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Zeph woke the next morning with Jack’s mouth around his cock. Bliss. Zeph wasn’t counting the number of times Jack had to suck before he came but he was pretty sure he didn’t manage to reach double figures.

“Why does this never last long enough?” Zeph moaned. “And yes, I’m blaming your magic mouth.”

Jack laughed.

Then Zeph gave Jack his moment of delight. Of course, Jack could hang on a lot longer, but that was a bonus.

Jack lay sprawled beside him, looking as though someone had poured him across the bed. “You’ve broken me.”

Zeph caterpillared back up to him. They needed to have a discussion and he didn’t want to be the one to start it.

Well, he had started it when he’d resigned but the next move was up to Jack.

Jack pulled him closer and they lay curled on their sides with Jack’s arm over Zeph’s waist, his face pressed into Zeph’s neck.

“So you resigned,” Jack said.

“Uh huh. I wasn’t sure you’d heard me say it.”

“Ha.”

That wasn’t the biggest elephant in the room. Zeph had also told him that he loved him. There was a lot more he could have said, but Jack, who was practically perfect in every way, didn’t cope well with feelings. Zeph hoped that would improve.

When Zeph realised Jack wasn’t going to say anything else, he sighed. “You think I’ve pushed you into something you’re not ready for.”

Jack sighed into Zeph’s hair. “It’s a matter of safety.”

“You keep telling me that, but we can’t know if a plane we’re in is going to plummet, if a car will swerve onto the pavement and mow us down, whether we’ll have an unknown but deadly allergic reaction to a bar of chocolate.

Please never let that happen. I love chocolate.

Life is risky, but we don’t go around worrying about it. Well, most people don’t.”

“I’m not most people.”

Zeph bit his lip. “I know.”

“Being with you is as close as I’ll ever get to feeling safe.”

Zeph swivelled round to face him. “Jack!”

“I want to be with you,” he whispered and Zeph’s heart sang. “But…” The singing stopped.

Zeph wasn’t going to give up. “We could leave today as long as it’s not somewhere that requires visas. I’ll go where you like. I can work remotely. There’s always a need for IT specialists. We can manage. Live simply like we did in France.”

“I have plenty of money.”

So money wasn’t the issue. Zeph’s confidence dipped.

“I’m not a catch,” Jack said.

Zeph gaped at him. “What? You’re a great white shark. You’re the biggest catch there is. Please let’s try. Thomas has done this for you. He’s giving you the chance of another life. He wants you to be happy.”

“I want you to be happy too.”

“Then don’t break what we have.” Zeph wanted to tell him again that he loved him but something stopped him. If Jack didn’t or couldn’t love him back, not yet anyway, then it wasn’t fair to keep pushing. Though he thought Jack did love him, he just couldn’t say it. Not yet.

“I want to try,” Jack whispered. “But first I have to be sure there’s no danger.”

With those words, Zeph knew Jack was going to leave him again.

He felt his battered heart shrivelling in his chest. “How are you going to do that? By waiting to see if someone tries to kill you? How long will that take?” He tried to keep the grief from his voice, but he wasn’t sure he’d managed to. “Life is short, Jack.”

“I know.” He exhaled shakily. “I’ve spent my life pretending to be someone I’m not. At times, I was in danger of forgetting who I was. I’ve known I’d always be on my own. I had to make sure that if I was caught, I couldn’t give up anyone else.”

“Only Thomas.”

“Thomas and now you. I’d die before I betrayed either of you. Thomas used to tell me that if anyone told me he’d sent them, whatever message they tried to give me, it wasn’t true. That they were there to kill me. Trust is impossible in my world.”

“Then step into mine.”

“I’m trying.”

Zeph’s heart thumped hard.

“I’ve been in a lot of dangerous situations.

Sometimes I’ve thought I might not survive, but this…

us…now… It terrifies me. I’m not used to feeling fear.

I don’t want to die. I don’t want to be tortured.

But those things don’t scare the shit out of me.

What does is the thought of anything bad happening to you or Thomas.

That fear is almost paralysing in its intensity, as though something is pressing on my chest, stopping me from breathing. ”

Zeph took hold of his hand and threaded their fingers together.

“Thomas would be so pissed off with me if he’d heard me say that. He didn’t want me to care about him.”

“How could you not?”

“How could I not care about you too? I think I fell hard the first time I saw you. When I told Thomas about my first day at school, he was cross I’d been unkind to you.”

“You made up for it.”

Jack chuckled.

“So what are you planning?” Zeph asked. “Walk around London to see if anyone shoots you? Go to Paris for a week and do the same? Then every other place where there might be someone out to get you? Don’t you see that being sure might never be possible?

Don’t leave me again. I want to drag you out of your darkness and keep you in the light. Take a chance on me.”

“Give me five days. There are things I need to do.”

Zeph’s heart sank but he made sure he didn’t show that on his face. He nodded. “Then you’ll come back and talk to me?”

“I promise. Don’t look for another job.”

Don’t say yet.

Zeph waited and he didn’t.