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  Swearing under his breath, Ryland spun around and went through the exercise set I had prepared for him, and I let out a sigh of relief.

  We repeated that dance five or six times, and then one day, instead of doing as I said, he grabbed me and spun me around. It was a good day, no cane, but I still tottered for a moment.

  A thought flashed through my head: I would have killed someone for grabbing me like that five years ago

  I shoved it away because Ryland was pointing to the opposite end of the facility's urban training ground, two full city blocks that looked like, well, two full city blocks.

  "See that?" he growled. "Better sight-line and I'm not fucking exposed from the right flank."

  I had seen, and I frowned at him.

  "There's no way for you to get from here to there without breaking cover."

  "Yeah there is. Look. It's all apartments on the second floor. I can guess how they're laid out. I get up on the second floor, cross inside, and boom. There I am."

  I didn't hesitate for a moment.

  "Show me."

  With a grin and a lazy salute, he loped off on his chosen route. As I watched him, I absently rubbed the arm that he had grabbed, feeling for a few moments a phantom heat.

  He might have bucked when I gave him the first order, but it hadn't escaped my notice how easily he obeyed the second one. Someone else might have said it was because he was getting his own way, but I didn't think so. He just wanted to do a good job, and he needed someone who would let him.

  That night, I told him to wear his only suit, and I took him to a steak place in the city. It was good, and in amusement, I watched him put away a thick bloody steak and half a basket of biscuits.

  Almost as if he could feel my eyes on him, Ryland glanced up with a sly expression in his yellow-green eyes. They were strange, a little unsettling, but at some point, I had grown to like the color. I had never seen it before at any rate.

  "What is it?" I asked.

  "So you come here often?"

  "Maybe once or twice a year." I didn't say that old habits die hard, and I tended to avoid making a habit of things like where I ate or shopped.

  "That's good. I would hate for your favorite steak place to think you were bringing your rough trade out for dinner before taking him home."

  "I'm sure they've seen it before," I said mildly. Even after Ryland had given up the posturing and worse forms of defiance, he kept this one up. I thought that if I didn't give him the rise he was looking for, he would give it up, but I was apparently wrong.

  "Really?" he asked, drawing the word out. "Even if..."

  I jumped a little when his hand landed on my thigh, because who wouldn't? It lay over the thin fabric of my trousers for a moment before he started to rub the muscle there gently. I wouldn't have thought he was capable of such a gentle touch, and then it started to move towards my cock.

  "Stop it," I said, and he paused for a moment. Then with a shrug and a slight grin, he pulled his hand back.

  "Did you like it?" he asked innocently.

  Yes.

  Yes, I had fucking well liked it, and I was glad we still had dessert to go because my cock was telling me that man or not, I hadn't been touched in far too long. My heart was beating fast and I had to stop myself from licking my lips. The only consolation was that Ryland seemed to have no idea of the effect he was having on me, as he called the waitress over for another dish of mashed potatoes.

  "You're no fun at all," he complained. I shrugged, smiling faintly.

  "Chapter 32, Section D-14 of the handbook expressly forbids it," I said drily. "The only fun I'm allowed is steel-cut oats, works of Brutalist architecture, and reading summaries of popular movies."

  He laughed at that, delighted, and I noticed that when he laughed, his eyes looked greener, darker than before.

  That night, I waited until I heard his breathing level out to deep sleep, then I shut and locked my bedroom door. When I took myself in hand, closing my eyes even in the dark, I started the way I usually did, thinking of a pretty woman, an agent I had known, women I saw in movies. However, in the middle of it, when my body tightened and coming was inevitable, I saw a flash of green eyes, that rude joke of a mouth, and I could hear Ryland's laugh in my head, mocking and warm at the same time.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Ryland

  I've never really been the type who thought about the future. Growing up the way I did, fucking around with the people I did, and even joining up with the agency, I mostly worked under the idea that if I was fed, warm, and not actually in a fight, things were pretty good.

  Staying at Garrett's place, I was always fed and warm, and there were no fights to worry about. If someone had described life with Garrett to me, I think I would have jumped out a window at how boring it was, but somehow, it wasn't. It was just normal. He got up an hour before I did, he woke me up, we ate breakfast together, and he told me what the day was going to be like. Most of the time it was the training facility, but there were days when it was just wandering around the city so he could see what I looked like when I blended with the crowd. There was always range time, and he got his time in as well. With his leg the way it was, he wasn't handling anything heavy, but he was a better than average shot with the full range of lighter guns.

  There'd be lunch in the middle of that somewhere, something from the cafeteria or more rarely, ordered out. At night, he cooked something while I spent a few hours to myself. He was a pretty good cook.

  I wasn't bored, somehow. He might have been, but how could anyone tell? He was always the perfect handler, perfectly calm in his gray charcoal suit with the walnut cane. I tried to get under his skin a lot in the beginning, and three weeks in, I was ready to give it up as a bad job. You couldn't get under his skin. It didn't mean that I didn't keep trying, but by that point, it was just a habit. If I said something crude, he would respond like a government certified robot, and we'd move on with our day. Didn't mean that he didn't star in a few pleasant fantasy moments in bed or in the shower, but hell, I thought about all kinds of guys.

  Life was good, better than it had been for a few years, better than it had been ever maybe. When I tried to look ahead to the work that I was meant to be doing, that we were meant to be doing together, it was like a looming cloud on the horizon.

  ***

  I had been with Garrett for a month when one night I found myself awake in the middle of the night. I shouldn't have been awake at all after being led on a brutally demanding workout at the facility. I still ache. I barely sleep at all when I'm on assignment, but when I'm off duty, I sleep like the dead.

  I lay still in bed, every nerve taut and ready for action, and then I heard the noise that must have woken me up in the first place. It was a whine, a low and desperate sound. I recognized it. It should have been a scream or a shout, but someone had bitten down so hard on it, that’s all I could make out.

  Silently, I shoved on a pair of boxer shorts and made my way silently to the hall. The sound came again, clearly from behind Garrett's closed door. I didn't wait to hear it a second time. I turned the knob fully before pushing the door open, and looked in.

  Garrett's room was as plain as mine, the only difference is his enormous bed. From where I stood in the doorway, I could see that the covers had been twisted and half-shoved off the bed. It left Garrett, wearing only a pair of striped pajama pants, curled up close to the headboard, shaking like a leaf. With light from the hallway, I could see a sheen of sweat on his skin, and he whined again. This time I could hear words with it.

  "Oh god, oh god, please. I can't. I can't. Don't make me...please."

  There's a kind of code for guys who do the kind of work we do. Don't sleep with your partner's spouse. Share food if you've got it. No snitches. Above all of them, though, is don't look. Be there if he wants to talk, haul him to rehab or therapy if you need to, take the punch if he needs to throw one, but above and beyond, you don't look. Everyone
's got nightmares, and no one wants to be seen having this one.

  For the first time, though, I realized I couldn't look away, and I couldn't leave. It looked like every muscle in Garrett's body was tensed, as if he might snap if I left him alone. I couldn't leave him.

  Instead, I crossed the room silently until I stood close to the bed. I had a moment of common sense before I reached for him. He might be confined to a surveillance van or a desk these days, but not so long ago he had been a killer just like me. He didn't need his leg to seriously hurt me or kill me if I pissed him off, and even if he was sorry after, I would still be dead.

  Then he made that fucking sad and lonely sound again, and I forgot all about code or caution. I laid my hand on his shoulder, kneeling on the bed next to him.

  "Hey, man. Hey, quit, it's all right, hey, it's all right, I promise." I didn't know what I was saying, but I kept my voice low and calm like he did.

  At first I wasn't sure if he could hear me, but I kept talking and slowly, by centimeters, he started to relax. He half turned to me, and without hesitation I wrapped my arms around him. Covered in sweat, I wouldn't have said he smelled good, but there was something about it that felt right to me. He ended up sprawled on the bed with his head on my shoulder, tucked under my chin. I kept talking to him, telling him everything was going to be all right, that he was back home now. Nothing bad was going to happen, I promised. His skin felt clammy, almost chilly under my touch, and then he started to warm up again.

  At some point, Garrett stirred in my arms, making a half-assed attempt to get up before he curled back against me.

  "Ryland," he sighed, and I grinned a little. He had never said my name so sweetly before. Figures it took a nightmare before he did it.

  "Ready and willing for duty," I said flippantly, and he chuckled a little.

  "You ought to go back to your room," he said. "I'm sorry I woke you."

  He made no move to pull away, however, and I didn't try to leave either.

  "You have dreams like that often?" I asked carefully. He shrugged, and it felt like holding an earthquake in my arms.

  "At first it was about six nights a week. These days, it's maybe one or two a month. Better than they used to be."

  "Jesus Christ," I said, shaking my head. "You talk to someone about them?"

  "I did the mandatory six weeks of therapy after the incident," he said, and I laughed at him.

  "I'll bet you did. Did you actually do anything that worked?"

  He was quiet for such a long time I thought he was going to order me back to my room. I would have gone too.. Now that he wasn't in a panic any longer, I realized I was in my handler's room, in his bed with my arms around him, and my thoughts had nothing to do with his expertise at commanding me on a mission.

  "Time did," Garrett said at last. "Some time off. I ended up in Iceland of all places."

  "Yeah?"

  "Mm. I was going out of my skull and I needed to change something... You can't lose an entire team and get pinned under the wreckage for almost forty hours and not have it change you."

  I winced. It wasn't the worst story I'd ever heard, but for Garrett, I couldn't imagine much worse. Hell, dying probably would have been better.

  "I had changed so much. But I needed to change more or I was going to die where I stood. It wouldn't have been anything as clear cut as a bullet to the head, but I would have been... careless. Sloppy. I'd make a wrong call or something like that and I'd be dead, and maybe more people would be dead with me."

  "And you couldn't let that happen." There was a trace of pride in my voice because it was true. Not on his watch. Never.

  "No. So I took some leave, bought a ticket nearly at random, and ended up in Iceland on this tour. You know, young couples, old widowers, all crammed on a bus, and we drove north in the worst cold I'd ever encountered.

  "One night, the guide says something, and we all tumble out. It's freezing, but... the lights, they're dancing over our heads. These unbelievable sheets of color moving over the sky, perfect and beautiful, and I knew that if I stood there or not, they would keep on doing it."

  He paused for a long time.

  "It didn't fix me, not really. That took for me to get the nightmares out of my system. But it told me maybe why I needed to be fixed."

  I knew instinctively that Garrett had never shared any of this with anyone before. He wasn't built for the therapy couch, being married to the company was right. He couldn't tell anyone who hadn't lived it as well. If he was married, he would have come home locked up like Fort Knox, and she never would have guessed what was wrong.

  "I'm glad you decided you needed to be fixed." It came out all wrong. I wanted it to be funny, but instead it was grateful. I was glad he was here and not buried in a grave with honors, and his name on a plaque at headquarters.

  Garrett at least didn't look at me funny when I said it.

  "Thank you. I'm glad I made that decision as well. It allowed me to be here making a complete ass of myself in front of my asset."

  I laughed, relieved that things were back to normal.

  "Yeah, well, remember this the next time I think I've had enough parkour practice, yeah?"

  "You haven't," he grumbled. "You still go for fast instead of staying under cover. That's going to kill you."

  "So will going slow."

  I swear, I meant to head back to my room. It was still pitch dark out and I wanted to go back to sleep. We both moved at the same time, him levering himself up off of me, and me starting to roll away from him. Something about what I was doing upset his balance, and he fell on top of me, knocking me flat on my back. I laughed again because it was so ridiculous, but then I saw that he was leaning over me, one hand lightly on my shoulder, his face just inches away.

  Fuck, I'm not made of stone. I felt his bare chest against mine, smelled him, and heard the way his breath hitched just a little at how close we were. I wasn't thinking. I reached up, cupping the back of his neck in my palm, and I pulled him down.

  God but he tasted good. First kiss I'd had in a while, and it was so soft, almost sweet. I tasted his minty toothpaste and underneath that, the taste of him. I couldn't help devouring his mouth as if it was the only good thing I'd had to eat in months. The only thing that keeps me from being a complete bastard at this point is that he started kissing me back.

  His hand landed in my hair, closing on the short strands. He held me still as he started kissing me right back, his tongue sweeping into my mouth as if he owned me. He kissed me hard, the way I want to be kissed, and for a little bit, I didn't have to think about anything at all.

  The spell broke when he moved a little closer and I twisted my hips towards him. I was hard, and craving him. I wanted him to touch me, to feel his body riding against mine, and I pressed against his thigh.

  Garrett froze, and then he pulled away, leaving me grasping after him like an idiot. I might have made a sound, something desperate and needy, but I cut it off right away. For a second, he was completely still, kneeling in the bed with his head down. I couldn't see his eyes. I wondered if I needed to get away from him, to let him have whatever gay panic he’d have over kissing another man. When he raised his head, his face was as mild and bland as it was when he was making breakfast.

  "I think that was a mistake," he said gently. "You should go back to your room."

  I wanted to cuss him out. I wanted to take a swing at him. I would rather have had to deal with him hitting me than look at his face as if it were nothing. No, less than nothing. One more way that I wasn't living up to expectations, something where I had missed the metric.

  I snarled and threw myself out of bed, not caring that despite that splash of cold water, I was still half-hard.

  "Sir, yes, sir," I spit out, stalking towards the door.

  "Ryland..."

  You should tell him to stop calling you that, a voice whispered in my head. Damned stupid thing to get him to do in the first place,
wasn't it? Fucking idiot, Cortez...

  "No big deal, right?" I said, not looking back. "I know the drill. We don't talk about it. Back to normal in the morning."

  There was a part of me, a dumb ass kid part, that wanted him to come after me, to use that authority he wielded like a whip to tell me no, it was a big deal, and we were going to talk about it and make sure we were all right again.

  I got to my bedroom and like a kid, slammed the door, throwing myself down on the bed so hard it creaked. I heard him pacing in his room, maybe in the hallway, and then finally, nothing.

  ***

  I must have slept at some point because I woke up at the usual time. I felt fine physically, but my head felt as if it were full of rocks. I stumbled to the bathroom to shower and shave, then dressed. I had no reason to avoid going downstairs.

  Hell, if I said I was sick, he'd probably take my temperature to verify it...

  I headed down the stairs, but there wasn't any breakfast on the table. Instead, Garrett was on the phone, nodding tersely as he paced the floor.

  I put a couple slices of bread in the toaster as I watched him from the kitchen. I'd be lying if I said that he wasn't a personal fantasy come to life, but I'd also be lying if I said that there wasn't anything more than that.

  I had to shake my head at my own idiocy. I may have been one hell of a delinquent asset, but at least I wasn't one of those morons who fell all over himself trying to please his handler, as if he was a combination of Daddy and God all wrapped into one. At least, I hadn't been.

  I was eating a piece of plain toast when Garrett finished his call. For a moment, he just frowned at me.

  "Protein as well as carbs," he said, and I shrugged.

  "You're usually the one making breakfast."

  He sighed; maybe it really would be a normal day.

  "We're grabbing some food on the go," he said. "Looks like the honeymoon's over. They want us in Marseilles within 24 hours."

  I straightened up like a dog called to heel. I might be getting some good out of my time with Garrett, but I had been in action almost constantly for the past year and was itching to get back to it, or at least, eager to put last night behind us. I headed out to gather my gear, but Garrett stopped me with a word.