Love is a Stranger (2 page)

Ben now watched Sir Nikolas enter the hotel room and casually brush his longish blond hair off his forehead. He knew this gesture was supposed to disarm his anger at having endured such a long wait. But he wasn’t in the mood to be manipulated, and kept his masks firmly in place. Therefore, when Sir Nikolas offered a neutral, “I was sorry to hear about the fire, Benjamin,” Ben merely replied equally dispassionately, “Thank you, sir.”

“How are you?”

At that, Ben went to the bar to pour them both a drink, despite it being ten a.m. As he handed his boss the whisky, Ben said evenly, “I’m fine,” then added with the barest detectable edge, “Have our forensics people had a chance to study the fire reports?”

Sir Nikolas took a swallow of the perfect malt. “There is no evidence it was anything other than accidental.” Ben held him in a cold, green-eyed gaze. Sir Nikolas sighed. “I agree the timing is suspicious. But Allouni is still in his embassy in Baghdad. We have had people on him twenty-four-seven. However, his brother Usama came through Heathrow on a diplomatic ticket three days before the fire. We cannot verify his movements after he reported into the embassy on the thirtieth of October. But, Benjamin, it was a two-hundred-year-old cottage. The balance of probability is that it was faulty wiring, just as the reports said.”

“With all due respect, sir, fuck the
balance
of probability. I shot Allouni’s son—that’s the
actual
probability.”

“There is no way he could know that, Benjamin. The op was good.”

“Bollocks, sir. We were compromised from the start. It was him. He sent his fucking brother or some other minion, but it was him, and I’m going to make him pay.”

Sir Nikolas took both glasses to the bar and topped them up. “I am going to pretend I did not hear that.” He caught Ben’s eye and held it. “I have another job for you. If you are up for it.”

Ben gave him a bitter smile. “Have you been reading Psychology 101? Hint I’m below par and I’m supposed to rise to the challenge?”

“Did it work? Benjamin, I wrote Psychology 101. But I do not need psychology with you. Or maybe I do now? Are you still in the game?” He handed Ben the newly refilled glass. Ben turned away then gave an abrupt nod.

Sir Nikolas came up behind him. “What are you doing this weekend?” Before Ben had time to form a lie, he continued, “Philipa is having a few friends down at the stately pile. I need an ally. Besides, you know she would love to see you; it has been too long.”

“Does your wife still think I’m something junior in the Ministry of Minerals and Industries?”

Sir Nikolas laughed. “No, I have promoted us both. I am now head of acquisition for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and you are my first assistant.” He put his hand lightly on Ben’s shoulder. Ben glanced down.

“What are my new duties?”

Sir Nikolas ran his fingers into the short hair on Ben’s neck. “As my first assistant? Oh, I don’t know…how about you outline your suitability for the job before I decide.”

Ben smiled to himself, turned and took hold of Nikolas’s jacket. Very slowly, he eased it off the broad shoulders and tossed it toward the armchair. He began to undo the elegant silk tie, never letting the other man drop his gaze. When that was off, he let it fall to the floor, daring Nikolas to complain. One by one, he worked the buttons on the tailor-made shirt until it hung open over a smooth, muscled chest. Very deliberately, he took one dark pink nipple and twisted it until it flushed red upon release. At Nikolas’s hissed intake of breath, Ben said coldly, “I believe I have all the qualifications for this job, sir.”

§§§

By the time they were finished, the whisky buzz had worn off, so Ben climbed naked from the bed and went to top them up one more time. His stomach growled, and he grabbed an apple from the complimentary fruit bowl, tossing another at the man sprawled and replete upon the bed. They lay side by side contentedly munching, washing the fruit down with the alcohol, Ben not needing or wanting to be anywhere else particularly.

“How are you really, Benjamin?”

“How did I just seem?”

“Just because you can still fuck me into a mattress for two hours doesn’t mean your psychological health is good. In fact, many would argue it proves the opposite.”

“What does it say about you then, sir, that you want me to fuck you senseless for two hours?”

“I was not senseless. I felt every moment, trust me, and
my
stability is not being tested by a psychotic Iraqi with a grudge.”

“So, you do think it was Allouni?”

“I think you think it was, Benjamin, and that concerns me.”

“Do we still have someone on him?”

“Yes.”

When Ben fell silent, Nikolas turned his head to regard him. “Come down for the weekend. We will talk more about this then.” Ben still didn’t reply but only continued to stare thoughtfully at the ceiling. Nikolas put his apple core on the bedside table and said distinctly, “My turn.”

CHAPTER THREE

The stately pile was an Elizabethan manor set in acres of the South Devon countryside with added Victorian wings and an Edwardian stable block, all a harmonious celebration of British architecture and landed wealth over the centuries, nestled in a favourable valley leading down to the river. Ben had been here many times and was greeted by Lady Philipa almost like the son she never had, which naturally made Ben uncomfortable given his relationship with her husband, but which Nikolas himself seemed to find amusing.

Ben never let his unusual relationship with his boss trouble him much. It had begun in this very house the first time he had been invited, following on from his interview after being headhunted from the Regiment. He’d felt himself under intense scrutiny all weekend, aware he was being watched, judged, and weighed in some personal balance of Sir Nikolas Mikkelsen’s own making. He’d assumed it was an assessment of his suitability for the job. By the second night, he wasn’t so sure and had returned the quick, penetrating stares with an equal intensity. By the third day, something had clearly been decided in those brief, held looks; but pressed face first into the billiard table later that night, Ben couldn’t have said exactly how things had gone so quickly from intense looks to the sharing of such violent physical release.

Philipa came to meet him as he crunched his Ducati over the gravel in front of the oaken door. She kissed him on both cheeks, pushing the numerous dogs that habitually surrounded her away from his leathers. “Darling—
get down, Bodger
; I’m so sorry. Nik told me.
No
!
Holly,
down.
Just dreadful. Do come in.”

He followed the wind-blown woman in tweed through the spacious but cold hallway. Nearly Christmas, it was festooned with elaborate and beautiful wreaths and winding, tasteful greenery. It led into the kitchen, which usually acted as the focus for what Lady Philipa termed her intimate country weekends. Nikolas was sitting at the table as Ben entered and didn’t spare him a glance from the paper. Once she’d plied Ben with tea and a plate full of mince pies, Philipa took her small, noisy flock with her to do something that required a flower basket and more shouted admonitions to the dogs. Peace fell on the kitchen. Nikolas looked up for the first time and took a mince pie from Ben’s plate. “Hello, Benjamin.”

Ben suppressed a smile. He had no idea what the relationship with his boss really was, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to let the man know he actually liked him. Like was a safe word, and he was sticking with that. He half turned away from the table, moved his plate further out of reach, and asked stonily, “What’s the job you’ve got for me, sir?”

“All in good time.” After a few moments, watching his wife direct one of the gardeners cutting holly, Nikolas asked, deceptively casually, “So, Benjamin, will you indulge me?”

Ben did laugh at that. Sir Nikolas would never be so inelegant as to mention their more unusual extracurricular activities. Ben knew exactly what his boss wanted and nodded. “Sure, why not?”

They led Nikolas’s horses out of the magnificently appointed stables. In most everything else he did, Nikolas retained his enigmatic, impeccable elegance, the facade no one was allowed to penetrate—but not in this. On a horse, he became something else, something dangerous. He became
primitive
. He was at one with the animal in a way an English aristocrat could never be. Ben felt menace, something truly fierce in the Norseman when they rode together. They negotiated the grounds down to where the gardens met tidal river estuary. It was low tide and the mud flats were exposed. The track was slippery, with a deep, primal smell of mud, salt, and seaweed. They rode carefully, the horses’ hooves picking between the rocks. Then they came to the beach, just wet sand now at the low tide. Nikolas turned around in his saddle, his face animated. “Race?”

Ben wondered how this beautiful man could bear to live his life hidden behind the facades he showed to the world. This was the Sir Nikolas Mikkelsen
he
was allowed rare glimpses of. After all, it wasn’t easy for a man to keep all his pretences in place when covered in another man’s sweat and come. When Nikolas was deep inside Ben’s body, he was a very different man. Here, on a freezing beach in December, that man of passion and fire emerged once more. Ben laughed, the wind catching the rare sound and whipping it away out to sea. “What do you win when I inevitably lose?”

Nikolas laughed too and nudged his horse closer, their thighs touching. “I am a generous host, Benjamin. You can choose your own forfeit.” His thick Danish accent tangled the words. Ben felt the same frisson of excitement at the base of his spine that he’d felt during their very first meeting, a handshake across a desk and a simple greeting, “
Mr Rider. Thank you for coming.
” Nikolas had thanked him for coming in more imaginative ways since then.

Ben made as if to answer Nikolas’s question now, slyly turning towards their proposed route. Then with a kick, he was off. He needed every advantage. The wind made his eyes water, froze his ears. He could ride, but he rode like a man on a horse. Nikolas Mikkelsen didn’t. He
was
the horse and the pounding surf; he was the wind whipped around their heads, the smell of salt and earthly pleasures. He caught Ben easily, stayed with him and toyed with him as they approached the cliffs that rose to the headland. As they negotiated the tidal pools, he pulled ahead and around the newly exposed section of beach into the cove that was only accessible at low tide. Their finish marker was always an imaginary line between the millstone and the camel, two distinctly shaped rocks Ben had renamed “the arsehole” and “the stiffy.” Nikolas beat him by several lengths, as he always did. He pulled up in the surf, wheeling, his horse dancing to the beat of the waves. Ben reigned in beside him. “Bastard.”

Nikolas turned his horse so they were side by side facing each other. “So, my winnings?”

Later, he couldn’t say if it had been the excitement of the race or the strange numbness of grief he’d felt since the fire, but Ben suddenly decided he wanted something more than he was usually allowed with this man. He hesitated for a moment then glanced needlessly around the empty December beach. They had the entire windswept, freezing place to themselves. Without thinking it through too much further, he leant forward and kissed the other man’s cold lips. Then he sat back to gauge his boss’s reaction, because for all the things they had done together, they’d never once kissed. They’d rarely bothered with a handjob, never a blowjob, never used these first steps to slowly work up to the wild and abandoned sex they’d fallen into that first weekend. They’d gone from a look to fucking, no quarter asked for or given. Ben couldn’t explain it, and as they never talked about what they were doing, he’d never asked either. So this kiss on a cold beach with horses stamping and turning and twisting beneath them was very different. Nikolas eyed him coolly, his detachment instantly in place. “Who was the body in the fire, Benjamin?”

Ben’s head reared back, and his horse, sensing his agitation, backed off too quickly. Ben had to grab the saddle to keep his balance, and he eased the horse out of the water and up toward the rocks. When he felt the wind lessen, he slid off the animal, walking her around, calming her—calming himself. Nikolas joined him, dismounting and finding a treat in his pocket for his horse, patting her nose and talking softly to her in his native language.

Finally, Ben replied, “Nathan. He was called Nathan. He was a carpenter. He was putting new windows into the cottage for me.”

“Had he been there long?”

“No. Why do you ask this now?” He saw Nikolas’s expression for a fleeting moment before the other could hide it. “You already knew all about him. Of course you did.”