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"I think I like it better when they aren't rich," John said, pressing the ice pack to his jaw as he sat down in the chair next to Harold. It didn't seem fair to have to beat up the number's bodyguards while trying to save his life. "Makourda's flying somewhere tomorrow."
"Yes, I overheard that part of the conversation," Harold said, his hands flying over the keys. "I managed to get the flight information about his private jet, and unfortunately, this case is about to get more complicated. He's going to this event."
John leaned in. "Masters of the Universe at Goldeneye? Sounds like a sci-fi convention, Finch."
"Sadly, it's not nearly as welcoming to fictional characters," Harold said. "Attendance is restricted to billionaires only, and more specifically, ones who've made their fortunes in realms other than finance, which narrows the field considerably, and who have a record of substantial philanthropy over at least the last few years, which makes it somewhat more difficult to create a cover from scratch."
"Are you saying Harold Crane doesn't qualify?" John said.
"He most certainly does," Harold said.
"So why wouldn't he bring along his asset manager?" John said.
"Because no personal staff are permitted," Harold said. "Billionaires only. The restriction is absolute, and the security is going to be extreme." He put the details on a separate screen: John read the stats on the staff and winced; he was prepared to go up against any other ex-government-assassin the job turned up, but going up against fifteen of them at the same time didn't sound ideal.
"No exceptions at all?" John said.
"Well," Harold said, "there's an exception for significant others — "
"Ours could be a whirlwind romance."
"If I might finish before you start planning our honeymoon, Mr. Reese," Harold said, "we're unfortunately not the first to have that idea. The first event of the weekend is charmingly described as 'a bacchanal mandatory for those guests bringing intimate companions.'"
John raised his eyebrows. "There's going to be an orgy?"
"Not quite that extreme," Harold said. "Although I imagine some of the guests may indulge." He waved at another screen with a soft-focus photograph of gauzily-draped cabanas on the beach, illuminated with racks of candles. "But the main purpose is to provide an opportunity for the staff to ensure that intimate companions are indeed intimate."
"So if you brought me along — "
"We'd actually have to have sex, yes," Harold said. "Which, by the way, I'm not asking you to do."
"I think I'm hurt," John said absently, still reading more of the security details: they weren't getting any better the further into the fine print he read. Randomly-timed patrols not less than nine times an hour, trained guard dogs, electrified perimeter —
"It's not a commentary on your desirability," Harold said dryly. "I simply think sexual harassment is unethical despite the lack of a formal employment agreement."
John looked at him. "But you're going, aren't you?"
Harold hesitated, enough answer even before he nodded slightly. "This isn't a spur-of-the-moment trip. It's entirely likely that the Machine gave us his number now precisely because he's going to be killed at this event."
"Well, Harold," John said, shrugging, "then I guess we're going to get to know each other better."
#
Harold came over in the morning and put him in a beautiful but flashy formal suit, over the top — flyaway cuffs, a patterned bowtie, a watch done in platinum and diamonds, matching cufflinks, a couple of gold chains. "Very nice, Harold," John said, peacocking in front of the mirror. "But haven't you forgotten something?"
"What?" Harold said warily.
"Don't worry, we'll stop at Tiffany's on the way to the airport," John said.
Harold came out of the store with an expression of indignation; John came out with a $14 million dollar diamond ring. He whistled as he got the door of the car. Harold glared at him as he climbed inside.
They took Harold's private jet, and when they landed on the resort's airstrip and climbed out onto the tarmac, the evening air was perfectly warm, fragrant with the ocean. Someone handed John a tall cold double-strength Cosmopolitan and there were torches lighting the way down to the beach.
They did an hour or two of superficial mingling with the other guests, John keeping an eye and an ear on Makourda and his wife, who didn't look incredibly happy with each other, until the two of them headed in for the cabanas. There were lines of cocaine and pills on offer along with the alcoholic drinks: MDMA and some things so new that John hadn't even heard of them. The food was extravagantly good, too: John ate six beef tartare canapes in a row.
Apart from the catering, though, there wasn't much of a difference between a billionaires-only crowd and less rarefied ones, except everyone present seemed even more certain than usual that anyone in earshot really wanted their opinion. John and Harold got cornered by an extremely stoned natural gas billionaire who was determined to explain how you could apply algorithms to sport fishing.
Harold got caught by the utter wrongness of the guy's ideas and started attempting to correct him; after seventy-eight seconds of endurance, John hit the limits of his patience and bent his head and nuzzled at Harold's neck.
Harold nearly jumped; John couldn't help grinning against the warmth of his skin, even more when he felt the annoyance radiating off him. Harold smelled good, a faint trace of probably very expensive cologne, some of the smoke from the bonfires caught in his suit and his hair, skin coated lightly with salt from the steady breeze coming in over the ocean. John licked his neck, enjoyed Harold's shiver, and murmured in his ear, "Let's move on to the main event."
"You'll have to excuse us," Harold said to the sport fisherman with rude abruptness, and followed John down the beach to the cabanas. "Was that really necessary?" he muttered, pink in the cheeks.
"It was if you want me to be awake for this part," John said cheerfully, holding back the hanging panels for Harold to climb inside.
The cabanas did a good illusion of privacy, draped with three layers of translucent panels billowing in the ocean wind. John had already ditched his cufflinks and undone his tie and had left his shoes and socks at the edge of the sand. He tossed his jacket onto a chair, stripped easily to the skin, and climbed onto the bed. "How do you want me?"
Harold was folding his boxers. "On your back for the moment, I think," he said.
Harold was careful and took his time, frowning down in concentration as he worked his fingers slowly inside, back and forth. John lay back propped comfortably on pillows with another drink in his hand and one knee raised, one splayed out. He curled his fingers around the glass in his hand and the ice cubes clink clink clinked as Harold rocked his fingers into him steadily, competently.
Harold hit a particularly good spot and John groaned, his whole body clenching, curving into the pressure. "Hm," Harold murmured, mostly to himself, and stroked again. John gasped. "Is that enough?" Harold asked.
"I'd have to say so," John said, polishing off the last of the drink with a gulp. After Harold slid his fingers free, John rolled over onto his stomach and pillowed his head on his hands. "Go ahead."
He'd expected the weight on his back to tense him up; instead his brain catalogued smell, body, voice, the shape of the hands on his hips, and said, oh, Harold. He relaxed utterly, a long flattening sigh. Harold was pushing into him, meaning John had everything that mattered literally on him, and the cabana was up on a mildly creaky wooden platform with three steps; he'd hear anyone approaching with plenty of time, and he had two tall iron candlesticks in arm's reach if he needed to kill anyone.
John breathed out again from his belly. Harold's cock was inside him, and startlingly, he liked it. He liked being opened up and he liked that same sweet stroke, intensified, amplified, and the weight on him just made it better. John burrowed into the heap of pillows under him, every muscle going loose and warm, and moaned encouragement. Harold groaned softly and fucked him harder.
#
It turned out that Makourda had decided that a scuba diving accident would be a great way to get rid of his wife without having to meet the terms of the pre-nup that would give her three quarters of the billions he'd made with her savings as the seed money. They saved the wife, packed up the evidence, and left it to her to handle the mop-up: she'd made the money as a partner at Cravath, so John wasn't too worried.
He was a little uncomfortable on the plane ride home. Apparently the other guests had developed doubts about John's role in Harold's life for some reason, after an awkward situation where John had needed to explain in detail to one of the billionaires that no amount of money gave him the right to slap his girlfriend. Afterwards, several members of the resort staff had started to "accidentally" walk in on John and Harold in their very large suite; the easiest way to dispel suspicion had been to get caught going several more rounds.
"Please don't take this the wrong way, Mr. Reese," Harold said, half plaintively, staring at the ceiling after the fifth time, panting. "It's not that — this is really very enjoyable. But I'm not twenty years old."
"You're doing fine," John said, stretching luxuriously. He felt great.
At least, he felt great until the trip home: four hours sitting on his ass in a plane seat wasn't really the most fun sequel to a weekend of sodomy. For all Harold's protestations, they'd gotten highly enthusiastic each and every time. When they landed, John limped home and slept on his stomach for three days.
But two weeks later they ended one case in the morning, no new number was on deck, and Harold said, "There's a showing of the Godfather at the Ziegfeld?"
"Sure," John said, and then he thought about it and said, "Or — " Harold looked at him. John shrugged and said, "How about sex?"
Harold blinked and then said, "Oh. Certainly, if you'd like," and they stopped by a CVS drugstore and then went on to the hotel Harold was using that night. "Would you care to — ?" Harold offered, but John said, "Not unless you don't want to."
Harold's hands felt blissfully good on his skin, a promise of more coming: learned response. John sighed into sweet heavy relaxation, his thighs parting under Harold's body, tension sliding away. Harold skipped fingers this time; he just stretched out over John's back and rocked slowly and thoroughly into him, little by little. John groaned softly and moved with him, hips rolling.
Afterwards they ordered room service and watched a classic movie channel from the wrecked bed and fell asleep together. They showered together in the morning, taking advantage of the giant shower stall, making out casually: Harold's strong square hands gripping his hips and drawing him in close; Harold's head tipping back with a low grateful hum of pleasure when John worked on his shoulders.
Abruptly Harold closed a hand around John's cock and jerked him off; just a few strokes and John was there, the water swirling his come away, sluicing it from their bodies as they pressed them together under the spray. John sighed in appreciation as he spilled. The new number came in over the hotel phone while they were eating breakfast.
#
It turned into their day-off routine. John was pretty happy about it: not that he didn't like movies and going out to dinner, but sex unwound him in a way that no other downtime could replicate, and aside from how good Harold was at it — and he'd only gotten better — John didn't even have the low-grade worry about Harold that lived in the back of his head anytime they were separated.
A few weeks later, after they'd gotten Michelle Landow back to her family, John swung back to the library triumphant but tired and sore, left wrist badly wrenched. Harold came home with him, helped him undress and tape up the wrist. John downed a couple of painkillers and said sleepily, as he stretched out on the bed, "Are you staying?"
"I suppose," Harold said, on his laptop. "Will I disturb you if I keep working?"
"No," John said, and closed his eyes. He surfaced briefly when Harold climbed into bed; John detached some coverlet for him, and went back down.
There was a new number in the morning, but there was still time for a quick invigorating handjob in the shower before they headed to work, their heads close together, Harold panting through a smile, huffing a startled laugh as he looked up at John, amused and pleased, and John found himself grinning back.
#
Three months later John spotted the bookcase in an antique store on his way home and went in to get it, solution to a practical problem: books accumulating on his nightstand and coffee table and dining table and windowsills. Harold trailed them: if he left one behind, he started another one; he picked up new ones from street vendors or bookstores, and in lieu of anywhere else to put them, he stacked them into piles. The bookcase was delivered the next morning while Harold was out walking Bear; John was shoving it into its final place against the wall next to the bed when Harold came back in carrying a box of cream puffs.
"Does that work?" John said, contemplating the position, and turned to him; Harold smiled at him and said, "It looks perfect, thank you," and then the smile fell abruptly off his face at the same moment John realized he'd bought a bookcase for Harold, for Harold's books, and they both sat down blankly on the bed together.
Bear went nosing around the bookcase, investigating. They sat and watched him. They even had a dog, John realized distantly. "It does seem obvious, in retrospect," Harold said, also staring at Bear. John had the bad feeling that it should have seemed obvious at the time.
"Now what?" he said, half terrified of the answer.
"I — I suppose — we continue on," Harold said. "It's not as though anything has changed." His hands were clenched tightly on his knees.
"Right," John said, lying through his teeth, because everything had changed.
They determinedly pretended the whole rest of the day. There was a number. Harold gave him some sort of research results, not looking at him the entire time, and John went out and did things and apparently it got taken care of, which was a solid credit to his training, because he didn't consciously remember any of it.
Afterwards he stopped at the foot of the library steps, looking up. He was going to climb the steps, and Harold would pick up the leash, and John would take Harold's laptop bag, and they were going to go to his — to their apartment, and eat dinner, and then maybe watch a little television, or Harold would read to him while John cleaned his guns, or Harold would do some coding while John caught up on his paramilitary blogroll and some of the veterans' forums, and then they'd go to bed together. They'd done the same thing every night for the last three months, more or less; it wasn't anything new.
John nearly broke and ran for it. He hadn't been able to do this ten years ago, closer to innocent and less broken; it had taken all his courage to even make Jessica the offer, and he'd run back to violence as soon as he'd been given the excuse.
Of course, this time he had nowhere to run. He went up the stairs. Harold was sitting there with his hands on the keyboard typing nothing, staring at the blank screen; he swallowed visibly when John reached the top of the stairs. Then he turned and picked up the leash, said, "Bear, hier," and hooked it on. He stood up and finally raised his eyes to meet John's: equally terrified.
They went home. Harold let Bear off his leash. John took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves and went to the kitchen to make dinner. Harold talked in a slightly too-loud voice, in excessive technical detail, about a new exploit he was working on. Then he stopped talking entirely. They ate dinner almost in silence. They sat on the couch and watched some television; John didn't take in the plot, any dialogue, the channel, anything. After half an hour he raised the remote and turned it off.
They undressed slowly, Harold putting his clothes away with small precise movements, folding and hanging carefully. John went around turning off the lights, and they climbed into bed from opposite sides. John's heart was pounding; he felt the sensation of it in his throat.
In the dark, Harold said softly, "John," and reached for him. John gasped once and turned desperately into Harold's arms, to his mouth. Harold's chest was moving in heaves, taking a breath only when absolutely necessary; their legs tangled clumsily. John couldn't seem to stop kissing him. He pressed close, closer; he wanted his whole body up against Harold's, every inch of skin an opportunity.
Harold's hands were touching him lightly, wandering over his shoulders, tracing his collarbone, the muscles of his arms; not a caress but more exploratory and, John abruptly realized, possessive: Harold getting to know something that was his, now, and John groaned and rolled them over together, Harold on top of him, so he could offer himself up.
He found himself jealous, helplessly, of every minute they'd spent in bed together, every minute he hadn't let himself have this, shaking and terror and not just easy confident pleasure. He wondered dizzily if he could get Harold to take him back to the resort, to steal back every moment, every touch, Harold moving into him, on him, an ocean roaring in his ears. "John," Harold murmured again, hand warm on his cheek, thumb drawing the line of his lip, and John turned his face to kiss the cup of his palm.
# End