Varian Krylov (38 page)

Then Vanka pulled Galen up, wrapped her arms around him, pulsed her hips against him, driving her hard length into him as Khalid's hot wet mouth came down over 360

his cock, his tongue swirling and dancing along his length, around the head of his aching cock until that throbbing pleasure clamped down and blew apart.

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Chapter Twelve

Galen pulled against the wrist restraints, just to feel the chafe and bind a little more. Even with Khalid inside him, his breath puffing moist and warm against his cheek, the reminder of the restraints got Galen harder, made him hotter. A fainter echo of his body's response each time Vanka or Khalid came to him, held out the leather or nylon cuffs, tied him up or down, in whatever position they wanted for the session they had planned.

Biting back a whimper, Galen breathed through the burn. Taking Khalid as soon as Vanka'd finished was testing his endurance. He liked it. Being pushed to his limit, and past.

Khalid's chest felt slick against his back, both of them sweaty, trembling, straining. Somewhere nearby, beyond the darkness of the blindfold, Vanka was watching. Galen groaned, thinking that.

“Soon, Galen,” Khalid panted, then mouthed his ear, his neck, making his cock twitch with want. Khalid's arms cinched tighter across Galen's chest and belly, and his teeth sank into his trapezius as he shuddered and groaned.

Khalid clung to him, collapsed against him, shaking and breathing hard. Then he held him, stroked him, kissed him where he'd bitten, and slowly slipped out, leaving Galen empty. Untouched and alone.

But then Khalid and Vanka together helped him up, turned him around, laid him down on his back, his wrists still bound overhead at the top of the bed. Together they came to him, kissing and petting, caressing his needful cock, tonguing his nipples until he was writhing and moaning, his body begging for release.

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Their voices, their caresses, their kisses swirled together. Together their tongues stroked up his prick, her lips nursing at the head while Khalid sank between his thighs and mouthed his balls. They teased him until he was almost sobbing, then sucked him off, together, both of them nursing and lapping at him as he came.

After, they wrapped their bodies up with his, all of them hot and damp and sticky, sated and sleepy. It had been the second session that day. In the last week, the three of them had hardly left the house.

As usual, after a while Vanka slipped away, on her own, and a moment later Galen heard the shower. Because he was not allowed to touch her, or see her. Khalid was, and he wasn't. It wouldn't be like that forever, but it always stung him, a little, in the first moments of separation.

* * * *

Galen met Vanka's look, then looked at Khalid for a few heavy seconds. Then he turned back to Vanka.

“I hadn't thought about that, before. But . . .” he paused for minute. “Tomorrow,”

he said with finality when he spoke again.

“Beware, Galen. Vanka is about to change your fate, as she's changed mine.”

“Yeah?”

“We're going to make it. Tomorrow. Khalid's first film. My first feature. And you should be Williams.”

“You're going to make a film of your novel?” Galen teased Khalid.

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“I do not despise the medium so much as you imagine, Galen. And I have seen Vanka's work. I see clearly that she can do with images what I wished to do, in that novel, with words. And I have seen your work, too, Galen. Vanka and I know that your gift is too big for these summer blockbusters and resurrections of Jane Austen. And you know this, too. It is why you have been so unhappy with your work, for so many years now.”

Vanka watched surprise, then some deeper feeling wash over Galen's features.

“You're serious?”

“We're serious. Khalid and I are doing this. And we want to do it with you.”

* * * *

Khalid looked up from his book, a teasing smile already in place even before their eyes met. But the smile faded.

Closer, closer, Galen felt like he was being pulled by an invisible string winding up in his belly, threading around and around his lungs, cinching off his air.

Everything would change.

“What is it, Galen?” Khalid asked, no irony in his voice.

It wouldn't come out, the word in his mouth, the phrase he'd strung together half an hour earlier and kept intact through the endless barrage of wants and doubts.

Hopeful, terrified, he put his hand out.

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When Khalid took his hand, when Khalid rose from the armchair and stood there, their palms still pressed together, and looked at him without his ironic grin, Galen's gut lurched. He'd started it. It was happening.

“Galen?”

“I . . .”

Those eyes. He'd looked into that warm gaze so many times, felt those lips. God, he loved him.

“Tell me, Galen. What do you want?” Not a taunt. Khalid's gaze was tender, his voice gentle, coaxing.

“I want,” Galen started, then faltered. He'd been playing the game for so long. It was almost startling, how hard it really was. Khalid was watching him, waiting.

Even through his T-shirt, even across the inches separating them, Galen could feel Khalid's heat radiating from his naked torso. Galen touched Khalid's bare arm, that smooth, hot skin, waiting for that ironic grin. But it didn't come. He touched his face.

That beautiful—beatific, really—face. Those patient eyes like liquid gold, that smooth-shaven, angular jaw, that soft mouth.

Galen touched Khalid's lips with his. A careful, questioning kiss. Eyes open, watching.

Khalid smiled. Not ironic and teasing. A sweet, warm smile.

But it was a mistake. His gut warned him off. After this, things would change.

Khalid would be aloof. Distant. Cold. Cruel. Little by little, he'd fade away.

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“Galen.” Khalid's touch was warm and soft on his cheek. “I see that you are afraid. Truly afraid tonight.” It was like being held, cradled, the way Khalid was looking at him. “But you and I, we will be all right. You can trust me, Galen. Trust us.”

Galen kissed him again, the world falling away, hope rocketing through him.

Warm, tender, Khalid answered his kiss, his soft lips pressing and parting, taking him in.

Khalid's hand curved at the small of his back, pulling him close. Galen could hardly breathe, like his desperate hope was burning up all his oxygen.

Khalid pulled away. Galen's heart thumped, then sped.

“Galen.” Khalid stroked his hair, his cheek. “You shake so much.”

If he didn't say it now, he'd lose the last of his courage. Galen tried to smile, and Khalid's mouth widened and curved in such a warm smile that half Galen's fear melted.

“Khalid.”

“Yes, Galen?”

“I love you.”

Khalid's lambent eyes shimmered. “And I love you, Galen. Truly, as I've never loved any other.”

Those words, Khalid's look arrested Galen's free fall. They sank into a long, tender kiss. Whatever vague fears Galen had about the future were obliterated in that kiss, in the sensation of Khalid's smooth skin under his hand, the warm press of his taut body. His stiff cock.

It was hard, anyway, to say the next thing. But Khalid never would. Not tonight.

“Khalid.”

“Yes, Galen.”

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“I want . . .” Dammit, no phrase sounded right in his head. “I want to take you to bed.”

In the bedroom, Galen pulled off his shirt and jeans as Khalid—already in nothing but his boxer briefs—watched this first eager, voluntary undressing. They were both hard. Galen had half wondered if they wouldn't be. If they needed the games for that, too.

God, they'd fucked so many times. Hundreds. All those years, together in their way, and he'd never really touched Khalid.

But now he touched five fingertips to his lover's chest, stroked over his hot, sleek skin, watched Khalid's eyes flare, watched his lips part as he touched a dark nipple. Still touching, he kissed him, opened him, tasted him. God, that feeling, hard with need, soft with love. He wanted to growl, to cry.

Galen stroked down, over the firm contours of Khalid's lean belly, down, curving his palm over the rigid length of his cock, down, cupping and caressing his balls through his snug shorts.

“You feel so good,” Galen breathed, realizing as the words left his lips it hadn't cost him any effort to say so.

Khalid made a soft noise, somewhere between a moan and a laugh. “And it feels good, your touch. I have dreamed this touch for a long time, Galen.”

Galen couldn't get enough of Khalid's mouth, his touch, his body. He tasted, smelled, felt so fucking good. His want was chewing him apart, but at the same time he so wanted to be tender with Khalid, finally, to take his time with every kiss, every touch, to linger over the gorgeous body of his lover.

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Sinking to his knees, Galen kissed across Khalid's sleek belly, brushed his lips over his tempting bulge, ran his palms over the firm curve of his ass, pulled him close, nuzzled into his rousing musk, breathed him in. Galen looked up, and a heavy warmth flooded through him; Khalid's gaze was so tender, so adoring. Vulnerable. A look Galen had never seen before.

He kissed the soft, umber skin just above the black shorts, touched to notice the fine, sparse down there, almost invisible. When he slid Khalid's shorts down, revealing the graceful architecture of his hips, and the first dark curls, Galen kissed over the faint, pink imprint left behind by the elastic. Khalid. So hot and soft, so good to breathe in.

Galen stripped him bare. Traced over every inch of his smooth, muscular ass, his sinewy thighs, his runner's calves, the surprisingly delicate skin on the tops of his feet.

His cock.

Khalid's gorgeous cock. Straining skyward, rocking a little. So swollen, so flushed.

Galen kissed the crease where thigh met hip, then kissed the other, feeling the brush of Khalid's dark curls on his cheek. He brushed his lips over the delicate skin stretched taut over that full, eager cock, teasing Khalid and himself by drawing it out.

Never. He'd never touched, never kissed Khalid's prick, except under the pretense of force. Even lately, he was always tied.

Sliding the tip of Khalid's cock between his lips, the taste of him worked on Galen like a powerful aphrodisiac. A thrill vibrated through his core as he drew Khalid deeper into his mouth, working his tongue over him, savoring the piquant flavor of him.

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Khalid's fingers combed into his hair, over his scalp, and that drove another hot thrill down Galen's spine, into his hard cock. When Khalid groaned and his cock lurched, Galen sucked more determinedly at his lover's prick, suddenly desperate to hear his cry of release, to feel the spurt of warm wet in his mouth, to know, at that moment, that he'd given Khalid that pleasure.

“Galen. Please,” Khalid groaned, nudging him back, slipping from his mouth, from his embrace.

For a second the anxiety started to seep back in. Khalid was pulling away. Would they not even get this one night before everything fell apart? But Khalid was gazing down, looking absolutely rapt. Galen took the hand Khalid was offering, and stood.

“Please,” Khalid breathed by his ear, “get those off and get into bed with me.”

Yes. God, yes. Galen shucked off his shorts and sank onto the bed with Khalid.

So good, the feel of Khalid's skin against his own, his leg sliding between Khalid's, Khalid's nipple stiffening under his fingertip, their cocks, their bellies brushing and slipping against each other as they kissed.

With the tip of a finger Galen traced the shape of Khalid's mouth. He loved that mouth, its repertoire of subtle grins, how it had teased and mocked him with the faintest curves. How one real, open smile could flood him with joy, because its rareness made it so powerful.

Galen touched and kissed every inch of Khalid's body, every millimeter of his face, exploring in this one night all the places, all the responses he would have learned over days or weeks with other lovers, that had gone ignored for years, with Khalid.

Khalid knew him better; he'd licked and caressed every last bit of his body the first time 369

he'd tied him up, and retaken them again and again in the years after. But now, for the first time, Galen yielded himself, writhing into every kiss, opening and rising to every caress, nothing defended.

He could hardly stand it. Galen needed him. Now. Please. Pulled him hard to him. Kissed him deep. Stroked and coaxed him.

“No, Galen. Please,” Khalid said, his voice soft, his gaze vulnerable. “You take me.”

“But . . .” He'd planned all along to let Khalid fuck him. A sign, a promise that he loved him, that he was done keeping himself from him. “Khalid.” Galen smiled, gave him one soft little kiss on the lips. “I want to. I want to give myself to you.”

“You offering yourself to me, will this be the only time?”

“No.”

“Then please, Galen, tonight, this first time, you take me.”

“All right,” Galen whispered back, kissing Khalid's cheek, ear, lips.

It was strange, how emotional Galen felt, going into Khalid, for the first time not pumped up and panting from battle, not playing at retaliation. At violence.

“I love you,” Galen breathed. The words didn't cover what he was feeling.

“Moi aussie, Galen. Je t'aime.”

Tenderly, then urgently, they made love. Drawing it out. Every thrust, every moan, every kiss and caress a tease, then pushing each other right to the wall, fierce and hot, reining each other in, over and over, at the last second, until they were too exhausted, too needful to hold themselves back any more.

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After, Galen held himself there, silent, still. Now that need had vanished, he was left with the raw certainty of what he'd done. All those years of careful silence, and now he'd confessed. Fear chilled him, clawed at the skin on his back. It had gotten hard to breathe, but all his will was focused on one thing. Staying inside Khalid. That tenuous connection, bound to fail at any moment, maybe that was the only thing holding things together.