by Josh Lanyon
I felt like an idiot, but even so I didn’t look away. He scrubbed his face with his hand, then he studied me, hand over his mouth.
I grimaced. “I’d kip down with Lena if she were still about.”
Oddly enough, that seemed to decide him. “Okay, Mason. Scoot over.”
I shifted gingerly to the other side of the bed, and he turned out the lamp. I watched him, silhouetted in moonlight, as he shrugged out of his robe, threw it to the foot of the bed, and pulled the covers back, slipping into the sheets beside me, stretching out. He was wearing pajama bottoms, but I could feel his heat. He smelled familiar, a subtle musky fragrance unique to him.
I inched down in the bed, levering myself onto my side facing him—happily the side where the ribs were not broken.
His breath was light against my face. His eyes glinted in the moonlight.
“Thank you,” I said softly.
“You’re welcome,” he said equally soft, and the words seemed to take on new meaning. He held my gaze. Then he closed his eyes.
If I reached my hand out—but if I reached my hand out, he would get up and leave the room. I love you, I thought. I closed my eyes and went to sleep.
“I’m not the villain here.”
“You’re sure as hell not one of the guys in the white hats.”
“I’ve news for you, Stephen, not everyone wearing white is a good guy. I’ve seen burning crosses and women flogged. I’ve seen—homosexuality is a capital offense in most of the Muslim nations.”
“And you think the end justifies the means.”
“Sometimes. Yes. These things aren’t settled by knights jousting each other in tournaments, for God’s sake.”
“There’s a reason they shoot spies.”
“Fuck you, Stephen.”
But he grabbed my arm before I could walk away. “That’s not what I meant. Of course I don’t think you’re a villain. And I’m not so naïve that I can imagine a world where espionage doesn’t play a major role in the balance of power. Listen, the truth is I’m scared. Scared to death every time I think about what could happen to you if you’re caught and captured. You think I could survive seeing you beheaded or shot on the nightly news?”
“There’s a call for you,” Lena said from the back porch doorway.
I looked away from the hypnotic glitter of sunlight on the lake. “It’s not Stephen?”
“It’s not Doctor Thorpe. I’ll bring the phone out here.” She returned, handed me the phone, and eyed Buck—who was sleeping comfortably sprawled over my legs—a disapproving look.
“That dog’s not supposed to be up on that swing.”
I winked at her and took the phone. She gave me one of those severe looks and went back into the house.
“Yes?” I said into the receiver.
“What the hell is it you think you’re up to, Mr. Hardwicke?” the Old Man snarled.
I hung up.
Then I stared in astonishment at the phone. Had I just done what I’d apparently done—or was I really losing it? Actually, in either case I appeared to be really losing it. Buck wriggled over onto his back, and balanced there braced against my jeans-clad legs, paws raised in sleeping surrender.
The phone rang again.
I answered. “Yes?”
“Don’t hang up again,” came the distinctly unlilting Irish accent of my employer.
I could picture the Old Man clearly. A tall, rawboned man in his sixties—fighting a valiant rearguard action against mandatory retirement—a hawkish face and a shock of unruly white hair. I always thought he looked a little like those pictures of the traitorous Anthony Blunt, but I’d never been suicidal enough to say so.
“What do you want?” I added belatedly, “Sir.”
“What d’you suppose I want? Would you like to be explaining to me what the hell you’re doing in the States when I expressly ordered you into hospital for rest and observation?”
I was silent trying to marshal my arguments, but in the end all I came up with was a short, “I want out.”
“Out? Out? What the hell do you mean, you want out?”
“I want out. I want to retire. I told you two years ago I wanted out, and you told me that you needed me for one more job. No one else had the skills, the experience, that’s what you said. And two years and eleven operations later, I’m still working for you.”
There was an electric silence, and the Old Man said silkily, “That, boyo, would be because you never mentioned leaving again. There was never a word out of you when I gave you an assignment. Never a murmur.”
Lunch hadn’t agreed with me. Ice tea and cold chicken salad. I wasn’t used to rich things like that. I was used to…rice. And yoghurt. And fruit. I felt queasy. And the heat was giving me a headache. My head pounded with it.
I focused with effort. “Well, I’m saying the word now. Two words. I’m through.”
“Nonsense.”
“Nonsense? It’s not nonsense. I’m resigning.”
“It is nonsense. Resigning from a job you enjoy? A job you excel at? Why?”
Because I’m tired of lying and being lied to, of betraying people and being betrayed. Tired of risking life and limb. Tired of running. Tired…
Because it cost me Stephen.
But I couldn’t accept that. I said, “I’m…tired.”
“Of course you’re tired. That’s why you’re on sick leave.”
“This isn’t something that can be cured by sleeping tablets or a couple of weeks in Spain. I need to make a break.”
“You do important work for which you are very well paid —”
“I’m not going to change my mind.”
“I see.” I could practically hear the gears changing. “Very well. We’ll discuss it when you return.”
“I’m not coming back.” I closed my eyes, absently tugged Buck’s silky ear. I desperately needed to lie down and sleep. Sleep away the churning in my guts, the throbbing in my head.
“You’re not…?” For the first time in all the years I’d known him, the Old Man seemed truly at a loss for words. “Are you mad? What do you mean you’re not coming back? Not at all? Not ever? What kind of childish talk is that? What about your family?”
Well, there was a silly question. My great-uncle was dead. There remained only a few scattered cousins I never heard from beyond the occasional Christmas card—received usually a month or two late when I returned from wherever I’d been last posted.
The Old Man moved on quickly, “Your friends?”
Friends? Like Barry Shelton?
“What friends? I don’t have any friends. I have colleagues. I have contacts.”
Next he would ask about lovers. But no. The Old Man was unlikely to make that mistake. Instead he made a sound of impatience. “What about your flat? Your car? Your book collection?”
I said nothing. What was there to say? My book collection? Why didn’t I simply eat my pistol now?
“There are procedures, Mr. Hardwicke. You’ve got to follow the prescribed course of action for this kind of thing. You can’t just bloody well walk out like—like someone on the television!”
Did the Old Man watch telly? I tried to picture that. Had he seen Lord of the Rings? He wouldn’t make a half-bad wizard.
“I realize that.” I said. And I did realize it. I would have to return home eventually. I had a change of jeans, a toothbrush, and a service-issued pistol. Hardly enough to build a new life on. But I didn’t want a new life. I wanted my old life. The life I had passed up when I chose to go back to work instead of staying with Stephen as we’d planned.
The only problem with that plan was that Stephen no longer wanted me in his life. Which meant I had zero reason for remaining in the States. I might as well go back. Why didn’t I?
“You realize what?” he said sharply when I said nothing else.
“I realize that I need to come back for a final debriefing. And I will.” I rested my forehead on my hand. “But I need…”
He sai
d nothing as my voice trailed off. When I didn’t pick up the thread again, he said, “Very well. Given the injuries you sustained on your last assignment, I’ll give you a little time. Forty-eight hours. But I warn you —”
I thought of the old television series with Patrick McGoohan. What was it called? The Prisoner, that was it.
“What?” I asked. “What will you do if I don’t come back?”
He said, precise and cold as an ice pick, “I hope you never have cause to find out, Mr. Hardwicke.”
Stephen’s mouth on my nipple. Suckling, nibbling the tight nub. I moaned, arching up against him, and he paused in that teasing pull of teeth and lips to offer a sexy little laugh. Could you laugh with an accent? Stephen’s chuckle had a soft Virginia drawl to it.
Hands sliding over his sleek hard body, stroking him, running my fingernails—such as they were—down his broad back, I tried to draw him down while my cock jutted up against his belly. Even I wasn’t clear what I was urging him to do, so it was a relief when he took me in hand—literally—pumping me once, and then a second time.
I said dizzily, “Again? But what about you?”
“I’m an old man. Twice in one night is my limit.”
My breath caught in my throat as his teeth closed delicately on my nipple, and I pushed into his hand.
The book slipped out of my hands and I started awake. There was a shadow standing over me, but before I could react, Stephen said, “Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
I relaxed into the chair, hoping he hadn’t noticed that I’d been about to spring on him and knock him to the floor. I expelled a long breath. “That’s all right. I don’t know why I’m sleeping so much.”
“It’s called recovery.”
“Yeah? Funny. I don’t remember sleeping this much when I was shot.”
He’d left for the hospital before I woke that morning, so I’d had no chance to see him since last night’s dramatics. To my surprise he sat down on the footstool next to my feet and said, “We should probably go downstairs and change the dressing on your leg.”
I grimaced. Then, eying the copy of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyám in his hands, I nodded at the book and said, “I’m glad you kept it.”
“It’s a beautiful book. And it was a gift. There’s no reason not to keep it.”
The inscription on the flyleaf read: One thing is certain, and the Rest is Lies.
At the time I hadn’t believed there was any relevance in the rest of the quotation: The Flower that has blown for ever dies.
Stephen studied the blue leather cover with its gold lettering and design—and I studied Stephen: from the disarming way his hair fell soft and pale over his forehead, to that intractable square jaw. He had a sexy mouth and short, thick, dark eyelashes like a doll’s. His hands were beautiful and well-cared for: long, tapered fingers equally adept at healing and giving pleasure.
He looked up, catching my gaze, and I reddened as though he could see my thoughts in a cartoon bubble over my head.
“I brought Chinese takeout for you,” he said. “I have dinner plans tonight.”
Disappointment closed my throat. It was ridiculous. I really was too old to feel like this. I said calmly, “Three nights in a row. Well, you’ve never been one to drag your feet when you see something you like.”
He said tersely, “I’m not seeing Bryce. I’m having dinner with friends and then I’m attending a scholarship committee meeting at the university.”
Well, that was a little relief. Not much. I urgently wanted—needed—to spend time with him. I felt sure that if we had more than a few moments on our own I might manage to open my mouth without putting my foot in. But I could see that he just as urgently wanted to avoid that very thing.
“You’re very hard to say no to, did you know that?” That wry smile creasing his tanned cheek.
“The fact is, you don’t really want to say no to me.”
“Unfortunately you’re right.”
“Unfortunately?”
Even then the self-mockery in his eyes had given me pause.
I followed him downstairs to the little office and examination room where Stephen occasionally saw a few local elderly and impoverished patients. He washed his hands and dried them with a paper towel while I studied the botanical sketches on the wall.
“Is the leg giving you a lot of trouble?” His voice sounded absent.
I glanced around. “Nothing to speak of.”
“And you wouldn’t speak of it if it was.”
“Oh well. Whinging never won wars.”
“I know who that sounds like.”
“Who?” I met his gaze and felt a funny flare of awareness. “The Old Man? Yes, I suppose it is one of his greatest hits.”
Pulling down my jeans, I climbed carefully onto the examining table.
Stephen removed the bandage from my thigh and studied the wound. His hands were cool and dry and very gentle. I distracted myself from his touch with an effort. The injury looked all right to me. Still a little puffy and pink around the sewing but clearly healing. The tiny black stitches were so perfect a machine might have done them.
“Will I ever dance again, doctor?” I inquired as he opened a tube of antibiotic cream.
“Mercifully, no.”
I laughed, and Stephen’s cheek tugged into a grin. Our eyes met briefly. It was hard to look away—for me anyway. And it was hard to ignore the fact that in his effort to smear my torn thigh with antibiotic cream he was inadvertently brushing my cock with his hand.
Inevitably this began to produce results.
“Look who’s awake,” I remarked, since there was little hope of ignoring the tent pole in my briefs.
“Yep,” Stephen agreed, glancing and then away. He continued pasting the cool cream over my sensitive inner thigh, brushing his knuckles against the hard length poking the soft cotton of my briefs—it would have been hard to miss at that point.
“That’s actually a relief,” I said—feeling that I had to say something. And at his blank look, I clarified, “He hasn’t shown much sign of life lately.”
“He hasn’t?” He sounded disinterested, but his fingers lingered, his touch more caressing than medicinal. “That’s common with trauma. You’ll be back to normal fast enough.”
“Normal” apparently not a good thing where I was concerned. I put my hand over his, holding him still against the hard large muscle of my thigh.
“Thank you for taking care of me. I don’t know what I’d have —”
“Don’t.” He slid his hand out from under mine, and the fine hair along my thigh stood up as though brushed by static electricity.
His eyes were angry. I nodded.
Neither of us spoke as he placed a new bandage over the stitches and taped it neatly. His breath was cool and light against me, his eyelashes flickering against his cheeks as his kept his gaze on what he was doing.
“You’re so goddamn lucky it didn’t hit the femoral artery.” His voice was low when he finally did speak.
“I know. Thanks. It does feel better.” I jumped off the table—which was a mistake—and pulled my jeans back on with unsteady hands while he washed up again at the little sink.
We walked back upstairs with neither of us saying anything. Shortly afterward Stephen left for his dinner, and I ate Chinese takeaway and watched the news. As usual the news was mostly bad—and that was just the surface coverage offered by the American news programs.
Inevitably pictures of Afghanistan filled the flat screen.
The bookish-looking female correspondent reported, “One person is dead and several others were wounded in Afghanistan Saturday when, according to witnesses, police opened fire on protesters accusing US-led soldiers of killing civilians.”
I stared at the brown stuff in the white carton. Mongolian beef. I supposed I should be flattered that Stephen remembered I liked it, but I was no longer hungry. I headed back into the kitchen, dumped the food into Buck’s dish, and put the dish out on the bac
k porch. Opening the fridge to see what beer Stephen had, I discovered he’d got in Guinness. Tall cans of it. Not as good as at home, of course, but better than the pale ales Stephen preferred. I had a can—ignoring the little voice that sounded strangely like Stephen saying “Antibiotics and alcohol? You know better.”—staring out the window over the sink at the scarlet and black-streaked skies.
The evening was long and dull. For a time I tried to read Little Dorrit, but for once Dickens failed to work his comfortable magic. I was too restless to concentrate, finding no pleasure in the slyly humorous but sentimental depiction of Victorian England.
“The Artful Dodger, that’s you.” But there was no sting in it. His hand rested warmly on the small of my back guiding me through the door he held open with the other.
“No. I’m David Copperfield searching for true love. I’m a romantic.”
“I’ve never met anyone less romantic than you.” He let the door to the restaurant close behind us. I glanced at his face but he was amused, slanting a knowing green look my way.
“Hey, that’s very wounding. I’ll have you kn—” I broke off as he leaned in and kissed me, his lips soft and deliberate as they pressed mine. When he released me, I said, “You don’t really care if I hold off meeting your friends for a bit, do you? Because if it really matters…”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“I’m not awfully good at small talk.”
“You’re not awfully good at big talk.” But he was laughing.
I gave up on Little Dorrit, got another can of Guinness from the fridge, and wandered out onto the back porch to enjoy the cool breeze and scent of magnolias. Buck had cleaned his dish of all traces of Mongolian beef. There was no sign of him, but I could hear his tags jingling in the darkness.
I had probably irretrievably bungled this from the moment I’d phoned from that drafty Devon phone box. Begging for help. Not very romantic, that. In my imagined reunions with Stephen I always showed up on his doorstep with flowers and gifts—I believe I usually wore formal evening dress—and somewhere in the distance music was playing. Lynyrd Skynyrd probably. And I always managed to say all the right things. Starting with the fact that I was sorry for letting him down so badly and that I knew he was too good for me—but that if he was willing to make allowances for abysmal stupidity, I’d spend the rest of my life making it up to him.
