Love is a Stranger (6 page)

Everyone else on the course was busy greeting this important visitor, except Ben, who was watching Sir Nikolas Mikkelsen ease out of the Range Rover after the PM. The course trainer began to walk the group away toward the practise traps they’d set out over the hillside. Ben hung back. Soon enough, he was alone, standing with Nikolas. His boss was dressed, as ever, in an elegant suit, now covered by an expensive cashmere overcoat. Nikolas pushed his hands into his pockets and hunched his shoulders to the cold. He glanced back at the Met officers who had stayed with the vehicles and were now opening thermoses and stamping around to keep warm, then turned back, catching Ben’s gaze. “Good morning, Benjamin.”

Ben grinned. “Morning, sir. Moving in important circles now, huh?”

Nikolas frowned. “You do remember that I am married to the queen’s cousin? I hardly think Dear Leader is going to make me pant with excitement just yet.”

Ben had the immediate and disconcerting image of Nikolas a few days ago panting as he lay upon him, coming inside him. He groaned softly at the memory. “No fair.”

Nikolas smiled. He appeared to have had the same thought. Then he sobered. “A packet of white powder was sent to the PM’s office yesterday. Obviously, it was intercepted and was actually harmless flour, but it disrupted government, and the PM is not happy. He is taking a personal interest in this course and its success, and thus here I am, also taking one. As if I wasn’t already, of course.”

“I think I’ll be meeting the Maffertys tonight and possibly Watson, too.”

Nikolas was silent, toeing the ground. He pouted for a while then pulled a photograph out of his pocket and handed it to Ben. It was of a bearded man kissing another man. The light was poor, and it had been taken with a telephoto lens, but it was unmistakable as Tim Watson and also pretty obvious that the kiss was more than casual. Both men were naked. “So? He’s gay.”

“Yes, and therefore vulnerable and an easier target. It has been suggested to me that you exploit it. Actually, suggestion is the wrong word. It is an order.” He pouted again a little. “Exploit is probably the wrong word, too. Maybe something beginning with an ‘f’ would be more applicable. What do you think?”

Ben dipped his head, caught Nikolas’s lowered gaze and forced him to raise it, not letting him look away. “You’re a cold fucking bastard. Do you know that, sir?”

“Yes, actually, Benjamin, I do. I have my orders—I have had my fucking orders made very clear to me all morning—and now you have yours.”

“I don’t—”

Nikolas turned away and began to walk back to the car. Ben tilted his head up to the sky, willing himself to be calm. He felt a few snowflakes on his face and shivered. His phone buzzed. He pulled it out of an inner pocket, and it was warm in his freezing hand.
Dead men cant b resurrected, no matter how much life u have running thru yr veins.

CHAPTER EIGHT

By the time Ben got to the pub that night, he was feeling sick with anger and some indefinable emotion he refused to examine. He spotted the same crowd of protestors at the same table, and they called for him to come across and join them. He shook his head and took his beer to an empty table on the other side of the bar. Ironically, what suited his mood—to be alone and miserable—also suited his cover; he didn’t want to seem to be too eager to associate with the enemy. Then a man appeared at his table, carrying another beer and some crisps, and the idea of associating with the enemy suddenly became much more appealing. Ben’s immediate thought was to wish Sir Nikolas bloody Mikkelsen were here to see this.

“Hi, I’m Tim. Tim Watson. I owe you a beer as I hear you bought everyone rounds yesterday.” He was about Ben’s age, late twenties, and there was no beard now, just attractive designer stubble, so artful it looked merely the negligent grooming of someone too busy or clever to bother. His hair was dark, longish and tousled, and he wore classic academic glasses, which made him seem innocent and sweet, at the same time as thoughtful and studious. It was a neat trick. He was nothing like Nikolas. Ben leant forward, accepting the beer and offered hand. “Jamie Lancaster. You’ll probably dump that beer on my head when you find out who I am.”

“Oh, I know who you are, Jaime. You’re our badger murderer.” The disarming smile he gave Ben was so unlike what he was used to being given by someone else that Ben decided there and then Tim would indeed be his way into the group. In fact, he decided that Tim needed very careful handling, preferably in a soft bed with a good fucking to follow—after a few beers and getting to know each other, of course. Yeah. No ghosts to resurrect here. This man was vibrant, cute, and clearly pleased with Ben. This is what the Danish bastard wanted? Well, this is what the Danish bastard was going to get—or Ben was going to get…

He returned the smile, playing his role. He wanted to snag the guy’s collar and lead him into the bathroom, push him into a cubicle and work off his anger. Resurrect ghosts? He’d resurrect something just fine with this cute man. He was feeling nicely resurrected already. He took a long drink of his beer. “It’s just a job, mate. If I had a choice, I’d rather shoot the fat prick who came by today.” Nikolas certainly wasn’t fat, and Ben wasn’t actually talking about his boss, but the rest of the sentiment applied to the cold bastard very nicely. “My dad voted bloody labour his whole life, and that fuck stood discussing how easy it would be to shoot the poor bloody buggers through the bars of the cages! At least in Afghanistan we shot things that shot back.”

“You sound…pissed off.”

“Oh, I’m pissed off.”
Only not with this, but with a fucking bastard who wants me to
…“Pissed off, mate, doesn’t even begin to cover it.” He wanted to replay that last little scene in the snow and say something cutting and cruel instead of just standing there like a broken-hearted twelve-year-old girl.
Fuck the Danish tosser
! He waved toward the bar. “I know a perfect cure though. Another?”

Tim nodded. “But come and join us, Jaime.”

Ben laid a hand gently on Tim’s shoulder as he passed to the bar. “I’m very happy where I am, and I want you to explain to me why I shouldn’t shoot those little snuffling buggers next week.”

Had Ben ever moved in academic circles, he might have been more circumspect making such an offer. Tim Watson did explain in vast and intricate detail why culling of badgers would have no effect on the spread of bovine TB, how the scientific community had a vested interest in supporting and propagating spurious scientific research, and then why animal rights had become such an issue in the UK. Ben watched Tim’s lips moving beneath the dark stubble and felt his groin ache at the thought of parting them with his tongue—or something else. He watched the brightness of the deep blue eyes twinkling with warmth behind the glasses, playing in his mind the scene when he would remove the frames and kiss slowly over the lowered lids. These eyes weren’t like a seductive peat bog, whisky in cut-glass crystal—things a man could be lost in forever—they were velvet blue, something to wrap up in and keep safe.

He listened intently to the man’s voice, the melodic Englishness—no mangled vowels or odd inflections here. He pictured himself running his fingers in the long, dark curls and snagging the man into an embrace of skin and hair and flesh and warmth, not a vicious interplay of rivals, cold edges and harsh reality. He’d never once touched Nikolas’s hair except in passing as you do while rolling and fucking and fighting for dominance. He pictured himself showering with Tim after sex, the laughter, the smell of soap and the sting of shampoo in eyes. He wanted to wash Tim’s hair, rubbing it up and messing it around.

But then he remembered the feel of Nikolas’s fingers in his hair when he’d dried him after the shower, and it all came tumbling down around him—all his anger nothing more than one of those insubstantial bubbles Nikolas had rubbed out of his hair. Misery twisted in his gut once more. He took a long swallow of beer, sensed something change in the atmosphere, and stared at the man opposite. “What?”

“Have you actually heard a word I’ve said, Jaime?” Tim smiled to soften the implied accusation.

Ben hung his head sheepishly. “Yeah. Sorry. I’m a bit distracted tonight.”

“Girlfriend troubles?”

Ben took a drink. Sometimes fate handed you opportunities on a plate. “I wish. I sometimes think girls would be so much bloody easier than men.” He saw the surprise and quick pleasure flick over Tim’s face. “You married, Tim?”

Tim shook his head. “I, err…I live with someone. John. He works at the university, too. He’s an antiquarian.”

“Huh. That sounds painful or boring. I’m not sure which. You been together long?”

“Years. He taught me.”

“That legal?”

“We didn’t care either way. So, have you just broken up with someone?”

Ben felt like shit. He wanted to do really, really bad things to Sir Nikolas fucking Mikkelsen—things he actually knew how to do as well—but he wasn’t unprofessional and wasn’t about to talk about his boss here and now. He felt like even more of a shit when he shamelessly used Nate and the fire, making out his mood and present dislocation with life were due to that. And it shocked him to realise, as he talked about Nate, that this was actually easier and less painful to talk about and hurt him less than Nikolas’s rejection…than the fact that Nikolas had stood in a snow-covered field and told him to sleep with another man…that Nikolas had so little feeling for him that he was willing for Ben to…For the first time, the emotion he’d been unable and unwilling to examine became very clear to Ben…he was in love. It was as simple and as complicated as that—irrevocably, impossibly in love with a man who barely counted as human, whose whole existence was based on lies built upon lies shored up by falsehood and betrayal. The beer turned sour in his belly, and he realised with something like shock he hadn’t eaten all day. He never forgot to eat. He swallowed deeply. Tim’s eyes widened fractionally. “Toilet’s over there.”

Ben nodded, resisted holding a hand over his mouth, but only just made it to a stall where he brought up the beer in a long, easy vomiting of liquid. As he stood at the mirror, looking at his now less than model-perfect reflection, he wished Nikolas were here to see what he had done to him. On that thought, he brought his foot up and kicked the sink off the wall. One kick, expertly aimed, and all his anger vented. He smoothed his hair, rinsed his mouth in the one remaining sink and straightened. He’d kicked his pathetic love for Nikolas away with that broken porcelain. It was over. He returned to the table and leant down to whisper in Tim’s ear, “You wanna get out of here?”

The man’s eyes flicked over to the other side of the bar. “I should—”

“Tim, I’m not talking about driving you home so I can meet John. I have an unused king-sized bed courtesy of DEFRA, and I’m in the mood to see if your abhorrence of animal experimentation applies to humans as well because, fuck, I want to experiment with you tonight.”

Tim swallowed deeply, his blue eyes like a proverbial deer’s in the spotlight behind his round academic glasses. “I’m not…”

Ben didn’t care what he wasn’t. He was sick of men who were
not
, not what he wanted them to be, not in love with him. He murmured, “My bike is leaving in one minute. If your car is behind, I’ll go slow enough for you to follow. If it’s not, the next time I see you will probably be over some bloody protest line. And that would be a shame.”

He straightened and walked out of the pub. As he knew it would be, Tim’s Lada was behind him as he eased out onto the country lane. Fifteen minutes later, they were back in his room. Ben was immediately betrayed by a quick thought that he wished Nikolas had been sitting on the end of the bed once more to witness how much he
didn’t
love him now, but unfortunately he wasn’t. They made it just inside the door before Ben took off Tim’s glasses. Losing them seemed to lose most of Tim’s other defences, too. He shed his corduroy jacket and ripped at Ben’s leather one, dropping them both to the floor. Shirts followed. Tim ran his hands wonderingly over Ben’s ripped, honed, deeply tanned torso. His fingers actually bounced off the ribbed abdominal muscles. He laughed a little self-consciously. “Sorry…” He indicated sadly to his slightly rounded belly. Ben fell to his knees, placing kisses over the soft, warm flesh with unfeigned delight. He was sick—literally spilling his guts in a dirty toilet—from love for a hard, moulded torso; but this one would do him just fine. He undid the belt with haste, lowering the zip, but Tim backed off and pulled him to his feet. He came to Ben’s mouth, kissing him wildly, and it was just as good as Ben had hoped. He wasn’t as tall as Ben, which was good—very good. For once he was
not
thinking about Nikolas and how perfectly their mouths fit together, how when kissing their groins pressed…

They kissed for a long time, eventually falling onto the bed. Ben’s body was beginning to feel the need for something more—a lot more. In fact, the violent, deeply satisfying sex he had with—
Fuck it!
Was he thinking about Nikolas again?
Fuck!