The Assignment by Evangeline Anderson

[spindizzy]

Detective Nicholas Valenti, tall, dark and stoic, has been best friends with his partner, Sean O'Brian for six years. The two men have seen each other through divorce, disaster and danger and saved each other's asses more times than Valenti can count. Exactly when he started seeing his blond, intense partner in another light Valenti isn't really sure. He only knows that he wants O'Brian in a way that has nothing to do with friendship and everything to do with possession. It is a desire that he will have to hide forever because O'Brian is undeniably straight.

Just as Valenti is coming to grips with his new, unacceptable feelings for his partner, their police Captain puts them on a new case that could blow Valenti's cover once and for all. He and O'Brian are going undercover at the country's largest and most infamous gay resort to bust a notorious drug lord and stop the shipments of poison cocaine that are flooding the gay bars all over the city.

Now Valenti will have to make a choice between friendship and desire. He and O'Brian will play the roles of gay men that will push the limits of their relationship to the breaking point. Will their time at the RamJack forge a new bond between them or destroy their partnership forever?

I picked up The Assignment by Evangeline Anderson and went "Oh man, fake boyfriend trope! In an actual, published book! With detectives!" The plot is literally your standard fake boyfriends fic set-up. Nicholas Valenti and Sean O'Brian are detectives in the LAPD in the early 1980s, who have been sent undercover as a couple at the biggest gay resort in the country: the Ramjack. (Yes, that's really what it's called). And in the tradition of fake boyfriends fic across the internet, of course Valenti is secretly in love with O'Brian, and of course O'Brian Must Never Know because a) that's how this trope works, and b) O'Brian is Totally Straight and possibly homophobic. It's a solid set-up! This is a fic that I would (and possibly have) read, so I was hopeful!

... Yeah, that didn't last long.

(Rest of the SUPER NSFW review available at Lady Business with bonus fic recs!)

[Caution warnings: attempted and threat of rape, homophobia]