The Man from UNCLE and its characters are owned by someone else, we don't know exactly who, but no one is making any money off this story.

Note: The author of this story does have an email address listed at the archive, however he has extremely limited internet access so is unable to answer comments left. That doesn't mean he doesn't want to see them. :-)

---

Napoleon glanced at his partner across the traditional post-mission banquet--sauerbraten and dark German beer, this time--and grinned. "How was your stewardess?"

"My engaged stewardess? Wouldn't you rather tell me about the lovely ladies of Casablanca?"

"The lovely lady of Casablanca, with whom I left my considerable regrets, and not much else, I fear. Or I would have been considerably more than five minutes late to retrieve you, my friend." The rathskeller served dinner family style. Napoleon watched with a certain amount of amusement as Illya piled a second helping of beef, sauerkraut, and black bread on his plate. "Besides, we have an arrangement. And I saw you holding hands in the half-track. And the desert nights are cold."

"A gentleman does not kiss and tell." But the sparkle in his partner's eyes told Napoleon that there was, indeed, something to tell. And that although Illya was going to make him work for it, Napoleon would get the details out of him sooner or later. "It's not like you to leave a lady behind—"

"The sacrifices I make in your name," Napoleon said. "Considering the kiss the lovely Barbara gave you before she—"

"—went off to Akron to marry Bob—"

"—I feel required to ask you: so how does it feel to be a woman's last fling before she enters the bonds of matrimony?"

"It's a role I'm infinitely suited to," Illya answered, refilling Napoleon's stein from the pitcher on the table between them. Napoleon turned it idly between his hands, noting that the flush across his partner's cheeks was not entirely due to the effects of the African sun. "No entanglements."

As good as a confession. Napoleon sipped his beer, savouring the rich, complex bitterness. "So how was your stewardess?"

"French," Illya answered succinctly. "Extremely French."

"Does that mean the same thing in Russian that it does in English?"

The blond agent smiled around a forkful of sauerkraut, and did not answer.

Napoleon chuckled. "Did you learn anything?"

"Oh, brother." Illya laid the fork down on the edge of his plate and shook his head, the smell of his shampoo rising from his still-damp hair. "Just you wait, my friend. Just you wait."

---

Illya preceded him up the stairs of their building, and did not pause at the second-floor landing that would have taken him to his own apartment. Napoleon grinned cheerily as Illya held the fourth-floor door for him. The Russian agent had drawn out their dinner to ridiculous lengths, idling over coffee and dessert while Napoleon turned his back into the corner of the booth, nursed his final half-glass of beer, and pretended he felt no urgency at all.

And he almost pulled it off, too, until Illya had leaned down over his shoulder as they were getting out of the booth, and whispered--close enough for breath to tickle his ear—"She bit, Napoleon."

Napoleon's heart beat faster as he walked coolly past his partner, unlocked the front door of his apartment, checked for intruders and deactivated the countermeasures. Illya followed him in, stepping out of his loafers just inside the door with a measured sigh of relief.

"Blisters?"

"I carried that stewardess about fifteen miles, barefoot. In my underwear."

"The things that don't make it into the reports," Napoleon said, and turned to get the light in the kitchen. "At least she was suitably grateful, neh?"

"Extremely French," Illya repeated, and went to draw the shades on the picture windows. "Fought like a cat when she had to, too—"

Napoleon turned to find his partner standing behind him, close enough to feel his body heat. Read the glitter in blue eyes and shivered, knowing what would happen next. What had been ordained since he had admitted to not getting the girl. You could have lied, he thought. "Going to show me your bite marks?"

"That's not all I'm going to show you," Illya answered, and caught hold of his partner's tie. Napoleon surrendered to the un-gentle demand, ducked his head so Illya could press him against the counter and mark his lips with a savage kiss. They broke apart, breathing heavily, regarding one another for long moments through hooded eyes. "You're wearing too many clothes."

"Am I?" Napoleon disentangled himself, shrugging off his jacket and loosening his tie, wondering how long the urgency of his own response would permit him to draw out the tease as his partner stepped back, folded his arms, and watched.

Illya smouldered in a black jacket, black turtleneck, slim black pants. It made the paleness of his complexion stand out even more against the dark red backdrop of Napoleon's drapes, the deep earth tones of his living room furniture. Napoleon unbuttoned his shirt slowly until his partner cleared his throat roughly, fingers tapping on his black-clad forearm. "Bedroom?" Napoleon suggested.

"Après vous."

"Ah, you have been spending too much time with the French." Napoleon went willingly, leaving a trail of clothes behind him as he walked, a cool tingle at the back of neck that was his partner's regard. He heard the whisper of cloth as Illya discarded his jacket. Napoleon unbuttoned his trousers, let his undershirt fall to the floor. Was about to turn back to face his partner when he felt strong hands close on his wrists and bend them behind his back--not hard enough to hurt, but not gently either. "You and your strategic mirrors," Illya said, and pushed him forward across the king-sized bed.

It took every ounce of control Napoleon had not to fight as his chest bounced on the mattress, as Illya got his weight behind him and pressed his face into the duvet. "Vanity, thy name is Napoleon," he whispered, fingers denting his partner's wrists, close enough that Napoleon felt the fabric of Illya's trousers against his thighs, the pressure of Illya's erection through his shorts.

Napoleon raised his head; the restraint was mostly symbolic, and he could permit it. They'd been in tighter situations, played more difficult roles. He could see Illya leaning over him in the advertised mirror, the slender figure in black shockingly erotic against his own near nakedness. He groaned, and Illya grinned at him in the mirror. "Don't move."

"Wouldn't dream of it--what's that?"

"Shroud lines," Illya said, and proceeded to wind the thin white cords almost-too-tightly around Napoleon's wrists and cinch them. "From a parachute."

"Why—" Napoleon gasped as Illya gave the cords an extra tug, making sure his expert knots would hold "—from a parachute?"

"Because I was wrapped up in it when I made love to the girl, of course," Illya answered, his tone level and conversational. "Comfortable?"

The rug was rough against Napoleon's knees, the cords almost tight enough to make his fingers tingle. In a few minutes, his shoulders would start to ache, and his cock was already hard enough to make him dizzy. "Positively cozy," he answered, and then bit his tongue on a gasp as Illya bent down and sank his teeth hard into Napoleon's upper arm. Cords cut his wrists as he jerked away; Illya's weight and leverage pinned him to the bed. "Hey!"

"I told you she bit," Illya said, breathily. "Shall I show you what else she did to me?"

Napoleon whimpered, and nodded slowly, his eyes closed so he wouldn't see his own expression in the mirror. "I'm supposed to believe you let her tie your hands?"

"That's my own refinement," Illya said, standing between his legs. "Do you like it?"

He couldn't answer. Couldn't quite bring himself to admit to that, not yet in any case. Instead, he moaned through clenched teeth as Illya stripped his shorts off, tossing them idly aside, and lifted his lower body on to the bed. Illya rolled Napoleon onto his back, so that his own weight pinned his hands helplessly under the small of his back, and eased the pressure a little with a pillow under Napoleon's ass. "Illya—"

"Hush." All that black, and Napoleon dying to get his fingers on the smooth, warm skin underneath it. His dick twitched at the thought, moisture leaking from the tip, and he saw his partner suppress a grin. "That's a good look on you. What if I tied your ankles to the bed, I wonder?"

"What if there's a fire?" Napoleon swallowed, unable to admit the attractiveness of the idea. Shocked at his own willingness to be helpless under this man's hands.

"You'd just have to trust me to get you out."

"My own personal parachute," Napoleon answered, shivering as Illya stroked the inside of his thighs. Cold helpless lust: he arched into the touch and whimpered, amazed at how savage his inability to shift the cords on his bound wrists made him feel. "See me safely to the ground. Tell me about the girl—"

"We fell," Illya said against his throat, leaning forward, one hand planted on either side of his chest, coldness of his belt buckle almost painful against the heat of Napoleon's erection. "Not for too long. I got my arm through her harness so I wouldn't be jerked loose when her parachute deployed—"

"You didn't have a parachute?" Napoleon turned, watching in the mirror beside the bed as his black-clad partner kissed his mouth, his throat, his chest. As lips brushed through sparse dark hair and teeth found his nipple and closed sharply, again.

"We only had time for one." The bite drew a gasp and a whimper of protest, the pain quickly soothed by a rough, gentle tongue. Napoleon arched into it, cords tightening on his wrists as he struggled against them. Anything, anything, to be able to knot his fingers in his partner's hair and control that teasing mouth, even just a little. "We landed soft, on sand, and the wind dragged us into the lee of the dune before the chute collapsed. She took the whole thing well. Laughing hysterics."

Another bite, sharp and low under the edge of his ribs. Hard enough to bruise, and Illya--straddling his thigh--was hard as steel and hot as desert sun through the cloth of his tailored slacks. "What was her laugh like?"

"—marvellous. Uninhibited."

"So you kissed her."

"She kissed me." Bite. Inside the thigh, this time, and Napoleon yelped even as his partner's right hand wrapped the aching length of his cock and stroked lightly, slowly, turning the protest into a pleading whimper. "She was wearing this little stewardess skirt, knee-length, navy blue. White garters under it."

"Panties over or under?" He closed his eyes, picturing his partner's hands sliding under that skirt. Touching the girl's softness, teasing as they teased him now--

"No panties," Illya said, rubbing his cheek and the coarse silk of his hair against Napoleon's erection as it grew, impossibly, harder. Hard enough to hurt, to distract him from the predicted ache in his shoulders, the sharp pain of Illya's bruising bites, the twist of the narrow cords around his wrists. "Very practical, the French."

Napoleon moaned. "Did you do that to her?" As Illya's lips brushed the crown of his cock, as white stars burst behind his eyelids and he forced his eyes open again, forced himself to watch the incredibly beauty of his partner's body making love to his own. He clenched his bound fingers on the duvet under his backside, lifting his ass clear of the pillow as he arched himself into the air. Sweet Jesus.

"With allowances for anatomical differences," Illya said, and took him deep into the twisting velvet heat of his mouth, humming softly to himself with the pleasure of a job enjoyed in the completion. Napoleon moaned, transfixed on the pleasure of that kiss, on the power of the image of that blond head between perfect alabaster thighs, framed like the work of art it was by the white ruffled straps of a French garter.

"Did—" Oh, he barely had the words in him. He bit his lip for control, found his voice again, hissed at the pleasure of those tight lips, that agile tongue. He knew why Illya had tied his hands. It would have been over in minutes if Napoleon had been free to caress, to touch, to do anything but lie helplessly and accept what Illya gave him. "Did she scream for you, Illya?"

A low, pleased chuckle that Napoleon felt all the way up to his belly button. The mouth drew back, barely in time, and soft lips moved across his groin, caressed his unbitten thigh. "Did she scream? Like a cat."

"God...."

"What?" Hands stroking his leg, thigh to ankle. Spreading him open, placing his heels against the covers.

"Please?"

"Don't you want to know what she did to me?"

"I want to know how she tasted—"

"Clean," Illya breathed. "Salty as the ocean. Complex, a little sour. Not sweet, the way some women are—"

"Ahhhhh—" That coolness on Illya's fingers, touching him. Gentle, intimate. Patient. "Did she kiss you, after?"

"She did."

"Did she come for you?"

Humour, low and sweet under the rawness of the need. He wished for a blindfold, for darkness, for nothing in his world except the weight of that slow, deep voice and the touch of that mouth, those hands. "Yes, she did."

"And she went back to her fiancé."

"Of course." The fingers were inside him now, two of them, twisting gently. His own weight numbed his hands, icy prickles from fingertip to wrist. "And I came back to you."

"You always do."

"And you come back to me."

"Did she do that to you?" A moan, tight caught between his teeth. The heat of breath on his thigh, and then the savageness of teeth, and then the soft heat of the mouth, the tongue, the wetness and the suction and the scrape of teeth just this side of pain—"Stop!"

His partner stopped. "Not yet?"

"Not yet. Please. Not yet."

Low laughter, pleased and cocky. Pardon the pun. "She did just that. Exactly. And then I kissed her...."

Suiting actions to words.

"I want to feel your skin," Napoleon said, pushing his naked chest against his partner's, feeling the cloth catch on his skin and his sweat.

"I wanted to feel hers," Illya answered. "Little blue jacket and a snow-white blouse. Gold buttons, tidy little cap. Damned if I know how it stayed on her head. Some bobby pins they make in France."

"White like her garter belt."

"Whiter."

Napoleon turned to the mirror again, watching as his partner unfastened his belt. Watching as he opened his fly and freed his curved, purple cock from the white cotton of his briefs. "I wanted to feel her skin. But it was cold—"

Napoleon arched himself, opened himself. Accepted what his partner offered, watched the reality and not the reflection as Illya's body covered his, blond hair falling forward around his face, expression caught between intensity and a wicked, wicked grin. "Tell me how she felt," he whispered, hearing his own voice crack.

"So wet," Illya whispered, moving. "So very wet. Silkier than the parachute." All wicked grin, now. "You're so tight—"

"I usually get the girl." Their combined weight ground his hands into the mattress. Were they numb? He didn't hurt. He didn't feel any pain at all--nothing, in fact, but the pleasure, and the frustration, and the aching need to feel skin on his skin, not just rough cloth and hard muscle and the incredible textured voluptuousness of the penetration--

"You usually exert yourself to get the girl."

"Perhaps we should take turns from now on—" They were the last words he managed, as his partner's hand found his erection, as his partner's mouth found his mouth, as they moved together, forward, into an oblivion that owed nothing to white garters or cold desert nights, and everything to the silence they found when they lay together, afterwards, and Illya unbound Napoleon's hands and chafed the blood back into them, and Napoleon stripped off Illya's sweat-marked clothes and tucked him tight inside the protective arc of his embrace.

"I'm sorry I was late," Napoleon said after one of them had recovered enough strength to rise and kill the lights.

"I'm sorry I got the girl," Illya answered sleepily. "I know what it does to your ego to lose."

"Funny," Napoleon said into his hair. "I'm not sorry about that in the slightest." And then he sighed. "I knew you wouldn't let me fall."