Paradox

By Chris Quinton

Phil's job is full of danger and excitement most of the time, and he trusts his partner with his life. Until Ryan kisses him. It’s a diversion tactic to convince the heavies they’re two harmless gays, but that kiss shakes Phil’s world to its foundations. He doesn’t do commitment, doesn’t need or want a long-term lover, but that’s what his heart is reaching for.

Drifting in and out of a dream-haunted coma, trapped in his wrecked car waiting for rescue, he's sharing a parallel life. Many centuries ago, someone is trying to kill Caius Marcellus Niger. Phil must find out who and why before they succeed. But he’s alone. No partner, no backup, and nothing is the way it seems.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chris Quinton
• Release date: Apr 7, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310568909

Chris Quinton

Chris Quinton  Chris started creating stories not long after she mastered joined-up writing, somewhat to the bemusement of her parents and her English teachers. But she received plenty of encouragement. Her dad gave her an already old Everest typewriter when she was ten, and it was probably the best gift she'd ever received – until the inventions of the home-computer and the worldwide web. Chris's reading and writing interests range from historical, mystery, and paranormal, to science-fiction and fantasy, writing mostly in the male/male genre. She also writes the occasional male/female novel in the name of Chris Power. She refuses to be pigeon-holed and intends to uphold the long and honourable tradition of the Eccentric Brit to the best of her ability. In her spare time [hah!] she reads, or listens to audio books while quilting or knitting. Over the years she has been a stable lad [briefly] in a local racing stable and stud, a part-time and unpaid amateur archaeologist, a civilian clerk at her local police station and a 15th century re-enactor. She lives in a small and ancient city not far from Stonehenge in the south-west of the United Kingdom, and shares her usually chaotic home with an extended family, three dogs, a Frilled Dragon [lizard], sundry goldfish and tropicals

Book preview

PARADOX

by

Chris Quinton

Copyright - Chris Quinton 2012 - 2021

Cover Image Copyright - Chris Quinton

With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced

or used in whole or in part by any means existing

without written permission from the Author, Chris Quinton.

Piracy is Theft

The royalties from the sale of my books help to support my family and pay essential bills. If you like this story, please spread the word and tell others about it,

but *please* don’t share it or pirate it.

This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

Contents

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Glossary

About the Author

Bibliography

Dedication

To the Usual Suspects - thank you for your support, nags, kicks in the arse,

copious amounts of tea, beer, wine, and encouragement.

You make writing even more of a pleasure.

~ * ~

Definition from Webster’s:

PARADOX: A tenet or proposition contrary to received opinion; an assertion or sentiment seemingly contradictory, or opposed to common sense; that which in appearance or terms is absurd, but yet may be true in fact.

Chapter One

Their quarry paused, silhouetted against a brightly lit restaurant off Amsterdam’s Leidseplein, and Phil Morgan ducked back into the alley’s entrance. Beside him, his partner gave a small hiss of triumph.

It’s Fremantle, no question, Ryan Buchanan murmured, voice little more than a breath in his ear. We’ve got him. But we’re not the only ones.

What? Phil peered around, straining to see into night-shadows. Movement down the street caught his eye. Half a dozen men came out of a nearby club and split up. They drifted to cover the street, while one of their number approached Fremantle. They’re not cops.

The one with Fremantle is Janos Belushi. Shit, he’s making the pickup ahead of schedule.

Well, fuck, Phil muttered.

Beside him, Ryan was calling it in to their team leader. Five-Gamma to Five-Alpha. He stuck strictly to their code-names. Primary target acquired, secondaries closing.

We need to be closer. Phil nudged his elbow into Ryan’s ribs. Come on, Buck.

Wait! Fuck’s sake, you hot-headed—

Phil ignored his partner. He pulled off his dark cap, ruffled his short hair into trendy spikes, and strolled casually across the square with a swagger to his shoulders, confident as always that Ryan would follow his lead. He walked through the cordon of Belushi’s men, ignoring the suspicious glares directed his way, and stopped to read the illuminated menu and programme outside the Paradiso Club.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Fremantle hand over a package the size and shape of a book. He could even see the dark print at each end and didn’t need to read it to know the cardboard bore the Amazon labelling. No book sat inside it; according to their info, it held a gold and gem-framed icon, three hundred years old, stolen from the Csák-Salazar Gallery in Budapest a month ago.

Then Phil saw three heavies striding purposefully towards him. Fuck, Ryan, where the hell are you?

And there he was, running towards him waving and grinning like an idiot, untidy red-blond hair flying in the evening breeze.

Hé, Jacques, je suis tarde! Je suis désolé! Ryan called in French, the language their code for follow my lead. Ryan didn’t slow down when he was close. Instead he barrelled into Phil, wrapping one arm around him and pulling him into a close embrace. And kissed him, full on the mouth, his hand clamped on the nape of Phil’s neck, ensuring he had to stand there and take it.

Heat seared through Phil’s blood. Ryan’s mouth was demanding, moving slow and languorous on his, as if he would feast on him for hours. He tried to breathe through the shock of it, tried to fight the tide of sheer lust flaring up in him, tried to push his partner away. But his muscles would not cooperate. Instead his arms moved of their own volition and locked around Ryan’s lean body, holding him closer—then Ryan ended the kiss and nibbled on his earlobe.

We’re creating the diversion, he whispered. Dennis and Vera are making the retrieval.

Shock became anger and Phil broke their embrace, shoving Ryan away from him. Somehow he managed to remember they were on assignment, and what was at stake. Qui était avec vous? he yelled, improvising quickly. He didn’t have to fake his outrage.

Qu’est-ce? Jacques?

The three men sniggered and turned away, and Phil’s next shove sent Ryan cannoning into them. Ryan flailed his arms, ostensibly to catch his balance, but landing some painful blows on Belushi’s watchdogs. Retaliation was inevitable. The rest of Belushi’s goons joined in, and the resulting free-for-all provided all the diversion their team needed.

Dennis Johnstone’s chokehold put Belushi down and out in a matter of seconds. Vera Grant dropped Fremantle and relieved Belushi of the priceless package. They took off at a run, diving into the first dark doorway.

Right on cue, Harry Blake’s bellow echoed off the walls. "Politie! he yelled in Dutch. Politie!" The brawl disintegrated and the crooks melted into the night, leaving Ryan and Phil reeling, battered and winded, and alone outside the club.

God, Ryan wheezed. That was almost too easy. Come on!

What the fuck were you playing at? Phil demanded as they sprinted away. Kissing me like that!

Watching your back and creating the diversion. Ryan grinned at him, looking ten years younger than his thirty-five years. But his expression was feral in the shifting patterns of coloured light from streetlamps and storefronts, vibrant and alive and high on adrenaline. Don’t worry, Hotshot, you won’t have to marry me. Behind them, shouts went up, punctuated by the sharp crack of a gunshot. Glass shattered close by them. Run! As if they weren’t already.

They ran, but Phil couldn’t run away from the memory of Ryan’s lips burning on his, nor his own semi-hard cock and the heat of arousal pooling in his loins.

* * * *

Phil had been dating Carol off and on for a while now, in between other girls, of course. She was the nearest he’d ever come to having a steady girlfriend, mainly because she was just as freewheeling when it came to relationships. The bottom line: Phil didn’t do commitment. It didn’t pay to get too used to someone being around. His mother’s four failed marriages had shown him that.

As a consequence of Amsterdam, he’d been playing the field even more, but when Carol murmured, Drive me home, Phil, stay over a while? on Thursday evening, he jumped at the chance.

God, yes!

I don’t have to go in tomorrow. Can you get a few days off?

Sure, he said quickly. I’m only a desk-jockey, he continued, his trademark wide-eyed innocence firmly in place, The same way he used to say, I’m just a Home Office pen-pusher, when he worked for the Serious Organised Crime Agency. I don’t get to sell insurance, just process it, so they won’t miss me. Keyboards and paperwork, that’s my life.

Which was true, up to a point. After all, reports had to be read—and written—and the assignments carried out in between. If he was lucky, he could usually get his partner to deal with their post-op reports. His partner, who couldn’t see why Phil was making such a big deal about the way the Amsterdam assignment had ended.

I know what you mean. Carol sighed, her blue eyes gazing soulfully into his. If I had to sell another pair of shoes today, I’d have screamed. It’ll be so good to get away for a while.

Mm, yes. Just me and you, sweetheart.

The three-day leave due to him offered the ideal opportunity to get away from London. To Kingswood, north of Bristol, while summer went out in a blaze of warm days and chilly nights. The fact that he was also getting away from his partner was something Phil didn’t think about. Much. He liked Ryan, respected him, and God knew he trusted him with his life, but for the last three weeks—ever since Amsterdam—it seemed as if he couldn’t escape the memory of the way Ryan’s mouth had tasted and felt.

As for the dreams that took things way beyond a mere kiss—they were inconveniently explicit. Simply thinking about them caused Phil’s cock to swell with delicious heat. He knew where they came from: the occasional double date that ended up in the same room, and once or twice in the same bed. Ryan’s whipcord body moving so close to him, skin glossed with sweat, the scent of sex heavy in the air, had been an unexpected aphrodisiac. It had lifted his own orgasm to new heights of sensation, though the girl du jour took all the credit.

His bisexuality meant he had the best of both worlds as far as Phil was concerned, and he was comfortable with it. But he wasn’t open. Six years of keeping his less mainstream sexual exploits hidden while serving as a helicopter pilot in the Royal Air Force, indulging them only when on leave, naturally segued into equal discretion when he was with SOCA. That didn’t change when he was headhunted into Davidson & Hart’s Security & Retrieval and became half of a unit, though his Department Head knew, of course. Trent knew everything about every one of his agents.

Since Phil spent so much time with Ryan on and off duty, his dates and one-night-pickups were all with women. Sometimes he missed the solid strength of a male body in his arms, but not enough to risk Ryan finding out. But it wasn’t the lust burning in him for his partner, or the fear that Ryan would walk away from him and the unit if he knew Phil was bi and fancied him. It was the depth and intensity of that lust, the jealousy searing him when he saw Ryan with yet another woman that scared Phil. The possessiveness in his head yelling, "He’s mine!" came far too close to commitment, me and thee forever, and Phil did not do commitment outside of a working partnership.

It didn’t stop him wondering about Ryan, though. Trent had specialists in his department, individuals who could be planted deep undercover to get close to and seduce their targets and mine them for information by whatever means available. Trent had no scruples about using his agents as sexual bait, regardless of the gender of agent or target. Skin-jobs, those were called, and rumour had it Ryan had been assigned to some skin-jobs before the injury to his face left him with the long scar some might see as disfiguring. Phil had seen photos of the youthful Ryan. He’d been a hell of a looker in his mid-twenties: deceptively slender, his proud-boned features close to androgynous beneath a mop of artfully untidy waves of strawberry blond hair.

Ten years on, Ryan was better-looking in Phil’s opinion. His features had fined down even more, and while he could still pull off wide-eyed innocence, the dangerousness inherent in him was more clearly seen. While Phil was five years younger, an inch or so taller, heavier built, wider in the shoulders, and physically stronger, he rarely won their practice bouts in offence and defence. The Ryan of now was a far cry from his younger self. But he had never spoken of those early assignments, and Phil didn’t ask, afraid the answers might feed his growing obsession even more.

So, yes, Phil didn’t commit, and all of a sudden he was lusting after his partner of four years, yearning for an unknown something? Panicking was justified.

Maybe it was time to request a reteaming, or even to look for another job outside of the insurance business.

A pity, because Phil liked working for Davidson & Hart. It paid well and fed his frequent need for an adrenaline rush. It also appealed to his admittedly questionable sense of humour to tell people he worked for an insurance company. It was the truth, as far as it went, but D&H was a little bit more than that. For a start, they were an international concern of sound reputation specialising in museums and art galleries. Then there was the S&R Department.

Usually Security & Retrieval worked within the law, but not always. Sometimes the item in need of retrieval was in the hands of collectors beyond the law’s reach. Then either a team of six, or a combination of smaller units, all highly trained in a variety of mayhem, were sent in without official backup or sanction.

Not all retrievals went as smoothly as the Amsterdam assignment. And none of them had featured a kiss he couldn’t get out of his head. No, that wasn’t the issue. His reaction to Ryan’s kiss was. Too powerful, too much hunger, too much need. He and Ryan had a working partnership, a solid friendship. Nothing more. He didn’t want anything more. Thank God there was Carol to take his mind off his partner and those bloody dreams.

* * * *

A pint of beer appeared in front of Ryan, plonked so emphatically on the highly polished table that Ryan had to scoot back in his chair or risk