Doyle opened his eyes as a faint cool pressure settled on his stomach. It was a wine glass, balanced precariously, slowly being filled with a clear fizzy champagne. As the glass was topped, bubbles spritzed out to shimmer and pop over his nude body.

He smiled up at his lover and Bodie gave him one of those smug little looks, setting the bottle aside. Doyle felt his insides lurch in that familiar delighted way. He lifted one hand and grasped the stem of the glass just as it began to spill, yelping when the cold wine hit his abdomen.

Bodie's head lowered--a tongue touched, lapped at the spilled drops, rimmed his navel. Then once again blue eyes were sparkling down at him as his lover sat back.

"Cheers," Bodie said and tapped his own glass lightly against Doyle's.

They each sipped, taking their time, letting the silence stretch comfortably. Doyle watched the bubbles rise in the golden liquid and luxuriated in his content. He had never been so relaxed, so at peace with himself and the world.

Bodie settled back beside him and one hand rested on Doyle's thigh in unthinking possession. Ray lifted his leg slightly, rubbing it against his lover's, wanting to give that hand further access. Fingers tickled lightly as they slid further round him, holding him against the solid presence of Bodie's own leg.

Doyle's eyes were drawn to their limbs where they pressed together. His own dark, wirey leg against the larger pale one of his partner. They looked good together. Someday maybe he'd paint a picture...all the world would see two rising mounds, one a smaller, shadow version of the other. Only he and Bodie would know what the picture would really be.

He smiled lazily at the thought and finished his drink, licking the rim for the last caught drop. The hand on him stroked, making soft patterns in the thigh hair. He set his glass aside and turned, resting his cheek against Bodie's chest. He could feel/hear the strong heartbeat under his ear and after a moment it mesmorized him, that slow regular thump/thud.

Bodie swallowed his drink and Ray felt the answering body reactions. He nudged the small rosey nipple beside his cheek and was pleased at it's immediate response. Bodie moved his hand from his lover's thigh, sliding it round and up to encircle Doyle's shoulders.

They lay like that for a long time, occasional small movements, lingering undemanding caresses the only gestures.

Ray closed his eyes and replayed the last forty-eight hours. The need in him that rose as the Friday on the job dragged on and on with Bodie beside him--a look-don't-touch restraint in public. Then the command from Cowley 'Two days off' and the hurried plans for the Country place a friend owned. The snatch of time alone together.

Pictures tumbled across his mind's eye--Bodie beside him in the Capri, the large hand on his knee sliding up to caress his clothed groin, playing until Doyle told him to stop, afraid he'd wreck the car. The hand was withdrawn, after freeing the growing sex from the too tight jeans, then suddenly Bodie was bending over him, ignoring small things like gears, and what had been an ache turned to raging fire as his lover's mouth closed over him and sucked.

He'd have stopped the car but couldn't get to the gear shift--so instead shuddered his climax with one hand on the wheel, one wrapped in Bodie's hair, and his eyes desperately on the blurring road ahead.

When he was done, Bodie sat back, smiling, licking his lips, saying softly, "Delicious, sunshine."

And Doyle had almost come again just at the look in the blue eyes.

The cottage was small--kitchen, sitting room, bath and one bedroom but they didn't want or need more. In fact, if asked to describe the decor, Ray knew he would probably only remember one or two pieces. His attention was solely, overwhelmingly on Bodie. Nothing else mattered--the time they had like this was too short to be thrown away on non-essentials. So he concentrated on his lover, determined to consolidate their relationship, reaffirm it, to possess and be possessed completely.

It seemed that Bodie shared his feelings. They had barely closed the door of the cottage when Doyle was borne back against the wall. Bodie's heavier muscular grace pressing along him as a hungry mouth claimed his. Tongues lingered, fought, explored, while hands pushed aside barriers of clothing. When they finally broke apart, they were airless and Bodie said, "I've been wanting to do that all day."

After that it took them a good hour to go back out for the bags. Ray had vague recollections of lying on the floor with Bodie on top of him, of the feel of hard sex and gentle fingers, but most of that hour was gone, burned away by the fiery series of orgasms that left him weak and shaking, hardly able to stumble into the shower beside Bodie. They held one another up under the warm water, soaping each other, playing small sensual games with the lather. One of the things he had learned from his lover...showers and baths were times for loving exploration. There was something extraordinarily erotic about a wet Bodie--the smell of him mixing with the steam, the way the droplets clung to his absurd dark eyelashes, the way he threw back his head and let the water splash down his body.

Doyle soaped his partner's sex, fingered the almost delicate sac and was pleased when the shaft began to harden under his touch.

Bodie groaned and leaned against the wall, "I can't--one more time will kill me...."

Ray ignored him, and, remembering the car, dropped to his knees, wrapped his arms around his lover's hips and took the whole of his cock into his mouth. Bodie moaned, "No..." again even as he thrust forward and Doyle sucked the straining sex as it came fully erect.

Someday he would figure out what Bodie tasted like--someday when hands weren't tangled in his hair and a husky voice wasn't telling him to suck harder....

The water had long since been cool before they emerged.

---

"Hey," Bodie shook his shoulder and Doyle came back to the present. "You asleep?"

Ray shook his head.

"We should be packing up, I suppose," Bodie yawned. "Sometimes I hate Sundays."

Ray nodded but didn't even try to get up. He didn't want to go back to London. He wanted to stay here in bed with Bodie, loving him, fucking him, even, or especially, just being held by him. He closed his eyes again and drifted.

---

After the shower they had collected their bags, napped a little, then unpacked the food they had bought. They fixed a light supper, talking, really talking, about...christ, what did they talk about? Families, friends, the book Bodie just read, the record Ray had bought. Wonderful inanities.

There was so much he wanted to know about his partner. Bodie was reticent, provokingly quiet about his past. Ray had learned long ago that the stories Bodie told were more often than not just stories--but others had talked, the various people who occasionally cropped up from his lover's past. For all Bodie looked smug and self-assured, there was a genuine modest little boy under the hard exterior. That was the Bodie Doyle was fascinated with--the Bodie who remembered everyone's birthday but completely forgot his own, who cried during E.T. and loved watching old Fred Astaire musicals. Was it Keller who had mentioned the kids in N. Ireland? Yeh, and Benny had told him about the time Bodie got stuck delivering some Angolan woman's baby right in the middle of a raid. It delighted Ray to think that somewhere there was a baby girl named Bodie because the Angolan woman insisted on it.

Bodie, of course, denied the whole thing, but Doyle knew it was true.

---

After supper they made up the fire and lay naked on the rug in front of it, still talking. They never seemed to run out of things to say and even the silences were warm with understanding. Quiet time. Happy. Eye of a hurricane.

The fire shone gold on Bodie's pale skin, turned his face into geometric elements. Ray sat on the rug with the sofa as a backrest, and held his partner in his arms, Bodie's back against his chest. Their legs stretched out together towards the fire. Eventually the talking ceased altogether as the ever present passion flowed to the surface and they made love slowly, taking time with each other, making it good.

So often for them sex was a grabbed, chancey thing. Furtive caresses, a quick fuck that made what they had seem almost dirty.

No, that was wrong. It was never dirty, just...hurried. In the year they'd been lovers Ray could pick out the times on one hand when they had been alone like this.

Maybe because it was precious, they made the time last, just stroking, whispering broken phrases about what they wanted, what they liked about each other. Doyle had wanted to fuck Bodie, to watch his lover's face while he did it, see that look of intense concentration he got when he allowed himself to be dominated. He wanted to know what Bodie was thinking about and finally got the nerve to ask.

"You," Bodie gasped. "How big you are inside me...how your cock feels in my ass...."

"What's it feel like?"

"Good."

Doyle made a face.

"Feels right. Like it belongs to me."

"It does," Doyle told him. "And don't you ever forget it."

They never talked about love. It was an overused word that, in Ray's opinion, was too small. When Bodie's cock jerked in his hand and spilled it's load Doyle came, too, and their noise was inarticulate and understood.

Afterwards Ray lay on his back, half asleep while Bodie cleaned him with a soft towel. He barely remembered going to bed, had concentrated only on the secure feel of the arms that held him and the hard body he snuggled against.

---

"Want some more to drink?" Bodie asked. The sound echoed in Bodie's chest, a deep rumble under his ear. He shook his head.

The hand on his shoulder moved to his head and fingers played with the curls. "You're getting greyer," Bodie said and Doyle heard the smile in his voice.

"Don't remind me."

"I like it."

"You won't when it happens to you." Doyle lifted his head and nuzzled Bodie's cheek. "I hate growing old."

"Do you really think it'll happen?"

"What?"

"Us--growing old."

Doyle settled back again to listen to the reassuring, steady heartbeat. "We have something to live for now, don't we?"

---

Saturday morning Doyle had awakened to find Bodie watching him intently, his blue eyes disgustingly alert.

"You're staring."

Bodie shrugged. "I like to watch you sleep."

Doyle blinked at him. "Whatever for?"

"I just do."

Not knowing whether to be pleased or embarrassed, Ray settled for heading to the bathroom. By the time he had showered and shaved, he was awake. He padded naked back into the bedroom, grinned at Bodie who was sprawled all over the bed, and took a flying leap. It was hard to say who groaned loudest, the bed or Bodie, but Ray was too busy launching an assault on his lover's body to know or care.

The skin under his mouth was almost hairless, smooth over muscle, patterned by scars of battle. Doyle knew every mark intimately. He licked along the old knife wound on Bodie's chest and chuckled as his partner squirmed beneath him.

Nipples hardened under his tongue, muscles rippled across the flat belly as he worked lower. Already Bodie's cock was hard, inviting his touch. Ray licked its length but before he could go further Bodie stopped him. "My turn, mate. Turn over."

Obediently Ray moved to lie on his stomach, one leg bent to accommodate his erection. His mind rapidly and excitedly readjusted his body rhythm--from possessor to possessed. Bodie's hands were hard on his buttocks, rubbing little circles until Doyle raised his hips, drawing his knees up. There was a brief pressure as Bodie kissed the mounded cheeks, then his waist was grasped, the hard cock slipped between his legs and began to enter him.

He cried out and lunged back, wanting to be filled completely. He heard a breathless chuckle in his ear and Bodie was pulling him even closer, lifting him so they were both sitting back on their knees, one impaled on the other.

He reached behind himself and put one hand between them to feel where their bodies joined. His lover's cock was thicker than his own, a perfectly balanced appendage for Bodie's body. Ray felt the shaft slide in and out of himself, a part of him, and wanted it to go on forever. But already he sensed the gathering in his partner that heralded the explosive climax. Bodie's hands on Doyle's slimmer, longer cock tightened, pumping harder to match the quickening pace of their movement.

They came together, simultaneous cries echoing in their ears, melting into each other as they fell forward onto the bed.

Bodie stayed in him, placing brief kisses along the ridge of his shoulders, nuzzling and stroking until Doyle relaxed entirely. Then he slipped easily from the tight channel, turned Ray over and kissed him. "You're fantastic," he said and smiled. "Come on--shower time again."

They spent the rest of the day locked in the tiny cottage, not needing the outside world, not bothering to dress in more than easily removed robes. Over lunch Bodie told him a very funny and completely fabricated tale about Cowley while his blue eyes said a hundred different things. Doyle felt drowned in them and went under for the third time without a murmur of protest. He was totally and irrevocably in love with his partner.

Saturday afternoon Bodie decided he had a sweet tooth and announced he was going to make a cake. It turned into an exercise of hilarity and the finished product was lopsided but tasty. Doyle found the makings for a frosting and mixed them up then changed his mind and used the lot on Bodie, ignoring his laughing protests. What Ray didn't lick off they showered away. Doyle hadn't laughed so much in years.

That evening they reluctantly dressed and walked into the small village. While Doyle ordered drinks in the town's only pub Bodie phoned in to CI5. Routine check-in, but they were very careful to follow the rules these days.

Ray was chatting quietly with the barkeep when Bodie returned, and he watched his lover through half-closed eyes. Bodie was slimmer than usual (another concession to the rules) and looked like a gothic character in all black. He was relaxed, Doyle noted with relief. They still had the rest of the weekend free, twenty-four more hours to be together. He barely allowed Bodie time to finish a single lager before he was urging him back to the cottage.

---

"Ray...."

"Home?"

"My arm's asleep. Shift over a bit."

Doyle shifted, then stretched. "What's the time?"

"Half five."

"D'you mind driving back in the dark."

"No."

"Me neither."

They smiled at each other and Ray sat back on the pillows, pulling his lover with him. Bodie curled himself around his partner and rubbed his cheek on Ray's chest.

"Nice," he said, "if a bit hairy."

"You're just jealous."

"Me dad always told me to eat me veggies--it'd put hair on me chest," Bodie told him. He lifted his dark head for an instant and grinned. "Personally, I hate veg."

"Never mind," Ray ruffled his hair. "I like your chest just like it is."

They ate sandwiches and unfrosted cake in front of the fire, then Doyle indulged a whim of Bodie's and unearthed his sketchpad.

"Draw me," Bodie said.

Ray told him to watch the fire and moved to the side to wait until Bodie was engrossed in the flames before putting pen to paper.

He had sketched Bodie once before, in the early days of their partnership, before there was even a friendship between them. That picture was hidden away somewhere, no more than a collection of strokes, without feeling. Not one of his better efforts, but he had kept it anyway.

As he worked he could see the changes the years had made on his partner. There were lines in his face now, highlighted by the firelight. Laughlines mainly. Bodie smiled more often these days.

---

When he had done that first sketch Ray had never imagined Bodie as a lover. He hadn't even liked his partner much. Bodie was all showy clothes and smug actionman in those days. It had taken them months to learn to work as an effective team, and only Cowley's insistence that they do so had kept them together. Doyle had despaired their ever getting it right when one day, in the midst of a firefight, he had received a glance from his partner, read it, and acted on it without thinking. They flowed into action, a team at last, and from there it had grown until most of the time they didn't even need the glances.

As the years passed they saw each other through one trauma after another, each one cementing them closer. Doyle was there when Marika died, it was he who convinced Bodie to return to CI5. ("What will I do without you?" he had said. "You'll do fine," Bodie replied. "No," Ray told him honestly, "I won't." And Bodie had stayed on.)

And Ann. Doyle smiled at the picture taking shape under his pen. He could easily smile now--then he had been emotionally devastated and Bodie was there, quietly taking over, sheltering Ray until he was ready to take on the world again. The experience with the Holly family had made him a bitter lad for a long time--among other things it proved to him that if he was going to stay with CI5, serious outside relationships were out. Women became a series of one night stands, mostly double dates that Bodie initiated. Ray enjoyed himself--it was impossible to resist when Bodie set out to charm. It was months before he realized that the fun came from being with Bodie--that the girls had little to do with it.

After Lawson, they got two weeks off and without really planning ended up going off together to the Lake District on a camping holiday.

Ray sketched the scar on Bodie's right calf without seeing it in the dim light. He knew it was there, knew the exact shape and size of it--Bodie'd gotten that cut on their trip, falling over a casually tossed shoe to land on a sharp rock. Twelve stitches later they bought a bottle of pure malt and went back to the campsite to forget it all. Bodie limped around artistically, Ray teased happily now that the worry was over and he knew his partner wasn't seriously injured, and somehow, in a mostly drunken state, they ended up together in Bodie's double sleeping bag. He still had no memory of how he got there, only of waking up the next morning with a roaring headache and very rumpled clothes. They had struggled up, washed, shaved, then given up and gone back to their own bedrolls, miserably hung over. There was no embarrassment, nothing had happened....

The day was chilly and wet. Doyle had slept for a while, awakened feeling much better, but cold. He noted that Bodie looked damned comfortable in his big sleeping bag, and above all warm. It had seemed logical to shove his partner over and crawl in next to him. He hadn't stopped to think that now they were both naked, that Bodie's sleeping erection would rub against him. He moved away only to have his partner mumble something and pull him back. Then Bodie was awake and smiling at him with sleepy confusion, seduction accomplished in a single look.

It wasn't something he'd never done before--but the clumsy fumblings of a couple of boys discovering sex had nothing to do with the expertise of his partner. He was flying high before he knew what was happening, Bodie's hands and mouth drawing him to a shuddering climax in a matter of minutes. And then Bodie had calmly said, "I want to fuck you."

Doyle finished the sketch and held it up to the light. He made a couple of additions, made Bodie's face a little more dreamy, matching the faraway expression his lover had, still watching his fire pictures. Tearing the paper loose from the pad, he moved to sit beside Bodie. "It's done."

"Let's see." Bodie looked at the full body sketch for a long time then turned slightly wide eyes on Ray. "Is this how you see me?"

"S'what you look like, mate."

"Christ."

"No, just Bodie." Ray moved closer. "Reward me."

Bodie set the drawing carefully aside and reached for his partner. They flowed together easily, Ray's lighter weight spread all along his lover's body. Bodie's mouth was gently demanding, his tongue running along Ray's lower lip before sliding inside. Doyle was dizzy before he broke the kiss. "If I do an oil painting what will you give me?"

Bodie told him--in graphic detail, then proceeded to demonstrate. By the time he was finished Doyle was a wrung out, satiated bundle.

"What is it about you?" he asked Bodie, while they showered.

Bodie just looked smug, wet, and very sensual.

---

Doyle reached for his glass, couldn't make the stretch without disturbing Bodie, so made do with the bottle. Yeh, last night had been very good. He dropped a light kiss on his partner's soft hair and smiled. Mine, he thought with a sudden rush of possessiveness. No matter how many contracts Bodie signs for Cowley, he belongs to me.

Not particularly jealous by nature, it always amazed him that he felt like this about his partner. It had surprised Bodie, too. It would be a long time before either of them forgot the night Ray had discovered that not only had Bodie continued seeing girls, but that there was another man in his life as well.

An occasional girl, Ray didn't like it but he understood and accepted.

Another man--if he'd had time he might have worked that out as well. But he'd walked in on them and instantaneously saw red, exploding into a raw mass of pain and fury, kept from beating them both into a pulp only because he had sense enough to leave.

And Bodie had come after him, half dressed and completely confused, wondering what all the fuss was about. When he finally understood that Ray was jealous he explained very carefully, exactly why he was with someone else.

"It's very simple," Bodie told him flatly. "Sometimes I like to be fucked. You won't, he will."

Ray grinned, remembering his astonishment. It had seemed so natural for Bodie to be the dominant one. After all, Bodie had the experience, and there had been something very good about letting someone else--yes, letting Bodie--take him over. It had never occurred to him to reverse their roles, that Bodie might like to feel that way, too. That night he had proved something to them both.

Now they let nature take its course and whoever felt like it did it. And whoever the other man was he hadn't ever been in evidence again. For that matter, once Bodie realized Ray wasn't seeing any women, he'd stopped dating as well.

Bodie sighed and sat up, drawing Ray back to the present.

"We'd better get moving."

"Yeh."

They stayed motionless and Ray felt his cock stir into life as he just looked at his lover. He chuckled and was surprised when Bodie didn't respond. There was an odd expression on his partner's face--almost embarrassed.

"Hey mate--what's wrong?"

"Wrong? Nothing." But it was a mumble.

"What're you thinking?"

He was right. Bodie was actually blushing.

"Bodie?"

"'S stupid," Bodie muttered and made to get up.

"Oh no!" Doyle rolled and pinned him to the bed. "Tell me."

"Believe me, you don't want to know."

Doyle bent and kissed him thoroughly. "Yes, I do. For chrissake Bodie, we've just spent two days screwing each other through the floor in every imaginable position, we did the handcuff bit last month, and you once threw up on my bed. You can't possibly shock me. What's going through your kinky mind?"

Bodie looked up at him, then swallowed and said in a low voice, "I was just thinking...how bloody gorgeous you are, all kind of mushy things...how I'd like to write poetry about your eyes...."

Doyle was shocked. "Me! Mate--hold still! I'm not laughing...oh god, yes I am...." He rolled away and lay on his back, whooping.

After a moment, Bodie joined in.

"I can just see you," Doyle gasped, "sitting at your desk..."

"...with quill in hand..." Bodie picked up the mental picture.

"...writing sonnets to my eyes...."

"And I would, too," Bodie mourned, "if I could find a rhyme for 'murky'."

"Oh christ, don't, it hurts!" Ray wrapped his arms around his sides.

"Poor baby," Bodie leaned over. "Shall I kiss it better?"

He didn't wait but took Doyle's half erect cock in his mouth and sucked hard. Ray's laughter ended in a sharp gasp and he arched, crying out Bodie's name.

Bodie's hand slipped between his legs, cradling the sensitive, tightening sac before sliding to the taut anal opening. Ray felt the pressure and relaxed automatically, welcoming the entrance. He writhed, loving the dual sensation, but it wasn't enough, he wanted more.

"Bodie...up...." He tugged at his partner's shoulders and pulled him into a firm embrace. "One more time?" he whispered into Bodie's ear.

"No sonnets?"

"Not today--I want to keep my lunch down."

"Damn," Bodie didn't sound particularly regretful. "Okay...here...."

He fumbled for the lubricant and applied it. Ray held his breath, hoping Bodie wouldn't tell him to turn over--he wanted to see....

Bodie knelt between his legs, lifted them and slowly entered Doyle. He leaned forward, stilling Ray's instinctive movement. "Take it easy, sunshine."

But the sensation was too much and Doyle came, groaning as his cock spurted. Bodie laughed and shifted his weight to leave one hand free. He rubbed the sticky moisture into Ray's belly, then licked his palm. "If you're not careful, I just might write something else."

Doyle took a deep breath, "Oh yeh? What?"

"Something lovely and poetic...how about 'Ode to 4.5's sperm'?"

Ray choked then bit his lip as Bodie began to move inside him. He felt empty and full and reached to cup his lover's face.

Bodie pulled him up and they kissed, sucking at each other's tongues, exploring lips and teeth, then Ray sank back and Bodie began to rock against him, harder, twisting erratically. Doyle watched his face, the way the muscles corded in his neck, shiney with sweat as the whole of his partner strained toward fulfillment.

Bodie made a growling noise deep in his throat and Ray grasped his hands, gripping hard as his lover thrust once more. He felt the cock within him jerk and spill, heard the breathless laugh, and wrapped his legs around Bodie's waist, using obscure muscles to hold the softening length inside himself.

Bodie leaned back on his knees, breathing heavily. He slowly opened his eyes, then blinked. "Bloody hell--the room's still rightside up."

Doyle wriggled. "Don't go. Not yet."

"Don't get your hopes up mate. There's nothing left--you got it all."

Ray looked at him. "Do l?"

Bodie smiled, not misunderstanding. "Yeh," he said. "you do."

"Me too."

"Well, now that's settled, can I get up?"

Ray released him. It was getting dark. They hurried through showers, then dressed and tidied the cottage. Doyle locked the front door while Bodie stored their bags in the car. He didn't want to leave--the house looked lonely without lights in the windows. He picked the single rose blooming by the front steps and went to meet his partner.

"Here," he said, sticking it behind Bodie's ear, "a rose by any other name and all that."

He began to turn away, but Bodie stopped him.

"I meant it, you know."

Doyle leaned against him and felt Bodie's arms slide around his waist. "I did, too," he said softly, then added, "lover."

Bodie kissed his forehead, then ruffled his hair. "Come on, sunshine. Back to the real world."

Doyle watched him climb into the car and knew it was all right. They were all right. He looked at the little house and smiled.

"We'll be back," he whispered, then answered Bodie's call. "Yeh, I'm coming! Bloody sod, keep your shirt on!"

-- THE END --