Forever

by Tinnean

  “Not in the Sebring family. I only knew them when they were older, so it never seemed odd to me that they always seemed to have some distance between them. Although from time to time I could see how sad Uncle Bryan was. I just assumed that was because his home life wasn’t the happiest.”

  “Does he ever see his stepchildren?”

  “No.” I didn’t bother asking how he knew about my uncle’s private life. “To the best of my knowledge, they both made it very clear they didn’t want him in their lives.”

  “Their loss.”

  “Yes.”

  He came to me and slung an arm around my neck, pulling me close to him. “Want me to pay them a visit?”

  “No!”

  “Don’t get so bent out of shape. I wasn’t serious.”

  Wasn’t he?

  He started nuzzling my neck while he slid the fingers of his free hand under the leg of my boxers and stroked them over my balls; I bit my lip to keep from moaning.

  I relaxed against him, spread my legs wider, and tipped my head to the side so he could have better access to my throat.

  “Why don’t we get ready for bed?”

  “Sounds like a good idea.” He kissed the corner of my mouth and then let me go. “Thanks, Quinn.”

  “For what?” I removed my dress shirt and led the way into the adjoining bathroom.

  “For letting me be part of your family tonight.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  He crowded against me, pushing me into the vanity, and his arms came around me. His cock nudged the crack of my ass.

  “Mark?”

  “Yeah, Quinn?”

  “Let’s be quick about getting ready for bed, okay?”

  We were, but the lovemaking that followed was long, and slow, and luxurious.

  XIV

  ARMAND didn’t get his wish to speak with me before the start of the New Year. In fact, we played phone tag for a week or so afterward, but I was finally home to take his call.

  “Did you enjoy the wine? As I wrote you, madame your mother was so kind as to compliment it.”

  “I was away from home when the case arrived, and I’m afraid the Alexandria bomb squad didn’t appreciate it as it deserved.”

  “The bomb squad? Mais, pourquoi?”

  “Because we’ve grown cautious.”

  He sniffed. “Quel dommage. It was a very good year.” Had he always been this pompous? He began to speak of other things—his son, his vineyard, the young woman his father had arranged for him to marry twenty years ago.

  Now I knew that his father’s coercion had ended our affair, but for some time I’d been thinking that even if Tartarin Bauchet had accepted me in his son’s life, it wouldn’t have been for long. At least not forever, as I’d convinced myself.

  “Well, thank you for explaining this, Armand, but that’s—”

  “Please, mon ange.” He interrupted before I could tell him that was yesterday’s news. “Please, come to me. I will love you again.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t just now.” It irritated me, not only the use of a pet name that had once meant a good deal but now meant nothing, but also that I was supposed to be the one to drop everything and fly to France.

  I’d never thought of myself as petty.

  “Of course you can! You know how good I can make it for you. You remember the night we rode Cricnoir together, how I loved you then? It was très bien, n’est-pas?” He lowered his voice. “Your lover does not need to know.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Mme Mann told me you are involved with someone. You need not tell her.”

  “I see.” I didn’t bother correcting him. “And we’d take turns topping?”

  “Pardonnez-moi?”

  I translated the blunt, Anglo-Saxon terms into French.

  “Oh, no! I could never—” He’d jerked away from me the one time my fingers had pressed against his anus.

  “For how long would we be together? A month? A season?”

  “But you have your own life, mon cœur. Surely you could not stay longer than a few days. A week at most.”

  “All right, let me get this straight. I risk my career—”

  “A career? But you are a wealthy man, Quinton. What need have you of a career?”

  I continued as if he hadn’t interrupted me. “—and the someone in my life who cares very much for me, to fly to Avignon to be with you. For a few days. A week at most.” All those years, pining for him. I felt like an idiot.

  “Oui!” Not realizing my train of thought, he sounded pleased that I’d understood him.

  “No.”

  “Quoi?”

  “No. I will not fly to France. I will not jeopardize my career or what I have with my companion.”

  “Ah, mon cœur….”

  “No,” I repeated a third time. “I am not your angel, nor your heart, nor your cabbage. Don’t call me again, Armand.” There was a faint gasp on the other end of the line. “Don’t write to me, and for God’s sake, don’t send me any more wine!”

  “But… je vous aime!”

  Did he? Mark was right. Apparently not enough to use the personal pronoun.

  I disconnected the call and then scrolled through the phone’s address book until I came to the J’s. Joseph Wells—one of Mark’s pseudonyms. I pressed the button that would automatically dial his number and waited.

  He picked up on the first ring. “What’s wrong, Quinn?”

  “What makes you think something is wrong?”

  “You’re calling from your house phone.”

  Of course. I should have…. “May I come over?”

  He was silent for a moment, and I began to chew my inner lip. Didn’t he want me there? Might he have company? Had one of his neighbors said something? But no, I hadn’t read of anyone in Aspen Reach going missing.

  “Are you okay to drive?”

  “Of course I am.” I was the Ice Man, after all. I still worried that he didn’t want me to come. Was he getting tired of me?

  “Okay. And listen to me, Mann. You fucking drive carefully, you got that?”

  I breathed a sigh of relief. “Yes. I’ll be there in about five minutes.”

  “Ten minutes, Quinn. I want you here in one piece.”

  “All right, Mark. Mark? Are you still there?” I was afraid he had already hung up the phone.

  “I’m here.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Ass. Make sure you lock your door, okay?”

  “I’m not a child.”

  “Think I don’t know that? Be careful.”

  “I will.” I hung up, grabbed my car keys from the basket beside the phone, and let myself out. And in spite of my distress, I locked my door.

  XV

  TEN minutes later—I’d made the drive in seven, but waited in my car the additional three minutes—I knocked on Mark’s door. I could see the distorted eye through the peephole, and then numerous snicks as he undid the locks in the correct sequence.

  I barely waited for the last snick before I pushed my way in.

  “Quinn, what the fuck—”

  I threw myself at him, buried my fingers in his hair, and pulled his head down to mine, initiating a kiss that was out of control as soon as it began.

  Vaguely I heard the door slam shut.

  Vaguely I heard the soft murmurs that my lover whispered into my mouth, against my cheek, into my ear—“Easy, Quinn. It’s okay; I’ve got you.”—but I searched for his lips and continued kissing him frantically.

  He stroked his palms over my back, gentling me, calming me, and with a start I realized I was naked, lying under him on his oversized couch.

  With economical movements, he rolled on a condom, slid a slicked finger into my hole, and then began pushing into me.

  “Fuck me!” I wrapped my legs around his waist, twisting to get him in deeper. “Fuck me so hard I’ll feel you forever!”

  He took my chin in his hand and tipped it back until my eyes met his. And then, with sl
ow, methodical strokes that I thought would drive me insane, he did just that.

  XVI

  I COULDN’T meet Mark’s eyes. I was the Ice Man. That was what he expected of me. And yet I’d driven to his condo like a madman—which he fortunately didn’t know—and practically assaulted him.

  “What’s wrong, Quinn?”

  “I apologize.”

  “Huh? Why?” He stripped off the condom, knotted it, and got up and went down the hallway toward the front of his condo. I heard first the toilet flushing as he disposed of the condom and then the locks engaging.

  I looked around and felt my cheeks redden. Clothes were scattered all over, a shirt hanging from a lamp, trousers dangling from a barstool by the kitchen island, socks on the coffee table, one shoe under it and another on the window seat.

  Mark padded back into the living room.

  “I apologize,” I repeated.

  “Okay. Why?”

  “I… I….” I gestured around the room, ending by including both of us. “This was unconscionable of me.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  I did. “I’d better go.”

  “No, I think you’d better tell me what’s bothering you.”

  “It was nothing.”

  “Quinn….” He went into his bedroom and returned carrying a couple of bathrobes, one of which he handed to me. “Put it on. You’re not going anywhere.” He waited until I did. “Okay, what happened?”

  “I talked to Armand.”

  He became tense. “Yeah? What did that—what did he have to say for himself?”

  “He wanted me to fly to France. Just… drop everything and fly to France.”

  “So are you?”

  “Are you crazy? I can’t do that at a moment’s notice.”

  “Why not? You did when I went up to Cape Cod.”

  “That was different.” I gave him an unfriendly glance. Did he want me to go to Armand? “Don’t make this any harder for me than it already is, Mark.”

  “Listen—”

  “No, you listen. For the last twenty-two years I’ve thought….” Oh, my God, what was I doing? I couldn’t confess something like this to Mark Vincent! He’d lose all respect for me.

  “That he was the love of your life?”

  “I… I….”

  “Look, you were wrong, okay? It happens.”

  “You… you….”

  “Jesus, Quinn, get a grip! You want a drink? I’m gonna get us a drink.”

  I continued to stare after him as he went to the liquor cabinet. I swallowed. “Yes, I think I could do with a drink.”

  He came back with two glasses and a bottle of fifteen-year-old Glenfiddich. “Y’know what? Let’s get plastered. We can call in sick tomorrow.”

  “Mark Vincent, taking a sick day?”

  “Sure, why not?” He poured three fingers of Scotch into a glass and handed it to me, then poured the same in his glass, which he raised. “‘Here’s to you, here’s to me, and here’s to the space between us. One of us has to go.’” He met my eyes, a crooked grin on his lips. “‘Not you. Not me. But the space between us.’”

  XVII

  JANUARY passed into February. Mark no longer was sent out of the country on various operations, although occasionally he would visit any number of WBIS affiliates. That was part of his responsibility as Director of Interior Affairs—his promotion had become official just before Christmas, and we’d spent a quiet weekend celebrating it.

  Surprisingly, both months proved to be periods where I wasn’t sent out of the country either.

  Or perhaps not so surprisingly. Edward Holmes had announced shortly before the holidays that Bram Rayner was resuming as the Director of Operational Targeting, and the days when I’d been sent on useless, needless missions were in the past.

  Weekends were for us, though, whenever we could arrange it, and this weekend was spent in Mark’s condo.

  Usually when Mark and I slept together, he would be spooned up behind me, one arm pillowing my head while the other anchored my waist, keeping me firmly against him.

  This had never been something I’d been a big fan of, but somehow, with Mark, I found myself doing and accepting things I’d not normally do or accept. I relished having the freedom of releasing not only the tight grip on my control, but on my emotions as well.

  Tonight, however, after a lusty bout of lovemaking, in which I’d topped him, I couldn’t help thinking smugly, I held him in my arms, our fingers twined together and resting on his heart.

  He nuzzled the spot where my shoulder and arm joined, and inhaled. “God, I could drown in your scent, Quinn!”

  I could feel myself start to blush. None of my other lovers had ever said anything remotely like that to me—not even Armand. I smiled against the back of Mark’s neck. “I’m sorry. I’ll shower.”

  “Asshole.”

  “Then it’s safe to say I don’t offend?”

  “Asshole,” he repeated and tightened his grip on my hand. “You smell good. Besides, you’ve already had a shower. You’re not going anywhere.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Damn straight I say so!” That was my lover, topping even after he’d bottomed.

  “All right.” I settled myself more comfortably behind him.

  “It’s been a pretty shitty winter,” Mark mused. “So many people have been getting colds. The flu.”

  And among the many people was Wexler. Since Mark had mentioned it on New Year’s Eve, I’d been keeping track, and this was the fourth time the former Senator had contracted it. Only this time he’d had an adverse reaction to the medication and had developed high blood pressure as well; he’d wound up in the hospital for a two-week stay as his doctors battled to bring it under control.

  I pushed him out of my mind. His time was coming; I could wait.

  “Do you really want to talk about the weather, Mark?”

  “No.” I could feel his smile against my shoulder. “What would you rather talk about?”

  “Mother’s having a small dinner party Wednesday evening.”

  “For your birthday?”

  “Yes.” I scattered kisses over his shoulder blades, along the hollow at the back of his neck, and around to his ear. I licked and nipped the lobe, and he hummed with pleasure. “I know she’d love having you there.” And so would I. “May I tell her you’ll be joining us?”

  “No. Goddamnit.” The irritation in his voice had never been directed at me, and in spite of myself I was startled.

  I tugged my hand free and started to turn him over to face me, but found that I didn’t have to. He’d turned over and tipped my chin up to meet his eyes.

  “It would have to be this week. I can’t, Quinn.”

  “Work? Never mind, I know you can’t say.”

  He ran his tongue over my lips. “Rain check?”

  “Of course.” Did he realize there was no “of course” about it? “Next year.”

  “I have to—What?”

  “You’ll join us next year.”

  “I will?”

  “Of course,” I repeated.

  “Okay.” He cleared his throat. “As I was saying, I have to fly out first thing in the morning.”

  “Am I correct in assuming this means no morning sex?” I sighed.

  He nuzzled my mouth until I parted my lips, then slid his tongue in and licked at my tongue and stroked the smooth tissue of my inner cheek. This time when his eyes met mine, they were hot. “But you’re not correct. We are definitely having morning sex!”

  “And maybe evening sex as well?”

  “Jesus, I’ve created a monster.” Mark laughed, and I realized he didn’t laugh much. He nudged my thighs apart, eased them back over his forearms, and began pushing into me.

  Before I could ask how he’d gotten a condom on without me being aware, he was seated in me, pressing against my prostate, and I groaned, held on, and let him take me with him on a wild ride.

  XVIII

  I WAS in my offic
e at Langley when my intercom buzzed. “Yes, Janet?”

  “Mr. Mann, there’s a gentleman out here to see you.”

  For a second my heart lurched. Had my lover breached the walls of Langley? And then I laughed at myself. Mark Vincent would do whatever it took to get the job done, but he’d never do anything so foolhardy in the normal course of events.

  It was probably just one of the junior officers who had been assigned to me.

  “Send him in, Janet.”

  The door opened, and DB Cooper walked into my office, singing slightly off-key, “Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday, dear Quinton….”

  He carried a birthday cake with white frosting and my name across the top in blue icing. With him were a few other officers, including Syd Cooper and Lyn Raffles.

  Everyone was grinning broadly, and I couldn’t help grinning in response. “There’s only one candle.”

  “I didn’t want to set the cake on fire.”

  “Are you insinuating I’m that old?”

  “You don’t want me to answer that!” DB tried to look innocent.

  I scowled at him and then began laughing as well. “I hope you brought plates and forks for everyone.”

  “Your efficient Janet has taken care of that.”

  “Did I hear my name mentioned?” My personal assistant came in, carrying a tray with paper plates and Styrofoam cups of coffee.

  “Now, blow out the candle before it melts all over the cake. I, for one, do not enjoy wax on my frosting.”

  I drew a deep breath.

  “And don’t forget to make a wish!”

  “Stop making me laugh.” I had virtually everything I could wish for. Mother was almost completely recovered from the “accident” of last autumn. My uncles and Gregor were well.

  Edward Holmes had finally been forced to resign due to a conflict of interest when it had become known that he’d been involved with several of Senator Wexler’s plans, but all in all, things weren’t bad for him. He was invited to speak at various Ivy League colleges, and he was making a fortune out of the fees. Word was he was even going to be asked to host Saturday Night Live.