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“Pink?” Ian said in a tone of deep disgust, staring at the bright pink, fluffy throw.
“What’s wrong with pink?” Yassen enquired.
Ian sighed. “Do I really need to explain?”
“Yes.”
“You’re being deliberately annoying, aren’t you?”
Yassen assumed an air of injured innocence wholly at odds with his formidable reputation.
Ian picked up the throw and deposited it in his shopping trolley, mentally cursing whichever imbecile at MI6 who had sent him under cover in Barcelona and saddled him with his current legend, that of a gay writer taking a six-month sabbatical from his job to work on his next novel. He was actually there to get close to an organisation running a safe house scheme for British criminals. Interpol had been coordinating gathering and coordinating information on the operation for a year but had agreed to wait until MI6 had gained enough intel on their intended target before they passed the matter to the Spanish police so they could move in and make a series of high-profile arrests.
Naturally, Yassen Gregorovich was also in Barcelona. He claimed to be taking a holiday, but Ian doubted the man had ever had a holiday in his life that didn’t involve guns and dead bodies. Yassen had ostentatiously chatted him up in a gay bar on Ian’s third night in the city. Ian had refused to succumb to the assassin’s charms. The fact that they had – almost platonically – shared a bed on several occasions wasn’t the point. To be honest, Ian wasn’t quite sure there even was a point at all but he preferred not to let Yassen have his own way all the time. He had some standards. Or maybe that was just what he liked to tell himself.
The following day he’d gone shopping for a few home comforts for the flat he’d be staying in for at least the next four weeks and, of course, Yassen just happened to bump into him in the home furnishings section of the store, which Ian had been using as a short cut to reach the kitchen department where he’d been intending to buy a decent coffee machine at his employer’s expense.
He glared at Yassen and then the throw, trying to decide which of them annoyed him the most. “Satisfied?”
Yassen smiled and slipped his arm around Ian’s waist. “I’ll help you choose a coffee machine, shall I, darling?”
“Don’t push your luck, Gregorovich,” Ian muttered.
****
Two hours later, drinking possibly the best coffee he’d ever tasted, Ian was feeling distinctly more mellow and considerably more well-disposed to both Yassen and the world’s pinkest throw.
“So, what’s Scorpia’s interest in Barcelona?”
“What part of I’m on holiday don’t you believe?”
“The part where you claim to be on holiday.”
“My employers would like to see Piet de Vries’ safe house network closed down. He is muscling in on their interests.”
“So, you’re here to kill him.”
Yassen’s blue eyes were simultaneously as guileless as summer cornflowers and as cold as ice reflecting a blue sky. “If you say so. My instructions are to conclude my business here within three weeks. That should give you ample time to gain the information and the arrests your employers are seeking.” He smiled, showing the merest hint of regular, white teeth. “I might even be prepared to assist you.”
Ian rolled his eyes. “My expenses won’t run to sub-contracting your services.”
The affronted look was back. Yassen must have been practising that one.
Ian poured them both some more coffee.
“I am capable of altruism,” the contract killer said, his eyes now warm with amusement.
Resisting the temptation to stare out of the window in search of a flotilla of flying pigs, Ian sprawled out on the sofa, cradling his coffee mug in his hands. There would certainly be advantages in joining forces with Yassen – if the killer was telling the truth – even though it would undoubtedly fuel Blunt’s paranoia if he got wind of any pact with the devil.
The devil in question leaned back in large wicker chair and hitched up his teeshirt to scratch a probably non-existent itch on his flat stomach, showing a hint of the trail of hair leading from his navel to his groin, hair that was several shades darker than the short, pale hair on Yassen’s head. When the Russian grew a beard, which he did on occasion, that came out the same colour. Ian tried not to be irritated by the fact that he knew that. Dammit, he was a spy, it was his business to know things like that.
“How’s your neighbour’s cat?” Ian asked, distracting himself from that tantalising trail of hair by the memory of claws like Scottish claymores and teeth like barbed needles.
“Andromaque is missing you.”
“Andromaque is a fiend in the form of a white cat. In the Middle Ages, your neighbour would have been burned at the stake for keeping a familiar.”
“People accused of witchcraft were generally hanged rather than burned.”
“Why am I not surprised you know that sort of thing? Did they teach the history of torture at Malagosto?”
“Yes.”
Ian really should have known better than to ask that question. He sighed theatrically. “I need more coffee to be able to cope with you in this mood.”
“I’ll indulge your caffeine addiction if you agree to have dinner with me.”
“Blackmail.”
“Blackmail would be threatening to tell your employers how I know that you’re ticklish behind the back of your left knee. Asking you out to dinner is simply being nice.”
“Yes, Yassen, I’d be delighted to have dinner with you.”
Yassen stretched with sinuous, catlike, deadly grace and deigned to make some more excellent coffee using a machine that made the flight deck of the Starship Enterprise look like a child’s plastic toy car. The machine had cost enough to give the bean counters in MI6’s finance department a subdural haemorrhage when they saw the credit card statement in the name of Gabriel Drake. The thought of Blunt’s lips pursed in disapproval warmed Ian’s stomach almost as much as the coffee. Naturally, his employers had dispatched him to Spain in January, rather than August. He’d probably be grateful for the sodding pink throw if the weather stayed this bloody cold for the whole trip.
“Tonight. 10pm. I’ll text you the details.”
“I haven’t given you my phone number.”
Yassen smiled his usual enigmatic smile. “See you later, Ian.”
****
The restaurant was small, family run and entirely frequented by locals, as far as Ian could tell.
The food was excellent, so was the wine and so was the company. The conversation stayed away from the subject of work as the room was too small to take that sort of risk. They talked about books – Yassen had just finished reading Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers, which on led to a discussion of classic science fiction films, something the Russian was surprisingly well-versed in. Then the talk moved to music. Yassen liked classical music, loathed jazz and found musicals laughable. Ian wondered how much of what he said was true and how much was a carefully cultivated act. He suspected the latter, but with Yassen Gregorovich, it was impossible to tell.
The evening passed surprisingly quickly and Ian was sorry when it became obvious that if they didn’t leave soon, someone might take up a broom and sweep them into the street.
Yassen walked with him back to the flat. Ian was tempted to ask him up for a nightcap, but typical bloody British reserve got in the way. Instead, he thanked Yassen politely for an excellent meal and a very pleasant evening.
The Russian’s slight smile made the Mona Lisa look positively expressive by comparison. “So polite, so formal,” he murmured, in a voice of honey and silk. “You English have elevated repression to an art form.” In the dark of the doorway, he moved into Ian’s personal space, coming so close that Ian could smell the citrus scent of his shower gel. Ian tensed, as he always did when anyone came that close to him, then Yassen leaned forward and pressed his lips lightly to Ian’s. When Ian didn’t either immediately pull away or knee him in the balls, Yassen took that as an invitation to deepen the kiss, his tongue flickering over Ian’s lips like a snake scenting the air.
They both had their eyes open and Ian could see the glow of the nearby streetlight glinting in the killer’s pale eyes, as sharp and deadly as a throwing blade. A shiver lifted the hairs on the back of Ian’s neck, but he still made no move to push the other man away. Ian’s same sex experience was limited to a drunken fumble with one of his flatmates after a party at uni when they’d both been binned by their girlfriends the same evening. In Ian’s case it was a girl he’d only been out with twice. In his flatmate’s case it was someone he’d been with for two years. Ian had inevitably taken on the role of comforter, and they’d ended up snogging and having a very ham-fisted mutual wank before falling asleep on a friend’s bedroom floor.
Ian would be the first to admit that none of his relationships with women had lasted very long, but he’d mainly put that down to the pressures of his job. Being away for weeks on end on the pretext of ‘boring work trips’ never went down well, and he invariably ended up being accused of affairs he definitely wasn’t having. Then when Alex came into his life, he gave up any attempt at dating. He didn’t want to bring women into close contact with his nephew who wouldn’t be there long. The procession of nannies until Jack Starbright had breathed her own special brand of fresh air into the house had been bad enough
Yassen pulled back slightly, a look of what seemed to be slightly fond amusement on his face. “For once in your life, stop thinking … I promise I mean you no harm.” He closed the distance between them again, his lips covering Ian’s and his tongue more insistently seeking entrance to Ian’s mouth. In what Ian could only interpret as a gesture of trust, Yassen closed his eyes, in that moment, his face more open and relaxed than Ian had ever seen.
He smiled into the kiss and allowed the gently questing tongue to slip between his parted lips and then they were kissing in earnest. Still slow and gentle, but with a hint of pent-up urgency. In some unspoken pact, they kept their hands to themselves, their only contact the light touch of bodies and the warm press of their lips.
When they drew apart, they were both smiling and slightly breathless.
“Will you meet me for coffee in the morning?” Yassen asked.
Ian felt a slight pang of disappointment that Yassen didn’t appear to be in any hurry to take things further. On impulse, he leaned in for another kiss that quickly turned heated. “Yes,” he murmured, licking lightly over Yassen’s lips. “I’d like that.”
Yassen smiled, catlike and self-satisfied. “Good. We can go shopping for some cushions to match your throw.”
“I draw the line at pink cushions.”
****
By mid-morning, the pink throw had been joined by half a dozen pink cushions.
Half a dozen very pink cushions.
But at least they’d gone on Yassen’s expense account, not Ian’s. He would have enough problem getting the coffee machine past the finance department.
Pink cushions might well be the final straw.
****
The job lasted three weeks. With Yassen’s help he was able to get the information Blunt needed on the various links in the chain of the safe house business enabling police forces in three countries to make a series of high-profile arrests. Piet de Vries, who had clearly fallen foul of Scorpia’s ‘never forgive, never forget’ motto, died in an unfortunate accident with a lorry.
Ian’s increasing closeness with the contract killer went no further than that first kiss but when he returned home after an extensive debrief with Blunt and Jones, he found a very large cardboard box on the desk in his study – somewhere neither Jack nor Alex ever went when he was away from home as he always kept the door locked. A note on the outside in neat, slightly cursive handwriting, said: Safe to open. xx
Ian rolled his eyes and pulled off the packing tape. Inside the box was the pink throw and the six pink cushions, used as padding around the coffee machine.
He claimed the cushions and the throw had been a joke Secret Santa present from someone in the office.
The coffee machine he installed in the kitchen, much to Jack’s delight.
He had to admit, he’d been on worse missions.