His fingers whitened on her hips as he felt the rumbling start in his balls and race through is body until he thought the top of his head was going to come off. The room actually tilted one way and then the other as he desperately tried to focus, as Barb collapsed over him with a groan, as the greatest orgasm of his life tore through him like a—those things Fred talked about—
Don’t think about Fred, idiot.
Tsunami. Like a tsunami, that was it.
“Oh my,” Barb gasped in his ear.
“You’re my tsunami.”
She sat up and stared down at him thoughtfully, face and breasts flushed from their exertion. “We’ll work on the pet names,” she said at last, and he tickled her until she begged for mercy.
Chapter Thirty-one
“Well, that was a huge waste of time,” Fred grumbled, tripping over an ice chest but righting herself in time. The captain helped her onto the ramp and she stomped down it. “Not to mention breakfast.”
“We’ll keep trying,” Thomas said, white-faced with exhaustion. They had been in the water for hours. Fred was sort of ready for a nap herself.
“Perhaps I will go back later, now that I know the locations under suspicion.” Artur, annoyingly, looked like he’d just jumped out of bed after fourteen hours of sleep. Stupid full-blooded mermen.
Fred yawned. “Now who’s got a commendable devotion to duty?”
“I do not wish to cause you more distress—which the trip on the boat seemed to. And although he annoys me sometimes—I do not wish to see harm come to this one.” He pointed to Thomas. “It would not be honorable.”
“Yeah, okay, whatever.”
“Whatever is right,” said Thomas. “I’m going back to the room so I can fall on my face and die for a few hours.”
“The room?” Fred halted midway down the ramp. Behind her, the first mate groaned. She flapped a hand at him in a “don’t worry” motion and reached for her cell phone. “The room. Right. Let me just see if Jonas wants to come. I mean join us.”
“Join us taking a nap?”
“Just let me call him. Right now.”
Barb was cuddling into his side and all was right with the world. “I swear,” she murmured, “I haven’t had that much fun since my divorce. Actually, since about a year before my divorce.”
Jonas yawned. “Right… didn’t you say he was cheating on you the whole last year?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Dumbass.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Not that I’m complaining, but I can’t believe someone didn’t swoop down on you after you got rid of the idiot.”
She giggled. “Someone did. It just took them a few years to get their act together.”
“Off my case. Keeping Fred out of trouble is a full-time job, and I already have one of those.”
She was tracing circles around his left nipple, which his entire body thought was fine. “That’s my ex, too. He’s always taking on new projects, extra jobs. He built a hotel just a couple blocks away from here—would you believe he had the nerve to send me an invitation to the grand opening last month?”
“Should have told him to stick it where the sun never ever shines.” He ruffled her newly short hair—shoulder length, layered around the face. Just as he had suggested. “I love your hair like this. God, it’s like silk, it’s—your husband did what?”
Barb’s eyes were closed as she luxuriated in his touch, but now they popped open. “I didn’t quite catch that.”
He could hardly hear her. He was trying hard to remember what Fred had said about their little harbor problem. Literal shit into the water. Likely from a new building. One built in the last year. And then there was the personal angle, something he bet neither Thomas nor the prince had considered.
What if someone was fucking up Boston Harbor to wreck things for the NEA? Tough to get tourists down to shitville. Tough to do much of anything when the entire harbor smelled like a Porta Potti.
“Your ex. What’s his name?”
“Phillip King.”
“So you’ve always had your own name.”
“Jonas, what’s the matter?”
He ignored the question. “Think this one over before you answer, Barb. Did you guys really part amicably?”
“Yes. Although—it’s quite funny you should bring this up, because a year ago he started trying to, I guess woo me would be the word. But I wasn’t going down that road again, and I told him so. There were some pretty hard feelings that time, and he left a few nasty messages on my machine, but I had my lawyer tell him to cease and desist and that was really the end of—Jonas, what’s the matter? You look like you’re going to faint.”
He could hear his cell phone ringing from somewhere and sat up, gently pushing Barb away. “Help me find my pants,” he said urgently.
“But what’s the—”
“My pants, woman!”
She hopped off the bed and they both looked in the bedroom and the sitting area. On the third ring he found them hanging from the front doorknob. He lunged for them, found his phone, fumbled with it, dropped it, bent, picked it up, clawed it open.
“Fred, don’t hang up!”
“That’s not your midorgasm voice, is it?”
He slid to the floor, relieved. “No, but I did just give your boss the banging of a lifetime.”
“Oh, Jonas!” she shrieked. “Stop that! I have to work with the woman, you know.”
“Ow!”
“What? Did you bruise a testicle?”
“No, she pinched me. Guess she didn’t care for my confession either.” She went in for another pinch and he batted her away. “Listen, you guys have any luck?”
“No we did not, dammit, and everybody’s pooped—except the King of the Ocean, here, who looks ready to take on the Chicago Bulls—so we’re all coming back to the room for a nap and you’d by God better be finished and fully dressed when we get there because one more shock my heart cannot take and if you had any sensitivity at all you wouldn’t have had sex with my boss in the water fellow’s—”
“Fred, shut the hell up and listen, goddammit!”
Barb, bending over to shake out her skirt, froze.
“Did you have an aneurysm for lunch?” Fred demanded. “Because—”
“Barb’s ex-husband is really pissed at her. And he just built a new hotel. Guess where?”
“Oh, no.”
“Right on the harbor.”
“Oh, fuck.”
“Yup.”
“Oh, jeez.”
“Yeah. Sic ‘em.”
“You mean we’ve been up to our eyeballs in paperwork and Artur and I have been breathing shit—literally breathing shit—and all that we needed to do to crack the case was stand back and let you bone my boss?”
He took the skirt from Barb and tossed it on the dining room table. Then he lifted Barb to the same table. “Looks like. Listen, take your time coming back, will you?”
“Oh, that is just disgus—”
He hung up on her.
“What’s this about my ex?” Barb asked, leaning back and stretching out on the table, which was plenty big enough for four more Barbs.
“Oh. That. He’s the bad guy.”
“Oh. I’ll likely be much more concerned about this.” Jonas began to nibble her cleavage. “Later,” she sighed.
“Ummmm,” he agreed.
Then, after a long moment: “Is Dr. Bimm angry?”
“Only because she didn’t get laid. And that’s her own damn fault, believe me.”
She arched beneath his hands and wrapped her legs around his waist. “That’s nice,” she sighed, kissing him back.
He came up for air. “Wait, wait! I’ve always wanted to try this.” He went to the small credenza at the other end of the dining room table, opened it, and withdrew a pack of cards.
“Oh, oh,” Barb said, but she was smiling.
Jonas shuffled the cards. “Okay, check this. We’ll play poker to get our fantasy.”
“We’ll do what?”
“We’re going to role play. If I win, you’re a damsel in distress and I have to save you, blah-blah. If you win, you’re a Catholic school teacher and I’ve just been caught putting a smoke bomb in the boy’s room.”
Dr. Barb started to laugh, then choked it off and looked grave. “You feel the need, to play cards to bring this about?”
“Hey, I’m a traditionalist.” He did a fast box shuffle, then dealt them each five cards. He picked up his hand and observed the three aces. “Okay, whatcha got?”
“I have two twos,” she said triumphantly.
He tossed his hand down and grabbed her. “You win, teacher.”
Chapter Thirty-two
“Are you sure you’re not too tired?” Fred asked as the three of them charged into the Sleepytime Hotel. It was a twelve story building built right up to the harbor. From the outside it looked like a perfectly respectable, almost luxury hotel. Not at all the den of evil they now knew it to be.
“Now? No way. As soon as you told me, I got a massive adrenaline surge. Let’s kick some ass and then turn him over to the EPA.”
“After we snap his spine,” Artur added.
“You just keep your hands to yourself, buster, until we figure out what we’re going to—Phillip King, please,” she told the receptionist. In a moment that would haunt her nightmares for eternity, she’d blanked out and had to call Jonas back to get the guy’s name. And her friend was so out of breath he could hardly spit it out. And there was an odd thumping noise in the background—not like they were on a bed, but maybe—
“Remind me not to eat anywhere in your suite until I figure this out,” she muttered, shrugging when Thomas gave her a mystified look.
“I’m sorry,” the receptionist said, “but Mr. King is in a meeting right now and can’t be—”
“Tell him,” she said, “it’s about his ex-wife. I bet he’ll see us.”
“I bet he will, too,” the receptionist muttered. Then she pushed a couple of buttons on her console, gestured to the elevator, and said, more graciously, “Top floor.”
“Remember,” Fred said as they marched into the elevator, “nobody use the bathrooms while we’re here.”
“Oh, Fred, that’s gross!”
“Just sayin’. Artur, what the hell’s the matter with you?” For he had suddenly thrown himself against her and was clutching her hard enough to hurt.
“This little metal box—moving—up?”
“Yeah, it’s an elevator, it’s perfectly normal, now leggo.” She tried to pry his fingers off her arm. “Artur, calm down.”
“But what is to prevent the box from shooting right out of the top of the building?”
“Nothing,” Thomas said cheerfully. “Happens at least once a week in this city.”
“Owwwww,” Fred bitched. “Artur, you’re cutting off the circulation. Thomas, cut the shit.”
“I just think he should prepare himself.”
“Owwwww!”
There was a ding and then the elevator slowed to a stop and the doors hummed open. Artur lost no time in getting out. Thomas went sailing after him, thanks to Fred’s helpful shove. He stumbled into Artur, sending them both sprawling in the elevator.
“I swear, the trouble you two cause me on a minute-by-minute basis…” She stomped past them and resisted the urge to kick Thomas in the ribs. At least they were helping each other up like gentlemen.
“You have to admit, I gotcha good,” Thomas said.
“Indeed you did. I shall remember your deviousness and address it another time.”
“Bring it, you redheaded overgrown—”
“Dr. Bimm, Dr. Pearson, and Prince Artur of the Black Sea,” Fred announced, walking into the conference room the receptionist had directed them to. Artur had made it clear he wanted his true name and affiliation when they finally confronted the bad guy.
Bad guys.
Fourteen men were staring back at her, and they were all shifty-eyed, shiny-suited, and wore suspicious bulges under their armpits. Even the guy at the head of the table, a balding, cadaverously thin man with eyes the color of dust and the longest fingers she’d ever seen. And her mom taught piano.
Of course, on their date, he hadn’t been packing. But otherwise she recognized him immediately.
“You said this was about my ex?” Phillip King asked, standing at the head of the table.
“No, it’s about what you’re doing to your ex. Specifically, pumping all the shit from your hotel into her harbor. Well. Boston Harbor. But we know why you’re doing it.”
That ought to fix him, she thought, folding her bony arms across her chest. And right in front of his partners, too!
One of the shiny-suited men looked at King and said, “I thought you said there was no way to get caught.”
“Uh,” Fred said. “What?”
“There wasn’t,” King said, looking startled.
“I thought you said it’d be cheaper to just dump the stuff straight to the harbor—”
“It is.”
“—and nobody’d be able to tell it was us.”
“They can’t!”
That’s true, Fred thought. They didn’t have any hard evidence yet. Which might be problematic.
“Before you get any wise ideas,” she added, suddenly very glad there were two men on her side, and they were Thomas and Artur, “we told at least a dozen people about this today before we came over here.”
“Your hair is still wet,” King observed.
“Yeah, but—” She cast about for a convincing lie.
“Miscreant! You admit your wrongdoing? Then be prepared to pay the penalty!”
Which Artur completely ruined.
“You guys are way too mob chic,” Thomas said, staring at the men. “Don’t even tell me you got laundered crime money to help you build the hotel.”
“Of course I did,” King snapped. “Where else would I have been able to raise the money so fast? Get the building up so quickly? Get around certain pesky rules and regulations on waste treatment?”
“He’s only telling us this,” Fred explained to Artur, “because he’s going to try to kill us. Just so you know.”
“Is that a custom in your world? Talking, then killing?”
“Yeah, I’d say so—Thomas?”
Thomas nodded. “That’s the way we bipeds do it.”
“You three, go wait in my office. I want to hear more about my ex. And you guys—wait!” For all the other men were standing, getting coats, grabbing suitcases, and generally making the noise of men about to leave. “There’s no need to cut the meeting short. I’ve got charts that show just how profitable a whole Sleepytime chain, could be and there’s no reason why we can’t—”
“A chain?” Fred gasped, horrified.
“We’ll see how you handle this problem first,” one of the shiny-suited men told him. “Then we’ll be back. Maybe.”
Fred watched with relief as the mobsters left. She had no desire to explain to Artur about gunfights. Or organized crime.
Phillip King opened the door connecting one room to the other and disappeared.
“I guess, he’s going to his office,” Thomas said.
“Then let us meet him on his own territory,” Artur announced, striding after him.
“Oh, yeah, I’m sure he just wants to chat,” Fred muttered, following the men. Still, King was just one guy—a biped, as Artur would say—and there were three of them. She wasn’t especially worried now.
She walked into a brightly lit office with blueprints plastered on every wall (no doubt plans for the mighty Sleepytime empire) and looked at King just in time to see him point something shiny at them.
“Down!” Thomas shouted, and batted her sideways so hard, she flew back into the conference room. At the same instant, or so it felt to her, there was a loud bang and a chunk of wood where her head had just been leapt from the wall and fell on the carpet.
Thomas shoved her under the tabl
e, yanked Artur down, and in a few seconds all three of them were crouched beneath the conference room table while King screamed things like, “I’m turning that whore’s water zoo into a shit hole!” and “It’s her fault I’m in debt up to my eyeballs!” and “Why couldn’t she just look the other way like a normal wife?” Each rant, of course, punctuated with a gunshot.
“Uh…”
“He’s nuts,” Thomas said, squinting up from beneath the table. “And that is my professional opinion as a water fellow.”
Her phone rang and, out of pure dumb habit, she flipped it open. “Yeah?”
“Call the cops on that thing!” Thomas hissed.
“You bipeds and your odd loud weapons.”
“It’s possible,” came Jonas’s pant, sounding like he’d just run the two hundred, “that her ex is emotionally disturbed.”
“Now you tell me. Say, could you send the police to his hotel, if it’s not too much trouble?”
“Why? What’d you do to him?”
“Nothing! Except possibly disrupt his illegal funding. But seeing as how he’s shooting at us, maybe you could finish boinking my boss and call some authorities.” She slapped the phone shut. “Jonas is calling the cavalry. I think. Now what?”
“Well. It looked like a revolver to me. Six shots. I’ve counted four so far.”
“Super. A water fellow who knows about guns.” To Artur, “That means he has two left.”
“Two what?”
“Two small pieces of metal which his weapon will hurl at us so fast, if it hits a vital organ it will kill us.”
Artur made a face. “A distasteful way to fight.”
“Hey, let’s talk him into stopping, I’m all for it. Any actual ideas?”
“We hope he fires off two more shots in his hysteria, which, if they’re anything like the last four, won’t come near us. We wait for the police and let them deal with it.” Thomas was ticking their options off on his fingers. “Or we goad him into using his last shots. Or we try to take the gun away from him.”
“Cowering in terror while we hope he wastes his last two sounds good to me,” Fred said.
“Or you could goad him while Artur and I try to sneak in through the other door and jump him.”