Page 110 of The Last Inch Of Ice
Nazar’s mouth finds his—properly this time—and they’re kissing like drowning people finally breaking surface.
All the fear and rage and loneliness Kai’s been carrying crystallizes into focused need. He needs this. Needs Nazar. Needs to feel something that isn’t fear or calculation or the hollowed-out numbness that’s been his constant companion.
Nazar pushes him back against the cushions, and Kai goes willingly. His legs wrap around Nazar’s waist automatically, pulling him closer, grinding against him in a mindless, friction-fueled rhythm that’s more instinct than thought.
It’s raw. Desperate. Not nearly enough.
His brain supplies unhelpful observations even as his body takes over:This is a terrible idea. You’re supposed to be maintaining distance. This defeats the entire purpose. You’re putting him in danger.
He tells his brain to shut the fuck up.
“Nazar,please,” he whispers.
Nazar shoves him onto his hands and knees on the sofa and yanks down his joggers and briefs in one impatient motion.
There’s no prep, no lube, no careful consideration. Just Nazar’s hand gripping his hip and then he’s pushing in, one hard, desperate thrust.
“Baby,” Nazar whispers, kissing the sensitive skin on his neck.
It’s a fire that consumes them both.
Nazar holds him tightly, one arm wrapped around his chest, the other gripping his hip.
Nazar fucks him with an intensity that feels almost feral. Like he’s trying to physically prove something. Like he’s claiming something he’s afraid of losing.
Kai drops his head forward, his hair falling in his eyes, sounds escaping him that he’d be embarrassed about under any other circumstances. High, breathy moans that don’t sound like him at all.
The vulnerability of it—of being taken like this, of needing it this badly—leaves him feeling stripped bare in ways that have nothing to do with missing clothes.
Before Nazar comes, he buries his face in the curve of Kai’s neck, that place he’s always seemed fixated on, and just breathes him in. The simple, animalistic act of inhaling Kai’s scent feels like possession.
And Kai comes apart.
A series of thin, drawn-out whimpers spilling from his lips as he spills against the fabric of the sofa. The sound of his own desperation leaves him feeling like he has no skin at all.
They collapse onto the cushions in a tangled, panting heap. Kai’s brain comes back online slowly, reality filtering back in through the post-orgasmic haze.
His face is pressed into the cushion. Nazar’s weight is heavy on his back, their breathing slowly syncing. He can feel the rapid hammer of Nazar’s heartbeat against his spine.
“Fuck.” Nazar’s voice is wrecked, dejected, raw in a way Kai’s never heard before. “I couldn’t hold back. Baby, I couldn’t. Every time with you, I just—I need it. Need you. I’m sorry. I should have been more careful. Are you—did I hurt you?”
The apology is so unexpected that Kai feels something crack in his chest. Some protective layer he didn’t know he was still maintaining.
“It’s okay,” he hears himself say. The words are soft, automatic. A reassurance he’s not sure is true but gives anyway. “I’m okay. It’s fine.”
It’s not fine. Nothing about this situation is fine. But his body is still humming with endorphins and his brain hasn’tfully rebooted and Nazar is warm against him and for just this moment, Kai lets himself have it.
He deserves at least a few moments of happiness.
“Kai.” Nazar shifts, turning his head on the cushion so they’re face to face at an awkward angle. His dark eyes are serious, searching. “Talk to me. I have to be in fucking Boston at three o’clock tomorrow for a game. I chartered a jet to get here. I’m not leaving until I understand what’s happening.”
He chartered a jet. Spent probably fifty thousand dollars to fly commercial aviation’s equivalent of a private Uber. For Kai.
The thing is, Rykov is absurdly frugal… like, to a comedy level.
The information lands with unexpected weight. Nazar, who grew up with nothing and worked for everything, who sends money to his grandmother and drives a three-year-old Honda because “it runs fine”—that Nazar spent money he doesn’t like to spend to get here in the middle of the night.
Kai feels something uncomfortably close to crying building in his throat.
