Dominic hummed thoughtfully. “Interesting.”
“Why does she hate you?” Sam said.
“She thinks I’m after her job.”
“Are you?”
“Maybe.”
“Seriously? You want to be Chief of MI6?”
Dominic made a face. “Want” was too strong a word.
“In a few years maybe. It’s something I’m considering.”
“Aren’t you a bit young for the job?”
Dominic shrugged a little. “I have enough experience. Age might actually be a positive thing. The main reason the higher-ups are considering replacing Amanda is because she’s too old-fashioned. Technologically we’re quite a bit behind foreign intelligence agencies like the CIA, and not because we don’t have the brains. Amanda is just set in her old ways and refuses to give the Research and Development department enough funding. It gets frustrating at times, because, for example, our last mission would have been so much easier if we had some of the technology the CIA possesses. So yes, sometimes it’s tempting as hell to take charge of MI6 so we are no longer stuck in the past century.”
“But the hacking program the boffins gave us was pretty neat,” Sam said, a smile in his voice. “I may or may not have made an illegal copy for myself.”
Dominic smiled, relief coursing through him at the lightness of Sammy’s voice. He’d started thinking he wouldn’t get to hear it again.
“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,” he said dryly.
“Hear what?” Sammy said, his voice very innocent and sweet.
Dominic laughed. He could vividly imagine wide green eyes gazing at him with feigned confusion and innocence. If Sammy were here, he would—he would kiss Sammy on his pert nose. Or maybe on his cheek. Sammy would blush, and do that subconscious thing he always did when Dominic touched him—lean into Dominic’s touch, as though asking for more. He always wanted more.
“Nick?” Sammy said uncertainly, snapping him back to the present.
Dominic shook his head, bemused by his own thoughts. “Sorry, got distracted for a moment.” He rubbed a finger between his brows, frowning. “Sam?”
“What?”
Dominic couldn’t believe what he was about to ask. “Are we okay?” It came off as awkward and strange as he’d expected. He was asking an eighteen-year-old boy he’d shared a mission with whether they were okay even though objectively he had done nothing wrong. It shouldn’t have mattered that Sammy was upset by his next mission.
“Is there a we?” Sammy said.
Dominic closed his eyes. “I wouldn’t be asking if there wasn’t. I don’t want you to think I don’t want you around now that the mission is over.”
There was silence on the line.
“You do?”
The utter vulnerability in Sammy’s voice made Dominic’s chest tighten with protectiveness. “Of course I do, baby,” he heard himself say. Immediately, Dominic grimaced. He shouldn’t have used the endearment. The mission was over and continuing to use endearments would just mess with Sammy’s head—with both of their heads. Things were complicated enough already.
“I wasn’t sure you did,” Sam confessed, endearingly honest. Dominic didn’t need to see him to know that Sammy was smiling, just a little.
Realizing that he was smiling too, Dominic ran a hand over his face, unease settling low in his stomach.
What the hell was he doing?
“I have to go,” he said tersely and ended the call.
Immediately, he felt like an asshole—a bigger asshole than he already was.
* * *
Sammy called him two hours later.
“Hello,” he said, sounding shy but determined. Dominic could imagine him worrying his lip, Sammy’s chin propped on his knees. The image was disturbingly vivid in his mind.
“Hey,” Dominic said, opening the fridge. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah,” Sammy said. “I just… You kinda hung up without saying goodbye and I was just…” He trailed off before groaning. It sounded muffled, as if Sammy was doing it into his hand. “Basically, I’m that uncool clingy kid who wants to make sure people don’t secretly hate him. Please ignore me. I’m hanging up and never using a phone again.”
Dominic found himself smiling. “I don’t secretly hate you. We’re fine. Sorry if I gave you the impression that I didn’t want to talk to you.”
“Then why did you hang up so abruptly?”
Dominic hesitated. His first instinct was to lie—with his job, it always was—before he remembered that honesty should go both ways.
“To be honest, I did want to stop talking to you,” Dominic said, closing the fridge with the mental note to go grocery shopping as soon as possible. “But not because I secretly hate you.”
There was silence on the line.
Dominic walked to his laptop and took the seat in front of it again. The picture of Luke Whitford stared at him from the screen. Luke looked quite a bit younger than his twenty-three years. With his golden hair, fine features, and full lips, he was objectively very good-looking. He was more good-looking than most women Dominic knew. It was a pity he couldn’t feel a flicker of attraction to him, which made his mission all the more difficult. Faking desire wasn’t easy, even for someone as experienced as him. There were always tells, lack of erection the most damning. He’d been staring at that picture for the past hour, trying to find something about Luke that attracted him—he couldn’t exactly take Viagra every time he went out with Luke.