Page 55 of No Man's Land

Perhaps this night was all they’d have.

He got his hands beneath Alex’s jacket and shoved it off his shoulders, and then they were undressing each other in a scramble of buttons and waistcoats. There were no more words,only touch and want, and fire burning away the terrors of the night.

Chapter Seventeen

Afterwards, they lay quietly together, Josef spooned against Alex’s chest with his head resting on one of Alex’s powerful arms.

For the first time in forever, he felt relaxed. Boneless. His mind drifting in a happy miasma of drowsy dreams.

Alex’s warm breath ruffled his hair as he murmured, “I’ve thought about you a great deal over the past few months.”

“Have you?”

“I know I shouldn’t; I know this can’t be more than it is. But I wanted you to know that the night we spent together in Pops was… real.”

Josef twisted slightly in his arms, trying to see his face. “Was it? You were lying about everything that night. Even your name.”

“Not true. I told you my name.”

“Only half of it.”

“The most important half.” He kissed Josef’s shoulder, then sighed, tightening his arm around Josef’s waist. “I wish things could have been different, though.”

“Different how?” Josef squirmed onto his side so that they were face to face. Alex’s hand came to rest on the small of his back, warm and heavy.

“I wish we could have parted as friends.”

Josef snorted. “Friends? That was hardly possible.”

“It could have been,” Alex objected. “If…if we’d had fewer secrets.”

“And you weren’t such a toff.”

“And you weren’t such a socialist oik.”

Josef gasped in mock outrage. “Oik?” He turned his caress of Alex’s chest into a poke in the ribs, making him yelp. And then fight back, which resulted in a ridiculous tickling match as they wrestled around in Alex’s enormous bed. It only ended when Alex pinned Josef’s arms to the bed, straddling him as he leaned down and thoroughly kissed him into submission.

And submit Josef did, giving up everything to that moment of untethered joy. And to Alex, to his body moving over Josef’s, moving inside him, to the overwhelming rise of pleasure. When it broke over him, he let it wash everything away and leave him, for a few precious moments, pure and cleansed of troubles.

Much later, Josef woke from a deep sleep to the sound of a telephone ringing.

For a moment, he was confused—the Cohens didn’t own a telephone. And then, with a complex rush of warmth and wariness, he remembered where he was: Alex Beaumont’s bed.

Propping himself up on his elbows, blinking sleep away, Josef watched through the bedroom door as Alex, half dressed, picked up the telephone handset.

“Yes, of course,” he said after a moment. “Send him up—the long way, please.”

Josef sat up straight. Send himup?

Bolting out of bed, he scrabbled around in the semi-dark looking for his clothes. He didn’t know what the hell Alex was playing at, but he wasn’t about to be found naked in his bed.

“You might want to—ah.” Alex stood, well, lounged, in the doorway. His shirt was only partly fastened and revealed a slice of muscular chest that Josef might have found enticing had he not been searching for his underwear. “I take it you heard that we’re expecting company?”

“Yes, I bloody well did. And I suppose you think I'll just hide in a cupboard or climb out the window. Well, think again, sunshine.”

Alex looked amused. “You’re welcome to any of my cupboards, but I wouldn’t recommend trying to scale the building at this time of night.” His amusement softened, and he smiled, holding out a hand to Josef. “Come here.”

Reluctantly, but unable to stop himself, Josef took the offered hand. Warm, strong—he remembered the feel of it on his body, the dexterity and subtlety of those elegant fingers. Goosebumps rose along his arms, despite the warmth of the room.

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