Making Promises (34 page)

Close your eyes and try to dream.

“We Belong”—Pat Benatar

MIKHAIL tasted like sunshine and sweet and bitter tea. His mouth was open and his tongue aggressive, and Shane opened his mouth and groaned and kissed harder. Oooohhhh…. Those wiry, hard biceps felt so good under Shane’s hands, and his body, small but substantial, was the sweetest weight against Shane’s chest. The feel of that compact, strong body under Shane’s palms seemed to give him strength, and he needed it because he’d had to lie to Deacon about how good he felt in order to get to borrow Crick’s car.

Mikhail wrapped his arms around Shane’s middle and squeezed, and about the time Shane couldn’t keep in the whimper of pain, Mikhail released him and glared reprovingly.

“You have lost weight. And you are still not healed. I do not know what idiot left you off your leash, but you should have stayed at home.”

“And missed that kiss?” Shane gasped. “Not on your life!” Mikhail’s expression sobered, and he held Shane’s face between his palms. People were surging around them, and Shane hardly noticed they were there, and it was San Francisco so the two of them kissing didn’t attract much attention. It was just the two of them, and it was wonderful—

or it would be if Mikhail wasn’t looking so very serious all of a sudden.

“It very nearly was on yours, you know.”

Shane wrinkled his nose and shrugged. “On my life? It’s all good now. I’ll live.”

Mikhail shook his head and turned away. He held onto Shane’s hand but showed Shane his back as he pulled them toward his mother.

“Mikhail…,” Shane muttered, unhappy to upset him. He was unprepared for Mikhail to whirl on him, his eyes bright and shiny and his chin quivering.

“You cannot joke about that,” he snapped. “Ever. You cannot say ‘I lived so it was okay’. It is
still
not okay. It will
never
be okay. You and your stupid impossible job. I will live in fear every day you work, and I will
never
take for granted that you will walk away in one piece. Never again. If you knew, had any
idea
what you put us through….” Mikhail shook his head and yanked his hand back. “If you knew, you would never joke about ‘I’ll live!’ again.”

Shane reclaimed his hand. “I’m sorry—I was really surprised how many people got upset this time. I really didn’t mean to worry you.” Mikhail’s upper lip curled, and his sulky lower lip thrust out. “This time. Pfaw.” He spat, and Shane raised his eyebrows, and Mikhail glared back at him as though daring him to do anything about it. “Well, worry us is exactly what you did. You almost destroyed me. I wanted to run away. I left you a terrible message, screaming obscenities in Russian, just so I would not have to care if you lived or died.” He shook his head, and his mouth relaxed a little. “I am so very happy to see you well, but if I ever have to leave you again when you are hurt or sick, it will break my heart.

You cannot do that again.”

“I don’t plan to,” Shane said shortly.

Mikhail nodded and made a visible effort to get himself together, but he kept hold of Shane’s hand. In fact, he clutched it convulsively as they stood in the middle of the crowd. Shane watched his jaw clench and then saw him swallow once or twice, and he wanted to haul him up and hold him and be sweet and soft and all those things, but not here. Not when Mikhail’s mother was watching with sympathetic eyes. Not when a thousand people would be there to watch Mikhail come unglued, because he would really hate that.

Finally, he simply turned and tugged Shane after him. “Come. Mutti hides it well, but she is really very tired. We should go home.” 206

In fact, Ylena was more than tired. She was silent in the back of Crick’s sedan, and when they made a pit stop in Dixon, she was more than sleeping, she was nearly losing consciousness. Instead of driving to Mikhail’s apartment, Shane stayed on I-80 and took her to the hospital in Roseville.

She woke up a little as Shane lifted her up in his arms and carried her through the parking lot into the emergency room. She weighed nothing.

“Look at me,” she murmured. “In the arms of a big strong man. All that time I hoped for a handsome prince when Mikhail was a child, and I had to wait for my son’s boyfriend to sweep me off my feet.” Shane chuckled gently. “Well, I might have gone for you when I was younger, you know. I had a weakness for femme fatales.” Ylena gave a paper-fragile laugh; her voice, when she spoke, was weak and hoarse. “I was beautiful then. Not so much now.” Shane paused then, to let Mikhail go through the doors first and find them a wheelchair. “Look at him, Ylena,” he said, watching Mikhail’s brisk movements, the way he was aware, always, of where the two of them were, even as he spoke to hospital officials with the confidence of a lion.

He looked up and indicated Shane and his mother, and his eyes—which could be brutally cold, Shane knew from experience—were soft and concerned. “See the way your son looks at you? You are beautiful to him.” Ylena leaned her head against Shane’s chest and patted him with a wasted hand. “And so are you,
mal’chik.
So are you.” She was admitted there, given fluids and some pain medication, and the doctor—fortunately
her
doctor was on duty this day—took them both aside out of her hospital room for one of those little chats that Shane could tell Mikhail dreaded.

“You both know this is going to end soon, and it’s not going to end well, right?” He was in his early forties and had “family man” plastered all over him. Mikhail seemed to trust him, so Shane did too.

Mikhail’s eyebrows arched sardonically. “Since you have been telling her she’s dying since June, it would certainly reflect poorly on you if that was not the case,” he said dryly, and the doctor managed a smile.

“Fair enough. Mikhail, this could last a while—a couple of weeks.

She’s very sick, but she’s got a tough will, we both know that. She’s very Making Promises

reluctant to leave you alone. Have you discussed whether you want to do this here in the hospital or…?”

“I want to take her home,” Mikhail said. “We can set up her IV and her pain medication. She has had a nurse who came by once a week, can we still do that?”

The doctor nodded. “It’s still going to be hard—you know that, right? She’s going to be in pain and slipping in and out. Even if we can get a nurse in for an eight-hour shift every day, you’re going to need to be there for the rest of the time.”

“You can get a nurse?” Mikhail asked hopefully, and Shane started racking his brains for the contacts he had in case they couldn’t.

The doctor consulted the chart in front of him, though, and nodded.

“I’m almost positive her insurance covers that. They should also cover a bed—the kind that raises and lowers and has IV racks and some monitors.

You’ll need a day to get set up, if you still want to do this, and we’ll keep her until then.”

“I still want to,” Mikhail told him, but he was firming up his jaw as though the task daunted him, and Shane reached down and grabbed his hand.

“I don’t have much to do for the next few weeks, Mickey. Don’t worry. You’ll have help.” Mikhail gave him a look like a drowning man would give a rope, and the doctor nodded approvingly.

“Excellent,” the doctor said. “I’m glad to know it won’t just be you.”

“My mother’s church can help too,” Mikhail mumbled. He was clutching Shane’s hand hard enough to cut off the circulation, but Shane wasn’t going to complain.

“Here,” said the doctor. “This should have the insurance information you need to get set up.” He handed Mikhail a card with numbers scrawled on it, and for the first time, Shane saw his lion-hearted dancer look a little lost.

“I… I do not know insurance companies,” he said almost shyly. “I have no insurance, and Mutti always handled hers.” Shane took the card from him and put it carefully in his wallet, ignoring Mikhail’s surprise. “I’m good at that shit, Mickey. No worries.

When will she be ready tomorrow, doc?”

The doctor consulted his chart again, not even raising an eyebrow at the way Shane had commandeered the situation. Shane looked mildly back at Mikhail’s surprise, and then the two of them turned their attention to the list of instructions that the doctor was handing them and on all that needed to be done.

TWO hours later, Mikhail had unpacked and aired out the small apartment, and Shane was sitting at the little glass-topped kitchen table, rubbing the back of his neck. He’d been on the phone since they had walked in the door, and he thought that finally—
finally
—he’d made all of the preparations necessary to bring an eighty-pound woman home for her last few weeks.

With a sigh he leaned forward, squinted in the poor light from the hanging fixture overhead, and ran through the checklist again. Suddenly, there were two hands—hard, warm, and moist from the shower—

massaging his neck and his shoulders, and he groaned in sheer hedonism.

“God, Mickey—that’s awesome.” He dropped his head forward and was unprepared for Mikhail’s sulky mouth to start moving on the base of his neck. He shivered, and a cold ball of excitement began to pulse in the pit of his stomach along with an aching in his groin.

“How is that?” Mikhail whispered in his ear before kissing his way back down Shane’s jaw and nibbling on his neck.

“At least one standard deviation above awesome.” Mikhail’s chuckle brushed the back of his neck, and Shane fought off a hard, quick shudder of desire.

Mikhail moved up and started to work on Shane’s other side. “And how is this?”

Shane whimpered. The warm hands on his flesh, Mikhail’s pouty, kissy little mouth…. “Amazing,” he breathed. And then, while he was still sane—“You’re sure you want to do this now? With your mother and all?” Mikhail wrapped an arm around Shane’s chest, and Shane leaned back into him and swallowed. Mikhail wasn’t wearing a shirt. The swallowing didn’t take. He tried again and moaned a little in the other man’s embrace.

“You want I should wait until my mother is dead to find happiness?

There is something very wrong with that, don’t you think?” For a moment Mikhail rested his cheek against Shane’s, and Shane rubbed up against him. “Besides,” he added practically, “I have just tested clean after my window period. And I know you are practically a virgin. This could be my only chance to ever have sex
without
a condom, and I am not going to pass that up.”

Shane snorted. “I wouldn’t count on it being your
only
one,” he said with some determination, “but other than that, you’re absolutely right.

You should be happy now.”

He stood then and turned, and Mikhail followed him. Shane looked down into his eyes, their color almost transparent in the soft light, and held Mikhail’s face between his palms, then lowered his head for a kiss.

And the two of them exploded.

Mouths tangled, meshed, devoured. Shane’s breath came in ragged pants, and his hands came up to Mikhail’s bare shoulders, his thumbs resting on Mikhail’s collarbones as he backed the smaller man into the hallway wall.

Mikhail grunted and pushed under Shane’s sweater and T-shirt.

Shane gasped and sucked in his stomach, and Mikhail made a little sound of unhappiness. His hands were rough as he broke off the kiss and tugged Shane’s shirts up above his head, dropping them right there on the floor.

He pushed on Shane’s shoulders, and as Shane backed up, Mikhail surveyed his chest and the scars on his side, over his ribs, that were still raw and red.

His hand came up to caress them, the touch absurdly gentle. He traced the long, uneven rip on Shane’s side, the edges ragged with the infection that had almost killed Shane, and then, with shaking fingers, ran a little pathway over the network of even, slicing surgery scars that went everywhere from abdomen to his chest.

Shane captured his hand with a firm grip. “Hey,” he murmured. “It’s okay. I really am fine.”

Mikhail nodded wordlessly and then leaned forward and kissed the bare skin of Shane’s shoulder, kissed him again down the centerline, and again along the other side. Shane huffed out air and tilted his head back, wrapping his arms under Mikhail’s and across his back as Mikhail 210

continued. He rubbed his hands in Shane’s pelt, making delighted sounds, and lowered his head to a flat, plum-colored nipple and sucked hard, then worried the end with his teeth.

“Aahhhhh…,” Shane gasped, and Mikhail looked up at him, a smile flirting with his sulky mouth.

“You trust me?” Mikhail whispered huskily, and Shane gaped at him, his eyes having trouble focusing from the whole-body tingle that was buzzing along his skin.

“Trust you?” God, he felt dumb. Mikhail’s hand reached into his belt and started to tug. At first Shane thought they were going to crush up against each other again, which made his brain fuzz-crackle because (ohmigod!) Mickey wasn’t wearing anything but boxer shorts with little lines on them, and then Mikhail undid the buckle and shoved Shane’s jeans and briefs down to his knees, and Shane’s brain gave up the fuzz-crackle and just plain exploded.

“Yes,” Mikhail muttered, looking at Shane’s cock with big eyes and running a pointed pink tongue over his full lower lip. “Trust me. That once will not be enough. That doing this will not mean I have ‘done that’.” He ripped his eyes way from Shane’s lower body and looked earnestly into Shane’s eyes. “Do you trust me now, to do this?” Shane whimpered a little, and Mikhail reached out a hand and danced a flirting little touch along the tender skin of his erection, his fingers teasing the coarse black hair at his groin. “Oh God,” he rasped.