Love is a Stranger Read online

  Table of Contents

  Love is a Stranger

  Blurb

  Copyright Acknowledgement

  Dedication

  Prologue

  PART I

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  PART II

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  PART III

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  About the Author

  Trademarks Acknowledgment

  MLR PRESS AUTHORS

  GLBT RESOURCES

  LOVE IS A STRANGER

  More Heat Than The Sun, Book One

  JOHN WILTSHIRE

  mlrpress

  www.mlrpress.com

  Blurb

  Loving a total stranger can be very hard work sometimes.

  How do you love someone who exists entirely in the shadows? How do you love a man who describes himself as dead? How do you get that ghost to love you back? Ex-SAS soldier Ben Rider falls in love with his enigmatic married boss, Sir Nikolas Mikkelsen, but Nikolas is living a lie. A lie so profound that when the shadows are lifted, Ben realises he’s in love with a very dangerous stranger. Ben has to choose between Nikolas and safety, but sometimes danger comes in a very seductive package.

  Copyright Acknowledgement

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright 2014 by John Wiltshire

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  Published by

  MLR Press, LLC

  3052 Gaines Waterport Rd.

  Albion, NY 14411

  Visit ManLoveRomance Press, LLC on the Internet:

  www.mlrpress.com

  Cover Art by Michelle Cary

  Editing by Christie Nelson

  ebook format

  Issued 2014

  This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of International Copyright Law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines and/or imprisonment. This eBook cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this eBook can be shared or reproduced without the express permission of the publisher.

  Dedication

  For Josh, who shows us all how to do it best, and for Molly, my number one fan, who had to have it read to her with all the best bits left out.

  PROLOGUE

  Ben Rider woke to the debilitating knowledge that there was someone else in the bedroom with him. He lay very still in his sleeping bag, listening to the silence of the abandoned house. The dog, Radulf, was vibrating with warning on his legs. Neither of them knew the man standing in the shadows, nor did they doubt his identity. He was, after all, the man Ben had been sleeping with for over four years and living with for the last six months. His partner. You got to know someone pretty well that way, in the roll and tumble of desire—or you were supposed to. Ben had realised two days ago he knew nothing at all about this man—not even his real name. Everything Ben had been told, everything he’d come to believe, had been based upon a lie. He had once accused the man of being nothing more than a shadow dance; a figure of masks, illusions, and transitory alliances. He’d thought he’d broken through the layers that protected this enigmatic man’s existence: diplomat, titled aristocrat. He’d thought the man had opened up and accepted him into his life. After all, Ben had allowed him into his body. It was all a sham, and Ben was hollow with the depth of the betrayal.

  Six months. How had it all gone so wrong?

  PART I

  CHAPTER ONE

  Six Months Earlier

  Ben Rider crested the ridge, pushing, feeling strong, his legs aching slightly from the hard pace he’d been setting. Satisfied with his time, he stopped and bent, hands on his knees, breathing evenly. He’d done this run every morning since returning from Iraq and his times were gradually improving, the stress and inactivity of his last op finally worked out by the punishing regime. Straightening, he turned and began the easier jog downhill, hard on the knees but not even testing his breathing.

  He glanced once more at his watch. Just over an hour gone—he should be home in less than forty minutes. He grinned as he ran, planning all the ways he could wake Nate, all the interesting ways he could warm down—they could warm up. Nate’s tempting, sleep-pliant body played in Ben’s mind, distracting him from the pain in his right knee where a steel toecap had once tried to end his running days. The sensation of sinking into the accommodating form took Ben’s mind off the nagging stitch from the still healing bullet wound in his side. He wasn’t even thinking about his cracked molar, which he couldn’t blame on the job but on dumb luck and possibly first-class food on British Airways. He was feeling a hot shower pounding on his naked skin and hearing the rasp of Nate’s stubble against his as they kissed under the water. He was revelling in the luxury of downtime after a successful mission, riding high on the thought of spending a whole day with Nate. Nate was willing to give Ben a whole day when others in his life were not. But he refused to think about the other man in his life. It made him too angry. He made him too angry.

  He smelt the smoke first but thought only of the pleasure of autumn and the evocative aroma of burning wood that heralded the beginning of November and bonfire season. He didn’t hear the siren until he’d emerged from the forest and had begun the last, short stretch along the local B-road that looped around and led to the cottage. The ambulance screamed past as he stood pressed into the hedgerow. It was only then a faint tingle of anxiety made itself felt in the base of his spine. He began to run again, picking up the pace from his usual warm down on this stretch of the road. Now he could hear more sounds—hard to identify—possibly shouting but almost drowned out by roaring. And then he saw the flames. He’d never seen a house fire before and hadn’t realised flames could reach so high, be so all consuming.

  No, not a house fire—a cottage fire. His cottage. He ran through the gate. It was a scene of chaos: fire engines; the ambulance, lights still blinking blue but sirens off; men everywhere shouting; and the flames coming out from every window consuming the thatch. Someone grabbed his arm, but he hit out automatically, sending the paramedic to the ground, and ran on toward the door. The heat beat him back. He began screaming Nate’s name, running back to the ambulance, realising he would be there not in the burning building—but it was empty. He whirled around, saw the downed medic and hauled him up, shouting in his face. And then he saw the figure being handed out of the bedroom window from a man in breathing equipment to another on a ladder. He felt another hand on his arm, a squeeze. He shook it off and went forward. Thank God, Nate was still asleep. But how co
uld someone sleep through this? He wanted to shake him and wake him up; not even to make love to him as he’d been planning, but just so the guy could go on with his life, the simple one he’d enjoyed.

  Ben had seen enough bodies in his life to recognise the difference between sleep and death. It wasn’t much, when all was said and done, but enough. Enough to ruin the lives of those left behind, those who still had to sleep and wake every day and go on living.

  He didn’t watch them load Nate into the ambulance and tear out with an unnecessary siren. Instead, he sat on the dry stonewall at the front of the cottage and watched it all burn.

  It was the start of bonfire season, after all.

  CHAPTER TWO

  One Month Later

  Ben followed the doorman into his suite and slipped him the requisite gratuity before dismissing him. He didn’t want or need his bag unpacked. He wasn’t planning on staying long. When the door was closed, he went to the floor-to-ceiling windows and stared unseeing at the impressive view of London. He didn’t check his watch, even though Mikkelsen was late. He was the boss, it was his prerogative to be so.

  When Sir Nikolas Mikkelsen finally arrived, he was over two hours late. If his tardiness bothered him, he hid it well. Ben suspected this perpetual air of disinterested nonchalance was largely an act, but then as the head of a Black Ops department within Britain’s Intelligence Agency, Sir Nikolas was probably required to play many roles. Ben often reflected that anyone making the acquaintance of this tall, handsome, impeccably dressed Dane would probably take him for a banker—perhaps an art critic. After their first meeting, untangling Sir Nikolas’s often incomprehensible accent, hearing his formal use of learnt English, Ben had been surprised to discover that his new boss was a member of the British Royal Family—married, in fact, to a cousin of the queen. Lady Philipa had once been a very popular “IT” girl and ex-nanny of the current heir. Ben had heard malicious rumours within the department that Sir Nikolas’s meteoric rise in the British Intelligence Agency—an institution not fond of giving its plumb jobs to foreigners—was entirely due to these impressive connections. Ben was sure Sir Nikolas was well aware what his detractors said about him. He was just as positive that Sir Nikolas didn’t care. Sometimes, disinterested nonchalance was an act played too well.

  But Sir Nikolas Mikkelsen wasn’t the only one who could take on roles. Ben was just as capable of feigning disinterest as his boss. Ben knew very well he hadn’t been recruited from Special Forces into the world of Black Ops because he was the perfect grey man, the operative who could work unnoticed in any situation—anything but. He was always noticed. At six foot four with wide-set green eyes and high cheekbones, the department used Ben’s beauty as a sort of double bluff. Who would ever suspect such a pretty boy? Distracted by the charming, beautiful exterior, the skill and quiet self-possession beneath were often overlooked.

  Ben now watched Sir Nikolas enter the hotel room and casually brush his longish blond hair off his forehead. He knew this gesture was supposed to disarm his anger at having endured such a long wait. But he wasn’t in the mood to be manipulated, and kept his masks firmly in place. Therefore, when Sir Nikolas offered a neutral, “I was sorry to hear about the fire, Benjamin,” Ben merely replied equally dispassionately, “Thank you, sir.”

  “How are you?”

  At that, Ben went to the bar to pour them both a drink, despite it being ten a.m. As he handed his boss the whisky, Ben said evenly, “I’m fine,” then added with the barest detectable edge, “Have our forensics people had a chance to study the fire reports?”

  Sir Nikolas took a swallow of the perfect malt. “There is no evidence it was anything other than accidental.” Ben held him in a cold, green-eyed gaze. Sir Nikolas sighed. “I agree the timing is suspicious. But Allouni is still in his embassy in Baghdad. We have had people on him twenty-four-seven. However, his brother Usama came through Heathrow on a diplomatic ticket three days before the fire. We cannot verify his movements after he reported into the embassy on the thirtieth of October. But, Benjamin, it was a two-hundred-year-old cottage. The balance of probability is that it was faulty wiring, just as the reports said.”

  “With all due respect, sir, fuck the balance of probability. I shot Allouni’s son—that’s the actual probability.”

  “There is no way he could know that, Benjamin. The op was good.”

  “Bollocks, sir. We were compromised from the start. It was him. He sent his fucking brother or some other minion, but it was him, and I’m going to make him pay.”

  Sir Nikolas took both glasses to the bar and topped them up. “I am going to pretend I did not hear that.” He caught Ben’s eye and held it. “I have another job for you. If you are up for it.”

  Ben gave him a bitter smile. “Have you been reading Psychology 101? Hint I’m below par and I’m supposed to rise to the challenge?”

  “Did it work? Benjamin, I wrote Psychology 101. But I do not need psychology with you. Or maybe I do now? Are you still in the game?” He handed Ben the newly refilled glass. Ben turned away then gave an abrupt nod.

  Sir Nikolas came up behind him. “What are you doing this weekend?” Before Ben had time to form a lie, he continued, “Philipa is having a few friends down at the stately pile. I need an ally. Besides, you know she would love to see you; it has been too long.”

  “Does your wife still think I’m something junior in the Ministry of Minerals and Industries?”

  Sir Nikolas laughed. “No, I have promoted us both. I am now head of acquisition for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and you are my first assistant.” He put his hand lightly on Ben’s shoulder. Ben glanced down.

  “What are my new duties?”

  Sir Nikolas ran his fingers into the short hair on Ben’s neck. “As my first assistant? Oh, I don’t know…how about you outline your suitability for the job before I decide.”

  Ben smiled to himself, turned and took hold of Nikolas’s jacket. Very slowly, he eased it off the broad shoulders and tossed it toward the armchair. He began to undo the elegant silk tie, never letting the other man drop his gaze. When that was off, he let it fall to the floor, daring Nikolas to complain. One by one, he worked the buttons on the tailor-made shirt until it hung open over a smooth, muscled chest. Very deliberately, he took one dark pink nipple and twisted it until it flushed red upon release. At Nikolas’s hissed intake of breath, Ben said coldly, “I believe I have all the qualifications for this job, sir.”

  §§§

  By the time they were finished, the whisky buzz had worn off, so Ben climbed naked from the bed and went to top them up one more time. His stomach growled, and he grabbed an apple from the complimentary fruit bowl, tossing another at the man sprawled and replete upon the bed. They lay side by side contentedly munching, washing the fruit down with the alcohol, Ben not needing or wanting to be anywhere else particularly.

  “How are you really, Benjamin?”

  “How did I just seem?”

  “Just because you can still fuck me into a mattress for two hours doesn’t mean your psychological health is good. In fact, many would argue it proves the opposite.”

  “What does it say about you then, sir, that you want me to fuck you senseless for two hours?”

  “I was not senseless. I felt every moment, trust me, and my stability is not being tested by a psychotic Iraqi with a grudge.”

  “So, you do think it was Allouni?”

  “I think you think it was, Benjamin, and that concerns me.”

  “Do we still have someone on him?”

  “Yes.”

  When Ben fell silent, Nikolas turned his head to regard him. “Come down for the weekend. We will talk more about this then.” Ben still didn’t reply but only continued to stare thoughtfully at the ceiling. Nikolas put his apple core on the bedside table and said distinctly, “My turn.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  The stately pile was an Elizabethan manor set in acres of the South Devon countryside with added Victorian wi
ngs and an Edwardian stable block, all a harmonious celebration of British architecture and landed wealth over the centuries, nestled in a favourable valley leading down to the river. Ben had been here many times and was greeted by Lady Philipa almost like the son she never had, which naturally made Ben uncomfortable given his relationship with her husband, but which Nikolas himself seemed to find amusing.

  Ben never let his unusual relationship with his boss trouble him much. It had begun in this very house the first time he had been invited, following on from his interview after being headhunted from the Regiment. He’d felt himself under intense scrutiny all weekend, aware he was being watched, judged, and weighed in some personal balance of Sir Nikolas Mikkelsen’s own making. He’d assumed it was an assessment of his suitability for the job. By the second night, he wasn’t so sure and had returned the quick, penetrating stares with an equal intensity. By the third day, something had clearly been decided in those brief, held looks; but pressed face first into the billiard table later that night, Ben couldn’t have said exactly how things had gone so quickly from intense looks to the sharing of such violent physical release.