John Wiltshire - [More Heat Than the Sun 07]

by Enduring Night [MLR MM] (epub)

  When he got back, Nikolas was talking to Lars, who had taken the empty seat next to him. That was…okay. Nikolas was allowed to talk to other people, men—young men. Ben plopped down heavily and pushed Nikolas’s plate across the table. He should have taken the place next to him. He’d suspected not doing so might have been a mistake. Nikolas took the plate with a distracted air, listening intently to whatever the young man was saying in a very low voice, too low for Ben to hear over the murmur of voices in the room. He dug into his selection wolfishly and remembered the expression on the bear’s face as it’d tried, agonised, to get in at some food. He wondered idly if it was illegal to put something out for hungry bears and guessed it was. Who would find out though…?

  Finally, Ben decided he’d had enough of being ignored.

  He discovered if he slunk down a little he could reach Nikolas’s leg under the table with his foot.

  Nikolas looked up sharply, but Ben continued chewing and didn’t catch his eye.

  Nikolas returned to his conversation. Then he jerked his head up again with a theatrical wince. “James, Lars was just telling me about some of the places to go in Longyearbyen. Some…clubs I might like.”

  Ben gave him an encouraging smile. “Cribbage? Bowls? Bridge?”

  Nikolas smiled sweetly in return at Ben’s attempt to be rude and consulted Lars. “No.”

  Ben went back to his lutefisk. Nikolas picked at something on his plate. Ben swallowed a mouthful, and commented casually to Lars, “Alexander’s daughter should have come with us. You’d like her. She’ll be applying for university this year.” This was a slight exaggeration as Emilia was only fifteen and wasn’t Nikolas’s daughter, but she had been talking about university. Having neatly established Nikolas as an old married man with nearly grown-up children, Ben gave him a cheerful grin and got up to fetch seconds.

  When he returned to the table, Nikolas had acquired a bottle of vodka and was sharing it with Lars. His food was untouched.

  Ben sighed.

  He sat back down but pushed away his heaped plate. He observed Nikolas for a while then studied Lars. He was so young. He had dark red hair and a wispy beard, which looked more like fluff than stubble. Ben ran his hand over his own jaw, rasping it. He caught a flick of a glance from Nikolas. Nikolas produced another glass and poured some vodka for Ben, sliding it over the table, their fingers touching briefly.

  Apparently bored with his game now, perhaps pondering more interesting fun that he could have with Ben, Nikolas took his focus off Lars, who turned to his father and commenced a conversation in Norwegian.

  Nikolas propped his chin on his hand, regarding Ben. A foot connected with Ben’s shin, far less harshly than his had met with Nikolas’s. It began to stroke up and down. Ben felt himself colouring and took a long swallow of alcohol.

  “Do you want to watch the film?”

  Ben only stared at Nikolas in response, and Nikolas smiled, understanding his answer quite well.

  §§§

  The fire was lit in their room when they returned. It was the only illumination against the deep polar night and they left it so. Drawn to its warmth, Ben went to stand on the soft fur rug in front of the flames. Nikolas put his filched bottle of vodka into an ice bucket, examining the complimentary wine it also held. Clearly satisfied, he moved alongside Ben, turning him until they stood face-to-face.

  Ben expected Nikolas to kiss him, but his eyes were fastened on Ben’s shirt. Very slowly and with great deliberation, Nikolas slid the top button out. His fingers spread over the warm cotton. One grazed Ben’s nipple and that was all it took. Ben reared back, feeling himself swell and fill, blood draining from his head. Nikolas took his time and undid another button. Then, he trailed a finger up Ben’s smooth, bare sternum and released another. Now, he could push his hands into the open shirt, hold Ben’s ribs, stroking with his thumbs, and all the while he kept his face lowered, clearly studying the effect of Ben’s open shirt over his hard, ridged abdomen.

  Suddenly, he thrust his hands down into Ben’s jeans, cupping his backside and pulling him groin to groin, rubbing them together. Ben thought if Nikolas didn’t kiss him soon he’d hit him, but Nikolas held off, a faint smirk of knowing ghosting across his scarred face. With his cool hands, he explored Ben’s hard cheeks, easing them apart, stroking between them.

  Ben wrenched away, swearing and laughing then he seized Nikolas’s face, tasting him with a wild, abandoned kiss. “I should punish you.”

  Nikolas’s tongue was tracing paths in Ben’s mouth. He bit Ben’s lip. “So do.”

  Ben eased them apart. He nodded seriously and then very slowly freed one of Nikolas’s buttons. Nikolas groaned and batted him away, obviously now bored of his game and wanting it hard and fast and urgent as he always did to start with, but Ben was a cruel and inventive torturer when he wanted to be and refused to do anything else but unbutton Nikolas’s shirt. One button at a time. It took an eternity for it to be fully removed, even longer for a zip to be lowered.

  When Nikolas’s cock sprang into the muted amber firelight, Ben couldn’t help a hiss of anticipation. Long, smooth, flaring at the tip, one crystal droplet from its pink slit caught the light and trickled down like a trail of vodka. He fell to his knees, a worshiper at an altar, and took the offering on the very tip of his tongue, well able to imagine what this must feel like for Nikolas. The arch and groan and tight grip in his hair only confirmed his belief.

  He tongued into Nikolas’s slit for a while, refusing to do what he knew Nikolas really wanted—take the hard shaft into his mouth and then further, down his throat. Ben liked eating things. He was still hungry.

  But Nikolas needed punishing.

  Ben wasn’t sure a slow lick up the underside of Nikolas’s cock was quite the chastisement Nikolas deserved, as it seemed to elicit a shudder and groan of delight. But then Nikolas was begging him, which was incredibly rare.

  It wasn’t in words of course. Nikolas still rarely spoke when they made love and never demeaned himself to plead audibly, but he appealed by tugging Ben’s hair, trying to force him on by cupping the back of Ben’s neck and feeding himself into Ben’s mouth.

  Ben grinned and rose to his feet. He kissed Nikolas hard, saliva and teeth and a mash of lips. As he did, he peeled off his own shirt and let it drop over Nikolas’s on the floor. The firelight reflected off their skin. He wanted to see Nikolas naked in the glow so he snapped open his belt, pushing the remainder of his clothes down until Nikolas stepped out of them—completely naked, hard, pale and very lean in amber.

  Ben did the same.

  They stood regarding each other in the warmth and the pool of honey-mellow light. It moved across their skin, making it appear as if their muscles rippled, their essences melting and reforming. As if their bodies moved toward one another entirely without their volition.

  They fulfilled the promise and stepped into each other’s arms, kissing now in a way there was no coming back from, no teasing or thoughts of punishment. They were men and they were driven by the need to release. It was primal. Sweat formed between them, as their heated bodies met.

  Ben found himself lying down, Nikolas over him, still kissing, and couldn’t remember falling to the soft rug. He scrunched its long pile as they kissed and ground together, and he knew it wouldn’t be long now. He’d needed to be inside Nikolas, needed Nikolas deep in his body, he didn’t care which, and acquiesced when Nikolas turned him face down.

  He expected a finger, braced for the intrusion, but felt Nikolas’s tongue instead. He arched at the waist, crying out, the anticipation now of a cock pushing into him was almost too much. His whole being ached to be filled and taken and brought to fulfilment.

  Nikolas pulled Ben’s hips up, knelt behind him, and in the firelight penetrated him deep and hard, not waiting for him to adjust to the filling. Ben choked back a whimper and waited, and the need swelled inside him and then he was there with Nikolas, all pleasure and climbing toward the peak of the mountain where they
would freefall together. Nikolas held Ben in the hollow of his hips, lifting him up on each thrust as much as slamming into him.

  The slap, slap of their flesh was incredibly loud in the silent night. Ben was working himself below, but Nikolas knocked his hand away and took over, squeezing tighter and jerking him roughly as he sped up behind.

  They hit the top together, an explosion of power, and then came sparks and falling through thick air, raining milky fluid and wringing out gasped cries of intensity. Collapsing in a ragged heap of sweat and semen, panting, sharing twitches of residual bliss, Ben could actually feel Nikolas’s deep contentment and knew it wasn’t only their bodies that were joined as one.

  §§§

  They lay entwined in front of the fire, sharing vodka, even Nikolas’s predatory nature for once tamed and curtailed and languid in Ben’s arms.

  Ben kissed the side of Nikolas’s head and repeated his earlier question. “Glad you came now?”

  Nikolas grunted in reply, but it was pretty obvious to Ben what the lazy sound meant.

  “If Peter really does intend to make a film here, which I don’t think he does, and if I did agree to be in it, which I wouldn’t, then it really wouldn’t be all that terrible—would it? We could stay here—book the whole place out.”

  “Your thought processes defeat me. What am I supposed to take from that incoherent ramble?”

  “Tell me about this book. What’s it about?”

  “You were reading it on the plane.”

  “It was only a short flight.”

  “Uh-huh. How far did you get?”

  “When he was planning for the expedition.”

  “So basically the first page then.” Clearly wary of getting another slap, Nikolas took some vodka in his mouth and passed it this way to Ben, the alcohol-soaked kiss distracting them both from thoughts of books for a while. Licking the spilt vodka off Ben’s chest took a while longer. Discovering some had dripped down further meant it was an hour before Ben returned to the theme of the doomed polar explorer. He was stretched out now on his side, propped up on one elbow, facing the fire, Nikolas lying on his back in front of him, pressed tightly to the lean warmth beside him. They’d pulled the pillows off the bed and kept the fire stoked high with crackling logs. The vodka now gone in interesting ways, they’d begun on the wine.

  “So, tell me.”

  “You sound as if you’re interested in Peter’s offer.”

  “There is no offer. It’s all in your head. But as I said, if there was then would it be such a bad thing to come here for a few months? You could—would—come this time, of course.”

  “Maybe I could be your bag carrier.”

  “That would be a first then.”

  “Do you want to hear this story or not?”

  “My God, imagine being abandoned here. Why did they do it?”

  “He had some conflict with the people on the ship, which exploded into a fight and he killed one of the young Norwegian sailors, so the rest of the crew demanded he be put ashore.”

  “Bit harsh.”

  “It was pragmatic. They had no means of keeping him locked down on the ship, so by leaving him here they effectively isolated him for six months until they could return with some help and retrieve him.”

  “It was here—this actual inlet?”

  “Yes. Jasper Bay. It was relatively well known—a coal mine had operated here for some years before the seam ran dry and there was a very basic cabin used by hunters. So the crew felt certain he’d survive. I’m not too sure they cared all that much. The young boy he killed was the son of the captain. He was only fourteen.”

  “Why did he do it?”

  “They never said, but the implication is obvious, is it not? Strange bunch, Norwegians.”

  “What then?”

  “This is the good bit. He did survive. When he got to the cabin, he found three hunters in it. This was November, so almost polar winter. He became very friendly with them, helping them around the camp, and they provided all the food throughout the long darkness that came.”

  “Why are you smiling?”

  “No reason. Anyway, in May the crew came back for him—the same crew with some marines they had brought along to escort him back. The ice took a long time to clear that year, so they were delayed. When they got into the hut, they discovered him and the partially consumed corpses of three hunters.”

  “Oh, my God! He’d killed and eaten them!”

  “Ah, this is the best bit of all. One of the hunters had written a journal. In it, he’d recorded that they’d been trapped in the cabin by a ferocious storm that had lasted over a month. The meat they’d stored outside had gone. His two friends were already dead, but he could not put them outside for fear of bears, so he kept them with him. He knew he was dying. It had been dated a month before the crew had left the explorer.”

  Ben was silent for a while. “So…making friends with them…helping them around—”

  “Had all been in the explorer’s imagination, yes. He’d found the three dead men frozen in their chairs.” Nikolas chuckled again. “But they did provide all the meat for him for the winter.”

  “Oh! Gross!” Ben sat up, cross-legged. “What happened to him?”

  “He was committed to an asylum in Norway and died relatively recently. Until his death, he maintained they had been alive and had walked with him and talked to him—even as he was eating them.”

  “Wow.”

  “Do you want to hear the really good bit?”

  Ben smiled but resisted the urge to hit him. “Go on.”

  “The cabin was stacked high with tins of food—meat, condensed milk—packets of oatmeal…”

  “What…you mean…oh, my God—they went mad, too? The hunters? They sat around, starving, surrounded by food?”

  “It appears so. Polar night. It’s…not meant for humans.”

  Ben reared back, suddenly suspicious he’d been had. “Seriously? You tell me a ghost story?”

  Nikolas laughed. “It’s a good story, Ben. Read it. It struck a chord.”

  “Insane cannibals. I wonder why.”

  “I’m the sanest person I know. I keep telling you that. Speaking of which, I’m sane enough to know that the bed looks more comfortable than the floor.” Nikolas rose with a very noticeable wince of pain. He’d hurt his back and shoulder a few months ago and the injuries were not entirely healed. Ben had become something of an expert masseur however, so he sometimes suspected Nikolas was dragging this incapacity out unnecessarily. He never challenged this small fiction though. It had been fairly obvious to Ben at the time, as Nikolas had lain for weeks in bed with his supposedly separated shoulder, that much, if not most, of his problems had been psychosomatic—symptoms of depression and guilt. If he still needed and wanted a little additional care, then Ben was more than willing and able to give it to him. Ben’s whole life was, after all, now devoted to the support and maintenance of Nikolas Mikkelsen.

  They explored the bathroom, which was as expected—a high-pressure shower and a small sauna.

  As Ben brushed his teeth, he went to stand once more at the floor to ceiling window. The lightshow was apparently over for the night, but the moon had risen and it cast a surreal silver light over the landscape. It transformed the terrain into a place of unrecognisable shapes and strange contours that hadn’t been there earlier. It made him feel dizzy, as if he’d suddenly reversed position and was now on the lunar surface looking down upon the earth. He turned his back to the ethereal, unsettling view.

  He had time to admire the room now. It had a high ceiling with exposed natural beams. Most of the space was taken up by the bed, which was very low to the floor, basically just a huge mattress on a box. Around the walls, at the base, were very large grills where Nikolas said hot air was circulated from the vast furnace in the basement. The fires were only for decoration and having sex in front of—he maintained. Ben had discovered they had no phone reception and only intermittent internet—something whi
ch had sent Nikolas into a multi-language rant. Billion-pound foundations didn’t run themselves, he’d claimed. Online gambling didn’t bet itself, Ben had countered, and he’d heard nothing more of the inadequate technology since.

  They were only three hours from Longyearbyen, but it felt a great deal more isolated.

  Glancing out of the window once more, he realised there was no sign of the hut that had featured in Enduring Night. He felt a little dumb searching for it, and it occurred to him that on a rocky beach, in an inlet limited for available real estate, the hotel they were in had probably been built in the place it had stood.

  He brushed more vigorously as he considered this idea.

  A hand suddenly landed on his shoulder. “Fin—What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” Ben shrugged the hand off, tried to calm his heartbeat, and went to rinse.

  The bed was ice cold after the warmth of the fire and shower, and they tangled together. “How did they heat the hunting huts?”

  “They had coal and driftwood mainly—and each other.”

  “Oh, shut up.”

  “I don’t mean eating. I don’t think they stayed celibate year after year, do you?”

  “What?”

  Nikolas only trailed a finger down Ben’s spine and demonstrated what he meant.

  As Ben was laughing and protesting at the same time, Nikolas whispered, “That’s the very, very best bit of the book…”

  Ben turned over sharply, facing him. They’d left the blinds open so the moonlight streaked in, illuminating them, making Nikolas’s hair gleam silver. “He…oh, no. I don’t believe you.”

  “Fucked one of the hunters who’d apparently been giving him the come on, flirting with him…while the other two were out fishing…”

  “But…”

  “Exactly. They were all dead anyway…”

  “Bloody hell. I hope they kept him safely locked up when they got him back.” Ben was quiet for a long time until he said with some conviction, “Remind me to send Peter Cameron an email when we get connection. It won’t take long to write—no.”