Golden Eagle (Sons of Rome Book 4)

by Lauren Gilley

  “Why would anyone want Sasha?” she asked, much quieter than she’d intended.

  “Because he managed to kill not only a mage who was trying to compel him, but his bound master as well.”

  Memories that weren’t her own flashed through her mind: wheeling ravens, blood on the snow, Nikita falling, kill, kill, kill. She shuddered. “That’s why the Institute wanted him.”

  “He’s uncommonly strong of spirit. A true alpha wolf,” Will said. “Someone else will want that.”

  “Well, he killed one master, he could kill another,” Lanny said, his unhappy voice edged with pride.

  “Probably,” Will agreed. “Eventually. But what tortures might he endure first?”

  They both stared at him, silent, food forgotten.

  “It’s not pleasant to think about. But if Nikita cares for Sasha as you say, then he’ll bind him. And then they have a job offer with us, if they get tired of tending bar and bouncing drunks.”

  He gave Much’s shoulder a light shove, and Much, a huge bite of steak poised in front of his mouth, grumbled, but slid out of the booth. He ate the steak, with a look of surly defiance, and dropped his fork on his plate with a clatter.

  Will stood, and gave them a quick bow. “Think on what I’ve said. My number’s on the card.”

  And then they both were gone.

  They sat still a moment, and when Trina turned her head, she met Lanny’s wide-eyed gaze.

  “Dude, what the fuck?” he asked, quietly. Then scowled and turned back to his steak. “Fuck them. They don’t know shit.”

  “Yeah,” she murmured, but her heart was pounding.

  10

  Sasha knew what he wanted. He also knew that, inexperienced as he was, he would be clumsy about stating it, even if Nikita’s little breakdown had beaten back his shyness and left him feeling bold and protective.

  Slowly, Nikita’s breathing evened out, and his heartrate slowed to nearly normal. Sasha sat in his lap, stroking his hair, his face, his neck, his shoulder, until he’d quieted, and some of the shaking and tension bled out of his body.

  Sasha tucked his face into Nik’s throat, and stayed there a moment, breathing open-mouthed against his skin. And then it struck him, a quick electric jolt, that he could kiss him there if he wanted to, over his pulse, and so he did.

  Nik’s breath hitched, just once, and then he exhaled long and slow.

  “Okay?”

  “Just…I’ve been thinking about that. For a very long time.”

  A chill moved through Sasha; a good one. He leaned in, and kissed his neck again; open-mouthed this time, slow, and wet, tracing Nik’s pulse with his tongue.

  Nikita shivered, and his arms tightened.

  “Let’s go to bed,” Sasha said, lips against his skin.

  Nikita turned his head, and his breath rushed warm past Sasha’s ear. He held still a moment, only breathing.

  Then a low, deep rumble echoed through his chest – Sasha could feel it – and he stood, suddenly, and lifted Sasha up in his arms like he weighed nothing.

  Sasha barked a startled laugh, and held on tight, arms around Nikita’s neck. “You don’t have to carry me!”

  Nikita answered with a low, throaty growl that held nothing of a threat; only a heated promise that left Sasha’s toes curling in his boots. He carried him to the bedroom – to Nik’s own bedroom – where the covers were still messy from that morning’s hurried departure. The room smelled of the two of them, of sex, and sweat, and blood.

  Sasha’s belly clenched, and his hands closed tight on the collar of Nik’s shirt. His heart pounded. He wanted this. Oh, how he wanted it. But there were nerves, too; the fear that he wouldn’t please, that his inexperience would–

  Nik set him down, and then followed him, hands braced on the mattress, looming over him, pale eyes glowing in the lamplight. When he spoke, his growl curled around the words. “I wanted to carry you.” Sharp angles of his face taut – but a new kind of tension. Not the usual stress and nausea, but checked desire; a want that had the tendons standing out down the sides of his neck.

  Then his brows drew together, expression softened by a touch of doubt. “But if you don’t want–”

  Sasha surged up, grabbed his collar again, and kissed him, hard. Bit his lip and felt a shudder move through him. He drew back just far enough to say, “I want everything. Everything.” Words laced with his own growl, rough and lupine.

  Nikita’s mouth ticked up in a smirk; but his eyes shone with delighted fondness. Breathtakingly tender. “Me, too. Just maybe not everything all at once.”

  Sasha whined.

  Nikita laughed softly, climbed the rest of the way onto the bed, eased Sasha back down, and kissed him.

  ~*~

  You didn’t live to see adulthood growing up in Soviet Russia without learning the art of repression. You repressed your hunger, on those long, frigid nights packed into concrete apartments with two and three and four other families. You repressed your irritation over the crying babies, and the stink of frying onions, and the hacking cough of a babushka. You repressed your patriotism. Your smiles. Your opinions. Your art.

  And if you were a boy who liked to trace the shape of another boy’s smile with your eyes – who wanted to run fingers through soft hair and feel another boy’s breath warm on your neck – you suppressed that most of all.

  Dima had been brave, but Nikita had always been the coward. Perfect at repressing. Dodging, ducking, denying, withholding – and then repressing the grief, too, when it came, howling through every anguished, echoing chamber of his damaged heart. He’d bottled up every awful thing, every horror, every slight, every fear.

  Every want.

  He’d spent decades forcing his gaze away from Sasha, not wanting to frighten him, to force him; to ruin them.

  He’d been festering. But last night. Today… Sasha had taken a lance to that awful sore; he felt hurt, and bloody, and tender, but he felt clean. He could breathe.

  And right now, he put all the things he’d ever repressed into the mental drawers where they belonged, and he settled his weight slowly, carefully over Sasha, and kissed him, and didn’t think about anything but making his sweet, sweet boy feel good.

  Nik kissed him slow, and easy. Unhurried and coaxing.

  Sasha melted under him, lips soft, parting at the slightest tease of Nik’s tongue. He had no idea what he was doing, was totally artless, but he wanted, and he was welcoming; his hands pushed through Nik’s hair, cupped his head, held him close. When Nik’s tongue slipped into his mouth, he lifted up off the mattress, yielding in an active, desperate way. His legs closed around Nikita’s hips, and he ground up against him.

  “Nik,” he panted when the kiss broke for air, his voice half-human. He was already wrecked. Already hard.

  He was so eager. He’d go off so quickly, Nik thought.

  Then again, so would he.

  Nikita was shaking. He’d never wanted anything in his life as badly as he wanted Sasha.

  He rested his weight on one elbow and pulled back far enough to see. Sasha gave a wordless sound of protest, but Nik touched his face; settled his fingertips gently across his cheek and he stilled.

  It should have been so simple: Sasha staring up at him, eyes dilated, mouth pink and wet from kissing, a rosy flush high along his cheekbones, platinum hair fanned out across the sheets, a halo, because he was probably, really, truly an angel. His thighs gripped Nikita’s hips like a vise, and all Nik wanted was to grind against him; to rut, and sweat, and tear clothes and feel skin on skin. He wanted to bite a little, too; wanted to drink; wanted to be inside him.

  But the thing about waiting. About repressing…it could be hard to let go. And it meant that this moment – this first moment with his Sasha after he’d told him how much he loved him – carried the kind of weight that could crush him.

  Sasha tilted his head a fraction, and his hands left Nik’s hair, and instead cupped his face; thumbs sweeping gently beneath his eyes. “You�
�re thinking too much.” He smiled with heartbreaking softness.

  His voice wavered, high and thready. “I want to do it right.”

  Sasha’s smile widened. “You will,” he said, with total faith. Then pulled Nik back down and kissed him again.

  Once, almost chastely, on the lips. Then kissed his cheek, his jaw. A string of them back to his ear, where his breath came warm and damp. He gave a quiet little growl, and whispered, “Just touch me like you always wanted to.”

  Goosebumps broke out all down Nikita’s back. “Baby, that’s a very long list.”

  Sasha breathed a laugh right in his ear. “I did say everything.”

  “Christ.”

  Sasha was right: he was thinking entirely too much.

  He pressed his face to Sasha’s throat and fastened his lips there. Sucked on the skin. Hard.

  Sasha gave a little gasp and surged beneath him, hips rolling in helpless reaction.

  Nikita worked on putting a mark on him – not the usual puncture wounds of feeding, but a simple bruise. A mark of a different kind of passion. And he reached down and rucked up the hem of Sasha’s shirt. Pushed it all the way up under his arms, and touched the smooth, warm skin of his chest.

  Nikita knew how impossibly strong he was, but his skin felt baby-soft, the padding of muscle in his pectorals only thin. Nik touched him there, deliberate sweeps of his palm, caressing, his fingers shaking with wonder. Circled his nipples with a fingertip and felt them draw to hard points; felt the vibration of his quiet moan through his throat as he kissed a bruise there.

  Nik pulled back just long enough to see the rapidly-pinkening hickey he’d left – smiling in satisfaction – then shifted down.

  Only to pause again. To look.

  They’d lived together for nearly a century; had seen each other in every state of undress; in illness, in his own case, in drunkenness and low blood sugar stupors.

  But to look at him now, openly, to know that he could kiss, and touch him – that Sasha wanted that – was a revelation. It was like seeing him for the first time; his light musculature, and his sharp hipbones, and the little trail of platinum hair leading down from his belly button.

  Nikita wanted to eat him alive.

  “God, you’re gorgeous,” he murmured, and ducked his head to put his mouth on Sasha’s chest before he could respond.

  He knew the taste of his skin; its scent of wolf and pine needles and Siberian snow. He laid an open, panting kiss over his heart, the wild beat of it, and let Sasha feel the faint hint of the fangs he couldn’t retract. Shifted over, and drew a pebbled nipple into his mouth.

  Sasha whined, belly hollowing beneath Nik’s palm as he sucked in a sharp breath. “Oh, that’s–”

  Nikita sucked, and the words broke off into another whine.

  He kept moving, dropping kisses, nipping here and there, just under Sasha’s ribs, loving the little whines and moans they drew from him.

  His own nerves melted away. When he reached to unbutton Sasha’s jeans, he saw that his hands weren’t shaking. It was with surety and gentleness that he tugged the jeans down his hips, and took Sasha’s cock in his hand.

  Just that simple touch had Sasha’s head kicking back, his mouth open, a growl building in his chest as he arched up off the bed. Unselfconscious, responsive – he was beautiful. He always was, but like this, trusting Nik…it filled Nik with a fresh, warm surge of love. A tenderness that ached.

  “Alright, hold still a second, baby, and I’ll try to keep my fangs out of the way. Then he leaned down and took Sasha in his mouth.

  Sasha did hold still, mostly, but he let out a hoarse shout, and his hands flew to Nik’s head.

  Nik took him slow at first, shallow, relearning how to do this. Later, next time, he’d really draw it out, tease with his tongue and pull out all the tricks. But for now, he knew Sasha wouldn’t last, not his first time, not when he was already panting and babbling in Russian.

  Nik opened his throat and took him deeper, curling his tongue and sucking lightly. Sasha’s hands slid down to the back of his neck, and Nik felt the prick of inhuman claws.

  “Nik, Nik, I can’t – I’m going to–”

  Nikita hummed.

  Sasha came with a snarl that melted quickly into low, hurt whimpers. Nikita gentled him through it, swallowing, until he felt the claws at his neck draw blood. He drew off slow, and thumbed a stray droplet from the corner of his mouth, surveying the aftermath.

  Sasha was wrecked. Flushed pink all over, glazed with sweat, hair tangled like he’d been pulling at it; gaze heavy-lidded and dazed.

  Nikita sucked his thumb clean and felt a smile steal across his face, one so wide it tweaked his already-sore jaw. Warmth flooded his chest, and to his surprise, he realized it was pride. “Was that alright?” he asked, aiming for mild, probably ruining it with his stupid smile.

  “You’re horrible,” Sasha said in Russian. Then laughed, and, in English, opening shaky arms: “Come here. And be naked, please.”

  What an excellent idea.

  Nikita stood and stripped without ceremony, dropping his clothes on the floor, watching Sasha gather the strength to kick off his boots and the jeans still bunched around his thighs.

  “You’re making a mess,” Sasha said, nodding toward the pile of clothes Nikita had left on the rug.

  “Nope. That was you,” Nikita said, still grinning like an idiot, climbing back on the bed and into Sasha’s arms.

  Sasha enfolded him immediately; he seemed to want Nik to lie mostly on top of him, one hand petting over the marks he’d left at the back of Nik’s neck, the other arm snug around his waist. He closed his eyes and tipped their foreheads together, humming contentedly. “I liked that,” he murmured.

  Nikita leaned in a fraction closer, just because he could, just because he wanted to, and brushed their noses together. “I’m glad. I did, too.”

  Sasha’s voice was sleepy. Sated. “I like when you call me baby.”

  “Mm.”

  Sasha fumbled along, eyes still shut, until he found Nik’s hand, and brought it to his own waist, encouraging Nik to pet over his ribs, up and down, which he did. Then, casual as anything, said, “You should fuck me.”

  Nik pushed up on an elbow and made a sound that was embarrassingly reminiscent of an inquiring cat.

  Sasha cracked his eyes open to blue slits. “Don’t you want to?”

  “More than I ever want to eat solid food again.”

  Sasha frowned. “You hate food. That’s not a compliment.”

  Nikita leaned down and kissed him until he felt his lips curve up in a smile. “What I mean,” he said as he drew back, “is that this is your first time, and we don’t need to rush anything.”

  “You’re very thoughtful and wise. It must be because you’re so old.”

  Nikita bared his fangs at him and growled.

  Sasha shut his eyes again, laughing. Happy, and glowing, and about to fall asleep.

  Nikita leaned back down; snuggled up to him, put his face in his throat.

  Sasha’s hand trailed unhurriedly down his back, skirting playfully around the dimples above his ass. “What about you, though? You still need to come.”

  “No, I’m alright.” He was still hard, his blood still heated, little electric jolts moving through him every time Sasha shifted and his cock rubbed up against his hip.

  Sasha made a disagreeing sound. “No, no, no. Here.” He urged Nikita to lie fully over him. Palmed his ass with a boldness Nikita hadn’t expected – but should have – and reached for Nik’s cock with his other hand. “Come on. Show me how you like it.”

  He started to protest – Sasha was tired – but he caught a glimpse of his face, the determined set to his jaw. And he said, “Alright.” And closed his hand over Sasha’s. Showed him how hard, and how quick. His hips kicked, and Sasha’s fingers dug into the meat of his ass, encouraging him.

  “That’s it,” he crooned, and suddenly he was the patient lover, and Nikita the breathless o
ne unraveling. “You can lean on me; I can take it. I want to see you come.”

  Nik braced both hands on the bed and let Sasha grip him; a fast learner, squeezing tight. Too dry, but there was sweat still slick on Sasha’s hip and belly, and that was where Nikita rutted, overcome, now, helpless to do anything but fuck into the tightness of Sasha’s hand and breathe right at his familiar throat, and let it wash over him.

  And wash it did. Not just this moment – this act. A hand on his cock and a warm, sweaty body beneath his own. But the wondrous knowledge that this was Sasha. That the boy he cherished above all else cherished him back. That this was not just lust, but love; it was sweet, and so, so long-awaited. They could have had this years ago; could have had it in a terrible Soviet apartment building, when they were two mortal boys scared to death and full-up with longing.

  His chest ached. He sucked in a ragged breath and realized he was crying; tears ran down his face, ran wet down Sasha’s neck.

  And Sasha held him, and whispered to him in Russian: “Shh, it’s alright, I’m here. I’m here, darling, and I won’t ever leave.”

  He came with a tiger’s snarl that turned into a choked sob, collapsing on top of Sasha. But that was alright – Sasha was strong; Sasha could take it.

  “Oh my God,” he murmured, reverent. “My Sashka.”

  11

  When they’d finally picked their jaws back up off the floor, Trina and Lanny finished dinner in silence, and Lanny asked for a doggy bag to take home the steaks Will and Much had left behind.

  “Really?” Trina asked. “A doggy bag?”

  “The doggies didn’t eat their meat, so I’m taking it home. In a bag. And I’ll eat it later.”

  “Everything is wrong with that sentence.”