Surviving this mission may mean losing each other . . . or their lives.

In the summer of 1992, Trey Carter—Southern, evangelical, and deeply closeted—accidentally outs himself at a pool party. This spirals him down a dark path and into the hands of the Central Intelligence Agency, but Trey's skills are in football and gymnastics, not guns and espionage. He's not the first twenty-one-year-old to make a mistake but may be the first to fall involuntarily into a dark ops protocol.

Special Officer Rick Morgan's blood is boiling. The CIA has plucked Trey from his normal life, threatened to disclose his sexual orientation, and forced him to join their covert unit, just as the Marines had done to him. Every time he looks at Trey, he feels both an unwavering commitment to their mission and a deep, unfamiliar urge to . . . do something to the muscular young man. Protect him? Seduce him? Love him?

After the fall of the Soviet Union, Ivan Dimitri is on the verge of selling secrets to the highest bidder. The CIA is tasked with containing Ivan and activates their protocol to prey on the engineer's secret desire for young men. With Rick by his side, Trey prepares for a life-or-death mission, but there are mounting doubts if he can pull it off, and if a civilian can survive the Demaris Protocol.

Based on true events.