19. Viktor

[ 19 ]

VIKTOR

He fell asleep.

Finally.

At least, he looked asleep. I loitered in the doorway, fixated on the sofa Ranger had poured himself onto the moment we got back from the heliport, stretched out with one arm flung over his eyes, hiding his face. Silent, and so still I could not look away.

I missed his face.

His voice. It was terrifying how dependant I had become on him. How much I needed everything about him. How careless his company made me and how fragile I was without it.

I scratched my arms, backing away, my footsteps quiet on the tiled floor, testing the super-hearing Ranger possessed.

He did not move and I felt more anxious about that than I could bear.

I took Lida outside to exercise her, keeping her busy enough in the evening shade that she did not go inside and lick Ranger’s face.

Because you want to lick his face.

I did. But I also wanted to creep down the mountain and⁠—

No. I had made him a promise—two promises—and I could not live as a liar.

Not to him.

The phone Jake had texted overnight was in my pocket. It buzzed as Lida ran for the toy I’d tossed her, darting through the orange trees.

Jake: It will not be long now

Viktor:You are close?

Jake: Indeed. Maybe you should retreat to our leather friends

Viktor: That sounds like a club in Berlin. And you know Ivan will not leave the donkeys

Jake: If you are making sex jokes, I am less worried about you than I was five minutes ago

Viktor: You do not need to worry about me

Jake: You are okay?

Viktor: Ranger will not let me be anything else. But you knew that, didn’t you?

Jake: I knew he would try

Jake went silent for a while. I took a seat on the stone steps of the patio and stretched my leg, easing out the kinks of being airborne for the first time in so long. My mind felt cramped too, but I lacked the capacity to do anything about that, and I let my thoughts jostle and jumble, caught between worrying about Jake and fixating on what might happen when Ranger woke up.

Jake: Tell me the truth

Viktor:About what?

Jake:How you are

Viktor:I am well

Jake:Can you fly?

Viktor:I did. Today. It went well

More silence invaded the connection between us. Which meant Jake had been interrupted or he was thinking, and both scenarios were dangerous. Like everything in my life seemed to be, including the heat in my blood every time my thoughts drifted to the sleeping man inside.

And he was most definitely asleep. By now, I was sure of it.

Check.

No. I would not. Ranger had not left me alone for so long since he got here. He was either exhausted or sick of the sight of me.

Jake: Can you fight?

I sat up straighter, sensing the shift in those three words—in Jake, in me—as my thumbs hovered over the screen, hesitating in a way I never had before.

Can you fight?

Had I ever truly stopped?

That I was alive to contemplate it said net. But then, I was alone on the patio while the man of my dreams slept inside. I had left him alone, in Leeds, when both of us had needed me to stay.

You are weak.

I did not want to be. Not anymore.

Viktor:I am ready

I sent the message as I rose, the pain in my hip remote, as if I were already pushing it away. Already anticipating the boots clomping on the tiled floor of the house. The hurried footsteps. The wild gaze that swept the grounds as Ranger burst outside.

He found me and relief bled from him. He thought I left. And I did not blame him. The monster in me would never die, but as I stepped closer to him, for the first time that I could remember, I felt strong enough to lock it up.

We collided, gently. At least he was gentle. I was not as I propelled him back the way he had come.

It surprised me that he allowed it, but this man, he had always been a constant revelation to me. About him. About myself. And right now, his raised brows and smouldering gaze gave me strength, gave me life, and whatever happened, I would be forever thankful for that, and for him.

Lida slipped into the house and padded to her bed.

I shut the door behind us. Secured it with the flick of a hidden switch.

Then I lay my hands on Ranger again, anchoring him to me at the waist, fingers tangling in the messy hair at the nape of his neck. “I would like . . . to take a shower with you.”

Ranger’s gaze darkened, the muscle in his jaw twitching. “You don’t have to do that. I already told you I’ll fly in that death can every day you leave the junk where it belongs.”

He did tell me that. The second we landed this afternoon. “This is not about that. This is something I’ve thought about for a long time.”

“How long?”

“Forever long.” I took his hand and turned towards the bathroom. “From the moment I met you.”

Ranger let me tow him along, kicking his boots off along the way. “We met in Crow land. I thought you were Italian.”

“You thought I was Sambini?”

“I thought you were a cunt.”

He could have called me an angel and it would have sounded the same from his rough mouth. “I thought you were a King spy. And I thought Folk was a government infiltrator. They were the only explanations I could think of for why the two of you were in such a place.”

“What about Rocco? And Locke?”

His friends. One of them dead. And I spoke of him first. “I thought Rocco was trapped and I knew it would kill him. I did not know for sure that Locke existed until after the warehouse fire. He was kept out of sight when I was around.”

We reached the bathroom. Lights built into the floor cast a golden glow into the small space I had spent many nights and days when pain and addiction had consumed me.

Only Ranger consumed me now.

I pulled my shirt off and dropped it on the floor, feeling the heat of him behind me. Close, but not close enough.

The shower was open, just a rainfall head fixed to the ceiling, no screens or doors.

Like barracks.

No. This was nothing like that—this was nothing like anything, and it did not feel strange to strip in front of Ranger. I had done it before. It was him who had always been clothed.

Naked, I moved to the shower, the only sound in the room the twisting of the dial and Ranger’s measured intake of breath until the water flowed from the ceiling. “You are still dressed.” I did not need to look to know. “You do not have to do this.”

“Neither do you.”

I rotated to face him.

Ranger held my gaze, his attention never straying from my face. “Nothing about you and me will ever be transactional.”

“You do not believe me,” I realised. “When I say this has been what I wanted all along.”

“I believe you. I just—” Ranger rubbed his lips with a tense hand. “I can’t be another fucking thing that hurts you. It’d kill me.”

His fear made sense, and it broke something inside me. But his earnest gaze healed it right back up, and whatever that did to my face twisted Ranger’s features into a dry scowl. “Are you laughing at me?”

“No.” I held out my hand to him. “I am thinking that your smile is like rumpled sheets, and I have never thought that about a man before.”

“Sounds like a good time.”

“Maybe we will find out.”

Slowly . . . so slowly, Ranger reached back and tugged his faded biker tee over his head, revealing the torso I had seen so much of already. The dark ink. The healed slash wound. The skin that was now kissed by the sun.

It left him in the cargo shorts I’d long ago forgotten were Jake’s. One loose button at the waist.

My breathing heavied, my throat dry despite the steam filling the room. Fear or desire, I could not tell. And it didn’t matter. I had spent my whole life chasing nightmares. I could not let wanting Ranger scare me.

I beckoned him closer with my outstretched hand.

My heart thudded as he chose his path. Skipped a beat as he chose me, and his fingers tangled with mine.

I used my free hand to pop the button on the shorts. They fell away, leaving him in underwear, and I did not blink until they were gone. Ranger’s lean abdomen touched mine, skin to skin. I shivered and edged back, coaxing him beneath the hot spray, and kissing him felt somehow safer with water cascading over us.

It should not have felt safe. Ranger was hard everywhere, his body honed by years of fighting. But this man . . . his heart was as kind as his tongue was sharp, and as his cock filled the space between us, I wrapped my hand around it, trusting that the falter in my pulse would fade.

I let my hand wander, exploring him, that odd sensation of want and agitation lacing my blood as I said what had been on my mind all afternoon. “I keep thinking about you and your woman—about you and Finch.”

Ranger bit my bottom lip with a rough groan. “Why?”

“If she is like her brother, she is beautiful. And so are you. Also . . .” I breathed into a slow blink as Ranger gripped my chin. “It is new to me to think of you like that.”

“How did you think of me before?”

Blyad. I had his cock in my fist, but it was him who held me at his mercy, and again, the truth fell from my lips. “I thought of you like a star in the sky.”

“Like I was fucking dead?”

“No, very much alive, but only to look at. Never touch.”

“You’ve touched me plenty. You’re touching me now.”

I was. Ranger was hot and heavy in my hand, and it did not feel like a step too far. It felt like I could touch him this way forever and my body began to respond.

Ranger noticed. The flicker in his dark gaze, the pulse in his length. He rooted a hand to the tiles behind me and finally looked down. “You’re packing some heat there, Vik.”

“Vik.” I rolled the nickname around my mind. “You would not call me that if we were lovers.”

Ranger kissed my jaw, my neck, and grazed my collarbone with his teeth. “We are lovers. Tell me your name.”

“Like this? It would be Vityasha.”

He repeated the diminutive and it sounded so different that I almost forgot I had spent my whole life believing no one would utter it to me.

“Vityasha,” he whispered.

And wrapped his hand around my cock.