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Chapter Seven

Dimitri

I t was almost the end of our shift, but time had slowed into something syrupy and strange. Normally by now my back would be aching, my hands cramping, and my thoughts drifting toward dinner and sleep. But today—God help me—I didn’t want it to end.

Petyr had been at my side all afternoon, weaving his presence into every moment like a thread I hadn’t noticed I needed. He was... relentless. Charming. Ridiculous. He told joke after joke, some better than others, most bad on purpose. And yet I laughed. Every damn time.

Something about him made it impossible not to.

He kept brushing against me, like it was an accident, though it happened too often to truly be one.

A hand on my elbow when I reached for the spool, a shoulder pressed to mine when we adjusted the tension of the loom, his breath ghosting across my cheek when he leaned in too close to whisper a punchline.

Every touch sparked something under my skin.

It was... disorienting.

But not unwelcome.

I wanted to believe he was just friendly. Just one of those exuberant types who made the world spin a little brighter around them. But then he’d look at me—really look—and I’d forget how to breathe.

He made me feel something dangerously close to happy.

The afternoon passed like that. Petyr flitting around me like some mischievous magpie, all flashing eyes and wicked smiles. I pretended not to enjoy it as much as I did. I told myself he was just being kind. Funny. Friendly. But my hands shook a little when I reached for the next bolt of wool.

Then Vera showed up.

Clipboard in hand, strutting across the floor like she owned it. I saw her glance our way. Petyr didn’t notice. He was mid-joke, eyes shining with mischief.

She leaned into his ear and murmured something.

His entire face lit up.

“Oh! That’s perfect,” he said, grinning at her.

I straightened instinctively, unsure why I suddenly felt like I was intruding.

Vera turned her attention to me, smirking. “My friend Mira’s feeling lonely, so I’m staying the night with her. Like a sleepover. For grownups.”

Petyr laughed.

She added, “You two had better have fun tonight. That’s an order.”

Then she kissed Petyr on the cheek, winked, and marched away like a general satisfied with her orders.

Petyr turned to me, his grin going lopsided. “We’re going to have so much fun tonight.”

I managed a nod, but my throat had gone tight. There was no map for this. No script. Just the quickening pulse in my chest and the electric hum of Petyr’s smile.

The whistle blew.

Everyone around us groaned and stretched and grumbled like tired work horses. The factory rumbled down to stillness. Men gathered their coats, filing out like ghosts.

Petyr spun to me with sudden energy. “Come on.”

Before I could react, he grabbed my arm—not roughly, just... with purpose and excitement.

“We’re going to have the best time tonight,” he said, tugging me toward the exit.

I didn’t resist. I couldn’t.

I let him pull me through the heavy factory doors and out into the raw evening air. The cold was sharp and bracing. The sky above was already dark, a blanket of ink stretching out over Leningrad.

Petyr was still holding my arm.

He didn’t seem to realize it.

Or maybe he did.

The cold air bit at my face as we hurried toward the train station, boots crunching over packed snow. Petyr was humming beside me—something upbeat and ridiculous. His hand still brushed mine now and then, casually, like it meant nothing.

Maybe it did.

I wasn’t sure of anything anymore.

At the station, we caught a tram headed downtown. I’d expected it to be half-empty this late in the day. Instead, we were herded into a car packed so tightly with bodies it felt like the war had just ended and everyone in Leningrad had somewhere to be.

We barely made it through the doors before they closed behind us with a hiss.

There were no seats left, only standing room. We were wedged shoulder to shoulder, coat to coat, chest to back and side to side with dozens of strangers. But all I felt was him. Petyr, right beside me, crushed so close I could feel his body through both of our thick coats.

God.

His hip brushed mine every time the train rocked.

His arm pressed into my side. Petyr’s thigh—long and firm—slid up against mine in the lurch and sway of the ride, and each time it did, I thought I might combust. A trickle of sweat slid down the back of my neck, completely out of place in the freezing winter.

I stared down at the floor. Concrete. Scuffed boots. Mud.

Don’t think about him.

Don’t think about this.

But it was impossible.

Because suddenly, horrifyingly, I was hard.

Like, really hard.

And not just I got startled by a breeze hard—no, this was can’t stand up at school hard. Pray to every saint you know hard. Arousal so sharp and fierce it hurt.

My face went hot. I was sweating inside my coat. My knees felt weak. My cock throbbed against my zipper, trapped and miserable. And Petyr—Jesus—he wasn’t helping.

He leaned in, his mouth next to my ear.

“Okay, okay,” he whispered, breath warm against my skin. “Serious question: if Stalin and a babushka got into a fistfight, who would win?”

I made a noise. It was supposed to be a laugh. It came out more like a wheeze.

And then he breathed—just one wordless puff of air, a chuckle maybe—and it tickled the shell of my ear in a way that made every nerve in my body scream. A full-body shiver shot down my spine. I clenched my fists. Tried to think about math. Bread. Cement. The Politburo.

None of it helped.

Because then I made the mistake of looking up.

Petyr was staring at me.

Our faces were inches apart. His eyes were wide and bright, shining with amusement, with something. We didn’t speak. Didn’t move.

I couldn’t.

I just looked at him.

And he looked back.

God help me.

Then, suddenly, he blinked. “Next stop.”

His voice broke the moment like a stone through glass. The train began to slow.

I exhaled sharply and glanced away. Focused on the door. Focused on anything that wasn’t the heat in my groin or the scent of his coat or the ache low in my belly.

This was madness.

This was dangerous.

This was—

Petyr’s hand touched my arm again as the train slowed with a groan. I didn’t flinch this time. I just followed him off the tram and into the cold Leningrad night, heart hammering, cock still hard, the question pounding in my skull:

What the hell is happening to me?

* * *

I hadn’t understood a single thing that had happened in the last thirty minutes.

Not on the movie screen, anyway.

There were strange, grimy men in even stranger hats talking nonsense and zapping each other with devices that looked like plumbing equipment.

The surrounding audience howled with laughter at every ridiculous line.

Petyr especially. He was practically giggling into his fist like a schoolboy who’d just stolen a teacher’s pen.

Every time something absurd happened—which was often—he’d lean toward me, mutter a half-translated joke, or just whisper, “Can you believe this?” right into my ear.

And each time, I nearly came undone.

It wasn’t even the words. I couldn’t focus on the words. It was his breath. Warm and soft and intimate, stirring the hairs on my neck, tickling places I didn’t know could feel so much.

I was sweating. Actually sweating.

Inside Rodina, one of the draftiest, most poorly heated cinemas in the city.

Most people still had their coats buttoned to their necks, some with scarves pulled up to their chins. But me? Mine was unzipped and shrugged halfway off my shoulders, sleeves bunched at my elbows. I felt like I was about to burst into flames.

Petyr’s thigh had been pressed solidly against mine for the entire movie.

Not in a bumping-by-accident kind of way.

Not even in a we’re packed in too tight sort of way.

No—he could’ve shifted. But he hadn’t. And now our legs were touching from hip to knee, warm and electric through our trousers, every point of contact burning a hole in my brain.

I shifted slightly in my seat, trying to will my cock to calm the hell down. It didn’t help. If anything, the movement made things worse—more pressure, more friction. I held my breath. Tried to think of tanks. Stalin’s moustache. My mother’s borscht. Nothing worked.

I was hard. Painfully so.

Since the train.

What the hell was wrong with me?

And then, just as I was sure I was going to pass out from the blood draining entirely from my brain, Petyr leaned over again, pointed to the screen, and whispered, “That’s a portable teleportation shovel. Apparently.”

I didn’t hear the words.

All I felt was his lips close to my ear, and the heat of him against me, and then—

His hand.

On my thigh.

He didn’t grab or squeeze me, and it didn’t move with purpose. It simply rested there.

Like it belonged.

Like it had always been there.

I forgot how to breathe.

The laughter around us felt muffled, like we were deep underwater. I saw people rocking with laughter out of the corners of my eyes, mouths open wide, shoulders bouncing—but it all felt a million miles away.

I turned my face toward the screen, pretending to watch. My eyes burned.

I blinked.

And then… a tear escaped.

Just one.

Slipping silently from the corner of my eye, down the side of my nose. I wiped at it too late—already felt the warmth of it drying along my cheek.

Was I crying?

Jesus Christ, I was crying.

I was sitting in a room full of people laughing at a comedy, with a hard-on and a tear rolling down my face, because Petyr had touched me like it was nothing. Like it was normal. Like it was allowed.

I didn’t know what I was feeling. My whole body felt like it was too full. Like if Petyr looked at me for too long, I’d explode. Like some ancient, shamed part of me was waking up for the first time and didn’t know whether to scream, or pray, or fall on its knees and weep.

Petyr’s fingers shifted slightly, his thumb brushing once—once—against the inside of my thigh.

I choked on a breath.

I didn’t even know what I wanted from him.

Only that I wanted more.

Petyr leaned in again, and for a second, I thought he might whisper something else that would send me straight into cardiac arrest. But instead, he chuckled and said, “I’ve got to piss. Don’t fall in love with anyone while I’m away.”

Then he was gone.

Just like that. Standing, grinning, and slipping up the aisle like nothing had happened—like he hadn’t just lit my entire nervous system on fire with the simple weight of his hand.

I sat there, rigid. Absolutely fucking rigid in every sense of the word.

As soon as he was out of sight, I shifted in my seat, yanked my coat down low, and pressed the heel of my palm hard against the front of my trousers. It was desperate. Clumsy. Pointless.

The pressure didn’t help.

If anything, it made it worse.

I stifled a groan.

This wasn’t normal. I wasn’t normal.

What would he think if he knew? If he came back and saw the state I was in? If he realized my cock had been hard for the last hour and a half because of him—his breath, his voice, his touch?

He’d think I was sick.

Not just perverted, but deranged. A mental case. A degenerate.

He could report me.

Jesus, what if he told Vera?

Wasn’t she some kind of minor official? She carried that clipboard around like it gave her power. Hell, maybe it did. Maybe she wrote reports. Names. People like me—people who couldn’t seem to follow the rules even when they tried.

One word from Petyr and I could disappear. Just like that. Labeled. Locked away. Or worse.

But he wasn’t cruel.

Was he?

I didn’t know.

My heart pounded like a hammer in my chest as I stared blankly at the screen.

Something funny must’ve happened—an entire row of people burst into laughter.

I didn’t hear a single word. I didn’t see a single frame.

The only thing I noticed was when Petyr came back and sat down beside me, his leg resuming its position right against mine like it had never left.

I flinched, but I didn’t move away. Maybe if I didn’t move, this beautiful, confusing dream would hold me for just a little longer.

The movie played on, but I wasn’t in the theater anymore.

I was stuck in my body.

And it was betraying me.

Then, suddenly, the lights came up. People began to stir. Coats rustled. Bags were lifted. The soundtrack faded into that weird hush of a film reel’s end.

It was over.

I didn’t know whether to be relieved or crushed.

Petyr turned to me as he stood, smiling like he’d just eaten something delicious.

“That was amazing,” he said, brushing imaginary crumbs off his pants. “But the night’s not over yet.”

I blinked at him, dumb and dazed.

He leaned in close, like he was sharing a secret just for me. “I’m taking you to a club,” he whispered. “It’s called Sanctuary.”

Then he winked.

And started moving toward the exit with that casual, bouncy confidence he wore like an extra coat.

I just stood there, jacket half on, heat rising in my cheeks again.

What the hell was Sanctuary ?