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“Not as posh as your other gaffs,” Alex commented, staring around at the simple, white painted room, with its stark, unadorned walls, grey sofa and small dining table with two mismatched chairs. “Or as big.”
“If it’s not up to your exacting standards, you can catch a bus from the other side of the Via Salaria direct to the central station. You might even find a fast-food outlet still open …”
“You can’t get rid of me that easily. Promised you a shoulder rub, remember?”
“I absolve you from any such obligation. Shall I show you out?” Yassen felt it necessary to go through the motions. Alex no doubt expected it of him by now.
“Nope. I’d only get thrown off the bus for eating my own leg. You don’t need to worry about me. I can slum it. It’s no worse than some of the student flats I’ve been in.”
“How reassuring.” Yassen waved his hand at the sofa. “Make yourself at home. I’ll just remove various tins from my arse and make you that meal of baked beans and peaches you kept mentioning at length during our incarceration.”
As Alex wandered over to the window and looked around, Yassen shrugged off his jacket and stuffed it straight into the washing machine. The rest of his clothes would soon follow, as would the ones Alex was wearing. They were both covered in grime from the cellar and a certain amount of blood splatter, courtesy of a bullet at close range into the head of his former employer.
“If you can refrain from snacking on your own anatomy for five minutes, you’ll find clean towels in the bathroom,” Yassen said, pointing at the relevant doorway. “Be warned, the shower is small and the water pressure is erratic, but it’s hot enough.”
“Good, because that shoulder of yours needs loosening up before I work on it.”
“Guests have first use of the facilities,” Yassen said firmly. “Even uninvited ones. Leave your clothes outside the door and I’ll find you something to wear.”
For once in his life, Alex conceded gracefully. Yassen left a pair of jogging bottoms and a loose fitting teeshirt for him. Alex topped him by some four centimetres, but the clothes would suffice until his own were clean and dry.
While Alex was occupied in the bathroom, Yassen took some fresh peaches from the fruit rack, quickly skinned and sliced them, then set them to poach in a mix of rich spicy dessert wine and sugar. He couldn’t produce a tin of evaporated milk from his arse, but he did have crème fraiche in the fridge.
With the dessert simmering on the stove, Yassen set out a platter of fresh olives and humous, along with bread he’d bought that morning. That would hopefully be enough to prevent Alex from having to snack on his own anatomy when he emerged from the shower.
Yassen’s shoulder was now aching like he’d gone ten rounds with a boxing kangaroo and lost every one of them, and although he disliked taking tablets, he knew his over-stretched muscles were going to stiffen up badly so some strong anti-inflammatories would be wise. He poured two large glasses of chilled white wine and handed one to Alex who had just wandered in, barefoot from the shower, dressed in the borrowed clothing and rubbing a towel over his wet, tousled hair, darkened by the water. For a moment, Yassen was painfully aware of how closely the young man had grown to resemble his father.
Yassen gestured to the food on the table and went to take his own shower. The hot water cascading down onto his sore shoulder was welcome as he leaned against the white tiled wall and tried to empty his mind of the day’s irritations. Alex Rider did have an unfortunate habit of interfering in even the most well-planned operations, but at least on this occasion, the client had paid in advance.
When he was able to rotate his shoulder without too much pain, Yassen towelled himself dry and pulled on a pair of comfortable, loose fitting pyjama trousers and a soft black teeshirt.
As expected, Alex had devoured exactly half of everything Yassen had set out and was now curled up on the sofa watching the small wall mounted TV. As Yassen walked in, he commented, “The fish survived. Just seen it on the news.”
“Good. They weren’t responsible for the actions of their absurd owner.”
“They’re being taken to the aquarium.”
“How nice for them. I hope they’ll be very happy there.”
Yassen set out a large platter of cold meat and cheese on the table, along with a fresh green salad and a bowl of cherry tomatoes.
“Are we saving the baked beans for later?” Alex enquired as he politely waited for Yassen to sit down before starting to load his own plate.
“Tins are for emergencies only. And this no longer constitutes an emergency.”
They ate in companionable silence until Alex declared himself to be pleasantly stuffed. The remains of the meal were quickly cleared away and, to his surprise, Yassen realised that between them, they’d finished the wine. Reasoning that as he had no work to do the following morning, thanks to Alex’s unscheduled intervention in his working life, there was no reason not to open another bottle. This time, he chose a rich, fruity red.
The pleasant lethargy from the wine had helped almost as much as the hot water and the tablets and by now, Yassen was feeling reasonably well disposed towards the world in general and Alex Rider in particular.
“Dessert?”
Alex looked up hopefully. “Peaches and cream?”
“Of course.”
Yassen served the warm poached peaches in their syrup accompanied by a large spoonful of crème fraiche and a sprinkle of brown sugar for added texture. Alex set to with evident relish and even scraped the bowl with his finger, before announcing, “You, my soulmate, are a domestic goddess! Have I ever told you that before?”
“Yes, but only under the influence of alcohol or drugs.”
“My bad. I should praise your domesticity more often. It might encourage you to be less murdery.” Alex whisked away the bowls and quickly washed up, waving away Yassen’s offer of help. “Need to make myself useful,” he declared. “Now grab a cushion to sit on and let me take a look at your shoulder.”
“There’s no need …”
Alex’s brown eyes took on a steely glint, all to reminiscent of John when he was about to refuse to take no for an answer. He pointed to the floor at his feet. “Do as you’re bloody well told.”
Yassen allowed himself a practically homeopathic sigh. As a token gesture, it might not have been much, but at least it was something. He sat cross-legged at Alex’s feet, leaning back against the sofa, and willed himself to relax as Alex’s hands settled lightly on his shoulders.
“You don’t like turning your back on anyone, do you?” Alex commented.
“It’s not a good survival trait.”
“You can relax, I’m off the clock.”
Warm hands drifted across his shoulders, gentling him as if he was a nervous horse or a skittish dog. Almost against his will, Yassen started to accept the sensuous, slow drift of hands across his skin. Once Alex had accustomed him to being touched, he started to work gently on Yassen’s uninjured shoulder, carefully teasing out the knotted muscles with long, smooth strokes of his fingers, alternating with deeper kneading on the more stubborn areas of tension.
Under Alex’s skilful ministrations, Yassen closed his eyes and allowed his mind to drift on a warm and comforting sea of sensation as the questing fingers eased any remaining tension in the back of his neck, soothing the slight headache that had manifested around the time Yassen had decided to operate the sanity clause in his contract rather than watch his employer effect a decidedly fishy solution to a Rider-shaped problem.
Alex’s fingers, light and careful now, transferred their attentions to Yassen’s painful shoulder and with a light touch, he started to work on the stretched muscles, loosening each one in turn, careful not to exacerbate any of the bruises now blossoming on Yassen’s pale skin, courtesy of Alex’s size 42 trainers and undoubted parkour skills.
“Nice?” Alex murmured, his breath raising the hairs on the back of Yassen’s ncek.
Yassen debated deflection or sarcasm but discarded both in favour of the simple truth. “Very nice.”
“Good. Can’t have you stiffening up.”
Yassen kept his eyes firmly closed, trying to rid his mind of the last two words. His body, however, had other ideas, leaving him glad he’d chosen a pair of baggy pyjama bottoms.
To his surprise – and mild disappointment - Alex kept his touches strictly professional. The emotionally tactile octopus he’d become accustomed to had been replaced by someone whose mission in life appeared to be to seek out and destroy ever last centimetre of knotted muscle in Yassen’s neck, shoulders and upper arms, leaving him more relaxed and comfortable than he had felt in a very long time.
“Where did you learn this?” Yassen asked, sipping a mouthful of red wine from the glass he’d just been handed.
“Undercover in a massage parlour in Thailand for two months.”
The answer caught him unawares and Yassen came close to snorting red wine out of his nose.
“Honey trap?”
“Attempted honey trap. I learnt to say handjob in sixteen different languages.”
“Did you have to deliver any?”
Alex laughed. “Jealous?”
“Curious,” Yassen lied.
“Nope. No handjobs, blowjobs, kisses, fucks or anything even remotely sexual. But it’s amazing what people will tell you when you’ve just given then the best massage of their lives.”
“Just an attempted honey trap… Really?”
“Faulty intel. The bloke I was meant to be targeting was as straight as a Roman road. He was actually using the place next door. When I worked it out, I bugged their rooms and bingo, insider trading problem confirmed.” Alex leaned forward and snagged the glass out of Yassen’s hand, helped himself to half the contents and handed it back.
Yassen sipped from the same side of the glass, wondering what the wine would taste like on Alex’s lips before he ruthlessly quashed the thought.
“You need to stretch out in bed now and keep that shoulder warm. I’ll work on it again in the morning. Have you got a spare pillow and a blanket I can use on the sofa?”
“It’s hardly the first time we’ve shared a bed, Alex.” The words were out of Yassen’s mouth before he could stop himself. “The sofa was almost certainly designed by Dr Three, so I wouldn’t advise it for sleeping purposes.” He turned to see a wide grin on Alex’s face.
“Convincing argument. Is it a nice big bed?”
“Not exactly.”
When Alex saw the size of the bedroom and the bed, neither of which were impressive, he commented pragmatically, “If I push it against the wall, at least one of us won’t fall out.”
Yassen couldn’t fault his approach to the problem. The bedroom was too small to swing a small mouse, let alone a cat.
Alex insisted in taking the outer side of the narrow bed, and waited until Yassen had arranged himself comfortably, a spare pillow under his neck and shoulder before turning the light off and sliding in next to him. After a small amount of wriggling, Alex pressed up against him, and draped his arm around Yassen’s waist, ostensibly to stop himself landing on his arse on the floor.
Sharing a bed with an Alex Rider in full possession of his faculties was a novel experience. Yassen allowed himself to relax into Alex’s embrace, enjoying the warm breath on the back of his neck and the comfortable weight of the arm around his waist.
“Yassen…?” Alex drew his name out questioningly.
“Alex…”
“Permission to touch?”
“You’re pressed up against my back and your arm’s around my waist. I think that constitutes touching.”
“I think that constitutes deflecting.”
Yassen sighed. “Yes, Alex, I’m deflecting. I’m 20 years too old for you and a lifetime too murdery, remember?”
“Soulmates, remember? I fucked up your operation, and instead of helping Mr Bond Villain feed me to his oversized tetras, you shot him and gave the bitey little fishes breakfast, dinner and tea all at once. But at least he was dead before he went into the tank. So I think you secretly know we’re soulmates.” Alex paused then added, with just a hint of smugness, “And you’re nowhere near as murdery as you used to be. I’m obviously a good influence.”
Alex’s hand slid up his chest to the mark just below his heart and traced the scar tissue with his fingertips. Yassen shivered and pressed back against Alex, seeking warmth and a solid comforting body anchoring him to the present and weaking the past’s hold on him.
Alex tucked his arm tightly around Yassen’s waist and pressed a kiss to the back of his neck, sending a light shiver of pleasure down his spine. “Go to sleep, Yas.”
Something that might have been disappointment twisted in Yassen’s stomach, no matter how much he told himself that taking things further would be a monumentally bad idea. “Will you still be here in the morning?” he enquired.
Alex kissed his neck again. Just a soft press of lips. Almost chaste. Then a gentle flicker of tongue against his skin sent a delicious flutter through his belly. Alex Rider was nothing if not persistent; Yassen knew that from numerous encounters over the last ten years. “Do you want me to be still here in the morning?”
Yassen smiled in the darkness and brought Alex’s hand to his mouth to kiss his palm. “Yes, Alex, I do still want you to be here in the morning.”
Alex snuggled up against him. “Good. That’s what I want, too. Makes life so much easier when we’re on the same wavelength. Night, night, Yas. Sleep tight.”
“Good night, Alex. Rest in peach.”
Alex spluttered an outraged laugh. “I do the puns around here, remember. You’re way too murdery for puns.”
“Yes, Alex.”