Page 76 of Ship Happens
“Damn, I thought she was the one,” Ice Pick mumbles. “I can’t be with a woman who abuses animals, though. There are some real sickos in this world.”
I blink and stare at the wall. “So we didn’t need to prove that she was a fed?”
He shakes his head. “No, I figured she was. Just like you, Frankie. But I?—”
“Hold it,” Maverick says. “Frankie isn’t a fed. She’s one of us.”
Ice turns his head and gives Maverick a dramatic wink. “Right. One of us.”
“You weren’t on the ship,” I add. “You didn’t see the way I tortured one of the feds we discovered.”
Maverick points at me. “That’s true. Then she came back here and fucked me stupid because it turned her on so much. Definitely not fed behavior.”
“It’s okay, guys. Your secret is safe with me. No need to lay it on so thick.” He shrugs out of our hug and rises to his feet. “But thanks. You guys saved me from a lot of heartache.”
As he leaves the room, I’m not so sure we saved him from the heartache. He looks as if his heart aches quite a bit. But at least we saved him from his eventual demise, because she definitely had a lot of hate in her heart. And as I clean up the glass as Maverick goes to get the crew to dispose of the body, I wonder if I’ll wear that same look at the end of this trip.
I can’t think about that right now. That’s a problem for later. For now, I want to check out that bracelet a little more closely. If the women received a bracelet, that means the men had something of their own too. Castle wasn’t wearing any jewelry, but he was Cattle. Maybe they took their items away.
Men come to remove the body as I sit on the bed with the bracelet in my hands, turning it over and looking for any type of listening device, but I see nothing. The small horse charm isn’t large enough to hold much more than?—
“A tracking device,” I whisper.
I dig through my bag and find my matching bracelet, then walk to the balcony and toss both into the ocean. If King wants to know where I am, he can come and find me. I’ll be fucking ready for him.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Maverick
By the time I return to the room with a disposal crew, Frankie has already swapped her attire for something more comfortable. She stands on the balcony, resting her arms on the railing as she stares at the ocean. The wind whips through her hair. She squints into the breeze, ever defiant, even against Mother Nature.
I push the sliding glass door aside and join her. She sighs as I rest my hand against her opposite hip.
“That worked out pretty well, huh?” she says.
“That it did, thanks to you. What did you put in her drink?”
“Some of Cat’s motion-sickness medication. Scopolamine. But I don’t think it would have loosened her tongue that quickly. I think the bitch wasn’t used to high-dollar champagne that goes down like water.”
“And semen.”
Frankie laughs, and the sound soothes my soul. “That too.”
A loud thump comes from inside, and we turn in time to see the workers bump Amber’s limp body against every surface.Good. I hope they toss her into the ocean, and I hope her poor dogs end up in loving homes where they won’t be bred to death for content.
“This ordeal made me wonder why we don’t trade the yellow Cattle for animal abusers,” I say as we watch the bitch disappear through the door and out of our lives forever. “Red are the rapists. Pink are the child abusers. Yellow could be for the animals.”
Frankie nods and rubs her arms. “Cat would love that. Have you had to sit through her photo presentation of Shorty and Mr. Whiskers? I think she’d kill for those cats, confession notwithstanding.”
We step into the room and check the bed for any bloodstains, but it’s clean. At least the bitch was polite enough to bleed out inside her abdomen. I’ll be sure to send a thank-you card.
As I begin undressing for bed, I realize Frankie is watching me. Intently. Her icy-blue gaze burns a hole through my back, so I ease off my shirt as slowly as possible as I enjoy the heat. She shifts on the bed, snagging her bottom lip between her teeth in that cute way that drives me wild.
“Stop doing that,” I warn. “I imagine your pussy is very sore from earlier, but I won’t be able to hold back if you keep looking at me that way.”
“Ooh, I’m so scared,” she says with a mocking bite to her tone.
I run the pliable leather through the belt loops as I whip off my belt, then crack it against my palm. “I’ve never been the type to force a woman into submission, but you’re asking for it, sweetheart. That bratty, bossy attitude makes me want to knock you down a few pegs sometimes.”
