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.Ben grabbed Nikolas’s arm.The deck was icy.As Nikolas wrenched away, Ben slipped.He still had hold of the arm, though, so they both went off into the snowdrift.Naked, they staggered to their feet.“That’s what he accused you of, isn’t it? Before he fell—before you pushed him? It was nothing to do with that street boy.You killed him because he reminded you that―!”“Stop it! I don’t want to talk about this!”Ben began to speak again, but Nikolas swung his fist.Ben went down.It was just as well Nikolas was painfully drunk, it was a clumsy shot.Even so, the blood dripping from Ben’s split lip was shockingly red in the frozen white world.He lumbered to his feet and landed heavily on Nikolas, thumping him down into the snow.They rolled, wrestling, scrabbling to try and gain purchase and swinging fists ineffectually.Finally, Nikolas kneed Ben in the balls and rolled on top of him.Before Ben could stop retching, Nikolas grabbed his thighs, parted them and forced himself in.Ben was beyond furious and tried to push him off, but Nikolas laughed and held him down, finally proving which one of them would win a fight purely by the fact he was willing to do things in a struggle Ben wasn’t.He came very quickly and with very little pleasure.There was certainly no pleasure for Ben because Nikolas had deliberately not taken time to bring him off or allow him to work himself.They’d had far more vicious sex only the night before, but that had been in an entirely different context.They both knew who was really in control when Nikolas wanted to play his games.Being fucked in the snow didn’t seem like much of a game to Ben.He pushed Nikolas off, still feeling sick from the hit to the balls and from the vodka—which suddenly came up in a rush.He vomited into the snow, spitting.Nikolas stood slowly alongside him.He staggered slightly, still under the influence of the vodka himself, and Ben was damn sure now Nikolas had been plastered well before he’d arrived.He crawled to his feet, shivering so badly he couldn’t speak.Nikolas put out a hand, but Ben jerked his arm away.He walked slowly back into the house and to the shower.He stood under the stream for a very long time until the hot water ran out.He should never have said what he did.It wasn’t for him to wrench Nikolas’s secrets out as if he were extracting a bad tooth without anaesthetic.He lifted his face to the water, even though it was cold, and then knew he had to make this right.He dried off and dressed in some jeans and a sweater and went down to make peace.Nikolas wasn’t in yet.He frowned; Nikolas only had a towel, and it was still snowing heavily.He went outside.The tub was empty.The car was still there.He trudged through the snow to the woodpile, but Nikolas wasn’t there either.He went up on the deck and scanned the whole area up to the forest.He could barely see his bright blood, for it was now almost covered by snow.His footprints were fully covered.It was turning into a blizzard.He must have missed Nik inside, which would’ve been difficult as there was only one room up and one room down.Even so, he went back in and searched.Nikolas’s clothes were on the sofa, but no Nikolas.Ben began to take it seriously.Up to then, he’d thought it was Nikolas just…being Nikolas.He grabbed a coat and a flashlight and went back into the snow.He called out, wishing he had Radulf.He went back to the last place he’d seen him standing in the snow and examined it carefully.The blood was almost totally obscured.On closer examination, there appeared to be two splatters.He couldn’t remember exactly what had happened when Nikolas had hit him.He put his fingers to his lip.It wasn’t bleeding now, it hadn’t been a very hard hit and wouldn’t have bled that much.With the flashlight and squatting close to the snow, he thought he could see signs of impact, but then they’d fallen and rolled and wrestled, and he’d been fucked, so he reckoned there would be some signs.He looked up.There was no sound at all.The snow seemed to suck everything from the air.He bellowed Nikolas’s name but heard nothing in reply.He had absolutely no idea what to do.CHAPTER THIRTEENBen had the phone in his hand before he realised firstly he didn’t know the number for the police in Denmark and secondly he couldn’t call them, Nikolas didn’t exist legally.He ran up to the bedroom and searched through Nik’s bag until he found a plane ticket for a Christian Beck.He rang Kate instead of the police.She took at least four rings to answer.“Where were you?”“Just about to go down on James Caviezel.Where were you?”“What?”“Ben! I was asleep.I was dreaming, thank you very much.My one chance, and now he’s probably going to go all Jesus Christ on me again.”“What? Kate, Nik has disappeared.He’s been taken, I think.I don’t know.”“What? Fuck.Where are you?”“In Denmark still, but I need you to do a check on one of his aliases, Christian Beck.Is it good? If I call the police, will it hold up?”“Jesus, Ben, give me some credit, yeah? I wrote all his aliases.Christian is a particular favourite of mine.He’s an art dealer.”“Nikolas came here from Russia on Aeroflot 2658 on the twenty-eighth of November.Can you check his flight out from London, get details on what he’s been doing in Russia officially as Christian?”“I’m at my mum’s, Ben! Hello? Christmas? I’ll be able to get home in about two hours.I’ll get there as soon as I can, okay? Anything else?”“Oh, God, I don’t know! We’re in the middle of fucking nowhere, he had no clothes on, we had this big argument, and now he’s just gone!”“Is this anything to do with the message he left on my phone earlier? To check a number for him?”“I don’t know! What was the number?”She told him and then added, “He sent it from your phone.”Ben cursed.“No, that was an argument we had earlier.”“Uh-huh [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]