No Place That Far

  Timur still seemed to be waiting for something, more or less patiently, so Marcus distracted him with a kiss, a deep one, tongues battling and sliding, Timur challenging him for control. Marcus let him, slowly withdrawing enough to change his angle ever so slightly and roll his hips properly, smoothly switching back to thrusting.

  Timur’s face was blank, blissed out with pleasure, and Marcus could have watched him all night, getting tenser and tighter with every movement, every movement that seemed to begin in Marcus’s body and continue in Timur’s, who responded with demands for more, tilting his hips to try to get Marcus deeper and control him. But pleasure won out. Before long, they were rushing again and getting close. Timur was close to climaxing, but Marcus forced himself back under control and stopped again. “Jesus, you’re really…”

  Timur nodded, panting. “I’m really wanting to come.”

  Marcus chuckled. “Come on, it’s fun to make it last.”

  “Why not fuck me again?”

  Straight or not, Mr. Legionnaire apparently really had had wham-bam-thank-you-man lovers. Even Julien? “Maybe I want you to remember this night.”

  “Already do. Can we fuck now?”

  A laugh burst out of Marcus, and he kissed Timur. “Well, when you put it like that…”

  “Put it like—”

  “Never mind.” Marcus thrust hard, and he wasn’t even sure whose lips the groan came from. He didn’t care. Timur wanted to be fucked, and Marcus wanted to fuck him, so he didn’t hold back now. Not even a little. He pounded Timur like he didn’t give a damn if it hurt either of them, and Timur rocked his hips and moaned like he didn’t give a damn either.

  “Up,” Timur ordered.

  “Up?”

  “Yes.” Timur nudged his chest. “Up.”

  Marcus lifted himself all the way up on his shaking arms. He could thrust even harder like this, take even longer strokes. Jesus, but it felt incredible.

  That wasn’t why Timur had told him to lift up, though—he wrapped his fingers around his own cock and stroked it furiously, keeping perfect time with Marcus’s rapid thrusts. His face and neck were flushed, his eyes screwed shut and his lips tight across his teeth—almost there. So close Marcus was sure he could feel Timur’s impending orgasm. Every bit of growing tension, every quickening heartbeat. He was right there with him, feeling it as if it were his own.

  Timur cried out something in Russian, and in an instant, he was almost unbearably tight around Marcus, and semen landed on his abs and chest, and suddenly Marcus was coming too. Coming hard. Whatever rhythm he’d had, it fell apart, and he didn’t care as long as Timur kept cursing and his own orgasm kept going.

  It couldn’t go on forever, though, and Timur’s curses faded. Marcus shuddered once more, then collapsed on top of him, panting and shaking.

  “Is good we have many condoms.” Timur stroked Marcus’s hair. “Plenty of hours left.”

  Oh God.

  This man’s going to kill me.

  Chapter Four

  When daylight prodded Marcus out of a dead sleep, every inch of his body ached. He didn’t even need to question why he felt like he’d been fucked twelve ways from Sunday, since he remembered quite clearly that he had been. Damn good thing they’d bought a decent-size box of condoms. Maybe it was all that forced marching in the Legion, or maybe it was just something in his genes, but if Timur could bottle that stamina of his and sell it, he’d be one rich motherfucker.

  Marcus sat up slowly and rubbed his throbbing temples. That part he couldn’t blame on Timur, though he supposed the booze may have played a role in landing him in this rumpled hotel bed with that gorgeous sleeping soldier. He hadn’t been that drunk, had he? He’d been able to get it up, after all. And get off. More than once.

  He shifted his gaze toward Timur, who was on his back, the sheet stopping just below his waist and his sculpted arm slung over his stomach. No, it wouldn’t have taken much booze to get him into bed with someone like this. He would’ve done Timur while stone-cold sober without a second thought.

  Grinning to himself, he watched the man sleep. Timur was gorgeous, amazing in bed and not local. With his wedding duties taken care of, he’d probably be flying out to wherever the hell the Legion kept him. Good. Very good. Marcus had no desire to get tangled up with anyone anytime soon. Well, not figuratively, anyway.

  After last night? If Timur ever came back to town, Marcus wouldn’t hesitate for a second to get tangled up with him in the literal sense.

  Spending time like this sure beat the hell out of moping over a friend’s wedding. He managed to get out of bed, though he was stiff and tight, and neither of them in the good way. Timur had offered him the use of his shower yesterday, and Marcus really needed one this morning, to freshen up and wash the sweat and semen off. He couldn’t quite piece together how often they’d both come, but Timur had happily switched from fucking to getting fucked, and there’d been a lot of groping, definitely at least one mutual hand job, and definitely oral sex for good measure.

  In the shower, Marcus leaned into the hot spray, running his hands over his body, checking for sore spots and bruises, but Timur had left him in one piece. He was sore enough to feel Timur for a while, but he figured Timur would be the same.

  He switched the water off, pushed the shower curtain aside and grabbed the towel off the rack, then dried himself. He started dressing. On a day off and the day after the wedding, the tux felt out of place, but he’d get changed once he managed to get home. He wiped the steamed-up mirror to check again for bruises on his shoulder, but the muscle was only tender, and nothing was visible. He shivered—he did like biting in bed, and maybe he wouldn’t have minded at all if Timur had left traces, but the legionnaire probably was just careful enough to last in the military. God knew how superiors would respond to unexplained, random teeth marks.

  He dressed and then opened the door. Timur was still in bed where he’d left him, though this time his eyes were open. So very green. Almond-shaped. High cheekbones. Unusual more than exotic, his body not so much that of a gym bunny but one from weight lifting coupled with actually doing heavy physical work, and the genes to put on muscle weight. “Good morning.”

  Timur nodded, looking relaxed much more than tired. “Morning. You’re well?”

  “Very. Thank you. That was fun.”

  Timur grinned. “Fun, yes.”

  Marcus returned the grin, but then broke eye contact and busied himself with his bow tie. He gave up on that pretty quickly, though. He wore one of the damned things to work every night but still struggled a little to tie them right without at least three or four tries in the mirror, and that was when he wasn’t in the middle of attempting a tactful morning-after escape.

  “So, uh.” He stuffed the bowtie into his pocket. “I should go. I, um, wasn’t planning—”

  “Okay.” Timur nodded. He sat up, stretching gingerly. “Was fun night.”

  Was that a dismissal? Marcus wasn’t sure if Timur was telling him to get lost, or if he was just gracefully accepting Marcus’s less than graceful exit. Hell, did it matter? He didn’t want to hurt Timur’s feelings or anything, but he was exhausted, hungover and really wanted to get home before he started talking himself into staying to the end of that box of condoms. Timur had effectively opened the door, so he might as well go through it.

  “Right. Well.” He cleared his throat and inched toward the door. “Thanks for a great night.” Could you sound a little more lame? “I’ll, uh, see you around?” Yes, he could sound a little more lame.

  Something in Timur’s expression lit up. “Yes. See you around.”

  Marcus gulped. Fuck this language barrier, especially when his hangover made even basic English difficult. Forget trying to speak without creating lines that someone could read between.

  “Yeah. I’ll…” He gestured at the door. “I’d better go. Safe trave
ls, Timur.”

  Timur nodded. “Safe travels.”

  Eh, close enough.

  Marcus slipped out of the room and walked as fast as his aching legs would take him toward the elevator. The elevator was mercifully quick about showing up and getting him the hell out of there, and though he could have sworn the machine took for-fucking-ever to get to the fifth floor last night, it had him on the parking garage level in no time.

  He fumbled with his keys, and by the time he reached his car, he’d actually found the right one. As the engine warmed up, he rubbed his hands over his face and sighed. What the hell? It was just a one-night stand. Okay, so maybe he wasn’t a hundred percent sure how their conversations had translated to Timur. The guy wasn’t stupid, but English wasn’t his first language, and Marcus really, really hoped he hadn’t accidentally led him on somehow. If “see you around” implied something it shouldn’t have.

  Not that he would have objected to sleeping with Timur again, but when a one-night stand became a two-night stand, things had a habit of getting complicated. Considering he was still reeling from a long-overdue divorce, still catching his breath and figuring out how life worked after “till death do us part” ended a bit earlier than anticipated, he didn’t need anything complicated.

  Especially not something involving a language barrier and a man who was probably one phone call away from shipping off to parts unknown until God knew when. Marcus had dated an Army guy for a few months, way back before The Marriage, and he’d learned about two weeks into the first training exercise that the military life was not for him. He didn’t even want to know what it was like being involved with someone in the damned Legion.

  Hopefully Timur hadn’t read anything into Marcus’s departure, and they could go back to their own lives, happily fucked with no further expectations. And Marcus could go back to his empty apartment, so he could rest up before taking over Chris’s shift tomorrow, since Chris was on his honeymoon while Marcus had to meet up with his ex-husband next week for some unfinished I-found-this-at-our-old-place-and-thought-you-might-want-to-keep-it business. Fucking swell.

  Marcus sighed, shifted the car into Reverse and backed out of the parking space. He should’ve known coming to a wedding was a bad idea. Even after some alcohol and sex, he still felt worse than he had yesterday.

  He was meeting Ray in a coffee shop on Capitol Hill. The place had no significance for either of them, so it counted as no-man’s-land. It had just opened, and even the barista was clearly still finding her rhythm—not that there were an awful lot of customers yet. Neutral territory. Far away from Le Chien Bleu, the Restaurant of Doom, definitely far away from Ray’s new look-how-rich-I-am condo situated on a chunk of prime Alki Point real estate, but most importantly away from Marcus’s new I-like-the-unpacked-boxes-look apartment that Ray would think was too small, too cramped and too cheap, but which was what Marcus could currently afford. Marcus groaned and rubbed his face with both hands. And one day he’d be able to think of Ray without beating himself up over what Ray might think, how he’d approach things or whether he’d agree with Marcus’s choices. After all those years together, that had to be a Pavlovian reflex, and he was tired of it.

  Just as he managed to push that thought away, Ray strode into the coffee shop and zeroed in on him immediately. Just a few months ago, being in the same room would have made Marcus either angry or anxious or both, but that was over. He could even kind of distantly appreciate how attractive and well-dressed Ray was and how confidently he moved. Not enough to want to get crushed into little pieces again by working or living with him, but kind of how you appreciated a well-cooked meal that contained an ingredient that would send you into anaphylactic shock.

  Ray sat across from him. His graying brown hair had grown out a little, but it was still severely short, as it usually was. He looked like he’d lost a few pounds recently too. Probably stress. For Ray, anxiety was literally feast or famine—he’d either eat himself sick or starve himself until things settled down.

  He folded his long fingers on the table. “How have you been doing?”

  “Doing good.” Marcus checked his tone and decided he didn’t sound terse, maybe just tired. “Yourself?”

  “Busy. The kitchen isn’t quite the same place…” He let it trail off. A few weeks ago, this would have started a passive-aggressive argument about leaving Le Chien Bleu in the lurch just as it was becoming the place to eat. An argument that Marcus had ended with the promise that if Ray did, indeed, drag him back by his balls, he’d serve the starters with ground glass and razor blades.

  But none of that anger made it this far. Again, the restaurant was a place he didn’t hate anymore, so much as avoided—partly because his paycheck didn’t stretch that far, partly because he’d just storm into the kitchen and dress down whoever was responsible for whatever flaw he’d find on his plate. Part of the reason he’d fallen back on his very first career? Most people buying drinks in Wilde’s really didn’t care about the exact number of mint leaves in their mojito, and many were too drunk or horny to criticize the layering in a B-52.

  Ray folded his hands on the table, giving the surface a sweeping look and the slightest disdainful curl of his lip. Anything without a white tablecloth and a leather-bound wine list was below him. Always would be.

  Bet you would’ve even turned your nose up at the places in Florence.

  Marcus banished that thought as quickly as it had come. There was no point in maintaining that particular grudge, or at least no point in digging it up now. He suspected he and Ray would’ve turned out the same whether they’d gone to Florence or not. Divorced in Seattle, divorced in Italy—it was the same bullshit, the same stupid mistakes, the same heartache, regardless of the setting. Though maybe Ray would have flown back to Seattle, leaving Marcus to his job and life in Florence.

  Let it go, Marcus. Just let it go.

  After a moment, Ray shook himself and met Marcus’s eyes. “So, uh, you’ve been well.” He tilted his head a bit. “You look exhausted.”

  Been a while since you left me looking like this, hasn’t it?

  Marcus shifted in his chair. “Went to a wedding last night. It, um, went late.”

  The upward flick of Ray’s eyebrow would have gone undetected by anyone else, but it was as conspicuous to Marcus as a dropped glass or horrified scoff. “You had a good time?”

  “Of course I did.” He brought his coffee cup toward his lips. “There was an open bar.”

  Ray sighed, scowling at Marcus. “Please tell me you didn’t get drunk and do—”

  “How is Jasmine?”

  Ray eyed him, probably debating whether to answer the question or make another attempt at asking his own. After a lengthy pause, he shrugged. “She’s fine. Keeping me on my toes, as always.”

  “And she’s…adjusted?”

  Ray lowered his gaze, and the mild hostility in his posture melted away. “I think she misses you.” He met Marcus’s eyes. Marcus’s heart lurched—he’d known Ray long enough to know he hadn’t imagined the unspoken and so do I.

  He broke eye contact and stirred his coffee for the eightieth time, but didn’t know what to say.

  Ray muffled a cough. “You can come see her anytime you want, you know.”

  Marcus struggled not to let go of a bitter laugh. “I’d like to see her. But…maybe not now.”

  “Fair enough.” Ray drummed his fingers on the laminate tabletop. “Just, you know, don’t get her quite so stoned this time, will you?”

  Marcus looked up again. “What? Why?”

  “Well, I haven’t been around much lately. Been working a lot of hours.” He leaned forward, folding his arms where he’d been resting his hands. “I think her tolerance for catnip has gone down a bit since…”

  Since you left.

  Since I’ve had to replace you.

  Since I’ve had the restaurant and the
cat all to myself.

  “Good to know.” Marcus managed a quiet chuckle. “Though now I’m tempted to buy her some new toys, get her completely wasted on catnip and leave her to you for a few hours.”

  Ray finally laughed, and Marcus was surprised by how much he liked the sound. It didn’t make him want to rush back into Ray’s arms, but it was nice to see him doing something other than scowling. Marcus laughed too.

  “You’d do that,” Ray said.

  “I’ve done it.”

  A pause of quiet awkwardness, because this banter almost sounded normal and natural between them. Ray probably realized it the same moment Marcus did. “So, yeah, I…found some of your things that I figure you do want to keep.”

  “Finally cleaned out the closets?”

  Ray shrugged. “I had some time on my hands.” He looked around, scanned the board behind the counter as if to decide whether any of the food or drink options would be acceptable, but then turned back toward Marcus. “I did find a few photo albums and certificates you were looking for the other day.”

  “The other day” being shorthand for “six months ago, just before the blazing argument after which you slammed the door behind yourself without ever taking a key to get back in and then being too proud to ask for it.”

  “Yeah, I’d like those.”

  “They’re in the car.” Ray leaned back. “So where are you working these days?”

  “Wilde’s.” Marcus forced himself to meet Ray’s gaze. No hiding. He wasn’t ashamed of where he was working or what he was doing.

  “I didn’t know they offered food.” Ray’s tone was carefully neutral; he was hiding something.

  “They’re not. I’m a bartender.”