Page 24 of The Fire Beneath the Frost

Don’t think about him.

Don’t think about this.

But it was impossible.

Because suddenly, horrifyingly, I was hard.

Like, really hard.

And not just I got startled by a breeze hard—no, this was can’t stand up at school hard.Pray to every saint you know hard.Arousal so sharp and fierce it hurt.

My face went hot.I was sweating inside my coat.My knees felt weak.My cock throbbed against my zipper, trapped and miserable.And Petyr—Jesus—he wasn’t helping.

He leaned in, his mouth next to my ear.

“Okay, okay,” he whispered, breath warm against my skin.“Serious question: if Stalin and a babushka got into a fistfight, who would win?”

I made a noise.It was supposed to be a laugh.It came out more like a wheeze.

And then he breathed—just one wordless puff of air, a chuckle maybe—and it tickled the shell of my ear in a way that made every nerve in my body scream.A full-body shiver shot down my spine.I clenched my fists.Tried to think about math.Bread.Cement.The Politburo.

None of it helped.

Because then I made the mistake of looking up.

Petyr was staring at me.

Our faces were inches apart.His eyes were wide and bright, shining with amusement, with something.We didn’t speak.Didn’t move.

I couldn’t.

I just looked at him.

And he looked back.

God help me.

Then, suddenly, he blinked.“Next stop.”

His voice broke the moment like a stone through glass.The train began to slow.

I exhaled sharply and glanced away.Focused on the door.Focused on anything that wasn’t the heat in my groin or the scent of his coat or the ache low in my belly.

This was madness.

This was dangerous.

This was—

Petyr’s hand touched my arm again as the train slowed with a groan.I didn’t flinch this time.I just followed him off the tram and into the cold Leningrad night, heart hammering, cock still hard, the question pounding in my skull:

What the hell is happening to me?

* * *

I hadn’t understood a single thing that had happened in the last thirty minutes.

Not on the movie screen, anyway.

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