"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
