"I don’t do it to keep you from my past, Ben, I do it to keep my past from you—keep you in the light. I mean…keep you…I don’t know. I can’t say it in English.”
“Say it in Russian then.”
"You wouldn’t understand it then.”
"Yeah, I would.” Ben came back to Nikolas’s mouth as if gentle kisses and a tongue touched to a tongue could translate what was needed between them without the need for shared language, and Nikolas reckoned they did.