16

Julien looked at the mess in his hand and sighed. Ilya must think he was an idiot, a coward…both. He could have ended that call at any time and he hadn't. He'd come so hard, his heart was still pounding. Had he just stepped over the line? Again?

Of course he had. Fortunately, Ilya hadn't seen him do it.

Though Julien was no longer telling himself he wasn't gay. Or to be more accurate, he wasn't denying he felt an attraction to a guy. He wasn't sure if that made him bi or something else. Definitely curious.

He went to the bathroom to clean up, looked in the mirror and whispered, "I'm bisexual."

There was no clap of thunder. No fist clenching around his heart. No dull ache in his stomach. Instead, he felt a sense of relief that he was at least recognising he wasn't straight. There was a feeling of…there you are at last. Had he been waiting without knowing that was what he was doing? Maybe. In any case, whose business was it but his own? And possibly Ilya's, if Julien could get his head out of his arse. Would he have come to this conclusion sooner, if the last few years of lightning strikes hadn't happened?

He'd messed around with a couple of boys at school but that had been limited to mutual hand jobs, either in the woods when they were supposed to be doing cross-country running or in the school toilets. He'd never kissed a guy, never given or received a blowjob from a guy. He'd had a semi-serious girlfriend as a teenager, but he'd ended it before they went off to different universities. They'd liked each other, had fun, had sex, but they were going to be at other ends of the country for years. He had to be the sensible one. Fiona had never spoken to him again. He felt bad about that.

Then the five years of medical school had been so full on, there was barely time to eat let alone date. He'd had the occasional girlfriend, though no one who'd lasted. Once he'd started his first job, the long hours destroyed any hope of a social life. Sex involving anything other than his hand became a distant memory. And really…he hadn't missed it, not exactly. Veronique had been convenient, a distraction. He felt ashamed of thinking that but he was glad he'd ended it.

Until he'd met Ilya, had he ever looked at a man and felt any sexual attraction? He didn't think he had. Not even with boys at school. That was raging hormones, availability, opportunity, fun. Then again, he had admired men's bodies, attractive faces, tight arses, the hard long lines and toned muscles… There were male film stars he liked, but he'd never thought of having sex with them.

Now he was tempted by a mouthy skinny twink with big brown eyes who made him laugh when he thought he'd forgotten how. Julien hadn't been so nervous and excited, so full of anticipation yet so indecisive for a long time. A whole new world would open up if he felt brave enough to step into it. Literally in this case. A few steps across the hall would take him into Ilya's room. How could he not be welcome after that phone call?

Before he could change his mind, he eased open his door and moved across the carpet. Ilya's door was open, but when he looked inside, he could see Ilya was asleep, clutching that corner of the duvet as he'd seen him do before. Like a kid keeping a tight hold on his security blanket. His heart calmed and he went back to bed. Not this night, but another. He wasn't sure whether he felt disappointment or relief.

When Julien woke, it was nine in the morning, and he realised he'd had a better night's sleep than he had in a long while. He showered and dressed, and his mood remained upbeat until he realised Ilya wasn't in the cottage. His jacket and shoes had gone, though his rucksack was still there so no need to panic. When he checked his phone, there was a message. Gone for walk on beach, 24601. Come get me. Might need rescuing if tide is coming in.

Julien exhaled. He hadn't thought Ilya had been snatched, though it had jumped into his head for a moment. No matter how much he might convince himself that no one knew about this place, he couldn't be one hundred percent certain.

As he made his way down the beach, Julien spotted a little dog running up to Ilya. Ilya threw a piece of driftwood and the dog raced away to get it. Julien scanned the area but there was no one else around. Oh Christ. They were not going to take in some stray—another stray. He was going to have enough trouble keeping the two of them safe without dealing with a dog.

"Who's found you?"

Julien asked as he reached him.

"His collar says Toby. I've called the number. They're coming to get him."

Thank fuck for that.

"He's so sweet. Here, throw this for him."

Ilya handed him the stick.

Julien threw it.

"Wow, that went a long way. Once when I threw it, it went behind me."

Toby came running up to Julien and dropped the stick at his feet.

"Traitor,"

Ilya muttered.

"Good boy."

Julien scratched the dog's head and threw the stick again.

"I'm jealous of a dog."

Ilya gave an affected sigh.

"If there was another stick, I'd throw it for you."

"And I'd run and fetch it if I knew I'd get my head scratched and you'd tell me I was a good boy."

Ilya grinned.

Julien picked up the stick and tossed it again.

"Oh no, Toby's going to get to it first,"

Ilya said. "Ah, look, I think that might be the owner."

A middle-aged guy in a red jacket was coming over the dunes. He waved at the two of them and yelled, "Toby!"

The little dog looked up, went to get the stick and took it back to Julien. The two of them laughed.

"The power of a stick, coupled with a magical head scratch,"

Ilya said.

The owner came hurrying up with a lead and clipped the dog on.

"Thanks so much. He was there one moment, then gone. He's anyone's for a stick and a bit of affection. Come on, Toby."

Dog and owner set off back along the beach.

"You want to walk on?"

Julien asked.

"I'd like to improve my fitness so yes, another few minutes. But don't throw me a stick."

The sky was blue today and the wind less powerful, but it was still bitterly cold.

"Did you have pets?"

Julien asked.

"Apart from the pony I vaguely remember, but was clearly too young to ride, no. Did you?"

"We had a dog, chickens, a hamster. My brother had a snake for a while."

Ilya shuddered. "Why do people want snakes for pets? I don't get it. I mean, can they show affection?"

"Not affection but they do come to trust their owners. I wasn't very keen on Daisy, but there was no way I'd let Séb know that or I'd have found her in my bed or in the shower or somewhere that made me jump. Then she killed my hamster so that was that. He was more devastated than I was because he knew he'd have to give her up. Our parents said it was as much my fault as Sébastien's. The hamster was always escaping, no matter how securely I thought the cage was fastened. I wasn't allowed another one after that."

"That seems a bit mean. He was supposed to keep his snake secure too."

"Yes, he was, but he was the younger child. I was supposed to be the responsible one."

Julien felt as if the door on his safe room had been blasted open, a structure he'd spent years building. Now he'd have to start all over again, closing the past off, sealing it in.

Except…Oh fuck, I don't want to.

"What sort of snake was it?"

"Ball python. To be honest, though I felt awful about the hamster, I was glad Daisy had to go. Female ball pythons can reach over five feet in length and live for more than twenty years. I don't know what our parents were thinking when they let him have her."

Julien hadn't even thought of Daisy for years. All those locks around his heart, and Ilya was breaking them open one by one without even trying.

"How did your brother die?"

Julien chewed his lip. "He was stabbed."

That was the easy answer. The short answer. Though not quite a truthful answer. But the only one he felt up to giving right then.

"Life is shit sometimes,"

Ilya said quietly.

"It is."

They walked in silence for a while.

"But things do get better,"

Ilya said. "It's important to remember that. Everything changes."

Not for some people. "Ready to go back now?"

"Yes."

They turned around.

"Do you have any hobbies?"

Ilya asked.

"I like running."

"Me too. When I'm a bit more myself, we could run on the beach."

"Okay."

"Is that all you do? No squeezing yourself along dark tunnels in cold water, or taxing your brain cells with chess, dicing with death cycling in London, risking life and limb with campanology, philately, fromology or helixopholy?"

"Have you made those up?"

"No! Fromology is the study of cheese. Helixopholy is the collection of corkscrews."

Julien smiled. "I'm always up for trying something different. I'm more into doing than collecting."

"Apart from anything involving heights."

"Apart from that."

"Do you have any lube?"

Julien laughed. "A swift change of direction. Yes."

"Jumbo-size condoms?"

"No."

"Oh damn. Well, I suppose I can manage with cling film. Do you have some medical horror stories about things people have stuck up their backsides?"

"All doctors have those. Flashlights, drinks bottles, carrots, cucumbers, deodorant. All accidentally sat on, of course. I once treated a guy who had a bottle of ketchup stuck up his arse. He said he'd climbed through the window and impaled himself. When I got it out, there was a condom on it."

Ilya snorted. "How did you not laugh?"

"Later I did. But I was just sympathetic to the patient. They're embarrassed enough without sniggering medical staff making it worse."

"Note to self,"

Ilya said. "Don't put a condom on a cucumber and fall onto it."

Oh God, you make me laugh.

"It was a joke. Just in case you wondered. I've never put anything weird up my arse."

What Julien was wondering was if Ilya was going to ask him again why he wasn't still working as a doctor, but he didn't.

"This is lovely,"

Ilya said. "The sea air is making me feel more alive."

Except the situation they were in hadn't changed. Being not-alive was a possibility. Ilya's father was likely still looking for him, Lors was expecting Julien to get in touch and he'd probably give him another job to do. But for the moment, he and Ilya were in their own world and it was more than enough.

When they got back to the cottage, they took off their boots.

"Bacon sandwich?"

Julien asked.

"If the bacon's crisp enough to snap in half and it's smoked, that would be almost the best thing ever."

Julien told himself not to ask but he did anyway. "What's the best thing?"

Ilya stared at him without blinking, and Julien had to look away.

"Do you want to know?"

Ilya asked.

No, because he was a coward. "If you'd like to play chess, I'll give you a game. Set it up while I grill the bacon."

"I'm not very good."

"You're Russian. You'll be good."

They ate as they played, sitting on the floor in front of the log burning stove with the board between them, and he was right. Ilya was good, but not as good as him. Julien won three games in a row.

"You're not going to let me win one game?"

Ilya asked.

"How old are you? Four?"

"Twenty-four."

Ten years younger than him. "Letting you win would be insulting."

"Hmm. Give me an incentive to try harder."

"Such as?"

"A kiss?"

Julien thought for a moment, then nodded. He thought it unlikely that Ilya would win given the almost reckless way he played. Too fast for a start. Almost like speed chess. A little bit of him wanted to let Ilya win but that wasn't in his nature. Not even for a kiss. Ilya set up the board again and held out his hands, fists clenched around the black and white pawns. Julien tapped his left hand and the pawn was white, so he'd make the first move.

A few moves later, he was gritting his teeth. "You little bastard."

"I like bratkin better."

Fourteen moves and Ilya had won.

"What the hell was that?"

Julien asked.

"Owen's Defense."

"I might have known it would have a name. Did you let me win the other games?"

"I was warming up."

"Right. Like I believe that. Were you a young Russian Grandmaster?"

Ilya laughed. "No. I was at school in England, remember? I wanted to be good at something and it was never going to be anything sporty, even running, so I chose chess. I've got a good memory and I can see games unfolding in my head. I've not played for ages though."

"And still wiped the floor with me."

"You had the chance to beat me quite quickly in the first game but missed it when you moved your bishop instead of your queen."

"Will you show me how to be a better player?"

Ilya smiled. "If you like."

"Did you play your father?"

"Once, when I was eight. I beat him. He accused me of cheating. I hadn't. I didn't understand how he thought I could have cheated. No one was telling me what to do. I didn't violate the touch-move rule or make illegal moves. I never played him again."

"Did he hit you?"

Ilya shrugged. "Occasionally. I always seemed to do something to upset him. Or not do something, which made him equally annoyed. He didn't touch me after I left home at eighteen. I had a place at Oxford to read maths, but I went to St Petersburg to make jewellery. You can imagine how he felt about that. Absolutely enraged. I still don't know why I told him instead of just leaving and not saying anything. That was the last time he hit me. I arrived in Russia with a black eye and a thick lip. When I was brought back, he got Bryant to do his dirty work."

Ilya slotted the chess pieces back in the box and put it and the board back on the bottom part of the coffee table. "Can we go out in the car?"

"Where to?"

"Somewhere remote. We could sit and look at the sea and eat chips with a lot of salt and vinegar."

"Okay. Get your coat on."

All the time he was driving, Julien was thinking about the kiss. Was Ilya expecting him to give it? Or was Ilya going to kiss him? Probably at some moment and place where Julien didn't want it to happen, where he'd end up tensing or flinching and ruin the moment. He wasn't sure whether he was more worried by the when than he was by the actual kiss.

What he couldn't deny was how he was quivering with heady anticipation. He wanted that kiss more than he'd wanted anything for a long while.

Ilya chatted on the drive, full of fascinating facts and crazy stories about the things he'd got up to at school, then in St Petersburg. Julien wished he'd known him as a teenager.

The chips were bought, heavy on the salt and vinegar, and Julien parked up on grassland overlooking mudflats, salt marsh and brackish pools. Offshore there were two islands and lots of birds in the sky. There were only a few clouds, but it was windy.

"You need your hat,"

Julien told him. "I'm going to put down the roof or the car will stink."

Ilya pulled it on, opened up his chips and smiled. "This is perfect."

It was. They were wrapped up against the cold, sheltered in the car and the chunky chips were delicious. Julien couldn't remember the last time he'd been to a chip shop. He'd never sat in a car and eaten them with someone sitting next to him. In France, it would have been a baguette, cheese, grapes and a bottle of wine.

"It's so peaceful,"

Ilya whispered. "It's like we're the only two left in the world. But everywhere is still beautiful and there's no danger. Oh, and we have plenty of food and water…hot water. And DVDs to watch so there'd need to be electricity. Plus, I can't live without frozen peas."

Julien chuckled.

"I've watched too much TV because I am quite aware that zombies are the end of the world and I wouldn't want to be a zombie, but would you kill me if I was going to turn into a zombie? If I asked you to? Because if you didn't, I'd bite you and then you'd be a zombie too. I don't like the idea of bits falling off my body because with my luck, I know which bit would drop off first."

"You do know there are no such things as zombies."

"Yet."

Julien huffed.

"Hey, yet is my comfort word because you can't know anything for sure. Who'd have thought COVID would have wreaked havoc on the world? There have to be labs creating all sorts of stuff we know nothing about…until we do."

"I have enough to concern me without worrying about things that are highly unlikely to happen."

"I like to expect the best but plan for the worst. Alien invasion, nuclear war, chemical attacks and not getting my kiss."

Julien couldn't help laughing.

"I can't eat anymore. You want mine?"

Ilya held out his tray.

"You've left one chip."

"So? It's a big one. The biggest. The best."

Julien ate it. He tied up the rubbish in the white plastic bag they'd been given and got out to put it in the boot. When he went to get back in, Ilya was sitting in the driver's seat. He'd taken off his coat, hat and jumper to reveal his pink Hello Kitty T-shirt. Julien climbed in the other side. He had the keys. They weren't going anywhere.

"Which button puts the roof back up?"

Ilya whined. "This was a fun idea but I'm cold. Look at my nipples."

Oh God. As the roof came over, Julien shuffled out of his coat and hat and reclined the seat. He crossed his arms behind his head.

"It's so chilly out of the car, so warm inside it,"

Ilya said. "I feel like a big cat, lying in the sun after he's eaten. They spend up to twenty-one hours a day resting or sleeping. I wonder what they're thinking about when they're resting?" He turned to look at Julien and this time, Julien didn't look away.

"Maybe—I need to scratch and I can't be arsed?"

Julien suggested.

"Ugh…that antelope is repeating on me?"

"That wildebeest the missus caught tasted a bit off?"

"Oh God, here she comes and I'm too tired to run?"

Julien laughed so hard he shook.

"Did you know that lionesses have sex twenty to forty times a day when they're in heat and if her mate can't keep up with her, she bites his balls?"

"I don't think that's true."

"I saw a picture on the internet!"

Julien raised his eyebrows. "And that makes it true?"

"I promise not to do that."

"Which? Demand sex twenty to forty times a day or put a picture on the internet of you biting my balls?"

"Who says I'm the lioness?"

Ilya purred as he climbed over to lie on top of him. With no small amount of wriggling, he managed to fit himself in without Julien freaking out or making it feel as if there was no room, even though there was no room. There was no what am I doing or what is he doing because Julien felt as if he'd been waiting for this moment for a long time.

"Was the driver's seat not comfortable?"

Julien asked.

"This seat's much better now."

Ilya was hard and Julien was getting that way. Christ. Ilya smiled and Julien's heart thumped.

"I'm glad you're comfortable."

Ilya smiled harder. "So… Now I've pinned you down and there is no hope of escape, apart from you throwing me out of the car and driving away, can I have my kiss?"

There was an uncertain look on Ilya's face that told Julien he could say no, that Ilya would back off, and maybe understanding that gave Julien the courage he needed. He put his hands on Ilya's waist, slid his fingers onto soft, warm skin that quivered under his touch, and then pulled him down. There was no hesitation, nothing but need. The moment their mouths touched, electricity crackled between them. Julien fell into the bliss of feeling the soft pressure of Ilya's mouth against his and groaned at the back of his throat.

Then it wasn't him kissing Ilya or Ilya kissing him, but them kissing each other, exploring each other's mouths, finding their way through soft and gentle twists of hot insistent tongue, into hard and rough pressing of mouths, then moving back again. Playing, teasing, learning what each other liked. Hard, soft, it was all good. Better than good. Ilya had his hands on Julien's head and he wished his hair was longer, wished he could feel Ilya pulling at his locks. Even so he could feel it, the pressure and tingles that sank into his scalp and ran through his body as if he was standing under a waterfall shower.

It was different to kissing a woman. There was a sort of childlike enthusiasm to this, nothing nuanced about it, just lust and heat and fun and laughter as noses clashed and mouths didn't always quite mesh and they ran out of air and gulped. And the sounds… Fuck, the sounds they were both making… Greedy, desperate gasps and laughs and groans… When had he ever kissed like this?

Julien needed this. He hadn't even known. He was falling and falling and he didn't care. He registered his hands had crept further under Ilya's T-shirt onto his back and that he was rubbing circles with his thumbs, pulling him in, pulling him close. He panicked for a moment and stopped, but when Ilya whined into his mouth, he carried on. Soft, smooth, hot skin and a wriggling bratkin… Oh fuck.

When Ilya finally moved back, just far enough that he could look into Julien's eyes, Julien's breathing was all over the place.

"We kissed,"

Ilya whispered."

"Was that what it was?"

"What are you thinking?"

"It appears I'm not straight."

Julien had kissed a beautiful, funny, passionate Russian, and he liked it. More than liked it.

"Do you feel different?"

"No. I'm just discovering something that was already inside me. And I'm wondering how it took me so long."

"That's easy. You were waiting for me."