No Place That Far

  Marcus swallowed. The two-night rule was silly, right? He could definitely make an exception for a guy who’d be gone in a month anyway. Especially a man whose idea of killing time before getting laid was planning what would happen when it came time to get laid. Fuck rules.

  “Y-you can come to my apartment.” Marcus couldn’t help running his fingers up the front of Timur’s shirt, though he just resisted the temptation to grab handfuls of fabric. Or pull it off. Tear it off. Maybe—

  Marcus. Focus.

  He cleared his throat. “So. My place?”

  Timur shook his head. “Mine. Julien’s, I mean.”

  “You…don’t think they’d mind?”

  He smirked. “Won’t mind. You know where?”

  Marcus tried to recall how he’d gone from his place to Chris’s before they’d all left for Chris’s bachelor party, but his memory of some of the turns was a bit hazy. “I’m not sure. I can probably ask Kieran, though.”

  “Kieran?”

  “A…” Marcus gestured at the bar, “…friend. Coworker. He’d know.”

  “Oh. All right.” Timur stepped back, giving Marcus some more breathing room and yet taking all the oxygen with him. “Three hours?”

  “Thereabouts.” Marcus leaned against his car for balance. “I… It depends on when my boss lets me go. Could be a little earlier, could be a little later.”

  Timur eyed him for a second, and it occurred to Marcus that he might not have understood it all, but the man nodded. “Good. I’ll wait for you.”

  Marcus nodded too.

  And all he could think was that this was going to be the longest three hours of his life.

  Chapter Six

  Marcus would have killed for a dozen or so bachelor parties to come crashing in through the front door of Wilde’s. Huge crowds meant lots of drink orders, which made the time fly like nothing else. Though if being massively busy meant time sped up, and being extremely horny meant time slowed down, there was that possibility they’d cancel each other out and time would just stop. Which would be bad.

  Shaking his head, Marcus chuckled at his own batshit-crazy thoughts. It was pushing one thirty now, and he was excited to the point of giddy. Had he really gone that long without having sex on a regular basis? He was that hard up (as it were) and got excited like a high school kid on prom night who knew he was about to get lucky? Except he’d had plenty of sex, even since he and Ray had split. Had any of that sex stacked up to Timur? No.

  For that matter, the sex with Ray hadn’t stacked up to Timur either. To be fair, though, their sex life had been a series of fine, just get it over with nights for so long, he could barely remember what it had been like back in its glory days, so he couldn’t really compare the two.

  Comparisons were moot anyway. He’d have Timur tonight. That body, that hunger, that unbelievable stamina—all his, all night.

  Assuming he survived what was left of his shift.

  He glanced at his watch.

  One twenty-nine.

  A full forty-seven seconds since the last time he’d checked.

  Motherfucker.

  Kieran appeared beside him. “Hey, boss man says you can cut out whenever you want.”

  In some parallel universe, there was now a Marcus-shaped hole in the front door of Wilde’s, after he’d fled like a cartoon character on crack, getting the fuck out of here and straight into Chris and Julien’s guest room.

  In this world, though, Marcus wanted to stay in the good graces of his coworkers, so he carefully set down the glass he’d been drying. “Are you sure? I can—”

  “Marcus.” Kieran put his hand on Marcus’s shoulder and gave him a knowing grin. “Go. You’ve been itching to get out of here since you came back from break.”

  “Are—”

  “Go.”

  Marcus didn’t wait around. He didn’t bother changing clothes either. Hopefully Timur didn’t mind pulling him out of a tuxedo again. All he did do was confirm Julien and Chris’s address with Kieran, then typed the address into his phone and had the route mapped out. He cross-checked the phone’s suggestion, because he was just tired and distracted enough not to even notice a detour all across the Olympic Peninsula if the map app hiccupped.

  Julien and Chris had rented a place just south of Seattle proper in Burien. The app guided Marcus to a smallish, bright yellow house from around the 1940s, with a tidy-looking front yard on a street full of similar tidy-looking houses. In other words, the picture of suburban, young-couple respectability. Chris’s car stood outside the garage, and a motion sensor above the garage came on when Marcus pulled into the drive.

  Blue light from a TV flickered behind the window to the left, so Timur was still awake, and likely thoroughly puzzled by the advertising on the TV. Imagining the big legionnaire watching a shopping channel with its kitchen appliances, high-end knife sets and exercise equipment—not to mention horrifyingly bad reality shows—made Marcus chuckle.

  He closed the car door behind him and locked it, then walked across the very short lawn to the white-painted door. He’d barely touched the bell when the door opened. Timur.

  Timur, wearing a pair of tight shorts and a muscle shirt. The veins had popped on his forearms and at his temple, and he looked the kind of flushed and pumped up that made Marcus think of sex first and exercise second.

  The powerful man stepped aside, and when he made a come-in gesture, Marcus’s legs obeyed. Not that his brain was going to protest, but it was still occupied with God, he’s hot and holy shit, he’s mine for the night? More like I’m his for the night, he mentally corrected as Timur shut the door and turned the dead bolt.

  And suddenly, there they were, standing alone in Julien and Chris’s living room, the TV murmuring unobtrusively in the background and Marcus wondering what the hell he was supposed to say now.

  He hooked his thumbs in the pockets of his tux pants. “So, uh, you’re staying here? While they’re gone?”

  “Da.” Timur pointed past Marcus. “Chris won’t leave them.”

  Marcus turned around. On the end of the sofa, on top of a stack of blankets and cushions, a long-haired, orange cat glared back at him. Beside him, between the blankets and the armrest, a Siamese was contorted into a seemingly painful pretzel shape—Marcus wondered for a moment if the creature was dead, but its chest rose and fell, and it made little whistling snoring sounds. Alive. Good.

  He started to face Timur again, but froze when a hand met his hip.

  “They won’t bother.” Timur’s lips brushed beneath Marcus’s ear. “This way.”

  Without giving Marcus a chance to respond, Timur took his hand and led him upstairs. Marcus’s heart pounded—he loved it when a man knew what he wanted and went for it, skipping all the small talk and beating around the bush. It was so much less effort. So much less time-consuming—going straight from “welcome” to “well, come”.

  But it still took his breath away. Especially when they’d barely stepped into the small, spartan guest room at the end of the hall, and without even bothering to toe the door shut, Timur grabbed Marcus’s belt, pulled him close and kissed him. They couldn’t have been matched worse—Timur barely dressed, Marcus dressed way too much and too formally, different body types, different cultures, backgrounds, mostly different languages, and quite possibly different sexual orientations—but the kissing washed all that away. While Marcus couldn’t quite forget about it, it just didn’t seem to matter. He kept breaking his own rules about casual hookups too, so he should stop being surprised at the effect Timur had on him.

  Timur pushed him toward the bed, and in the bare room, there really wasn’t that much choice of where else to go. Still, the moment Marcus’s calves hit the bedframe, his breath sped up. His heart was racing as Timur nudged him backward, and the two of them sank down onto the bed, never breaking contact. Before long, Marcus found himself
on his back, spread out, with a whole lot of Ukrainian mercenary on top of him, his hands under Timur’s shirt and getting it off over his head. Timur’s erection tented those tiny shorts, and Marcus couldn’t wait to get those off him too, if he could concentrate enough with Timur kissing him so hungrily.

  Marcus pushed against Timur’s chest. “Need to get the clothes off.” Wow. Coherent sentence? Quite the feat.

  Timur reached down and cupped himself. “If you want to fuck.”

  Not if, when. And yes, immediately. Marcus cleared his throat. “I, uh, definitely do.”

  They both stripped out of their clothes. Marcus just let his drop to the floor—he was lucky he could maneuver zippers and buttons, so he didn’t bother with folding or any of that nonsense. He swore he saw Timur doing the same thing, but somehow his clothes landed in an almost organized fashion. That military training must’ve run deep.

  Marcus had barely let go of the last article of clothing before Timur was against him again, this time from behind. His mouth explored the side of Marcus’s neck, the coarseness of his not-so-recently-shaved jaw underscoring the softness of Timur’s lips. As he kissed up and down from Marcus’s shoulder to the edge of his jaw, his hands roamed all over Marcus’s torso, holding their bodies close together at the same time he explored every plane.

  “I thought…” Marcus licked his lips—right about then, his English was probably as good as Timur’s, “…you wanted. Thought…you wanted to fuck.”

  Timur ground his dick against Marcus’s ass. “Da. But…” he exhaled, releasing a rush of warm breath across Marcus’s skin, “…like this too.”

  “So do I.” Marcus shivered. He tilted his head, exposing as much skin as he could, and pressed back against Timur’s chest. He really did want Timur to stop fucking around and just fuck him, but…he also really liked this part. The way Timur didn’t just tease his nerve endings but actually seemed to be exploring him. Kissing him and touching him like this was all a new experience. Uncharted territory. There was something unbelievably hot about feeling calloused, trembling fingertips running over his skin as if they’d never done this before, tracing edges and contours like a blind man appreciating a sculpture. And the little groans and shivers—hell, it wasn’t long before Marcus could no longer tell Timur’s from his own.

  He rubbed against Timur, not even sure if he was searching for more contact or trying to tell Timur he wanted more.

  Timur’s lips parted, and he nipped Marcus’s ear hard enough to hurt, which damn near melted Marcus’s knees right out from under him.

  “Fuck.”

  “Good idea.”

  Marcus kissed Timur’s throat and nudged him toward the bed. “Keep biting, and I’ll tie you up.” He hesitated—that was one of those things he’d have said to Ray back in the days when their sex had still worked, and part of that was, once they’d trusted each other pretty much completely, the fun and games had really started. You didn’t build the same rapport with a casual fuck.

  He was about to retract or hope that Timur hadn’t caught the meaning, when Timur bent down and, very deliberately, closed his teeth around the top of Marcus’s shoulder. That bite was more a slow-building pressure that skirted the border of pain and then crossed over. Timur released him and straightened, and now? written in his eyes.

  Marcus swallowed dryly. “You’re asking for it, aren’t you?”

  Timur grinned. “More…equal.” His tone was teasing.

  Oh God, help him. “No idea if Chris and Julien have any rope.” And traipsing into their bedroom looking for some was right out.

  Timur bent down and dug around in a backpack that stood near the bed. It was still packed, and a glance betrayed that it seemed to hold mostly emergency supplies. A kind of go bag, like those kept religiously by crazy survivalists. But Timur’s career meant he was less crazy. Just very, very prepared.

  Timur straightened and handed Marcus a kind of black, woven wristband. Oh. Paracord. That worked. Marcus found the end of it and pulled the cord loose. “Bed.”

  Timur obeyed and scooted up all the way to the bedframe. And good God, but he looked good like that, laid out and naked and waiting for Marcus to make his move.

  Marcus managed to tear his gaze away from Timur to look over the bedframe and see what he had to work with. It was one of those metal headboards with vertical bars. As he leaned down to check the sturdiness, he noticed the paint was worn—dulled, really—in a few places.

  Well, well, well, Chris. What have you and Julien been doing in your guest room?

  He bit back a chuckle and tapped Timur’s shoulder. “Hold the bars.”

  Timur’s eyebrows flicked up as he glanced at the bars above his head. Then he obediently reached up and closed his hands around them.

  “Closer together.”

  Timur let go, moved his hands to the two middle bars, and gripped those instead. “Yes?”

  “Perfect. Don’t move.”

  Timur gave a quiet laugh, and Marcus wasn’t sure what to make of it. Did he imagine that note of oh yeah, tough guy? He glanced down at the rope he was holding. It wasn’t thick, but it was sturdy. It just looked thin and flimsy next to powerful arms like Timur’s. Marcus could almost imagine Timur snapping the ropes apart like they were made out of al dente spaghetti noodles, and snarling “Timur fuck!” like the Hulk as he did.

  This time, he couldn’t stop himself from laughing.

  “What’s funny?”

  “Nothing. Nothing.” Marcus leaned forward and started winding the rope around Timur’s wrists and the bar—

  And stopped dead when warm lips met his cock.

  He looked down. He hadn’t even realized he was positioning himself like this, but Timur had obviously noticed and craned his neck to take full advantage.

  Marcus’s hands still held the rope, but damn if he could remember what to do with it. At least his hips knew what to do—they started rocking back and forth. Goddamn, Timur’s lips felt so fucking good around his cock, so Marcus moved faster. He dropped the rope on the pillow beside Timur’s hands—which were still obediently holding the bedframe—and held on to the headboard with one hand and Timur’s shoulder with the other.

  One of Timur’s hands met Marcus’s forearm, his touch tentative. When Marcus glanced down, Timur met his gaze. His eyebrows flicked upward, and his eyes darted toward the hand he’d placed on Marcus’s arm, then back toward Marcus’s eyes. Even as Marcus kept slowly fucking Timur’s mouth, they exchanged this telepathic conversation, a question asked as clear as day without either of them saying a word.

  Marcus couldn’t formulate a verbal answer, so he tapped Timur’s hand and nodded downward, and Timur got the message—he let go of Marcus’s arm and the bedframe. Then both his hands were on Marcus’s cock—one warm, one cool, both deliciously rough.

  “Oh fuck, Timur,” he finally managed to murmur, “that’s…amazing.”

  Seemed Timur really wasn’t the type to give up control easily in bed. Even on the bottom, he was pushy and cunning. Not a guy who just played his role and fell back on routine, clearly. Maybe because he didn’t really have a routine. Maybe that was part of the attraction. Though the biggest part was that playfulness—huge as he was, Timur didn’t take the whole thing too seriously. Marcus had to pull back; he was too tempted to simply fuck Timur’s mouth and come.

  “Hands back on the frame.”

  Timur ran his tongue along his lips, his sly glance asking whether Marcus meant it, and, yep, it was hard, but Marcus insisted—it would last longer, and he really wanted to see Timur tied up. Timur grabbed the bars again and shifted his weight, settling in comfortably. This time, Marcus approached him from a different angle, using the paracord to tie Timur’s powerful wrist. He then fed the rope through the bars and tied Timur’s other wrist. Timur was opening and closing his hands, but there was enough space between rope and skin,
Marcus made sure of that. He leaned in again and ran the tip of his cock along the side of Timur’s face, across his cheek and his lips, but pulled back when Timur brought his head forward to take him inside again, hard as it was. Timur looked up into his eyes, and the only thing Marcus read there was desire. Readiness.

  He scooted back along Timur’s body and climbed on top, took Timur’s hard cock and flattened it against his groin, then scooted up so it lined up along his perineum. He definitely wanted it inside, but not yet. Just feeling Timur’s strength, just having him in this position was already heady.

  Especially when Timur closed his eyes and exhaled, his flat abs quivering as if it took everything he had just to release that breath. Or maybe to keep himself in control. Those paracords were undoubtedly strong as fuck, but it occurred to Marcus that even if Timur couldn’t break cords like that, there was no guarantee he couldn’t snap the headboard bars like flimsy little twigs. He was pretty sure IKEA didn’t have their beds rated for “keeping giant legionnaires restrained” or anything like that.

  Not that he thought Timur would suddenly start snapping through furniture and destroying his friend’s house in the name of freeing his wrists, especially after he’d let himself be tied. But he had to admit, there was something kind of hot about seeing Timur restrained. Even if it was just symbolic—control of his hands offered up willingly—Marcus liked it. A lot.

  Timur opened his eyes. His pupils were blown, his eyelids heavy. “Fuck now?”

  Yes, please.

  Marcus ran a hand up Timur’s abs to his chest. “Why the hurry, Timur?”

  “Why not?” Timur licked his lips. The paracords creaked against the bars as he clenched his fists. “Want you.”

  Marcus’s breath caught. Timur’s English was limited, so his comments—Demands? Requests?—were simple, straight to the point, and made Marcus’s heart race. Who knew this would be so much more fun than fucking a guy who could come up with seventy-eight smarmy ways to sort of imply he was thinking maybe they should, like, get to the sex?