Page 79 of Ascendent
Their hips moved on their own, thrusting, grinding, rutting together. Sergey rolled them again, pulling Sasha on top again. Sasha stretched them out, his toes pushing on Sergey’s toes, every inch of their long legs pressed together, his chest covering all of Sergey’s, his arms sliding along Sergey’s, moving his hands until they were over Sergey’s head, fingers laced together, held to the mattress. Sergey moaned, and his hips bucked, wild thrusts as he chased Sasha’s kisses, his everything.
Sasha wrapped Sergey’s legs around his own waist, angled his thrusts. His cock rubbed over Sergey’s hole, the tip pressing against his entrance. Sergey’s cock ground against his abdomen. Sergey trembled, shaking and jerking as he thrust and pushed against Sasha, as he tried to grind down on Sasha’s cock, chase the pressure on his own cock and his hole. He cursed, breathed half of Sasha’s name, cried out to God, gasped. “Please,” he groaned. “Fuck!”
One kiss, Sasha’s lips against Sergey’s, and Sergey erupted, wailing his release as he arched and arched, pressing his quivering cock against Sasha’s muscled abdomen, smearing his come against their bellies.
He had to taste him, had to taste Sergey. Sasha dropped, one hand jerking his cock, as he kneeled over Sergey’s chest, his belly, and lapped up Sergey’s come. The taste,govno, the taste. Like iron and stardust. Like perfection. Like happiness.
Like forever.
He felt his orgasm coming, felt it burn through his entire body, coming up from his toes like a wave, curling through his belly before exploding out of him. His arms, his legs, shook, and he almost screamed. He stared down at Sergey, memorizing the angles of his face, the exact shade of his eyes. The flush of his kiss-bruised lips. His arm gave out, and he collapsed, his face buried in Sergey’s ribs, legs wrapped tight around his love. Sergey’s hands landed on his shoulders, ran up his neck and into his hair.
He floated on nothingness, on bliss, on Sergey’s scent. On the gentle caress of Sergey’s fingers on his skin.
Eventually, Sergey’s touch wandered to the leather wrapping around his hips. It was skewed, but still tied on. “You were going to tell me about this?”
Sitting up, Sasha reached for the tie, undoing Kilaqqi’s careful twist. He unwound the leather strap, rolling it up as he went. He kept his hand over the square of soft reindeer hide covering his new tattoo.
“I didn’t go to Kilaqqi only to thank him. There was something I needed to do. Something he told me about when he rescued me.” He hesitated. “I needed help. I was hurt, bad—”
Sergey frowned. “What do you mean? Dr. Voronov, the University doctors, they all have been treating you.”
“I was injured deeper than that. In here.” He tapped his chest. “There are things from my past,Seryozha, that…” He looked down. “For a long time, I didn’t know why I kept living. I didn’t know why I woke up every day. Why I wanted to do another day, another hour, of this life. I kept telling myself if only I was better. If only I left Kayerkan and Norilsk. If only I was a pilot. If only I was a fighter pilot. If only I was an astronaut. If only I escaped this planet. Maybe the sun, the cosmic radiation, maybe it would change me. Maybe gamma rays would make me different. I could be something else. But, Andreapol–– And then there was you. If only I helped you, I thought. If only I was able to help you make Russia better. That was worth living for, yes?”
But then there was a sacrificial flight, a kiss at the base of a flight ladder. He’d truly been ready to die that day. He’d shredded his last reason to live.
“After Volga,” he grunted, pushing through. “I wanted to help you save the world. And once that was done…” He played with the leather wrap, flicked the soft end between his finger and thumb.
“Sashunya.” Sergey sat up, cupped Sasha’s cheek. His lips moved, as if he was trying to speak. Nothing came out.
“I want to love you,” Sasha whispered. “I want to love you every day.”
“Then do.”
“I couldn’t before. But now I can.”
“Why?” Sergey shook his head. “I don’t understand.”
Sasha lifted the hide bandage from his bear tattoo. Sergey blinked. Stared. Reached out with a shaking hand and traced the outline.
“Years ago, I cut out a part of my soul. The parts of me that I hated. Kilaqqi saw what was missing when he found me. He saw that I was soul sick, and how I was dying, even then. When I wanted to love you, those parts of me weren’t there. I couldn’t love you fully,Seryozha. Not without everything I’d thrown away.”
Sergey’s eyes had never been wider. Never been more brilliantly blue, the color of where the sky curved and met the horizon.
“I went with Kilaqqi to find what I’d cut out.”
“You mean…” Sergey struggled for what to say. Sasha watched him search for the right words. “A spirit journey?”
Sasha nodded.
Sergey traced the bear tattoo, his finger brushing against the scab that had formed over the ash ink. “Will you tell me about it?”
Sasha lifted his fingers and kissed them. He rolled with Sergey to the mattress, pulling him against his chest. “Do you know what soul sickness is?” He felt Sergey shake his head.
Sasha described the cold, the ice that had slipped into his veins, between bone and blood, that had crept up from the underworld and had tried to freeze him from the inside out. That Sergey had been the only thing keeping him alive. That Sergey was his sun, his warmth, his entire universe. That he wanted to love Sergey, but how could ice love a star? The harder he fell and the deeper he loved, the sicker he felt.
“What did Kilaqqi do?”
The memories were hazy, made small by being back in his human body. His mind was constrained, not as expansive as it had been before, walking above the heavens, standing on an icy lake of galaxies. But some things were clear. His promise to himself. Never again. Making love to Sergey and seeing the stars through his eyes. There was a hum under his skin, a buzz, a rattle in his bones, like the sun was shining inside him. Sergey’s soul was still within him.
