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Despite currently wanting to beat Benjamin Rider down to the springy turf and make him hurt, Ben’s feelings were more important than his.
And possibly always would be.
* * *
Chapter 20
Twelve Years Ago
They fell into a routine over the next few years which Aleksey suspected neither of them understood. Although he had other operatives, and did actually run a black ops department, it was Ben Rider who began to occupy most of his thoughts. Which, Aleksey reflected, had not been the point at all of starting this thing. He had hoped his obsession with the intangible would dissipate on the reality: green eyes become insipid, perfect body appear banal. But the opposite had happened. The more Aleksey saw of Ben, the more he thought about him and wanted him.
Not that Ben was around very much for him to enjoy. He was always travelling, always in some Godawful country or other, doing things that needed to be done. Which was ironic, Aleksey knew, as he was the one who sent him to these places.
But perhaps this very absence made the returns so important and intense for both of them. Ben would invariably text him when he landed. Aleksey would reliably reply with the name and address of a hotel. Ben would arrive, and they would fall on each other in a furious intensity of sexual energy which left them both satiated and exhausted.
Aleksey sometimes wondered if Ben’s frequently expressed disdain for what he was doing in the job, some suspicion that moral boundaries were being crossed, which didn’t sit well with his belief in duty, Queen and country, fuelled Ben’s need for this odd relationship. He suspected that Ben had always wanted to fuck men, but had been appalled, even terrified to face what that would say about him. Now, beyond the pale in the job anyway, transgressive sex was Ben Rider’sfuck youto the system.
Ben often returned from ops restless, unhappy and angry, but nothing he did to Aleksey when in these moods was ever protested. Aleksey sometimes felt as if he had become Ben’s release valve.
Aleksey allowed his body to be used and abused if that was what Ben required.
He spent the time that Ben was away going to meetings with politicians he wouldn’t piss on if they caught on fire, or increasingly being used as a puppet in an adulterous intrigue for a man he would piss on just for fun. So, also restless, unhappy and angry.
And yet, inside Ben’s body, Aleksey began to come back to a semblance of a life.
He did not dwell on his past when he was with Ben.
He did not feel the need to lash out with fury or with vicious humour when he was with Ben.
He was not quite Aleksey, not as he wanted to be once more, but he more resembled that man than at any other time in this strange life he had chosen.
Ben rarely asked him any questions about anything or talked much at all in the early days. They arrived, they fucked, they left. It suited them both.
A year into their relationship, the aftermath of their passion no longer embarrassed them. Although they did not speak of what they were doing, they had accepted that they both wanted to be doing it, and they had become comfortable with each other. The sex less resembled combat.
So, instead of leaving as soon as release satiated them both, they slowly fell into the habit of resting between bouts to recover, so they could then enjoy each other again. Neither was ever now in a hurry to leave. And two men sharing a hotel room, lounging around naked and replete, had to find something to do.
They fell into a contented routine, which Aleksey suspected they both enjoyed almost as much as the sex.
After they’d taken the edge off, relieved the painful need which built up over the weeks of Ben’s absences, Ben would automatically order from room service. Learning from their first meeting, at which he’d sacrificed a whole apple, he always added something extra onto his order which he would leave to one side for Aleksey. Sometimes this was eaten, sometimes not, but Ben never appeared bothered one way or the other. Aleksey did note, however, that if he did eat something, that item was always present the next time Ben ordered. Ben always remembered to order alcohol now, and always checked with Aleksey what would be a good vintage.
Sometimes, waiting restlessly for the food to arrive, he would wander naked around the suite, examining and commenting on things.
Ben had not lived a life that included any form of luxury, Aleksey knew. He had grown up on a rough council estate in Yorkshire, raised by a man who didn’t, as far as Aleksey could see, seem to love or want him much, and in the hollowness left by a mother who had apparently put her own needs over her little son’s and abandoned him when he was eight.
Aleksey could never work out, as he watched Ben’s study of the wealth and luxury he had been missing out on, whether being abandoned by your mother at that age, or being beaten, ignored and starved by her would better make for a well-adjusted adult. He was currently erring on the side of abandonment because he was very pleased with Ben Rider, but ashewas the sanest and most normal person he knew, he mostly thought his childhood had been preferable.
Ben’s fascination with the suites was rarely envy. Mostly he seemed to deride anything he termed posh or poncy. Aleksey was often treated to Ben’s opinions, as he commented derisively on most of the programmes he watched, and on anything Aleksey did or said which didn’t fit his very narrow definition of acceptable.
When the food arrived, his focus was invariably on that, and he always ate, belly down, head hanging off the bed, tray on floor. Whether he realised what a superb view this inevitably gave of his backside, Aleksey could never decide. He never wasted the opportunity afforded by it though.
At one such meeting towards the start of their second year together, when Ben returned cheerful and mellow from Turkey, a country which he had apparently liked, Aleksey did more than admire when Ben lay so. He put his hand to Ben’s leg and laid it gently on the warm skin. Ben went on eating. Aleksey took this for encouragement and began to stroke slowly up and down, more up than down, until his palm cupped one firm cheek. He teased his thumb in small circles, feeling the muscle beneath, and then slid his hand into the warm, welcoming crevice. Ben made it more welcoming still by opening his legs.
Aleksey swivelled around on the bed so his back was to Ben’s head, and rested one arm on the solid ribs, propping his head on his hand as he investigated and played.
They had not done this before.
Furious sex, the rush they gave each other, left no time or inclination for slow explorations of anything.
