Page 25 of The Fire Beneath the Frost

There were strange, grimy men in even stranger hats talking nonsense and zapping each other with devices that looked like plumbing equipment.The surrounding audience howled with laughter at every ridiculous line.Petyr especially.He was practically giggling into his fist like a schoolboy who’d just stolen a teacher’s pen.Every time something absurd happened—which was often—he’d lean toward me, mutter a half-translated joke, or just whisper, “Can you believe this?”right into my ear.

And each time, I nearly came undone.

It wasn’t even the words.I couldn’t focus on the words.It was his breath.Warm and soft and intimate, stirring the hairs on my neck, tickling places I didn’t know could feel so much.

I was sweating.Actually sweating.

Inside Rodina, one of the draftiest, most poorly heated cinemas in the city.

Most people still had their coats buttoned to their necks, some with scarves pulled up to their chins.But me?Mine was unzipped and shrugged halfway off my shoulders, sleeves bunched at my elbows.I felt like I was about to burst into flames.

Petyr’s thigh had been pressed solidly against mine for the entire movie.Not in a bumping-by-accident kind of way.Not even in a we’re packed in too tight sort of way.No—he could’ve shifted.But he hadn’t.And now our legs were touching from hip to knee, warm and electric through our trousers, every point of contact burning a hole in my brain.

I shifted slightly in my seat, trying to will my cock to calm the hell down.It didn’t help.If anything, the movement made things worse—more pressure, more friction.I held my breath.Tried to think of tanks.Stalin’s moustache.My mother’s borscht.Nothing worked.

I was hard.Painfully so.

Since the train.

What the hell was wrong with me?

And then, just as I was sure I was going to pass out from the blood draining entirely from my brain, Petyr leaned over again, pointed to the screen, and whispered, “That’s a portable teleportation shovel.Apparently.”

I didn’t hear the words.

All I felt was his lips close to my ear, and the heat of him against me, and then—

His hand.

On my thigh.

He didn’t grab or squeeze me, and it didn’t move with purpose.It simply rested there.

Like it belonged.

Like it had always been there.

I forgot how to breathe.

The laughter around us felt muffled, like we were deep underwater.I saw people rocking with laughter out of the corners of my eyes, mouths open wide, shoulders bouncing—but it all felt a million miles away.

I turned my face toward the screen, pretending to watch.My eyes burned.

I blinked.

And then… a tear escaped.

Just one.

Slipping silently from the corner of my eye, down the side of my nose.I wiped at it too late—already felt the warmth of it drying along my cheek.

Was I crying?

Jesus Christ, I was crying.

I was sitting in a room full of people laughing at a comedy, with a hard-on and a tear rolling down my face, because Petyr had touched me like it was nothing.Like it was normal.Like it was allowed.

I didn’t know what I was feeling.My whole body felt like it was too full.Like if Petyr looked at me for too long, I’d explode.Like some ancient, shamed part of me was waking up for the first time and didn’t know whether to scream, or pray, or fall on its knees and weep.

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