There was a long pause. “Nika gave it to me for my birthday. Our twelfth. He made it at school. I thought if I was going to be completely unmanned and wear a ring, I had better start practising wearing some jewellery.”
“It’s beautiful.”
“He was very artistic.” Nikolas appeared to be pondering the leather plait and confided in a quiet voice, “We often spoke of the houses I would build and how he would then decorate them.”
Ben pulled Nikolas’s head closer and kissed into his hair. Nikolas shrugged his sleeve down and mock punched him. “So, you wanted me to order some pizza? Is it not a little early in the day for garlic and grease?”
Ben poked him back. “Ollie. I told you, I was thinking about Ollie. You said he had a pizza in the oven…”
Nikolas immediately seized on this fact. He was quick, Ben had to give him that. “You think he was expecting someone? That he didn’t eat pizza either.”
“I know he didn’t, Nik. He didn’t touch carbs. Ever. He couldn’t have gotten that body if he had. The crew commented on it when we were chatting one day and I refused some rolls.”
Nikolas seemed so hopeful—hopeful that he’d been right all along and that Gina Cameron and her lover had murdered Ollie—that Ben felt a genuine delight in adding, “But it was Stantiago Molina’s favourite food. He told me once that he lived on it—laughed about how he didn’t need the same leanness Ollie had. That he was all bulk and proud of it. I didn’t make the connection until Tim ordered pizza last night, and I couldn’t have any and…” He shrugged. “I thought about Ollie again.”
Thinking about Ollie naturally led them both to remember how this confession had been obtained. Ben saw Nikolas’s amber eyes flick to the rail behind the bed.
“And he was so fucking annoying, Nik—Santiago. I cut him some slack because of Oliver. I thought he was forgetting it was Ollie he’d been best friends with, not me. But I think now he was just pumping me for information—what I knew about Oliver’s death. It was weird. Even Squeezy noticed—he’s still convinced they did it.”
“But they didn’t try to kill you—in New Zealand. They weren’t there.”
“Remember you told me that was an accident—that another car had gone—?”
“I was lying, Ben. I’m sorry you had to find out like this, but occasionally I do tell you very small white lies.”
“This is my surprised face. But, seriously, in this instance, I think you were actually right. Do you remember that little guy they got to play kiddie Ollie? Hayden? He emails me occasionally. He’s doing a road-safety film—playing a kid who’s killed in a car accident. By a tourist, Nik. Seriously, they’re thinking of banning tourists from driving there at all! Because most of the visitors come from countries that drive on the—”
“Right.”
“Exactly. They land, get in a car and…bang. The death toll is horrendous. Do you remember the accident? The way he was on the wrong side of the road?”
“He just kept coming…”
“So perhaps you weren’t lying. For once. It was just an accident. But maybe it was meant to happen so you would be pushed into righting the wrong of Ollie’s murder…”
Nikolas’s head dropped to his chest with a faint groan, and Ben chuckled. “You can deny it all you like, but it was fate.” He pulled Nikolas closer again and kissed into his hairline once more, loving the smell of his freshly washed hair. He frowned suddenly. “Where’s the grey gone?”
Nikolas lifted his head, his eyes widening from total incomprehension. Ben had seen that look before and wondered with a private crow of delight whether he was finally learning to see through all Nikolas’s deceits. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Ben let it go. Maybe he was mistaken. Maybe grey had become highlights in the sun. “So, there you are. That’s my theory—the pizza murder.”
Nikolas sighed. “It’s a good one. I’ll give you that.” He ruffled Ben’s hair, muttering about his curls, because he obviously knew it would annoy Ben as they weren’t curls but artful tousle. “I’d better go back downstairs or Stefan will start trying to question Radulf about his past.”
Ben nodded seriously then grabbed Nikolas’s throat in a gesture Radulf would have understood and appreciated, given his history, and bore him back onto the bed. He kissed him then let him up, but just before Nikolas got out of reach, he hooked him back by his waistband. “House guest?”
Nikolas swore softly, obviously having assumed Ben had been sufficiently distracted. “You’ll like him. I do.” He suddenly smirked. “There’s a lot to like.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Like wasn’t the first word that sprung to Ben’s mind when Peyton Garic extricated himself with great difficulty from a taxi and came toward the front door. Ben actually took a step back, as if the man might be infectious, which he knew was beneath him, so he braced himself and went forward, his hand extended. “Hi.”
Peyton glanced up at Ben. His benign smile faded. His mouth opened. His eyes began to water and his chins wobbled. Shockingly, he began to cry, great tears overflowing and running down his cheeks.
Ben retreated again in surprise, then felt stupid, so once more came forward, then realised it looked as if he were dancing with the enormous man, so he peeled away and backed up the hallway. “I’m Ben Ri—”
“Fuck, man, I know. I know. Ben. Ben Rider. Awesome.” Peyton swiped at his wet face. “Peyton. Garic. Hummer said he knew you. That I’d get to meet you. Fuck, man, you’re real. You opened the door! For real. Can I touch you?”
Peyton squeezed himself into the corridor and came toward Ben, his arms outstretched, and enveloped him in an enormous, sweaty hug. “Fuck me.”
Ben took this as an expression only and nodded, praying that he wasn’t agreeing to something he wouldn’t know where to begin doing.
He showed Peyton into the kitchen and explained that Nikolas was out. Peyton sank into a chair and wiped his forehead, gazing around. “Sweet. England is so cool, man. Weird. But cool.”
Ben put the kettle on. It calmed him down and made his brain stop thinking, Nikolas and Peyton? Nikolas and Peyton? What the fuck?
When it was rumbling nicely, he turned and considered the unusual man. He’d never met a man so overweight in his entire life, but then he knew he’d had a slightly unusual one of those, being in the army, where fat was not…encouraged. “How was the flight?”
Nice safe question. Boil! Fucking boil!
Peyton grinned and pointed to his chest. “First class. Awesome.”
The kettle noise ceased. Ben began to make the tea, his back once more to the strange man. “So, how did you meet Nikolas?”
“Who?”
Ben twisted around, teabag on spoon. “Nikolas? Big? Blond? Scars?”
“Oh, man, you mean Hummer. Sure, Hummer and I are old friends. We’re fucking tight, man. Solve crimes, bust ass. Hummer’s m’ main man. So…you call the dude Nikolas? Weird fucking name for a bodyguard.”
Ben nodded sagely, having absolutely no idea what the big man was talking about. “So, Hummer…you know him because…?”
“Oh, man, he thought I’d sent you a death threat. Tracked me down. Awesome. No one tracks The Mountain down.”
Ben’s brows rose. He couldn’t have picked a better name for the vast mountain of flesh in front of him, but thought it odd that Peyton would highlight his most obvious physical feature this way. Before Ben could comment one way or the other, Peyton beamed and nodded. “I was GregorClegane before I was BenRider. Got that first, too. Fucking awesome game, man. Moral ambiguity. Don’t y’ just love it?”
Ben sipped his tea, noncommittally. He foresaw many such confusing conversations and had already decided not to ask.
Peyton peered curiously at the mug of tea Ben had given him and murmured, “Huh. Hot—and…cold milk?” before adding more confidently, “So, Hummer’s out…killing people?”
At that moment, Ben heard the front door open, and he slid further back into the d
epths of the kitchen to watch the interesting reunion.
Peyton Garic didn’t appear to recognise Nikolas at first. Nikolas had been to an opening of a new art gallery and was wearing one of his hand-tailored suits. He’d also recently had a haircut (where Ben suspected he may have left the grey). Nik smiled at Peyton and briefly punched his shoulder, which seemed to delight the huge man. “Awesome undercover look, man. What you working on?”
Nikolas narrowed his eyes secretively, and Peyton tapped his nose. Ben groaned. Nikolas had found a new playmate.
Nikolas glanced at Ben. “Ben, meet the new and improved Kate.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Peyton was installed into one of the spare bedrooms. Literally. Nikolas told him he had an unlimited budget to set it up how he needed. Peyton stood eyeing the room. “They do pizza in this little country of yours?”
Nikolas told him to have in it, and left. Ben frowned and glanced at Peyton. Peyton winked, and Ben recovered from his shock and dismay at finding this odd guest on his doorstep. He gave Peyton a small complicit smirk. Anyone who also found Nikolas’s English occasionally extremely odd and amusing, and dared laugh at him, endeared himself immediately to Ben.
He found Nikolas in the office, shredding things. The shredder had been used a lot recently, and Ben suspected much of the information that could have been used in Steven’s proposed book was lying in tiny fragments in the bin. He watched Nikolas for a while and then asked the obvious. “Why him?”
Nikolas shrugged. “I like him. I trust him.”
Ben pondered this for a while. “You like him?”
“I felt he would be a welcome change to…everyone else.”
There was a lot true about this, when Ben considered the rest of their team, but something seemed fairly self-evident, so he pointed it out. “A woman would have been that.”
Nikolas made his familiar dismissive gesture, apparently unconcerned.
Ben picked at a thread on his jeans. “No Mollys from Peyton though.”
Nikolas then glanced over, seemingly surprised at the sagaciousness of Ben’s comment. But he ducked his head briefly, acknowledging its truth. Then after a pause while more thoughtful shredding went on, he conceded, “No more Jackson Keanes either.”
Ben grinned. “Oh, I don’t know. You might be tempted…”
Nikolas looked serious. “You are as fat as I ever want to fuck, Benjamin.”
Ben took the bait. He couldn’t help himself. It was a sensitive subject, and he hadn’t had any sugar for a week. He was feeling angsty and not in the mood to be teased. He caught Nikolas around the waist, propelling him to the floor. He tried to get a punch in, but Nikolas was too quick and rolled away under the desk, coming to his feet on the other side. He winced and rubbed his elbow where it had smacked into the floorboards. Ben narrowed his eyes. “Old man.”
It was a fair fight then, this being something Nikolas was equally touchy about. He sprang over the desk on one hand and tackled Ben into the filing cabinet. Ben grunted as a handle caught him in the back, and Nikolas took the opportunity to pinch his waist—apparently checking for fat. Ben didn’t have anything to squeeze, so it ended up being a painful dig in the ribs, and Ben gasped and retaliated by seizing Nikolas’s hair and making a very pointed comment about dye.
Nikolas began to chuckle, but suppressed it, and grabbed Ben’s cock through his jeans. It was a standoff then, and they both clearly knew it. If Ben moved, Nikolas tightened his hold. It was only when Ben murmured quietly in Danish, “We have an audience,” that Nikolas relented and held it more gently, beginning to stroke him instead.
“Radulf can’t see. It’s amusing and instructive for him to listen, however. Make that noise you always do when I do this.”
Ben bit his lip, trying not to laugh. “Not the dog…”
Nikolas jerked his head around to find Peyton Garic leaning in the doorway, holding his phone as if waiting for a good opportunity to take a video.
Peyton waved his hand and said cheerfully, “Said you’d stopped stripping, Hummer. Seemed kinda a waste to me given the…So this is awesome, man. I’ve kinda had to stop that shit—sex—ya know? Well, with other people. Issues, dude. But always happy to watch.”
Nikolas peeled away from Ben and scratched his face. Ben turned to the cabinet and tried to find something interesting to look at. He heard the huge man sigh with disappointment that his live entertainment was over and then manoeuvre away down to his new room. Nikolas leant his back against Ben’s and conceded thoughtfully, “I may have made another error.”
§ § §
Once Peyton was established in his command centre with vast monitors, a network of cables snaking all over the floor, and various boxes blinking and whirring, they saw very little of him. Every so often the doorbell would ring with some takeaway, and Ben did the honours of jogging up to mission control with the boxes. He whispered worriedly to Nikolas one evening after returning to the sofa, “What will he do when we are in Devon? He’ll starve.”
Nikolas repressed a very obvious smirk and patted Ben’s head patronisingly. “It’s a temporary measure. I am acquiring more suitable office space for him—on the ground floor.”
Ben glanced up to the floor above them. “What does he actually do?”
Nikolas tapped his nose in a repeat of Peyton’s gesture, which earned him a taking down. This time Ben sprung up to lock the door to the sitting room before returning to the sofa and his prisoner. For a captive, Nikolas was being surprisingly lax in his attempts to escape. Unless lying provocatively and unbuttoning his shirt was a prelude to a dash to freedom.
Ben helped the escape bid, if it was one, by pulling the shirt up over Nikolas’s head until his chest was bare, his powerful arms stretched up, and then he twisted it around, binding Nikolas’s wrists above him. Holding them with one hand, Ben mouthed into Nikolas’s armpit, then licked slowly up the cool inside of pale muscle to the bound wrist. Nikolas arched a little in pleasure, grinding his hips up to meet Ben’s. Their cocks connected and they both groaned at the same time. Ben transferred his mouth to Nikolas’s lips, kissing him deeply, exploring with his tongue places he knew very well already.
When Ben knew Nikolas was close to needing more, he eased off and appealed huskily, “I want to watch you strip.”
Freeing his arms, Nikolas began his usual protest—that he didn’t like being used, that he had good cause not to put on shows with his body—but Ben had heard it all before. “You stripped for Jackson.”
He saw with amusement the quick outrage in Nikolas’s eyes and added, “That’s what I pictured, anyway. That’s what I kept thinking.”
“Hmm. Did you see the expression on his face when you asked if he’d fucked me? I think it ruled out any sexual connection between us at all—ever.”
“Tell me the truth.” Ben managed to keep a straight face at this ridiculous request. “You picture me and Kate sometimes. I know you do.”
Nikolas clenched his jaw and added sulkily, “Sometimes.” Then his eyes wrinkled a little at some private joke, and he added quickly, “But just her, actually. She was very attractive.” Ben knew he was only being teased and distracted, but he hit Nikolas’s shoulder anyway. It wouldn’t be fun between them unless they were suitably black and blue the next morning. Nikolas caught his wrist and held it fast before Ben could follow up with an attack on the ribs, then kissed him swiftly. “Molly will be exceptionally beautiful, I think, with such parents.”
Ben sagged. “Parent. That sounds worse than father. Bloody hell. I’ll have to do the school run…chat to mothers at the school gate.”
“Oh, I think you’ll cope, Benjamin Rider-Mikkelsen. I can’t see any school-gate mothers being unwilling to befriend you. I might get jealous.”
“You’re not going to strip, are you?”
“No.”
Ben sighed and played with Nikolas’s nipple. Nikolas folded his arms behind his head. “You are unpleasantly heavy. How is your diet going?”
> Ben twisted his nipple, getting a satisfactory wince of pain in response.
Then he ducked down and sucked it for a while, Nikolas holding the back of Ben’s head, running his fingers through his dark hair. After a while, he heard a soft murmur, “Strip me, Ben. Make me your plaything that way.”
Ben let out a small, “Yess,” of delight and slid lower on the lean body. He took the leather of Nikolas’s belt between his fingers and eased the tongue out of the buckle. He could feel the insistent hardness below, feel it moving and responding to his touch, seeking him out and rising. Nikolas’s zip came down with an anticipatory light metallic hiss that heralded release and relief. Ben closed his eyes to savour the moment and then he eased the material down the supine figure until all was exposed to his greedy gaze.
Ben pressed his mouth to the hollow of Nikolas’s hip, his tongue tracing a pattern on the pale skin. Nikolas swore and tried to pull Ben’s head closer to a more obvious target for licking, but Ben only nuzzled lightly into the wiry blond hair at the base of the tempting cock and then moved lower, all promise and pretence in his suppressed laughter.
Nikolas appeared to resign himself to a long wait.
His hand hesitated.
Ben waited incredulously.
Nikolas gave in and took himself in hand, something he almost never did when Ben was present. Ben groaned in delight at the erotic spectacle. So obsessed with being the centre of Nikolas’s intimate desires, Ben rarely had to consider that Nikolas was in fact the centre of his own sexual identity—that he owned his own body and its responses.
Ben slid up to lie alongside the arousing sight, watching with fascination as Nikolas pulled and twisted his cock. The grip was harder, the working more furious than Ben ever did it for him, and he wondered what Nikolas was thinking, what images he was conjuring that needed such violence to release. Ben suffered a stab of jealousy for a moment until Nikolas’s free hand sought him out and fastened onto his face, turning his gaze. Nikolas was staring at him.
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