Page 60 of Soul on Fire
Ikolo’s eyes flickered as he walked back into their room. “I’m dreaming,” he muttered. “A gorgeous man is bringing me food.”
“You’redefinitelydreaming. It’s just me, but I do have food.” He sat cross-legged on the sleeping bag and held out a forkful of eggs.
Ikolo pushed the eggs aside and kissed him, holding his face in both hands. “I’m not dreaming. You are the most gorgeous man I’ve ever met, Elliot. I thought so from the moment I saw you.”
“I’m nothing special, but you could be a model with your smile.” Ikolo beamed, his eyes dropping away as a flush stained his skin. “Yeah, that one.” He couldn’t help it. Elliot kissed him, a languid press of their lips, and forgot about the fork in his hand. It slipped, eggs tumbling onto the sleeping bag.
They pulled apart and ate, feeding each other eggs and pieces of fruit and bread spread with guava. Ikolo swiped the banana and peeled it while staring at Elliot. He stuck almost the entire length into his mouth, and his lips closed around the creamy flesh. He winked.
“Fuck,” Elliot breathed.
He was on Ikolo in a second, pulling the banana away as Ikolo laughed. They tumbled back, Ikolo beneath Elliot, their hands laced together as Elliot playfully pinned him down. Ikolo’s legs wrapped around his waist, and his cock stroked against Elliot’s, hot and hard.
“Doctor, I think I have a problem.” Elliot kissed Ikolo’s cheeks and his nose, scrunched up in laughter.
“Do you?”
“I’m addicted.” He kissed his ways down Ikolo’s jaw, under his ear, and to his neck. Ikolo arched into him. “I can’t get enough.”
“Enough of what?” Ikolo shivered as Elliot kissed his way across Ikolo’s chest, gently bit his nipples before sucking them sweetly.
“Enough of a man,” Elliot whispered. He dragged his chest over Ikolo’s and pressed their bodies as close as they could be. “He’s taken over my mind.” He kissed him, hard and hot, tangling their tongues as Ikolo grasped his shoulders and bucked his hips against Elliot’s. “He’s taken over my heart,” Elliot breathed, pulling a millimeter away. He blinked, and gazed into Ikolo’s eyes. “I don’t want this to end.”
Ikolo’s heart beat against his, and his chest rose and fell as he breathed fast. “I don’t either,” Ikolo whispered. He cradled his skull, cupped Elliot’s head in his palms.
Elliot closed his eyes and leaned into the touch. Already, he loved it, loved the way it felt like Ikolo was holding him up. Like he could let go and everything would be fine because Ikolo was there.
What had brought them together? What had led to this moment? How many choices, how many actions, had converged to bring Ikolo into his life?
If only under different circumstances. If only he’d met Ikolo by catching sight of his smile and making his way through a crowd because he couldn’t stand to not see that smile again. If only they’d met in another place, another time, without Majambu and sickness and weapons hanging like the sword of Damocles over their heads.
But how could he have met Ikolo under any other circumstance? Ikolo was meant to be here, saving lives, working where others had given up, determined to his core to help and to bring back hope to a country in desperate need of it. Heal shattered lives and try to save a people, one life at a time.
Ikolo was meant to be where he was. It was Elliot who was adrift.
He kissed Ikolo again, softly, gently, and wrapped his arms around him. Ikolo mirrored his movements, and their bodies moved together. Rocking, cocks sliding as their hips pressed and pulled and their kiss never ended, not even when Ikolo stiffened, cried Elliot’s name against his lips, and his come spread between them. Elliot followed, sighing into Ikolo’s guava-tinged lips.
The afterglow was short, the mission intruding on Elliot’s mind. “The team will be back in a few hours. I want to see if there’s anything we can do. Maybe there’s something from the flight logs they missed. Something you can see that they can’t.”
Majambu’s voiced played in a loop in his mind, the scratchy cell connection, his flint-edge voice, the growl as he spoke of glory and his mission. He’d heard that kind of voice before, always the same, always spoken with a hard-edged conviction. There was a ferocity inside Majambu, a wrath that pushed him down his path.
“I’ll help in any way I can.”
His heart ached, and he kissed Ikolo again, hard, before pulling back. He was too far gone already, too much over the edge to stop the fall. Ikolo was going to have his heart whether Elliot wanted him to or not, no matter if he tried to stop it. It would be like trying to push back the forest. An impossibility.
* * *
Ikolo dressedand came down to the station’s operations room, sharing Elliot’s cup of coffee. The laptops were secured, most of the radios and weapons gone. The radio base station was there with the volume low. The team had taken the portable units with them. He turned the volume up and listened to Carla and Jim’s voices go back and forth. They were at the airport, walking the flight line and inspecting tail numbers.
There was also a holstered Glock .45 left behind and a handful of magazines. Elliot dropped the magazine, racked the slide, sighted a stain on the far wall and dry fired. It felt good in his hands, sturdy. He loaded a fresh magazine and chambered a round before sliding the holster on his waistband.
A notepad listed flights coming and going from Kisangani over the past twenty-four hours. One of the officers had scratched out a third of the transports, scrawlingAid GroupandUNandRiver Freightin the margins.
“Recognize anything?” Elliot ran his hand down Ikolo’s spine. “Anything stand out?”
“There’s a lot of river freight. Pirogues will load up with supplies and go upriver from Kisangani.”
“Too much?”
