Death's Ink Black Shadow by John Wiltshire Read Free Book Online Page A

male human being turn up on his doorstep. And he hadn’t even been able to tell Steven that he was his father. Molly Rose’s existence confused the hell out of Ben, so what Nikolas must be thinking was unimaginable.
    Ben felt emasculated by his daughter, but his daughter didn’t know her father liked cock! Because wasn’t that what it came down to when all was said and done and denied? Gay or not—and as Ben had already convinced himself, the jury was still out on that, despite professions of gayness in Lancashire; needs must as the devil drives, and the fucking devil had definitely needed him to say something in front of those men—so, gay or not, Ben liked cock. He couldn’t deny it. Cock was on his mind most of the day, just hovering in the background, wondering when he’d get Nikolas’s again, sometimes crotch-watching Nikolas, speculating, anticipating…
    Nikolas had met his son, and along with the other gelding this might entail, he’d had his boyfriend present. The person he chose to fuck. The cock he thought about, watched, anticipated …
    No wonder he’d been odd!
    He hadn’t entirely negated Ben’s existence.
    It was obvious Ben lived here with him.
    He’d just wanted him gone for a few days to possibly prevent Steven from dwelling on their relationship, obsessing on what everyone focused on when they thought about a man having sex with another man…
    How typical was it of Nikolas to decide to drive Ben away with anger, provoke a fight, rather than sit him down and admit he didn’t want his boyfriend around when his son came to visit? Ben sighed and hung his head for a while, feeling jaded and depressed.
    What did he want to happen? Did he really want to be introduced as Nikolas’s boyfriend? Maybe he could have the baby bouncing on his hip and be baking…
    Fucking hell!
    Why was it was all so complicated? Just give him the fucking op order and tell him the target. He could work the rest out for himself—mission command and all that good shit—but fucking hell, someone tell him why it was all so difficult?
    No, Nikolas made it so.
    Nikolas made everything extreme, no compromises, no…alteration.
    Nikolas didn’t change . He took on some new programming every so often, assimilated the updated code for a while, but then reverted back to his factory default. Nikolas would never evolve.
    It was a depressing thought.
    But then Ben wondered whether he’d really altered either.
    He owned a few more shiny toys now than he had before, but essentially wasn’t he still the nothing Nikolas had taken and shaped and moulded to his own design?
    The idea that they were equals in this relationship was farcical. If they were, he wouldn’t need Nikolas to tell Steven about him. His existence, his status, would be obvious. He would have introduced himself, “Hi, I’m Ben, Nik’s boyfriend.” How hard was that?
    Ben lifted his head, staring blankly at the wall.
    Could he?
    Nikolas had accepted Ben’s daughter…introduced Ben to his own baby, won him around…
    Why couldn’t he do that with Nikolas’s son?
    Wouldn’t that be the mature thing to do?
    Here he was sunk in self-pity because Nikolas was being Nikolas yet again. Let him.
    Ben’s phone rang. Squeezy. They had a meaningless conversation about nothing as he thought through his idea. It was only when he’d rung off that the first brilliant part of his plan occurred to him. He rang his friend back and begged a favour.
    § § §
    Nikolas appeared pleased to find Ben packing a bag later that day.
    “You’re returning to Devon?”
    Ben was frowning over his passport and shook his head. “No, I thought I might go visit Ingrid for a few days. She’s been asking me for ages.” He caught puzzlement out of the corner of his eye on his favourite scarred face and smiled privately. Nikolas wasn’t quite so committed to his scheme of driving some space between them as to have Ben go as far as Denmark. Good.
    “Ingrid?”
    Ben hefted his duffle onto