Loyalties Read Free Page B

but Mat knew anyway: I belong to someone else. This body isn’t mine to give.
    “I’m sorry,” Mat said again, horrified that he’d even tried to take something he knew Roger didn’t own, couldn’t offer. But he’d needed it, God, he still needed it. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Now that he’d let himself say it, he couldn’t seem to stop saying it. “Please just . . .” Forget it? Forgive me? Hold me? He didn’t know. He shook his head, stepped into Roger’s space in a silent plea, and of course Roger’s arms came up around him, so warm and giving. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled again into the side of Roger’s neck, feeling the tears well without knowing where they were coming from or how to stop them. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry . . .”
    Roger shushed him gently, walked him backward until his knees hit the mattress and he tumbled over, Roger beside him, still holding on as if he knew Mat would fall to pieces without him. Fuck it, Mat was falling to pieces anyway, and all he could do was hold on, and he didn’t know whether he would hang up his noose again or if he would starve himself or if he would finally give in to Nikolai’s demands and become a man like Roger. Whatever it was, what was one more day of it? He’d suffered so much already, and anyway it wasn’t like he didn’t deserve to suffer, not after what he’d done, and maybe he couldn’t have anything down here but at least someone was holding him with love as he cried. One more day . . . What was one more day?
    He’d let himself die tomorrow, if it came to that.

    Roger, brilliant thing that he was, had talked Mathias out of hanging himself. After that, Nikolai kept a close eye on the camera feeds for Mathias’s room, and though no more suicide attempts were forthcoming throughout the day or night, the man also didn’t make any moves toward recovery. He still wasn’t eating. Still wasn’t getting out of bed. His beautiful muscular body had begun to waste away this past week and change. And yet Nikolai knew there was nothing he could do to that body that would cause Mathias more pain than he was feeling right now. No way to motivate him by shouts or threats or punishments. How to motivate a man through pain when it was pain that he craved the most?
    Fortunately, he’d long since put his contingency plan into motion by introducing Roger’s care and affection to Mathias. It was quite the shame he actually had to go through with its final stage, though.
    He took a walk to clear his head and focus his resolve, sun shining bright above but cold wind howling through the trees. He stayed out in it longer than was comfortable—his own little taste of self-flagellation, perhaps, for what he’d have to do next.
    Roger was waiting for him when he returned to the house, standing in the foyer, a chastising smile on his lips and a mug of hot chocolate—homemade, of course, not the powdered trash—cradled in his hands. He held it out wordlessly and Nikolai took it, warmth blossoming in his heart along with his stomach as he took a first, careful sip. Not too hot to drink. He took a longer sip. Stared at Roger over the rim of the mug. So beautiful, still, even after all these years. So perfect in very nearly every way. Nikolai felt near to bursting with pride. Affection. And yes, love.
    Regret, too, for what was about to come.
    He allowed himself one last sip of his drink, then set the mug down on the table by the door. “I’m afraid it’s time,” he said.
    Roger’s smile fell a little, but he wasn’t afraid, and he didn’t pull his gaze from Nikolai’s. “I agree, Sir.” He swallowed hard, once. Held Nikolai’s eyes.
    Nikolai thought of taking Roger up to his bedroom for this, but he didn’t want to do it there. Didn’t want to pollute that sacred space with the memory of what was to come. On the other hand, he wanted Roger to be as comfortable as possible. His den, then, where Roger had happily spent so many hours curled on the