Love is a Stranger (15 page)

He went up the stairs and grinned when he heard Nikolas following. Nikolas peeled off Ben’s clothes, dropping them to the floor. He let the bathrobe slide from his own shoulders. In the obscuring steam, they kissed leisurely. The water loosened Ben’s tired body. He turned and twisted as Nikolas slowly ran soap-covered hands all over his hard muscles. When the front was done, Nikolas murmured, “Turn around.”

Ben obeyed and spread against the wall, arching into Nikolas’s strong hands on his shoulders and back, but when Nikolas reached lower, Ben swatted his hands away, shaking his head. “You’ve wrecked me.”

He wasn’t sure whether he was expecting sympathy or derision, but he definitely wasn’t prepared for Nikolas to flatten himself against him and bite painfully into his shoulder. Then he eased the pain with his tongue. “Wrecked? What are you going to do about this then?” Nikolas pulled Ben’s hand to his cock, which was full and twitching expectantly with need. “Maybe I should force you. I own you, after all.” Ben twisted around and saw the small smirk on Nikolas’s face and felt a surge of intense excitement shoot into his cock. It was a game. This was new. He turned back and said gruffly, “You could try, you bastard, but I’d kill you first.”

“Really?” Nikolas pressed one finger into Ben, and Ben cried out in genuine pain. Nikolas wrapped an arm around his throat. “How are you going to do that? Apologise.”

Ben nodded. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry…what?” He pressed another finger in, and Ben didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, but the game was turning him on so much he welcomed the intrusion. “I’m sorry, sir.”

“Good boy. Get on your knees.” Ben had turned, dropped to his knees, and taken Nikolas to the back of his throat before the words were out. He wasn’t very good at even pretending to resist Nikolas. The hot water continued to pound over them both. Nikolas’s body was tight as a dancer’s as he braced with his hands spread to the wall like a man having an unusual police frisking. His cock was wet and slippery, tasting faintly of coconut soap. It was over far too quickly for both of them. Nikolas’s body sagged; he swore, grabbed Ben’s head, and shuddered into his mouth. Ben swallowed it all down then let the cock drop from his mouth and hung his head in submission. It wasn’t all that much of an act. He was wrecked all over now. Who knew the fringe benefits of a job could be so exhausting?

Nikolas turned off the water and reached for a towel. Ben staggered to his feet and accepted it. He gave Nikolas a look. “How about we play…oh, I don’t know…chess next time?” Nikolas smiled and turned away to begin shaving.

“We do not have to have the dog in position until five. What would you say to a traditional English breakfast at your favourite restaurant?”

Ben groaned with anticipation and delight. “I’d say anything you want me to say.”

§§§

Nikolas amused himself by making Ben say all the most obscene Danish swear words he knew as they drove to the restaurant. Ben was so hungry his eyes were watering by the time his sausages, bacon, eggs, beans, mushrooms, tomatoes, black pudding, and fried bread arrived. Nikolas had ordered coffee and clearly wanted a cigarette. He shook his head despairingly. “You are a strange people with horrible food.”

Ben didn’t have time to stop and argue, but he pointed his fork and said around a mouthful of fried bread, “Built an empire on this, mate.” Finally he sat back, wanting to undo his jeans. He groaned. “I’m done.”

Nikolas glanced down at the extra sausages Ben had discretely hidden under his napkin. “Don’t, Ben. Do
not
get fond of this dog. He goes back when we are done with him.”

“I know that!” He still fed Radulf the sausages though. A lost dog had to start the day on something substantial, after all.

§§§

Radulf got lost half an hour before Felicity and her daughter, Alice, arrived in the park. If Ben hadn’t known better, he’d have said the dog was knowingly working the case with them he was so convincing. Alice arrived in the park clutching one of the posters. She let her dog off the lead and proceeded to follow him, calling out Radulf’s name every so often. Ben watched as eventually Radulf bounced up to her dog. Alice cried out to her mother, clipped him to her lead and dragged him back to the bench where her mother sat texting as usual. Felicity took the poster, stared at Radulf, and they left the park as a group.

Half an hour later, Ben’s burner phone rang, and he answered, “Hello?”

“Hello. Is this Dean, the man with the lost dog?”

“Have you found him?”

“We found him tonight in the park.”

“Is he okay? Thank God. Can I come and get him? It’s very kind of you.”

Felicity gave him the address of the house he was standing just across the street from—he’d brought the Range Rover because his new partner couldn’t ride a Ducati, but had had to park it some streets away. After a suitable interval, he opened the gate and walked up the driveway. He trudged across the gravel to the front door and rang the bell. He heard light footsteps, and Alice opened the door. Radulf came running out behind her and practically jumped into his arms. God, the dog was good. Ben did the joyful dog owner thing until Felicity appeared, when he switched to seduce mode. It wasn’t hard. She was even more beautiful close up, but then so was he, and he wasn’t blind to the impact he made upon her. They had a brief chat about losing the dog. He thanked her once more and left.

Next day, he rang the bell just after she returned from the morning school run, and when she answered, he handed her a beautiful selection of roses—not red and obvious, but delicate and unusual shades, mixed with some wild flowers to enhance their beauty. He said it was to thank her for finding the dog once more. She hesitated but invited him in for coffee.

It was as easy as that.

She let him into the back of the house where, like Nikolas’s place, the kitchen had been pushed out into a sun-filled extension. Alice’s dog rose from his basket and came up to Ben, settling at his feet at the table. Felicity went to turn on a coffee machine that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a restaurant. She began to arrange the flowers artfully in a jug, giving Ben an occasional covert glance. Eventually, she brought two coffees to the table and sat down opposite him. “The flowers are lovely, but there was absolutely no need.”

“Well, they’re from Radulf. He’s very pleased to be home.”

“Where is home?”

“I’m staying with a friend until I find somewhere.”

“What do you do?”

“I’m doing some modelling at the moment, but I want to go travelling.”

Felicity had worked as a model before her first marriage, something Ben obviously knew. He had occasionally gone on assignment for the department using a photo shoot as a cover. He was consequently more than able to talk convincingly about the work. She tentatively mentioned she had thought about returning to modelling one day.

As soon as he finished the coffee, he stood to take his leave, not wanting to make her uncomfortable, but as she was showing him to the door, he said, “Radulf bought a little something for your daughter to thank her, too—after all, she did all the hard work…Would it be all right if I brought it around for her tonight? I could push it through the door if you would prefer.”

She hesitated for a second. Ben heard volumes in the hesitation and then she nodded. “Of course. We have ballet tonight, but we’ll be home by seven. She’d love to see Radulf again.”

Ben gave her a smile that had charmed far harder targets than this one.

When he got home, Radulf levered himself from his basket and came up, wagging his tail. There was no destruction. Ben gave him a look. Radulf returned it, all innocence. Ben wasn’t fooled. The dog was plotting something.

He grabbed his bike gear, let himself out again, and made his way to the underground garage where he stored his Ducati. With a sense of freedom at last, he pointed the bike toward the west and took off. He had no real destination in mind, he just needed the space. He had spent the first ten years of his working life in the army and the last four working in the department for Nikolas, and presumably his masters. Life had been relatively simple then. He did what he was told without questioning too much what he was actually doing. He’d killed people. He assumed he’d ruined lives and created collateral damage with each operation, but that had always been something other people had to worry about. This was different. He couldn’t justify what he was doing, and this uncertainty disturbed him. And yet, there was also something off about Felicity and Alice that he couldn’t quite define. It had been there in that slight hesitation at the door. It was there in the endless texting when she took the dog for a walk. In some ways, it was there in her vapid existence. Ben wasn’t experienced enough to work out why he felt uneasy.

After he’d ridden for a few hours and taken a breather at the coast, he returned to London and let himself into the house quietly. He didn’t want to encounter Nikolas and have to attempt to explain his confused concerns. He grabbed the small gift he’d bought earlier, clipped Radulf to his lead and went to get the vehicle. He was going to have to teach Radulf to ride on the back of the Ducati; he hated driving in London and resented the parking difficulties. Then he remembered Radulf was going back to the shelter when they were finished. It put a bit of a dampener on the trip over to the house. Radulf didn’t appear to let his future bother him. He liked the Range Rover and particularly liked sitting in the back with his head stuck out of the window. Ben could see him every time he glanced in his wing mirror and it cheered him up slightly.

Alice answered the door and fell to her knees to embrace Radulf. Ben had dressed him in a particularly fetching bandana (another reason he’d snuck out of the house without wanting to encounter Nikolas), and when Alice exclaimed in delight at it, he handed her the present he’d brought—another one for her dog. She ran back into the house, shouting for him to follow her. Ben took the invite at face value and followed her to the kitchen. She was busy showing her mother the bandana and tying it on her dog. He watched mother and daughter together for as long as he could without appearing creepy and then made his excuses to leave. Felicity followed him out. And there it was again, something just not quite right. She was polite and friendly; she thanked him, but there was something in her eyes that made Ben feel uncomfortable, like he was missing something he ought to see.

He returned to the house, but he couldn’t settle to anything. He felt as if he wanted to be in constant motion. He decided to take the dog for a walk and maybe circumvent whatever the creature was plotting. He called up to the office that he was going out, but to his amazement, Nikolas came down and said casually, “I will come with you.” At Ben’s expression, he added with a shrug, “As you so kindly pointed out, at my advanced age, I need to keep my joints working.” Ben made a noncommittal noise but proceeded out the door and took his usual route to the canal. Nikolas, he noticed, didn’t seem to be suffering from advanced age-related decrepitude just yet. He sauntered along, apparently taking an interest in the sights. He stopped when they reached the towpath and bent his head to light a cigarette, giving Ben a sly smirk. “What? We are outside. It is allowed.”

“I don’t complain because it’s inside or out. It’s going to kill you.”

“Rubbish. I shall die of old age first, according to you.”

“Will you stop—?”

“So, tell me about the job.”

“It’s good. I’ve met the mother and daughter and been to their house a couple of times. Established a lot of trust.”

“And…?”

“And what?”

“And what has you troubled, Benjamin? I did not agree to this strange English habit of moving slowly on one’s feet with a gay-looking dog just to argue with you about my smoking—as much fun as that is, obviously. Something has been wrong since I got back, and I want to know what it is.”

Ben ran his fingers through his hair before he realised that was Nikolas’s gesture. A month of living together and he was becoming Sir Nikolas Mikkelsen.

“Ben…?”

Ben sat down on the grass bank, letting Radulf off his lead. Nikolas looked askance at the grass but eventually sat down next to him.

“She’s nice—Felicity. And the girl, Alice, is happy. This is all wrong. I’m not doing it. I’m not taking her away from her mother, Nikolas. Get someone else to do it.” There. He’d said it at last. He waited for the explosion.

Nikolas squinted around his cigarette smoke and asked very calmly, “Should I get someone else permanently or just for jobs you do not want to do?”