Sergei withdrew slowly, and if Dom hadn’t already been facedown on the mattress, he was sure he would’ve collapsed. Jesus fuck.
Somehow, he figured out how to start breathing again. With oxygen moving once more, his head stopped spinning, and he clumsily pushed himself up. Sergei had stepped into the bathroom and came out with a couple of coarse towels, which they used to clean themselves off.
Then Dom dropped onto his back on the bed. Sergei fell beside him.
After a while, Sergei spoke, his voice unusually soft and gentle. “You all right?”
“Yeah.” Dom released a long, ragged breath. “I needed that.”
“So I see.”
The unspoken question in Sergei’s voice turned Dom’s head, and their eyes met.
Sergei moistened his lips. “Something’s different tonight.”
“It’s… complicated.”
“Mmhmm.” Sergei’s eyebrow arched.
Dom swallowed. “I, uh, I guess I just got to thinking about things tonight. And the thing is, I’m only going to be able to do this”—he gestured at Sergei, then himself—“until I have to get married.” Good enough. And not entirely untrue. “After that…” Dom shook his head. “I don’t know. I guess I just… I feel like time is running out. Like I need this, and I need to get as much as I can while I still can.”
Sergei pursed his lips. “You need… what exactly?”
“This. What we’re doing.”
“Yeah. That’s the part I’m not sure about. You want to get gay sex out of your system, but tonight, it seemed like you came looking for something more than that. So I need to know, what do you want from me?” He narrowed his eyes slightly, as if trying to read Dom’s answers before he gave them. “A secret fuck buddy? Or…?”
“I’m not sure. I want this. The sex, I mean. I don’t think I could ask for more than that from you because I couldn’t honestly say I could give it back.”
“So what was tonight all about?”
Tonight happened because every time I kill someone, a piece of me dies with him, and I needed—I need—to feel alive.
Dom sighed. “It’s hard to explain. All I can offer you is sex, so that’s all I can ask for too.” I need so much more from you. But I can’t ask for what I can’t give. “Is that enough?”
“Of course,” Sergei said without hesitation. “It’s all I want too. I like the arrangement we have. You text me when you want me. Tell me where to meet you. And we fuck.”
It sounded so crude. Little more than hiring a prostitute. Except he didn’t see Sergei as a prostitute. He should have—it would’ve made it a lot easier to walk away when the time came—but he didn’t. Far from it.
Dom swallowed. “It goes both ways. If you want me…” He hesitated to finish the sentence. He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear him say that wouldn’t be an issue. “Look, this doesn’t have to be one-sided.”
Sergei studied him, and then shrugged. “Well, I can’t say it’s been one-sided when we’ve hooked up.”
“But the hook-ups don’t have to always be at my whim. They can—”
Sergei kissed him. Not just a light kiss, or an attempt to shut him up. He kissed him hard—forcing his lips apart, curving his hand around the back of Dom’s neck, pulling the breath right out of him.
Dom didn’t protest. Screw talking if this was the alternative. He wrapped his arms around Sergei, and opened to his kiss without any resistance at all.
Sergei drew back enough to murmur, “Didn’t I tell you I’d fuck you again and make it hurt?”
Dom moaned against Sergei’s lips. “You did.”
“Uh-huh.” Sergei let him go. “Maybe you’d better get me a condom, then.”
Dom didn’t argue. They could talk about all this another time. For tonight, he had Sergei, and Sergei wanted to have him.
And Dom was definitely glad he’d brought plenty of condoms.
*
“You wanted to see me, Mr. Maisano?” Kirill, a middle-aged Russian widower and father of three, stared warily at Dom from the doorway.
“Yes, Kirill. Come in.”
The man took a timid step forward, and shut the door behind him. “Was there a problem with my payment?” Kirill’s accent was stronger than Sergei’s, but every syllable reminded Dom of the man he’d been with last night. “I made sure it was on time. Early, actually!”