Intoxicating (Elite Protection Services #1)

by Onley James

“Jesus, I can’t believe you’re the one who lived.” He swiped at the tears on his face, slamming his foot down on the gas and gripping the steering wheel with both hands. The little pink pill he’d taken earlier was at war with the half bottle of bourbon he’d ingested, leaving him tired and wired, his father’s words bouncing around in his skull like a pinball. “What a waste you are. All the money we spent to make you normal…and for what? For you to be down on your knees in a bathroom like some two-dollar whore…at a public event? At one of my events. In front of my friends!”

His father had a peculiar idea of normal. Marrying a woman he hated for her trust fund. Selling his soul to appease his base. Kids in cages. Walls to keep out nobody. Yet, Wyatt was the whore. Wyatt was the abomination.

He needed to slow down, but he knew he wouldn’t. He knew, way down deep in his gut—where he stuffed down all the things he used to think were possible—he wouldn’t stop. His father would never leave him alone. Never let him be who he was.

“I’m fine. If…if you could just get me to my car.” The guy huffed out a startled laugh. “I don’t know how to break this to you, dude, but you could fit what’s left of your SUV in your pocket. It’s a miracle you’re alive.” Wyatt’s stomach sank. He couldn’t even do this right. He gripped the guy's hand. “Tell my dad… Tell my dad I tried to end it. I tried to do the right thing. Tell him.”

Linc frowned. “No offense, but you realize you’re paying six figures to babysit a grown man, right?” “Ten minutes with my son and you’ll feel like I’ve robbed you blind.”

The last photo showed a boy on a stretcher with an oxygen mask hiding the lower half of his face. Blood and sweat plastered matted blond hair against the boy’s forehead, his left eye swollen shut. The right eye was open and looking at the camera. There was a bleakness in the look that felt like a kick to the stomach.

“The other accidents were minor enough I just paid for the property damage.” Jesus. The douche apple obviously didn’t fall far from the douche tree.

Wyatt hadn’t been a thing Montgomery Edgeworth cared about since he was six, if ever.

“Wyatt Edgeworth?” Wyatt was certain his mouth fell open. He gaped at the six-foot-plus slab of suited muscle standing in his doorway, but he couldn’t help it. It wasn’t often every fantasy you ever had came to life and knocked on your front door.

Your father sent you another babysitter. I hope this one is smarter than the last.” The man’s lips twitched as if attempting to hold back a smile, and Wyatt tried to ignore the fluttering in his belly. Could his father really be so cruel as to send the most beautiful man Wyatt had ever seen to guard his body for the next six months? The answer was yes. What a fucking bastard.

Linc wasn’t sure what he’d expected when Wyatt opened the door, but it wasn’t a sullen fallen angel with sparkling green eyes and a riot of blond curls. He was all sleek muscle and sharp edges, lithe like he’d gotten those muscles swimming laps in the pool, not hitting the weights at the gym. His features were almost…delicate. High cheekbones and a perfect jawline. He was…he was pretty. Beautiful, even. Sculptors spent lifetimes trying to create that kind of perfection.

A strange shadow crossed the kid’s face before he gave him a lopsided smile. “G.I. Joe can cook,” he said with a fake gasp. “Plot twist.”

Guys like Linc…military guys…they all had girlfriends and wives. Even the ones who were gay were so deep in the closet they were frolicking with woodland creatures in Narnia.

“You’d make a good Daddy.” Heat flooded Wyatt’s face. Jesus, he’d actually said those words to Linc last night.

He could never look Linc in the eye again. Like, who said shit like that? Not straight guys. And definitely not to another straight dude. He couldn’t ‘no homo’ his way out of this.

“I’m a little naked here.” Linc snorted. “If you’ve got something I’ve never seen, I’ll throw a dollar at it,”

“I’m sorry, but who the fuck are you? You’re just a fucking bodyguard. You’re not my fucking life coach. That chick quit, like, six months ago. I’ll eat your stupid fucking toast, but you can stop acting like you give a fuck about me. We met yesterday.”

Wyatt was spoiled and reckless and a hundred different kinds of damaged, but fuck if Linc’s cock didn’t stand at attention every time the brat stared him down, just begging Linc to make him obey. Wyatt was perfect in every way. Beautiful, sullen, stubborn…just broken enough to not care that the war had left Linc fucked up in ways he couldn’t even begin to put into words.

But Wyatt wanted him. The boy was a big sucking void and Linc wanted nothing more than to fill him up, again and again, to give him what he so desperately needed. But Linc would be a monster for giving in. Wyatt was one big open wound, desperate for somebody to be all the things his father wasn’t, and Linc couldn’t do that, not in the way the kid needed, not the way anybody needed. There was something wrong with him; a wire had gotten crossed and he could never go back.

The boy would do anything Linc wanted, he knew it in a way he’d never be able to explain to another soul. Wyatt was his; his to kiss, his to fuck, his to protect and discipline.

Wyatt would have bet his entire trust fund Linc had been two seconds away from kissing him before Charlie had barged in there like the hot sloppy mess she was, and Wyatt was one hundred percent sure he would have let him and seventy-five percent sure it would have been the worst idea ever. God, what would Wyatt even do with Linc? The man was married, with a kid. Even if he was gay, he wasn’t available, and Wyatt was a lot of things, but he wasn’t a homewrecker.

He wasn’t sure why he didn’t want Linc to know about the makeup. But he only shared this part of himself with the people he trusted, which at twenty-two years old was comprised of two people, Charlie and Graciela.

Linc was driving him nuts, just kissing and licking at his neck, touching him like he owned him, like he had some claim to Wyatt’s body, like it was his to access any time he wanted.

Charlie’s blue eyes went feral at the sight of his father, and Linc and Wyatt could only watch in horror as she marched toward the older man and poked her claw-like nail into his navy blazer. “This is all your fault. Are you just so desperate to control him that you’ll let this savage kill him? Look at him! Look at his throat. You just won’t be happy until he’s dead, will you? Do better! Be better!”

He wanted to rip the other man apart, wanted to torture him slowly. Linc knew the things that went on in those conversion programs. Every gay kid had heard the horror stories. Some he knew had stories of their own. He couldn’t imagine what three straight summers would be like.

“You’re not the boss of me.” Linc leaned across the island until they were almost nose to nose, and Wyatt most definitely regretted his decision to go commando. “Kid, I’m the textbook definition of the boss of you. Now, eat.”

As he erased his hours of work in a matter of minutes, he focused on making himself numb. If he didn’t care, his father had no power over him and neither did Linc. At least, that’s what he told himself. He was tired of feeling like a raw nerve all the time.

He was wrong. This fucking apartment wasn’t his prison, his family was. As long as his father was alive, Wyatt would never be free.

“You can’t leave. You have to bring me water and oranges. You have to take care of me.”

They weren’t a thing. They’d never be a thing. He told himself this over and over on a loop as they lay there in the dark.

“If there’s any karma in this world, your dad will get face raped by a chainsaw,” she swore. “God willing,” Linc muttered.

Wouldn't that be nice

“Do you want—” Linc started. “Yes,” Wyatt interrupted. Linc tilted his head, narrowing his eyes. “You don’t even know what I was going to say.” Wyatt’s hands flailed. “Don’t you get it? It doesn’t matter what you were going to say. The answer is yes. Whatever you want…I’ll always say yes.”

He had wanted a Daddy for longer than he could remember, and he’d wanted Linc since the moment they’d met, but never in his wildest dreams had he imagined he could have both.

“Fuck yeah, Violet’s here?” Charlie said, craning her head to look around the room. “Charming as always, Charlemagne. Your mother must be so proud.” “She thinks I’m the fucking tits,” Charlie assured her, goosing her own breasts for emphasis. Linc bit down on the inside of his cheek until he teared up, just to keep from laughing. He had to admit, if women were his thing, Charlie would have been an absolute keeper.

“Oh, do shut up, Martha. Wearing sensible shoes doesn’t make a woman a feminist or a lesbian any more than wearing that hideous yellow dress makes you a goddamn banana,” Violet snarked, shaking her head. “I swear, with women like you, I don’t know why my mother fought so hard to win the right to vote.”

Omg I need a Violet in my life!

Wyatt had spent the night trying so hard to be flawless, but Linc preferred him like this, clumsy, eager, desperate to please.

Linc pulled back enough to cup Wyatt’s face. He’d clearly spent the day playing with his makeup. He’d pinned his curls off his face with a chunky black clip, and his already perfect creamy skin now shimmered like a prism when the light hit it. He’d painted his eyelids a glittery silver-blue and his full lips a frosty pink. He looked like some virginal sprite from a faraway land,

“Are you okay?” Linc breathed against his ear. “I’m more than okay. I’m amazing,” Wyatt answered honestly. “I’m pretty sure I can hear color now. That was…wow.”

“Just wanted to let you know I plan on ignoring the dresses and will use the list of banned topics as my personal to-do list.” “It would disappoint me if you didn’t,” Wyatt said.

Linc gripped his upper arm, pulling him toward the door. Victor snagged his other arm. Wyatt sucked in a startled breath. Linc turned, his gaze falling to Victor’s hand on Wyatt’s arm. “You have two seconds to get your hand off him before I tear it off your fucking body and beat you to death with it.”

“Do you know who I am?” “Dr. Levkoff, I’ll call you back,” she murmured before setting the phone down and smiling at the senator. “Yes, sir. I know exactly who you are. You’re the man who got away with stealing a hundred million dollars from the company that owns this hospital. You’re the reason half of us didn’t get raises and why we’re so grossly understaffed. I know exactly who you are.” The man’s expression would have made Linc laugh on some other day.

You tell me every day that you love me, even if you don’t say it out loud.”