This Other Country Read online

  “What are you smiling about? You’re supposed to be angry and pissed off.” Ben nudged him to seriousness.

  “Do we fight over who is in charge, Benjamin?”

  Ben frowned. “No. I have you exactly where I want you.”

  Nikolas chuckled and turned the page. “Do we look suitably pissed with each other? I think you appear too much in love to convince the good doctor of our sincerity.”

  Ben huffed and replied in an undertone, “I think you’re confusing love with total exhaustion. Eight years, Nikolas. It’s a very long time to know you.”

  Nikolas tossed the magazine away with a comment in Russian he knew Ben wouldn’t understand and picked up a newspaper. After a few minutes, Ben snorted. Nikolas sighed. “What?”

  “You can’t read that without your glasses. Stop pretending.”

  Nikolas pouted and chucked it onto the table. “You do know this is a complete waste of time, yes?”

  Ben slunk down a little further in his chair. “Yeah, I know. Squeezy’s totally clutching at straws. But it’s better than having him break in. We’ll see if there’s anything hinky with this—”

  “Hinky?”

  “—It’s a word—with this doctor bloke, and then Squeezy’ll just have to accept it.”

  “The boy was probably confused and depressed, and watched too many American TV shows. It was a cry for help in a way. I suppose if you were gay you might be making quite a number of those.”

  Ben glanced over at him, frowning for a moment, but before he could comment on Nikolas’s assertion they heard the handle to the adjoining door being turned and he sat up straighter. They didn’t risk a glance at each other, slipping seamlessly into their roles.

  Nikolas knew they skirted close enough to the truth to make their proposed fiction plausible.

  Game on.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Back from the therapist, therefore, wishing he could go back two weeks and not be roused from a very pleasant sleep, Nikolas waited until Ben had finished making the tea and had placed the four mugs on the table. He gave Squeezy a quick glance and asked neutrally, “Tell me again what your nephew wrote in his email.”

  “Some fucking apology about leaving nothing but darkness behind him—which he fucking has done to his mum. She’ll never get over this.”

  Nikolas nodded. “That’s what I would have thought it meant too, and what I believe the police have assumed. So it struck me as odd, therefore, the doctor had a picture on the wall of himself with a group of friends and one of them was wearing a T-shirt that boasted: ‘Leave The Darkness’. I believe your nephew wasn’t admitting the effect his actions would have on everyone, apologising, as you say, but announcing he was obeying some kind of imperative.”

  “Fucking—”

  Nikolas laid a hand on Squeezy’s arm. “Sit down.”

  “I knew that fucking doctor did something to Jono’s head! Messed him up! The fucker—” He shook Nikolas’s hand off and went out into the tiny courtyard garden, hands in pockets, shoulders hunched.

  Tim stood up, watching him. “You should have let him break in and get the files! He’s been right all this time.”

  Nikolas glanced over at Ben. “We have created a monster. Where is your professor of ethics, Benjamin?”

  Tim ground his teeth in obvious frustration and pointed at Nikolas. “This isn’t funny! I don’t remember you being too concerned about behaving ethically when you thought I was a fucking terrorist!”

  For the first time Nikolas understood exactly how Tim felt about Michael—he’d answered back and sworn at him. It was so unthinkable Nikolas was at a loss for words.

  Ben hastily intervened. “We don’t need to break in, Tim. Kate will hack the files for us now that we’ve confirmed the doctor’s involvement.”

  Tim nodded, looking as if he was on the verge of apologising, but he scrunched up his face instead and went out to Michael.

  Ben apologised on his friend’s behalf. “I think he’s in love.”

  Nikolas didn’t like talking about people in love, even other people—and especially not men—so he changed the subject swiftly. “I’ll call Kate.”

  § § §

  After some more tea, which was always needed in a crisis, Ben had been able to calm Squeezy down. Kate would find out what the doctor had written about the sessions with Jono. They just had to be patient.

  Ben waited until the other two left, eyeing Nikolas as he peered hopefully into the fridge. He stood, coming closer bit by bit until he was pressed against Nikolas’s backside. He murmured slyly into the back of his neck, “So, afraid you weren’t going to get laid tonight, huh?”

  Nikolas turned and smiled smugly. “Not really, no. I was acting. I’ve not had to worry about getting laid—such delightful expressions I learn from you—since I first met you.”

  “Is that so? I wouldn’t be so sure if I were you. Maybe I’ll punish you for that sulky little boy comment.” He pushed Nikolas back into a chair and very purposefully straddled his strong thighs. He kissed him, easing his tongue in, finding Nikolas’s. Ben groaned with pleasure. “On the other hand, I think you’re forgiven.”

  Nikolas slid his hands into the back of Ben’s waistband, cool palms to warm skin, making Ben shiver with repressed desire. “Benjamin Rider-Mikkelsen, did you go to the doctor with no underwear on?”

  Ben kissed him again, feeling their arousal swell between them, almost one body, one reaction. “Yes, Nikolas Mikkelsen, I did. I wanted to get into character.”

  “Lucky Character. Did he enjoy you?”

  “Everyone does.”

  “Perhaps I should try you out. See what I’m missing.”

  Ben chuckled. “There’s not one spot on my body you’ve missed. But feel free to explore as much as you like.” Nikolas suddenly stood up, Ben still on him. He’d obviously meant to keep him there and carry him but instead doubled over and dumped him unceremoniously on the floor, much to Ben’s amused derision.

  “Fucking hell, you’re heavy.”

  Ben smirked. “Old man. Come on, I’ll help you up the stairs. Careful! That first step’s the killer.”

  § § §

  “Why are we as we are, Benjamin? Do you ever wonder?” Nikolas lay with his head on Ben’s belly, his hair being stroked. He twisted around to look at Ben when he got no response.

  Ben was frowning. “What do you mean? Gay?”

  “I’m not…no, what I mean is, why do we not need what that doctor offers? Why do we…work?”

  Ben lifted his head and stared at him. The pause went on for an unnatural length of time until Nikolas shifted uncomfortably. “What?”

  Ben shook himself. “You? Introspection? I never thought I’d live to see the day.”

  “You’re very harsh, Benjamin. I think about a lot of things very deeply as you know.”

  Ben began to laugh. “Oh, yeah, you spend hours and hours thinking about me and our relationship.”

  Nikolas folded his arms, his air of injured martyrdom slightly ruined by the huge erection jutting up from his lean body. Ben pushed it flat to his ridged belly and lay on top of Nikolas, propped up on his elbows, studying him. “Maybe it’s because we don’t do the thinking thing we work so well.”

  Nikolas wasn’t particularly mollified by this suggestion. “We’re only together because we don’t think about it too much? I’m gratified and flattered by your devotion.”

  Ben sighed. “When was the last time you thought about breathing?”

  “What?”

  “Breathing? Lungs in and out? Air? When did you last think about it? You’re like breathing. I don’t think about it, but I need it to stay alive.”

  A faint smile came to Nikolas’s lips. “Then you’re like a heartbeat. I’ll miss you when you stop.”

  Ben laughed then sobered slightly, trailing a finger around one of Nikolas’s nipples. “You did think I’d stopped. When I was in that coffin. Did you miss me then? You’ve never really told me.”

 
Nikolas raised his head a little to look at him then lowered it again, staring at the ceiling. “I haven’t told you, because I have no words for it.” He snagged his fingers into Ben’s hair and tugged him down for a kiss. Around the kissing, he murmured, “You know I’ve begun to dream, yes? That I don’t sleep well now.”

  Ben nodded, clearly only intent on the taste and feel of his lips and tongue.

  “Well, I dream of you every night. Over forty years of no dreams, and they turned on like a switch in my head after I watched you burn in the fire. Perhaps that says more than words.”

  Ben lifted up and cupped his face. “Didn’t watch me burn. I’m right here, Nik.”

  Nikolas nodded and wrapped his arms around Ben, kissing his shoulder, pressing his face into the crook of Ben’s warm neck. He never talked about the time he thought he’d lost Ben, because this is what always happened when he tried. He swallowed and raised his eyes, biting his lip for control.

  With the intuitive knowledge of Nikolas Ben apparently had, he didn’t try to comfort him or get him to talk more, he just slid back and took him in. Nikolas gasped. Ben sat up, dug his fingers painfully into his hard stomach and began to ride him. Nikolas arched, nightmares of losing Ben forgotten in the extreme pleasure of having him here in the bed with him. He twisted, rolled them, re-entered, lifting Ben’s thigh and gaining better access. He felt a trickle of moisture on his cheek, a residue of the grief he couldn’t articulate and pressed his face to Ben’s chest, hearing the heartbeat as he jerked, bringing his thrusts in time with that steady, strong and reassuring sound.

  Ben held Nikolas’s hair, running his fingers through it, tugging it for encouragement when he needed more, and then they were coming together. Nikolas lifted up slightly off Ben’s belly, allowing Ben’s cock to jettison freely over their chests while he groaned as he unloaded deep into Ben’s body.

  When he was done, he lay heavily on the soaked, hot body beneath him. Ben’s fingers still played restlessly with his hair until with another pull Ben urged, “Let’s go home tomorrow—wait there until we hear from Kate.”

  Nikolas nodded. When he was embedded in Ben’s body, soaked with his juices, he’d agree to just about anything Benjamin Rider-Mikkelsen wanted.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Home was a glass edifice of architectural wonder nestled incongruously into a sunlit Devon valley on the southern slopes of Dartmoor. An old manor house, dating back in sections to Tudor times, had once stood on the land, which had been granted to Ben’s family by William the Conqueror. Ben, a newcomer in the family welcomed by incest, intrigue, and murder, had naturally not been all that keen on rebuilding the old house when it had been destroyed in a fire. Nikolas, however, had seen the destruction as an opportunity for a new start for both of them. Or, if he had to be totally honest with himself—which he wasn’t all that often—a chance to make a statement about his relationship with Ben without actually having to come out and say anything at all. Until death parts us had lost some of its allure as an expression of binding commitment when he’d believed Ben to actually be dead. He preferred this declaration of light and life and all the things he’d thought he’d lost, Ben being both his light and his life.

  So, with a little help from his impressively well-connected acquaintances, Nikolas had commissioned a unique house, which appeared to float from the very granite of the tor it was anchored to, like an exhalation of the rock itself. It was designed in two halves, and a swim lane joined them into a whole. This, Nikolas knew, was something particularly unusual for an English house, but as he pointed out to Ben, he wasn’t English. He wasn’t restrained by an Englishman’s worst trait: a puritan distrust of anything luxurious. Also, obviously, he was a billionaire, so he wasn’t curtailed in most other ways either. He wanted a swim lane so he had one built. The rear wing, the one emerging from the tor, was their private area: bedroom, bathroom, Nikolas’s study and Ben’s gym. The front wing was much larger and was used both to run Nikolas’s charitable foundation ANGEL and for their friends to have accommodation whenever they wanted. Its central hub was a vast kitchen and dining area, which for two men who couldn’t cook often seemed a bit of a waste, but one or other of them occasionally expressed a desire to learn, so that seemed enough of a reason to justify the commercial-grade stove and superb cooking utensils that graced the rack hanging from the glass ceiling. Leading off this central hub were spokes, or segments, each one containing a guest suite and these in turn led to the outer rim of the house, the living area, which encircled the whole construction and was open plan. This then created a circular meander from a main sitting room, through to a high-tech office, on into a music room with a grand piano, and then to a billiard room, a library, and a television room; these sections only divided by vast chimneys made of Dartmoor granite set into the middle of the floor space, each housing a log burner surrounded by leather seating.

  The house was beautiful whatever the weather. Made almost entirely of glass, it let in the sunshine whenever Devon graced them with sun, but when it didn’t, and southwest drizzle swept down off the moors for long hours, there was nothing more enticing than to be inside with the wood burners fighting the dark bleakness outside.

  Nikolas had taken to drinking again. But now it was wine only and only in the same quantity as Ben drank. Nikolas wasn’t in the habit of letting anything control him, and he didn’t see a reason why alcohol should be any different from the other demons, human and non-human alike, he’d fought and conquered. So he’d begun joining Ben with a glass—or two, sometimes three—of red wine as they sat in the evenings by one of the fires, or played billiards, or as he played the piano. He sometimes told people the grand piano had been his only personal extravagance in this house he’d built for Ben. He occasionally managed to say this with a straight face. Although he claimed he was rusty and played very badly, he played well enough to impress Ben, and that was good enough for both of them.

  That Nikolas had actually indulged himself in many other areas of the house’s design and construction was most obvious in the grounds. He’d restored the tennis court and had stables built for his horses. His horses had now been moved from their royal stable block to this new one, and they didn’t seem to mind the change. They had adapted quickly, perhaps because they now were ridden every day on Dartmoor.

  § § §

  All this hedonism was balanced somewhat by their work with ANGEL. Ben sometimes had to remind himself Nikolas actually spent his own money on the projects they sponsored. Unlike most charitable foundations, they didn’t ask for money or help in any way. He constantly worried Nikolas would take on too many projects, that the ones they currently supported would be ruined if he bankrupted himself, but Nikolas only pointed to another conflict, another war somewhere or other in the world, and claimed there was little danger of his vast fortune, built entirely on misery, ever running out.

  Ben slowed the car slightly as they crested the ridge at the entrance to the grounds and then bounced along the unpaved, overgrown driveway that ran along the ridge until plunging down into the valley. By mutual agreement, they’d left this track and the original gate in the dilapidated state they’d been in when they’d first discovered the house. The disrepair always reminded them of the strange twists of fate which had made this unlikely place so central to their lives over the last few years.

  There was nothing left of the old manor now, no indication of where it had stood or the secrets it had contained. If sunlight and pure air could banish demons, Nikolas had done a pretty good job of giving Ben the weapons he needed to win that war. For Ben knew very well Nikolas didn’t sleep easy these days—he was often awake when Nikolas endured his nightmares, woken already by his own suffocating dreams of imprisonment in the dark, burning. Each time Ben entered this house, it was as if another chink of light was being let into his coffin, another sliver of darkness expelled.

  The most amazing thing about Nikolas’s gift to him was just that: Nikolas had designed and built this house for
him. Nikolas didn’t often say I love you, but when he did, it was memorable.

  They weren’t the only ones who loved the house and returning to it after any time away. Radulf, in his darker world, had discovered other benefits of living in a house permanently flooded with light. He knew the rooms and all their contents so well now he could navigate around as if he were seeing the same world the others did.

  Ben went directly to the kitchen. Nikolas trailed after, watching him, leaning in the doorway. “What do you want to do now…?”

  Ben flashed him a look, knowing that tone only too well. He smiled privately. It was nice to be constantly wanted. But instead of accompanying Nikolas to the bedroom, as he knew Nikolas wanted, he sat at the table with his phone. “I’m going to call Kate. She’s spooky good. She may have something already.”

  Nikolas huffed. “In that case, I think I’ll go for a ride.”

  Ben nodded absentmindedly. Nikolas glanced at Radulf, murmuring, “We’re being ignored, dumbass, as usual. Do you want to come out for a run?”

  Radulf lumbered up from his basket and followed the sound of Nikolas’s footsteps.

  § § §

  The dog had enough sight in one eye to distinguish dark from light and in bright daylight to be able to see objects and avoid them. Running on Dartmoor, therefore, was fairly easy for him, as there were few obstacles, and he could apparently make out the large shape of the horse in the bright light. He trotted happily alongside Nikolas up through the back of the grounds and then out through the dry stone wall to the moors themselves. Encumbered by the dog, Nikolas didn’t give free rein to his horse and kept him at a steady pace, heading up a valley toward one of the highest points around: Drover Tor.

  As they approached the rocks, Nikolas called Radulf even closer, slowing to a walk. One of Dartmoor’s most notorious bogs lay deceptively serene and enticing just to the south of the tor, forcing them to take a less obvious route. It occasionally crossed Nikolas’s mind that Radulf might one day blunder right into this death trap. It wasn’t a thought he wanted to test.