by Helena Maeve
And yet when push came to shove, Ulysses found himself flipping off the lamp as he’d been told. Darkness swallowed them up, momentarily blinding. Ulysses’ pulse whooshed in his ears, a prelude to the creak of the floorboards as Robin came close, closer, and slid a hand into his hair.
“I had to see you.”
“Afraid I’ll talk? So much for trust among spies…”
The taunt died on Ulysses’ tongue. He didn’t mind it very much because Robin was kissing him again, his body hot as a furnace.
His hands roamed, snagging in Ulysses’ clothes and scraping roughly at his skin. In a dizzy, drunken daze, Ulysses caught one and brought it to his lips. He knew it was beyond foolish to get attached. It was certainly dangerous. But Robin had a habit of fogging things up.
“Upstairs,” Ulysses gasped against his lips.
“No, here.”
Tearing himself away from the tight grasp of Robin’s greedy hands took every last ounce of self-control Ulysses possessed. It wasn’t much to begin with.
He grasped Robin’s wrists in his, wincing as Robin tilted forward and let their bodies connect from knee to sternum. “Upstairs,” he groaned. “Fuck, now.” Please.
He was gratified to feel Robin pull back, but the pleasure was short-lived.
Boots and shirt came out in swift succession, each one marked with another retreating step. Ulysses watched, panting, as Robin unbuttoned his jeans. Moonlight painted his pale skin alabaster. It pooled and glinted off the sharp slats of his collarbones, sweeping shadows down the slight rise of his hipbones.
“That’s it,” Robin chuckled thickly. “That’s it right there.”
“What is?”
“That look in your eyes. That’s why I couldn’t walk away. Fuck, you don’t even know…” He kicked off his jeans with a flick of the ankle, then hooked his thumbs into his boxers. “I like your eyes on me.”
“Do you.” It wasn’t a question. There was no version of reality Ulysses could imagine of where he wouldn’t enjoy this slow unveiling.
This was the first time he saw Robin thoroughly nude, the complicated architecture of the sharp angles and gentle curves that made up his body laid fully on display. A constellation of moles dusted his chest and stomach. His scars were few, but they were noticeable. Ulysses craved to know their stories, mind racing over the possible causes. That could wait. Urgency still thrummed in his veins, the fear of discovery too deeply ingrained to be banished, but chances were they wouldn’t be interrupted.
Not unless the SIS wanted an eyeful.
He hazarded a step forward. Robin retreated with a smirk. He rolled his boxers down his long legs unabashedly.
“What was that you were saying about heading upstairs?”
Ulysses couldn’t remember, but he followed dumbly, committed to a slow prowl when every bone in his body ached to haul Robin back into his arms.
Somehow they made it up the grand staircase without tripping on the soft red carpet runner. Robin wrested his shirt open with a brutal tug, a couple of loose buttons pinging off the walls and skittering down the floor, a health and safety hazard waiting to happen. Ulysses couldn’t be arsed to care.
Robin pressed him into a door and kissed him. The latch gave way beneath their combined, juddering weight. They fumbled together for the light switch, slapping at each other’s hands, linking fingers around wrists.
“This isn’t the bedroom,” Ulysses groaned between kisses.
“So what?” Robin shot back.
They fetched up against the bathroom sink. Ulysses curled his fists around the straight enamel edge to keep himself upright when Robin stroked him through his pants.
“Keep that up and this’ll be over before you can spit…”
“Yeah?” Robin purred. “You promise?”
He kissed Ulysses hard, quelling his answer before he could bite it out. A wicked gleam danced in his eye when he glanced into the mirror. “That shower looks big enough for two.”
Ulysses moaned. “It is.” He and Claudia had it built especially large, back in the day when they still thought they could make the marriage lie work for them.
It was his turn to press Robin up against the icy tile and swallow his gasps.
Robin laughed, the sound ricocheting off the walls like a stray bullet and ratcheting up in volume when Ulysses switched on the shower.
Tepid water sprayed from the fixture above, drenching them both. There was no hiding from its too-cool-for-comfort jet, but that didn’t stop Ulysses from wrapping his arms around Robin’s shoulders and covering him with his body. It was an illusion of protection, the best he could do.
“You’re hard for me,” Robin murmured over the pitter-patter of the spray.
Ulysses couldn’t deny it. “Did you expect something else?”
“Sort of.” Rather than elaborate, Robin hoisted up a leg and wrapped it around his hip. “Go on.”
“Sure?”
He nodded fervently, anchoring himself with both hands around Ulysses’ neck and hoisting himself up another few inches to align them. It was strange for the space of a heartbeat, then Ulysses slid into wet, tight heat, and nothing mattered. Robin felt too good around him, crossed ankles at the small of Ulysses’ back pulling him in inch by aching inch.
Ulysses rested his brow on Robin’s shoulder, sucking in stuttered breaths.
“You okay?” Robin gasped. Then he answered his own question. “Yeah, you’re okay. You’re all right, aren’t you? Fuck…” He hissed when Ulysses rocked back, barely withdrawing. A grimace twisted at his features. “Slow,” he pleaded. “Slow, I haven’t—”
“Done this in a while?” Ulysses guessed.
He received a hasty nod by way of answer, the rise and fall of Robin’s chest too swift to be anything less than effort. Water dripped from his shaggy chestnut hair and pooled in the hollows of his collarbones. Ulysses dipped his mouth to lick it out, soothing the tension in Robin’s ropey body as best he could.
This wasn’t his strongest suit. He’d never learned how to be gentle. He’d always appreciated lovers who wanted to ride him hard and clear out fast, preferably without names exchanged or awkward conversation to spoil the thrill of sexual chemistry.
Robin kept rewriting the rules every time their paths intersected. One of these days, he’d really lead Ulysses astray, and where would he be then?
Probably spouting poetry and buying flowers, for fuck’s sake.
Ulysses slid both hands under his hips, shamelessly palming his ass. “Breathe, love. Gets easier…”
“I strike you as a virgin?” Robin laughed, the sound reverberating dully against shower-spattered tile.
“You look fucking gorgeous is what you look like…” Ulysses kissed him, not interested in a debate. You know I’m right. I remember that swagger when you lured me out of the bar.
That worked just fine for Ulysses. He didn’t want a timid lover.
He moved slowly and gently, undulating more than rutting into the tight clasp of Robin’s body. It was impossible to stop altogether, but that didn’t mean he had to be a brute. He knew he was on the right track when Robin’s whimpers morphed into soft, tremulous moans. The sense of power was almost heady. Ulysses rested a hand against the wall to keep himself upright and clenched his fingers in Robin’s hip.
“That’s it. Feels good?”
Robin nodded against his temple. He worked himself down with an experimental roll of the hips. Their joining echoed with a low, heart-achingly sweet sound.
“Fuck… Fuck, you have to let me—”
“Yeah,” Robin breathed, encouraging. “Go on.”
Kissing him became a challenge as Ulysses sped his pace, hurtling toward the inevitable peak. He wanted to bring Robin off with him, but couldn’t slow down. He’d never mastered self-control. Teeth grinding together, Ulysses came with a harsh, throaty noise, his last few thrusts pounding mercilessly into Robin.
It was Robin who held him in the aftermath, weathering his convulsi
ve, herky-jerky shudders with the patience of a saint.
“All right?”
Ulysses grunted something that only vaguely approximated a ‘yes’. He slid out with a wince, spent cock still twitching greedily against his thigh. “Was that—?”
“I enjoyed it.”
“But you didn’t…” Ulysses sighed and tipped his head back under the spray.
Warm water gushed from the shower head, washing off the evidence of their exploits and banishing the numbing heat in his face. The roar of his pulse dimmed by increments, juddering loud again when Robin scraped a hand through the blond hair on his chest. Ulysses peered at him through slick lashes.
“You can make it up to me,” Robin suggested. “In that bed of yours I heard so much about…”
It didn’t take much more prompting to get them soaped up and rinsed, towels perfunctorily dragged off racks only to be discarded on the bedroom floor. Ulysses pressed Robin into the mattress with newfound enthusiasm. The bedsprings creaked as he propped himself above Robin. Tired joints answered the groan of steel coils with unsexy clacking.
Robin cupped his cheeks, an absentminded smile stretching his lips. “Found a second wind?”
“You’re…inspiring.”
He snorted at the clumsy compliment, but didn’t push Ulysses away when he nuzzled into the soft skin of his neck. Robin’s skin flushed prettily when he was excited. Freckles dusted his shoulders in a pattern Ulysses was more than happy to trace with his tongue as he made his way down his body. He tried to skirt the worst of Robin’s scars in an effort to steer away from bad memories, but his efforts seemed to yield the opposite effect.
“That one’s a .22 caliber,” Robin murmured. He carded fingers through Ulysses’ hair. “Grazed me. I wasn’t fast enough.”
Ulysses pressed his lips to the abraded welt. You were fast enough. “You’re alive, aren’t you?”
It was a bitter reminder that Robin’s checkered past involved things more risky than pathetic hate mail, but Ulysses had always been too curious for his own good. Robin gave an inch, so he took a mile.
“And this?” he asked, thumbing a puckered strip of skin on Robin’s hip.
“Flat iron.”
“Another near miss?”
Robin shook his head. “Wet work.” A delicate way of referencing contract killings.
“Ah.” Ulysses swallowed hard and planted a kiss to his sternum. “What about…what about these?” He suspected. The tight, fingernail-wide incisions around the edges of Robin’s areolas were too regular to be accidental.
“They looked worse after the surgery,” Robin said, his voice small, raw.
“They don’t look that bad.”
He scoffed. “You don’t have to lie to get into my pants.”
Case in point, Robin hooked an ankle around his knee. He arched his hips when Ulysses frowned, grinding onto his spent dick with a slick, warm mound.
“I’m not.” But the will to argue fizzled like champagne bubbles. Ulysses bowed his head to Robin’s shoulder. “That’s a dirty trick.”
Robin laughed, a sharp, honest bark of sound that flexed that muscle inside Ulysses’ chest. “Oh, honey… You haven’t seen dirty.” He rolled them over with one foot pressed into the bed and his hands at Ulysses’ shoulders, easing him back onto the mattress when he would’ve flopped down, sack of potatoes limp.
Based on what little Ulysses knew about him and their few, misguided trysts, it seemed uncharacteristically gentle for Robin. So, too, was the gleam of mischief in his eyes when he tipped forward to kiss Ulysses lightly on the lips.
“I want to fuck your mouth. You ever done that?”
“No,” Ulysses admitted, breathless. “But I didn’t make a habit of tangling with the SIS until I met you, either, so…” He squirmed down as Robin shuffled up to straddle his shoulders. It took a few adjustments for Robin to grip the headboard as Ulysses craned his neck. The first tentative swipe of his tongue to Robin’s tender folds triggered a moan Ulysses felt all the way down to his toes.
“Oh, yes. I’m gonna enjoy this…”
Ulysses glanced up as best he could. Robin had his head thrown back, the long column of his neck exposed. For the first time, Ulysses noticed that the jagged scar just behind his ear made up the barest outline of an unfinished Roman numeral. He fastened his lips to Robin’s cunt before he could get distracted.
The one area of his marriage where he’d been less than an utter failure had been the bedroom. He’d never had trouble pleasing Claudia before she’d started pleading headaches every night and he’d begun getting his kicks elsewhere. He knew to run the flat of his tongue down the length of Robin’s sex, spearing open his labia and gathering the taste of him into the back of his mouth. He tasted of salt and skin and musk, and the same soap Ulysses had used in the shower—but the sounds he made when Ulysses teased the hood of his clit were even more delicious.
“Right there,” Robin wheezed voraciously. “Fuck, harder—”
His demands cut off. Ulysses gripped his thighs and anchored him in place as he hollowed his cheeks. Wet, vulgar sounds filled the bedroom.
The slats in the headboard rattled when Robin shifted his weight forward, rocking onto the sharp point of Ulysses’ tongue. He wasn’t shy about taking.
Ulysses watched him through his lashes, at once eager to drive him over the edge and desperately wishing he could prolong his agony.
Robin was breathtaking up there, features twisted into a grimace, lower lip caught between his teeth. The choked, breathless noises he made were even sweeter, as though he couldn’t keep quiet when his body locked down onto just the right rhythm and pressure. His inner thighs shook with effort beneath Ulysses’ palms, the tendons in his hips pulling taut.
“Yes, yes—” Robin’s urgency cut off with an abrupt catch of breath. “Oh…”
One tender swipe of Ulysses’ tongue and he shook apart, hurtling beyond the edge of reason, moans strangled in his throat.
Ulysses held him in place as he lapped at him, as ravenous for the taste of his release as he was for the heart-rending gasps that spilled from Robin’s throat.
Eventually, Robin’s shudders became wriggling, giggling attempts to shake Ulysses off. He stopped, a kink blooming full-force in his neck.
Robin dismounted with a groan. “Fuck,” he breathed, eloquent to the last.
“Whenever you’d like,” Ulysses snorted.
He took the light swat to the chest as gracefully as he could. It was amply deserved.
Chapter Six
After another shower and a rummage through the pantry in search of something a little more appealing than dry cereal, they retreated back to Ulysses’ bedroom and its tangled sheets.
“Gotta admit, this isn’t what I expected,” Robin said, plucking out a green bean out of the tin can.
“What did you expect? A moat?”
Did you spend a lot of time thinking about breaking and entering my house? For all Ulysses knew, plotting was precisely how spies on the run whiled away their downtime. He tried to imagine Robin settling in to watch The Voice or MasterChef and couldn’t. The thought of Robin leading a normal, boring old life was somehow preposterous.
Then again, until Ulysses saw him help himself to the green beans, he’d been almost convinced that he survived on hard liquor and deviousness. James Bond seemed to.
That earned him a much-deserved scoff. “No. I don’t know. Something more…” Robin waved his hand. “Macho.”
Ulysses tracked his gaze to the closed drapes. “Got something against chrysanthemums?” Like so much else about this house, Claudia had picked the curtains. Ulysses had inherited them in the divorce.
“Just wondering where you keep your mounted stag heads, is all.”
“Oh. Storage,” Ulysses quipped. “Along with the sex swing and my collection of shirtless footballer moulds.”
Robin poked a toe into his bare thigh in retribution. He stretched as he swallowed the flavorless bean, fingerti
ps scraping against the curlicues in the headboard. “You know what I mean. Place looks lived in. I had you pegged for pull-out sofas and fifteen identical black shirts. Living out of a suitcase, that kind of thing…”
“I’m a man of many surprises,” Ulysses shot back, torn between fluffing up with pride and mourning the field reporter he’d once aspired to become.
Life got in the way. Bills had to be paid and these days big money wasn’t made on Donetsk’s bloodstained roads, but in clickbait, sponsored articles. Kim Kardashian’s latest wardrobe malfunction.
He caught Robin’s foot with one hand and tugged it into his lap. Muscle bunched beneath his fingers, but Robin went along with it. He seemed content to lay there, three pillows at his back and a collection of crackers, cubed cheese and tinned green beans to slake his appetite.
Ulysses allowed himself the fantasy of crawling up the bed and kissing him until that little smirk faded from his lips.
He didn’t move. Stroking Robin’s ankle and staring at him to his heart’s content was enough for now.
“Is that how you live?” he wondered, studiously nonchalant. Hauling the real world into the bedroom was a perilous experiment. The bubble they were in could burst at any moment and, once it did, hurt was par for the course. If not worse…
Robin smirked. “Why, because I’m on the run?”
Ulysses clamped his mouth shut. Definitely a bad idea to go down this path.
Robin could flip like a switch—one minute sweet and pliant, the next jaded and sinister, a creature filled with lethal potential. And just as with most volatile substances, the fallout was likely to affect more than just those in his immediate vicinity.
“I was in and out of hotels when I was employed,” he reflected with a sigh. “That was tough. Now I don’t have to answer to anyone. I’m a free agent, answering only to myself,” Robin drawled. “Vast improvement.”
“Still,” Ulysses prompted gently, “must be tough, looking over your shoulder all the time. No home, no family…” No one you can trust.
Not even me.
Ah, there was that clamping feeling around his heart again, as familiar like the throb in his knee when he ran. Perhaps he ought to give up remorse like he’d given up his morning jog.
