Bodie's attention, already distracted from Charles Holly's interrogation by Doyle's abrupt departure, was caught by the sound of the revving car engine drifting in through the window. He parted the slats of the Venetian blind and looked down, just in time to see Ann's car swing wide around his partner and disappear from sight out of the open gateway. A fierce surge of emotion shot through him as he saw the lost, lonely looking figure left standing in the half empty car park; anger at the woman's deliberate obtuseness about the realities of CI5 life, and a compound of compassion and overwhelming protectiveness towards Doyle.

He had crossed the room and was half way though the open doorway before Cowley's bark of "Bodie!" made him pause. This time, however, he would not be stopped. He glanced over his shoulder and said brusquely,

"I know--'Never get between a man and his woman'. But what about a man alone who's just taken some stick? You got a proverb for that?"

Then the door was swinging shut behind him and he was hurrying, almost running, along the corridor and downstairs two at a time and out of the front entrance. For an instant he thought Doyle had gone too and then he saw him, standing dejectedly in the gateway gazing after the vanished car.

"Ray?"

Doyle turned around at the sound of Bodie's voice, and his face tightened.

"Leave me alone, Bodie. Just--leave me alone!"

He spun on his heels and walked away, shoulders drooping wearily, and Bodie's heart went out to him. "I thought we might go for a drink," he said to the retreating back.

After several more paces Doyle hesitated, and glanced over his shoulder. "At this hour?"

Bodie checked his watch. "The Red Lion'll be open."

Doyle jerked a thumb up towards the overlooking windows. "What about the interrogation?"

"Sod the interrogation!" Bodie said succinctly. "The Cow was doing all right on his own when I left. He doesn't need me to hold his hand."

"And I do?" Bodie didn't answer, and Doyle shrugged. "Okay. C'mon, then."

In the 'Lion, Sadie, the barmaid, stared at them in mock horror as he parked Doyle at a corner table and strolled up to the bar. The two of them were the only customers this early in the day.

"You lot are getting worse. You'll soon be queued up waiting for the doors to open. What is it this time--a wake or a celebration?"

"Neither, love," Bodie said. "He's just had a bit of a shock. Give us a double brandy and a pint of bitter, will you?"

He set the glass of brandy down on the table in front of Doyle and ordered, "Drink that."

"It's not true, you know."

"Eh?"

"About brandy being good for shock," Doyle said. "It's not true. A cup of hot, sweet tea is much better."

Bodie sat down opposite him. "Sadie doesn't serve tea. Stop arguing and get that down you."

Doyle complied. The brandy disappeared in a couple of gulps. Without saying a word Bodie stood up, took the empty glass back to the bar, and returned with a full one.

Doyle looked at it, and then at him. "You tryin' to get me plastered?"

Bodie sat down again. "Might not be such a bad idea."

"Wouldn't be a good one. Wouldn't make me forget what's just happened, if that's what you're hoping for. Probably just make me maudlin."

"Drink!" Bodie ordered. "Maudlin I can take, it's when you hurt I have a problem."

Doyle glanced up at the unusual admission, and met an expression that was carefully neutral, as though the words had escaped accidentally. After a moment, he picked up the glass and disposed of only half its contents this time, before setting it back down and sliding it back and forth on the tabletop.

"Yeah, well.... I may not be hurting quite as much as you think I am. At least, not for the reason you think I am."

"Pull the other one, why don't you?"

Bodie sounded disbelieving. Recalling recent words and behaviour, Doyle found it impossible to blame him. He emptied the brandy glass for the second time, and Bodie silently provided yet another refill.

"I'm serious," Doyle told him. "At this moment, Ann's probably hurting a hell of a lot more than I am, and it's all my fault." He took another, smaller mouthful of the spirit. "She needed me to trust her, and I did--but only up to a point, and that wasn't good enough. I knew she wasn't involved with her father and the drugs. I knew it, but the bloody job meant I had to be certain, and she couldn't understand that. She cried back there, Bodie. I can't stand seein' a bird cry, 'specially when I know I'm the cause of it."

He looked up again, and found Bodie staring at him with an expression made up of equal parts of awe and anger.

"I don't believe I'm hearing this! I really don't believe you, Doyle! The woman you said you wanted to marry, the woman you're supposed to be in love with, walks out on you just because you're doing your bloody job, and you promptly set off on one of your fucking guilt trips, claiming she's the one who got hurt."

"'S not a guilt trip!" Doyle denied loudly, and then hastily lowered his voice when he noticed Sadie staring at them across the empty bar. "It's the truth. And I wasn't in love with her!"

"Could have fooled me!" Bodie said with considerable asperity.

"I did," Doyle agreed. "And myself--and Ann! Fooled everybody concerned, didn't I? She was fun to be with and I liked her a lot. A hell of a lot! But liking isn't loving. I don't think I was ever in love with her. Wanted to be, and believed I was, though, until I woke up to the truth and realised she wasn't the one I wanted to spend the rest of my life with." He sniffed, lushly. "Got lonely, you see--needed someone to go 'ome to, someone to share with. But it has to be the right someone, hasn't it? And Ann wasn't it. Took me a while to recognise that, so everyone got hurt. That's why it's my fault."

He raised the brandy glass again and discovered it was empty, and he couldn't remember emptying it. He refused to relinquish it when Bodie reached for it.

"No, no more. I haven't had breakfast, and you're beginning to go fuzzy 'round the edges. This stuff's getting to me. Maudlin is one thing, fallin' over's another kettle of fish."

"You're not maudlin yet, and if you do fall over I'll pick you up."

"'Course you would," Doyle agreed. "You're always doin' that: picking me up and dusting me off, lookin' out for me, worrying about me. Pretend you don't, but you do. All the time! I rely on it, but I don't understand why, sometimes. I can be an irritating so-and-so when I get going."

"Tell me something I don't know!" Bodie said. "But you're my partner...."

"Doesn't mean you have to play nursemaid all the time," Doyle objected. He rose to his feet, and then grabbed hold of the table as the room suddenly spun around him. "Christ! How many of those things have I had?"

"Only three," Bodie said, and then added honestly, "Doubles."

"On an empty stomach? You weren't joking about getting me drunk, were you?" Doyle shook his head reproachfully, and immediately wished he hadn't as the room began to spin faster. "Take me 'ome, Bodie--please! Before I really do fall down!"

---

Back in his flat he subsided onto the couch and looked up at Bodie hovering over him.

"There's food in the fridge. Why don't you go cook something? If I'm this hungry, you must be bloody starving."

"Come to think about it, I am--just a bit."

Doyle closed his eyes, resigning himself to the sort of cholesterol-laden meal Bodie always produced, and leaned back against the cushions, wondering hazily how anyone could be 'just a bit' starving. Contradiction in terms that was, surely, just like the man who had said it.

The bangings and mutterings emanating from the direction of his kitchen were comfortingly familiar. Bodie didn't like cooking, but he was nowhere near as bad at it as he often claimed to be in order to get out of doing it. Always hiding bits of himself, he was. God, how you had to work to get to know him--the real Bodie, the one behind the faade--but in the end it was worth it.

Pity Ann hadn't made the effort. She had disliked him from the beginning--hadn't really tried....

Funny, Doyle thought, how it had been her negative attitude to Bodie that had first started the doubts about his feelings for her growing in his mind. Or maybe it wasn't so funny? Bodie was important to him, and he didn't mind admitting it. Take one of them, and you had to be prepared to put up with the other one; like bloody Siamese twins, they were! He cared about Bodie, cared about him a lot, and knew, without a shadow of a doubt and without ever needing to be told in so many words, that the feeling was mutual.

Ann had never seen that; had never been able, or apparently wanted, to see beyond the surface Bodie despite the attempts he had made to meet her half way. To her Bodie had been synonymous with CI5, and that was a part of Doyle's life she hadn't really wanted to know anything about; a part of him she had wanted to change.

In the beginning, when he had been trying so hard to fall in love with her because it was what he had wanted to do, he had even considered giving up the job, of trying to be the person she wanted him to be. But even then he had known it was impossible: he was what he was. Ann might have been genuinely in love with him, but she had not been prepared to make any compromises herself. She had wanted him to do all the changing, and when he was unable she had walked away. Doing so had hurt her; there was no doubt of that. There had been real pain behind the tears in her eyes when she had left him, but she had gone in spite of it.

And, being the kind of person he was, Doyle could not help but blame himself. If only he had tried harder to do and be what she had wanted, perhaps love would have grown. Or at least if only he could have made her understand why he couldn't....

"Ray, have you got any...?"

Bodie emerged from the kitchen, looking suitably harassed, and came to a sudden halt as he took in the picture of the dejected figure slumped on the couch. "Oh God, you're at it again, aren't you? I can't take my eyes off you for a minute!" He crossed the floor in two long strides and dropped down beside Doyle, reaching for him. "Don't, Ray--please don't! I can't stand seeing you like this."

Startled by the unexpectedly overt concern, Doyle went unresistingly into the embrace and found himself held against Bodie's chest by arms that, for all their strength, were extraordinarily gentle. After that initial moment of surprise, he found being there both comfortable and comforting. Despite the novelty there was a strange sort of familiarity, a sense of...?

His thoughts struggled to find an appropriate description, and finally settled on...homecoming. That was it; he felt at home!

Being where he was at the moment felt absolutely right in a way that being held by anyone else had never done. Before he could pursue that odd idea any further, Bodie speaking again distracted him.

"Told you before," he was saying into Doyle's hair, "I can't take it when you hurt. Stop it, Ray! You can't help it if the silly bitch was too stupid to recognise a good thing when she saw it. It isn't your fault!"

"She wasn't stupid," Doyle said. "She just couldn't understand--me--the job--anything...."

"Couldn't? Or wouldn't?"

Doyle hesitated. A small voice in his own mind had raised the self-same question when Ann had discovered him searching through her letters; had raised it again on other occasions since then. He still had no idea of the answer. He had tried so damn hard to explain the exigencies of being a CI5 agent without ever getting through to her, it seemed. Surely he couldn't have done any more?

"I don't know," he said slowly. "I honestly do not know. Maybe. She didn't like any of it, you know--CI5, the job we have to do...."

"Somebody has to do it," Bodie cut in acidly. "We can't all have the luxury of burying our heads in the sand and pretending the world's just peachy. Somebody has to clear away the garbage."

"You and I understand that, and that's what I told her," Doyle agreed. "Told her I separated the wheat from the chaff. She said I destroyed the chaff."

"Bitch!" Bodie muttered again, softly this time, knowing how that statement must have distressed the man in his arms.

Doyle shifted restlessly. Bodie stiffened, loosening his hold as he waited for the expected withdrawal. It did not come. Instead, Doyle sighed and settled back against him more comfortably. After a few seconds Bodie allowed the tension to drain out of him and tightened the embrace again.

"She didn't really like a whole lot about me, either," Doyle continued musingly. "Kept wanting me to change...."

"Typical woman, that is," Bodie told him sagely. "No sooner do they say they love a bloke than they try to make him over into something entirely different. No sense to it at all! What'd she want to change about you, anyway? Everyone knows you're perfect just the way you are."

Doyle emitted a small, muffled sound against Bodie's shoulder that might have been the beginning of a laugh at the patently ridiculous statement. "I'll remind you about saying that next time you tell me I'm getting' up your nose." After a moment, in a soft voice that sounded ever so slightly ragged, he added," She did love me, you know, even if she didn't like what I am--or what I do--very much. I should never have gone back the day we met her. I should never have started.... That bit is my fault, regardless of who's to blame for any of the rest of it. I tried so hard to fall in love with her, Bodie. God knows I wanted to! For a while I even thought I was succeeding, but...." His voice trailed off.

Into the ensuing silence Bodie said, "We can pick and choose our friends, Ray, but we have no say about the person we give our heart to. We can't fall in and out of love to order, however much we may wish we could. It just doesn't happen that way."

"Got lonely, you see." Doyle continued as though Bodie had not spoken, repeating what he had said earlier in the Red Lion. "Got tired: tired of going from one bird to another, of one casual fling after another. Was fun while it lasted, but it isn't any longer. I need something...more. Not just a body to have sex with when the urge strikes: someone permanent. Someone to care about, someone who cares about me, warts and all. I don't want to be lonely any more."

"You don't have to be, sunshine. You've always got me."

It was a few seconds before the quietly spoken, almost inaudible words penetrated Doyle's self-absorption, and another few seconds after that before he recognised just how true they were.

From the day they had been partnered Bodie had always been there, in good times and in bad; first as a colleague, then as a friend, and finally as someone to be trusted with everything up to and including Doyle's life. He was someone who had grown to know him at least as well as Doyle knew himself, who appreciated his good points and who cared for him unreservedly despite his many bad ones.

Oh yes, he would always have Bodie. The fact of that never failing support and constant presence was like something carved in stone, dependable as the very air he breathed.

Doyle glanced up, his mouth opening to say so, and the unspoken words checked in his throat. His movement had obviously been unexpected, because for the first time ever since he had known him he caught Bodie with his guard completely down. The usually shuttered face was wide open, and utterly vulnerable.

For Doyle everything stopped. And in the little eternity of that frozen moment, everything fell into place, one thing after another: things he had seen and heard without really understanding them; things he had known without realising he knew them; and things he had felt without recognising the feelings for what they really were.

His eyes widened as the revelation hit him like the proverbial bolt from the blue: his own special, private Damascus Road. God, how could he have been so utterly and completely stupid for so long, so blind to the truth?

He hadn't been able to fall in love with Ann because he was already in love with Bodie.

And Bodie was in love with him.

Doyle had no idea what expression his face was wearing in that moment, but whatever it was it had a devastating, practically instantaneous effect on Bodie. All the defensive walls went up again, all the barriers slammed back into place with an almost audible crash. His arms dropped from around Doyle as though they had been stung and he pulled back, beginning to stand up.

"I'd better go check on the grill, otherwise we'll be having a burnt offering."

His voice sounded perfectly calm and even, but when Doyle dragged him back down onto the couch the arm he caught hold of was as taut as a bowstring.

"Bodie...."

"Let me go, Ray, I need to see to the food before starvation sets in."

He tugged himself free of Doyle's grasp and disappeared into the kitchen. After a moment Doyle followed. The lingering effects of the brandy had vanished and he was suddenly stone cold sober; more sober than he had ever been in his life. He halted just inside the kitchen entrance, and hitched one hip against the wine rack that stood by the railing.

"How long? Just tell me how long?"

His back turned, Bodie peered into the grill pan. "Just a few minutes more."

"You know damn well I don't mean the food!" Doyle said loudly. "For God's sake, stop pretending. It's too late for that. I want to know how long you've loved me?"

"All right!" Bodie slammed the grill control to the off position and turned around, his expression a mixture of pain and anger. "You want to know how long, do you? A month--a year--two--I dunno! I only know I woke up one morning and there it was! Impossible, but there! Me--in love with my bloody partner, and not a damn thing I could do about it. Believe me, I tried!"

Doyle took a deep, shaky breath in an effort to calm himself. "You never considered telling me how you felt?"

"What?" Bodie gave a sharp bark of laughter that contained no humour whatsoever. "Ah c'mon, Doyle--and have you shove my teeth down my throat?"

"Is that what I'm doing now? Is it?"

"All right, maybe you wouldn't have gone so far. But I saw the disgust in your eyes a minute ago."

"That wasn't disgust, you great idiot; that was shock!"

"Same difference!"

"No, it bloody isn't!" Doyle's temper flared, but he reined it in. Bodie was balanced on a very fine edge. Getting angry with his obtuseness now would accomplish only one thing: it would drive him out of the flat and probably out of Doyle's life, and that didn't bear thinking about. "Christ, Bodie!" he said in a more reasonable tone. "Put yourself in my place for a minute. What would your first reaction have been if the positions were reversed?"

Bodie stared at him, the belligerence slowly fading from his expression only to be replaced by weary hopelessness. "Shock or disgust, it doesn't really matter, does it? Either way, you don't have to worry about it." He moved then, suddenly, pushing by Doyle and heading for the front door. "I'll see Cowley this afternoon, let him have my resignation."

"Bodie!"

The shout stopped him cold. Doyle went after him, grabbed him by the shoulders and spun him around.

"God, you can be thick at times! Hasn't it occurred to you that discovering something unexpected about my own feelings, as well as yours shocked me? Can't that excuse for a brain you have even consider the possibility that I might love you back?"

The expression of denial that swept across Bodie's face provided all the answer Doyle needed. He began to smile in triumph, then stopped at the sight of the suddenly intensified misery in the blue eyes.

"Don't, Ray, please! I don't want your pity...."

"Shut up, Bodie!" Doyle said softly, and stretched up a little and kissed him.

Under his hands Bodie's shoulders went rigid. He tried to pull back, but Doyle tightened his grip and refused to let him go. He put everything he had, all his newly discovered emotions, into the kiss in an attempt to prove he meant exactly what he had said, and after a moment Bodie uttered a small sound deep in his throat and his mouth softened and began to respond to Doyle's efforts. When Doyle finally drew back he was having trouble with his breathing, and Bodie looked dazed.

"Did that feel like pity to you?"

Bodie shook his head slowly. He raised a trembling hand and ran his fingertips down Doyle's cheek, lingering at the corner of his mouth. Doyle's skin prickled at the aching tenderness in the touch.

"Won't have you on the rebound, either," Bodie whispered. "Never could stand being second best, and especially not where you're concerned."

Doyle sighed heavily.

"You're even thicker than I thought, you know that? How many more times do I have to tell you before it sinks in? I wanted to fall in love with Ann--I tried to fall in love with Ann--but I never did fall in love with Ann. I couldn't fall in love with Ann because I was already in love with you without realising it. Now that I have realised it, I feel that I must have loved you forever, so she never really stood a chance, did she? There's no way you can be second best, you idiot! My heart was always yours, even when I was too blind and too stupid to see it."

He watched the last vestiges of doubt fade from Bodie's eyes, and then blinked suddenly as yet another piece of the puzzle slotted into place. "You know, I think Ann may have seen something though, even if I didn't. That's why she couldn't stand you."

"Believe me, the feeling was mutual."

"You told me you liked her!"

"You were talking about marriage, for God's sake!" Bodie said. "What else was I supposed to say to you? 'I hate her guts because she's taking you away from me and I'm so jealous I can't see straight'? Oh yeah, that would've gone down well! I thought you were in love with her, Ray, and I was desperate to hang onto the little part of you that was still mine. I would've said anything so I didn't lose you completely."

"Couldn't ever do that!" Doyle denied fiercely, heart pounding at the thought of Bodie's jealousy. "I've always known I need you around, even if I was too dim-witted to know the real reason. If only I'd been able to see the woods for the trees I wouldn't have wasted so much time running around like a blue arsed fly looking for something I already had."

He kissed Bodie again, hard and searchingly this time, and Bodie kissed him back, mouth opening to meet his, answering passion with passion. When they surfaced again both were achingly aroused and breathless, and Doyle's knees were threatening to give up on him. He leaned bonelessly against Bodie's solid body and said into the side of his neck, "Ought to be declared a health hazard...."

"What?"

"Your mouth. Keep on doin' things like that with it, I'll 'ave a coronary."

Bodie chuckled lasciviously. "You don't know the half of it, sunshine. I can do things with my mouth you wouldn't even believe."

Doyle's stomach tightened in anticipation. "Boasting again?"

"I never boast!" Bodie told him virtuously. His voice deepened, sending hot little shivers of heat up and down Doyle's spine. "Let me take you to bed and I'll prove it."

Half way up the spiral iron stairs, Doyle paused and looked back over his shoulder. "It's just a thought and--knowin' you--probably a daft one, but you do know how we're supposed to set about this don't you?"

Bodie's left eyebrow quirked upwards. "Why--don't you?"

Doyle actually blushed. "Theoretically, yes. From practical experience, no."

"Dear me, Raymond, you have had a restricted upbringing haven't you?" Bodie planted a warmly caressing hand on Doyle's denim-clad buttocks and urged him onwards and upwards. "Don't panic. Africa taught me more than just how to stay alive, and as I recall you're a very quick learner. I promise I'll be gentle with you."

---

Later--much, much later--he drifted up out of an exhausted sleep to find Doyle curled in close beside him, body warm and relaxed. His head was tucked into Bodie's shoulder, their legs were entangled together, and one arm was slung possessively across Bodie's chest. Warm, moist breath gusted regularly over Bodie's skin, raising tiny goose bumps of pleasure everywhere it touched.

He lay for a long time just savouring the contact and recalling with wonder what had gone before: the heights they had taken each other to, the earth shattering pleasure they had given one another. Doyle had indeed been a quick learner, and an imaginative one. Even thinking of some of the variations he'd come up with made Bodie's flesh react again. He had never experienced anything of that intensity before.

Careful not to disturb, Bodie slowly moved his head on the pillow so that he could bury his face in the tumbled mass of curls, and breathed in the scent of lemon shampoo mingled with that other smell that he always thought of as essentially Doyle. For the first time in more years than he cared to think about he felt utterly content and complete, and happier than he could remember ever having been in his whole life. Being here like this, holding Doyle and being held by him, loving Doyle and being loved by him, felt like.... Bodie sought for an analogy and found one: it felt like coming home.

This was what he had been searching for all those long, lonely years.

He smothered a rueful grin, and buried his face even deeper in Doyle's hair. God, Ray'd have a field day if he ever learned about those kinds of thoughts. On the other hand--maybe not. Some of the things he'd said and done during their lovemaking had revealed a romantic streak a mile wide, something Bodie had never suspected existed.

'Made for each other,' he thought, compounding his foolishness and not minding a bit. 'Chalk and bloody cheese in so many ways, but in this one....'

They had often been called a double act in the past. Now they really were one.

But, double act or not, there were going to be problems with this new aspect of their relationship, just as there always had been with the old one. Both of them were strong willed and independent. There had always been arguments and disagreements, some of them spectacular in the extreme. Those weren't going to vanish just because they were now lovers, any more than were Doyle's light-the-blue-touchpaper-and-retire temper or any of his own less admirable traits.

And another thing, Bodie thought--he was going to have to curb his protective instincts. Watching his partner walk into danger had never been easy; watching his lover do likewise was going to be nearly impossible. But Doyle hated being mollycoddled. He had made his opinion on the matter very clear, via numerous colourful remarks, when Bodie's impulse to step between him and trouble had surfaced in the past.

Bloody job! Why couldn't they have gone in for some nice safe occupation? Like travelling salesmanship, or market gardening?

Thinking of the job brought Cowley to mind, and Bodie grimaced. For several reasons--all of them important--the Cow would have to be told about this. Calvinistic Scot that he was, he wasn't going to approve openly of the way they had chosen to break the non-fraternisation rule, but he was also a supreme pragmatist: he would accept what could not be altered. And probably, if Bodie knew their boss half as well as he believed he did, make use of it in the future if necessity demanded. He had used other agents' personal relationships as a means to an end. Why should theirs be considered inviolate?

Bodie rubbed his chin gently and thoughtfully on the top of Doyle's head. Come to think of it, he'd be surprised if the confession of their involvement came as news to the Old Man. Those pale blue eyes were gimlet sharp and missed nothing; he'd probably known which way the wind was blowing even before they did. Probably had a mental countdown running, and had been wondering when--if ever--they were going to twig for themselves what was happening to them.

Bodie could just picture him glaring at them and saying in that rich, plummy Scots voice, "About time, too, 3.7, 4.5! What on earth took you so long?"

And if he did suspect how they felt about each other, it might go at least part of the way towards explaining why they had been allowed to walk out of Holly's interrogation with no more than a token protest, and also why he had neither arrived on Doyle's doorstep breathing fire, nor used the R/T to order them back to HQ for a reading of the Riot Act. Such behaviour was certainly abnormal, so there had to be something behind it.

Doyle's breathing changed, and he moved, stretching slowly and sensuously like a cat. The movement brought Bodie's wandering attention back to the present. The changing pressures against his side and the smooth glide of skin on skin stirred his body again in response. Doyle rolled away from their entanglement and sat up, leaning on one elbow over Bodie. Sleepy green eyes gazed down with an expression in their depths that quickened Bodie's breath.

"Hello."

Bodie swallowed. "Hello yourself."

Doyle's mouth stretched into his street urchin's grin. "That's my Bodie! Always the sparkling conversationalist." He continued his scrutiny for a moment or two, eyebrows climbing into the overhanging fringe of curls. "You sickenin' for something, or is that fatuous expression going to be the norm from now on?"

"You called me 'your Bodie'."

"So? Why shouldn't I?" Doyle demanded. "It's what you are, isn't it?"

Bodie nodded silent agreement.

"Then you'd better get used to hearing it," Doyle told him softly. "Because I'll be saying it again. Often! I like the sound of it...'my Bodie'."

Bodie cleared the sudden obstruction in his throat. "So do I. Like the sound of 'my Doyle', too."

There was a brief silence and then Doyle's grin widened impossibly and his shoulders began to shake helplessly. "My god, we have got it bad, haven't we?"

"I think it may be terminal," Bodie agreed dolefully, his eyes sparkling in complete contrast to the tone of his voice. "But who cares?" He reached up and drew Doyle down to him. "I love you, Ray, more than I ever imagined I could love anyone."

"Not half as much as I love you."

Bodie paused, their mouths only a breath apart, and regarded him severely. "You're not going to argue about who loves who the most, are you?"

"Maybe some other time," Doyle answered huskily, and leaned across the intervening distance.

The kiss lasted for a very long time. It began gently, almost reverently, with a mere brushing of lips, a touch of tongue tip to tongue tip, but quickly developed and grew more demanding as Bodie laced the fingers of one hand into Doyle's hair and held him still while he explored the willing mouth deeply. His other hand caressed Doyle's back, sliding down to pull their bodies closer together and fuelling his own need as he felt Doyle swell and grow against him. It finally ended when they both had to come up for essential air.

Doyle lay limply on Bodie's chest for several seconds, gasping for breath, before raising himself up slightly and looking down between their close-pressed bodies at the evidence of Bodie's arousal.

"Is that for me?"

Bodie managed a nod. "If you want it."

Doyle glanced up. With his flushed face framed in the riotous mass of curls, his lips red and moist and swollen, and a gleam of mischief partnering the heavy-lidded desire in the green eyes, he looked like a fallen angel.

"Oh, I want it, never fear! It's just that I wondered if there might be anything sort of...special you'd like me to do with it when I've got it?"

He moved his hips slowly and deliberately, and Bodie uttered a sharp gasp at the surge of fire that raced through him and centred in his groin.

"You'll probably think of...something...without any suggestions...from me."

"Probably," Doyle agreed, beginning a slow-paced glide down Bodie's chest and abdomen, planting small biting kisses as he went. Half way to his ultimate goal he paused and looked up. "Do let me know when you start enjoyin' yourself, won't you? I like my efforts to be appreciated."

A little later Bodie's hands closed convulsively on the sheet and he gasped again as all coherent thought fled.

And for a long time there was no past and no future....

Only the present--and each other....

And nothing else mattered.

-- THE END --