Guardian (4 page)

A
lex didn’t hate Mondays
. Not the way a lot of people did. In other jobs Mondays were like an end to a weekend of fun and the start of a week of drudgery, but to Alex a Monday was a fresh start, a new opportunity to help his clients. And this Monday in particular, if he were truly honest with himself, was also an end to a weekend of daydreaming about a man who hadn’t called.

He stowed his Corolla in the parking lot of the squat little strip mall and led Val into the office. He greeted the handful of administrative staff who were in early as he unclipped Val’s harness. Caroline grilled him about his weekend and Alex hand-waved as much of it away as he could while Val snuck off to Jasmin’s desk for a slice of her morning apple.

By the time he reached his desk it was just about eight o’clock. Val bounced across the room to her water bowl and slurped at it, then rolled onto her back and yawned.

Alex booted his laptop and began to prioritize his week.

H
e was roused
from his research at eleven o’clock. His phone buzzed, with Caroline’s name shown in the display.

Alex nudged the speaker button. “Caroline? What’s up?”

“Do you have time in your schedule to take on a new client?”

He tugged his glasses off so that he could rub at his eyes briefly. Caroline must know that he had the bandwidth; she was the one who managed his diary. She knew where his office was, too. So if she was calling and asking like this it implied a walk-in who was at the front desk with her, which logically then meant
do you have time to see a new client right this moment?

“Feasibly,” he murmured as he eased his glasses back on. “Nature of the case?”

“Custody. He’s asked for you by name, or I’d get Darren on board.”

“Oh, a referral?” Alex smiled. “Okay. Bring him through.”

“Right away.”

Caroline hung up, and Alex tidied his desk in preparation. The new client would have paperwork to fill out, but Caroline would provide that on the way. All Alex had to do was focus on the case itself.

By the time she knocked on his door the desk was clear, and Alex had managed to get most of the stray dog hairs off his suit. He crossed to the door and pulled it open, putting on his best welcoming-yet-sympathetic smile.

And there, beyond Caroline, was Titus.

O
h Titus was so
,
so
tall. And broad. He’d seemed so thoroughly masculine and in control and powerful with the shine of sweat over his bulging biceps as the master of his own domain, but here? In an office? And in a suit?

Alex’s heart fluttered. His chest grew tight. He gazed up at the giant of a man who dominated the space beyond his office door and was transfixed. He felt cornered, caught in his little office by the sheer strength Titus radiated. God, a man like this could overpower him with barely any effort at all, and Alex would love every second of it.

Titus met his gaze and gave a quizzical tilt of his head.

“—best family law attorneys we have, Mr. Edwards.” Caroline’s voice bubbled through to Alex almost as if she were in another room entirely. “You’re in safe hands.”

“I hope so,” Titus rumbled. His eyes didn’t leave Alex’s.

Wait.
Wait.
Was there something there? Some kind of spark lost in the depths? Or had Alex projected the whole thing while he was daydreaming?

Caroline prodded a clipboard into Alex’s hands. “Have you two already met?”

Alex found that his fingers clamped around the clipboard of their own accord, and he fixed one of his more dependable smiles to his face to give himself time to recover. “Mr. Edwards is my auto mechanic,” he answered with a casual air he didn’t feel. “Come in, Ty. Make yourself comfortable.”

Caroline’s suspicion melted into an
oh
of understanding, then she backed away. She bumped into Titus and let out a little squeal.

Titus swept past her and ducked his head as he eased sideways through the office door, which only brought him closer to Alex and made it oh so clear how much larger he was in just about every way Alex could conceive. And the
scent
which came from him,
God
. It was warm and musky and unadulterated by cologne. Alex wanted to bury himself in it.

“Mr. Edwards.” His dry throat made it little more than a rasp, and Alex pushed the door closed with a weak shove while he clutched the clipboard against his chest as though it could armor him against Ty’s presence.

Val wriggled to her feet and bounded over to nose Titus’s leg. Her tail wagged so hard it was almost a blur. Titus crouched to pet her and his hand seemed big enough to cover her entire head.

“They let you have your dog in the office?”

Alex pulled in air to steady himself, and exhaled with a nod. “They do. Else I’d be looking for another job.” He hurried back to his chair and sank into it carefully, hoping not to let Ty see the pronounced effect the man’s close presence had engendered in his groin. “Ah, right. Sorry about the, uh.” He waved a hand vaguely in the direction of Val and looked down at the clipboard. It contained the standard forms, none of which had been filled out, so Alex slid them across his desk to Titus.

Ty chuckled. “It’s fine. Dry cleaning will take care of it.” He eased his bulk into the chair which faced Alex’s desk and leaned back in it.

“Right.” Alex licked his lips.

Professional! For crying out loud he’s here for an attorney!

Nobody walked into an attorney’s office without an appointment unless it was urgent. They called ahead, at the very least. Titus was here because he needed help, not for anything else.

Alex nudged his glasses up and placed his elbows on his desk, then laid one hand over the other. He forced himself to regard Ty as a client. Professionally. Evenly. Everything else would have to go away, get put into a box and left there, because Titus Edwards had come to him for his assistance, and if Alex focused on anything but it could ruin whatever case was about to unfold.

“We’ll get to the paperwork in a while.” His voice was steady when he spoke this time. “It can wait. First up, tell me what’s going on?”

Ty pursed his lips and looked up toward the ceiling. That his eyes went left rather than right was a good sign, an indicator that he was searching for memories, not lies. Before he spoke he drew his gaze back down to Alex.

“Phoebe’s father tried to take her on Saturday,” he stated.

Alex blinked. Ty was calm and collected. If there was anger in him, he wasn’t showing it.

“Let me just be clear.” Alex drew his laptop closer so that he could take notes. “Phoebe is your niece? The little girl at your shop last week?”

“That’s correct.”

Val grumbled as she settled down at Alex’s feet, and Alex couldn’t help but recall how bright and happy Phoebe had been when she met the corgi. “And you’re Phoebe’s maternal uncle, or paternal?”

“Her mom was my sister.” Titus sighed softly, and even seemed to shrink a little. “Her name was Melanie. Melanie went to college to train as a nurse. I was out in Afghanistan by then. She was doing great. She worked hard, and waitressed on the side to make some money. Then she got knocked up by this guy.” Ty paused and laced his fingers together in his lap. “She was young, dating, you know the drill. Nothing untoward happened in that regard. But one thing led to another and they went without condoms a few times, and that was that. He stuck with her until he realized she wasn’t willing to get an abortion, then he dumped her. Mel quit college so she could raise Phoebe and never heard from the guy again.”

“He sounds like a classy guy,” Alex muttered.

“Oh yeah.” Ty raised his chin faintly. “A real keeper. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I think Mel was dumb as a bag of spanners for going at it without protection, but she chose to live with the consequences. And she was a good mom. She would’ve made a great nurse. She always wanted to go back to it once Phoebe was old enough.”

Alex waited. The unspoken
but
hung between them, and he knew he didn’t have to prompt Titus. The man would get there in his own time.

“Then the accident.” Ty sighed the words. “Phoebe was at a neighbor’s for a playdate and Mel went out to get the groceries. She never came home. Some drunken asshole T-boned her car, only
he
got to walk away from the wreck.”

Alex watched Titus. The man was good at keeping himself still, but he couldn’t hide the pain in his eyes. Alex had years of experience of reading people, so every time Ty’s cheeks tightened or his pupils dilated it was like semaphore to him. Other people might only see the stillness in Titus’s body, but Alex saw the hurt buried deep inside him. Ty had loved his sister, and he’d lost her.

“I’m sorry,” Alex said softly.

“Life goes on.” Titus bit the tip of his tongue for a second. “Our parents aren’t in a position to care for Phoebe, so I took the discharge I was offered. Came home, set up the workshop, that’s all she wrote.”

“Hm.” Alex’s fingers sped across the keys, but he didn’t take his eyes off Edwards. “And you were declared Phoebe’s legal guardian in a court of law?”

“Yes, sir.” Ty’s head dipped in agreement. “Court awarded me full guardianship and voided the father’s rights on the grounds of his absence.”

Alex refrained from commenting. It might sound good, and any less experienced attorney might say as much to his client, but when the biological parent’s rights were voided purely on the court’s inability to find him, he could still spew out of the woodwork and claim he never even knew he had a kid. Now that Melanie was dead, anything Titus said on the matter of the father’s behavior these past eight years was pure hearsay. “Do you have the father’s name?”

“Kyle Montgomery.” To his credit, Titus even managed to say the name without so much as a sneer, though his bright eyes hardened.

Alex was in awe of Edwards’ self-control. He hadn’t met many people who could remain so calm in this kind of situation. Still, depending on how suave this Montgomery was, Alex would have to hope that Titus’s vast size didn’t intimidate whichever judge they ended up in front of. And if they so much as caught a glimpse of his tattoos…

No. There wasn’t anything good about this case at all. There were too many variables at this stage.

“All right. You say Mr. Montgomery attempted to take Phoebe? Explain how that came about.”

Alex’s fingers worked while Titus outlined his Saturday. Edwards was thorough: he began with breakfast and detailed all the way through to Phoebe’s Tae Kwon Do class to set the scene so that when Montgomery arrived, it was clear to Alex that it had truly been a complete surprise.

“He was threatening,” Titus concluded. “I don’t mean that he said he intended harm. I mean that his body language, his tone of voice, were aggressive. He frightened Phoebe. I took her home and we talked it out, and I told her I’d come talk to you about it.” He smiled faintly. “She calmed down a bit after that. I think she likes you.”

“Oh, she probably likes Val more.” Alex grinned briefly. “And how was she on her way to school this morning?”

“Yeah.” Titus sighed. “She got a bit antsy, so I walked her to the bus stop and waited there with her.”

“You’re a good parent.” Alex saved his work and watched Titus from across the desk. “If Montgomery wants to challenge you legally he’ll need representation. Once his attorney contacts you, let them know I’m yours—” he paused to clear his throat, then laughed it off. “Your
attorney
,” he corrected smoothly, “and then the first step is likely to be the four of us in a room seeing what we can work out together.”

Titus gave him a long, thoughtful look that Alex couldn’t quite make out. It felt as though Edwards was evaluating him, or maybe trying to fathom whether Alex’s slip of the tongue had meant anything untoward. “Until then we wait?”

“Exactly right.” Alex gestured to the clipboard. “And we fill in paperwork so that Caroline can get you all set up on our records and open a file for you.”

Edwards grunted softly and reached for the forms. “There’s always paperwork.”

“Oh yeah.” Alex leaned back and readied himself to answer any questions which arose during the form-filling.

Titus had very few. He read each question before noting down his answer, and his pen darted with precision. He only paused twice, with questions about some of the legal jargon in the questions, but otherwise he got down to business without wasting any time.

Alex’s mind tried to wander, to spend time on Ty’s broad shoulders and his strong hands, but he’d put himself into professional mode now. Whatever thoughts might have cropped up before Titus became a client were almost entirely smothered after listening to his story for an hour. Now Titus’s intelligence and care, his love for his niece and the dedication he put toward her well-being were more than merely attractive. They were salient, observable details which would have to be filed away in case they were required in court later on.

No. Alex’s brain couldn’t mingle work with pleasure. Titus was a client, and that was the end of it. For Phoebe’s sake, and for Titus’s, Alex had to pack away all those little pieces of himself which wanted to give themselves to the former soldier.

Damn it.

T
he mid-afternoon
sun beat down as Ty drove home, right as his air conditioner decided to fail. He kept his own car well-maintained——he’d be a fool not to——so it couldn’t be something as simple as a low fluid level, and he wouldn’t have enough time to diagnose and fix it before he had to collect Phoebe. He just sweated all the way home instead, forced to drive with the windows down.

He’d had to go a few miles out of his way to hit Wilson’s office, but there was something indefinable about the willowy attorney. It pulled at him in a way he couldn’t put a finger on, but he knew at the most basic level that Alex was someone he could depend on.

You learned fast in the deserts and mountains of Afghanistan which men you could trust and which you wouldn’t ever turn your back on. You knew who you could depend on to keep you alive, and who you needed to remain vigilant around because they wouldn’t look out for you. Their rank didn’t matter. He’d known damn good officers and some pretty shitty enlisted grades. What mattered was the man inside the uniform.

Wilson’s suit was a uniform, and the man inside it…

The man inside it was going to help him protect Phoebe. That was what mattered. Wilson had that aura about him, that attentiveness which made it clear he wasn’t just paying lip service to what people around him said. He cared. He was invested. He was genuinely angry about the way Montgomery had upset Phoebe on Saturday.

Yeah. He was a decent guy. Ty already felt the tension unwinding in his gut from having seen him, replaced by the balm of Alex’s presence. It was worth the drive. And hopefully the fees wouldn’t break the bank.

B
y the time
he got home, Ty’s shirt was well and truly stuck to him. He’d almost forgotten what it was like to wear full-length sleeves in hot weather. At least in the desert it was a dry heat. Up here on the East Coast things got humid pretty fast.

He checked the time on his phone. Figuring out what was wrong with the car’s AC could easily take him an hour if it was an obscure fault, so he’d do it tomorrow. He had just about that much time before the bus dropped Phoebe, and if he wasn’t there to meet her the driver wouldn’t let her off.

Ty peeled the shirt off and tossed it into the laundry basket. The jacket and pants would have to go to for dry cleaning, so he folded those over the back of a chair for now. He’d take a quick shower to get the sweat off, then switch to his regular clothes and easily be at the bus stop in plenty of time.

He thumbed at his phone to check his messages with one hand while he peeled off socks and boxers with his other, balancing like a heron without any effort at all. Two missed calls. His heart sped up for a second. Could Alex have called so soon? One was a customer number, but the other was an unknown, so he checked voicemail as he padded to the bathroom.

“Hey there. It’s Daryl, with the Camaro. I can’t pick it up today. I’ll swing by tomorrow morning. Let me know if that’ll be a problem, bud.”

Ty nodded to himself. He could stow the Camaro in the shop overnight, so he added that to his mental checklist for the afternoon.

“Hey Ty. Long time no see.”

Ty paused and put the phone down on a shelf as he tossed his boxers into the laundry basket. He didn’t often get calls from women who sounded
that
sultry on the phone. And the only one who did wasn’t an ex he wanted to tangle with again.

“I’m in NYC this week. Thought maybe we could get together, have a few drinks, then go to my hotel and you could f-”

“Jesus Christ.” Ty tapped the screen and hit the 7 key.

“Message deleted.”

God, he really needed to pony up the three bucks for visual voicemail. How the hell had she even got this number?

Google, you idiot.

Yeah. It wasn’t hard when his business website had his cell number on it so customers could get in touch. Ty flipped the phone onto its front and headed into the bathroom with his usual duck-and-sidestep. It was second nature, even when doorways were big enough to accommodate him, but in this little apartment it was utterly necessary.

He ducked into the shower and turned it on. A jet of ice-cold water hit him square in the chest and he gasped in shock, but by the time the ice water had run down his stomach and made his balls shrink back the jet itself had warmed up. He squeezed shower gel into his palm and chased the water with his hands, swiftly and efficiently building up a lather.

Ty turned his back on the water and closed his eyes as he scrubbed under his armpits. Warmth spread across his shoulders and trickled around his waist. It slid down his crease and along the ribbed muscles of his obliques until it wrapped around his balls and trickled down his shaft. Beads of moisture gathered at the tip of his cock before they gained enough mass to fall, and his flesh idly twitched at the sensation.

He twisted to wash the suds from his pits, and the water caught each of his nipples in turn, licking them briefly.

His cock pulsed.

Ty snorted and opened his eyes, but the glance down only told him what he already knew. A bit of warm water and a half hour alone in his apartment and he was already sporting a semi.

He palmed more gel and turned away from the shower. He was here to wash. Just wash. Freshen up after sweating in the car for so long.

Ty’s hand cupped his balls and slowly massaged the gel around them. His free hand trailed over his stomach, and the touch sent a tingle of pleasure through his groin. He groaned.

He wasn’t going to get out of this without sorting something out, was he? No. May as well get it dealt with, then.

Ty slid his lathered hand from his balls to his shaft and gave it a languid stroke. The response was electric, and made his ass clench.

Jesus, what had gotten him so goddamn horny all of a sudden?

He looked down again, past the feathers which splayed across his chest. The water made his ink blacker than black, and seemed to run along the lines of the wings which wrapped around his arms until it leaped from fingers to cock, then spilled free from his darkening head. His cock was thick and hard and eager between his fingers, and the lather was rinsing from it as quickly as he built it up.

Yeah. Yeah, that was… He groaned and turned to face the water, then took his hand away from his balls to press against the tiled wall so that he could lean in and thrust into his fist. His lips parted as he gasped and moaned. His shaft was hard as steel, heavy and throbbing and yearning for release, and he worked it quickly, his hips shoving against his hand as the heat tickled his chest and his stomach, and the light touch of it traced like fingers down his thighs and was warm and wet around his cock like an eager mouth.

God, it’d been too long since he’d had lips around his dick. Even longer since they’d belonged to anyone who knew what they were doing down there.

Wilson looks like he’d know what to do.

“Guh!” Ty’s hand broke free and he shook his head. His cock ached, but he placed his palm flat against the wall and stared at the tile. “What the hell?”

The stray thought was gone, chased away like a ghost, and Ty’s heavy breaths and racing pulse couldn’t distract him from the ache——the desperate
need
——from his prick. The weight of it hung from him and demanded his attention. He tried to stay away from it, to wash his face, clean his hair, but it was always there. Waiting for him. Refusing to go away.

“You’re an asshole,” he muttered as he returned to it. But his eyelids fluttered and his hips thrust moments later.

So close.
Damn
he was so close. He ran his thumb along his slit and shuddered.

Alex’s lips were so goddamn fine, though. Pink and soft. It was so easy to imagine them stretched wide around his cock as Ty tangled his fingers into that pale blond hair. He could picture those blue eyes glancing up at him through delicate long lashes while Ty thrust into the tight heat of his mouth, felt Alex’s throat swallow around his swollen cock head—

Ty came so hard that a cry tore free of him. It felt like it erupted all the way from his stomach and ripped through his lungs on its way out of his body. His balls squeezed and his cock jerked as his seed spat out, over and over, the first shots hitting the wall like they’d been fired from a cannon.

His thighs quivered. His knees gave way. Ty slapped an elbow against the wall to steady himself but his arm was trembling. He gasped down hot, vapor-laden air and snatched his hand away from his softening prick, unsure which of the two had betrayed him.

His whole body shook with the aftermath. He felt dizzy, light-headed. He wanted to close his eyes and rest, bask in the warmth which suffused him.

But he couldn’t.

Ty pushed himself back from the wall and feverishly began to wash. He started over and lathered himself from head to toe, then scrubbed like he was in a decontamination tent. When he was done with that he turned his attention on the tiles and cleaned them until every last hint of his solo outing had been forced down the plug hole.

It was the stress. He was being too hard on himself. He was just worried about Phoebe and his scumbag brain had played a trick on him, that was all. He could take the strain of making IEDs safe, but the thought of Montgomery getting his hand on Mel’s little girl? No. No way. Then there was the heat. It was unseasonably hot outside and with the aircon failing and the stress of the meeting and now he’d have to wait to see what happened when Montgomery got himself an attorney… Or maybe the guy would just try to take Phoebe again, appear out of nowhere and upset her like he had on Saturday.

Yeah. That’s all it was. Stress. But he could cope with stress. He was trained to handle it. It was a different kind of stress from what he was used to. This kind wouldn’t kill him if he made a mistake. Nobody would die here. He’d just forgotten what it was like to be under pressure, nothing more than that.

And he sure as hell didn’t have any kind of interest in some little slip of a dude. Not that there was anything wrong with that. Alex was a good-looking guy, but Ty couldn’t go around imagining him in these kinds of situations. The man was a professional, and he was helping Ty out with serious shit here. Besides, Ty had no idea whether Alex was gay, and even if he was, Ty wasn’t.

No matter what his dick thought.