But Not For Me

They're writing songs of love, but not for me

A lucky star's above, but not for me

With love to lead the way, I've found more clouds are grey

Than any Russian play could guarantee

I was a fool to fall and get that way

Heigh ho, alas, and also lack‑a‑day

Although I can't dismiss the memory of her kiss

I guess she's not for me

It all began so well, but what an end

This is the time a feller needs a friend

When every happy plot ends with a marriage knot

And there's no knot for me

George and Ira Gershwin

by

Jane Fairfax

PRELUDE

Cambridge, England, December 1954

In the springtime, in rare days of sunshine when the only rainshowers came from the pastel petals of flowering chestnuts, Cambridge was made for watercolors. The warm cast of ancient bricks echoed and returned the sun’s basking rays, and students and dons walked alike in a shared halo of reflected light and warmth.

But too often, particularly in the Michaelmas term’s short, dark and dreary periods, the city was only fit for charcoals and sepias, dark washes of clouds and mists of scudding rain and low-lying clouds.

So it was for Illya Kuryakin in his last year of University as he finished his doctorate in Quantum Mechanics. He’d begun his graduate work at the Sorbonne, in Paris. That city could also be grey and gloomy in the rains of winter. But Paris was Paris, after all. Little in that magical, fairytale city could fall short to Cambridge, England, not the food, not the wine, not the weather or the scenery. But Illya Kuryakin had not regretted leaving the Sorbonne for Cambridge. He preferred the cloistral hush of great halls of learning to the chatter of the afternoon cafes. He felt transported in the great libraries, more so than he’d even felt during the brief affaire he’d had with a fellow graduate student in Paris, a pretty pro-socialist girl who’d been as attracted to his ideals and his accent as she’d been to himself. She’d found herself an even better political catch and they’d parted friends, or at least as much friends as two past lovers could be.

But Illya Kuryakin had learned much in the two months of their enjoying each other’s bodies. Sex was pleasurable, but transient. The pleasure faded with the glow of orgasm. But learning was a pleasure that stayed with you, and grew with interest. Lovers left you, sex was transient. Facts could be hoarded.

During his time in Cambridge he lived a little like a monk, like an old Don who’d forgotten about girls in the unisex halls of University. And he was, surprisingly, very happy.

So it was as he packed his notebooks for a study session, strapped them on the tray of his bicycle and set off from his digs for the lab, the libraries and the echoing lecture halls.

Cambridge was also a city of bells. On Sunday, they all rang out, summoning the faithful to services. St. Michaels, St. Albans, and all the others, clanging, roaring and chiming, filling the ear and the soul with the siren promise to be shrived.

But Illya Kuryakin had no soul. Soviet born and bred, he was quite unaffected as he passed the first year students who were filing out of campus to the temples of their faiths. He leaned his bike against a convenient wall, unpacked his tray of notebooks and headed for the lab. The rooms were open; Cambridge still had a church-like trust to it. The staff of the university, the proctors, scouts and bulldogs, kept an eye on the comings and goings of any of the 'town' who were not of the fold. Those in University were largely of the privileged class, who could be trusted not to pinch on so minor a scale. No doubt they amassed sufficient wealth by exploiting the poor and taking advantage of their slanted economic systems. Illya Kuryakin had never parted from the indoctrination of his youth. He might go to school with the wealthy scions of Britain, but he lived in a cold water flat, he had very little pocket money, and he rarely considered himself well-fed. His sympathies were far more with the labor movements in the town than the exclusive clubs of the gown. But he was here to learn physics, not preach politics, and he kept his opinions to himself.

His lack of privileged distractions served him well too. While his fellow students had a round in the pubs, or rowed single sculls on the river, or went dancing in Eights Week, he studied. When they squired girls through the Botanical Gardens or went to society balls, he studied. When they went to parties in the evening or to church on Sunday, he studied. He was by far and away the best student of his class, a favorite even among his most dour of instructors. And he pleased his superiors in the KGB. He had no choice in that, of course, it was the top of First Level or an ignominious trip back home to Moscow in disgrace. But he found it no chore to keep his nose to the grindstone.

He sat down at his lab bench, flipped open his marbled composition book, found the thread-bound page where he’d left off his experiments and went back to work.

He concentrated deeply when he studied. He’d learned early on to discipline himself against distractions. Noise, hunger and cold were common ones. He paid no attention as the door to the lab room opened and closed. It could be rare patrol checking the room, making the rounds. Or a fellow student behind on his work, making the sacrifice of a Sunday morning. But when the warm presence of a body moved closer to him, he looked up, blinking as he adjusted his eyes from close work to distance. He was beginning to squint as he read. He thought he might need reading glasses soon.

At the sight of his mechanics professor he slid off the stool and inclined his head sharply in deference. “Good morning, sir.”

“At work as always, I see, Mr. Kuryakin.”

“Yes, sir.”

Professor Archibald Bayonne was a powerful man in his early fifties. His burly body, corded forearms and muscular biceps and legs were usually swathed and concealed in the black folds of an academic gown. But today he wore only a tweed suit, the jacket slung over one shoulder, the tie crammed into a pocket, shirt sleeves rolled up over his tanned arms. His body could have belonged to one of the bricklayers rebuilding the retaining river walls or bridges, or laying cobbles in the city squares and streets, rather than that of an academic aesthete. In spite of the fact that Illya Kuryakin trained regularly, the arm the professor laid alongside his own was very nearly twice his size. Bayonne flipped over the pages of his notebook, looking through his latest experiment. “Very nice work.”

“Thank you, professor.”

Bayonne caught Kuryakin noting his calloused hands, and his teeth flashed in a smile. “I row at dawn, every morning with a club. I don’t want to end up one of those helpless old codgers, who can barely hobble from office to lecture hall, leaning on a cane. It is the peril of an academic life to neglect the physical body. You might take that warning to heed, young man.”

“I train, sir,” Kuryakin said, the barest hint of an affront in his even voice. His fingers curled reflexively in the hint of a fist at the challenge in the man’s voice, and then uncurled remembering where he was. Whom he was with. As an undercover agent, he still trained daily with instructors, but they didn’t teach him physics.

“Do you?” Bayonne smiled. “Perhaps you’d be interested in joining our club. It’s mostly a few dons, like myself, a few higher level instructors. No students yet. But you graduate this spring, and you have an instructorship waiting for you. You’d fit in well enough with our group. Take off your jacket and let me see your muscles."

Kuryakin hesitated, but the order was plain, the man was waiting. And he was his superior. He slid his jacket off.

A hand closed on his bicep, feeling it through the starched shirt. Ran down his arm to his forearm. “You do train. Not enough, you need some meat on your bones, I think.”

Kuryakin looked up at the don. Bayonne was tall, a full head higher than himself. There was a look in the man’s eyes he didn’t understand. Didn’t quite like.

“How’s your chest?” Bayonne asked. “Do you weight train?”

“A little,” Kuryakin allowed, suspiciously. This seemed more than just a casual interest, but he couldn’t tell where it was leading. As an undercover spy, he was always expecting to have his cover tested, potentially blown if he was indiscreet. He wondered if he’d revealed some slip that made Bayonne realize he was KGB.

“Let’s see.” The fingers pushed aside his tie, slid to the shirt buttons over his chest. Undid them. The played over his narrow chest, thwarted from reaching skin by the thin undershirt Kuryakin was wearing. Labs were unheated and chilly. He always dressed in layers, and thanked that now. He didn’t care for hands on him. “A little only, I see. You could use some more workout time. Do you spar? Box?”

“A little,” Kuryakin forced himself to stay still under the hand on his chest.

“Perhaps you’d like to work out with me sometime? Privately. One on one?”

Kuryakin met the man’s eyes, not certain what he was asking. They were amused, assured, confident. Kuryakin stared at him, confused. Then the man’s tongue licked his lips slowly. The hands on his chest reached out, fingers rolling a nipple slightly through the soft cotton of his undershirt. Kuryakin swallowed hard, finally sure of his meaning. “Can I — Can I think about it?”

“Are you a virgin?” Bayonne asked softly. “Not with women. You know what I mean.”

Kuryakin nodded dumbly, stunned at this turn of conversation.

The fingers slid away from his nipple. “Of course you can think about it. I could teach you a great deal. And not just in the lab. You’d like it. And it would make your instructorship almost an assured thing. Do you follow me?”

Kuryakin nodded.

The hand rebuttoned his shirt. Helped him back into his jacket. “There you are. All put together again. Well, I have to be off. Time for tea with the wife and kiddies.” He touched Kuryakin’s jaw lightly. “Come to me anytime, my boy. You wouldn’t regret it.”

Kuryakin stood in the lab, staring after him, his exercise book forgotten.

r

Of course he had to report it. Face scarlet, stuttering as he hadn’t since childhood, he got the words out to the assistant officer on duty. Then he was forced to repeat every detail of the sordid proposition to the head of the station, when he was called in. The man was skeptical, incredulous. He kept tugging on his short beard, frowning in distress But finally he shook his head. “It is almost too much to hope for. Bayonne, vulnerable. And to this one! We struggle to find important contacts to blackmail and turn to us, and then you — you!” He rounded on Kuryakin almost in accusation "— have such a prize fall in your lap!”

“I didn’t — ”

“It has to go to Moscow,” the chief said, cutting off Kuryakin’s words impatiently. “This man could be someone else’s target. We can’t risk interfering. I hope he is,” he added, giving Kuryakin a look compounded of envy and disgust. “Someone who’s been working hard on recruiting agents, rather than studying for esoteric degrees. Someone who deserves such a windfall,” he sighed, and then straightened. “But if they give us the go-ahead, then you’ll do it.”

Kuryakin swallowed hard. His expression was not missed by the older officer, who straightened, frowning.

“You haven’t been trained for this?”

“No, Comrade Captain.”

The man shook his head again. “I don’t know what they’re thinking of. A boy as pretty as you ought to have been trained in the basics at least. We’re lucky, I suppose, that you didn’t run screaming from the lab like a virgin schoolgirl.”

“I was given extra training in math and languages in preparation for this degree candidacy, Comrade Captain,” Kuryakin said coolly, “Rather than the usual course.”

“Make a note of that to Moscow, that if they want this operation done by Kuryakin, they’ll have to send along an instructor. Someone good, it will have to be a crash course.” The chief glared at him. “You’re causing a lot of trouble here.”

Kuryakin stiffened, well aware causing trouble came back to one unpleasantly. “I’m sorry, Comrade Captain.”

The man shrugged philosophically. “Never mind, it’s not as if you had the choice. If you bring a man like that into our hands, it’s worth a year of trouble. Worth every ruble we’ve put into you. You may have found us quite a catch, boy,” he grudgingly allowed.

“Thank you, Comrade Captain.”

“May have. That has yet to be proven. Go on; get out of here; go back to your schoolbooks. I have work to do.”

Kuryakin went, not taking offense at the implied insult. He’d expected some reproof. Even if the news were good, and Kuryakin unpatriotically wished it were not, for his own sake, most would probably think he didn’t deserve the luck, or that others were more deserving. They were welcome to it, in his opinion. And to the assignment.

Two days passed before the answer came back from Moscow, before Bayonne’s name was run through their many computers, and the man was confirmed to be untangled from any other spy operations. The message relayed through secret channels was brief. “Target approved. Instructor for Kuryakin due on evening flight.”

Illya Kuryakin, who’d been more Cambridge physics student than undercover spy, suddenly had a secondary career.

r

Kuryakin was sent to meet the train that brought his instructor to Cambridge. He went unhappily, not liking the travel, wishing he could somehow take advantage of the darkness and disappear. But he surely had a tail, probably several on him. And even should he elude them all he would be found. Eventually. So he met the train, wearing the clothing that would allow the man to recognize him. A red woolen scarf. He saw the agent get off the train before the man identified him. Watched him lock onto the red color and then onto his blue eyes. He was a tall man. Fit, like an operative. He walked with a light confident step, born of regular training and a disciplined body. He looked more like a martial arts instructor than a man whose chief interest was sex.

Perhaps, in this context, sex was considered a type of marital art. Certainly it was to be used as a weapon. But it was one Kuryakin had never thought to wield. Never wanted to wield. When the siren female spies had tried to practice on him, lure him into their webs, when he’d watched his own male colleagues throw their own nets of seduction and blackmail out to male and female targets, he’d closed his eyes and his mind to it. And his body. But that was no longer an option.

That was life, Kuryakin thought, toughening himself to the Russian cynicism he’d fostered as a protective shield. He’d get through this as he got through everything else.

“Captain Pavel Ivanovich Chyovar,” the man said softly as he drew up beside him.

“Illya Nickovetch Kuryakin,” he introduced himself.

“So you’re the boy who caught the big fish,” the man remarked as he slung his bag over his shoulder, brushing off Kuryakin’s attempt to take it. His voice was quiet, pitched for their ears alone, but crisp and distinct. “Congratulations,” he shook his hand with what seemed like sincere admiration. With some amusement, he added, “There are agents in Moscow right now who are cursing your luck, having missed such chances themselves. You may have very well made the high point of your career. Some men work all their lives to recruit only malcontented, worthless file clerks. Of course, for the kind of recruitment you did,” the man gave him a speculative work, “it helps to be in your twenties rather than your forties.”

“Thank you, Comrade Captain,” Kuryakin said woodenly.

“But you don’t feel so lucky, eh boy?” Chyovar gave him a shrewd glance. “Don’t worry, there are worse ways of bringing in an agent. He’ll at least enjoy himself before he’s reeled in and incriminated. And, in spite of what you’re thinking, so will you.”

“Yes, Comrade Captain,” Kuryakin said, clearly not believing it for an instant.

Chyovar only laughed.

The house was deserted as they arrived, the last of the tenants leaving in a car as they walked up. All who lived there were Soviets, illegals under false identities, with legitimate covers much like that of Kuryakin’s. He looked at the blackened windows with a trace of alarm. Curfews for Soviet agents were strict, unless one was on assignment. The house had never been empty before. He had sudden thoughts of police action, of deportation. Perhaps they had all been discovered, raided. Imprisoned. The alarm was in his eyes as he drew up to the house.

“Why have they all left?” Kuryakin anxiously asked Chyovar, since there was no one else of rank to question. “Someone should be here to greet you! To brief you.”

“I’ve been briefed, son. They are gone because they are doing you a favor,” Chyovar said easily, as he looked around the barren common room. “You all live very Spartanly, don’t you? Fortunately I came prepared. He removed a bottle from his bag. Took two glasses from the sideboard. Poured two drinks, one just an inch, the other a stiff one. He gave the full glass to Kuryakin. “Drink up, lad.” He tossed back his own drink.

“A favor?” Kuryakin took the glass, sniffed its contents. Vodka. High proof.

“The first time a man submits himself to another man in the service of his country, he deserves the respect of privacy.” Chyovar capped the bottle. Put it back in his bag with his own glass.

Kuryakin’s fingers tightened on the glass. “You are starting tonight?”

“We haven’t much time. Drink up, boy,” Chyovar gestured to the glass. “You will need it.”

Kuryakin tossed back the liquor. The motion came easily even if his reaction to the alcohol was less facile. It had been some time since he’d tasted true Russian vodka. The liquid burned all the way down to his stomach, shocking his system after his long abstinence. It flooded his blood and swirled his head. Chyovar took his arm, his grip both supportive and confining. “Bring the glass. Show me your room.”

Kuryakin led him up the stairs to his attic room.

Chyovar set his bag down on the desk, surveying the room, the narrow bed, the desk with its shelf of books and notebooks. The flickering single bulb. There was an oil lamp on the desk. Chyovar’s head brushed the rafters. He was longer than the narrow bed crammed into one side of the room. “Not much of a place. How long have you lived here?”

“Nearly three years.”

“So little,” Chyovar said, eyes inventorying the limited possessions. “You travel lightly, boy. You don’t hold onto much, do you?”

“I’ve always had what I needed,” Kuryakin said quietly.

“And now you will have something you do not want. But it will be all right. The first time you may find difficult. But you’ll come to like it.”

“That’s not my interest,” Kuryakin said, his lips twisting in rejection and disgust.

“It doesn’t matter,” Chyovar said simply. “You’ll learn to respond. Anything can be learned. You appear to be an expert at studying,” he gestured to the utilitarian room, “so you should not find these lessons too difficult. Arousal looks better in the pictures we will take. And pictures are what this is all about.” He smiled as Kuryakin grimaced. “Don’t worry. We will block out your face.” He shrugged. “Enough talk. Turn down your bed. Strip.”

Kuryakin stared at him, swallowing hard.

“I didn’t come from Moscow to see the City of London, boy.” Chyovar sat in the desk chair, the room’s only chair, and waited. “I came for this. For you. It is a little too late to lose your nerve.”

“I haven’t lost it.” Kuryakin said coolly, moving quietly to obey, hands trembling just a little as he pulled back the scratchy wool blanket, the coarse linsey-woolsey top sheet. He sat down on the bed and unlaced the heavy leather shoes. Slid off his socks and tucked them inside the shoes, his long toes curling on the splintering bare boards of the attic floor. He spared a glance at Chyovar, waiting patiently, and undid his jacket. Folded it matter-of-factly and put it on the bed. Undid his tie, fingers sliding through the silk and folded that. Slid to his shirt buttons and unbuttoned them one by one, fingers reluctant as they laddered down his chest. Too soon he was done, and the shirt was open to his belt. He pulled out the tail, undid the last buttons, folded that and set it aside. He was shivering a little in the unheated room. The wind roared by the attic windows, and his own courage under Chyovar’s steady gaze was wavering like a flag in the wind. Swallowing again, he unbuckled his belt. Slid it through the loops and added that to the pile. Setting his jaw he pulled out the hem of his undershirt and pulled it over his head in one fluid movement. His nipples tightened in the cold air, anxiety added to their stiffness. He stood then, undid his pants, slid the zipper down. Pushed pants and briefs to the floor. Stepped out of them, bent awkwardly to retrieve them and folded them on top of the pile of clothes. Took the pile in his arms and moved to place it on top of the small chest of drawers that held his other clothes. The house was old and the room had no closet.

“Give them to me,” Chyovar said quietly, standing. Chyovar took the clothes from him, put them on the dresser. Looked him over with the impersonality of a trainer. “You are very young. Perhaps too young for this. I don’t break in boys, Illya Nickovetch. What I do is bad enough, but I train men, not abuse children. How old are you?” He said it with a touch of accusation in his voice.

“I’m twenty-three.”

“So your file says. You look much younger. Both in face and body. I would not have believed it, but if you and your file both are lying, you are at least consistent with each other. Have you had a woman yet?”

“Yes.” Kuryakin answered slowly.

“The Parisian girl?”

“Yes, Comrade Captain.”

“Good. I don’t like a boy’s first experience to be with another man. It ruins him for women, in my opinion. But you bedded this girl for several months according to your file. Is this true?”

“Yes, Comrade Captain.”

Chyovar nodded. “Good enough. One Parisian girl will teach you more about sex than ten Russian women.”

Kuryakin blushed slightly, but held his ground.

“So, you understand women then. What happens now should not scar you too much. You may find it a not entirely pleasant interval, but when it is over, you will forget about it and go back to women. As you should. Sit.” Chyovar gestured him to the bed. “I will teach you only two things, Illya Nickovetch. The first is intercourse, to offer your body to a man, and to respond to that possession. The response, you understand, is necessary for the pictures. Also, so your target doesn’t become suspicious as to your true motives. We’ve had that happen before. If an agent appears ambivalent, sometimes the target becomes nervous, and will leave before he implicates himself. So you don’t have the option of lying there like a sack of turnips. That would be easier for you, but any fool could teach you that. I take some pride in my work. Those whom I train know what the task entails and do it well.” Chyovar glanced at Kuryakin and went on.

“The second is what the English call fellatio, to take a man in your mouth. Some men find that easier than being penetrated. Some find it harder, as you need to actively pleasure the target, instead of taking the more passive role. But it doesn’t matter which you prefer. We’ve discovered your target likes both, so you’ll learn both.

“If this were to be your first profession, you would be taught a great deal more. But we are pressed for time, and you have no need to learn to entice a man, or any of the other twisted games such deviates like to play. Your target selected you, so enticement is not necessary. And from our research, we believe he is a fairly straightforward man, who simply prefers young men. So you are fortunate in that you have relatively little to learn. I will teach you only these two lessons, but you will learn them very well.” Chyovar fixed him with a cold glance. “I expect you to excel at them as you do your other studies. I did not come all this way to see you a failure, or to fail myself. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Comrade Captain.” Kuryakin said, understanding an order when he heard it.

“Very well then.” Chyovar turned out the garret light, struck a match to the oil lamp. Turned it up to a soft glow, enough to see expressions. “Lie back on the bed, lean against the headboard and spread your legs, knees up.” Chyovar slid off his own jacket. “You’ll learn intercourse first, because that is more painful, if not more difficult. And because most men fear this the most. You’ll be able to concentrate better after your first time is over. An hour from now, the worst will be over for you.”

Kuryakin straightened his back, standing naked in the soft light of the room. But he moved slowly to the bed.

“After that,” Chyovar continued, “you should not find fellatio so daunting.” He slid off his pants, watching Kuryakin’s eyes as they slid to his groin, fixed on his fully erect cock. “I am big as you can see. Bigger than almost all men you would ever encounter. But there is a reason why trainers are large. After you’ve trained with me, you will find submitting to another not as difficult. We don’t want you to panic if your target has a giant cock. In fact,” he said casually, “we want you to be able to take it easy in a target’s bed. Your training sessions should always be more difficult than anything you’ll encounter on assignment. You can take comfort in that. I’ll prepare you well. By the time you are under him, you’ll find this all quite easy and natural. ”

“Natural?” the word was torn from Kuryakin’s mouth as he sat tentatively on the edge of the bed.

Chyovar fished into his bag, took out a jar of lubricant. “Second nature, then,” the KGB man said, smiling. “It’s not your true nature, I’m sure. But you’ll have an experience in common with your Parisian girl, when next you meet. You’ll both have lain down for men.”

“I didn’t hurt her,” Kuryakin said coolly.

“Don’t worry, you won’t be torn,” Chyovar said, bringing his materials to the bed table. “I wouldn’t risk spoiling you for the man for whom you’re being trained. In fact, I’ll take very good care to ensure you reach him as intact as possible.”

“Intact?” Kuryakin questioned softly. He’d assumed the position, legs trembling slightly, his eyes fastened on Chyovar’s cock.

“As intact as a man can be, who is no longer any kind of a virgin,” Chyovar said, coming down on the bad. “Whatever innocence you still possess, you will lose tonight, Illya Nickovetch. But you’ll survive. You may even be stronger for this.”

Kuryakin leaned hard back against the headboard as Chyovar slid between his thighs. He closed his eyes tightly.

“Open them,” Chyovar ordered. “This is not like your KGB training. Nor is this a torture session you can mentally escape from. You will keep your eyes on the man you are with. You will convince him that you are with him willingly.” He smiled at Kuryakin as the younger man opened his eyes, blinking rapidly. “It is all right to be a little nervous with a target. Even to be scared. They can like that. But you must convince him you want to be here.”

Kuryakin nodded dumbly. His jaw set, but his eyes never wavered from Chyovar’s. The older man nodded approval.

“Good enough. Now, do you want me to take you, Illya Nickovetch? You must say yes. The Soviet Union does not force agents into this service. But your sacrifice won’t be forgotten.”

Kuryakin met his eyes resolutely. “Yes. I agree.” Closed his mouth over the required answer. “I want it.”

“Very good. Eventually, you will come to even mean those words. But it’s enough for now that you say them.” Slick fingers slid between his legs. Kuryakin kept his eyes open, fixed on the man above him as he was stretched and prepared. He was trembling only a little now. Tense with fear, but yielding to the fingers that opened him. And then the cock that moved against him.

Chyovar moved forward, and Kuryakin threw his head back as his waist and hips were grasped. The momentum of his life suddenly coalesced into the head of one cock, brought up tight against his anus. He held his breath, suddenly anxious with fear. And then it began.

The preparations, all of them, were adequate. The liquor, the absence of his colleagues, the events set in motion only days before soon came to fruition. The darkened, empty house resounded to Kuryakin’s pained cry some minutes later. But no one but Chyovar heard his agony, no one but the trainer knew any of the painful details of his submission. Only the two of them knew of those moments, as Chyovar transformed him from an ordinary young man, if a KGB agent under secret orders can ever be said to be ordinary, to a man who knew the terrible depths a body can be subjected to in the name of sacrifice. He’d been through tough training before. He’d even been tortured. But this was different. He was transformed that night, but the physical was only a small part of it.

Burned in the flames of sex, Illya Kuryakin was reborn a different creature. He was not physically injured. When he went to Bayonne a few days later, he wasn’t even torn. But neither was he any longer, in any possible way, any kind of a virgin.

You could see it in his shadowed, hooded eyes, if you bothered to examine them. But for many, many years, no one bothered to look too closely.

New York City, New York, December 1960

Napoleon Solo turned the file over in his hand. “Illya Nickovetch Kuryakin. He earned himself quite a record in Survival School.”

“Almost as good as yours, Mr. Solo. I suggest you show him the ropes. He’s spent time in Western Europe: Paris, London.” Waverly opened the drawer that held his many tobaccos, his gaze roving over them, choosing one.

“Your old stomping ground.”

Waverly filled his pipe and struck a match to it. “But he’s never been to New York. Or the States for that matter.”

“Be glad to,” Solo said absently, looking over the file. “I imagine with these degrees he’ll be pulling some time in the labs.”

“We want to keep his science skills up,” Waverly said, puffing away. “They could be useful. But he’ll be a full time agent. Section Two.”

“Quite a shot,” Solo remarked, looking over his firing range scores. “And explosives' training. That’s a plus.”

“Mr. Kuryakin has quite a few talents. Not quite well rounded, but certainly a bit of a renaissance man.”

“Uh-huh,” Solo remarked. “Sting training? What’s that?”

Waverly removed his pipe, regarded Solo with a fishy eye. “It’s something the Soviets do, when they have a man who’s willing to incriminate himself with another man.”

“Homosexual blackmail,” Solo said, making a face. “Not pleasant duty.”

“Quite. Clearly it wasn’t Mr. Kuryakin’s career choice. He seemed to have fallen into it accidentally. Was tutored for it in London, instead of the usual Moscow course. It must have been a rush job.”

“I’m glad U.N.C.L.E. is not the KGB,” Solo remarked, eyes running through the rest of the file, shaking out the picture that was clipped to the back. “I wouldn’t care for that myself.”

“True, but at least we have a trained agent, if we ever have such a need,” Waverly commented, going back to his pipe.

“That’s true,” Solo echoed, eyes caught by the photograph clipped to the back of the file. The man in the picture appeared younger than the years claimed by his file. Eyes as blue as autumn skies gazed out from under sunshine bangs. The overlong hair looked as soft as cornsilk, teasing tiny, nearly lobe-less ears. Sweeping bangs covered a broad forehead balanced by sharpened aristocratic nose . A tense, almost thin upper lip was belied by a lower one full enough to belong on a pin up picture. The rose-pink mouth was oddly seductive for a man, the skin a combination of cream and gold. And there was something in the depths of those eyes. “I can see how he fell into that duty,” Solo muttered. “He’s beautiful.”

“Quite,” Waverly agreed again. “It’s fortunate you’re a ladies' man, Mr. Solo.”

The Chief Enforcement Agent smiled and nodded. “You’re right about that, sir.”

June, 1964

Solo had forgotten the odd notation in Illya Kuryakin’s chart in the reality of his everyday fieldwork. Illya Kuryakin was a good man to have at his side, talented and resourceful, loyal and reliable, not so enamored of his record that he was unwilling to do the scutwork Solo foisted on him. He was as grumbly as Eeyore — Eeyore was a Soviet KGB agent, Kuryakin had snarled in reply when he learned the reference — but he also had a trace of mischievous fun that came out when Solo sometimes least wanted it, too often at his own expense.

They teamed more and more, and finally after a long talk, requested a permanent partnership. Waverly acceded without a word. Then they were a team on paper as well as in thought. “Solo and Kuryakin” became one word rather than two. In some respects they were one agent. In others, they were completely different individuals. Like in sex.

Solo discovered his partner was an aesthete, someone who took women only rarely and never seemed to seek them. He occasionally let himself be caught, that was all. It mystified Solo, for he could see his blond partner had his own following of eager beauties. But Kuryakin charmed and complimented them, when he couldn’t avoid them, in a courtly old world way they found exotic and endearing. And one that kept them at a respectable distance. He rarely bedded them.

“Don’t fuss, Napoleon,” he would say, when Solo would coax him to join him in some bistro, to pair up with a free lady, scout for an available one while Solo squired the girl of the week, or just cruise together with his partner, both men on the prowl.

But tonight Solo was back unexpectedly, looking disconsolate.

“Don’t tell me the world is bereft of women,” Kuryakin remarked over the pages of his hefty book.

“It’s this town,” Solo complained. “Shuts up tight at 5:00.”

“It is Sunday, Napoleon.”

“There’s not even a barrio open. Not even an illegal one.”

“You’ll survive,” Kuryakin said unsympathetically. “We’ll be back in New York tomorrow evening.”

Solo pulled off his tie and jacket, and slouched across his bed. “What are you reading?”

Kuryakin showed him the book.

“It’s Russian,” Solo objected, handing it back.

“So am I, Napoleon.” Kuryakin replied mildly.

“So tell me, partner mine, how Russians discovered the secret of sexual abstinence?”

“Our apartments are very crowded, and our winters are long and cold and even in the summer, every clump of bushes in the park is occupied by a couple, with another pair impatiently waiting for them to finish.”

Solo grimaced appreciatively. “I suppose the fact that you’re reading means you finished the report,” he suggested casually.

“I’m not doing the report, Napoleon.” Kuryakin returned just as calmly. “It’s your turn to write it. As you well know.”

“But there was the bet that you lost,” Solo pointed out.

“I didn’t lose that bet, Napoleon.”

“You didn’t hit all five moths,” Solo argued.

“I did. There were the wings of the last one. The body was just blown away.”

Solo snorted derisively. “More like flown away.”

Kuryakin’s jaw set. “I hit it. You lost.”

“You’re just a sore loser.”

“Fine, we’ll have the contest again when we get back. But I am still not writing the report.”

“Let’s settle it now then,” Solo said, knowing a losing proposition when he heard one. “We’ll wrestle for it.”

“That’s not fair,” Kuryakin pointed out. “You know you’re the better wrestler. I’m the better shot. You set the stakes last time.”

“Just take me one time out of three,” Solo said. “Those are good odds.”

Kuryakin shook his head in amusement. “You can’t mind writing up the report this much. What is this about? You can’t be so bored you’d start a fight over it?.”

“Not a fight. Just some fun. After a mission, I’m hyper,” Solo confessed. “Sitting around and reading is not my cup of tea. Come on, Illya. You’ve been reading long enough. Don’t you want to work off some steam?”

“Not really,” Kuryakin sighed. “But purely as a favor, I’ll indulge you.” He set his book aside. Removed his glasses and put them in their case. Solo stripped down to shorts and T-shirt, cleared the chair away to leave a square space between their two beds. Kuryakin took off his pajama top and bottoms, clad only in boxers. “But I’m still not writing the report,” he warned.

“One fall,” Solo said, going into his stance. “And we’ll see.”

“I’m not.”

They grappled. Let go and circled for better position. Grappled again. Kuryakin tried to pull Solo’s feet out from under him. Solo avoided the move, deftly. Kuryakin tried again on the heels of the first, surprising his partner. They went down in a tumble, legs intertwined, faces inches from each other, gasping mouths barely apart. Kuryakin froze suddenly his eyes wide as Solo’s fully erect cock pressed him, between their two layers of undershorts. Solo froze too, their eyes meeting.

“Illya,” Solo said, and something clicked over for him. He leaned down and very slowly brought his mouth closer to his partner’s, that extra inch of space where acceptable crossed into personal. He violated it further. Traced the succulent lips with the tip of his tongue. Kuryakin stared up at him, not responding as the tongue caressed him.

“Do you want to? Would you like to?” Solo asked. “It’s your choice.” He brought his mouth down again as Kuryakin didn’t react, didn’t refuse. Kissed him slowly, leisurely. After a moment, Kuryakin finally kissed him back, eyes wide and surprised, as if he couldn’t quite believe what they were doing.

“Illya.” Solo said again. He pulled his partner’s shorts down. Kicked off his own. “Shall we finish this wrestling match in a more comfortable place?”

And so they went to bed.

Later that year, when Solo told one of Kuryakin’s captors, “You have something which belongs to me,” he meant it in a literal, as well as a figurative sense.

They continued their occasional dalliances whenever female partners were unavailable or unwilling. It worked for Solo. If Kuryakin had any objections to the encounters, or their abrupt cessations upon returning to New York, he never voiced them.

He did question it once, laying with his head in Solo’s lap one evening in the deep woods, the taste of Solo’s come still in his mouth. “Do you think it's dangerous to do this? Do you worry that it will come out unpleasantly?”

“Do you?” Solo asked.

Kuryakin shrugged. “It was my own service that trained me for this. And you’re my superior. I can hardly refuse you.”

“Illya!” Solo looked down at him. “You’re not saying you felt coerced into my bed?”

“No, of course not. I want this,” he echoed, a paraphrase of his past echoing back to him. “But you bear more the responsibility for it than I do.”

“I don’t think it’s dangerous,” Solo said. “Not in that sense. It’s you who are dangerous to me.”

Kuryakin turned his head to look at Solo. “Me?”

“You.” Solo tousled his hair fondly. “You’re a little like Angelique to me.”

Kuryakin made a face. “Thanks a lot.”

“I mean you’re dangerous and forbidden. And a little bit irresistible.”

“Only a little bit?” Kuryakin turned, offended.

“Just a little bit,” Solo teased.

“We’ll see about that,” Kuryakin said, fondling the cock which obediently hardened in his hand. Solo moaned and pulled him up into a kiss.

“Only a little bit?” Kuryakin said when it was over.

“Maybe not a little,” Solo said and pulled him under him.

September 1964, New York

Solo wandered down to the locker-rooms attached to the gym in search of his partner, deftly avoiding any notice from the nearby medical section. Solo hadn’t been injured on the mission, and didn’t feel the need to have that verified by the medical powers that be. He had a mission folder in his hand, and an assignment he thought might interest his partner. Not that it would be easy duty, but it would give him a chance to ply the disguises with which he loved to experiment. And to use his Spanish.

He found Illya neck-deep in one of the whirlpool baths, head back against the tub rim, eyes closed, his hair in wild spikes on his sweat-beaded forehead. The stainless steel circular baths looked nothing so much like giant mixing bowls, or enormously oversized egg-cups. An agent soaking in one always looked incongruously like he was being boiled for some cannibal’s supper in the steamy water. As Solo approached, Kuryakin sank the few inches necessary to submerge himself completely, then rose again, impatiently shaking his dripping bangs out of his eyes.

Solo dipped a finger in the water, as if he were testing a dish and said thoughtfully, “Hmmn. I think another five minutes and you’ll be done.”

Kuryakin opened a jaundiced eye. “Haven’t you got anything better to do?”

Before Solo could answer, a huge black man came around the corner, clipboard under his arm, wiping his hands on a towel which he proceeded to throw in a duck-cloth basket in the corner. For all his girth, he moved lightly, his steps barely audible on the tile floor.

“How’re you doing in there, Junior?” the black man asked, coming over to the whirlpool. He laid a massive hand on Kuryakin’s shoulder, watching closely as the blond agent gritted his teeth and edged away. Solo watched frowning. Kuryakin had been shot in that shoulder in the Finny Foot Affair, and it still seized up on him occasionally. “Um, you got to soak a while longer I think,” the man noted, his voice soft, as soft as his footsteps, a slow molasses-like drawl. “Boil you up till those muscles are nice and pliable. Who’s this?” He turned his attention to Solo.

Solo introduced himself, now recognizing the man, though his presence was much more impressive than the tiny head shot that had been on his security folder.

“Angel Barnes,” the man returned, shaking his hand. “Just call me the Angel of Mercy.” His wide smile matched his broad shoulders.

“Mr. Barnes played quarterback on one of your ridiculous football teams,” Kuryakin noted sourly.

“Cornerback, cornerback,” Barnes quietly corrected. “That was before I retired and became a trainer.”

“Someone apparently had the bright idea that we needed to be kept in shape, Napoleon,” Kuryakin added.

“Well, injuries are injuries,” Barnes noted, his big hands once again busy kneading Kuryakin’s shoulder. “Though I’m more used to torn ligaments than bullet holes.”

“Ow!” Kuryakin winced. “Take it easy there.”

“We get those too,” Solo said, smiling a genial welcome at Barnes. “And don’t mind Illya. He’s always complaining.”

“I must say, I expected a whole lot different type of animal, seeing I’m told you guys run around saving the world,” Barnes continued. “Take this pitiful specimen,” he told Solo, indicating Kuryakin. “If I was fishing and hooked him, I’d throw him back. Leastways until he gained four inches and fifty pounds. I mean look at this sorry boy,” he took a step back and scrutinized the Russian agent from top to toes like a farmer sizing up a work horse while Kuryakin glared back under narrowed brows. Or like a trainer scrutinizing a football player. Barnes shook his head sadly, half teasing, half serious.

Solo knew what he meant; naked and drenched, Kuryakin did look more like a drowned rat than a deadly U.N.C.L.E. agent. But that wasn’t necessarily a detriment. Kuryakin’s inconsequential looks had caused more than one Thrush to underestimate his partner. And there was some truth to the statement, “The bigger they are, the harder they fall." But until someone had worked in the field, it was hard to explain how quickness and versatility could triumph over brawn. Though he suspected that Barnes knew some of that well enough, and was just looking for a rise. The man’s next words confirmed it.

“Just pitiful.” Barnes noted. “And carrying so light, too,” he added wickedly. “Junior, you got to take it out more, see if it’ll grow with some attention.”

Solo chuckled in spite of himself at that. Kuryakin turned on his partner, replying acridly. “No doubt you’ll tell me that if I pump it every night as Napoleon does, it will bulk up.”

Barnes howled, while Napoleon choked on his own laughter, finding the tables turned on him.

“I hear you don’t do bad for a white boy,” Barnes teased Solo, scrutinizing him in turn. “At least some part of you I hear is big. The rest of you seems just ordinary looking, seeing you’re this hotshot U.N.C.L.E. agent.”

Solo opened his mouth to reply, wondering where and from whom Barnes had heard those rumors, but no response came to mind, and Barnes had already turned his attention back to his patient, his hands once more kneading the pale shoulders. Solo noted this time Illya didn’t wince, just sunk deeper into the water.

“But you,” Barnes was saying to Kuryakin. “Just pitiful, boy.”

“I am, after all, a Caucasian,” Kuryakin replied, all mock-injured dignity.

Barnes chuckled. “I understand, brother. My sympathies.” He dug his fingers into the Soviet agent’s shoulder blade and seemed satisfied. “I think you’re ready for a rubdown. Twenty minutes under my magic hands and a second fifteen minute soak, and you won’t even know you have a shoulder, man. I guarantee it.”

“Uhnh.” Kuryakin grunted, non-committally.

Barnes turned to Solo. “You come in for a turn, Ace? Or just sightseeing?” He picked up the clipboard. “I don’t see your name down here for PT.”

“PT?” Solo queried.

“Physical therapy, man.” Barnes scrutinized him, from top to toes. “You pull something? Something hurt?”

“Uh, no,” Solo said quickly. “Just looking for my partner.”

“He ain’t going nowhere for a bit.” He turned to Kuryakin, who’d climbed out of the whirlpool and had flung a terry robe loosely around himself. “That left table, there, Junior. Face down, head toward the door, and lose that robe. I’ll be right there.”

“He’s got a name,” Solo said easily, smile still in place. He was beginning to find Barnes treatment of his partner a little irritating. Though he wasn’t quite sure why.

“Too long for me, Ace,” Barnes said, smiling too, but there was steel behind it. “I like 'em short. And it fits him, such a little guy.”

Solo gritted his teeth, surprised Kuryakin put up with this, and Barnes eyed him curiously. “What’s it to you anyway? He ain’t complaining.”

“I told you. He’s my partner.” Solo stressed the word, making it clear, somehow, that he had the upper claim.

“Uh-uh. Out there, he’s your partner.” Barnes pointed at the training room door. “In here, he’s all mine.” The smile never lifted, matching the determination behind it, even as Solo drew back, a little stunned at what he felt at such a pronouncement. He’d never socked a trainer before, but he could almost taste the temptation to do so. Damn foolish, since Illya clearly needed his attentions.

Barnes motioned Solo toward the door. “Now, I got work to do. Unless you want your partner to get all chilled before I get to that rubdown. Beat it, Ace.”

Solo went, seeing the logic in that. But he paused at the door, watching. Barnes had rubbed his hands together to warm them, then coated them with some liniment he took from a nearby jar.

“Here we go, Junior.” He clucked as Kuryakin tensed when the big hands touched him. “Ooh, all you U.N.C.L.E. agents just jump at a touch like chickens in the hen house when a fox comes calling. You got to learn to relax. Not everybody’s into torture.”

“I am relaxed,” Kuryakin growled back, turning his head to watch Barnes out of the corner of his eyes.

“Deep breath, then out.” Barnes instructed, turning the Soviet agent’s face forward and down. “Keep that neck straight. No need to be all twisted like a snake. Boy, you are all coiled up inside just like that shoulder muscle.” He waited while Kuryakin reluctantly complied. “Now three more deep breaths. That’s it. You got it.” He began a slow massage. “You also got more scars than a carvin’ board, Junior,” he noted critically. “But you wait and see. Angel’ll make your muscles like warm taffy. Knead you up like bread dough, and then you’ll rise and shine. That’s right. You close those baby blues and let me work.”

Solo left, breathing very carefully around a surprising flare of jealously. Then he shrugged and left Illya to his trainer. He knew a very dark and secluded map room, with an extra long table. It wasn’t padded like the one in the training room, but the girl he took there never seemed to mind.

MAIN STORY

Chaqua

October 1, 1964

A beautiful tropical night, stars hanging heavy in the sky, night air perfumed with flowers. It had once had such potential.

Illya Kuryakin sat on his hotel bed, enfolded in one towel, rubbing his hair dry with another and trying to keep the disappointment from showing on his face. He managed pretty well; he had a lot of practice concealing it from his partner under similar circumstances.

His partner. But at least for tonight, not his lover.

Napoleon Solo had chased him out of his second shower of the evening, his repeated scrubbings an attempt to eradicate the dirt and sweat of Chaqua prison. Solo had leapt in and out of the commandeered shower in record time. Now the senior agent was moving through the room in a controlled rush, preparing, with his usual fussy panache, for a date.

As usual, but not as expected, at least not for Illya Kuryakin.

When they had planned this mission, Kuryakin had expected a somewhat different outcome. Solo hadn’t exactly been enamored of “plain Jane” Salty Oliver, his female contact in Chaqua. Since there were few eligible women in the surroundings of the Chaqua Prison, and since for Solo, sex was almost a mandatory post-mission aperitif, Kuryakin had dared to hope that he and Napoleon would add another page to their on-again-off-again encounters. He’d been looking forward to it since Solo had first broached the mission to him, had been dreaming of it. Had counted on it. For once, he would have little likely competition. The encounter had seemed a sure thing from the start. When he’d rescued Solo, when the man had blown him a kiss from the balcony of the governor’s palace, he’d been certain of it.

But it wasn’t to be. Somehow Salty had transformed herself into a beautiful woman. Solo was predictably attracted to her. That left Illya Kuryakin, partner and sometime lover, bedmate of convenience, out in the cold. Again.

His disappointment had loosened his tongue enough so that he echoed Solo’s pickup lines, unleashed the unflattering comment that Salty would be different. Trying to turn her against his partner, as if that would automatically make Solo turn to him. His behavior had been so blatantly jealous, he wondered how it could have gone unnoticed. But Salty and Napoleon had been so focused on each other; they hadn’t noticed it. He supposed he should be grateful to be spared that final humiliation. Bad enough to be the spurned lover, worse to have everyone aware of his feelings.

He sighed, still bitterly disappointed and unreconciled to his fate. The mission had been no picnic for him. The only sweetening to weeks of hard labor and abuse had been the almost surety that he would get royally laid as a reward. Now he was once again going to be the bystander, the third wheel, watching as Solo and the girl of the week hit it off.

Two steaming hot showers and intensive scrubbing had removed the layers of grime that had earned him the nickname of “Filthy." Just as a precaution, in between the scrubbings he’d drenched himself with an concoction the medical section had prescribed against lice. While he’d been scrubbing, Solo had made a quick reconnaissance for clothes, since Kuryakin’s were only suitable for burning and since Solo and Salty had lost all their luggage back at the mansion. The chinos and shirt Solo had brought back for Kuryakin were merely serviceable. But where Solo had managed to find the suit he was dolling himself up in, Kuryakin didn’t know. Solo donned it as if it had been tailored specifically for him, and he looked heart-wrenchingly handsome. Watching the beautiful body he’d been coveting disappear under starched cotton and severe tailoring was made even more painful by seeing Solo in such good looks — tan and fit from their recent adventure. Kuryakin had little doubt that Salty had also found an evening gown to match Solo’s splendor. Or had the one she’d been wearing cleaned.

Despite his own attempts to sabotage the encounter, which he’d been unable to withhold even though he suspected Solo would pay back his interference, the two would make an attractive couple. He wondered that Solo hadn’t said anything about his attempt. He had no excuse for it, except that disappointment had unfurled his sharp tongue. But Solo wasn’t supposed to have known about his secret plans. Not wanting to seem desperate, and not wanting to give Solo any undue advantage, he’d kept his hopes very much to himself. He was paying for that now.

Somehow, while he’d been driving, trying not to concentrate on the voices and soft laughter behind him, Solo had managed to sweet talk himself back into Salty’s good graces. Now with a pleasant evening before him, and never one to hold a grudge, Solo’d been amiably chatting to his partner as he dressed and groomed himself for the date. Kuryakin hadn’t been aware that he himself had been unusually silent, until Solo fixed him with a sudden penetrating stare and queried. “You all right?”

Kuryakin swallowed back words he’d never speak anyway. “Fine,” he said shortly.

Solo crossed over to him and laid one cool, newly manicured hand on his forehead before Kuryakin realized what he was doing. The feel of that strong hand made him shiver.

“Cut it out, Napoleon,” he complained, jerking away.

“You’re probably just tired,” Solo commented. “All that digging. You should get some rest.”

Kuryakin scowled over the suggestion. How convenient for Napoleon, to rationalize his partner too exhausted to do more than sleep.

“I’m fine,” he said coolly. “I rescued you, didn’t I? Fixed the vehicle? Drove us here?”

Solo raised an eyebrow and took a step back. “Did I forget to say ‘Thank You’?”

“I don’t expect thanks,” Kuryakin answered.

Solo frowned. “Well, thanks anyway. And no matter what you say,” he added over his shoulder as he turned to pick up his jacket, “you’re testy enough that you seem to need a little sleep.”

Kuryakin clenched his fists. Napoleon ought to know better than anyone that “testiness” didn’t just come from lack of sleep. Not that the great Solo ever suffered much from abstinence.

Solo settled his cuffs, straightening his jacket. “Make sure you lock the door after I leave. And don’t forget to set the security system, just in case.”

“When do I ever forget that?” Kuryakin snapped.

Solo shook his head. “When do you ever forget to eat, either?” He gestured to the food he’d brought back for Illya.

As ravenous as he’d said he was, Kuryakin had abruptly lost his appetite when he realized his plans had been derailed by Salty’s transformation. And that was telling. He hadn’t realized how much he’d been counting on this assignation until then. He’d left the food untouched when he’d seen Solo dolling up for his date. Now he flushed at that revealing action.

“I was just waiting for you to leave.”

“Then I won’t keep you waiting for your dinner,” Solo replied, looking puzzled but unoffended. “Sleep tight, partner.”

Something’s tight, Kuryakin thought nastily as the door closed behind his partner and he rose to lock it. But he found it hard to stay angry at Napoleon. Solo had never made any secret that his interest in his partner was sporadic. And Kuryakin hadn’t sent any signals either; he’d simply counted on having Napoleon to himself. And that was his mistake; the opportunity to capture Solo’s sexual interest was difficult in the extreme if there was any female competition. He resigned himself to being satisfied with dinner and bed.

Dinner had been uninspiring, and instead of sleeping, Kuryakin tossed in his bed, restless and frustrated. As tired as he was, his disappointment was sharp enough that combined with his various aches and pains and the lumpiness of the mattress, he couldn’t fall asleep.

He sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. Pulled into his clothes. Tied his sneakers. He knew the club where Solo had gone. A dive, Solo had commented sourly, discussing his date to his partner as he had innumerable other times, when he tried to talk Kuryakin into going along, sure he’d pick up a wallflower or a lady of the evening to make the trip worthwhile. But it had a dance floor and what passed for a band. He and Salty would have a good enough time. They weren’t expecting a night at the Ritz, after all.

It was typical Napoleon, that any opportunity for romancing would be considered suitable. He was a constant optimist. A total mismatch for his pessimistic partner. It was a fluke of nature that they meshed so well in the field. That and the possibility that opposites attracted.

Like a magnet, Kuryakin thought as he pocketed the room key and went after his partner. He didn’t want to join him. Just to see what he was missing. To convince himself that the chance had really passed and hope was over.

The club, such as it was, was easy to find, a crumbling dance hall on the main street. The clientele were locals and their girls, but the band was surprisingly good. Kuryakin edged along the wall, watching the dancing couples as they broke apart and clapped. Then he saw them. There, toward the center of the dance floor. Napoleon and Salty, slender and elegant. Solo smiled down at his date as she gazed up at him, and he took her in a kiss. Kuryakin caught his breath, suddenly imagining himself in Solo’s arms instead, the strength of his embrace, the feel of his mouth. The dark eyes smiling above him, that comma of hair brushing his own forehead. Their bodies pressed together chest to groin. His knees went a little weak and his head whirled in memory. Solo’s kisses weren’t easy to forget, even for a jaundiced Soviet spy. He swallowed hard, feeling his bitterness renewed.

The orchestra struck up another song, and the lovers loosened their embrace, settled back into dancing form. Solo’s arms closed around Salty’s waist, around her shoulders, their lips still nearly touching. They swayed gently to the music, eyes sparkling, lips smiling.

Kuryakin recognized the song, a George Gershwin jazz tune, lush and romantic, bittersweet. The piano player gave it full justice, the orchestra backing him up.

They're writing songs of love, but not for me

A lucky star's above, but not for me

He inhaled sharply. The scene before him blurred and he blinked hard. When his vision cleared, he saw that Solo and Salty were swinging closer to the edge of the dance floor. He didn’t think he was visible, but he ducked behind a pillar, hiding. The words continued, almost mockingly, twisting in his heart like a knife.

With love to lead the way, I’ve found more clouds of grey

Than any Russian play, could guarantee

He turned abruptly and went back out into the corridor, stumbling a little in his haste. What a fool he was, following Solo like a lovesick puppy. What had he hoped to accomplish, to see? The only thing he could possibly have seen was the obvious — if anyone was in love here, it wasn’t Napoleon.

And the sooner he got hold of his own unattainable fantasies, the better off he’d be.

r

Napoleon paused on the dance floor, narrowing his eyes. For a moment, he’d almost thought he’d seen Illya at the edge of the room. He craned his neck in that direction, but there was nothing there now but inky blackness.

He caught himself. If Illya had wanted to contact him, they both had communicators. Illya had no reason to have followed him, to be skulking in the shadows.

But he had a sixth sense about Illya Kuryakin. Had he needed to bet about it, he would have gambled his life that that inky stretch of shadow had just hidden one blond Russian.

He reached involuntarily for his communicator.

“Napoleon?”

Solo looked down blankly, having forgotten his dance partner. Forgotten the dance. They were the only still couple among the gently swaying gathering.

“Is something wrong?” Salty asked, looking up at him anxiously.

Solo put the communicator back in his pocket, berating himself. Illya was undoubtably asleep. The last thing he needed was to be disturbed by an over-anxious partner who was seeing things.

“No, not at all,” he said, then smiled, trying to recapture the mood. “Except I’d like to be somewhere alone. With you.”

Salty wet her lips. “I’ve been waiting all evening for you to say that.”

Solo slipped a guiding hand under her arm. “Then shall we?”

Salty closed her hand on it, reveling in the strength of the firm grip. “We shall,” she promised.

r

Illya Kuryakin slipped inside the door to his hotel room and stood there, breathing hard. He was a damn fool, he knew. One could lust after Solo. You could even love him. But you could never expect the reverse. You couldn’t depend on him, outside of the field, outside of the job, outside of their friendship. When affection crossed into love, Solo became a master of “elusion."

He’d known that before he’d first lain down for Napoleon. Known he could never have him, as one lover to another. Known they would only pass together like ships in the night. An occasional dalliance. An afternoon waiting for a plane pickup. A day stuck in the middle of nowhere between one assignment and the next. A night in an anonymous hotel room. A morning in a tent in the jungle, with the calls of dawn birds concealing their own cries. Always a brief celebration of life, like the foam off a newly opened bottle of champagne. But never, not for Napoleon, the long, cool drought. He was never around for that, much less the dregs of any affair. He sipped, smiled that charming smile and went on.

That hadn’t bothered Kuryakin. He’d thought that’s what he wanted too. Nothing else had even occurred to him. But he hadn’t realized one thing. It wasn’t only women who found Napoleon irresistible. And addictive. An homme fatale.

He went back to his solitary bed, cursing himself.

r

Salty was panting, trying to catch her breath in between kisses, gasping with shock after shock as Napoleon’s talented hands roved over her body. She’d never felt anything so intense — and they didn’t even have their clothes off yet.

“Oh, Napoleon,” she gasped, reaching blindly to catch his facile hands.

“Salty.” Solo dropped her name into her ear, his breath a small explosion against it. He followed it with a warm tongue, circling the inside of that canal, pointing it to reach deep inside, a subtle promise of the future as his hands dipped between her thighs.

She nearly came then, imagining that tongue in other places, squirming so hard she nearly pulled out of Solo’s arms. “Oh, Napoleon, please.”

“I aim to, love,” Solo said. “Your pleasure is my command,” he whispered, and began to slowly tug the zipper of her dress down her back.

Although the room was warm, the coolness of the air that crept into that opening V felt like a knife, only slightly mitigated by the soothing brush of Solo’s fingers. It sobered her suddenly. She realized what she was doing, and whom she was doing it with. She’d always determined to save herself for marriage. But Napoleon Solo would never marry her. She wasn’t even sure how he felt about her. Apart from their joint physical attraction.

“Do you love me, Napoleon?” She asked tentatively.

“I adore you,” he assured her. “You’re beautiful,” Solo slid her dress off her shoulders. “The most beautiful woman in Chaqua.”

That wasn’t saying much, she thought. She was practically the only woman in Chaqua. Her mind rattled on that at least he wasn’t dishonest. At least he wouldn’t lie to her, she consoled herself, as his fingers went to the hooks of her bra. He teased with them, kissing her deeply as he unhooked the first hook, practiced fingers playing at stumbling, drawing out the moment. His one leg was thrust between her two, pressing her tightly against him, his hard arousal unmistakable against her stomach, even between their two sets of clothing. She could feel the strength of his body, the encompassing sensation of it all. God, he is so good at this, she thought ruefully. What it would be like, to have one’s first time with such a master.

But to have it without love?

He didn’t love her. And in spite of the rush of excitement and attraction she felt for him, coupled with the enticement of danger and sex, she didn’t love him.

I can’t do this. She drew both arms up against her chest and pushed him away.

Solo drew back from the waist, one arm still firmly holding their lower bodies against each other. “Salty?”

She met his eyes, puzzled brown eyes that threatened to draw her into their depths. But she pulled herself out of them, though not with some difficulty. “I thought I could. I want to. But the first time, I have to at least pretend that I’m in love. Or that the one I’m with loves me.”

Solo drew a deep breath through clenched teeth. He dropped his arm and carefully took a stiff-legged step away from her.

She looked down at him, suddenly conscious of his arousal, remembering men were different. She supposed she’d been — what was the word — a cock-tease. And Napoleon suddenly looked actually in pain. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean — ” she reached for him, not in desire, but as if to give comfort, but Solo held off a warding arm.

“No.” Solo was definite. Firm. His face set. “If you know what you want, then you shouldn’t settle for anything less.”

The idea of Napoleon Solo referring to himself that way struck her as absurd. Salty tried to smile through suddenly tearing eyes. “I wouldn’t call you less.” She suddenly felt herself already regretting her decision.

“The kind of love I can offer is only temporary. If you want commitment, that’s not something I can offer. Or promise. It has nothing to do with you, personally. You’re a very attractive girl. But I can’t risk offering that to anyone, Salty. It would be too dangerous. For both of us.”

Trust him to be thinking of her, even in his pain. She felt like she could love him, if he gave her half a chance. She touched his shoulder. “Aren’t men supposed to lie in this sort of situation? Promise anything?” Half hoping he would.

Solo smiled thinly. “Some men do. But not me. I’m sorry, Salty. I can’t delude you, even if you want me to.”

“Not even for a night?” she said sadly, not really asking. She hadn’t really wanted wedding bells. But she wanted something — an expectation that he’d call her. That he’d remember her name two weeks from now. That he wouldn’t sleep with anyone else, at least not until they’d played out the charade of lovers and broke up. The illusion that she was part of a relationship, not just half of a one night stand. The chance to play house, even if only for the briefest illusion. Do you want that more than an incredible night? Is commitment, even the false illusion of it, so important? she asked. But she knew her answer. The first time has to be loving. I have to feel I’ll mean something more to him than just a night’s pleasure.

“No. Not even for a night.” Solo approached her, and she tensed in hope, her body igniting like a flare, but he only kissed her lightly, chastely, on the forehead, and stepped away, careful not to touch her elsewhere. “Good night, Salty.”

She almost called out to him as he turned away. But she transformed it into a sob instead. Her eyes filled with tears as she watched what she had given up, but she didn’t break down. Instead, she resolved she would fall in love as soon as possible. If Napoleon Solo ever came in her life again, she’d have no excuses.

r

I was a fool to fall and feel this way

Heigh-ho alas, and also lack a day

Although I can't dismiss the memory of her kiss

I guess she's not for me

Solo stomped back to his hotel room, his arousal uncomfortable and humiliating. He felt like a fool, though he didn’t see where he could have gone wrong. She’d given him all the right signals. She’d just changed her mind when he came down to the finish. It happened. He berated himself rather than blame Salty. It was always dangerous to get involved with virgins. He knew that. He felt a little guilty when he seduced one. Solo was fatalistic about walking away from his various encounters, but he had gotten that way after long practice and some heartache. He now preferred encounters with women who had similar expectations. Taking a breakup too hard wasn’t a quality exclusive to virgins, but Solo didn’t like being the first time initiator to that inevitable part of his relationships. Some people handled casual sex well, and some didn’t. Fortunately there were enough of the former around that he rarely went unsatisfied. And when there weren’t . . . But he’d missed that opportunity. He might have been able to charm Illya into bed before, but by now he was undoubtably fast asleep. Solo resigned himself to a cold shower or a hand job. Or both.

He let himself into his room, undoing all the security carefully, so as not to set off any alarms. But Kuryakin woke anyway, one hand diving under his pillow even as he rolled off the bed, using the mattress as cover. Solo winced at the thump as Kuryakin hit the floor hard. “Illya, it’s me!” he called, before Kuryakin shot him through the mattress.

Solo walked around to the far side of the bed, extending a hand to his partner, who was crammed into an impossibly small space and further encumbered by being tangled in the sheet. “I’m sorry, I should have used our signal. I was trying not to wake you.” He pulled the Soviet agent to his feet, and Kuryakin, still caught up in the bedclothes, pitched forward with an oomph.

“You didn’t succeed,” Kuryakin said sourly. “You’re lucky I didn’t drill you through.”

“Sorry.” Solo steadied him on his feet, as Kuryakin plucked the constricting sheet from around his legs and tossed it on the bed. His partner was wearing only shorts in the warm air of the room. A fine mist of sweat gleamed on his chest. Solo took in the clean scent of his skin rising from his body and his hands tightened on Kuryakin’s arms. He let go but didn’t move away.

“Aren’t you rather early?” Kuryakin complained, flicking the safety on and tucking his gun back under his pillow.

Solo shrugged. “She decided to wait for true love.”

Kuryakin pulled a face, shaking his head slightly. “My sympathies.” He shook out his sheet, prepared to slide under it.

Solo reached out and caught his arm. Ran his hand up the corded forearm. Squeezed the bicep. “Illya.”

Kuryakin caught his breath and raised his chin a little, his hand still clenched on the folds of white cotton. “I appreciate that you might be . . . unsatisfied. But don’t you think it’s a little low-rent to come onto me just because you couldn’t make it elsewhere?”

“Even I have my less-than-noble moments,” Solo admitted.

“And you save them all for me,” Kuryakin said, not yielding to Solo’s gently urging hand.

“What are partners for?” Solo asked perfunctorily. He stepped closer and drew Kuryakin’s chin up slowly, giving him time to pull away should he care to, but Illya only drew a sudden, sharp breath as their lips touched. Solo started the kiss slow, but deepened it quickly, his aborted passion and arousal abruptly catching up with him with unexpected urgency.

He leashed his desire again, drawing back when Illya didn’t respond to the kiss. Solo was breathing hard in spite of Illya’s lack of participation. Kuryakin was stubbornly still in his arms, his mouth passive. Napoleon steeled himself for being rejected twice in one night. “What is it? Are you that angry with me about going with her? Was that what was behind your nonsense at the jeep?”

“I’m not angry,” Kuryakin denied, not deigning to answer further. But he seemed a bit confused about what he was. He didn’t step away from Solo, effectively ending the seduction attempt. But neither did he respond.

Frustrated, Solo fingered Kuryakin’s soft hair, then ran his hand through the sleep-disordered strands and brushed the covering bangs away from his partner’s hooded eyes. He traced the full lower lip he found so irresistible. Still, Kuryakin kept his face averted. Solo debated kissing him again, but settled for continuing to stroke his hair, his cheek, caressing him rather than trying something more arousing. He ignored the pulsing of his own cock, its stubborn determination not to be thwarted twice. Kuryakin shivered at the gentle touches but turned away from the fingers trailing down the curve of his throat. But not out of Solo’s arms. Even in the dim light, Solo could see that he was partially aroused, in spite of the innocence of their touches. He wasn’t surprised. Kuryakin had always had a bit of the virgin in him. When his partner’s mood toward sex turned jaundiced, as it seemed to be now, sometimes the best way to bring him around was with a bit of gentle fondling. Sometimes he just needed to be coaxed. Solo sighed mentally and geared himself up for that. In a lot of ways, Illya was not much different than a woman. “No, I can see you’re not angry,” Solo murmured suggestively, lips replacing fingers. His desire, fueled by a night of seduction, dinner and dancing and foreplay, was more than ready for the bedroom. Still, he knew better than to push his volatile-tempered partner. At best he’d end up taking care of his balls alone, at worst, Kuryakin would neuter him. “Illya? Do you want to go back to sleep right away?” He nibbled that lower lip. Suckled it a little.

Kuryakin sighed gustily against Napoleon’s throat as Solo’s arms daringly pulled him closer. “I guess not.”

“No sense both of us trying to sleep with our balls in knots, is there?” Solo asked, taking Kuryakin’s cock in a gentle grip.

Illya moaned deep in his throat and Solo squeezed the cock gently and released it. Too much, too soon, was dangerous. Illya might be coaxed into bed, but he couldn’t be manhandled there.

Solo’s lips fastened on a spot just above Kuryakin’s collarbone, sucking gently, while his expert hands drew their groins together. One hand tugged down the elastic of Kuryakin’s briefs, pulling it gently away from his hips. When Illya didn’t object, he dropped them down around his ankles. He tugged the sheet free from the still clenched fist, wrapped the arm around his own waist, trying to coax Illya into participating in the embrace. It settled there loosely, uncertain. With a warm palm, Solo cupped one full bare cheek, fingers sliding into the shadowed crevice of his partner’s ass. Kuryakin shivered as if suddenly cold and Solo felt the cock against him go fully hard. Solo’s eyes closed briefly in triumph.

“I guess not,” Kuryakin finally admitted, his voice struggling to be even in spite of his straining cock. But Solo heard the faint hint of a tremor in it and smiled. He wondered why he’d even bothered with Salty.

“Step out of them, Illya,” Solo said.

Half dazed, Kuryakin kicked the tangled briefs off his ankles. Solo kissed him in reward, tongue deep as the fingers of his free hand drew up slowly between Illya’s naked thighs. His palm squeezed one of the alabaster globes he’d been gently cradling.

“Napoleon, please,” Illya whispered, fists drawn up tight against Solo’s starched shirtfront.

“Lie down,” Solo answered, steering him gently toward Kuryakin’s bed. Solo picked up the sheets tangled at the foot of it and tossed them on the floor, out of the way.

Kuryakin clenched his teeth, and went with the hand that pushed him on the bed, watching as Solo undid his tie with one hand, while with the other Solo drew a small silver tube of lubricant from his jacket pocket and set it down on the bedside table. Kuryakin’s eyes followed it and he swallowed, the muscles working in his throat.

Solo had expected he might need the lubricant for Salty, thinking he might be her first. But it would do for Illya just as well. He turned to hang up his jacket, arranging it carefully on the hanger. Undid his shirt buttons, using the moment to shift his mental gears. From Salty to Illya. Moving his partner from the mental category of colleague to lover. He generally kept him firmly in the “colleague” slot. He couldn’t work at close quarters with him, share rooms, and baths, and gym showers and wrestling mats and even sometimes beds, if he thought of Illya as a sexual partner. He thought of him as a man. To think of him as a bedmate required a bit of a mental reorganization. He and Illya had tumbled into this intermittent relationship more or less by accident. For Solo, it was still very tentative. He developed it as they went along, but he had always been careful with how he approached Illya, what he did with him. It was more of a conscious than an instinctive behavior. Calculating. But the end result could be just as satisfying, it just required a bit more thought and care in execution.

r

Kuryakin watched Solo, the flashes of light glancing off him as he undid cufflinks, his heavy gold watch, tanned skin bared by starched cotton. The play of his muscles as he drew off his shirt. Their eyes met and Solo smiled, a fire flaring in them, igniting the air between them. As if commanded by a snake charmer, Kuryakin settled back against the headboard, knees drawn up slightly, watching as Solo undid his belt, stepped leisurely out of his pants and shorts. The scent of his musk was released as Solo’s cock sprang free of the constricting folds of fabric, fully aroused. Kuryakin studied the proportions of the heavy cock, always surprised anew at its size. He swallowed a little, parting his thighs, waiting for Napoleon to move between them.

It was always a moment of supreme truth for him, lying on his back, spreading his legs in that ultimate submission. Looking up into his partner’s eyes. When Solo stepped leisurely out of his pants and briefs and came down on the bed, his stomach did flip-flops. They had slept chastely in many a bed, side by side, innocent as brothers. But now Solo moved to cover him, canopy him. When his partner’s hard-muscled thighs moved between his knees, the huge wine-colored cock jutting up strongly inches from his face, weeping pre-ejaculate, the sensation hit him hard, like a jolt to the solar plexus. He was going to let a man take him. And he wanted it.

Heresy. Perversion. A crime, both in his country, and in many others. Something he’d been trained to endure with outward acceptance, if his superiors deemed it necessary, but never to seek for himself. But with Napoleon’s smiling eyes above him, Solo’s arms around him, Solo’s hands under him, he found it easy to lift his hips to that perversion. He knew he shouldn’t do this, use his prior training to take pleasure in Napoleon’s touch, but he couldn’t help himself. He was as lost as any of the damned, a victim of his partner’s devastating technique. He felt the cool pads of Napoleon’s hands, his fingertips slide between his cheeks, felt the silky creaminess of the lubricant Solo had palmed. Solo’s fingers slid into his shadowed crevice and he swallowed hard. Then a long finger moved within him, unerringly finding his depths and he gasped at the shocking invasion.

“It’s all right, baby,” Solo said absently, his eyes unfocused as he worked. Kuryakin could hear the strain in his voice, and he felt a touch of sympathy that Solo had been driven to such a state. Salty really must have worked his partner over before she dumped him. Two fingers replaced one, stretching him and Kuryakin caught his lip at a too abrupt motion, tensing slightly. Napoleon must be very hot, he was moving much faster than usual. The fingers moved deeper, working against the tensed muscles and Illya forced himself to relax, trying to remember when he’d once done this in earnest, for men he hadn’t cared for at all. He’d managed it then. He could certainly handle it now. Then Solo’s searching finger connected with his prostate, swollen from desire and too long abstinence and he gasped again and surged upward, nearly pulling himself out of Solo’s arms in shock at the pleasure it afforded.

“Easy,” Solo said again, frowning slightly as he repositioned his partner’s limbs, his grip hard and unyielding, holding him in place again. The fingers brushed across the gland again, as if trying to memorize the spot. Then the fingers withdrew. Kuryakin drew a sharp breath as he felt the burning head of Solo’s cock replace the cooler fingers. It seemed immense against the tiny entrance to his body. He swallowed hard, mouth suddenly dry, his stomach muscles fluttering. In spite of himself, he shifted slightly out of Solo’s precise placement.

Solo’s hands gripped him firmly, held his cheeks almost bracingly. “Don’t move, baby,” Solo warned. Then the cock split him and slid inside, making a place for itself, arrogant and obscene, achingly huge, a thick iron rod pausing just inside him. Solo was breathing like a bellows, obviously fighting to hold himself still until Kuryakin could adjust.

“Ahhh,” Illya cried out, unable to stop himself. For an undisciplined moment, he almost pulled away, had to fight the instinctive urge to resist this. He drew a shuddering breath, trying to relax around the cockhead within him. It didn’t hurt as much as his body was trying to tell him. He knew that. But it hurt badly enough. It was just the unfamiliarity of it, he told himself. It had been too long since their last time. And Napoleon hadn’t engaged in his usual extensive foreplay.

You want this, he told himself. You’ve been dreaming of it for weeks. Relax.

“Two virgins in my arms tonight,” Solo said teasingly, smiling down at him, in spite of the pain showing on his face as he fought his own instincts and desire. He was trembling, but he still held back. “Am I rushing you? I thought — You seemed to want —”

“Just a bit. I’ll be all right,” Kuryakin assured him.

Solo frowned slightly, apparently unconvinced. Then the cock slid out of his body with exquisite care. Kuryakin gasped anyway, his grip tight on Solo’s muscled biceps at the renewed pain. He felt the lubricant slathered on the entrance to his body again, looked down to watch as Solo carefully and gingerly spread lubricant on his own engorged organ, using just the tips of his fingers, his face showing the strain even that delicate touch caused him. Kuryakin looked hungrily at the hard cock, amazed at how much he wanted it, particularly with his own body still shuddering in pain from even the brief momentary possession he’d barely endured.

“Let’s try this again,” Solo murmured, and Kuryakin gathered himself, pushing out in readiness. Determined to handle this. Eased by the lubricant, the cock slid up into him again, deeper than he’d anticipated, stretching him impossibly, no doubt searching for that pleasure place Solo had found with his fingers. Panic rose up inside him as he realized it hurt too damn much, was happening too fast. He pushed his hands back against Solo without thinking.

“No.” he said, not realizing he had until the word was out. “Napoleon?”

Solo drew a shuddering breath of his own, and pulled out halfway, panting hard. “You’re killing me, Illya.” Drops of sweat fell from his forehead onto Kuryakin’s chest.

“I’m sorry. Sorry. Just give me a minute.” Kuryakin said. He was panting himself. It took all his self-control to allow the hard organ to stay even as much within him as it was. He squirmed around it, squeezing it, as if trying to compress it to a manageable size.

“Oh my god, don’t do that!” Solo said, pinning him quickly, his grip hard. “Illya, I’m trying not to hurry you, but if you do that — ”

“Sorry.” But as if his body had a mind of its own, he squirmed again.

Solo seemed to have been pushed past patience. “Turn over, baby,” Solo said, rolling them both. Kuryakin felt the cock slip out of him, felt himself positioned on his knees, a pillow abruptly thrust under his hips, raising their angle, hands taking hold of him, his legs spread. He was moving too quickly, Kuryakin realized; he just wasn’t ready.

“Napoleon — ” He said, and then felt the cock drive inside him again, stretch him, fill him, pierce him deeply. He muffled his cry against his chest, felt Solo’s hand come between his legs and squeeze his own cock hard, pinch his nipples sharply. Brief shocks of pleasure/pain flared like fireworks against the agony of impalement rising up his spine as the cock thrust inside, first only a bit, then deeper, then thrust again nearly home. He felt tears on his face, realized he was half sobbing, nose running inelegantly. He wasn’t trying to relax for Napoleon now, he was squeezing the thick rod inside him, trying to push it out, arms and legs struggling ineffectively to free himself from the body covering him. But Solo didn’t free him. Instead one hand captured his wrists and pinned him, the other pushed his shoulder down hard into the mattress. Legs covered his legs and pinned them, bracing him, and the cock drove hard and deep inside him again, this time till it was fully sheathed, Solo’s balls firm against his ass. Yet his prostate still eluded Solo’s cock. He cried out at the new flare of rising pain, hips bucking, and heard Solo swear and pull out. But only for a second and he was braced again. With the next deep thrust, the angle was different, but it hurt just as much. He sobbed and struggled anew, unthinkingly pushing himself involuntarily up onto Solo’s cock in a clumsy attempt to escape. The resulting impalement was so painful he was afraid he’d been ripped in half, the cock tearing into him like a dull knife. Panicked, he pulled his wrists out of Solo’s positioning hand, falling clumsily from elbows to chest, inadvertently biting his lip as he pitched face forward on the bed. His support gone, Solo tumbled hard on top of him, chest flat over his back. As he fell, Solo knocked the breath from both their lungs. Illya lay half stunned, reeling with pain, the cock so deep within him it felt as if it was knocking up along his tonsils. Recovering quickly, Solo struggled to his knees, the arm still around Kuryakin’s waist pulling him up with him. Both on their knees now, they panted to get their breath back.

Still crouched underneath Solo, the hard spear of the cock deep within him, the root of it tearing the entrance to his body, Illya struggled for air. His face was damp with tears and sweat, and he could taste blood on his lips. He licked them, feeling his legs trembling, still a little stunned, waiting for Solo’s next move. He was too sore to tense any more; he just drew a deep breath and waited for the next thrust, expecting that as closely as his body was molded around the hard organ, it would only be painful. He felt Solo drew his own deep breath, his chest rising and falling, and then Solo said softly. “Illya, I’m going to pull out.”

“All right,” Kuryakin said, his own disappointment in the encounter making him numb.

Solo held him still, and he felt the long cock slowly move out of him, his own body clinging to it as if they’d merged together in their few brief minutes of intercourse. Solo seemed to be having trouble forcing himself to withdraw, but Kuryakin felt only relief as the organ slid out. Then, clumsy as the withdrawal was, he felt the cock finally nudge up against his prostate, a firm languid caress such as he’d been waiting for. Dreaming of. The wave of sensation made him cry out in a different tone. Every inch of his skin seemed to vibrate, turn inside out, and unable to stop himself, he thrust himself back up against the hard cock, once again nudging it against the elusive gland that Napoleon had missed. Solo said something in satisfaction as he molded their bodies and braced them again, but he was too distracted by sensation to heed him. Then the cock drove in and out, repeatedly and unerringly finding the same deep place that had pulled such ecstasy from him. He was still sobbing but he’d stopped struggling, instead rising up to meet the driving cock that filled him. The iron band around his waist relaxed as he moved with Solo, and the hand moved instead to fondle his cock. His ass still hurt badly, the iron bar filling him ached just as much, but the pain was overlaid with a pleasure he now couldn’t resist. His head reeled with the double sensations, each feeding on the other.

“That’s my baby,” Napoleon said, breath hot in his ear, but Kuryakin was beyond speech as Solo rode him in earnest. Conscious thought left him then, he became only a set of nerve endings, strings plucked by Napoleon’s hands, his mastering cock. The air was suddenly too hot to breathe. Every pore seemed to glow with heat, every nerve ending shimmered with it. The climax rushed to a crescendo, swept over him in waves of pure flame and he willingly drowned in them, feeling as if the air had left his lungs to be filled instead with pure sensation. He didn’t hear his own scream of ecstasy.

When he woke he was lying folded in Solo’s arms. “You were incredible,” Solo said when he blinked back to consciousness. One hand was tracing his lower lip, a raised finger showed him the blood where he’d bitten it. Kuryakin curiously traced the nip with his own tongue and winced. Not too deep, but it would be swollen for a few days. Then Solo leaned down and gently licked his mouth clean.

“You were rather that, yourself,” Kuryakin said, when Napoleon released him. He shifted slightly, wincing a little at the predictable soreness. He’d find sitting uncomfortable tomorrow. Even with the cock gone, he could feel the phantom cock left behind as his riven body readjusted to that possession. He squirmed slightly, testing the soreness. Still, every nerve was still singing from that incredible climax. He felt like a phoenix reborn. Amazing how something could hurt so much and yet feel so wonderful. Had he been a different type of person, he’d be grinning like a fool at his own contentment. As it was, his mouth curved in the barest of infinitesimal smiles and he turned that against Solo’s chest out of sight.

“You passed out on me,” Solo continued, fingers carding his hair. “I haven’t had that happen too often. Scared me half to death. I thought I’d really hurt you.”

“Sorry,” Kuryakin mumbled, burying his face in Solo’s warm throat, wishing Napoleon wouldn’t talk so much. It would be wonderful to sleep now. But he knew his partner. What had been an inferno to him, had been barely a warmup for Napoleon.

“You don’t need to apologize. Not after that session,” Napoleon said, one hand now stroking sensuously up Kuryakin’s long flank. Illya sighed at the fondling. Napoleon was an inveterate toucher. In bed, his hands were rarely still. Kuryakin wasn’t used to being caressed, but he made himself hold still for it. It was, after all, as much a part of Solo as his sibilant hiss. “I should be apologizing to you,” Solo continued. “I was more impatient than usual. Not my usual style.”

Kuryakin smiled at the memory. “It’s more than your turn. I’m usually the frustrated and impatient one.”

“Hmmmm.” Solo kissed an ear, suckled the tiny lobe. “Did I hurt you?”

“Yes," Kuryakin confessed. “Maybe. Actually, I think I sort of hurt myself. But, truthfully, I’d buy tickets to be hurt like that again. Anytime.”

“Lucky you,” Solo replied. “I happen to be giving them away tonight for free.”

“I’ll take anything for free,” Kuryakin turned over in Solo’s arms, raising his face at his partner’s urging. Kuryakin kissed Solo hungrily and deeply, loving the taste of his mouth, his tongue, the incredible exotic feel of having another man in his arms. Of himself being in another man’s arms. He wanted that strength, that possession. Kuryakin felt the burning hardness of Solo’s cock bump against his stomach and smiled. Napoleon did have an incredibly fast recovery time. He slid his legs apart, inviting his partner, not caring if he was aching and sore. He’d been dreaming of being taken, and now that he had Napoleon in his bed, he would take full advantage of it. Solo came between his thighs again, raising his legs over his shoulders once more, slathering him with lubricant. This time, in spite of Solo’s promises, the huge cock filled him with little pain, pleasure overriding every other sensation. His quick study of a partner had found his prostate on the first thrust.

He looked into Napoleon’s eyes as his lover drove into him, savoring the moment. His body still protested the shock of impalement, but that was only secondary to the immense pleasure of the possession. He gave himself over to it. This was what he had waited for. A scattered night of bliss, rare as a blue moon. Who cared what price of pain or future heartache might come with it?

Solo’s eyes caught his as he filled him fully, and the senior agent leaned down, catching his mouth in a kiss. Kuryakin dared to close his arms around Solo, keeping him there for the briefest moment. He knew this was only an illusion, a game, a moment’s dalliance to his highly sexed partner. Perhaps Napoleon wasn’t even really aware of him. Perhaps he was fantasizing of Salty right now. Or some other woman.

A bitter thought, that. He shied away from it, using his internal muscles to tighten carefully around the thrusting cock within him, hearing Solo’s gasp of ecstasy. He took Napoleon’s hand and wrapped it around his own cock, and felt Solo obligingly squeeze and stroke him. He would come more quickly that way, and he really didn’t want that. But he wanted Solo to remember whom he was with. Not a woman, but his partner. He reached up to kiss Napoleon with an almost desperate urgency, painfully aware of how short a time they’d have together before this encounter would be over. A night passed so quickly.

“Easy, there,” Solo said suddenly, releasing his cock, hands suddenly hard on his arms, holding them both back from that final climb to ecstasy. “I’ll make you come again. But we do have the whole night,” Napoleon kissed him, not with passion, but slowly, with delicate appreciation. The heavy cock inside him slowed and then thrust with an almost liquid gentleness, like a wave caressing the beach.

Kuryakin moaned softly, wanting a harder possession.

“You don’t want me to drill you like a sixteen-year-old, do you?” Solo asked. “I was rough enough the first time.”

“I wouldn’t mind it,” Kuryakin said. “I didn’t mind it,” he added.

“You’ll like this better,” Solo promised. “Lovemaking is an art, my Russian friend. Not an instinct. You savor it, like fine wine, like good cuisine. You don’t choke it down.”

“I’d like to try choking something down,” Kuryakin said, squeezing the hard cock inside him ruthlessly, molding himself in Solo’s arms, reveling in the skin to skin contact. In spite of his weariness, his many aches and pains only compounded by Solo’s recent attentions, he felt as if he’d been flying on wings. Certainly flying to an incredible climax. But Napoleon remained unmoved by his actions. The hard cock was just as deeply in him, but Solo had stopped moving. Kuryakin could just barely feel it pulse in its own frustration. Both of them held in check by Solo’s will. This was not what he wanted. He wanted passion, not control.

“Later,” Solo promised. “For now, let’s make this last.”

“Hold me tighter,” Kuryakin commanded, unable to command anything else. Solo obliged, giving him a hard hug, as if understanding his frustration could only be assuaged by strength. But then Solo released him and he was aching again.

Kuryakin reached for his own cock, squeezed it briefly before his hand was captured and enfolded in Solo’s.

“Uh-Uh. Don’t touch yourself,” Solo chided, catching the wrist before it repeated the action. “I want to bring you off.”

“What if I don’t want to wait for you?” Kuryakin challenged.

“Waiting is good discipline,” Solo smiled and leaned down for a gentle kiss. Kuryakin drew him into it fiercely, arms going tight around Solo’s shoulders, the barest hint of the stranglehold he was capable of on a gym mat. Solo drew his mouth away from the force of his embrace. “Illya,” he reproved.

Kuryakin let go, panting.

“It’s early for that yet.”

“Do you like toying with me?” Kuryakin asked in frustration.

“Making love properly isn’t toying, you sex-starved Russian. If I didn’t hold you back you’d have it over with in ten minutes,” Solo complained.

“At least I’d come,” he claimed moodily.

“Oh, you’ll come, all right. Several times.”

Kuryakin shuddered, his balls aching, his whole body straining for a completion that was now on Solo’s timetable, not his own. His eyes focused on his hand still held firmly in Solo’s, just inches from his own throbbing erection. He could feel the pulsing weight of Solo’s cock within him, the aching displacement it caused, the sweet pain. He squeezed his own muscles around it, but Solo had firm control of himself, not even breathing hard at his action. His own cock pulsed in sympathy and wept unsatisfied drops, betrayed by its owner into stasis. “Promises,” he said thickly, looking away from his cock. He wanted to roll them both over and force Solo to fuck him, wrap his partner’s hand around his cock and come hard as Napoleon milked him dry, nurse Solo back to life with his own tongue, swallow his come and then sleep folded in his arms. But to do that, he’d have to out wrestle his partner. He’d never managed that on the gym mat, much less in bed. He was going to end up trading a glorious few minutes of sex for who knew how many hours of Napoleon’s painstaking attentions, a sweet torture resulting in climaxes so shattering they were almost painful. He knew the earth would move tonight, but right now he’d settle for having the cock within him do that. He was Russian; he liked to make love with passion, not choreographed in advance like a dance.

But he knew what he was in for when he had lain down for Napoleon.

“I always make good on my promises, partner,” Solo said. “You know that from past experience.” Solo caught Kuryakin’s other wrist. “But you have to promise me something in return.”

“No,” Kuryakin struggled halfheartedly against Solo’s grip, knowing it was hopeless, that he’d agree to whatever Solo said. If in the field Napoleon was a force to be reckoned with, in bed he was that tenfold. Irresistible. Overwhelming. And always, damnably dominant.

“Let me lead,” Solo said, predictably enough. “You’re always so damn eager.”

“Whose fault is that?” Kuryakin snapped.

“I’m not the one who lives like a monk. Just because you do is no reason to rush through sex as if you’re on a stopwatch.”

“Don’t be insulting.”

“I’m being honest,” Solo drew closer, licked his way up the delectable throat, feeling Illya’s low moan all the way down in his groin. “Quickies leave me unsatisfied,” he added. “I like to make love when I’m having sex. You, on the other hand — ”

“You weren’t complaining a minute ago,” Kuryakin defended, slightly insulted.

“One round does not a night make,” Solo raised Kuryakin’s hands, kissed each palm in a gesture that made Kuryakin squirm, and pinned them perfunctorily over his head. Daring Kuryakin to challenge the gesture.

Kuryakin dared. “What if I say no?” He asked, looking up at Napoleon. With the dark forelock hanging over his forehead, his face and body flushed with arousal, Solo was irresistible. Illya didn’t understand how Napoleon didn’t find him equally so, how the man could hold back. They both wanted this so much.

“You know you don’t want to do that, partner.” Still holding his wrists, covering Illya’s body with his heavier one, Solo kissed him thoroughly. Kuryakin struggled to force his groin against his partner, to give his aching cock some relief against Solo’s stomach, but Napoleon was always better than him when it came to wrestling contests. Solo simply held his legs more firmly back against his chest and drew away the slightest bit. The cock deep inside him didn’t even ripple, but strain as he would, his own cock arrowed in solitary splendor, isolate and alone. After a brief fruitless struggle, Kuryakin ceased his efforts and returned the kiss, desperate for at least that sensation. Solo drew back, pleased. “Say it.”

Furious, Kuryakin strained again against the heavier body. “I hate this. Why must you make love this way?”

“You love it, baby. You just don’t want to admit it.”

“No, I don’t. And I’ve told you never to call me that.”

“I never do outside of bed. On missions, don’t I always pick something else?” Solo tickled Kuryakin’s ear with the thick silk of his hair, blew into it gently, watching the set jaw quiver. He was beginning to enjoy himself. “Filthy,” he teased, using the nickname he’d given his partner on the last one. “But you clean up very nice.” He brushed the bangs away from the blue eyes and kissed the blond brows, teasing gently. Now that he was assured of his own satisfaction, of Illya’s pleasure, his still aching balls seemed a small matter. The long night ahead of them offered plenty of time to address that problem. Several times. “You know why I have to do this. You’re exhausted. I wouldn’t blame you if you couldn’t get it up at all. But if you come again now, you’ll go out like a light. Then where would I be?”

“I won’t,” Kuryakin denied.

“Yes, you will. Or you won’t be able to get up again for longer than I care to wait. I like participating partners.”

“I could have left you back in the governor’s palace,” Kuryakin grumbled. “Can’t you fuck me now and torture me your way tomorrow? Remember, you owe me. Surely saving your life must count for something.”

“Never in my bed. And I never fuck; I make love. Besides, we have a plane to catch tomorrow afternoon.”

“Napoleon, this is my bed.”

“A moot point. Stop stalling and say it.”

Kuryakin sucked in his breath in frustration, wanting to come now. Knowing Solo was right, that if he came too quickly again he’d be virtually spent, was no consolation. But he knew Solo was more obdurate than he could be right now. He swallowed his own resistance and tried to reconcile himself to acquiescence. It was part of the ticket of admission to Napoleon’s bed, but he always paid it grudgingly. “All right. I’ll play your damn game.”

“And you’ll enjoy every moment of it, too.” Solo’s voice held a honeyed promise Kuryakin was only too familiar with.

He moaned softly, achingly aware of what he’d let himself in for. Torture of the sweetest kind, painstakingly thorough, performed by a master. For a moment, he almost envied Salty her solitary virgins' bed.

Solo felt Kuryakin’s moan all the way down in his balls. He had to remind himself of his own promise. Fight his own urges not to tumble the lithe body he’d entered, that was pressed so close against his. That Illya was uncomfortable was evident as he squirmed and wriggled, movements Solo aborted to keep his own control in check. Solo took some pity on his partner’s aching cock, but Illya was too damn sensitive to offer it much relief. His Russian partner was really a bundle of nerve endings. He came easily just from anal intercourse, sometimes not even needing a hand to get off. Without a cockring, or something to hold him back, Solo had learned he had to ration the touches he gave it. Pity because for a cock, it was a pretty thing, a rose-pink tower, creamy with pre-come at the tip, and wreathed in golden curls below. Solo suspected it was a little slender to be a good stud cock, but it had a respectable length when aroused. Nothing like his equipment, but probably the girls never noticed Illya’s lack of circumference. Not that Illya seemed to take it out much. That was part of the problem with their lovemaking, Illya was all hair-trigger nerves, only too ready to come at the slightest touch. Too bad Illya seldom let himself be caught by the girls that so often chased him. He had the perfect cock to introduce virgins, whereas Solo often had trouble threading his down some of the innocents who tumbled into his bed. Including his own innocent partner, who was equally tight, eager and far too responsive for the kind of slow lovemaking Solo favored.

The other problem was, of course, that he was male. It was a problem Solo was still learning to deal with.

After their comedic start, Solo was careful this time, taking his time. He knew it frustrated Illya no end, but he did it as much for Illya’s sake as anything. Illya might claim he wanted a quick loving, but as their recent experience proved, such rashness had its price in pain. He prided himself on pleasing his bedmates; he was embarrassed by his own recent loss of control. And however experienced Illya might be, this particular type of sex was hardly Solo’s metier. Sometimes, the more experienced and sophisticated women he encountered requested anal sex, but he’d never pushed an uninitiated woman into it. Nor did his own size help. Or that Illya was an almost impossibly tight fit. His partner’s desire notwithstanding, each time they came together Solo had to stretch and prepare him, lube him and ease into him with the same fussy care he gave the most innocent of virgins. It was either that, or risk tearing his partner in two. Solo had never much cared for a virgin diet, but he’d resigned himself that this was an inevitable condition of taking his male partner to bed. Illya was, after all, hardly constructed to take a cock of his size easily. Perhaps if they did this on any regular basis, Illya would stretch to accommodate him; be able to manage him more easily and readily. But their assignations were generally months apart, and each time Solo found he had to struggle to work his way inside. Going back to an experienced woman after Illya, he always found it a shock at the ease with which he slipped into their soft, accommodating bodies, how wet and welcoming they could be, how comfortable and natural they felt. It was certainly one advantage to his usual preference.

Yet Illya had his own charms. He was frustratingly tight and narrow, but once prepared, once he’d adjusted to Solo’s cock and relaxed into the session, he was a delicious ride. Illya has his own beauty, too. In fact, Solo had never seen a more beautiful man. Easy on the eyes. Solo had never found it too difficult to feel a sexual attraction to his partner. In spite of the drawbacks of his male physique, his hard muscles, strong study limbs, lack of breasts and hips and cunt, Illya’s glorious hair, beautiful eyes, seductive mouth and glowing skin had charms sufficient to attract. Caught up in the throes of passion, Illya was one of the most beautiful sights Solo had ever beheld, gender notwithstanding. Nor could any woman be more satisfying. Illya might have to be held back from too quick a finish, and Solo occasionally had to coax or seduce his occasionally ambivalent partner into his bed, but once there, he was an uninhibited lover, willing to do anything to please. Solo suspected both his eagerness and his compliance, once caught, were a fallout from his partner’s KGB training. He thought of that now as he prepared him.

r

Kuryakin was reminded of that too, abruptly drawn back to the months he’d first learned this. In a flash of memory, Chyovar was before him. The man took the thin leather cord he used during their encounters and tied Kuryakin’s wrists to the narrow old iron bedstead.

“You’ll yield to whatever your target wishes of you in bed, Illya Nickovetch,” Chyovar said, testing the strength of the binding before releasing it with a satisfied grunt. “Whatever is his pleasure, you will grant him. Do you understand?”

“What if he wants to kill me?” Kuryakin asked, only half in jest, subtly testing the strength of his bonds. Chyovar grinned, not fooled by the surreptitious straining.

“It would be better if you let him, then we would have him for murder as well as perversion. But scream that fact if you are sure that is his object — and if you can. Only be certain it is true. We would hate to rescue you from merely a rough game. But the rougher the game, the better the blackmail. So endure it if you must.” Chyovar drew his legs apart. “Fortunately, your target is a relatively kind man. He will never — really — hurt you. So I need never — really — hurt you.”

Kuryakin caught his breath as he was abruptly entered. His face briefly showed the pain he felt, then he schooled his expression back to neutrality.

Above him Chyovar smiled. “Not really, Illya Nickovetch. On the other hand, you must learn not to expect such consideration I gave you on our first encounter. Not every man will care to enter you slowly. You are, after all, in bed for his pleasure, not your own. Now show me how quickly you can come and can make me come, even when you are not — quite — comfortable. Remember, our object is pictures. There is no percentage in long, drawn out encounters. The sooner you bring him — and yourself — to completion, the sooner we have evidence of the encounter and you will be free. You are not to indulge him, my boy. Or yourself. You come to him incriminate him, not for your pleasure. We would prefer you took no pleasure at all in this. But for the pictures you must come.”

r

“Illya?” Solo asked, one hand on his cheek.

Kuryakin shook his head, banishing the memory. Leaned up to Solo who obligingly kissed his lips. “I’m sorry.”

“You were far away,” Solo noted.

“I’m back now.”

“That’s good. This is where I want you to be.” Solo kissed Kuryakin again, to exorcize the ghost he felt sure had just visited them. He didn’t know the man’s name, but he saw him in Illya’s eyes at least once during every encounter, usually at the beginning. The thought that some KGB asshole had trained Illya in sex made Solo’s temper flare. If he ever met the man who had first forced his partner into a man’s bed, he’d cheerfully kill him. The only conflict was that Kuryakin had apparently been trained, or had learned himself, to like this kind of sex. That had paved the way for their encounters now, so he supposed that in spite of his anger, he actually owed the bastard something. He knew that had he not known of Kuryakin’s experience, had Kuryakin not been open to the idea, he’d have never broached the prospect of their first liaison. Never have kissed him when they’d wrestled their way into their first bed.

At first, Solo had thought only of mutual manual gratification or fellatio in their encounters. When Illya had assumed otherwise, had turned over for him, had clearly wanted his possession, Solo hadn’t thought twice about gratifying them both. It puzzled him that Kuryakin never seemed to expect reciprocity. For Illya, a bold move was to request minimal satisfaction — a hand on his cock, a kiss, a close embrace. He’d been clearly uncomfortable, even unwelcoming, when Solo offered him the same oral gratification Illya had been so willing to lavish on him. In fact, he’d rapidly lost his erection. At first, Solo had thought he’d simply been clumsy, used too much teeth, or was too rough. This kind of sex wasn’t his forte, but he’d long been expert with women. He felt sure a little practice and he’d have been fine with Illya. But even now, when Illya occasionally accepted such attentions briefly, he never let Solo complete him. If he didn’t replace Solo’s mouth with his hand, then he pulled away and coaxed Solo into taking him. It didn’t make much sense to Napoleon.

But Illya did like to be kissed. Their encounters had first begun with a kiss. The gesture seemed to soothe and calm his partner more than any other, particularly when old ghosts rose in his eyes. Solo had long ago taken his cues, learned with his ladies, that you did what your partner liked. So he kissed him again, long and lingering. Kuryakin was smiling now, his lips curving, his body pressing to his ardently. Whatever ghost he’d been entertaining seemed exorcized.

“I love your mouth, Napoleon,” he breathed.

“I love yours. Particularly,” Solo traced it with a tongue, “this lip.”

“So you’ve said,” Kuryakin said smugly.

“Conceited. So conceited. An Adonis, with Russian genes.”

“When you have it . . . ” Kuryakin said.

Solo gave the compact cock a fond squeeze. “And you have it, sweetheart.” Solo wished he could replace his hand with his lips, even briefly. But Illya clearly didn’t like the idea of being sucked off, even as a preliminary gesture. Solo had no desire to make his partner uncomfortable. When he’d seen how Illya froze and shivered uncomfortably, how he softened at a touch that should drive him wild, Solo abandoned it for things he knew pleased Illya.

Likewise, the offer Solo made of his own body to his partner was apparently not even to be considered. Illya had looked not only disbelieving, but somehow offended, and Solo no longer even dropped the hints of it that fairness had at first made him broach. He wasn’t exactly displeased. He hadn’t exactly been anticipating much pleasure from it, himself. Still, he had been willing to give it a try. If Illya could lay down for him, he could certainly manage the reverse.

Solo could only conclude Illya’s behavior had something to do with the way he’d been trained, or the limits that had been set on him when he’d served as bait, conditioning Illya hadn’t been able to break through in their few encounters. Apparently, bait, such as Illya had been, was only allowed to have sex with men in certain ways. Anything else was off-limits and judging from Illya’s behavior, had been conditioned against rather harshly. Solo was curious about that training, his partner’s odd abilities and prejudices in sex, but he hadn’t quite had the nerve to ask. Partly his interest was professional, partly personal, but it seemed bad manners to pry. Illya had never been rude enough to question him about his past encounters. He felt it would be equally gauche to question Illya.

Solo had wondered how he was with women, but suspected Illya used the same devastating charm in bed as out. It was seductive enough and women fell for it in droves. Illya didn’t need to be forceful with women, usually he was the one being chased. Solo supposed he just let them catch him.

Just like he’d let Solo catch him?

Napoleon reminded himself that Illya was one hell of an agent. He hadn’t made Number Two in Section Two without being both intelligent and ruthless. If he got caught, it was because, at least in part, he wanted to get caught.

And now that he’d been caught, Solo supposed he’d better make the catching worthwhile.

He’d been kissing Illya gently, more to soothe than to entice, rocking their bodies in a gentle motion, trying to bring Illya to a point where he felt arousal, but not anxiety for completion. It wasn’t the easiest task, judging by Illya’s soft moans. And the hard cock occasionally poking Solo’s stomach seemed strained to a painfulness.

“Easy, baby,” Solo said.

Kuryakin buried his face in Solo’s neck and whispered something in his own language.

“What was that?”

“Please, Napoleon. Please,” Kuryakin’s face was pink with embarrassment, but the eyes he raised to Solo’s were resolute. “I just can’t wait.”

“Yes, you can,” Solo assured him.

Illya moaned, and in frustration squeezed the cock inside him hard, thrusting up against his partner, striving to create for himself the sensations Solo was denying, a flurry of motion that rocked his partner’s control.

“Damn it, Illya!” Solo pinned his partner before he lost it himself. “I can’t wait myself if you do that!” He swore as Kuryakin squirmed and squeezed, foiling his control. “I’m pulling out.”

“No! Napoleon, please!”

But Solo had withdrawn, one hand snatching his partner’s aborted reach for his cock, and pinned the Soviet agent’s hands again. “So much for your promise.” Solo panted, getting himself back under control.

“I can’t help it,” Kuryakin defended.

“You act like you haven’t had sex in months,” Solo complained.

“I haven’t had this kind of sex.”

Solo chuckled. “Months? You came just a few minutes ago, remember?”

Kuryakin bit his lip, shuddering under him. “It didn’t help.”

“What’s wrong?” Solo asked. “I know you’re no fan of drawn out encounters but you usually manage better than this.”

“I don’t know. Please, Napoleon.”

Solo kissed him. “Could it be you’re just tired?”

“Maybe.” He squirmed uncomfortably and then said, “Napoleon, I just can’t bear this. I’m not going to fall asleep on you after one more climax. I’ll do anything you want if you just let me come now. You can keep me hanging and pleading on the edge all night — ”

“You’re doing that now.”

“I’ll chuck you out of this bed if you don’t take me,” Kuryakin threatened. “I’ll send you back to Salty. Or a cold shower and your own right hand.”

“Illya, we're not a couple of schoolboys jerking off before the bell rings,” Solo said. “Surely you can hold out for half an hour. How about a nice massage? I’ll rub all the tension out of you, till you’re nice and loose. You’ll love what I’ll do to you.”

“No! I meant what I said.” He started to pull out of Solo’s arms.

Solo laughed. “All right, all right.” He enfolded Kuryakin and kissed him, feeling the Russian’s arms go around him fiercely. “I won’t risk a threat like that.” He took Illya’s thighs and pushed them back. Reached for the tube of lubricant.

Kuryakin’s head went back as Solo prepared him again. “Oh, Napoleon. Now?”

“A little more. Stop squirming, will you? You made me drop the damn tube.”

“I don’t need any more. You’d already prepared me; I don’t need it done twice. You’re driving me crazy. If I wanted to be finger-fucked, I could — ”

“The hell you don’t. As tight as you are? There, that’s probably enough even for you.” Solo tossed the tube aside. “Can you move back a little?” Solo asked, slipping Illya’s legs over his shoulders. “There, that’s it. Ready?”

“For ages. I’m getting old waiting for you..”

“Well, here we go, Grandpa.” Solo pushed gently in again.

“Yes,” Kuryakin hissed as he was penetrated. “More.”

“I am, baby. I am.”

Solo watched Kuryakin’s face as he entered him, marveling at the expression. It was the oddest look. A combination of pain and desire, and a steely determination to see one through to reach the other. Solo thrust slowly but firmly inward, holding Illya tight against any too abrupt movement, remembering what had happened before. In spite of all Kuryakin’s promises, his Soviet partner’s control couldn’t always be trusted. Solo wasn’t about to have his careful preparations spoiled again by a too quick impalement. Illya was panting by the time Napoleon was fully sheathed, his body drenched with sweat. A reminder of how difficult he found this, as much as it excited him. Solo shifted slightly, getting a better grip on his partner’s sweat-slick skin, arranging the too long legs more comfortably over his shoulders. He pulled Illya even closer, adjusting the angle of penetration, feeling the slender body shudder at the motion. That taxed Solo’s control, and a drop of sweat fell from his forehead to Illya’s gleaming chest; he was soaked himself. Illya squeezed him all along his length and moaned softly. “Please, Napoleon.”

They were so close. As if they’d been born from the same womb, melded together with sweat and semen, salt and water. Ocean creatures, their skin slick, their hair damp. Solo could feel the echo of his partner’s breathing rocking his cock. The pounding of his heart. The rapid fire of his pulse. He almost believed he could feel the rush of air in his lungs. “You feel so good, baby,” Solo whispered.

“So do you,” Kuryakin breathed back.

He was drawn back to Illya’s face, the desire stamped on his features, as nakedly revealing as his flushed skin, as the passion apparent in his trembling limbs. “Do I?”

“Oh, yes.”

“What do you feel, Illya?” he queried softly.

Kuryakin just looked at him through slitted eyes and shook his head slightly.

“What do you feel?” Solo insisted. “Tell me.” He’d never understood Kuryakin’s reaction. Why another man could want this, even need this so much. Yet it was clear, from his close-pressed body, to his trembling limbs, to his drawn taut cock, how pleasurable Illya found this.

Illya squirmed again. “Is this a new form of torture?”

“No.” Solo touched Illya’s face, brushing the sweat soaked bangs from his eyes. “I want to know what you’re feeling when you’re with me. Under me.” He moved his hips slowly, reminding Illya of other sensations.

Kuryakin shuddered under Solo’s confining grip, his legs tightening over the senior agents broad shoulders. “Isn’t it obvious?”

“Nothing about you is obvious to me,” Solo said truthfully.

“Napoleon, please.”

“If it is so obvious, I’ll figure it out eventually anyway, won’t I?”

“Will you?” Kuryakin whispered.

“You did promise, babe.” Solo waited then gave him the lead in. “This makes you feel . . . ” He thrust slowly, watching as Kuryakin gasped and moaned.

“Possessed.” Kuryakin breathed the word so softly Solo wasn’t quite sure of it. Then he doubted its meaning.

“Does that make me the devil?” Solo asked, slightly puzzled, but amused, still thrusting gently. “Do we need to go to confession after one of these encounters? I didn’t think you were the overly moral type.”

Confusion crossed the Russian’s face and then it cleared. “Not like that. Owned.” His breath caught. “Oh, please, Napoleon. Harder.”

This time it was Solo’s face that showed his confusion. “You want to feel owned?”

“Sometimes,” Kuryakin grated and then he moaned as Solo shifted his angle slightly.

Solo thrust deeper, watching as his partner’s eyes closed. “What would make you want that?”

“Napoleon.” A hushed whisper, an attempted withdrawal. “Please.”

Solo held his partner tighter, using a bit more force. “You never cease to surprise me, Illya.”

Kuryakin opened his eyes, watching Solo, “You asked for the truth. Does it bother you?”

“No, of course not” Solo said, wondering himself why he felt a niggle of unease. “You’re just such a contrary beast." He bent his head down, belying the words, kissing Kuryakin. The Soviet agent leaned up, lips clinging. “I would have thought you’d deck me for even thinking of owning you, baby.”

“Only sometimes,” Kuryakin warned.

“Like now?”

“Yes. Definitely like now. Please, Napoleon?”

“Okay.” Solo smiled. “If you want to belong to someone,” Solo said, as if remembering Kuryakin’s earlier words, “you can belong to me. Free with tonight’s ticket.”

Kuryakin ignored the meaning lurking behind the words, the knowledge that when the night was over, Napoleon’s arms would only be a memory again. For himself, for this moment, he could dream this was something different than a one night stand, an assignation of convenience for a man who had let a more eligible partner slip away. He wouldn’t think about nights, or the unenviable mornings after. He wouldn’t think at all. Tonight, he’d only feel.

“One climax, in exchange for body and soul,” Solo continued.

“Soviets don’t have souls, Napoleon,” Illya whispered.

“Then I guess I’ll just have to own your body,” Solo answered. After that, they had no breath for words.

r

Panting. No other sound in the room, as their cries drowned away, the creaking of the bedsprings died, the final slap of their bodies together fading to be replaced by only a desperate rush for breath, as desperately as the force that had propelled them together. Life, after all, required oxygen as well as sex.

“You okay?” Solo asked.

The blue eyes opened and looked at him. Nodded.

“That was very sweet for a quickie,” Solo teased, more to lighten his partner than anything. Illya seemed a little disoriented. Solo debated giving him a kiss, but decided to hold off until later. Right now, they had more immediate needs.

“Ready to come down?” Solo asked perfunctorily, reaching up, one hand each to Kuryakin’s ankles, thumbs giving a casual caress to the soft skin on Illya’s insteps. He drew the agent’s legs off his shoulders slowly, mindful of the cramps his uncomfortable position could cause. He set them down gently on either side of his hips. As he did so, his own cock came free of his partner’s body, deflated, damp with lubricant, sliding out with a soft obscene sucking noise. Kuryakin winced, the color rising in his face, and sat up a little, rubbing absently at his lower back. Solo surveyed them both and the wreck they’d made of the narrow bed.

“I think we could both use a bath,” Napoleon squeezed Illya’s hand. “I’ll go and run it. You just lay there and look gorgeous.”

“Very funny,” Kuryakin said, but he made no effort to rise.

The bathtub wasn’t really big enough for both of them, the porcelain was stained and worn in spots, but they were lucky to have a room with a private bath at all. Solo dumped a little shampoo in the water, enough to fill it with a froth of bubbles. He preferred showers, but he knew his Russian partner found baths a personal luxury. One of their many cultural deviations. Illya thought of showers as a merely functional expedient, part and parcel of military service. Solo thought of baths as something for five-year-olds and sore muscles.

But he’d learned to compromise with lovers. If Illya liked to bathe rather than shower, they’d bathe.

He left the water running and went in search of his lover. “All ready.”

Kuryakin sighed and got to his feet a bit unsteadily. Solo reached down and pulled him up, using the motion to pull him into a kiss.

“Did I happen to mention that was pretty fantastic?” Solo asked as he concluded the kiss.

“The sex or the kiss?” Kuryakin asked bemusedly.

The hand that was around Kuryakin’s waist dropped lower and swatted him. “Smart ass.”

“Ow!” Kuryakin stumbled forward, groin against groin. “Cut that out, Napoleon.”

“You deserved it for provoking me. You know what I meant.”

“I thought you didn’t like quickies,” Kuryakin asked guilelessly.

“Ummm.” Solo kissed his partner again, unable to resist the lush mouth. “Fantastic for a quickie, that is. Come on, filthy, time to clean you up.” He tugged Illya into step beside him, urged him into the tub and stepped behind him, pulled him down before him, back to his chest, and picked up the washcloth.

“Napoleon,” Illya began, as Solo lathered the cloth up with foamy suds.

“Shhh,” Solo said, putting a finger to the Soviet agent’s lips. “I got you dirty. I’ll make you clean.” He drew the cloth down his partner’s face, stroked the sides of his throat, his gleaming chest, flushed with suntan and sunburn combined. Gentle, careful strokes across the nearly hairless chest, down the lean loins, washing away sweat and semen and traces of lubricant, all the aftermaths of sex. Illya sighed and settled back to enjoy the attentions, drowsing easily, floating a little in the full tub, not really thinking much as his belly and thighs were soaped, his knees and legs and feet, Solo leaning his chin far over Illya’s shoulders to reach his toes.

“You’re being silly,” Kuryakin noted without much heat.

“I’m being thorough,” Napoleon noted. “Lean forward a bit so I can get to your back.”

Solo scrubbed him there harder, massaging neck and shoulders as Illya groaned in appreciation. Scrubbed his back in rough, brisk strokes, rubbed his lower back in appreciation of the strain it had undergone in his service. Massaged the tight buns.

“Napoleon!” Kuryakin groaned as he skipped under Solo’s hands, shifting in the water. “That is too much.”

“Baby, I am just getting started.”

“No, I think it’s time that I got started,” Kuryakin turned around in Solo’s arms, sloshing water all over the place.

“Hey, take it easy,” Napoleon laughed.

Kuryakin captured the cloth and the soap.

“I’m not the filthy one, filthy,” Solo reproved.

“Only in your mind,” Illya returned.

“I’ll get you for that.”

“Get me later,” Kuryakin said, “Now it’s my turn to wash.” He leaned up, daringly, and kissed Solo on the mouth.

“Mmmmn. I will, baby. Count on that.”

Illya washed Napoleon, not only the evidence of the last two encounters, traces of sweat and deodorant and stale cologne, but the traces of the other that Solo had romanced that night, the invisible traces of powder and perfume. The hints of lipstick and makeup transferred from Salty’s kisses, traces unseen, but just as visible to Kuryakin.

Solo was quiet as Kuryakin removed a lipstick smudge he hadn’t known he carried, and rinsed off the cloth in the bath water before returning to his careful bathing. The pensive look on Illya’s face as he ministered to him was disquieting. He hadn’t really thought about what it must have felt like to Illya to come to him, fresh from Salty’s arms, of still bearing evidence, both olfactory and visible of Salty, even as he was entering his partner’s body. He wasn’t usually so gauche.

He watched his pensive partner, as Illya moved the cloth down Solo’s broad chest, marred with scars from their joint profession. Traced the scars with one calloused finger that followed the cloth’s path. Looked up at Solo with a quiet grimace as he acknowledged their mortality, and then, flicking his damp bangs out of his eyes, dropped the cloth lower to Solo’s groin.

Watching his partner’s hands carefully lather and soap his cock was an incredible turn-on. He didn’t resist as his cock began to swell under the strong hands, the gentle touches. Illya captured the growing organ in one fist, his long fingers barely meeting as they grasped the thick root.

“Well, well, well,” Kuryakin sounded amused. “Where can I have seen this before?”

“Don’t start anything you can’t afford to finish,” Solo warned, with a glance at Kuryakin’s still relaxed genitals.

“My finishing you doesn’t depend on the reverse,” Illya said, quite seriously. “I’m probably out for the count tonight, but I did promise you that you could have your wicked way with me once you obliged me. I intend to keep my part of the bargain.”

“I like a man whose word is good,” Solo said, throwing his head back as Kuryakin soaped his balls.

“You like this man, at least,” Kuryakin replied.

“Like doesn’t begin to cover it,” Solo said. “Your hands feel wonderful.”

“Cover me,” Kuryakin suggested with a quick playful tug on Solo’s fully erect cock, his lips quirking in a grin.

“Mmmmn. The question is, how?”

“Anyway you want,” Kuryakin offered, with the casual generosity of his body that always stunned Solo.

“Much as I’d like to take you up on that, I need to know the truth. You must be tired. And more than a little sore.”

“Not really. I’m actually kind of keyed up. This bath has woken me up.”

“But not up,” Solo said, reaching to give Illya’s pretty cock a fond squeeze. It didn’t react at all.

“I’ll suck you if you don’t want to take me again,” Kuryakin said agreeably. “If it will put you off that I can’t get it up for intercourse. But, really, Napoleon, I don’t have to come to enjoy your taking me. And I’m not sore. Not too sore for that, certainly.”

“Let’s see,” Solo said, turning him. Kuryakin drew a leg up to his chest to facilitate Solo’s fingered query, relaxing as the finger slipped inside, sighing softly and slipping toward Napoleon in the water as he massaged the narrow channel.

“That feels nice.” He pushed back against Solo’s chest and leaned his head back on the hard shoulder. “More please.”

Solo laughed. “If I were a gambling man, and I am, I’d wager that you have another round still in the chamber.”

“I’m afraid not,” Kuryakin said, sadly regarding his cock, as he squirmed on Solo’s hand. “There’s not much happening on this end. But just because I have a spent clip doesn’t mean I’m dead from the waist down. I’d love to be taken.”

“But, are you spent?” Solo said, fondling the still softened cock. “I’ll admit, you’re not exactly jumping to attention. But I think there’s a little life still in here.” He squeezed the balls coaxingly.

“Ummm.” Kuryakin squirmed harder back on Solo’s fingers. “I’d believe anything of you, Napoleon. Tell you what, if you can actually make me come again, I’ll suck you off.”

Solo laughed. “Now that is definitely a gauntlet thrown. But I’d have to wait till morning to collect, because one more round will probably do it for me, too. Very tempting.”

“I don’t know why you should care if I come with you a third time,” Kuryakin argued, a puzzled frown bisecting his brow. “Surely it can’t make much difference to your own pleasure.”

“Speaks a man who mostly goes to bed alone, and deserves to, with that attitude,” Solo scoffed.

“I didn’t say that was true making love to a woman. They’re different; they can come a dozen times and you should make sure they come with you. But I’m a man.”

“I’ve noticed,” Solo said, still trying to urge a response from the softened cock.

Kuryakin turned, pulling himself out of Solo’s arms to face him. “You don’t need to worry about hearts and flowers with me. If I can’t get it up, I can’t. But I wouldn’t stop you if you can.”

“Illya, at times, you are possibly the most unromantic person, man or woman, that I have ever known,” Solo complained. “It’s absolutely appalling that you spend so much time with me, and yet so little of my own nature rubs off on you.”

“The only part of your nature that can rub off on me is between your thighs,” Kuryakin said crudely. “I like my nature just as it is, thank you very much. I just don’t understand why you have to be disappointed, or I have to feel pressured, about my ability to come again. I don’t think it is very likely, no matter how good a gambler you are. In spite of your hand on my cock and some expert finger fucking, I’m still as limp as spaghetti.”

“There’s no pressure, Illya,” Solo assured him, sliding his hands away. “Just relax and we’ll see what happens.”

“It’s not going up,” Kuryakin snapped.

“Noted. But just in case,” Solo added, “I’ll collect my bet tomorrow morning. You can wake me up.”

“I’d advise you to just keep dreaming, Napoleon.”

Solo just laughed. “No need to dream, I have a pleasant enough reality here. Except the water is getting cold. Let’s get out.” He reached over his partner to pull the plug in the drain, tugging his partner to his feet with the same hand. Snagged a towel and held it open for Kuryakin, who had reached for it in the same motion. The Soviet agent sighed pointedly but stepped into the held towel. Let himself be enfolded. Rubbed gently dry.

“I am capable of doing this for myself, Napoleon,” he complained, as Solo tousled his hair dry with a fresh towel.

“But you’re so exhausted,” Solo teased. “Too tired to get it up. I’m trying to conserve your limited strength.”

“Bastard,” Kuryakin said, capturing the towel from Solo and used it to rub his own partner dry, reaching up to massage the broad shoulders, biceps, chest. Dropped it lower to start at the ankles, calves, knees, looking up at Solo, lips inches from the now full, straining cock. “Shall I dry this, too?”

Solo pulled the towel from his hands, tossing it blindly away. “I think instead it’s time I took care of you,” he said huskily.

“I’d rather take care of this,” Kuryakin answered, leaning toward the cock as if mesmerized, lips opening. Licking his lips, the tongue reaching.

“Up,” Solo ordered, taking his hands and pulling him to his feet. “Turn. Stay there a minute, I have to get the lubricant from my kit.”

“Wouldn’t it be better to do this in bed, Mr. Romance?” Kuryakin asked sardonically, head turned, eyes following Solo as he looked over his shoulder.

“Put one leg up on the toilet seat. That’s it. And no, because once I get you into that bed, my concentration will be sorely tried. Not that you don’t try it here. But I’m not likely to make love over a toilet seat.”

“Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it,” Kuryakin said thickly, as he arched his back, Solo’s fingers deep inside him.

“No, thanks. Easy, baby.”

“Surely that’s enough,” Kuryakin said, wriggling.

“This is going to be a nice slow session, my way, remember? I want you lubed enough to be comfy while I indulge myself. It’s going to be a long night. A little extra insurance can’t hurt.”

“Nothing wrong with being hurt, as long as it’s only a little,” Kuryakin qualified, “it can add some spice.”

“Not my style. That does it, I think.” Solo disposed of the empty tube and glanced at Kuryakin’s still flaccid cock. “Are you sure you’re not too tired for this?”

“To lay back and let you have your fun? There’s nothing hard in that. Except you.”

“That I am,” Solo said, punctuating the promise with an equally hard kiss. “Let’s go, then.” He took Kuryakin’s hand, the other going around the Soviet agent’s lean waist, stopping him just before they reached the bed. “Wait a minute.” Solo stripped the soiled bottom sheet off and remade it fresh with the top sheet, as Kuryakin watched, head tilted.

“Why don’t we just use the other bed, if you are so fastidious?”

“Because we’re going to sleep in that one, Filthy.”

Kuryakin shrugged and moved to lie down. Solo caught his arm. “Uh, I thought we’d try it a different way.”

“From behind?”

“No, face to face, but sitting.” At Kuryakin’s dubious look he said. “You won’t be on your knees or cramp your lower back this way. And you can rest against me if you get tired. It might work out better for a long session.”

“You’re the boss,” Kuryakin shrugged. “I don’t think I’ve done it this way, though,” he paused, thinking, “except briefly with a girl, that is. We finished the usual way, though.”

“It’s easy enough,” Solo said, sliding on the bed with his back against the headboard. “Come down and straddle me. That’s right, one knee on either side.”

Kuryakin found his balance, knees and legs underneath him, hands on Solo’s broad shoulders in support, bottom raised over the arrowing cock. “Do you want me to come down now?”

“Wait a moment,” Solo’s fingers found his partner’s anus, the other hand curling around his own rigid cock, shining with lube. He guided Illya down. “Okay, nice and slow. Don’t force yourself.”

Kuryakin sank gently, back arching, breath catching as Solo split and then filled him.

“Hurt much?” Solo queried, discerning eyes inches from Kuryakin’s face.

“Not much.” Kuryakin said, his breathing careful, his voice barely catching.

“Liar,” Solo said, without heat.

“Just a bit. You know it takes me a moment to get used to you,” Kuryakin defended as he drew a deep breath, relaxing a little. He eased up a bit, then down again, swallowing hard and tossing his bangs out of his eyes. Sweat had broken out on his forehead and the hands on Solo’s shoulders had clenched into fists. He drew another careful breath and rocked his hips again, up and then down very carefully. On the fifth try he managed to come down all the way, Solo’s balls warm against his ass.

“I’ve been trying for three years to get used to you,” Solo quipped, watching as Kuryakin swallowed hard, Adam’s apple moving in the dim light as he lifted off the thick cock and let himself down again.

“Very funny,” Kuryakin said absently, but he didn’t smile, his eyes wide and attuned more to internal concerns. Solo rubbed the small of his back comfortingly but didn’t try anything more arousing. Had Illya not come twice already, he would have been trying to ease this entry by playing up to Kuryakin’s own arousal. But Illya’s softened cock made that approach an unlikely tactic, probably more distracting than useful. It was one of the reasons he’d chosen this position, where Illya could choose how fast and how deeply he was penetrated. He wasn’t fooled by Illya’s prior assertions about how easily he could take this. Under the best of circumstances, with Illya fully aroused, well-lubed and well broken in by recent attentions, this still was a difficult act to pull off without pain.

Kuryakin sank down, lower lip absently caught between his teeth. He wiggled slightly, tried to relax and sit on the hard cock, fidgeted upwards as the discomfort grew, and sank down again. This time he blinked and sighed. “I’m okay,” he answered Solo’s unspoken question. “I think you’re all the way in.” There was a trace of doubt in his voice, but he made no move to force himself further down.

“All in,” Solo reassured. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” Kuryakin said shortly. “Don’t fuss.”

“Just making sure,” Solo said, still massaging Kuryakin’s back. “You’re so tense.”

“You’re so big,” Kuryakin retorted back.

“Too big?” Solo asked.

“Almost,” Kuryakin admitted frankly. “But not quite.”

“Com’re baby,” Solo took Kuryakin’s shoulders and drew him down and close, pulling him against his body. “Can you?”

“Yes.” Kuryakin said around Solo’s tongue as he was coaxed into a kiss. When their lips parted, Kuryakin was panting a little, and this time not from pain. Solo could feel the rapid fire of his heartbeat against his own chest. But the slender cock was still soft.

Solo shrugged and slowly pulled Kuryakin’s legs gently out from under him, so that Illya was on his feet rather than his knees, took his ass in hand, spreading the cheeks and settling him more comfortably in his lap. Kuryakin clenched around Solo’s cock as it slid deeper inside him, his toes curling, hands hard on Solo’s biceps. But after a moment, he relaxed again, letting out a soft breath.

“How does that feel?” Solo asked. Now instead of Illya perched tensely over his lap, he was sitting in it, his weight pulling him down hard on the cock that had split him. He’d lost much of the leverage that had let him raise and lower himself easily for the initial penetration. But he also wasn’t responsible now for his own balance. It was Solo’s arms and legs that held him close, gravity that pulled him down. Kuryakin bowed his forehead, lowering it almost to Solo’s chest, testing his discomfort and finding the changes almost an equal trade. “Good.”

Solo raised his chin and kissed him. “You feel wonderful.”

Kuryakin smiled faintly. “Do you want me to do anything? Not that I think I can do much but wriggle.”

“Just relax, baby,” Solo pulled his upper body against him, settled Kuryakin’s head on his shoulder and rocked his own hips. “How does that feel?”

“Okay,” Kuryakin said. “Nice.”

“Good.” Solo wrapped his arms around his partner and rocked them both, his cock sliding gently in the lubed channel with the motion. Kuryakin sighed softly, his shoulders relaxing a bit. After a moment Kuryakin’s arms went tentatively around Solo’s waist and he pulled himself even closer, settling further down on Solo’s cock. Solo felt his partner tense just a bit at the deeper entry, and then relax and try to get comfortable with the increased penetration. The only disadvantage to this position was that once Solo was in, he was in. It was almost impossible for him to withdraw much or even for Illya to raise up off him unless they changed positions. Solo wasn’t so much worried about the length of his cock; the thickness at the root was probably much more uncomfortable to his partner’s tiny asshole than the length. But at this stage, if he hadn’t torn now, he probably wasn’t likely to and Solo felt pretty comfortable in urging his partner closer. The sooner he stretched around the base of Solo’s cock, the faster his discomfort would end. Another quarter inch or so wasn’t going to make much difference.

He kissed Illya again, caressed him gently, liking that he had both hands free in this position, that Illya did too. Though at this stage Illya didn’t seem inclined for much more than to hold on. No doubt he was still feeling some discomfort. Solo kept one hand firm at the small of his back, massaging away the tension, sensing how the distracting sensations eased his partner. Growing bolder as Kuryakin relaxed further against him, Solo undulated his hips, rocking them steadily. Kuryakin turned his face to his partner’s, lips seeking, and Solo rewarded him with a deep kiss. Illya wrapped his legs around his partner’s waist as they kissed, his sharp gasp as he sank further onto Solo caught and muffled in his partner’s mouth. They clung together, Napoleon’s tongue deep in his throat, his cock high up Illya’s ass, Kuryakin kissing him hard as Solo pulled him down against his body.

Kuryakin moaned suddenly, breaking the kiss, one hand going involuntarily to his groin.

“Well, well, well,” Solo said, catching it before it could complete its journey and interlacing his own hand with the seeking fingers. “Where have I seen this before?”

Kuryakin blushed, color rising high in his face, matching the flush that had collected in the once somnolent, now swelling cock. “Don’t gloat. It isn’t hard yet.”

“But it will be,” Solo promised. He traced Kuryakin’s lips. “And I’m looking forward to tomorrow morning.”

“Don’t count your climaxes before they come,” Kuryakin warned.

“I’m counting on at least two more,” Solo said. “But not too soon, of course.”

Kuryakin sighed and crossed his legs behind Solo’s back, arms around Solo’s waist. Solo took his mouth in another long kiss.

Drawing a long breath, Kuryakin sucked Solo’s tongue deep in his throat, feeling Solo rocking underneath him, feeling the thick spear of Napoleon’s cock moving deep inside him, shivers of sensation coursing through him as it rubbed against his prostate. His balls were beginning to ache with a piercing sweetness. He squeezed the hard rod in him, and moaned softly against Solo’s mouth.

Napoleon broke the kiss only long enough for them each to catch a breath, then his mouth covered him again. This time it was Illya who suddenly broke away, panting hard. “Napoleon?”

“Yeah, baby?” Solo didn’t pause in his steady, slow rocking. Sweat gleamed on his olive skin, seamed between their joined bodies.

“Did you notice I happen to be hard?” he asked, breathless in sudden desire.

Solo laughed softly. “I did indeed.”

“I don’t suppose I can touch myself, can I?” Kuryakin asked regretfully.

“You promised, baby. I get to bring you off this time, remember?”

Kuryakin sighed, looking down at his cock arrowing up between their bodies. Looked away, relinquishing it to Napoleon’s thrall. But he leaned down and licked Solo’s chest, mouth fastening on a nipple and sucking hard, bringing it sharply erect, a tiny twin of his own cock.

Solo groaned sharply. “You minx.” He lifted Illya’s head. The Soviet agent kissed him again, pressing closer, doing the best he could to influence his partner.

“Please, Napoleon,” he coaxed.

“I won’t let you come cold, sweetheart. But you do have to wait for me. I want us to come together.”

“Hurry,” Kuryakin demanded.

“Not a chance. I’ve got you right where I want you. Just relax and enjoy it. This is my turn.”

Kuryakin sighed and turned his head away from his pleading cock. He leaned forward against Solo’s chest, head on his shoulder, arms and legs wrapped firmly around his waist. He told himself that Solo had given him what he’d wanted. It was only fair he give Solo the same. He closed his eyes and let Solo rock them, surrendered himself to the tantalizing hands that roved over his body, that soothed and aroused, caressed and massaged, alternately bringing him up the ladder of desire, letting him pause and rest, then up again, then another pause. He was familiar with this from previous sessions with Napoleon. After fifteen minutes he was breathing hard, trembling and shuddering, his hands clasped tight around Solo’s waist to keep them from pumping his own cock. As Solo continued to stroke and caress him, he suddenly lost control of his breathing and moaned, shifting in an anxious attempt to escape the stimulation that had become too much to bear passively.

“Easy, baby,” Napoleon soothed. “You’re thinking again. Don’t think about finishing. Just think about now. I love the way you feel against me. So hot and tight. Me so hard up inside you. You so close around me. Do you feel how hard I am for you? How much I want you?”

“Yes,” Kuryakin panted. He bowed his head against Solo’s chest. Solo massaged his neck, fingers trailing across the vulnerable nape.

“It’s all right, Illya. I’m going to make us come. Just not yet.”

Kuryakin shuddered, his breath coming out part moan, part sob at that pronouncement. “Oh, Napoleon, please.”

“Deep breath, sweet. Put your head up. Stay with me.”

Kuryakin threw his head back, breathing deeply, then bowed his spine and moaned again. “I can’t. Can’t hold out any longer. I have to move. Touch my — ”

“No, you don’t.” Solo’s voice was firm. “You don’t, Illya. You can wait.”

Kuryakin laid his head on Solo’s shoulders, eyes closed, panting softly, white knuckled hands locked behind Solo’s back. Sweat trickled down his face, his chest. His cock throbbed, untouched in the oasis between their bodies, gleaming with its own lubricant, a drop bubbling at its tip. Solo ignored it.

“You okay, baby?”

“Yes,” Kuryakin grated, muscles locked as he leashed the driving impulse to move. “As much as I can be.”

Solo chuckled. “That’s a boy. You like this, don’t you? It feels good, doesn’t it?”

Kuryakin nodded dumbly, not trusting himself to words.

“You want to stay right here where you are, don’t you, sweetheart? In my arms, with me hard up inside you? This is what you want, isn’t it?”

Kuryakin didn’t answer, breathing hard.

“Illya? You still with me?” Solo asked.

“Da. Yes.”

“I know I’ve got you going when you start speaking Russian,” Solo teased. “How are you doing, sweet?” He fingered the ends of Illya’s hair, damp with sweat. They were both drenched with perspiration, in spite of its evaporating in the cooler air of the room, Solo’s steady rocking caused fresh beads to form on them both. Kuryakin was trembling, legs locked, fists clenched. Even his eyelids were screwed tightly shut.

“I think I’m dying, Napoleon,” Illya said softly. “I can’t feel this much. It’s tearing me apart.”

“No, you’re strong enough to stand it,” Solo counseled. “The worst is over,” he added referring to the long slow increase of arousal that Kuryakin had resisted. “Now we just stay where we are for awhile. Float on the feeling. Just feel, baby. You aren’t going to break.”

They were quiet then, the only sound their harsh breathing, the creak of the bedsprings as they rocked. Solo felt his partner’s body move gradually from tension to acceptance. He still trembled, but he no longer seemed to struggle to move to his own rhythm, drifting on Solo’s pace instead.

“How are you doing, sweetheart?” Solo asked.

Kuryakin moaned and breathed hard, his eyes glittering in the soft light. “I’m trying, Napoleon. I’ve never felt anything like this before.”

“I told you it would be good if you could just hold on,” Solo said, his own voice tense as he struggled against his own desires.

Kuryakin sighed, laying his head back down on Solo’s shoulder, eyes unfocused.“I just want to stay like this. Here. Just like this. Forever.”

Solo kissed the lips close to his. “As long as we can, sweetheart.”

“It’s like I’ve never had sex before,” Kuryakin whispered. “It feels so good.”

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