“I don’t come cheap.”
“I am a very generous employer, but I would want an exclusivity clause.”
“A what? And what the fuck are you implying?”
“How was your visit with Tim Watson this afternoon? You were there four hours and thirty-three minutes.”
Ben leant back. “I take it back. You’re not so funny now.”
Nikolas suddenly looked away, gazing out of the huge windows to the walled garden, and Ben saw something in the gaze he’d never seen before—never thought he would ever see. He said carefully, “You have a very strange way of showing you care, Nikolas. You might want to work on that a bit.”
“That does not change the fact that you were there for four hours and—”
“Thirty-three minutes. Yeah, I got that. We weretalking.”
Nikolas looked back. Ben held his gaze. Finally, Nikolas’s shoulders relaxed and he gave a tiny nod. He held out a hand. “Then come see the other bedrooms. They do not have mullioned windows, but one is yours. If you want it.”
They stood and climbed the narrow stairs to the top floor. One room was bare except for a large Scandinavian bed with a plain white sheet. For the first time, Ben got to undress Nikolas without urgency and a feeling of stolen time. Nikolas, it appeared, didn’t belong to anyone else now. His body was lean and hard, pale from winter and his northern genes. His prick stood up, full and ready and flushed dark pink. Ben groaned in pleasure and fell to his knees, wincing slightly in pain as his bad knee hit the bleached wooden floor. But with a glance up for permission, he took the head of Nikolas’s cock into his mouth for the very first time. He closed his eyes in bliss as he felt strong fingers snag his hair and heard a soft expletive in the other’s native language. He slid his lips down and consciously opened his throat, taking the leaking cockhead to the very back and fighting the urge to gag. Nikolas was either utterly inexperienced or deeply in love because, unable to hold back, he released, incoherent cries accompanying the warm shots which slid down Ben’s throat and coated his tongue as he gently eased off. He rose quickly and captured Nikolas’s mouth, pushing him to the bed. Releasing himself, urgent, desperate, he turned the willing body and entered Nikolas, leaning on him, heavy and hot, stroking the pale, lean back, easing the thighs apart for better access. The entry was familiar, yet exciting and new at the same time. Ben chuckled against the warm back and found just the right angle. Nikolas scrunched his fingers in the sheet. Ben brought his lips to Nikolas’s cheek. “Do you know how much I sometimes hate you?”
“Yes.”
Ben began to ease in and out in long strokes. “Well, I love you more than that. Sometimes.”
Nikolas closed his eyes and put one hand to Ben’s backside to pull him closer and deeper. “Thank you, Benjamin. That heartfelt sentiment is appreciated.”
“Call me Ben.”
“Call me Nikolas.”
“But, Nikolas, I’m going to be working for you.”
He felt Nikolas relax beneath him, saw the smile of relief and pleasure and then the smirk. “In that case, stop being insubordinate, and call me sir.”
PART II
CHAPTER TWELVE
It had been three weeks, but Ben still couldn’t get used to the sight of Nikolas in a ratty bathrobe, hair mussed, wearing glasses and smoking while he drank his first cup of tea at the kitchen table, reading the paper. He supposed it should be the other things that had changed in those three weeks that he ought to find more unsettling: not being employed by the British Secret Service; not living alone; living, in fact, with Nikolas in a strange limbo of not quite colleague, not quite equal—not quite sure what really. But it wasn’t any of these things; it was the bathrobe, the mussed hair, the glasses, and the smoking. Oh, and the smirk that usually accompanied all of these when Nikolas knew he was being watched. It was as if this Nikolas had been the real one all along, and the other—the elegant, urbane, cold, remote Nikolas—had been the illusion. Perhaps this was so, but Ben had known remote, untouchable Nikolas far longer than rumpled, endlessly beddable Nikolas, and he was having a hard time reconciling the two.
Ben usually sat very still and observed Nikolas during his breakfast of tea and nicotine, sitting on the edge of his chair as if Nikolas were about to metamorphose once more. When Nikolas had let the joke run long enough, when he’d extracted as much amusement from Ben’s discomfort as he could, he would rise, take him by the arm, and lead him back to bed. This really didn’t help Ben’s sense of utter dislocation. This Nikolas was warm, amusing, and inventive in bed. Ben was used to a hard fuck, a few words about work and nothing more being said until the next, snatched meeting. And yetthisis what he’d wanted. This was exactly what he wanted, but he couldn’t allow himself to have it for some reason. He lay awake for hours after Nikolas fell asleep, watching him. He woke before him, watching him still. When Nikolas kissed him, hours of lazy, sensuous kissing, he was sometimes stiff and unresponsive. He knew Nikolas noticed, but he couldn’t bring himself to talk about it, and he knew Nikolas never would.
So, yet again, it didn’t help his utter confusion when Nikolas did just that.
Over the inevitable tea and cigarette one morning, after Ben had lain awake most of the night staring at the mussed blond hair on the pillow next to him, Nikolas turned to the crossword, frowned, took a drag on the cigarette, and observed casually, “I am still here, by the way.”
Ben, so alert and tense he actually missed this, replied idiotically, “Wha—? Huh?”
Nikolas smirked. “I am here when we wake up next to each other. I am still here when we shower together. Amazingly, I am still here every time you watch me have my breakfast. I am not going anywhere, Ben. I give you my permission to relax.”
“Don’t call me Ben.”
Nikolas sighed. “You have been telling me to call you Ben for the four years we have known each other.”
Ben leant forward. “Exactly.” He poked his finger into Nikolas’s chest. “It’s weird and it’s freaky, because for four years you’ve called me Benjamin. You’re the only person who’s ever called me that except my mother, and for four years you’ve been—”
“What? Say it, Ben.”
“I don’t know…not…this!”
