“I enjoyed every second of that,” Joel said. “Particularly the last few. I think you’ve got spunk on your face.”

“I think I might have got it on the wall,” Aaron said. “Christ. Uh, would you...?” He moved his arm, just slightly, but enough that Joel read, Come here.

“One minute.” Joel fished out a handkerchief and tossed it to him, while he rapidly unbuttoned his own shirt, because it was clean on this morning and he didn’t need jism stains. He pushed it out of the way and lay down, mostly on Aaron because there was a lot of him and not much bed, and felt a strong arm close over his shoulders.

It felt so good. Joel didn’t go short of encounters, but he couldn’t remember the last time he’d...‘cuddled’ wasn’t really a word he could associate with Aaron somehow, but he couldn’t think of a suitable alternative. Cuddled. Fine. He snuggled up into the hold.

“That was marvellous,” Aaron said into his hair. “All of it.”

“Wasn’t it. I did say you’d bang like a barn door in the wind.”

“That was you. All you.”

“The devil it was. I’m giving it two weeks of practice before you’re fucking me blind.”

That met with a ringing silence. Joel felt his stomach plunge. “Oh. Right. Sorry.”

“What?” Aaron asked, sounding slightly alarmed.

“Nothing. I just thought we might do this again, if you wanted, but—” But of course Detective Sergeant Fowler wouldn’t want to be running an illegal love life on the side. Naturally not.

Which was fine. Joel had come on to Aaron in the first place, not the other way around, and he hadn’t suggested anything more than a fuck, so he had no reason to expect it. They’d had fun. It was fine. He’d just thought they might have had fun again, that was all. “Don’t worry about it.”

Aaron didn’t reply for a second. Finally he said, carefully, “Would you want to do it again?”

Joel shrugged, feeling Aaron’s arm shift over him. “If you happen to be passing.”

“I wish I might be. That was the most—oh, the most generous night I’ve ever spent. You’re astonishing. But...you know my job.”

“Of course I do. I did.”

“That’s mine to worry about,” Aaron added quickly. “Not your concern. But it doesn’t make anything easier, I’m about to be in a devil of a mess, and I don’t think there’s any way I can have something that lasts longer than an evening.”

“Of course not.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t consider—”

“Nothing to consider,” Joel said before this got even more embarrassing. “I made a pass, not a proposal. If you want to do this again, you know where I live, and if you don’t, no hard feelings.”

“Right.”