Guardian

A
lex’s skin
prickled as Ty lowered his powerful, muscled body down over him.

He felt the press of their cocks, trapped together between their bodies, and it made him gasp.

Titus Edwards. Alex had been drawn to him the moment he had laid eyes on the man. Built like a quarterback, intense as a tiger, Ty was everything Alex should have learned to avoid by now.

Yet Ty was different. The muscles, the tattoos, the straight demeanor, they were all a shell. The man himself was more than the sum of his parts. And he was here, pinning Alex down, fingers brushing over his nipples.

Alex cried out and bucked. His cock ached, hard with need, twitching and eager.

“You like that, huh?” Ty breathed.

“Oh God,” Alex groaned. “Yeah.”

“How about this?”

Ty’s finger and thumb began to tease and roll his nipples between them, one after the other, and Alex cried out in wordless, desperate pleasure.

Their hips ground together. The hard length of Ty’s cock nudged alongside Alex’s own, rubbing his length, pressing into his belly. It was heavy, hot against Alex’s flesh.

“I’ll take it you do,” Ty growled.

Yeah
, Alex thought.
Fuck yes I do.

He loved everything Ty did. The man’s inexperience didn’t matter. Ty seemed fascinated with his body, and willing to explore every inch of it to work out what made Alex whimper, what caused him to cry out, and what reduced him to helpless begging.

When Ty rested his hand on Alex’s collarbone and held him with such ease, Alex knew without a doubt that he was utterly at Ty’s mercy. Pinned between hand and hips, there was nowhere for Alex to go.

“Fuck,” he begged. “Fuck. Ty, fuck…”

He didn’t know what he wanted. But he couldn’t wait for it any longer.

T
he floor
of Alexander Wilson’s office was host to many things right now. A five-year-old boy, a three-year-old corgi, a plastic toy train, and small mountains of fluff were only the beginning of the mess. Alas, only the dog and its fluff were his.

Alex sat cross-legged among it all and gave silent thanks for the fact that he had no court appearances later in the day.

“I really can’t thank you enough, Mr. Wilson.” That was Amanda Cross, his client. She was a slip of a lady, only twenty-eight years old, and her son was reaching for the corgi with a big grin on his face. “No, Mason, I told you to be gentle!”

Mason’s little face scrunched up as he weighed Amanda’s words, then he placed his hand against the red of the dog’s coat and began to stroke her.

Alex plucked a few strands of hair from his pants, but it was a losing battle. “You’re welcome, Miss Cross. I’m just glad we got it resolved in a timely manner. These things can drag out for so long sometimes.” He cast her a smile at last. “But we had the ace up our sleeve, and usually that’s all it takes. The case is just a formality.”

Amanda was Mason’s mother. She’d got pregnant just after she finished college. A handful of weeks into her first job in what should have been a promising career and she met the man who would become the father of her child. Trouble was he didn’t intend to stick around and
be
a father, but then five years later he’d reared his ugly head and decided he wanted to see more of his son. And Amanda would’ve been fine with that if Ray wasn’t an alcoholic who swore with every other word.

Ray’s drink problem had undone him in the courtroom. It was the ace that Alex had kept tucked away. He didn’t want to use it. He’d discussed it with Ray’s counsel, but Ray wouldn’t back down, and ultimately Alex’s hand was forced.

He’d gone for the throat, and he’d won. There was no way in hell he was going to allow a violent drunkard get his hands on any child.

“Do you think Ray will try again?” Amanda chewed her thumbnail and watched Mason play. Her eyes darkened with worry.

“He might, but he won’t get anywhere.” Alex stood and did what he could to pat the fluff from himself. Why oh why was he wearing a dark suit today? “He’s signed off on the agreement now. You have full custody.”

“Thank you so much.” She surged to her feet and flung her arms around him, and despite her small stature it wasn’t hard for her to get her arms to encircle his slender waist.

Waist
.

Alex blinked. It wasn’t unusual for a client to get a bit emotional after a win, but most of them brought their arms up a little higher than—

She leaned in and kissed his cheek before he was really aware of what was going on.

The heat rose to his face, and Alex froze in place while his brain struggled to cope with what she’d just done. He still felt the touch of her lips against his warming skin, and it was an intrusive thing, cold and wet and not at all comfortable.

How could he get out of this elegantly? If he let his gut reaction bubble to the surface she would be offended.
Very
offended. But if he brushed it off she might take it as acceptance, perhaps even an invitation.

He had to do
something
, and fast.

“Oh. Uh.” Alex placed his hands on her shoulders and leaned back, plastering his most convincing smile across his face. “That’s really not necessary, Miss Cross.”

“Amanda,” she said.

“Miss Cross.” He inclined his head toward Mason as he made eye contact with her.

She turned to look, and her cheeks blossomed bright pink. With a quick cough she released Alex and took two steps back, then adjusted her blouse.

Alex’s smile remained in place, but became more genuine. It wasn’t unusual for a client to be excited by the outcome of their case. The occasional hug was to be expected. And if Miss Cross felt a little bit more attached at the moment that was understandable. But Alex had to dissuade her from letting that particular train of thought take hold before she went so far as to flirt, because if she went that far he’d have to let her down a bit more firmly.

Letting women down in the workplace wasn’t too difficult. He always fell back on the tried and tested excuse of professionalism, whether it was a client or another junior partner making a pass at him. The trick was in answering all those “Haven’t you found a girl yet?” questions without letting on that he didn’t swing that way.

New York was a pretty tolerant city. He wasn’t too concerned about people knowing that he was gay. Not people in general. The senior partners, though? That was another matter. It’d be illegal for them to fire him for it, and he’d sue their asses if it happened, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t let their attitudes bleed through into the cases he was allowed to handle. There was an awful stigma around men who liked to work with children, and bigotry amplified it the moment the man was known to be gay. The senior partners would most likely take him off the family law he specialised in and move him into another field entirely to avoid clients dropping them like hot potatoes for letting a gay man near their sons.

For all Amanda’s gentle flirting, what would her response be if she found out that her little boy had been rolling around on the floor with a gay man’s dog, or playing with his geeky NASA toys? It was impossible to know until it happened. Some people didn’t care. Some started ushering their children away. And some… well. Alex really didn’t want to think about it. Some people were just horrible, period.

“All that remains,” Alex said smoothly as he backed away to his chair and sank into it so that his desk formed a barrier, “is for you to settle your account. But you can do that with Caroline out front.” He nodded toward his door. “There’s no hurry. If you want to discuss a payment plan with her she can do that, too. What’s important is that Mason is going to remain with you, and you’re going to raise him in a good, loving home.”

Amanda’s blush slowly faded as he gave her something else to focus on, and she gave a small smile of appreciation. “Mason’s going to miss you, Mr. Wilson.”

Alex laughed warmly and shook his head. “No, I think we both know he’s going to miss Valentina.” He nodded toward the corgi as she rolled onto her back.

“It’s an unusual name for a dog.” Amanda finished fussing with her blouse, then picked up her purse from Alex’s desk.

She was stalling. It was a tactic Alex saw more than enough times in the courtroom. Amanda wasn’t the best at it, so her attempt was obvious and clumsy. She still lingered on that stolen kiss, then, or was working up the courage to ask Alex on a date. He had to nip that in the bud, and nothing put people off faster than launching into his favourite non-law subject.

“I named her after Valentina Tereshkova.” He grinned, letting his excitement shine through. “She was the first female astronaut in space, back in 1963. To this day she’s the only female astronaut to have completed a solo flight. It took nineteen years for Russia to send another woman into space, and since Tereshkova there have only been three more female cosmonauts. They used her as a propaganda point to display that women had equal rights to men, but they still don’t. Did you know that even today, Russian media still treat women in space like they can’t possibly live without makeup and shampoo? More than fifty years after Tereshkova’s first flight and female cosmonauts are still treated like oddities.” His grin stretched wider as he bounced up from behind his desk. “Khrushchev himself presided over Tereshkova’s wedding, and her daughter is the first person born to parents who have both been in space.”

Amanda’s eyes had begun to glaze over. She’d lapsed into that faraway look, slightly confused and a little bit distasteful, with the flat smile and relaxed facial muscles that indicated she’d switched off already. “Cool,” she said.

“I’d love to talk about it more, but I’m sure you’ve got better things to do than listen to me geeking out about space travel.” Alex patted his thigh. “C’mere, Val.”

Valentina wriggled onto her front and bounced toward him, her huge ears alert and her ever-present grin lifted toward him.

“Take good care of your mom, Mason. You think you can do that for me?”

Mason’s pout at the loss of his playmate melted into a serious nod. “Yes, sir.”

“Great.” Alex steered Amanda toward the door and opened it for her. “If you ever need us again, Miss Cross, we’re only a phone call away.”

“Mason,” she called. She stopped in the doorway long enough to scoop her son into her arms and offer Alex an uncertain little smile.

“Have a nice day,” Alex prompted.

“Thanks. You too.” Amanda carried Mason out into the secretary pool.

Alex closed his office door and slowly released the breath he’d been clinging to.

Val nosed his calf, and he looked down to her huge brown eyes.

“Okay. Yes, you’ve been a good girl. You can have a treat.”

She bounced after him as he went to her treat jar and gave her a little piece of rawhide. That’d keep her busy while he tidied the place up for the third time this week.

If only he could tidy up after his own child. But that was a pipe dream, and he knew it.

T
y had
his arms deep in the bowels of a pickup’s engine. It was an older truck, 1997, and he was pretty sure it was only held together by its own rust these days.

He owned this auto shop in Queens. It was his name over the door, his name on the property lease, his sweat and grease on the shop floor. It might not seem much to outsiders, but it was one of only two things in his life that kept him going day-to-day. This was his meditation, his penance, his absolution, all rolled into one. It was hard work, but it was nothing compared to defusing improvised explosive devices in Afghanistan. This truck wasn’t at risk of blowing up in his face.

It wasn’t going to kill his friends.

He swore as he caught his forearm on the intake manifold and scraped a few layers of skin off. The spark plugs on these engines were placed in a ridiculous position and made even simple maintenance a real chore. The problem was compounded by the sheer size of his body. A guy half his size could’ve squirrelled into that gap without any problems, but his muscles hadn’t gotten any smaller since he’d left the Army. If anything, all the manual labor had made things worse.

Ty waited and watched to see if any blood would well to the surface, but he’d gotten off lightly, and he went back to trying to wrest the spark plugs free. Getting the replacements in was slightly easier, but all told the exertion left sweat trickling down his face and running rivulets along the lines of the feathered tattoos which coiled around both his arms.

He eased free of the engine and let his gaze travel over it critically to check he hadn’t left anything loose or abandoned tools in the guts of it, then he wiped his hands on a rag and leaned in through the driver’s-side window to turn the ignition. The engine grumbled to life, and he listened for a couple of minutes.

There
. The subtle
put put
of a very slight misfire.

He cut the engine and returned to the sparks to adjust them and make sure all the distances were right. The second time he started the engine, the tiny little sounds were gone.

“Nice,” he said, satisfied. The final check would be to hook up the OBD-II scanner to check the engine’s diagnostics output and make sure everything was in the clear, but if the readout was all good he was done here. And not a moment too soon. His cellphone’s alarm buzzed from his back pocket, and he thumbed at the cracked screen to turn it off.

Time to go collect his niece.

T
y waited
at the stop for the school bus to arrive. He liked to get there early, so he waited on the spot and smiled to anyone who looked his way.

The stop was on the edge of Chinatown. Queens had a few Chinatowns, but he thought of this one as the original. Flushing was always busy, but the people were friendly and the area had a solid sense of community. A few people even smiled back at him. They didn’t care about his tattoos or his size. He was a familiar sight to them. It was when he drifted away from here that the stares would kick in.

Smaller people tended to cross the street to avoid him. Hell, he’d been on the island one day and some guy had hailed a cab just to get out of his way. And God forbid anyone share an elevator with him.

The first time he’d collected Phoebe from her bus stop the driver had asked to see his identification, and while Ty searched his pockets for it the guy had stared at the tattoos of feathers coiled around his arms. They were like sleeves, fully covering his skin all the way to his wrists, and Ty had already realized they didn’t mean to civilians what they’d meant to him when he got them done.

You’re a civilian too,
he had to constantly remind himself.
And you know what civilians do? They date. They find a nice girl and settle down. They don’t keep using work and parenting as an excuse to stay indoors.

An elderly gentleman with a pronounced stoop eyeballed Ty as he walked past, then squinted up at him. “Aren’t you cold?” he asked.

Ty looked down at the man in his thick puffy coat. “No, sir. Been working hard all day.”

The elder nodded slowly, then gestured to his arms. “Your artist did good work. Very good detail.”

A smile broke out on Ty’s face. “Thanks. Took him a few weeks, but we got there.”

“Good things are worth the time.” The stranger grinned and began to hobble away.

“Yeah. Have a good day, sir.”

“You too, young man. You too!”

Ty was still smiling when the bus pulled in against the curb. The brakes squealed and air whooshed out of them as the bright yellow vehicle came to a stop.

The driver gave Ty a friendly wave and Ty returned it, then reached for Phoebe as she hopped out onto the sidewalk where he hugged her tightly. “Hey Boo. How was school today?”

“It was okay.” She managed to get her arms halfway around his waist as she squeezed. “Do I get a ride?”

“I dunno.” Ty drew her away from the curb as the bus pulled off into traffic. “You been good today?” He gave her a critical look-over.

Her school clothes were still pristine, and her blond pigtails neat. She wasn’t one for roughhousing in the schoolyard during recess. “Yes!”

“You got any homework?”

Her features pinched and she rolled her eyes. “Yeah.”

“Okay. We need to save all your energy for that. You can get a ride.”

“All right!” She turned away from him and waited.

Ty hefted her into the air and settled her on his shoulders, holding on to her ankles while she wrapped her arms around his head and laughed with glee. “You steady?”

“Yeah!”

“Hang tight, then.”

He straightened up and began the walk back to his auto shop. It would only be a couple of blocks, but Phoebe loved being so high up.

One day she’d get too big for this. She was in second grade right now, and pretty average height for her eight years of age, but he didn’t know how much longer before she sprouted like a weed and got all sassy.

“All right. Titus Express all the way to AutoTown.” He bounced her on his shoulders as they crossed the street. “You hungry? There’s apples at the shop.”

She squealed with delight and clung more tightly. “I’m okay.”

“Okay then. What’s your homework?”

He listened as she told him about the words she had to study today, and the math worksheet she’d been given. Phoebe didn’t often bring home work——she usually completed in class with time to spare—but sometimes the entire class got given extra. And if they weren’t, he had plenty of books for her to read until dinner time.

After dinner, she could watch TV, but until then it was work. That was his rule, and she was okay with it. It let him keep going at the shop until 5 p.m., and it kept her hungry little brain going as she wound down from a day at school. She was like her mom sometimes. Always reading, always eager to learn new things.

Phoebe was his second reason to get out of bed in the mornings.

He unlocked the shop door and ducked. She hunkered down over his head, and together they eased indoors. Ty crouched and reached up to pluck her from his shoulders and land her lightly against the floor, and she groaned in protest.

“All right. You know the drill. You go do your homework, I’ve got a car to work on. Call me if you get stuck.”

“Okay.” She scurried away toward his office and settled at his desk. She left the door open as always, and he could see her pulling schoolbooks from her satchel as her feet swung from his chair.

Phoebe would be nine years old soon. He’d have to think about what she wanted to do for her birthday. Maybe have some friends over, have a little party. Or if she wanted to go bowling he could arrange that. He’d have to write up some invitations for her to take to school and give to her friends for their parents. These things took more organization than setting up a forward operating base, with equally convoluted logistics, and moms did all this without any training. It was some kind of miracle.

He’d get on it this evening. For now he had a couple more hours’ work to do, and he didn’t doubt that some of that time would include helping his niece with her math homework.