowed. It was one of those moments that made him wonder what life would be like with a different companion.

  Nikolas put a hand on Ben’s belly, spreading his fingers, seeming to anchor himself on warm flesh. “You fill the absence of God for me.” Once more, he turned his head and Ben copied him, their gazes meeting in the darkness. “I no longer feel alone.”

  “How much have you had to drink?”

  Nikolas laughed, clearly pleased with life. “Just enough.” He levered himself over Ben, all sinew and cool skin, until he pressed them together, and where their bodies met heat began to rise. As he kissed around Ben’s face, onto his eyelids and up to his hair then down around his ears and sensitive neck, Nikolas murmured, “Did you know that pound for pound the human body gives out more heat than the sun? We burn, Benjamin.”

  Ben flipped them, now on top, friction increasing the burn. “We always have.”

  Cocks met without conscious thought, creating shards of intense delight stabbing through Ben’s groin. Nikolas’s hands travelled south, parting Ben’s cheeks, stretching them, stroking the tips of his fingers over Ben’s sensitive hole. Ben grunted his appreciation and was rewarded with an answering smile through the kissing.

  Nikolas spun them again, forcibly turning Ben onto his belly. Ben groaned, knowing what was coming, anticipating the first push of Nikolas’s cock. He was given tongue instead and hissed with need.

  Nikolas lay down between Ben’s outstretched legs, his hands roaming up his thighs to his buttocks, stroking and massaging as his face pressed hard into Ben’s arse, licking, biting, demanding entry with his tongue.

  Ben cried out, his voice a sharp bark in the darkness, a predator in the forest being taken.

  Nikolas heaved himself over Ben, pausing. He blocked out the light from the stars, massive and threatening, and then he slammed home. Ben rose at the waist, his spine bent, arched up on his hands, cock grinding into the wood of the deck, and he cried out again at the pain, and then another shout as it gave way to the best sensation of all. He twisted his head around to watch, saw starlight reflected in Nikolas’s blown pupils, a savage lust upon his face as if he were about to fuck his own god and then they began—the hard penetrations, Nikolas thrusting his hips to hit Ben just right, Ben’s cock crushed and stimulated beneath, and his body filling with urgency so intense that he wanted to howl, lend that sound to the voices of the creatures of the night that they joined under the domed splendour of the starlit sky.

  Nikolas suddenly reared back and dragged Ben to his hands and knees. He shoved Ben’s head down, Ben’s arse rising. Nikolas snagged Ben’s hair and rode hard into him, better access now, more depth, and with it more skilful working, finding just the spot that made Ben grunt with frustrated need.

  They were both so lean that, spread and joined like this, they fit together like the pistons in Ben’s new, perfectly calibrated engine.

  The heat between them was intense. Sweat flicked off Nikolas’s forehead onto Ben’s back, his hands gripping Ben’s waist scorching him.

  Nikolas suddenly shifted position again, pulling Ben up to kneeling. Ben’s back was now crushed to Nikolas’s hard, lean belly. Nikolas gave a final few deep thrusts of his cock into Ben’s body and they came together.

  Ben’s cock was so high that his release shot in an arc across the deck, catching the starlight and glistening. Nikolas flooded him from behind, only sharp shudders betraying the fact he was unloading deep into Ben’s tight channel.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Ben had something of a shock when they returned to London.

  There was a vast hole in the wall of the kitchen and dust and rubble everywhere. And builders. />
  Nikolas merely said, surprised at Ben’s surprise, “I did tell you.” At Ben’s expression, he added, prompting, “Peyton?”

  “Peyton made this hole?”

  Nikolas frowned. “He’s not that big.”

  “I mean—Nikolas!”

  “I told you I was sorting more suitable office accommodation for him.”

  Ben went to the gap and peered through past a couple of builders who had stopped hammering and were staring back at him.

  He sensed Nikolas at his side. “I’ve bought the house next door.”

  Considering the mess, Ben was tempted to say just as well.

  He could now see through into the kitchen of the property attached to theirs, which was a mirror image. Despite being worth a little shy of eight million pounds, Nikolas’s London residence was terraced, as all mews houses in this part of London tended to be. Something to do with originally housing horses, he’d claimed.

  He’d bought out the Saudi owners of the attached building and was now having it converted into a suite of offices and accommodation for Peyton Garic.

  The incongruity of Peyton Garic in a mews house in London struck Ben more than it should for some reason, and instead of being furious at finding out Nikolas had, once again, rode roughshod over him, Ben stepped through the opening and went on a tour of their new, extended property.

  He wanted to go upstairs, but Nikolas told him that Peyton would only have the bottom floor—indeed, he couldn’t practically manage anywhere else. Now, as Nikolas had pointed out quite seriously, Ben wouldn’t need to be on hand to deliver the takeaways.

  Ben wasn’t fooled for once.

  Nikolas was distracting him.

  Nikolas didn’t want him upstairs.

  He dodged and jogged up.

  The rooms on the top floor had been combined into one large spacious area. This was also joined to their house through another new hole in the wall, which went into one of their spare bedrooms.

  The ceiling of this large space had been removed to expose the arched underside of the tiled roof, and skylights had been fitted so that warm sunlight filled the entire, vaulting room. This enhanced the…colour. Two young men had paused to watch them with rollers in their hands. Ben blinked and spluttered, “Purple?”

  Nikolas, who’d come up behind him scoffed and informed Ben that it was, “Sugared lilac.”

  Ben dropped his head. He closed his eyes for a moment. “For Molly. This is going to be Molly’s bedroom?”

  Nikolas shrugged. “Solid Victorian brick between us. I have no intention of my sleep being disturbed by your daughter. I have enough to suffer from sharing a bed with her—” Nikolas didn’t appreciate public displays of affection in front of builders, so Ben punched him on the arm instead.

  He knew Nikolas would get the loving intent behind the pain.

  § § §

  Ben was never sure, looking back on those few days on Aeroe, whether they had marked a watershed for Nikolas. Whether back in his native land once more, his childhood home, facing ghosts, deceptions, and memories, Nikolas had decided to accept Steven at last. It seemed to Ben at the time that he had.

  When they returned to London, Nikolas appeared to be willing to believe that he had a second chance with Steven—that Steven was, in so many ways, the brother Nikolas mourned. For Ben knew that Nika had not gone out of Nikolas’s life when he’d fallen from a balcony in Moscow, but that he’d been effectively lost many years before that—selfish, spoilt, privileged, and endlessly envious of his older, better twin. Steven wasn’t Nika’s son. He was Aleksey’s. And as far as Ben was concerned that meant Steven had inherited the very best of the Mikkelsen blood. He was a blank canvas for Nikolas to work upon, to lavish on Steven all the care and affection he’d once poured onto an undeserving, weak brother.

  Steven became an almost permanent feature of their lives.

  Ben put up with it for Nikolas’s sake.

  He liked Steven, he genuinely did.

  He liked Nikolas better though and was jealous of the attention Nikolas gave his son.

  This was something of a revelation for Ben.

  He began to realise just how much he took Nikolas’s devotion to him for granted. Being with Nikolas was sometimes like being tumbled in the wave of a tsunami—it was all churn and movement and smash of debris. The tumult hid the central core of love, which, Ben knew, was just how Nikolas liked it. He didn’t do romance. He did constant, rock-solid care and unremitting attention.

  Now that his focus was fixed elsewhere, Ben missed it like flavour in food. He still got to eat, he just wasn’t enjoying the taste very much.

  Seeing Nikolas so often with Steven now also gave Ben another odd revelation. Physically, Steven’s presence enhanced the extreme beauty of Nikolas’s features. Perhaps not beauty. Someone so scarred and fierce, someone with such high cheekbones and mischievous, predatory eyes could never truly be called beautiful, but the watered-down version of these in Steven set off Nikolas’s…unique attractions. Ben enjoyed comparing them, relished the twitch of interest in his cock at being reminded every time just how much he did desire Nikolas.

  The only thing that marred life for Ben during these halcyon weeks was a small inner voice, a nagging suspicion, that there was something he was missing in all this happiness and perfection.

  He couldn’t put it into words because he didn’t understand what this tiny voice, more a whisper in a language he didn’t know, was saying. Then one evening, over at Tim and Squeezy’s apartment with Radulf, he watched a movie where the protagonist, living a heavenly, dreamlike life, discovered he was actually the star of a reality TV show.

  Ben suddenly got what it was he was feeling. It wasn’t real.

  It was…a dreamtime. All the sex, the sunshine, the perfect car, the sex, the passage of time marked by stars and enchantment, the sex…

  It wasn’t real. He wasn’t real—no, Nikolas and Steven weren’t real…It didn’t help his dilemma actually telling someone how he felt because it didn’t make a lick of sense to him. He eyed Tim for a while, pondering, and when Squeezy went to answer the door to the takeaway delivery guy, he took his opportunity to ask, “What do you think about Steven?”

  Tim pursed his lips. “In what way?”

  Damn it. Ben had been hoping Tim would turn to him and say, “Yeah, you’re right, something is off. I think…” and then proceed to explain to him why he was feeling so…out of kilter.

  “In any way?” Open questions elicited fulsome replies, didn’t they?

  “He’s okay.”

  Bloody hell!

  “Do you think there’s anything odd about the situation?”

  Tim smirked. “It’s every straight guy’s nightmare, isn’t it? Child he fathers in a careless one-night stand, coming to find him one day? They’re talking about releasing details of sperm donors. Totally unethical, if you ask me.”

  Ben hadn’t and wanted to get him back on topic.

  “But Nikolas. He seems…okay about it to you?”

  Tim narrowed his eyes and gave Ben a quick sideward glance.

  Ben frowned. “What?”

  “You do realise that the only time you’ve ever talked to us about him was when he cheated on you with Jack—”

  “Didn’t cheat.”

  “We never talk about him with you. He’s very hard to…analyse, understand?”

  “But you talk about him amongst yourselves, surely? You work for him!”

  Tim nodded, and Ben got the distinct impression that had Tim not been so innately polite, he’d have told Ben exactly what they said about Nikolas behind his back.

  “He’s very private. You don’t see his good side.”

  Squeezy came in, kicking the door open, as his arms were full of bags and bottles. “Whose good side?”

  Tim replied quietly, “Nikolas’s,” with a very noticeable, quick negative head flick. Squeezy grinned as if the admonition to not say something gave him full permission to say exactly what was on h
is mind.

  “Fucking wassock,” was his first offering, as he piled the cartons onto the table. “Not here, is he?”

  This odd remark confused Ben and apparently Tim in equal measure, but Squeezy only huffed and plonked himself down on the floor with Radulf, flicking channels with the remote as Tim made a neater arrangement of the food. Squeezy nodded knowingly. “Yeah, exactly.”

  Ben, exasperated, around a mouthful of something spicy, snapped, “What? If you’ve got something to say, mate, just say it.”

  Squeezy leant back and sniffed. “As I said, mate, not here, is he?”

  “No!”

  “Never here, is he?”

  “What do you mean? In your apartment? He knows where you live, he came here…”

  “This is life, Diesel. We only get one fucking go at it. You live yours entirely alone because you’ve saddled yourself to that big wassock. There’s three of us here. Should be four. ’S all I’m saying.” Then Squeezy wrestled Radulf and smooched him, declaring there were actually four and who’d want a useless blond pillock when they could have him?

  “I—” Ben was entirely unable to refute Squeezy’s comment and looked to Tim for support, but Tim seemed overcome by the unexpected and wholly uncharacteristic pronouncement from his partner, or possibly the dog kissing, and didn’t seem as if he could lend any spare coherence to Ben.

  Finally, Ben intoned stonily, “I was asking about Nik and Steven.”

  Squeezy shrugged. “There ya go. Proves my point.”

  “What? Do you ever make any sense at all?”

  “I make a lot of sense all the time only no one fucking listens to me.”

  Tim, ever the peacemaker, murmured, “He’s busy with Steven. It’s only natural.”

  Not daunted at all, Squeezy, concentrating on tickling a spot just behind Radulf’s ear that made his back leg come up frantically scratching air, replied, “Funny old thing.”

  Ben glanced at Tim then snapped, infuriated, “Just fucking tell me straight what you think.”

  Squeezy took pity on Radulf, fed him a prawn cracker, and then regarded Ben for a while, as if weighing up whether to speak or not. “You seem happy, Diesel, so I’ve not said anything. Not to you, anyway. I’ve told the wassock. Got a fucking reaming for my trouble—and not the good kind of those, more’s the pity. Never denied I’d like to fuck him, just don’t wanna have to put up with him. This is not him, is it? When’s the last time he took you out anywhere? Gallery? Concert? Movie? Shit, fucking gay club? Bar?” He wrinkled his nose helplessly at Tim. “What else do we do? Help me out here.”