Free More Than Life by Garrett Leigh Page B

Mik. Let’s do it again. Soon.”
    The words seemed weighted. Mik reclaimed his hand and forced his legs into motion, but as he walked away, he knew the American was watching.
    Mik shivered again. What the fuck had just happened? He could still smell him, every breath a reminder. whether he needed it or not.
    Damn . Mik strode through downtown Belgrade with an irrepressible energy, but he tried to convince himself it had more to do with the mission than the lingering sensation of the stranger’s warm skin. It had been a while since he’d last been with a man—weeks, months, he wasn’t sure, but that deep-rooted, primal desire felt long neglected. Life as a resistance fighter was often lonely, and he missed the companionship of a man in his bed. More than that, he missed hard, chiseled muscles beneath his body. Blunt nails scraping over his skin.
    Yeah. That had to be it. Mik didn’t want the American. He just yearned for the feel of a man’s touch.
    Any man.
    For long minutes, he was almost convinced.
     

Chapter Two
     
     
    It was three days before Mik made it back to Pristina. Serbian roadblocks forced him to take the long way home, and by the time he made it into the city, the lingering buzz of his encounter in Belgrade had faded to a whisper.
    His spirit waned even further as he crept through the deserted streets he called home. Blockades, raids and bombings had left Pristina a shell of the beautiful city she’d once been. Mik gazed at the shattered buildings and burned out homes lurking in the gloom of the faint moonlight. With the food shortages and severed power lines, how much longer could they truly survive?
    When he reached his house, nestled in an undamaged suburb of the city, his mother, Klea, was in her customary place in the kitchen, washing dishes in the old stone sink. His father, Artan, sat at the table smoking his pipe.
    Klea dried her hands and pulled him close, her relief seeping into her tight embrace. “There’s food for you in the fire pit.”
    Mik kissed his mother’s cheek. “I’ll eat it later, Mama. I need to sleep first.”
    It was mostly true. His mother didn’t need to know that the fading image of a beautiful American had knotted his stomach too tightly for him to eat just yet.
    Artan laid down his paper. “Did everything go well?”
    Mik slipped his wet overcoat from his shoulders and hung it over the hearth. “As well these things ever go.”
    “Indeed,” Artan concurred. “If you’re not going to eat, you should go and find your sister. She’s been waiting for you all day.”
    Mik nodded. With one final kiss for his mother, he dropped the smoke-scented scrap of paper on the table in front of his father, left the kitchen and climbed the stairs to the attic where he knew Rea would be holed up and waiting for him. Their childhood home was deceptively big—tall and narrow with a reinforced cellar and a concealed cavern in the roof. The dark didn’t hinder him as he slid back the hidden panel in the loft and dropped into the secret room.
    Rea was exactly where he expected her to be. She glanced up from her book as he crossed the room and he smiled as the strange gold streaks in her hair seemed to gleam in the soft glow of the single candle. Like both his parents, Mik had dark hair and eyes, and olive skin that in the murky light of the room he imagined made him look like he needed a wash.
    Rea confirmed his suspicion and wrinkled her nose. “You need a bath,” she said softly. “And did you smoke? You smell of tobacco.”
    Only Rea could detect three day old cigarette smoke, and Mik was too tired to lie. He reached out and ruffled the hair that set her apart from the rest of their family. “Needs must.”
    Rea’s impish grin faded. “It took you longer than last time. Are the roads worse?”
    He nodded. At sixteen, Rea was four years younger than him, but she was far from a child. War had seen to that. “I avoided most of them, but I saw roadblocks and tanks twenty