Page 38 of Enemy Within

“I do not know what I am!” He moaned again and turned his face away from Jack. “When you were sleeping, I imagined you were Sasha.”

Jack sighed, breathing out what felt like every breath he’d ever taken. He remembered his shock, his utter confusion, when he’d first desired Ethan in a carnal, physical way. First thought about their bodies together, making love. “Is this the first time you’ve thought about another man this way?”

Silence strained the space between them. Sergey dug his forehead against Jack’s, squeezing his eyes shut even tighter. “No,” he finally breathed.

“No?” Shock stilled Jack, made him blink.

“I noticed men. Noticed how they looked. If they were attractive or not. Sometimes I wondered what it would be like. Two men together. But they were just thoughts! I thought everyone thought the way I did. Wondered, sometimes,” Sergey whispered. “But you said you had never thought about it before you were with Ethan.”

“No. I never did.”

Sergey grimaced. “I remember growing up in the Soviet Union, Jack. I remember men disappearing for loving other men. And then, after the fall, nothing really changed. The new regime, same as the old regime. Just more money. More corruption. There was never a time when it was okay.”

“So you hid what you felt?”

“I never knew what I felt!” Sergey hissed. “It was never a possibility! That world, that option, it just didn’t exist. There was never the option! And I liked women. Women liked me. There was nothing wrong,nothing! Not until—” He sniffed and shook his head.

“Until what?” Jack’s eyes narrowed. He had a suspicion about where Sergey was going.

Sergey didn’t speak for a long moment. He shifted, pressing their foreheads together again. Jack heard the heavy gulp of his swallow. “If I could go back to any point in my life and have justtenseconds…” He trailed off. “I would have kissed him back. Held on, and never let go. Not have let him go on that mission. Damn the information. It wasn’t worth hislife!” Tears slipped from the corners of his eyes, down his cheeks, silently. “Or I would go further back. Tell myself to not be a fool. We could have hadtimetogether—” His voice cut off as his lips clamped shut, a shaky breath escaping from his nose.

“Is it… just Sasha?” Had Sergey fallen into the same realization that he had: that he could desire anyone if he fell in love with them? That his heart knew no limits on love and could grow to match what was offered to him.

Sergey chuckled once, a mirthless, dry crackle of sound. “No, Jack.” His eyes slipped open, and he finally held Jack’s gaze. “I have always thought you were a beautiful man.”

Jack stared. Sergey looked like a man pushed over the edge, past all of his lines and limits. Red-rimmed eyes, a snotty nose, and dusky, tearstained, hollow cheeks.

“If things had been different, I may have fallen in love with you,” Sergey said softly. “You… captivate me. You always have.”

His chest went tight, and his lungs wouldn’t drag in another breath. The warmth of Sergey’s body, still pressed close from their hips down, turned searing. Neither of them were hard anymore, but their legs were still tangled together in a way that he had only ever lain with Ethan. Ethan,God, Ethan. His heart ached, desperate for Ethan’s arms around him instead of Sergey’s. Ethan’s touch, and Ethan’s love.

Sergey pulled away, sitting up and leaning against the wall next to the bunk, pulling some of the blankets over his lap. Dried blood flaked off his chest and down his arm, old drips from Milos’s thrown blade. His wound had closed, though a wet, messy scab slashed his shoulder.

Jack sat up as well, sitting in the middle of the bunk, and wrapped a blanket around his shoulders. The air had a bite to it, a frosty nip. He was not Russian, and though Sergey could sit shirtless in Siberia, he could not.

“We are straight out of classic Russian literature, Sasha and me.” Sergey tried to grin. He failed. “The man who loved the hero went away, and the hero learned, too late, that he did, in fact, love him in return.” He shook his head, looked down at his lap. “So now I know. Now I must live with this.” He sighed, sniffed, and scrubbed his hands over his face. “Live with knowing how much of a coward I am.”

“Sergey—”

“No, no.” Sergey waved him off. His head hit the wall. “Do not try and make me feel better. I do not want to. I need this. This feeling, my heart in a vise. Pulverized.” He made a fist, squeezing slowly.

Jack stayed quiet. There would be a time and a place to discuss this, but it wasn’t now. Not when Sergey was still blinking through tears, and the need to get back to Ethan was like a wolf howling in his heart. “We need to get going.”

Sergey nodded. He closed his eyes. “There are clothes by closet. I threw yours over there. They were frozen.”

Jack slid out of bed, padding naked to the pile of clothes on the cold floor. “That’s sweet, Sergey, but you don’t have to keep your eyes closed. I’m not a blushing virgin.” He grabbed a pair of pants, a long-sleeve shirt, and a thick sweater, and pulled them on. He picked his way to the corner and pulled Ethan’s sweatshirt from the frost-covered pile of his old clothes.

“From the back, you sometimes look like him. Only shorter,” Sergey said, tacking on the end with an almost-smile in his voice.

“You Russians grow tall.” Jack grabbed Sergey’s clothes and brought them back to the bunk.

Sergey dressed quickly as Jack scrounged for a pair of boots. Outside of the blankets, their breath fogged in front of their faces. Jack shivered, trying to shake off the memory of freezing from the inside out. It clung to the back of his neck, making him shiver again.

Finally, Sergey stood, shrugging back into his jacket and tugging on his sweater’s hem. He still wouldn’t look at Jack. “I am sorry,” he said, “for… what happened. I am sure Ethan will want to take a swing at me.”

Jack laughed. “He will deeply thank you for saving my life.” Sergey’s eyes lifted. Stepping close, Jack cupped Sergey’s cheek and looked into his haunted eyes. “You are going to be all right.” He leaned forward and brushed his lips against Sergey’s cheek.

Sergey’s hand fell to his hip, squeezing as he exhaled, a breath of air ghosting over Jack’s skin. A moment, and then he whimpered, turning in to Jack’s touch, brushing their cheeks together.