Notes: I wrote this in May, 2013, because May is Dreamspinner’s anniversary month. The title is a riff on what had been the first chapter of Mann—Happy Birthday, Baby, which became the second chapter in Houseboat on the Nile, Book 1 of Spy vs. Spook. This takes place in 2004.
Thanks to Tim Mead and Gail for their help with this. And to Robb for being such a gracious archive dad.
Happy Anniversary, Baby
Before Quinton Mann, I’d mostly done one-night stands. It was easier, neater that way.
After Quinn, it was just him, and it was better, in spite of the fact that he was CIA and I was WBIS, because frankly, never the twain should have met.
But we did meet.
We were the last people anyone would have expected to wind up together.
Somehow, we did wind up together.
**
Quinn and I were never what you might call formally introduced.
Of course I’d known of the CIA spook for some years, and most likely he could have said the same of me, although at that time I was the senior special agent for the Washington Bureau of Intelligence and Security.
This thing between us started when he phoned my office to invite me to dinner at Raphael’s, the upscale Italian restaurant in DC. It was to celebrate my birthday, but it turned into so much more.
And now here we were, two years later....
**
I never said anything to Quinn, but I’d always considered May 29 our anniversary. Not of when we’d met, in that warehouse on the Patapsco River, or the first time he’d gone down on me, in the men’s room at Raphael’s on my birthday, or even the first time I’d fucked him, which was after he’d poured most of a bottle of champagne into me to celebrate my promotion to Deputy Director of Interior Affairs.
No, the twenty-ninth was the day I’d realized just how much the spook meant to me, because as soon as I’d learned Quinn had been kidnapped and was being held by Prinzip, a rogue antiterrorist organization based in France, I’d gone after him.
It could have cost me the job I’d worked at for fifteen years. Hell, it could have cost me my life. None of that had mattered. As clichéd as it sounded, without Quinn, life wouldn’t have been worth living. So I’d flown to Paris to get him, and I’d taken Prinzip apart in the process.
I’d never told Quinn. What would be the purpose? He was royalty in the intelligence community, and me? I was the guy who took care of the dirty jobs.
Quinn surprised me, though. He didn’t seem to mind the enjoyment I took in my work—after all, what could be more satisfying than taking out the idiots of this world? But in addition to that, it made no difference to him that I’d grown up on the wrong side of the tracks... that my father was out of my life before I’d entered kindergarten and my old lady was a lush.
So like I’d said, here we were... a couple.
But the thing was... he still lived in his town house and I lived in my condo.
We spent a lot of nights in my bed or in his—not as many as I’d have liked, but I was willing to take what I could get. And on those nights we were together and he’d fall asleep in my arms, I’d lie awake trying to come up with a—okay, so shoot me—a romantic way to ask him to move in with me.
**
I’d never asked how many square feet his town house was, but it had two stories. Two bedrooms with en suite bathrooms were on the second floor, while on the first were the living, dining, and music rooms, along with the kitchen and wine cellar.
My condo was about three thousand square feet, and some of that square footage was a super-sized pantry. If Quinn even mentioned the words “moving in,” I’d turn that pantry into a wine cellar in a New York City minute for him.
But he seemed happy in his town house, and how could I argue with that? I had fond memories of it myself, having broken into it back when we’d first started fucking with each other’s minds. I’d cuffed him to his bed, cut his pajamas off him, and gone down on him.
And why hadn’t I done that since? Not the blowing him—if we didn’t do that before we went to sleep, we’d do it before we got up for the day—but cuffing him to the bed. He’d enjoyed it a lot, which surprised the hell out of me at the time. He was known as the Ice Man throughout the intelligence community, after all.
Bunch of fucking idiots, not seeing the heat beneath the surface. He’d just needed to give up control to really burn.
Well, it was their loss; no way were any of them getting another chance at my lover.
And the next time he spent the night? I was breaking out the handcuffs.
**
It was May 29, the perfect day to ask Quinn to move in, and I planned to do it over that romantic dinner. I had two-inch-thick T-bone steaks and jumbo lobster tails in the fridge, along with a Chocolate Orgasm from Rosie’s Bakery up in Cambridge. After Quinn had sampled it our first Christmas together—and very nearly had an orgasm at his mother’s dinner table—I’d made sure we had it a few times a year.
I was also going to serve up a couple of Idaho potatoes, slathered with butter, sour cream, and chives, and a mixed salad with vinaigrette dressing.
Quinn came out of the study. Lately, he’d taken to locking himself in there for an hour or so whenever he came over. I had no idea what he was doing, although I could hear him tapping away at his laptop, and as much as I wanted to know, I respected his privacy.
He watched as I crawled around the far end of the living room, finally asking, “What are you doing?”
“Measuring.” I had a tape measure out and was noting feet and inches. I was pretty sure Quinn’s baby grand piano would fit in that spot, but I wanted to be certain.
“I can see that. What for?”
“Oh, I thought I’d have Matheson put in some built-ins,” I said breezily.
“Sounds like a good idea.”
Yeah? Looked like I’d really need to have Matheson do a little woodworking for me.
Quinn handed me a stack of papers.
“What’s this?”
“A manuscript. It’s something I’ve been working on in my spare time. I’m calling it Mind Fuck.”
Mind Fuck? “You’re going to be a writer in your spare time?”
He nodded and worried his lip.
“Okay, but why Challenger Deep?” That was the name under the title.
“I need to distance us…. Look, I’m going to drive to Great Falls and visit Mother and Gregor. I should be back in time for dinner. Maybe Raphael’s?”
I cleared my throat. “It’s Saturday.”
“There’s no law that says we can’t go two nights in a row.”
I just shrugged, although I was smugly pleased. He hadn’t seen what was waiting in the fridge.
“You can read this while I’m gone.”
“You’re awfully confident about the speed of my reading.”
“I’d simply like you to read the first few chapters.” If it was anyone other than Quinton Mann, I’d have sworn he was nervous. He grabbed up his keys and started to leave the room, but then he turned back and kissed me.
Before I could pull him against me and deepen the kiss, he strode to the front door, unlocked it in the latest sequence, and left.
Alone in the condo, I flipped through the pages before setting the manuscript down on the coffee table and going to the kitchen to take a bottle of Coke from the fridge—it was too early in the day for a Sam Adams. Then I went back into the living room, made myself comfortable, and began to read.
And read.
No wonder why he’d wanted to distance us from this. It was a fictionalized account of how we’d met and the mind games we’d played with each other.
And to say it was steamy was putting it mildly.
Three hours later, I turned over the last page, tidied the stack, and placed it on the coffee table. I reached for the bottle of Coke and swallowed, grimacing as I realized it had gone flat. “Shit.”
A sound had me looking up.
Quinn was standing in the long hallway that led from the front door. “You’re finished?”
“How long have you been there?” Dammit, I was losing my touch. I’d been so wrapped in the story I hadn’t heard the door open.
“About five minutes. What… what do you think about it?”
I scowled at him. “How come I got to be the woman?” I knew why the characters had to be straight—that was the way it was. Didn’t mean I liked it, but I understood it.
“When you write a book, you can make me the woman. What do you think of it?”
“Do you have an agent?”
“Uncle Bryan knows someone out in L.A. After reading the first chapter, she expressed interest. What do you think?” he asked a third time.
“I’m impressed.”
“Really?”
“Really. You did good.” He did fucking amazing!
“You didn’t think I had it in me, did you?”
He was going to have me in him. “Baby, I’m more proud of you than I can say.” I got to my feet, crossed to where he stood, and ran my palm up and down his biceps. “This will give us something else to celebrate.”
“What else are we celebrating?”
“Did I say something else? I meant something.”
“I… see.” He sounded disappointed, and that was the last thing I wanted.
“Okay, look, Quinn. I know we… uh… sort of exchanged… words, after that thing with Wexler.”
“Yes, we did.”
We’d been watching Hondo, and after John Wayne explained to Geraldine Page about the squaw-seeking ceremony ending with the single word that meant forever, I’d turned to Quinn and found myself saying, “Forever.” I hadn’t been sure how he would respond to that, but he’d stroked his thumb over my cheekbone and whispered the word against my lips.
“And....” Fuck it; time to man up. “I always considered today our anniversary.”
He stared into my eyes, and then tilted his head. “Paris?”
“Yeah.”
“I’d hoped….” He relaxed into me and curled an arm around my neck. “So did I.”
All right! I grabbed his wrist and tugged him after me toward the bedroom.
He pulled me to a halt. “Mark?”
“Get with the program, Mann. We’ve got a couple of hours before I need to start dinner—”
“No Raphael’s?”
“Not tonight. I have a T-bone in the fridge with your name on it.”
“Oh?”
I grinned at him. “You’re going to need your strength. I always wanted to make love with a bestselling author.”
“Did you, now?” His eyes were bright.
“You bet. As long as you’re that bestselling author.”
“Yes? In that case, I have only one thing to say to you.” He cupped my cheek in his palm, drew my face to his, and kissed me. “Happy anniversary, baby.”
