Page 14 of 72 Hours

I was frowning, and I could feel the nagging onset of a headache. For a second, I couldn’t even remember what I’d been asking him. It’d been a hell of a long day for me, too, though we’d been on different jobs. “Maybe I don’t know, not always. It’s just the way I lead my life. I like to hear things, I like to discuss them.” Dammit, he was so good—we were so good!—I wanted to praise the fact and pimp it and just generally pet it all. I felt that way about everything where Niall was concerned. Every damned feeling, from the fiercest orgasm to the strange ache that I felt inch by inch across my body every time he ran a hand through his hair.

He was puzzled but smiling back at me. He ran a hand through his hair in just that way. I stepped forward, and his hand lifted at the same time, reaching for me.

“Tanner, I was stunned from the moment I saw you.” His smile faded, shadowed by something that disturbed him. “I’ve never felt like that about anyone in my life. Even before I spoke to you.”

“Huh?” His hand was stroking slowly along the line of my jaw, and I stretched up into the touch.

“I just looked at you and wanted to know you. In every sense of the word.” He tsked softly. “Is that the kind of thing you want to hear? It’s not easy for me....”

My mouth was over his before he could finish the sentence. Words couldn’t compare to that taste. But yeah, he could be damned good with them when he chose to.

I was spending more time at his place than my own, and we were effectively living together. Because personal time was so snatched and precious, we’d decided early on that neither of us wanted to spend our nights in a game of musical beds. Instead, we took joint meals and sleepovers in each other’s apartments whenever we could and duplicated most things we owned so that we never got caught without a toothbrush or spare socks.

Niall had an apartment in the Westbridge, a building in residential north London. It was one of the places that Judith had cleared for security purposes. It was critical that her Team worked secretly and anonymously, and yet comfortably. Somehow she hadn’t yet got around to re-housing me as well; I’d been wondering whether to take her neglect personally. However, his place was a damned sight smarter than my scrappy. rented apartment by Kings Cross, so I enjoyed my time there. We went our separate ways out in the field, but then we came back together—back to washing up, reading the papers at night, yawning our way around grocery stores, playing interminable games of chess, waking up with sheets tangled around us and pillows kicked off on the floor. All that stuff that comes with living together.

We just did it because it felt good. Well, it did to me. I had visions of us being as much friends as lovers, supporting each other through the missions.

God knows, we needed it.

Niall came home sometimes dirty and tired, ears obviously ringing from explosions or shots that had been too fucking close. Sometimes there’d been casualties no one had anticipated. He’d sit in the bedroom and he’d strip and clean his personal handguns, quickly and fiercely as if it burned his fingers to hold them any longer than necessary. He’d tell me about some of the missions, but others he wouldn’t, even when I asked.

Meanwhile, my reactions were more extroverted. I ranted and raved about the way things had gone, the successes, the setbacks. The bloody stupid way the world ran. The arguments I had with Judith, the delays in supply, the calibre of personnel, the fucking rain when I was on outdoor surveillance in the park. I liked to talk. Hell, he knew that well enough. But he so rarely reacted. Sometimes it even looked like he was bored.

That was too painful to consider, of course.

Once, after he’d returned from a three-day solo mission, I heard him cry. Quietly, in the bathroom during his shower. With the door closed so he thought I wouldn’t see or hear. Maybe he forgot I was there or something. Though it was hardly that large an apartment.

“Niall?” I stood close to the door. I wanted to respect the privacy he obviously thought he needed, but the sound was shocking. It made something inside me ache, tightening up in my chest so painfully that my own eyes started to water. “Niall, I missed you. Hey... you okay?”

He never answered. The water stopped and I heard him padding across the floor of the bathroom.

“You want to talk about it?” Of course, that was probably the worst thing I could have said, but I wasn’t thinking straight. I wanted to help him; to hold him. The door opened, and he came out very slowly, as if walking was an effort. He had a towel twisted around his hips. I stepped up close and put my arms around him, pulling him into my embrace. He smelled of shower gel, his hair damp, his bare skin warm.

But he was tense, his body stiff against me like some kind of robot.

“Anything you want,” I said. “Tell me.” I pressed my lips to his ear, breathing into him as if I could somehow melt the tension. Yeah, the other guys could probably update me on what specifically had happened, but this was about me and Niall. I wanted to hear him tell me. “I can understand. I can take it. Tell me. Let me help.”

“No,” he said. His voice was hoarse and—shockingly—angry. “Leave it.”

What the fuck?

He turned to me then, his head buried in my neck, his teeth against my skin. I couldn’t see his eyes. He grasped my upper arms and his fingers dug in deeply. “I’m back now.” It was like a growl. “That’s all you need.”

I started to protest, but he pressed against me even harder. His heartbeat was very fast, I could feel it through the thin cotton of my tee shirt.

“Fuck me,” he whispered, raggedly. “Do it, now!”

My breathing sped up, and lust shimmered through my veins as warm as blood. Then he gave an impatient shake of his hips and let his towel fall to the floor, his body bare and flushed, his cock thick and rubbing its wet need along my leg.

I didn’t ask about the crying again.

WE WERE VERY DIFFERENT. I said that before, I reckon. Took me a while to realise that was a problem.

The sex continued to be as hot as it had ever been. We’d be apart for a while, and then we’d be back in the same apartment like newly married yet sexually familiar partners. At first there’d be a thick cloak of tension, clutching around us like a straitjacket. We’d argue over something—or nothing—like we needed to let off steam before we could touch. And then we’d clamber over each other’s bodies to get to the soft, sensitive bits, and we’d fuck like starved bunnies.

After all, it had been his body I wanted, right from the first time I saw him. It was that rush of thick, ecstatic delight that suffused me every time I saw him. That was all I needed to keep me riding the crest of a wave. So maybe I didn’t need to nag at things any deeper. Or so I told myself. Dammit, I spent my whole time at work organising people and trying to analyse their motives and behaviour, it was damned stupid to want to do a whole lot of it between the sheets as well. Niall’s approach was probably just fine. He suffered the same pressure, after all. We both knew how significant the work was to us, and what it represented in our lives. Anything else was just a diversion, just entertainment. If strong and silent was the way he wanted to be, I could play along.

Liar, liar.