The scent has had time to build up again in the closed room, and he has to stop and lean against the wall for a moment because it makes him so dizzy.

Lewis has thrashed about in the bed so much that he has kicked most of the bedding onto the floor. He has clawed off his shirt and is scrabbling at his fly. He must be at the very height of the wave.

A strange stillness comes over James then, and he realises this is what Laura meant when she said he should trust his hormones. He feels calm and purposeful. Steadily, he pulls off his shoes and socks, and then the rest of his clothes, stripping down to his skin and leaving his things in a pile by the door. It is an odd feeling, this sense of inner power. For the first time in his life, James Hathaway feels at peace inside his own skin. Naked, flayed of all pretence, here he is, ready to fulfil the purpose for which nature intended him. His whole life suddenly seems to have focussed down to this one moment. He knows what he has to do, and he will do it. He will save the life of the man he loves. He will mate. He can almost feel the little spiral ladders of his genome spinning inside his cells, the evolutionary programming that has led to this moment. There will be no baby, but that doesn't matter. The drive is simply to mate. All else is now irrelevant.

Lewis cries out for him, smelling the change in his scent, and he slides onto the bed and takes the desperate, sweating omega in his arms.

'Oh, God, help me, help me!'

'It's alright, I'm here now,' he whispers. His voice is deep and steady. 'You don't have to suffer anymore.'

Lewis moans, but he captures those chapped lips with his own, and it is as if every dream, every fantasy he has ever cherished in the dark of the night is coming true.

Somehow, he manages to get Lewis's trousers off, fumbling fingers made clumsy with desperation, prizing off the last of the clothing that comes between them. Then their bodies surge together, and they both cry out in relief at the touch of skin.

Laura was right, too, about the instinct. When Lewis opens his thighs, wraps his legs and arms around James's skinny form, he knows what to do, and how. He lines himself up and finds he slides in easily. Inside, Lewis is wet and slick and hot, and it is the most perfect thing James has ever known. He doesn't want to hurt Lewis but he can't help thrusting hard into him, and it seems to help because Lewis is crying out and grabbing at him, urging him on. His nails sink into the muscles of James's back and buttocks, and dear God, but that's so good. He wants to lose himself in this silken, slick moment and never come out again. Lewis is writhing and arching under him, meeting every thrust of his pelvis with an answering buck, taking every inch of him and begging for more.

And then not begging, but confessing.

'God, James, I love you, I love you so much! My bonny lad, my beautiful, bonny lad!

For a moment he stills, hardly able to believe what he is hearing, and the tears fill his eyes again as Lewis opens his own eyes and fixes him with a cogniscent look, and cries out again:

'Oh, God, love, please don't stop! Fill me, love, fill me!'

And he does.

Because there isn't any doubt in his mind now that Lewis wants this, that he is conscious and capable to making a decision about his needs regardless of the hormones coursing through his veins. If he says he loves James, then it's true, and James doesn't care about anything else anymore.

Their bodies become a continuous flowing wave of movement, joined at lips and hips, undulating against one another as they surge towards the culmination. James plunders Lewis's willing mouth, presses his belly down so that he gives Lewis's tortured cock a firm stroke with every thrust, hangs onto his shoulders, runs his one free hand down Lewis's long back, over his bum and along the underside of his thigh. And then he tells him.

Tells him the truth.

'I love you. I've always loved you. I want you so much. You're so beautiful. Oh, my Robbie, my beautiful Robbie, I love you so much.'

Robbie cries out, arches his back, comes.

James feels wet heat on his belly, feels the muscles inside contract, milking him. And then he's gone.

It is the most intense orgasm of his life.

The room is still. Dust motes float in the last beam of sunlight that falls through the crack in the curtain. James lies with his head on Robbie's chest, stroking his fingers through the nest of silver hair between his nipples.

It is so peaceful, here in the arms of his lover. James feels he can use that word now, even if it's just inside his head. His lover. Robbie. He is even braving that forbidden Christian name, the one he has never dared to use.

'Robbie,' he whispers into warm skin.

'Mmmm?'

The Robbie in question has been sleeping since James helped him to the bathroom to clean up. They wiped each other's skin down reverently. James held a glass of water to Robbie's lips and felt as if he was administering communion. Then he smoothed out the sheets and helped his beloved back between them to rest. And lay beside him, marvelling at this moment of perfection that seems to have lasted a lifetime.

Robbie growls his bagman's name and in response, James trails fluttering kisses along his collar bone and nuzzles his cheek and ear.

'I love you,' he whispers.

'Quite right too,' Robbie sighs, and pulls him close for a long, languid kiss.

'How are you feeling,' James ventures, after.

Robbie shrugs. 'Not sure yet.'

'Think you'll have another wave?'

'Give it an hour and we'll see,' Robbie says, but James can tell he's thinking.

'What?'

'If I do, it might-' Suddenly he seems coy. 'Don't know if you'd want to. It's a bit sudden. Only it might be our last chance.'

'What do you mean?' James props himself up on an elbow to look down into Robbie's lined face.

'Just, this'll be my last bout. Wasn't expecting to have another heat, to be frank. This'll only be my fourth.'

'Really? I thought-'

'Yeah, well, I don't seem to conform to the standard monthly profile.'

'Tell me?'

Robbie sighs. 'Had my first when I was seventeen. Me dad found a man to help then, don't think I could have got through it otherwise. It was intense. Then I met Val. Had a couple with her, one when I was 27, another when I was 35-'

'While you were with Morse?'

'Yeah.'

'You didn't-'

'I was married, man!' He looks a bit affronted. 'Besides, me an' Val could manage when we had to. It's much easier with a man, though. Toys don't do the job as well, but we got through it. I bonded with her the first time, and it seemed to stick.'

'And nothing since then?'

He shrugs. 'Menopause. Or so I thought. Never heard of a man my age having a heat, have you?'

James shakes his head.

They lie there for a while, Robbie stroking his fingers through James's hair absently.

'I love you,' James tells him quietly.

'Do you want to, then,' Robbie asks. 'Bond, I mean? You don't have to. I know it's all a bit fast, but like I said, might be our last chance to do it properly.'

'You really want to?'

That look comes into his eyes, that soft, twinkling smile that James loves so much.

'I do,' he says. 'Means you won't have the chance to have a family, though.'

'You know I don't care about that,' James tells him. 'I never have. The only thing I want is you.'

Tomorrow, the big moment comes, but with it come unexpected ramifications…