Marc slammed the front door, wishing the big old house would shake and shudder like the crappy prefab he’d shared with his wife. That house had been great for rows—bits would satisfyingly fall off it with a correctly aimed punch. Not that he’d done much punching. Hadn’t cared enough, and the relationship had meant nothing compared to the hold Jamie had on his heart.

Fuck this. Marc eyed the nearby wall, but what was left of his common sense kept his hands at his sides. Smashed knuckles would mean fucking up the hospital schedule, and Marc’s own addiction to responsibility was too ingrained to ignore.

Dazed, he went to the kitchen and opened the cupboard where he kept his emergency bottle of whiskey. It wasn’t there. Marc closed his eyes and tried to picture what Jamie might’ve done with it. “I wanted to hide it, but I’m trying to stop doing that . . .”

At the time, Marc hadn’t taken Jamie’s words literally, but perhaps that had been the problem all along. Instinct took him to the one place in the house that Jamie still avoided—the corridor that had once led to the old church, and sure enough, a lone bottle of whiskey held court in a gloomy corner.

Exhausted, Marc sank down beside it, oddly reluctant to disturb it. The darkness of the stooped corridor enveloped him, and he welcomed it; it suited his mood. Life with Jamie was turning out to be more complicated than he’d imagined, and the clusterfuck of a journey home had just about finished him off. That Jamie truly believed Marc looked at him and saw only his past made Marc sick to his stomach, and no amount of Glenfiddich was going to fix that.

But still he sat in the dark by the bottle and dissected the convoluted conversation that had gone so wrong. Perhaps he should’ve come clean and admitted that there was nothing he wanted more than the very thing he couldn’t bring himself to do. Would that have eased the hurt in Jamie’s eyes? Fuck, I have no idea. Because every time he’d told Jamie that he had limited knowledge of what made Jamie so very afraid of the outside world, he’d been telling the truth. The Jamie that wiped the sink in equal numbers and hid bottles of whiskey in dark corridors made little sense to Marc, and how could he hold that kid down and fuck the living daylights out of him when he didn’t know how to care for him, goddamn it?

Huh. Maybe that was the point. He’d been drowning in Jamie from the moment they’d met, but pushing his heart aside, perhaps for the first time in a long while, he was medically out of his depth.

Maybe it was time to accept that he couldn’t help Jamie at all.

Despair pinning him down on the cold stone floor, Marc pulled out his phone and brought up the short message thread between him and Jamie. To an outsider, it wasn’t that interesting, but Marc studied every word, every syllable, like they could explain how he’d screwed things up so badly.

It didn’t, of course, and he was still staring at it when a message from Connor flashed up on the screen.

Thanks for coming today. Nat was so pleased to see you, and I loved Jamie. He’s a good fella. Hope you can work it out.

It was so Connor to sense that life was already complicated enough that Marc needed a passive-aggressive push to sort shit out. Marc shook his head and dropped his phone on the stone floor with an alarming clatter. Damn you, Connor. But the message resonated, and Marc couldn’t sit in the dark another second. He hauled himself to his feet and out of the corridor, leaving his phone behind. His body ached from driving for hours, but he felt no pain as he dashed through the house and back out to the car.

He squealed off the driveway in a hail of gravel. Jamie’s flat was five minutes away, but it felt like an hour—which was about as long as they’d been apart. Marc drove like a maniac, thankful that Matlock Bath was a quiet town and its residents tended to retire early, until he pulled up at Jamie’s building.

Marc abandoned the car at the side of the road and jogged to the main door. It was open, but once inside, Marc realised that he had no idea which flat was Jamie’s. He went back to the outside door and scanned the names next to the buzzers. For a horrifying moment, a black hole filled the space where Jamie’s surname had once been. And then his eyes fell on Flat 2 and the barely legible scrawl next to it: Yorke. Jamie Yorke. Or was it James? Marc had never got round to asking.

Not that it mattered right now. Marc took the stairs two at a time, ignoring the protests of his duffed-up hip, and slid to a stop at Jamie’s door. The temptation to hammer on it was strong, but he settled for a light tap, and then a firmer one when there was no response.

But Jamie didn’t come to the door however loudly Marc knocked, and by the fourth attempt to rouse him, panic like Marc had never felt before set in. The ever-dwindling rational part of his brain reasoned that Jamie might simply be out, or asleep, or just plain old shutting himself away from the world—from Marc. He’d been angry enough. But beyond Jamie’s rage had been real hurt, and however long he’d been clean, there was still only one way he knew would truly ease his pain.

Fuck this. Marc dug his keys out of his pocket. On the chain was a Swiss Army knife he’d carried since he’d joined the Army twenty-one years ago. He opened it and jimmied the simple Yale lock on Jamie’s door until it clicked.

He kicked the door open and hurried inside, barely remembering to slam it shut behind him as he searched for Jamie.

At first nothing seemed amiss. Jamie’s home was as spotless as Marc had expected it to be, with low lights, and heavy metal playing softly from an iPhone dock in the living room, but as Marc ventured farther into Jamie’s space, he smelled bleach, lots of bleach, and the scent of it drew him to the bathroom.

Jamie was on his hands and knees, scrubbing a furious rhythm at the pristine tiles with a toothbrush, his hair wild, his face flushed, and his eyes so focussed he seemed almost manic. He didn’t seem to notice Marc in the doorway, and didn’t look up when Marc called his name.

Marc stepped closer. “Jamie.”

Nothing.

He grabbed Jamie’s shoulders. Gripped them hard and shook him. “Jamie.”

The toothbrush slipped from Jamie’s grasp. He seemed to come back into himself, his eyes widened, and then he jumped, and shock appeared to shudder through him. “What are you— How did you get in here?”

“Doesn’t matter. Are you okay? You . . .” Marc’s voice fell away as he realised that he didn’t have the words to describe the frenetic energy vibrating from every part of Jamie. Even through his bony shoulders, Marc could feel Jamie’s racing pulse. “Are you freaking out?”

It was a clumsy was of putting it, but it was all he had, and for a fleeting moment, Jamie seemed like he might answer.

But then he pushed Marc away and turned the taps on in the bath. “You shouldn’t be here. It’s not clean.”

“It is clean, Jamie . . . cleaner than my place, anyway, and you don’t mind that.”

“That’s different.”

“Why?”

“Because things were all right then,” Jamie snapped. “Everything’s gone wrong now, and it’s all my fault. And I can’t stop it going round in my head until everything’s clean and I’ve counted—”

Marc tugged Jamie away from the bath and tapped his finger to Jamie’s lips. “Slow down. I can’t understand you when you chatter a million miles an hour.”

Jamie took a shaky breath and shook his head. “I don’t need you to understand. I need you to not be here until it’s all done. Then we can talk . . . or not. But I can’t think straight until it’s done. You know that, I’ve told you before.”

“You haven’t, actually.” Marc forced himself to keep his tone mild. “You’ve changed the subject every time I’ve asked you about this. I got the impression that it was something you did to calm yourself down, but you don’t seem very calm right now.”

Jamie scowled, but the fight in him seemed to be fading. “I don’t care about being calm, I want it to stop.”

“Want what to stop?”

“All of it. It’s like a never-ending thunderstorm. Like, I know that you don’t see me as a fucked-up hooker, and I knew it when I punched a hole in your dashboard, but I couldn’t catch the thought when it blew up in my mind, and then it ran away from me, and I chased it and—”

Marc tapped Jamie’s lips again. “Take a breath.”

Jamie tried, but it was strangled and weak, and the panic in his already chaotic eyes deepened.

Marc rubbed Jamie’s chest, like he could push the tension away. “Keep trying. It’ll come.”

“It won’t.” Jamie shook his head vehemently. “And I don’t care. I just want to make it stop.”

It broke Marc’s heart all over again to know that the only way Jamie believed that would happen was if he got down on his hands and knees and scrubbed the floors until his hands were raw and bleeding. “Jamie—”

“Don’t!” Jamie shouted, his voice bouncing off the walls in the tiny bathroom. “Don’t tell me to calm down and fucking breathe, okay? Because I’ve been trying that shit for fourteen fucking months and I’m as crazy as I was when Zac’s boyfriend chucked me in rehab.”

“You told me Zac’s boyfriend was a good bloke.”

Jamie blinked. “What?”

“You told me you liked him.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Nothing.” Marc let Jamie go and stepped back, thrusting his hands in his pockets. His mind was in bits, but the longer he observed Jamie, the more obvious it became that Jamie was experiencing a major anxiety episode. He wasn’t delusional or psychotic, but he was severely distressed, and there was no way out of it unless Marc could draw him away from his usual coping mechanisms—bad habits that plainly did nothing but feed the monster. “Have you got any tea?”

“What?”

“Tea,” Marc repeated. “I’m gasping over here.”

Jamie glared, but his suspicion was a welcome relief. “You want me to make you a cuppa?”

“I can make it.”

“No . . . no, it’s okay. Hang on.” Jamie ran his hands through his hair, and then bent to retrieve his bleach-sodden toothbrush.

“That’s not the one you stick in your gob, is it?”

“What?”

Focus. But Marc didn’t dare say it out loud. Instead, he turned on his heel and left the bathroom, praying that Jamie would follow him to the kitchen—which turned out to be a small cramped space that Jamie had clearly already blown through with a bottle of bleach.

Marc found the kettle and filled it with water. There was tea in the canister, but Jamie reached around him and took it from him before he could take two bags out. “Not those ones. I use the stuff in the box.”

“The box?”

Jamie opened a cupboard and retrieved a box of teabags. “This box.”

“Why? They’re the same as the ones on the side.”

“I know, but I don’t drink those.”

“Why not.”

Jamie set his jaw. “Because I don’t want to.”

The lack of logic added fuel to the already alarming fire poking at the doctor mind-set Marc had tried so hard to leave at home. “What would happen if you did?”

“I’d have to throw them all away and get a new box.” Jamie shut the cupboard door with a bang. “But whatever you have to say about that, don’t bother, okay? I don’t need to hear it.”

“Why not? It won’t be any easier tomorrow.”

“You’re going to come back tomorrow after seeing the state of me today?”

“Who said I was leaving in the first place?” Marc watched Jamie empty the kettle of freshly boiled water and rinse it three times before filling it all over again. “I already knew you had OCD, and just because I let you push me away last time we talked about it, doesn’t mean I will now.”

“Why not?”

Marc fought to keep his gaze steady as Jamie threw his own question back in his face. “Because I wasn’t sure last time, and I didn’t know you well enough to force my concern on you. Now, though—”

“Now what?”

Marc shrugged. “I don’t think I can help you by myself, but I can’t ignore the fact that I’m totally fucking in love with you. Is that going to be a problem?”

Jamie opened his mouth. Shut it again. “You love me?”

“Yup.”

“Why?”

Marc laughed. “Why not? Loving you isn’t a bad thing, Jamie . . . at least, it’s not for me. I wouldn’t be offended if you ran a mile, though. I’ve got my own shit to bring to the table.”

“You’re not a nutter.”

“Neither are you.” Marc’s voice rose. “You’re not well, but you can get treatment, like you did when you got clean. You don’t have to live like this—no one does.”

“Don’t shout at me.”

“I’m not—” Marc stopped as he realised that Jamie had shrunk back from him, flattening himself against the kitchen counter. “I’m sorry, okay? I don’t mean to get frustrated with you. I just— I want you to get better, for your sake, and I think you can if you get the right treatment.”

He held out his hands. For a long moment, Jamie ignored them, his face frozen in an expression Marc couldn’t decipher.

Then he took Marc’s hands and twined their fingers together so absolutely that it was hard to see where one of them ended and the other began. “Do you really love me?”

“I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t. Life’s too short for bullshit. You know that.”

“I don’t know anything; that’s my problem. If I did, I wouldn’t get myself in this state.” Jamie ventured close enough to rest his head on Marc’s chest. His next words were muffled.

Marc released Jamie’s hands and wrapped his arms around him instead. “What was that?”

Jamie glanced up. “I said, ‘I’m totally fucking in love with you too,’ and then I died a little bit inside, because I’m half-convinced that I imagined you saying it first.”

“You didn’t. I said it twice, and I’m still shaking.”

“Are you?” Jamie leaned back and squinted at Marc. “I thought that was me.”

“Maybe it’s both of us. Does it matter?”

“I suppose not. Did you actually want some tea?”

Marc shook his head. “Nah, I just wanted to get you out of the bathroom. All that bleach can’t be good for your lungs.”

“You’re the doctor, you tell me.”

“Would you believe me?”

Jamie closed his eyes and seemed as though he might retreat back to the relative safety of Marc’s chest, but then he sighed and opened them again, his gaze clearer than it had been for a while. “I trust you more than I’ve ever trusted anybody. You wouldn’t lie to me, even if you thought it would help. Do you really think I can get better?”

“Yes. I’ve told you before that mental health isn’t my speciality, but I do know that OCD, and anything else that’s festering alongside it right now, is entirely treatable. It’s not easy, and it doesn’t happen fast, but you can feel better, Jamie. I know you can.”

“I wouldn’t know where to start. I registered at the addiction centre.” Jamie jerked his head at a letter tacked to the fridge. “But the waiting list is three months, and I don’t think they can help me anyway. I get all the support I need to stay clean at my meetings.”

“What about your GP?”

“I don’t have one.”

“Why not?”

Jamie shrugged for what seemed like the thousandth time. “The one up the road was full, and I couldn’t be bothered to find another one. It’s bad enough that I have to go to Derby to find an NA meeting.”

Inwardly, Marc fumed, but this wasn’t the time to rant about cuts to local authority funding. He took a mental stock of all the doctors and health-care professionals who owed him a favour. “I can get you in with someone. You’ll probably still have to wait a few weeks, but they’ll know better than me exactly what you’re dealing with.”

“Connor said you’d do that.”

“Connor?”

“Yeah, we were talking tonight. Sorry if you didn’t want your friends to know my dirty past.”

“I don’t care what they know.” It came out as a growl, but Jamie didn’t react. Just smirked vaguely before his expression sobered again. Marc cleared his throat. “Anyway . . . if I got you an appointment, would you go?”

Jamie chewed his lip. “I don’t want to jump the queue. There must be people who need help more than I do.”

“There’s always someone worse off, but I can do something about your situation. Will you let me?”

“Marc—”

“Please?”

“Like I can say no to anything when you look at me like that.”

“That a yes?”

Jamie nodded slowly. “Okay.”

Marc breathed a silent sigh of relief. He was fairly sure of his diagnosis, but he’d been honest when he’d told Jamie that he didn’t know much about treatment options. Medication? Therapy? Who the hell knew? But the baby step forward was all they had, and Marc embraced it as tightly as he did Jamie.

They couldn’t stay in the kitchen forever, though. Eventually, Marc forced himself to pull away. “So . . . do you want to give me the grand tour? I’ve never been in your place before.”

“It’s not cl—” Jamie visibly caught himself. “Okay. I guess you’ve seen most of it anyway. Come on.”

Still clutching Marc’s hand, Jamie led them out of the kitchen and into the living room. “I sleep on the couch when I’m not with you, but you knew that already, and you can’t say anything, because you do it too.”

“I wasn’t going to say anything.” Marc drifted to Jamie’s iPhone that was still quietly kicking out metal music. “Can I?”

Jamie nodded, and Marc picked up the phone and scrolled through the open Spotify playlists, unsurprised to find that Jamie’s taste in music was as eclectic as the man himself. “You’d get on with my mate Wedge. He tortured us with that Bombay Bicycle shit all the way to Kabul.”

“Bombay Bicycle Club isn’t torture. It’s like the chillest music ever.”

“Not when you’re trapped in a cargo plane with three tracks on repeat, it isn’t. Nine hours, man. It was worse than his Sister Sledge obsession.”

“I like him already.”

“You’d go off him quick. He’s a pain in the arse.” Marc put the phone down and looked around. “Where’s your bedroom?”

“Next to the bathroom. This place isn’t like yours. All the rooms would probably fit in your kitchen.”

“That’s not a bad thing. I feel lost in that big old house, especially when you’re not there.” Marc reclaimed Jamie’s hand and dragged him from the living room. “It’s one of the reasons it took me so long to move back here. Oh wow . . . this is like IKEA.”

Or a ghost town. The bedroom was bordering on clinical, and a chill rattled through Marc until Jamie came up behind him and slid his hands beneath his clothes. The skin-on-skin contact broke through the heavy air, and Marc let go of a shaky sigh. Sometimes, it seemed like the brief physical encounters they’d shared were little more than a figment of his imagination, but then Jamie would put his hands on him and the fire ignited all over again.

And the spark roared to life now. Marc spun in Jamie’s arms and lifted him clean off his feet as their lips met in a kiss that was way overdue. The sterile bedroom and the heartache faded, and the disquiet in Marc’s blood settled to a dull roar.

He turned in a slow circle, kissing Jamie over and over until he couldn’t hold him up any longer. Jamie stumbled as Marc set him down. His legs hit the bed behind him, and Marc took a chance and pushed him back.

Jamie gasped and clung to Marc’s jacket as he wriggled backwards, taking Marc with him, asking him without words to cover him with his body.

As if Marc could refuse.

As if he wanted to.

He let go of Jamie only to shed his coat, and then his hands were back on Jamie, cupping his face, tearing at his thin T-shirt, desperate for anything Jamie could give.

Jamie arched his neck, granting Marc access to his elegant throat. “Don’t pull back . . . promise me you won’t.”

“Pull back from what? From you?”

“Marc—”

“Shh.” Marc pushed Jamie’s hair out of his face and kissed his temple. “I’m sorry about that, okay? I’m not going to back off unless you ask me to, I promise.”

In answer, Jamie flexed his hips and wrapped his long slender legs around Marc’s waist. Marc’s body responded before his mind caught up, and suddenly, any bets that had lingered between them were long gone.

Marc removed his prosthesis, and then clothes disappeared like they’d never been there at all. And though Marc had been naked with Jamie before, he gazed at him like it was the first time he’d seen his lean chest and scarred pale skin. He rolled Jamie over and pressed his lips to the burns on his back. “One day you’ll have to tell me how you got these.”

“It’s not that interesting,” Jamie ground out through shivers. “I took ketamine at a rave and fell asleep by the fire.”

The relief that the vicious marks hadn’t been caused by someone else’s hand was so strong that Marc nearly wept, but the friction of his cock digging into the base of Jamie’s spine was distracting enough to make his head spin.

“Do it,” Jamie said. “Whatever you’re thinking, do it . . . please. I need you to fuck me.”

The haze that had descended on Marc the moment they’d lost their clothes wavered. He wanted to fuck Jamie more than he’d ever wanted anyone. “Have you got condoms and lube?”

“Just lube. I haven’t needed johnnies, but I got tested every three months in Cali, and once before I left.”

“I got tested a while ago too. I’m good with this, if you are?”

“Fuck yeah.” Jamie raised his arms above his head and let his legs fall open, the invitation—the challenge—was clear, but lurking behind the brazenness was the insecurity that had fooled Marc into believing that he knew best in the first place.

Marc reached over Jamie and opened the bedside table. A half-empty bottle of lube lay in the drawer. He cocked an eyebrow at Jamie. “Been busy?”

Jamie snorted. “Not recently, but it was my only friend until you came along.”

Marc could hardly remember the last person he’d been with either, and he’d never fucked anyone the way he was about to fuck Jamie.

He popped the lube and balanced it against Jamie’s pillows, then he crawled over him and kissed him, working his hands beneath Jamie’s hips to draw him as close as possible.

They kissed for what seemed like hours, grinding together, chest to chest, cock to cock. Jamie’s hips flexed as he sought friction, but Marc held back for a while in a fruitless attempt to make it last.

But there was no hiding from the inevitable. The air grew hotter, their kisses deeper, and coherent thought abandoned Marc. He fumbled for the lube and slathered it on, and then eased into Jamie with a gradual slide that made them both gasp.

He watched Jamie for any sign of discomfort or pain, but there was only wide-eyed bliss that spurred Marc on as he fucked Jamie as slowly as his crazed desire for him would allow. With his hands on Jamie’s spread thighs, he drove in and out of him as Jamie clawed wildly at his back, urging him on with filthy words that went straight to Marc’s cock. But the dirty talk didn’t last long. It faded as fast as the rosy flush on Jamie’s chest appeared, and Marc was utterly transfixed by every gasp and moan that fell from Jamie’s lips. Every arch and jerk of his body.

They fucked for a long time like that. Marc fused his lips to Jamie’s, fighting release as it burned through him, somehow finding the will to ease off each time it threatened to boil over. The need to come was insane, but his addiction to watching Jamie writhe and moan was stronger. He gripped Jamie’s damp hair and twisted gently in an attempt to ground himself. “Fuck, you feel so good.”

Jamie’s only reply was an animalistic cry as he threw his head back, baring his throat. Marc took the cue and sank his teeth in. Barely breaking rhythm, he rolled Jamie onto his side and claimed his place behind him. The shift in angle was mind-blowing. Marc bit out a curse, and lava filled his belly. He thrust harder and bit down on his lip as Jamie pushed back against him. I can’t—

“Jamie, shit—”

“Do it.” Jamie clenched the sheets and, taking Marc with him, slumped onto his stomach, boneless and trembling. “Please . . . I need to feel you come.”

He sounded on the verge of tears, but if the last few hours had taught Marc anything, it was to trust Jamie to know what he wanted—what he needed. And he needs me to come. The thought alone was nearly enough to push Marc over the edge, but he fought it and fucked Jamie faster, searching out the bundle of nerves that would take Jamie with him.

“Oh God.” Jamie drove his fist into the pillows and shoved his other hand beneath him, finally closing his fingers around his dick. “I’m gonna come.”

Do it. But Marc didn’t say it, just bore down on Jamie and chased the bolt of white-hot heat until he surrendered to the near-violent urge racing through him and screwed Jamie like he didn’t know how close they were to the precipice of pain.

He dropped a messy kiss on Jamie’s sweaty cheek, and then found his mouth. Their tongues swirled together, and Jamie breathed Marc’s name as Marc swallowed his gasps. The lack of oxygen left Marc dizzy, but the tight wet heat of Jamie clenching around his cock kept him conscious until he came with a raw groan, only dimly aware of Jamie’s guttural cry below him.

Marc fell onto Jamie, still mindlessly pumping his hips, though the speed decreased with each thrust. His vision was blurred, and his pulse off the scale, but every intelligible thought he had was for Jamie. You’re smothering him.

Alarmed, Marc rolled to the side, but Jamie came with him, shifting in a fluid movement that belied the hell-raising ride they’d just been on. He wrapped his arms around Marc like a vice and returned his face to the home it had carved out in Marc’s chest, his laboured breaths misting wetly against Marc’s sweat-sheened skin.

Marc absorbed every one like they were his own and clung to Jamie like they were the last souls left on earth. The past few days had got away from him, but three words that had travelled both ways stood out and echoed in his head as sleep claimed him. I love you.