1 Chapter 1
Ben Smith came home early, on a damp stone-colored evening full of coastal gloom; he let himself in through the front door and paused to smile, because the air was filled with the scent of tea and the low rumble of the heat turned on, and the even warmer sight of his husband curled up under blankets on the pillowy sofa.
He set down his bag and kicked off his shoes and padded across the carpet, soundless out of long-established habit. Shed keys and watch and gun and othergun along the way, leaving them all on a side table along with the weariness of the mission, and sat down carefully next to Simon on the sofa. The pillows attempted, as they generally did, to swallow him up in fluff. He poked them in retaliation, surreptitiously. They always had liked Simon better.
His husband was completely asleep, so much so that the opening of the door hadn’t registered. Ben watched him breathe for a while, and wanted simultaneously to wake him and shout, you idiot, you know what I do for a living, I could’ve been anyone breaking in here to kidnap you—and also to never wake him, to let him sleep, sweet and lovely and safe and careless of all the monsters in the dark. Surrounded by the pillows.
He leaned over to brush a wayward strand of gold back into place—Simon complained on a semi-regular basis about curls and cuddliness and looking like an excitable fifteen-year-old in authorial photographs, and Ben thought, as he always thought, that this was ridiculous and anyway it shouldn’t matter, even though he knew why it did—and stopped, hand hovering over one cheekbone.
Simon was asleep, yes. Asleep and cuddled by blankets and warmed by a half-drunk mug of tea, and to all appearances unreservedly cozy. But.
But lines framed those closed eyes, even in sleep. Simon’s mobile phone sat halfway across the coffee table, as if it’d been tossed there in despair or anger or resignation. And—Ben paused, frowned, checked to be sure—the one visible hand was cradling a strip of dark leather that looked an awful lot like the first proper submissive’s collar they’d ever picked out, the one he’d bought when Simon had touched it so very lightly in the shop and then turned to face him, cheerful laughing invitation to every kind of sin. That black leather had always shown up so beautifully against the English-aristocrat skin and ice-blue eyes and golden hair. They’d bought others, stricter and more complex, more playful and experimental, since. They’d not used this oldest one for a very long time.
Okay. He had to breathe, for a second. Despite all the training. Despite all the years of covert missions. There’d been a time he’d not believed anything could shake him, not the Agency’s best operative. No attachments, no ties, no one he loved.
And then he’d met Simon. Who woke up in bed with him in the mornings, every morning, and smiled. Who made Ben’s heart, old cracked beast that it was, smile too.
If Simon had felt off-balance enough to fall asleep clutching the collar—wearing both leather wrist cuffs too, though that’d been part of the instructions he’d left and so not a surprise—and that particular one…
He could think of a few possibilities. Not one of them was good.
He leaned over and kissed parted lips, very gently. Simon made a sleepy contented noise and kissed him back, and then woke up, blinking. “You—when—wait—”
Ben tried not to laugh. “Wait? Really?”
“What…I think I might still be dreaming…you didn’t say you’d be back early!” Laughing though, and disentangling himself from the clutching blankets, all slim neat muscles and polished tea-and-scones accent. Ben’s heart did that silly exultant flip again. Always did, always would. Fact, that.
Sometimes he wondered how he’d ever been this lucky. How he’d deserved to meet a world-famous author in a crowded airport lounge, and bring said author home and fall in love.
“I missed you,” Simon said and glanced down, just for an instant: not hiding, but too honest. “Tea? Oh no, likely entirely cold by now—how’d it go?”
“It is. I can make more. Don’t get up.” Partly reluctant and mostly absurdly pleased about getting to dosomething on behalf of those blue eyes, he extricated himself from the friendly furniture and wandered, mug in one hand, toward the kitchen and the sleek shiny instant kettle. In the periphery of his vision, he caught his husband starting to stand, processing the order for what it was, flopping back down into blankets, and then, quite possibly just to provoke a reaction, stretching enough to make the day’s fluffy sweater ride up and reveal a strip of pale skin.
Simon could, of course, make his own tea. Not the point. Not right now.
