Crashing the Net (7 page)

He stepped back, gently pushing Mike’s hands away until they dropped to his sides.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that,” he said quietly, backing towards the door.

“What?” Mike said, surprised. And hurt. Alexei tried to take another step, to retreat farther, but Mike latched onto his arm, stopping him. Mike looked mussed and confused and absolutely fucking adorable. Alexei pulled against his grip.

Mike wouldn’t let go. “What just happened?"

“I kissed you.”

“I noticed,” Mike said, his shy smile like a kick to Alexei’s chest.

“I’m sorry. I can’t—I should go.”

“No. Please.” Mike grabbed his other arm. “Why are you sorry?”

“Because I shouldn’t have done it.

“When why did you?”

“I would have thought that was obvious.”

“Not to me.”

Alexei believed him. Mike had no idea why someone might kiss him, let alone fantasize about it for months beforehand. When had cluelessness become so damn appealing?

“I wanted to,” Alexei confessed.

“Why?”

Alexei knew the answer, just like he knew he couldn’t tell Mike the truth. The reasons why it should never have happened to begin with. “Because you’re hot?” he offered instead, wincing as soon as the words were out. Flirting was a really dumb deflection strategy. Jesus.

Mike smiled. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” he grumbled crossly.

“Are you gay?”

Alexei arched an eyebrow. “Are you done asking questions with exceedingly obvious answers?”

Mike laughed. “No, apparently.”

Alexei felt his lips twitch. “Yes, Michael, I’m gay.”

Mike seemed to think about that for a while, and Alexei watched, transfixed, as his eyes creased up, glinting with humor. “You and I really need to work on our communication.”

Alexei laughed. It was so fucking true. Mike’s laughter and wide grin made his chest tighten uncomfortably. He couldn’t do this. Couldn’t risk what he and Mike had already.

“I should go,” Alexei said firmly. “We can talk in the morning.” Though he really kind of hoped they didn’t talk about this. Ever.

“But—”

“Good night. No more bad dreams, okay?” Which, of course, was a stupid thing to say. He sighed. “Is there anything I can do?”

“Yes.”

“What?” He took an unconscious step towards Mike, willing to do whatever he could to keep his nightmares at bay.

“You can kiss me again.”

Except that.

Alexei gritted his teeth, his cock twitching in spite of his sure knowledge that kissing Mike had been and would be a huge mistake.

“Mike, think about it. We’re friends. Teammates. For Christ’s sake, now we’re
neighbors
. It would be…be a…”

Alexei’s perfectly logical argument trailed off as Mike slid closer, hovering there, their lips a breath apart. Mike had a few inches on Alexei, but somehow he could look down on Alexei and plead with more eloquence than the most seductive, experienced lover Alexei had ever had kneel at his feet.

Oh, fuck it.
Alexei was weak. Fallible. Only human in the face of being offered what he wanted. So. Damn. Much.

There was no hesitation from Mike this time. This kiss was all eager lips and grasping hands and, holy fuck, within seconds Alexei wanted to climb Mike like a goddamn jungle gym. Instead he poured all his frustration and need and total lack of sense and caution into kissing Mike.

Mike kissed him back like his life fucking depended on it.

Alexei shuddered, exhilarated by the desperation, the hunger, in Mike. His head spun with each needy groan rumbling up from Mike’s chest. His arms ached pleasantly where Mike’s fingers clenched around his biceps.

He wrapped his hands around Mike’s jaw and took complete command of the kiss. Of Mike.

It was a test. A last gasp at seeing reason. Alexei might just come to his senses, force himself to walk away, if Mike was like most men and fought him for control. Pushed back against Alexei’s natural inclination to dominate. Why
wouldn’t
Mike do that, since he fucking loved to argue with Alexei about everything else?

But on this, they seemed to be in perfect agreement. Mike held on and whimpered and let Alexei do whatever the fuck he wanted. When Alexei bit his lip, Mike’s hips arched forward, grinding his erection into Alexei’s belly.

With a low growl, Alexei tore his mouth away. Mike’s softly murmured protest sent chills down his spine. Goddamn, he wanted this man. And he would have him. If only just this once, he would fucking
have
him.

He stripped the sheets to the foot of the bed, shoved Mike onto his back, and knelt between his wide-spread legs. The seam of Mike’s boxer briefs dug into his soft sac, his heavy erection trapped beneath dark cotton. His skin glowed, flushed from his cheeks, down his neck and across his chest.

“God, you’re gorgeous like this,” Alexei muttered.

Mike stared up at him, unblinking. “Look who’s talking.”

Alexei took in Mike’s calm. His absolute acquiescence in the face of Alexei wanting to eat him alive. It burned through Alexei, as powerful as any touch or kiss could be. He bent to capture Mike’s mouth, the kiss ferocious. Bordering on punishing.

Mike took it, moaning his pleasure as he lay pinned beneath Alexei. His hands clutched at Alexei’s back, spine arching to bring their bodies together, their cocks rubbing through layers of cloth.

Alexei shuddered again and let the leash on his control slip, just a little, kissing Mike as he truly wanted. He nipped Mike’s tongue, his lips, each bite a little harder. A little closer to drawing blood.

Mike writhed beneath him.

Alexei scored his teeth down Mike’s neck, along his collarbone. He listened to Mike’s groans and gasps, felt the roll of his hips, and searched, determined, for the line Mike wouldn’t cross.

Damned if Alexei could find it anywhere.

Sinking his teeth into the flesh of Mike’s pectoral, his tongue laved the nipple as he bit harder. Farther. Mike arched into his mouth and thrust both his hands into Alexei’s hair. “Yes. God, yes, that’s good.”

Now Alexei was moaning. He ground his cock against Mike’s, trying to find relief, trying to understand how Mike could love this. To seem to want everything Alexei dished out as much as Alexei loved to dish it.

Alexei tortured the other nipple until it, too, stood at attention, and then bit again, his heart pounding at the thought of his mark lingering on Mike for days after. He dragged the broad flat of his tongue downward and left a shiny line over Mike’s sternum, then nipped each bump of Mike’s abs as he traveled lower.

Mike jerked against his mouth with every sting, begging for more. His grip in Alexei’s hair was painful. Perfect.

Alexei looked up the long line of Mike’s torso, expecting to see Mike’s head thrown back. His eyes squeezed shut. But instead he found himself staring into Mike’s wide, smoldering gaze. Mike’s teeth dug into his own swollen bottom lip harder than anything Alexei had done.

He arched one brow a jumble of thoughts and desires muddling his brain. “I don’t even know where to begin.”

Mike’s Adam’s apple bobbed, his voice hoarse when he said, “Do whatever you want.”

Alexei thought he might have died and gone to fucking heaven. How long had he wanted a man to say those exact words to him? How many times had he been disappointed?

He growled against Mike’s smooth, flat belly, rewarding Mike for his gift by driving his tongue into the deep divot of his navel while his teeth sank into firm muscle.

“
Alexei!
”

He couldn’t tell if Mike meant to shout his approval, or beg him to go on. He smiled against the barely-there trail of silky hair beneath Mike’s belly button, nuzzling along its length until his chin caught on the band of elastic at the waist of Mike’s boxer briefs. His long, hard shaft pressed against Alexei’s throat. Beseeching eyes begged him to keep going.

Alexei sat up on his heels, no longer touching Mike anywhere. Mike didn’t protest. Didn’t grab or squirm or make demands. He simply stared up at Alexei and waited.

Alexei felt the slow smile crawl over his face, unable to mask the unexpected joy of having Mike, willingly, happily, at his mercy. Goddamn, he was
perfect
.

Mike made a questioning noise, a little whimper accompanied by his brows quirking and his eyes darting to the bedside table. Alexei waited, watched how Mike held still, not doing anything until Alexei nodded once. Only then did Mike snake his arm out and yank open the drawer. He immediately tucked his hand back at his side.

Alexei scanned the contents of the drawer, his eyebrows steadily lifting.

Condoms. Lube. Dildos. Plugs.

“My, my, Michael, you are full of surprises.”

“I only meant…” Mike’s cheeks went pink.

He leaned in to examine a few of the items more closely. “A bit of a size queen, aren’t you?”

Now Mike’s face glowed scarlet, even the blush on his chest turning a dull red, and Alexei couldn’t help but laugh.

“No, I—”

Mike’s voice strangled off on an embarrassed groan when Alexei lifted the largest of the dildos from the drawer and hefted its considerable weight against his palm. “I think I’m intimidated.”

“I don’t—”

“Don’t you?”

Mike’s wide, unblinking eyes were answer enough. He most certainly did.

The only question remaining was what Alexei would do with all this new information. “Do you want me to put this in you?”

“No.”

No hesitation. Mike’s eyes never left his, not once straying to the huge toy in his palm or anything else in the drawer. He was utterly focused on Alexei.

Alexei sucked in a deep breath and barely resisted pressing the heel of his palm against his now-painfully erect cock.

“What
do
you want, Michael?”

“You.”

Mike waited the longest, most excruciating minute of his life as Alexei considered his shameless, honest plea. Sprawled across the bed beneath Alexei’s scrutinizing gaze, Mike was painfully aware of his hot blush and helpless need. Months of suppressed emotions were no doubt blatant on his face, in his eyes, and he didn’t care. All that mattered was whatever Alexei did next.

“Get up, get naked, and get on your knees on the bed.”

Mike was on his feet before Alexei had finished speaking. His boxer briefs were gone a second later, his face to the mattress a second after that.

This
. This was what he wanted.

Alexei draped himself over Mike like a warm, living blanket. His lips brushed the shell of Mike’s ear when he spoke. “I didn’t tell you to bend over. I told you to kneel.”

Mike immediately tried to get up, annoyed at himself for fucking up, but Alexei held him in place.

“No. Stay. I like that you did this.”

Mike closed his eyes and nodded against the cool sheet as a rush of pleasure wound through him at Alexei’s praise. A needy sound escaped when Alexei’s weight lifted off his back.

Two hands cupped his ass, smoothing over skin and spreading him open. Exposing him completely.

“I’ve wanted to do this,
see
this, since the moment I realized you were waxed clean. Since that first night in the showers.”

Mike’s face heated again, even as blood surged into his cock and his balls snugged tighter to his body. Alexei had thought about this. About
him
. For just as fucking long as Mike had.

The happy noise erupting from Mike’s chest probably ought to have been embarrassing.

One hand gently tapped his ass rhythmically. “I ought to spank you for not telling me the truth.” Each touch was firmer than the one before, but they still weren’t more than a pat. Mike’s entire focus narrowed down to where each blow landed.

“I’m sorry,” Mike gasped, afraid to ask which truth Alexei meant. That he was gay? A size queen? The happiest man alive with his face smashed to the bed and his ass in the air? There was a lot of fucking truths being revealed in this bed right then.

“Does your family know? Your father?”

A chill ran down Mike’s spine, tightening every muscle. “Jesus Christ,
don’t
.”

Alexei’s hand landed and remained pressed to his skin. “Spank you?” Challenge edged his voice.

“No, for the love of Christ, don’t bring up my
father
.”

Alexei chuckled. “Fair enough.”

Alexei cupped Mike’s balls in one hand, the other reaching forward to wrap around his cock. “So, yes to spanking?” Alexei asked curiously, casually, in the same tone he would use to confirm they’d chosen pizza for dinner.

“
Please
.”

A hand pumped along the length of Mike’s shaft and he groaned, as pleased with his reward as Alexei seemed to be with his answer.

“Really?” Alexei sounded distinctly dubious.

Christ, Mike didn’t know how to make Alexei believe. Mike had to swallow just to get his voice to work and resorted to blurting out the unvarnished truth. “Yes. Spank me. Fuck me. Whatever you want.”

Mike’s head was still spinning with the sound of his own voice begging to be fucked, when his balls were released, followed by the sounds of Alexei rummaging around in his bedside drawer. Mike’s heart rate doubled, his ass clenched. He squeezed his eyes shut and told himself to chill the fuck out before he blew from barely a touch.

God, but what a touch. It was
Alexei.
Alexei’s hand on his dick. Alexei’s firm lips brushing across the small of his back, murmuring unexpectedly sweet things. Mike had never thought of himself as sexy. Or beautiful—god, Alexei had just called him
beautiful—
until now. He felt the sting of tears in his eyes and screwed them shut tighter.

A fingertip slid down his crack and over the wildly sensitive skin surrounding his hole. Mike jerked against the teasing pressure, blindly attempting to impale himself. To get what he’d been craving for months and distract himself for everything he’d never even had the nerve to dream of hearing and having with Alexei.

The touch disappeared.

“I’m in charge, Michael.”