This Other Country Read online

  Each new couple pulled their chairs out of the group to sit together and work through the exercise. It afforded the opportunity for Ben to drag a chair behind Nikolas. Nikolas was staring at the carpet, lips pursed. Samuel was thinking deeply, making vague notes on the paper he’d been issued.

  Ben hissed in Danish, not really caring anymore if anyone questioned their shared knowledge of this slightly obscure language. “Not once you’ve let me watch. Not fucking once.”

  “So you’re not upset I let him but that I don’t let you?”

  “Yes! Fucking hell, yes. Was he that much more special to you?”

  “Ack, how can you…?” Nikolas twisted around in his seat, straddling it, back to Samuel. Ben did the same, much to James’s obvious consternation. Their foreheads were almost touching “I— Damn it. It’s not that he meant more to me—the opposite. I want you to respect me. I want you to look up to me. I didn’t care what Gregory thought of me, because he’d already seen me at my very worst.” He glanced up through lowered lashes. “When he found me, I was eating someone. I’m sorry. I didn’t particularly want to tell you that either.”

  Ben lowered his head. If it appeared that he was praying to Nikolas, he didn’t care. Perhaps he was. He whispered to the floor, “How do you do this to me every time?” He raised his eyes. “All your bullshit, all your lies…and then there it is, the tiny moment of honesty…that second when you’re vulnerable…” He lifted his face fully. “I didn’t think I could love you more, but I do right now.”

  Nikolas’s eyes widened. “I should have maybe tried a little honesty before this. Do you…feel in need of a cigarette? Please say yes.”

  Ben smirked and glanced back at Fergus who was observing Mark with Lester. “Do you think he’ll let us?”

  “What? Are we in kindergarten? Come.”

  § § §

  Obviously, Nikolas hadn’t forgotten Natasha. He was just currently more concentrated on Ben’s confession that he loved him, and wanted to take full advantage of it before Ben’s imagination dwelt too much on the details of just how and when he’d let Gregory watch him—and from how close up, come to that. They headed straight back to the garage, shut the door, fastening it as best they could, and before Ben could speak, Nikolas had him pressed, back to the wall, indulging in his second favourite occupation with Benjamin Rider-Mikkelsen. Then, when he’d kissed him thoroughly, he turned him face to the wall and indulged his first.

  They hadn’t had sex for what seemed like weeks. It always did when they’d missed even one day. Nikolas took his time relishing the sight of Ben utterly dishevelled, hovering uneasily between his two personas. Ben’s eyes again now, Justin’s hair, Ben’s stubble, Justin’s blond beard—and the tattoo, which was as much Ben as Justin. But lower down, he was all Ben. His backside—hard, tanned, smooth—was entirely Benjamin. Parted, what lay between was entirely his, though, and Nikolas entered with a sense of coming home, of finding himself, of being entirely broken down into his base ingredients. He watched as his cock slid slowly through the accepting ring of tight flesh, pausing to savour the sound of Ben’s discomfort, which they both enjoyed, for it heralded the coming of pleasure. Standing was always good because the angle was so perfect, their fit so right, the illicitness of fucking a man like this from behind still so seductive, even after all these years. He wrapped his arms tightly around Ben’s chest, feeling his heartbeat strong and vital beneath his grubby shirt. He slid his hands in under the material to slide on the warm, muscular torso, fastening onto Ben’s nipples and twisting them for him, making Ben fling his head back from the intensity of the stabbing sensation.

  So in tune were they Nikolas knew the moment the head would come back, and he dodged it, fastening his lips onto Ben’s stretched neck, sucking the salty skin, biting him, adding another tiny source of pain. Nikolas was close now. He needed Ben to come with him, wanted that affirmation. Ben braced himself on the wall, bending, spreading his legs. Nikolas swore softly at the position and in his mind began to frisk Ben, seeing it play out—an illegal stop and search, orders given over the barrel of a gun, a vicious rape which was asked for and welcomed—illicit contradiction that could exist only in the imagination…His hands strayed to Ben’s hair before he remembered there was nothing to hold. He grabbed his shoulders instead and rode hard into the offered hole. He heard Ben grunt, knew what it meant and forced himself to the top of the long climb. The freefall after that was exquisite. It was the only time in Nikolas’s existence when he was entirely vulnerable. Even in sleep, he was more able to defend himself than at the moments when he orgasmed inside Ben.

  He didn’t want to rouse from this blissful moment of peace. He was exhausted and grubby and deep inside his favourite place—but they were snatching happiness when they had a job to do. The temptation to close his eyes and rest on Ben’s back, stay embedded, was almost beyond his power to resist. But defy it he did. He stood up, wincing at the usual consequences of sex in clothes during the day. Ben was doing the same, and with a private, shared smile they attempted to tidy each other. Ben sighed and glanced at the lowered door. “We should go. Half an hour must be up. I want to speak with this coffee man about Squeezy.”

  Nikolas snagged Ben’s shirt. Just a tiny pinch of cloth, but it was enough to hold him prisoner. “Natasha?”

  Ben closed his eyes. “How upset are you going to be about this?”

  “How upset do I need to be?”

  “It was once, Nik. I was drunk. I passed out. When I came round, she was sucking me off.”

  “And you let her?”

  “What would you have done?”

  Nikolas narrowed his eyes. It was a fair point. He pulled Ben closer with a tug on his shirt. Ben came slightly reluctantly. Suddenly, Nikolas pushed him against the wall, his hand around Ben’s throat. He lowered his face closer and kissed him slowly. Ben was frozen, neither responding nor rejecting. When Nikolas had made Ben’s lips red and swollen from his rough stubble and grinding kiss, he pulled away. “Take it as an indication of just how much you mean to me that I let this go.”

  Ben swallowed then very pointedly broke Nikolas’s hold, swinging his arm up, batting his hand away. Before Nikolas could process this audacity, Ben had him backed to the wall and his forearm lying over Nikolas’s throat—a far more powerful and effective restraint. “I don’t think you’re entirely getting with the programme here, Nikolas. I was drunk. I didn’t initiate it. You did the one thing I trusted you not to do.”

  Nikolas’s thoughts were entirely veiled, but he countered carefully, “You said you forgave me…”

  Ben nodded. “I have. That’s my point. You don’t get to hold my mistake over me. You don’t get to say you let it go as if you were some magnanimous ruler. You either forgive me and forget it, or you and Gregory are going to be a real problem for me. I’ll unforgive you.”

  “That’s not a real word.”

  “Who didn’t have to learn his English, Nikolas? Who speaks it naturally? Me—so shut the fuck up.”

  “Don’t—”

  Ben laid his finger across Nikolas’s lips, pressing harder with his forearm. “So, Natasha?”

  Nikolas blinked then pouted a little. Ben shook his head. “Not working. Sympathy vote all used up with your horrible cannibal story. I can’t see you beating that for a while.”

  “I bet I could.”

  Ben apparently tried not to smile, but he failed miserably.

  Nikolas smirked. “All right. I’m sorry. I forgive you—although obviously you did nothing that needs forgiving. There, have I covered all bases?”

  Ben released him but swatted his hair. Nikolas pushed off the wall, feeling very happy with Benjamin Rider-Mikkelsen. “Come. We must go. I’m a quiver to know all Samuel’s secrets. God forbid I’m late for that.” He glanced down at the hold Ben had upon his shirt. Ben forced him to look back up.

  “You’re not finished. I want to watch. Now.”

  Nikolas’s blood ran cold. He turned his face a
way. “That’s not fair, Ben. Could you? Would you? Here, just like that?”

  “If you wanted me to.”

  “Well I don’t.”

  “But I do. Fucking hell, Nikolas, him but not me!”

  “You still don’t get it do you! I jerked off with him watching because it was as if he wasn’t there!” He took hold of Ben’s hand, twisted loose the grip on his shirt and brought the fingers to his lips. “Please.” He flicked his gaze up through long eyelashes—not a tactic he employed very often, as commanding and bullying Ben usually worked well enough and was more fun. “I’ve been putting on shows with my body for men since I was ten years old. Please. I’ve never had to for you. Do you understand how special that makes you to me?”

  Nikolas watched as Ben’s anger melted—again. Ben was a hopeless sap for him—had been for eight years. Ben seized him and pulled him in for a tight hug. “Bloody hell. I’m so sorry, Nik. I’m so sorry.”

  Nikolas swelled with pleasure in the tight, loving hug, but murmured dryly, “Told you I could beat the cannibal story.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Nikolas rarely watched TV, and if he did, it was usually a documentary or occasionally some violent movie Ben liked that involved a great deal of unlikely and unnecessary explosions. He read a great deal but always nonfiction. When Samuel began to tell him his story, therefore, he actually found it quite interesting, as he hadn’t surfeited on reality shows with minor Z-list celebrities discussing their most intimate thoughts. Discovering you were gay when you were eight? This fascinated Nikolas—when he was eight he hadn’t even known what gay was—he hadn’t even known the facts of life between men and women, having been raised by a single mother whose one taste of the opposite sex had put her off all men for life. Being kicked out by your father at fifteen when he discovered you in your bedroom not doing homework with your best friend? Why had Samuel not turned around and beaten his father to submission? By the time he was that age, Nikolas had taught his father who controlled their relationship, who answered to whom. When you turn a child into a monster, you’ve no one to blame but yourself when you wake up one day sleeping with your worst enemy.

  Samuel was outrageously out. This particularly piqued Nikolas’s interest, as he’d never met a gay man before, other than Tim, and Tim could hardly be called flamboyant. He was interested to hear how Samuel lived his life, the friends he had, the places he went, and the sex—that was extremely interesting to have recounted, as it reassured Nikolas there wasn’t one thing this young man who thought he was so liberated and experimental had done that Nikolas hadn’t done by the time he was eleven, except perhaps having sex dressed as a woman for the prettiest girl contest at a local club. Who needed to be gay to have great sex? Nikolas was certainly glad he didn’t.

  It was then much more difficult to engage for the rest of the time they had left to get to know each other. He had to maintain his fiction of being Nigel, and Nigel, Nikolas was fairly sure, hadn’t been raped at ten by his father. He was pretty sure Nigel had never been in prison—especially not a Soviet gulag. He’d not been in Special Forces—all these things making up the person Nikolas was—and, of course, he wasn’t actually Nikolas Mikkelsen anyway.

  He didn’t like talking about anything gay, even in his cover as Nigel. He made the effort though, and before long Samuel was quizzing him on Justin. Nikolas smiled privately. He’d have done the same thing had their positions been reversed. If he’d spotted Ben in a room and not known who he was, he’d have wanted to get to know him very well, too—just like this young gay man did.

  Nikolas had in fact spotted Ben in a room once and not known who he was. Ben had been naked, blindfolded and bleeding, but he had laughed at his captors’ attempts to make him talk. He’d been telling jokes and ignoring the humiliations being heaped upon him—he wasn’t being too badly brutalized because, after all, these were his friends and colleagues interrogating him. Nikolas had watched this unknown SAS soldier, studied his body, listened to his voice and, when the blindfold had been removed, stared into his eyes from behind his one-way glass protection. Nikolas had then fallen off the top of the very high wall he’d erected around himself to keep all emotion at bay. A traitor, a murderer, a very evil man living the life of his dead brother, that wall had been very high indeed, but seeing Benjamin Rider that day had started a descent chasing a flawless beauty that in some ways was still continuing.

  So, Nikolas talking about Ben was very easy indeed, and by the end of their allotted time, he’d woven a fiction that so closely resembled his own life living with Ben he’d almost convinced himself he was in a gay relationship with Benjamin Rider-Mikkelsen.

  He was profoundly grateful when coffee arrived. It had been delayed, Fergus explained, because of a small incident in the kitchen. Nothing to worry about.

  Unfortunately, the young Pakistani man Ben had spoken with was not in evidence. Two young women brought in the trays, and neither Nikolas nor Ben could find an opportunity to question them.

  § § §

  Ben wondered briefly whether the young man was the small incident in the kitchen that had caused the delay, but he didn’t give it too much thought. He was totally distracted, because he’d realised there was only one biscuit each. He’d been relying on there being platefuls. He hadn’t eaten (other than two small portions of bread roll which obviously didn’t count as food) since the buffet the night before, where, as he’d confessed to Nikolas, he’d been dainty, and in his role as Justin—a picky chef who might critique food rather than eat it—quite sure he’d survive one night before, hopefully, a huge English breakfast came his way. Things were going very badly wrong as far as Ben was concerned. He’d never in the whole time he’d known Nikolas loved him more, therefore, than when Nikolas, with a small smile, handed him his own biscuit. And Nikolas had saved him from being buried alive in a coffin. He’d bought him a house worth so many millions Ben got slightly sick every time he thought about the cost. There were so many things Nikolas had done for him that should elicit his gratitude and love more, but the handing over of that chocolate digestive topped them all. He knew even Nikolas must be very hungry now. He felt awful, guilty—but stuffed the gift in very quickly before his saviour could change his mind.

  § § §

  Nikolas could sense a shift in the atmosphere now. The group had enjoyed their little triumph of surviving the night and the high that had brought to their mood first thing. They’d had a chance to relax all morning with nothing more stressful than having to talk to someone. Now the rigours of the night were telling on them. They were hungry and very tired, dirty, and wanting to eat, shave, and sleep. He could see the signs of resistance lowering. If he’d been the doctor, he’d have been pressing home his advantage now, getting the answers—then he stopped short and shook himself. They weren’t being interrogated. This was therapy, apparently. So why had it resembled the early stages of interrogation?

  He was preparing to take his seat again when the doors burst open and six men poured in shouting—screaming—at them to get on the floor. That they were waving guns at them made the other men drop like sprayed flies. Ben got down next to Nikolas, his eyes raised in surprise. He didn’t need to point out the BB pistols seemed very real when you didn’t know. Four of the men they recognised from run-ins with the security staff already, the other two were new.

  The shouting men went around the room, sorting the group into two, dragging half to one side of the room and forcing them to their feet. They were then marched out at gunpoint. It didn’t take much effort to work out the group had been split according to the partners they’d been talking to all morning. Samuel and James had both been taken to the other room. Nikolas and Ben were left with John and Mark and Lester. Finally, they were allowed to stand and then they were told to sit down facing a large monitor. When it was switched on there was a hushed intake of breath. Even Nikolas and Ben allowed themselves a small glance of puzzlement and disbelief.

  Samuel was strapped to a chair
in a brightly lit room. He was clearly terrified. His ankles were tied to the legs of the chair, his hands strapped down to the arms. Just visible was a table with a selection of unpleasant-looking objects upon it.

  Suddenly, the sound came on and Nigel’s name was being called. Nikolas sat up and nodded, frowning, replying yes he was Nigel Stannis. The disembodied voice then asked him a series of questions about Samuel. It was ludicrous. They were actually expecting him to believe if he got the answers wrong—if he hadn’t been listening sufficiently—Samuel would be tortured. It was clear by Samuel’s terrified expression that he did believe it. Fortunately for him, Nikolas was a very good listener and questioner (for various reasons completely unrelated to floristry), and he’d learnt a great deal about Samuel whilst they’d been talking together.

  Finally it was over. The monitor switched, and now it was James in a chair and Ben answering questions. At one point, he appeared to get one wrong. He was asked what James’s favourite colour was. Nikolas had the immediate suspicion that Ben hadn’t even thought to ask such a thing, being far more fascinated probably in discussing interesting things like what James liked doing in bed.

  Ben hazarded a guess and ventured blue. This was wrong, apparently, and suddenly James flinched and cried out as a disembodied hand slapped his face. If it was mocked, it was bloody realistic. But Nikolas had watched men being tortured with electric sanders and not been overly affected. One little slap wasn’t going to get him excited.

  He looked over and was glad he was not the one to have hit James. He could feel anger pouring off Ben. You didn’t want to make Ben feel guilty and responsible for an innocent getting hurt; he was funny like that. Ben genuinely believed in good and evil and saw a distinction between the two. This fallacy confused and amused Nikolas in equal measures.