"Do I need to get my gun?" Manny asked carefully.
"Your what? Your gun? Why?" Josh blinked up at Manny's face. Did Manny mean that he was going to shoot Josh? Jeez, he was only looking.
"It worked last time to get you to touch me."
The words hung there, loaded with meaning. When neither of them moved it was Manny who took matters into his hands. He removed his jeans until he lay just in those intriguing black boxers he wore and then he pulled back the covers and wriggled his way under. Josh blinked and watched. In a daze he stripped to his boxers and then stood uncertainly. Manny turned so his back faced Josh and then looked over his shoulder.
"Strictly cuddling. We need sleep," he ordered.
Now that was something Josh could get behind.
Literally. He climbed into the bed under the covers and before he could change his mind he was spooning Manny.
There was a small amount of wriggling; Josh checking what he could and couldn't touch and then Manny moved back and snuggled down. In seconds he was sleeping. Josh lay there for a while. He guessed Manny just needed the moral support but he wished he could sleep. He was hard and his damn dick was pressed up against Manny's ass and that wasn't helping with the whole sleeping thing. Reaching behind him, he checked his cell alarm was set and with a final push to settle his libido he concentrated on sleep.
CHAPTER 10
The meet was on and Josh's voice was clear in Manny's ear. The tone of it was reassuring as he went through the history of Pipers. Apparently the place had once been a speakeasy and the basement held corridors that were escape routes. They had fallen into disuse now; much of the tunneling had caved, and the building of the tower next door had cut into the foundation. Still, Josh intoned, it had history seeping out of every brick. He surmised it was probably one of the places the original Bullens held sway over back in the Prohibition era.
Funny how sexy Josh sounded when he was simply reciting historical facts—he wondered what the man would sound like when he was coming? Manny hadn't had the high of listening to that particular noise yet. He had never before spent so much time with another guy, enjoying it so much. Well, apart from Adam—when Manny was running Adam he could listen to the guy all day. Pity he had been so involved in the FBI guy who had broken his heart, otherwise Manny would have tried his luck.
"So back to today," Josh changed direction with the information he was providing. "The back exit leads to the alleyway; street cams show it's the only exit other than the main entrance itself. Your guy is likely to hit the back way I'm assuming. Unless this is some show of strength and they all come barreling in the front door. Shit. Forget I said that."
Josh had a way to go before he could provide level, calm support but the dramatic announcement in his ear made Manny want to smile. He couldn't smile but he could save the feeling for later.
They hadn't talked much this morning. When he woke he had been spooned very effectively by Josh who smelled of tea tree and was as warm as a furnace. Nerves twisted in his gut—it had been a long time since he'd been in the field like this—even longer since he thought of his family. He could talk the talk to a certain extent—his dad hadn't lost the way he had been brought up and Manny had picked up enough to get by. The anxiety deep inside him made him roll over as cleanly as he could in Josh's hold, but awkwardly enough to wake the guy up.
"Hey," Josh had said. His green eyes were adorably sleepy and he was blinking the tiredness away.
"Hey," was all Manny could say back. He didn't have words and he simply buried his head against Josh's warm skin and clung on for dear life. To his credit Josh didn't ask why; plainly he was as inside Manny's head as Manny himself. When the alarm sounded on Josh's phone at the same time as his own it was a fumble to turn them both off, which kind of avoided the whole sleeping in the same bed awkward slew of questions. Showered and standing in front of the closet, it had been Josh who had helped him choose what to wear.
"Expensive stuff," he said as he rummaged through the clothes Manny had brought in with him. "Good call. A blue shirt—" He looked at Manny. "No, wait, cream with your eyes. And a tie with gold and red… this one…"
On it had gone, with Josh dressing him and commenting on how he looked. Until finally Manny Sullivan, all casual jeans and tees, had been replaced by Vincenzio Altosinno with his Prada and his D&G. That had been only an hour before but it seemed like such a long time ago.
He was in the corner of a bar called Pipers, a clean place sporting a large TV on the wall and a menu board with lunch options that sat next to a gleaming coffee machine. Very 'coffee house' and not at all like the seedy back alleys where Manny had maybe expected this to go down. Manny sat at the table with his back to the wall and Nik standing behind him with his arms folded across his broad chest. His weapon was showing and the expression on his face was very much tough guy. Later Manny would tease him for that, but now at
