"Don't just stand there--get a bloody move on, will you?"

Bodie blinked. The evening wasn't going at all according to plan. What he'd had in mind was a gradual campaign of seduction in the hope of finding out what exactly made his new partner tick. What he'd actually got was a naked partner who had seized onto his first offhand suggestion as though it were some kind of binding proposition, on which Bodie had to follow through. Now.

It was starting to get on his nerves.

"Patience, Raymond, patience," he murmured, as though he were the one in charge here, and not the one being cajoled, nay, press-ganged into something he was beginning to realise perhaps wasn't a good idea.

Doyle glared over his shoulder at him and gave his naked backside an imperious wriggle, narrowing his eyes when Bodie swallowed awkwardly. "I want to get fucked, damn you. What are you waiting for? Christmas?"

I want to get fucked. It was hardly the most auspicious start to what Bodie had in mind. He would have preferred, 'I want you to fuck me, Bodie', and would even have settled moderately happily for, 'I want you to fuck me, you bastard'. At least there would have been some sign that it mattered, albeit slightly, who Doyle got it from and in what way. As it was, Bodie was beginning to feel as though he was a convenient scratching post, and Doyle was a moggie trying to get rid of a particularly annoying flea.

"Listen, some of us aren't even undressed here," Bodie said, not making any move to start doing so.

"Christ Almighty, are you thick or what? How long does it take you to undo your bloody flies?"

Not being accustomed to being given orders in his own bedroom, Bodie treated that suggestion with the contempt it deserved. He pulled his polo neck and T-shirt over his head in a single smooth gesture, and was about to start turning them right-side-out when it occurred to him that it would be pushing his luck a little far.

Chalk this one up to experience, old son, he told himself, as he undid his trousers. If he's a pushy bastard out of the bedroom, he'll definitely be a pushy bastard in the bedroom too. "Keep your hair on, I'm coming," he said wearily.

"You'd better bloody not be," Doyle growled

It had been dislike on almost first sight, at least on Ray's part. For some reason, he'd considered Bodie sneaking a look at his file a Very Bad Thing to do, and, no matter that Bodie had liked some of what he'd seen, and even said so--in a suitably offhand manner, of course--their fledgling working relationship had never quite recovered. Obviously, a bastard who'd made his living running guns in Africa while still in his teens was no kind of partner for a fine, upstanding, and only slightly blinkered copper like Doyle. The dislike had very quickly become mutual.

Reading a file ... Bodie couldn't quite see what all the fuss was about. You did whatever you had to, to survive, and in his book, knowing what made the bloke guarding your back tick came firmly into that category. Bodie had survived plenty of different working partners, and had managed an easy enough relationship with most of them by being laid-back, charming and ultimately uninvolved. 'Course, that didn't work at all with Doyle, and after two months of mutual sniping, Bodie had decided it was time to try another tactic.

You did whoever you had to to survive too, come to think of it.

Not exactly a hardship in this case, Bodie acknowledged. Doyle might have been a bit holier-than-thou but you only had to watch him move to see that he wasn't a eunuch. More than sexy enough to be worth the effort, or so Bodie had thought until Doyle had started ordering him around.

Bodie's not-quite-as-hard-on-as-it-should-be gave a twitch, and he scanned the bedroom for anything he could use, before spotting the tub of Nivea that Deborah--or was it Joanna?--had left on the bedside table. He opened the pot and scooped some out before Doyle could say anything else. Being nagged made the parts that should be getting interested curl up and hide instead.

"Ready," he said, more to himself than to Doyle, ignoring the "about bloody time, too!" that came from the other end of the bed.

Bodie clambered onto the bed, smearing Nivea a little self-consciously over his fingers, and then down to his dick, which stopped being unsure as to whether it was about to see action or not and perked up gratifyingly. Bodie knelt behind Doyle, between his legs, breathing only a little harder than usual, and reached out.

For some reason he needed to summon up his courage to reach out and touch Doyle for the first time, to run his finger lightly down the crack between Doyle's lightly-furred buttocks. Doyle bucked, and swore, and even beneath the grease on his hands Bodie could feel the softness of the skin. He ran the finger back up the crease, then played in light strokes over the tiny entrance.

"Come on," Doyle growled.

Bodie would have felt happier had the voice held a little more desire and a little less irritation. "Don't want to do you an injury, old son," he said.

Doyle shot him a contemptuous look, but said nothing, and Bodie continued preparing him, working the edges of his arsehole with careful, steady strokes, concentrating on the feel of the tight muscle around his fingers, and trying to block out the feeling that what he'd intended as a gesture of trust had turned into a distasteful chore for both parties. He eased further in, the muscle hot and firm against his finger, yielding slowly as he explored inwards. Reaching the base of his middle finger he brushed a careful fingertip over Doyle's prostate and felt him shudder and thrust, whispering a breathy oath.

From behind like this, he was intoxicating. Doyle's face was so odd that you couldn't look away, but his hair, his neck, the long sweep of back with its muscles and sinews bunching and unbunching under the skin, the bony shoulder blades shifting slowly, the lean buttocks . . . Bodie was completely erect now, just from the feel of Doyle's hips under his hands.

Bodie pulled his fingers carefully from their work. His dick was so hard it ached, and he shuffled forward, lining it up. It touched its target and Doyle thrust backwards in a single sharp, impatient motion, and it was only combat-honed reflexes that enabled Bodie to pull away in time to avoid an embarrassing incident.

"Careful! Could do a bloke an injury like that, you know!"

Doyle heaved in panting breaths and shot him another glare. "I'll do you ... An injury if you don't ... get stuck in ... soon."

"Bloody back-seat drivers," Bodie muttered. Okay, Bodie my boy, it's not fair to tease the animals, he thought. But the breathy sound of Doyle's voice had given him hope that this might turn out all right after all. Doyle's undeniable hedonistic streak would win out in the end, just you wait and see, he told himself.

This time he steadied Doyle's hips before he lined himself up, easing the head of his dick through the ring of muscle, almost mesmerised by the scene below him. Doyle's skin was a light tan flecked with fine hairs, dark in contrast with Bodie's fake fur bedspread on which they knelt, and almost yellow beside Bodie's own pale, near-pink skin. The sight of his blood-darkened penis disappearing between those perfect buttocks was so intoxicating that Bodie had to close his eyes and find his own way by feel for a moment, pausing as Doyle tensed painfully around him, moving onwards when the pressure eased just enough.

It was easier now that Doyle had shut up. After a month of undergoing training with the bloke, courtesy of the biggest bunch of sadists he'd seen outside of the Congo he didn't need to know when to hold back and when to press on because it was all there to read, in the way Doyle's body moved, in the tendons of his neck and the muscles of the skinny backside. A final steady shove and he was in, sheathed to the hilt, stilling for a few incandescent seconds while lightning sparks spattered across his retinas and prickled over his skin.

He withdrew, pressed forward again, his hands still steady on Doyle's hips.

There were bruises marking the bone-and-sinew back--in their job, there always were--and he pressed himself close to it, stroking the furred chest beneath, one hand ruffling the lush hairs upward, then smoothing them down again, travelling from nipple to hip and then back again. Doyle's skin trembled a little as Bodie's breath blew in panting gusts across it, and, unable to resist, Bodie bent his head forward to lick the side of Doyle's neck.

"Harder, damn you!"

Bodie faltered, and lost his rhythm, cursing Doyle for the interruption. For a moment, their motions jarred, out of kilter, and then Doyle, with a vicious backward thrust, took the control from him, thrusting back and forth with harsh, near-convulsive movements, so that pretty much all Bodie could do was to hang on tight, letting himself be buffeted forward and back in his attempt to accommodate the tempest of Doyle's impersonal lust.

I am a scratching post, was Bodie's only thought, and for some reason, the notion was unbearably intoxicating. A scratching post, dammit, he thought again as Doyle impaled himself once more, his insides raking along Bodie's last functioning nerve like a match along a matchbox, and unerringly sending Bodie up in flames.

They came with curses, coarse guttural oaths that Bodie had learned as a fourteen-year-old Ordinary Seaman, that Doyle, perhaps, had picked up breaking up bar brawls in Bethnal Green. He let himself collapse on top of Doyle, breathing in the scent of Doyle's neck--fresh sweat, Pears shampoo and Imperial Leather soap. He could hear the heavy breaths that Doyle was taking, could feel them rippling through the thin back.

"Gerroff me, you great oaf," came from somewhere under the hair.

After a climax like that, Bodie couldn't summon up the energy to be annoyed. He eased out of Doyle and lay down again, beside instead of on top of his partner. "With your charm, you must be a real hit with the birds."

"Only sleep with birds I like, don't I?"

Well, that puts me in my place, Bodie thought. "So what am I, then?"

"Not a security risk," Doyle growled, rolling over to sit on the side of the bed. He seized a corner of the fake fur bedspread, cleaning himself off with fast, almost careless gestures, and Bodie opened his mouth to protest at the wanton abuse of his property. "And don't start, 'cause you were the one who propositioned me."

Best-laid plans and all that. So much for getting to know one's partner, Bodie thought muzzily. He stared at the ceiling, one hand behind his head. "Bit of a stupid idea, really, wasn't it?"

"One of yours." Doyle eased his jeans back on, picked his shirt off Bodie's bedroom floor.

As if it went with the territory. Bodie was beginning to feel distinctly narked off. He couldn't charm the man, couldn't reason with him, so he'd tried to offer something of himself and bloody Doyle hadn't even noticed.

Still, it was early days yet, he thought, watching Doyle trying to put his shoes on without undoing the laces. The Bodie charm would have to win through eventually.

Bodie pasted on his most smug smile and let his eyes drift back up to the ceiling. They'd get there, even if it took a while.

Nobody could resist him forever, after all.

-- THE END --

December 2005