by RJ Scott
"That was hot."
"Not so much for you," Manny propped himself up on the bed and looked down purposefully at Josh's groin.
"Do you need me to finish anything down there?"
Josh shook his head and then slumped down on the bed next to Manny.
"Nik killed it," he said with a grimace. Then he started to laugh and Manny joined in until the two of them were lying on the firm mattress laughing up at the ceiling.
Josh hadn't felt this free in ages.
Someone, probably Nik, knocked on the door.
"Guys, sorry to uhm, interrupt. Manny's tracked cell took a call."
"On our way," Manny said quickly. He rolled up off the bed and took his turn to straddle Josh. With a quick kiss he pulled back. "I owe you one."
Josh sat up and waited a few seconds and just enjoyed the view when Manny pulled up his underwear, tightened his jeans, and rearranged his weapon. The bastard even turned his back so that Josh got a good view of the sliver of skin and the gun against it. Then Manny looked back, winked at Josh, and left.
As soon as Manny was gone from the room the fragile connection through sex went with him and Josh groaned as he slumped back on Manny's bed. Really? What had he just done? At least his hard-on was gone, that was one thing right? Add to that the faint noises Manny had made as he came hard down Josh's throat, and the taste and smell of the man, and he had jerk-off fodder for months.
Given where he was and why he was here, that was probably all that he was going to get.
CHAPTER 8
Manny sat cross-legged on the sofa and listened to the message on the machine. A simple message, nothing more than a please contact this number as soon as he could.
"Did you run a trace on the caller or the number I'm supposed to be calling?" he asked Nik.
"Nothing on the caller's ID. Probably a burner phone for the message. The other number is registered to Selby Corp. That is—"
"The corporation that the senator has a holding in through his wife Emily Selby," Manny finished by rote.
"Yeah. Too much of a coincidence?"
"Well, we knew we were fishing. Either Alastair's representatives or the senator himself would bite. I'm too good to pass up." Manny wasn't saying this to be big headed. Should either of the Bullens want a toehold on the West Coast then the son of a respected family, despite how diminished they were, would be a feather in their cap.
"You calling straightaway?" Josh said from behind him. Manny turned to look at the man who had literally just sucked his brains out through his dick. Nik was smirking and Morgan wasn't far behind.
"No. I'm giving it an hour or so. Can't look too eager to jump into bed with whoever the hell it was."
"So we have time to kill?" Josh asked innocently.
Manny imagined dragging the guy back into his bedroom and giving him the favor he owed, and then maybe pushing it all a level further. Evidently Josh had other ideas. "I want to do some tracking on the girl in the blow job photo.
Could you give me access?"
Why did he have to mention blow job?
"Yeah, go on in. Give me five."
Josh left the living area and disappeared around the corner to the comms room. Manny turned back to Nik. His friend's expression was that of someone with something they wanted to say. Manny stopped him with a raised hand.
"Don't start. You were all over Morgan like a rash."
Morgan huffed at this.
"We're in close quarters, he swings my way, and he's pretty."
"He has so much baggage, Manny—" Nik started.
"Don't, okay?" Hell, if they were talking about baggage, how about the fact that Nik nearly turned tail on Morgan and cut himself off from the man he loved? Or how about Manny's baggage? All those years of reinventing himself to be lost in a split-second decision.
Just doing that opened a huge can of worms. "It's fine."
"Keep your eye on the ball. I didn't and look what happened. Morgan nearly died."
Manny sighed even as Morgan cast a quick and very irritated look at Nik. "You didn't fuck up, any more than I will. Look, it's just a bit of mutual release. We don't all have life partners you know." The last he encapsulated in quoting fingers. Before Nik could start again he decided his best bet was to go find Josh now. He took the cell with him and glanced at the time on the display. A little before four pm. Maybe he should leave his reply until tomorrow?
He'd think on that one as he helped Josh.
"Hey," he said from the door of the comms room.
"Hey," came Josh's response.
Josh was deep in thought; his fingers already dancing over the touch pad and the keyboards. He was doing the basics, running the pictures through facial recognition and the like. Manny had already done this but he didn't interrupt—Josh needed to get used to Sanctuary systems and he may as well start with information Manny could verify visually. With reports running on one screen, Josh was flicking through hard copy photos.
"What was the name of Alastair Bullen's ex-girlfriend? The one that they're looking for on the property?"
"He originally gave her name as Susan something or other, but she's alive and well, and her DNA isn't a match for the blood on the necklace."
Josh tapped on the nearest screen twice causing the image there to enlarge. The picture was the infamous senator receiving a blow job.
"Could the dead girl be her? Only if you look closely you can see a smudge of something around her neck that could be the necklace that was placed in evidence."
"That's a pretty far reach." Manny leaned in and in doing so he was close to Josh. The scent of him was intoxicating. Nothing more than one of the shower gels in the bathroom, he assumed, but still, the crisp freshness of tea tree was now forever linked to one of the hardest orgasms he had experienced since he was a teenager. His dick pressed against his zip and he self-consciously wriggled back in his chair. Something about Josh was enough to send him over the edge merely by smell or gentle touch alone. Josh frowned quickly at the move and then blinked away the question in his expression and concentrated instead on the necklace.
"Pretty damn far," Josh finally agreed. Suddenly he sounded unsure when just before he had seemed so confident of the investigation path he was taking.
Manny had done that. Manny had put doubt into a fairly serviceable theory and he cursed himself for doing so. Jeez. He sounded like Jake when he was in devil's advocate mode. Manny hated it when Jake sat there and questioned everything Manny was proposing. He knew there was a reason for it and hell, it had made him better at his job, still… Josh had just been snatched from his real life and he needed a bit more from Manny. "But. Go for it. See if we can link the senator to whoever this girl is, find out why she would be at the mansion for Alastair's dead wife to see her being murdered. Maybe we should get Beckett in on this and see if he recalls anything at all."
"Beckett is Gregory's son—the dead brother?" Josh asked.
"Yes, we have him at Sanctuary—another one of the Bullen lost boys." As soon as he said it he wished he could pull the wry joke back to where it belonged. In his head. "Sorry, I didn't mean—"
"It's what I am," Josh shrugged. "Just another piece of detritus tossed out of the way of whatever this damned family was planning."
Manny stared straight into beautiful clear green eyes. There was no anger in them, more a silent resignation.
"Hey," Josh said with a snort, "at least this Beckett guy and I are still alive. Unlike this poor woman."
"If it is our woman," Manny said softly.
"Yeah. If."
There was a momentary silence in which it appeared both men contemplated where they were at in this case.
"It's a pretty cheap-looking necklace," Josh said, breaking the silence. "The description says it's gold and cubic zirconia, which is a fake diamond. Still, it's pretty detailed and arty. Maybe we shouldn't be focusing on who the girl is and whether she is the dead girl on Bullen land.
What if instead we track down whe
re the necklace came from? If we're lucky it's a one-off design or a minimal run then we can connect to the owner from that angle?"
Manny nodded. That was a good call. He liked the way Josh thought.
"Go for it," he said enthusiastically.
Josh half smiled. "Really?"
"Yeah. As good a place as any to start."
Mollified, Josh sat back in his chair and began to type. Manny observed for a moment. He was fascinated to watch someone as good as him switch from one source of information to another, from one computer to another.
Mesmerizing. He looked on until he realized he needed to work on his Altosinno profile ensuring there were no loopholes in his story. Not that it was an actual story. The life part up until year one of MIT was dead-on accurate.
The more recent years, however, not so much. He had
created a couple of arrests and detentions in the state's finest and Jake was backing a pretty hefty bank balance for anyone that wanted to know. Add in a few web links and he was ready. Idly he leaned back in his chair and then pulled his legs up to sit cross-legged. One benefit of being vertically challenged was that he could get way past comfortable in a chair.
He thought back to the sex. Josh hadn't argued about Manny stating he was a switch and that he wasn't some girl to be treated like glass. That was a first. Normally he only attracted assholes who saw him as some kind of short-assed twink. Of course, a few well-timed Tae Kwon Do moves later ended with said prospective partners flat on their backs and gasping like a fish needing air. He never knew who was more surprised. His lovers, who were sorely disappointed, or himself, for the same reason. Josh appeared different, although how Manny felt… after one encounter he didn't know.
Maybe it was the soft green eyes, or the gentle voice, or Josh's eagerness to please Manny with what he was doing? Maybe it was because his past was so broken and fragmented? He was a good man and Manny liked good men.
"Okay, there's a guy at NYU, a professor, who teaches jewelry design. I'm sending him an email."
Manny looked up as Josh clicked send with a flourish.
"Would be great if he can point us in the right direction." Josh didn't stop at that though. Clicking and linking he was researching like an expert and Manny just smiled. Josh's beautiful green eyes were filled with the thrill of the hunt, that singular high of joining the dots and making sense of what others thought was just chaos.
Simply looking over Josh's shoulder at his research and his files was as if he was looking at his own style of working.
When this was all over he should get Jake to offer Josh a role in Sanctuary. Manny could do with someone else alongside him. Then maybe, possibly, he and Josh could explore this attraction a little more. Having Josh in his apartment may well be the reason he actually went home at night.
That was never going to happen. He sighed. As soon as this case was cleared, Josh would be joining Sanctuary witness protection. They had promised Gareth Headley that they would protect his son and wife. That did not include Manny taking said son home and keeping him for himself.
Shaking his head of the convoluted train of thought, Manny began to pull up information he had gathered about the gangs that rivaled the Bullen family in Albany.
New guys, based on race or location, were where it was at the moment. The old families weren't out of the picture; they simply specialized in different areas. People like Alastair Bullen ruled with the memories of what happened in the past. In the early nineties, back when the Altosinnos began to disintegrate, much of the fighting between gangs in a city the size of Albany was territorial, and ended up being all about who could supply and run drugs to whom. Looking at Albany itself, most of the original homegrown gang members were either in prison or dead. Those were the ones who respected the old ways. The young ones taking their place were edgier, with fighting and violence over drug territory and which gangs maintained control over the drug trade in which neighborhoods. Albany PD had an uneasy truce with the old ways and Manny wasn't stupid—Alastair Bullen had enough money to pay off as high up as someone in the FBI so the PD were probably just as compromised.
They needed to tie Alastair to a murder and the senator would fall straight after.
"What can I do to help?" Nik said from the doorway. Manny twisted in his seat. Nik was a big guy, blond with a body to die for. If Morgan hadn't captured the guy then Manny would have been tempted to tap that. Of course Nik would have to leave Sanctuary—Manny didn't mix business with pleasure. Except for Josh. But that didn't count. Josh wasn't really Sanctuary. Not yet anyway.
"I need a bodyguard for the meet." He didn't have to say anything else. It wasn't a bodyguard in the truest sense of the word. What he meant was he needed someone to pretend to be the hired muscle.
"No problem, anything special I should know?"
Manny shut his eyes briefly. He attempted to recall the men who used to hang around his uncle when he was a small boy. "A suit if you can find one, or else something smart. Money."
"When is this happening?"
"I'm calling in the morning—I don't want to look too eager."
Nik nodded. "Morgan and I are going to take the other bedroom, okay?"
Josh looked over at Manny with a question in his expression. Manny wasn't going to answer it now with Nik in the room.
"Yeah, fine," Manny answered.
"Morgan heated up pizza," Nik said as he left the room.
Manny sniffed the air and noticed the faint smell of cheese and tomato as it filtered from the neat kitchen. He stood and stretched tall and Josh moved to stand in front of him. Gently he took Manny's hands as they stretched high and then held them in place above his head. Manny moved up onto his tiptoes to relax some of the pull, and with Josh widening his legs slightly they were against each other in the most deliciously sexy way. Josh was hard, and Manny's blood rushed south as quickly as you could say hot. He was inches away from Josh's green gaze and all he wanted then, more than pizza, more than sex, was another kiss.
Sensing the unspoken need, Josh released his hands and instead cupped Manny's face. Tilting his head, he kissed Manny with all the unrestrained need they had experienced earlier. This was insane. They hardly knew each other, yet Manny wanted to literally climb this guy here and now. Pushing away he caught his breath, attempting to still his ragged breathing. Unless they were ready to go the whole way Manny needed to pull back from the urge to connect with the guy he was supposed to be protecting.
"Food?" he said abruptly. Not waiting for a response and ignoring the sudden hurt look in Josh's green eyes he made his way out to where Morgan was feeding Puck the black lab with ends of crust.
"You'll make that dog fat." Nik was laughing.
"We'll go for a walk after this," Morgan defended.
Everything was so normal. Even the sexual tension
sparking between him and Josh was a tick in the plus column. Tomorrow he was playing a role he thought he had left behind him forever. Tonight though? Tonight he could just be himself.
CHAPTER 9
The call came through just after Morgan and Nik had left to take Puck for a walk. Ops reported there had been two more murders that Albany PD were calling gang-related and that Sanctuary was tying to the Bullens. Josh watched the play of emotions across Manny's face—from resignation and then to worry. When Manny ended the call and started to pace Josh wasn't sure what to say. More murders that there was no evidence trail for.
"Whoever is ordering these murders is acting strategically. If the Bullen family is unstable then others can try and cut in on them. I need to go and…" his voice trailed off and without another word he left for the comms room.
Josh debated following him but the arrival back of the dog and two laughing men was enough of a distraction.
"You need to check your cell," he blurted out to Nik. Thankfully Nik didn't ask why, and after spending a short while firing quick questions at ops, Nik left the seating area to find Manny.
Morgan went to the kitch
en and filled the coffee machine with water. A few flicked switches later and coffee was on its way. Josh hoisted himself up on a
barstool. He couldn't begin to understand what was going on here.
"Whatever you're thinking, it's probably wrong."
Morgan slid a cup of coffee across the counter. "Manny and Nik will get a feel for who is running the Bullen family and it will be an easy in and out. Meanwhile we will be working on the murdered girl and the necklace."
"Don't you worry?"
"About what?"
"About Nik. Going in there whenever we get them in, all guns blazing, maybe not coming home?"
Morgan sipped at the coffee and then pulled out a notebook and some pencils from a laptop case. "Look at this," he said simply.
Taking the book from Morgan, Josh opened it to see sketches of a lake and a house, of Nik sprawled under a tree with a book in his lap, of an otter, of a black lab puppy he assumed was Puck. So many sketches.
"These are good," Josh said without one ounce of guile. He flipped to the end—Puck as a fully grown dog and Nik cleaning his gun.
"Thank you. I'm studying art at school in between major disasters and cases, and of course when Nik thinks it's safe."
"Does Nik ever think you are safe?"
Morgan raised his eyebrows and then huffed a laugh. Josh waited for Morgan to defend Nik but he said nothing; he evidently liked Nik being all protective and worried.
"It's been one hell of a journey, you know," Morgan started. "I used to be this cubicle rat. You know the sort, lunch at one, coffee breaks, office gossip. I was safe and it was normal. When it all changed—when I began to change—Nik was my constant. He protected me, loved me.
Hell, do you believe in love at first sight?"
Josh blinked at the sudden change in conversation.
Love at first sight? Not really. Lust at first sight, maybe.
Watching Manny scramble and leap the wall at the lawyer's house had been enough to send a push of lust through his blood. But then he'd always liked a guy confident in his physical abilities. So, yeah, Josh believed you could meet and fall in lust immediately. Love? Not so much.