Page 37 of The Fire Beneath the Frost

Shoes off.Leave them in the hall.Every step mattered now.

I slipped the key into the lock as slowly as I could, the tumblers clicking softly.The door swung open without a sound.

We moved like ghosts.

The apartment was dark, save for a sliver of light from under Nina and Pavel’s door.The scent of floor polish drifted faintly in the air.

I took Dimitri’s hand briefly and guided him down the narrow hallway to my room.Our room, technically.Vera’s and mine.But that thought twisted in my stomach and I shoved it away.

We reached the door and stepped inside.

Once closed, the bedroom became its own tiny universe.Quiet.Still.The only sound was our breathing and the muffled ticking of the clock on the nightstand.

We stripped out of our outer layers slowly, with practiced silence.I turned my back as I pulled my sweater off, feeling the weight of the day leave my shoulders.Dimitri’s shirt made a soft rustle behind me, and when I turned around, he was already sitting on the edge of the bed, barefoot and rumpled, waiting for me like it was the most normal thing in the world.

It wasn’t.Not for me.

This was my first time sleeping beside a man.Not sex—not that.But this: the intimacy of sharing a bed, of trusting someone enough to fall asleep next to him in the most dangerous city in the world for boys like us.

I climbed in next to him and pulled the blanket over our bodies.For a moment, we lay flat on our backs, barely breathing, the ceiling above us washed in faint orange light from a faraway streetlamp.I felt the heat from his arm next to mine, and it made me shiver.

Then I turned to him.Slid one arm around his waist.Pulled him to me.

It wasn’t sexual—not really.Not at first.I just needed to hold him.To be held.To feel like I wasn’t completely alone.

But my body didn’t care about that distinction.As soon as my chest pressed against his back, as soon as I tucked my knees behind his, I felt it—my erection, unbidden, pressing into the space between us.

I closed my eyes and ignored it.It didn’t matter.That wasn’t the point.I wasn’t here to do anything.I was here to be.To exist in the arms of a man I might be falling in love with.Someone who made the music in my head crescendo with every breath he took.

Dimitri exhaled, deep and slow.His body softened under my arm.His breathing grew rhythmic, gentle, and I knew he was already asleep.

I wasn’t.

I stared at the dark, my heart thudding like a timpani, every sound amplified in this illegal symphony we were composing between us.

Then I heard it.

Footsteps in the hallway.Heavy ones.Moving past the door.

I froze.

Every muscle in my body seized, and my breath caught in my throat.A single sound.One whisper.One bump of the mattress and everything might come undone.

Then—flush.

A toilet.Just a toilet.

The footsteps retreated, and I heard the soft groan of floorboards as someone climbed back into their bed.

I let myself breathe again, and the tension slid out of me all at once, leaving me dizzy.

Dimitri murmured something in his sleep—nonsense, a fragment of a dream—and shifted in my arms.

And just like that, I was in heaven.

Right there, in that tiny bed with the peeling wallpaper and the too-thin mattress, I had everything I wanted.I felt his weight against me.His warmth.His trust.

I didn’t sleep.Not for a long time.

---