James

This is awkward.

Somehow, I made it out of the dining room without, well...

Once I close the door and throw the lock, I unzip and yank my pants open. My cock strains against my underwear, mashed in awkwardly to one side when it wants to spring out, as it does when I release it. A sigh of relief huffs out of my lungs when I let it all hang out, but that's only a small comfort. My cock is hard as a rock, tight, and so erect it's arched up and starts slapping my stomach when I walk through to the bedroom.

There I discard my clothes. Normally when I get a hard-on, gravity does its thing. I'm already so hard it feels like I'm going to burst. I can't stand it. Desperately, I try thinking of anything else, but before I know what I'm doing, my fingers and palm are stroking the fat head of my dick and I'm picturing Phoenix on his knees with those perfect lips pressed tight around the shaft as his eyes look up at me and he sucks so hard...

If I weren't alone, I'd be embarrassed. Sitting on the edge of the bed, I explode in my hand and cry out against my instinct to stay quiet. That's unusual, too. I've had a lot of practice keeping quiet. Everyone in a military unit masturbates, but you don't get loud about it.

The release was unsatisfying, barely there. It's always like that after a long dry spell—I haven't had a chance to take care of business in about a week. After I wash my hands and realize that my cock is still hard as steel and my whole body is throbbing, I sigh at my reflection in the mirror.

"Alright, goddamn it," I mutter, "fine."

Lying sprawled across the bed, I use both hands. At first I picture my high school crush, an English teacher named Mrs. Albertson who just had to know what those low cut summer dresses did to a room full of upperclass boys. The stifling heat, thanks to a total lack of air conditioning, made the gauzy fabric cling to her body; when she'd stand by the window and rhythmically tug it to pull in some air and cool her sweaty chest, the sun would cut through the fabric...

I've had a long time to hone this fantasy, but my mind slips and when I lean back in Mrs. Albertson's chair and spread my legs, it's Phoenix that yanks my pants open and gobbles my cock in a sudden, rapid deep throating motion. It's his lips I imagine on my shaft, his tongue that glides along my flesh, his chin that tickles my balls as they tighten up along with everything else in anticipation of...

I edge off and stroke slower, avoiding the head. Opening my eyes to peek, I shudder. I'm hard as hard can be. No matter how hard I try, everyone I substitute for my employer melts away and Phoenix invades my mind. Wynona Ryder, Anna Nicole Smith, Mrs. Albertson, hell, other guys in my unit I've shamefully blown a hundred loads to in the jack shack while out on deployment, it doesn't matter.

Finally, I give in and let myself pretend it's Phoenix's mouth I explode into, his throat that takes my cock in a great gulp as I pump my seed. His finger sliding up my ass to prolong the pleasure with practiced probing.

No, that one is me. Groaning, I stretch out the orgasm until it feels like it'll pop my heart and rupture my lungs, the explosion of heat and something almost like rage so intense it edges into pain before I finally relax, my sticky hand on my stomach as the cool air between my legs brings me shivers.

Alright, yeah.

Jung, the psychologist, said you must know your shadow side, or it will rule you. I've always been a believer in that one. You need something if you're going to live a life like my life. You're not getting through it without some kind of coping mechanism. Guys with no way to deal, it's sad what happens to them. Tragic. They can't bend, so they break. The shadow rules, and the shadow ain't a guy you want in the driver's seat. It's bad enough having him for a passenger. If you let up your concentration for a hot minute, he grabs the wheel.

So, in the interest of ruling my passions so they don't rule me:

I want to come in my new boss's mouth. I want to get my hands on that tight lean body of his and fuck him like a freight train until he begs me for it. I want to bust balls deep in his ass and feel my swollen balls pressed against his. Then I want to eat him all up.

There, I admitted it, so now I can move past it and do my job. Get paid. Collect that big fat check.

That was a lot of zeroes. I genuinely should feel bad about it.

As the hot shower sluices my shame from my flesh, I turn it up until it gets painful. Count on the rich boy to have a good hot shower in his house. There is no greater luxury in all this world. Can't live without it.

Well, I have. I've lived with a piss trickle of a shower from a rubber bag heated by the sun, but that's in the past.

When I emerge from the shower, I've gone pruny and Little James has finally settled down, hanging comfortably where he belongs. I learned a long time ago: You never know when you'll get the next one, so don't get out of the shower until the hot water runs out, don't turn down a pancake breakfast, and never pass an opportunity to take a nap.

It wasn't pancakes but I just had a dynamite meal (I never in my life would have tried peanut soup otherwise), a hot shower that seemed like it would never run out, and before me is the third luxury, a big soft bed.

After spending many days out on deployments or assignments sleeping in my clothes, I luxuriate in any chance to sleep in the nude. The sheets are better than I'd expect. They must be one million thread count ancient Egyptian cotton or something. Settling back into a mound of pillows, I let out a sigh.

In the dark, thoughts come. I've had the same problem my entire life. Bedtime seems to be when my brain decides to load up the "process all your mistakes" subroutine, but even now I drift to Phoenix.

Or to the matter at hand.

I'm going to pretend to be gay.

You just masturbated to a fantasy of fucking a man. Who's pretending?

For that check, it wasn't a hard choice to make. It wouldn't surprise me if half the guys I know would turn it down no matter how much he paid, but I have obligations, and who's going to care? I don't have a Facebook or Twitter and my only family isn't going to hear of this.

Still, a little twist of unease forms in my gut. This seems, if anything, too good to be true.

Or am I concerned only because he was so emphatic that this was a pretend boyfriend thing?

Because I caught him checking out my ass? Slick, he ain't.

Because of the way he looks at me?

Because I want nothing more than to grasp him, kiss him, feel him from the inside, in every way?

I shake my head. Any sentimentality should have been burned out of me a long time ago; the shit I've seen leaves a lot of guys like hollow shells. It did a number on me. Sometimes I'm just numb. I'm usually not this keyed after a day at work. Hell, that's why people hire me. They want the ice man, the guy who sees everything because he's looking for nothing. You want someone running your security who’s above the world, looking down.

When the other guys got the inside of their shells scraped clean, just enough was left in me to hurt. A raw nerve.

At least I have one virtue: I can sleep on cue, and I do.

My alarm blares at six in the morning. I didn't ask Phoenix when he gets up, but he doesn't strike me as the military discipline type.

So, color me surprised when I find him jogging around the inside of his courtyard in a track suit.

As he passes I call out, "How long is a mile?"

"Exactly two hundred and thirty-eight laps," he shouts back, passing me again.

The courtyard isn't huge. He said this place was seventeen mil or something like that. Seeing as this is Manhattan, and the Village is chic now, all those millions buy what would be considered a moderately large and moderately ostentatious house here when it'd buy a sprawling mansion with grounds and all that just about anywhere else.

I've never been able to see it, living packed in with all these people. Phoenix certainly has his space—until he leaves the confines of his walled garden with its topiaries and fountains.

He passes me again, and again, and again.

"How far do you run?"

"Ten miles every morning," he pants. "Did you want to use the gym?"

"Yeah, I will," I say. "I didn't think to ask. Need to stay in fighting trim."

He's all sweaty, but he smells oddly sweet. The perspiration has matted his hair to his head, and a deep, ball tightening sensation lurches from between my legs up to my chest as the idea of dragging my tongue over that sweaty cheek bubbles out of nowhere.

Get a grip on yourself, James.

Well, I tried that. Twice. It doesn't seem to be helping.

I acknowledge these feelings and know they will pass. I can see them, and they will not rule me. I do not permit it.

God he's hot.

Deep breath.

"Are you alright?" he asks, taking a towel he'd left over the back of a bench to wipe himself down.

"Fine," I say. "Little tired. Jet lagged. I was in Arizona."

"Yes. We're on our own for breakfast. I usually grab something on my way out the door, but you look to be cleaned up already, so feel free to get something while you wait for me."

I find the fridge stocked with a bunch of packaged food, but none of it is store-bought. Someone, I presume Luis, cooks breakfasts for Phoenix and leaves them sealed in containers, each one with a sticky note bearing heating instructions in a precise but spidery hand.

Surveying my options, I decide to leave the quiche Lorraine and such to Phoenix and grab a bagel instead. Not the best, but I didn't realize I'd be living with the guy and figured I'd at least get a chance to pick up some tubs of protein powder.

Hair now damp from a shower, and a flowery scent clinging to his skin, Phoenix bops into the kitchen, grabs a meal from the fridge without looking, and pops it in the microwave after discarding the directions without bothering to read them. He stands there and stares at the revolving microwave.

"Shouldn't stand in front of it. It'll fry your brain."

He laughs. "Myth."

I had to say something as I fight the urge to stare. He stands there in a loose t-shirt but ungodly tight jeans that almost qualify as leggings, tight as they are around his nicely muscled legs and inviting mound of an ass. He eats standing in front of the microwave, too.

"Ready to go?" he says, setting the empty container in the sink.

I nod, chewing on a bite of bagel.

"Let's go."

He doesn't ask about my sidearm. I have it in a tuckable holster, having eschewed the suit and tie look. I should probably find a shirt that doesn't have a collar if I'm going to keep this up. Phoenix never seems to dress up beyond “sleeping in on Sunday” and I merely downgraded to business casual.

Maddeningly, he just walks outside. My head is on a swivel, my eyes darting everywhere. The city makes me nervous. Walking alone with a charge even more so. It's not just the openness that bothers me, it's the crowds and all the opportunities to leap out and confront him.

Still, the threat is a stalker. It's doubtful she's perched up on a roof with a rifle, more likely she's watching in some delusional fugue, thinking she's in a bad 90's romcom. Phoenix stops in a cluster of other commuters at the first crosswalk, blithely checking his phone like any other millennial. I hover just off his shoulder.

"You're looming," he says, after we cross the street. "Don't loom."

"Stalkers worry me," I say, conversationally. "They can be unpredictable and dangerous."

"Speaking from experience?"

"Yes. One of my first jobs after I left the military and signed up with the private contracting outfit was shadowing an heiress with an obsessed fan."

"Heiress? Anyone I'd know?"

I snort. "Do you rich people all know each other?"

"Most of us do," he says, shrugging. "I'm not into celebrity gossip, but I don't live under a rock, either."

"Right," I say. "Heiress was where the money came from, but she was one of those social media 'influencers' and a fan became obsessed."

"What's a social media influencer?"

I quirk an eyebrow. "Really? You run a tech company and you don't know about influencer marketing?"

"I have people for that."

I shake my head. "Basically, posing for pictures in bikinis holding cans of energy drink or tubs of protein powder."

Phoenix mulls that for a moment. "What's the point of that? The energy drink I can see, but why would guys buy a protein powder if it makes you look like a bikini model?"

I shrug. "I think it's just to get eyes on the brand. Maybe it's an association thing. You know, people see it as part of this luxurious lifestyle. Someone must, or these companies wouldn't pay for it. That was the rub. This girl was already rich, and these startups were falling all over each other to pay her to take a picture with their soda cans mashed into her boobs. Seriously, there were bidding wars."

"Sounds like a fun job," Phoenix says.

"I wanted to jump off the roof of her mansion. Look—guy like me, there's not a lot of options. I could have gone to school. I already had credits towards a bachelor's, but then what? I had a connect and I got offered good contracting work. None of that mercenary shit, doing dirty work for—"

"Language," he chimes, his voice light.

"Sorry," I mutter. "Anyway. I was offered a chance to protect people."

"Huh," Phoenix says. "That's noble."

"Sounds noble, right?"

We stop at another cross street and wait. Phoenix glances around. My eyes are more active, instinctively looking for motion in windows and behind cars.

"I suppose," says Phoenix. "Yeah, it does."

"I figured I'd be hired to protect women from their wife beater husbands or something. I guess that was hopelessly naive. Not that I'm putting down this heiress, you understand. It just felt so frivolous, until it wasn't."

"It wasn't?"

I motion him off the sidewalk with my head and duck into a door alcove, off the street. Careful not to expose the gun on the other hip, I lift my shirt and expose my stomach.

"The stalker got past her rent-a-cop security detail and was about to shank her in her own damned bedroom before I got there. Had to break the door down. I got this for my trouble."

I touch the scar running down my side, where the knife cut into me.

Phoenix swallows, his throat bobbing. "Holy sh..." he starts, then cuts himself off. "Well. I hope you got a bonus."

I drop my shirt. "Matter of fact, I did."

"The stalker, what happened to him? Did you stop him?"

I smile.

"Her," I say. "It was a woman." I shake my head. "This is going to sound like bull—"

He scowls.

"Like bull feathers," I catch myself, wondering how I even remembered that phrase exists. "I felt sorry for her. I really did."

"Why?"

"This perfectly normal looking girl was just obsessed. Hysterical about it. She only managed to get the knife in me because I was trying not to hurt her. I don't think I could have made myself hit her if my life depended on it."

"I thought your life did depend on it," Phoenix says, head tilted to one side. "She did stab you."

"Just a flesh wound," I mutter. "She looked like a skeleton. Poor thing was five foot eight and weighed eighty-nine pounds. Cops told me later she had this shrine in her house to my charge, right? Get this. She was only consuming products the heiress was pushing on her social media pages. Girl was living on energy drinks and protein powder."

"Wow," Phoenix says. "Why didn't anyone help her?"

I shrug. "I only know a little, from what the cops told me later. She cut off her family when they called out her obsession."

Phoenix starts walking again. "That's insane. How could they just let it go?"

"You know what the thing is about problems like that? You can't fix them if you don't look at them, and most people, they'd rather not look."

It's not far to the office, now.

"What about you?" Phoenix asks. "Do you look?"

I swallow.

"I do now."

"What happened to the stalker?"

"Well, my little heiress wanted her to get the chair, despite several lawyers explaining patiently to her that there's no death penalty in her state, and especially not for attempted murder," I say wryly. "I testified at the trial. I..."

Phoenix stops. "You what? Go ahead, say it."

I sigh. "I donated part of my pay from the contract to get her a better lawyer. She was going to be stuck with a public defender. She's in a mental hospital now. I check on her now and then."

Phoenix studies me silently.

"Sounds like you saved her life."

The hairs rise on the back of my neck. "Just doing my job, kid. Uh, sir."

Phoenix smirks. "I don't need a sir, but don't call me kid. I'm not that young."

"You'd get carded," I mutter.

"So would you," he says, as he signs himself into the building. Astonishingly, the whole thing isn't his, just the top floor. He has to swipe a key card to get the elevator to go up.

"I'll need to get you one of these, just for convenience sake," he says. "Today is going to be boring until we catch our flight."

"Wait, what?"

He glances at me. "We have to be in California by eight in the morning tomorrow, so we're leaving tonight."

"You didn't see fit to tell me?"

He shrugs.

"Phoenix, if I'm going to do my job, I need to know about these things in advance. At least let me look at your calendar."

"It's all meetings," he says, shrugging. "Well, except for my appearance on the talk show...Amanda sets these things up."

I follow him out of the elevator. His assistant is on him the moment he steps out, carrying a tablet computer.

"Good morning, sir. I have your itinerary—"

"Can you get James a company tablet, and add him with view access to my schedule? He needs to know what's coming up and where we're going."

"Of course, sir. I really must warn you—"

"Warn me?" he says.

I tense. Warn him?

"She's here."

"Who?" I say as my nervous system lights up.

Amanda jerks back, startled. I didn't mean to be that loud.

"Agatha," she says, in a small, nervous voice.

"Who let her in?" Phoenix demands.

"She brought lawyers," Amanda says. "She's in your office."

Phoenix bristles, his normally serene expression twisting into a clenched-teeth snarl.

"Fine," he snaps. "I'll deal with it."

"Brief me," I say, lowering my voice. "Fast."

"She was my guardian," he explains as we head for the stairs. "Executive at my father's company. Practically raised me after..." his voice catches just slightly, as if he wants to choke up but won't allow it. "From a young age."

"Why would she be here with lawyers?"

"Because I started this company as an end run around the family business," he says. "She's after my work, says I'm violating non-competes and things like that. I can handle her."

"You can?" I say.

He stops and gives me a death stare.

"I'll stay quiet," I say. "Just doing my job."

His expression softens slightly.

"Right, let's get this over with."

I follow him up the spiral staircase to his office loft. Sitting in the guest chair in front of his desk, flanked by two suited men, is...not what I expected. With a name like Agatha and having been told she was his guardian that raised him, I expected a stout woman in a somber pantsuit, with steel gray hair in a bun and angular glasses that belong on an elementary English teacher from 1953.

Instead, the woman sitting in front of his desk could be a model. I can't place her age, except for a shaky confidence that she's five to ten years older than I am. It's obvious she's had work done, but it's the work of a master and she could say she's only a few years older than Phoenix and maybe be believed, if you didn’t pay too much attention to her sharp, perceptive eyes.

I've seen those eyes before, and it shocks me a little to see them in a heart shaped face, complete with a beauty mark and coifed by fiery red hair in unruly curls that hang to her waist. Some guys get that “thousand yard stare”; eyes always locked on something the rest of us can't see, either because they can never stop searching out a threat or because, well, they're staring at something the rest of us can't see. Others get hard.

Her eyes are like that. They belong in a war zone.

She crosses muscular legs exposed by an inappropriately short dress and leans back in the chair, her right hand dangling in a way that suggests a cigarette between her fingers, where none can be found.

"Hello, Phoenix," she says.

"Agatha," he says coolly, sitting behind his desk. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"Who's that?" she says, locking eyes on me.

Phoenix sputters.

"Name's James," I say, almost jumping to offer a hand.

She looks at it for a moment before I withdraw it, unshaken.

"Well, that's lovely, but what are you doing here?"

"I'm Phoenix's lawyer," I say smoothly.

She flinches.

Phoenix glances at me with a look of fury in his eyes, then looks at her.

"You brought yours, so I brought one, too. Mine's bigger."

"Those legal briefs must weigh a ton," she says, eyeing my arms.

"I do Pilates," I say.

"Right," she says. "Phoenix, we're here to make an offer. The rest of the board and I want to bring you home and put a stop to this nonsense."

Phoenix stares at her levelly.

"Amicably," she adds. "The board wants you back, the shareholders want you back."

"Of course, they do. How much has the market cap dropped now?"

"Let's not get into the weeds," she says. "Look, it's impressive what you're doing here—your father would be proud—but I think, more than that, he'd be concerned about your future and the future of the company he built. I don't understand how you can just walk away from all that legacy."

"It hasn't been his for a long time," Phoenix says coldly, "and I don't like the direction it took after his...departure. I want to do something with my life that reflects my values. Let's be honest with each other, Agatha. You don't want me back, you want me to live a life of idle luxury while you continue running the company."

She smiles, but there's no humor or affection in it.

"I don't know what brought this on," she says. "A fit of teenage pique is beneath you—not to mention you're too old. You've made your point."

He leans back in his seat.

"I can't just stop," he says. "I already have investors expecting to see a return."

She smiles. "They will. I've brought an offer to buy you out. It includes stock in Breslin Industries—you'll be increasing your percentage of the shares along with it. To reflect the value you're bringing back."

"You can't offer me enough," he says, waving his hand. "There's no deal to be made here, Agatha. I'm not some wide-eyed kid you can bilk out of their dreams with a bunch of zeroes. I know what I'm worth."

She stands. "How much of it is you, and how much of it is your name, Phoenix?"

"At least it is my name," he says, smiling thinly.

Agatha remains cool, except her eyes; they could light that cigarette she clearly wants a drag from.

"Alright, I offered. I had to do that much. There's still time to change your mind. Keep this."

She drops a folder on the profusion of papers already on Phoenix's desk. He scoops up one of his fidget toys and stares at it.

"I think you'd better go," I say.

Agatha looks at me as if I just appeared out of thin air. "I beg your pardon?"

"Leave," I bark, my voice cracking like a whip.

I used the same voice more than once to break up a pair of buck privates about to make a mistake over some girl they'd forget in a week or some other minor dispute, before I got my “promotion.”

Agatha, for her part, is visibly startled, but recovers quickly. She clearly does not like being caught off guard.

"The door is still open," she says, heading for the stairs. Her lawyers trail after her. "You know my number. If I have to reach out again, it'll be through a court summons."

After she leaves, I watch her cross the rest of the office and disappear into the elevator. Phoenix remains seated, clearly not wanting to give her the satisfaction of seeing him stare.

"I need a few minutes alone," he says.

"Just holler if you need me."