Ben lay awake in the middle of the windy Orkney night, wondering if he’d magically stolen his partner’s anxiety. Beside him, Evan slept with an unusual stillness. Gone were the restless limbs and barely audible moans. Now it was Ben whose sleep was haunted by nightmares of black hoods and carnivorous rugs.

But if losing a bit of his own slumber was the price for Evan’s peace of mind, Ben was willing to pay it. He couldn’t go back in time and take Evan’s place, but he could be here for him now, could listen without judgment.

And keep his secret forever.

It wouldn’t be easy. It was one thing to know that Evan had left Fergus and the Warriors because of a secret job assignment, and quite another to know that while they’d been badmouthing him, he was being bound, gagged, and tortured.

Ben put his fingertips to his eyelids, trying to blot out the image of Evan fucking “Patrick” from behind, their backs to the bedroom door. Would it have made a difference if they could see the bad guys coming? Did Evan lie awake wondering whether a split-second warning could have saved that poor lad’s life?

“All right?” Evan whispered behind him, making Ben jump.

“Sorry. Yes. I’m fine.” He swallowed hard. “I can’t sleep.”

“Because of what I told you in the play park? I shouldn’t have shared so many details.”

“Thank you for trusting me. Not that I gave you much choice.” Ben chose his words carefully, as Evan had warned him they couldn’t talk about this in their room, in case it was bugged. “What time is it? Mind, you promised we’d see every single sight on Orkney Mainland tomorrow.”

“It’s already tomorrow.” Evan slid an arm around Ben’s waist and snuggled close. “But the time’s just gone five, so we can still sleep.” He slipped his hand up under Ben’s T-shirt to caress his chest, awakening every inch he touched. “Or…”

His mouth found the curve of Ben’s neck, the bare skin that met his shirt collar. Ben felt the scrape of teeth, and his cock thickened at this feeling of sure and utter possession—but more than anything, this feeling of normality. Here in the dark they could be two ordinary lovers with no terrible past or terrifying future.

He shifted his arse back a few inches, into Evan’s crotch. “Let’s do it like this,” he whispered. “Lazy Sunday–style.”

“That’ll be new.” Evan lifted up on one elbow to look past him.

“The wardrobe door won’t open enough to show us the mirror from here.” Ben reached for his tablet on the bedside table. “But we could use this.” He brought up the camera app and switched it to front-facing mode.

“We are not recording ourselves having sex.”

“We don’t have to record.” Ben turned on the lamp, then adjusted the tablet’s angle so the screen showed both of their faces. Evan’s was furrowed with worry.

“Shut off its Wi-Fi.”

“Happy to,” Ben said. “If you fetch the condom and lube.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Evan did as he asked, returning quickly under the warm duvet.

Ben watched them on the screen as they made love. He didn’t fancy this early-morning closeup of himself, with his hair all mussed and his cheeks crisscrossed with pillowcase creases. But seeing Evan’s beautiful face, seeing the rapture he felt at being inside Ben, erased all self-consciousness. It was a captivating sight: those eyes, heavy-lidded with pleasure; those lips, parting with each sigh; that tongue, peeking out whenever Ben—

The tablet’s stand suddenly collapsed, sending it tumbling.

“Oops.” Ben leaned over to pick it up. “We must have made the floor shake.”

A few moments after they began again, Ben realized something wasn’t the same. “I can’t see your face now.” He shifted the tablet. “There you are.”

“Here I am.” Evan stopped moving and met Ben’s eyes on the screen. “As long as you want me.” His voice was soft but solemn.

Ben held his gaze. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying you’ve no need to worry I’ll go away again. For that sort of work.” He laid his cheek atop Ben’s. “I’ll quit first.”

Only now did Ben realize he had worried about that exact scenario. Beneath his more magnanimous concerns—for Patrick’s life, for Evan’s sanity—lurked a darker, more piercing dread: that Evan would once again let the government use his body to defend the realm. Now that it had been said aloud, Ben knew how much he’d needed to hear this promise.

“You don’t have to commit to that.”

“I want to,” Evan said. “I love you.”

Ben’s heart gave a giant thud. He turned his head to look at Evan straight on. “Say that to my face.”

Evan smiled. “Say it to my face first.”

“I love you.”

Evan said it again too, then kissed him. Down below, he moved inside Ben with new urgency.

Ben groaned and broke the kiss. “Now I wish we were recording.”

“Do you, aye?” Evan reached out to the screen and hit the red dot. The time counter began ticking up.

“Have you lost your mind?” Ben asked, though he didn’t stop the video. “What about the cloud?”

“You’re offline.” Evan ground into him, sending spirals of pleasure throughout his body. “We’ll save it to a folder where it won’t upload.”

“Okay.” Ben clutched his pillow, barely able to speak. He vowed to be worthy of this man’s trust, a gift so rarely given.

As their pace increased, their legs grew tangled with the cover. Finally Ben rolled back and said, “Get on top of me.”

“What about Lazy Sunday?”

“I don’t feel so lazy anymore, do you?”

“Never did.” Evan settled between Ben’s legs, pulling the duvet up to their waists.

Ben glanced at his tablet screen. “What, no frontal nudity?”

“It’s cold in here.” He slid his arms beneath Ben’s shoulders. “For now.”

After a brief adjustment of hips, they found each other again. Ben wrapped his legs around Evan’s arse, savoring the rhythmic flex of muscles against his thighs. Knowing he could watch this video over and over, Ben kept his eyes on Evan’s, and closed them when they kissed.

Eventually the heat between their bodies overcame the chill of the room. Evan flipped back the covers, removed his shirt, and pushed Ben’s up. “Can we take this off? I want to feel you against me.”

Ben raised his arms to comply, banishing a brief worry about how his naked body would compare cinematically to Evan’s. It didn’t matter, because this man was his, and Ben deserved every inch of him.

He cried out now as some of his favorite inches went deeper than ever. Ben reached back to grasp one of the slats of the wooden headboard—partly to keep it from banging against the wall, but mostly to give himself an anchor. He wrapped his other hand around Evan’s forearm, feeling the taut muscle propping him up. “Just like that. Don’t stop.”

“I won’t.” Evan’s body undulated in a steady rhythm. “Want to come soon or make it last?”

Ben almost said, “I don’t know, whatever you want” by reflex. But he knew what he wanted, and he’d learned that with Evan, he could say it. “Make it last. We can edit the video later if I need the hard drive space.”

Evan laughed. “Almost forgot about the video.” He angled a glance at the tablet. “Fuck, that’s hot.”

Ben turned his head, pushing aside the bulge of fluffy hotel pillow so he could watch. “It’s too close. We need a wider angle to capture your gorgeous legs.”

“But if we move the camera back, our faces won’t be as clear, plus it’ll look porny.”

“Heaven forfend.”

“More importantly…” Evan spread his knees, then reached both hands beneath Ben’s arse. “I don’t want to stop.”

Ben felt himself lifted and guided toward the ideal angle. Evan’s cock pressed against his prostate without moving.

“You’ll make me come if you go at me like that.”

“No, I won’t.” Evan smirked. “Not right away.”

He began with short, swift strokes, lighting Ben up inside, brighter and brighter, until Ben’s cock stiffened and jerked. Then Evan backed off, nearly withdrawing, leaving Ben whimpering with need but also laughing with relief. He wanted more, much more.

“You bastard,” Ben panted. “I love you.”

Evan just smiled and did it again. And again. And it was glorious.

But the third time Evan tried to slow down, Ben clutched him tighter with his hole.

“Oh.” Evan froze as he was squeezed again, harder. “Oh fuck.”

“Can we come now?” Ben grasped his own cock. “Please?”

“God, yes.” Evan drew back, then rammed into him. “Yes.” He went faster now, almost out of control.

“Fuck me.” From the first stroke of his hand, Ben could tell he was close, so close. “Fuck me till we come. I need it. Fuck me.”

Evan lifted him higher, looping Ben’s legs over his shoulders before driving forward again and again. Ben felt the edge of the headboard slat dig into his palm as he clung to it like a rollercoaster’s safety bar.

He tried to bite back the whimpers rising in his throat, not wanting to disturb any neighbors. But in the end nothing could stop his final scream as his orgasm struck, all the more intense for its repeated delay.

Through blurred vision he saw Evan’s neck arch, every muscle bulging. He lowered Ben’s legs from his shoulders, stretched out upon him, then gave two final thrusts, his whole body shuddering.

Arms aching, Ben pulled Evan close to feel the thump of his heartbeat against his own.

God, how he loved this complicated, contradictory man. Evan had told him the stuff of nightmares, yet Ben had never felt so brave. Evan was clutching him almost too tightly for breath, yet Ben had never felt so free.

“We can be happy. I know it’s not easy and it never will be, but we’re not fucking doomed.”

Like everything else Evan had uttered in his drunken state the night before last, these words were painfully, gloriously true.