Just a Bit Shameless (Straight Guys 8)

All in all, Sam considered himself lucky. It could have been worse; it could have been much worse. His uncle had never physically hurt him. He’d never been forced to sleep outside in the winter. Granted, being under Tucker’s “protection” wasn’t much better.

Compared to his old life, the life of an MI6 trainee was easy and nice. Sam didn’t even mind that he seemed to be the only one enrolled into such an intense training program.

“I’m so jealous of you,” Kira, another trainee, said two weeks into his training as Sam took a rare break for lunch. “I asked around. Accelerated training program is for special cases. That means you’ll get a real mission soon.”

Sam nodded. He’d had an inkling that he had been recruited with a specific mission in mind. He was very curious about that—and a little nervous.

But before he could say anything, he noticed that Kira’s attention was elsewhere.

“That special agent is looking at us,” Kira whispered excitedly.

Sam followed her gaze.

He went still when he saw Agent 11. He hadn’t seen the agent at all since he delivered Sam to the training facility weeks ago.

Agent 11 was as annoyingly hot as he remembered. The man’s shoulders and arms looked unfairly good in that suit, and the contrast between his white shirt and his bronzed neck was—

Sam tore his eyes away and sternly told him to stop ogling straight men. In the past weeks, he’d heard enough about Agent 11 to know that the bloke was straight as an arrow. Apparently, Agent 11 wasn’t shy about using his body if the mission required it and he had seduced countless women—if the rumors were to be believed.

“So what?” Sam said with a shrug.

“Are you kidding? Special agents normally never bother with rookies! They’re the elite, the very best, the top of the food chain, the—”

“You just want to shag him,” Sam said with a smile, trying to suppress the urge to look back at Agent 11. Straight, straight, straight. Bloody hell, would he ever learn?

“Of course I do,” Kira said shamelessly. “Who wouldn’t? But that’s not the point. Special agents literally never come here. There are, like, twenty of them in total, and they’re all usually deep undercover—oh my God, he’s coming over here, Sammy!”

“Don’t call me Sammy,” Sam corrected her automatically, his mind racing as he watched Agent 11 approach them with Agent Brown in tow. Agent Brown, Sam’s usual trainer, looked a little uncomfortable and… maybe angry? Sam wasn’t sure. He still wasn’t all that good at reading emotions of people who had been trained in concealing them.

“Landon,” Agent Brown said in a clipped voice. “Agent 11 offered to take over your training in Torture and Interrogation that was scheduled for this afternoon. Follow him.”

Sam swallowed. He hadn’t exactly been looking forward to this afternoon’s training session. He knew that Torture and Interrogation training was mandatory for all field agents—they were supposed to be trained to withstand torture so they didn’t give away classified information. But it didn’t mean that he wasn’t a little afraid. He had an embarrassingly low pain threshold.

Sam looked at Agent 11. The man’s face was impossible to read. He simply jerked his head, motioning Sam to follow him, and stalked away. Sam struggled to catch up with him.

“Hello,” Sam said. “You didn’t say hello. Rude.”

Agent 11 shot him an amused look and kept on walking. “Hello, Red. How are you liking MI6?”

“It’s… interesting,” Sam said.

“That’s one way to put it,” Agent 11 said, leading him into Training Room 4A.

Sam followed him into the room and glanced around nervously. He couldn’t see any obvious torture tools, but what would those even look like?

“So are you an orphan?” Sam blurted out.

The agent took off his suit jacket and threw it on the desk. “What?”

“Are you an orphan? Like, I’ve asked around, and the overwhelming majority of trainees are orphans. I have a theory that MI6 prefers to recruit orphans, which is, like, fucked up? And kind of scary, to be honest, because the reason is pretty obvious, yeah? I mean—”

Agent 11 laughed. “Breathe, Sammy.”

Sam flushed. “I am breathing. I’m not nervous. It’s just… they should have named this training course differently, don’t you think? Torture and Interrogation sounds creepy.”

Agent 11’s lips twitched. “I’ll pass along your suggestion to the higher-ups.” But then, the mirth in his eyes disappeared, replaced by something grim and hard. “Sit down, Sam.”

Sam sat down in the only chair in the room. Why was it so dim here?

“Ominous,” he said with a chuckle that sounded painfully awkward and nervous even to his own ears. He was probably fooling no one. “So are you going to torture me now?”

Agent 11 looked at him unwaveringly. “I’ll tell you a secret. The Torture and Interrogation training is a load of crap.”

Sam blinked. “What?”

Agent 11’s sensual lips twisted into something that wasn’t quite a smile. “If you get caught, no amount of ‘training’ will prepare you for the real thing.”