Page 64 of Brewbies
Eccles moved faster than a man his size ought to on his way to the door. “Nope. It’s all yours, sheriff. Have a good—”
The door closed on the wordday,leaving the perfume of Eccles’ favorite Chinese takeout in his wake.
Welp,thismight as well be happening.
“Okay, Vee,” Ethan said, white-knuckle-gripping his mild-mannered small-town sheriff persona. The one he used to coach little league rather than break up bar fights. “Tell me what happened. Start with the moment you realized a burglary had occurred, and if there was any evidence of a break-in, such as broken locks or windows.”
The woman’s rheumy blue eyes melted into pools of gratitude as she tugged his arm toward a beaded curtain coveringanothervelvet curtain that hung from an archway at the back of the shop. “Oh, it was terrible! I came to open up the shop and found the door unlocked! I thought it strange, but I’m turning fifty-nine in a few months, you see, and my memory isn’t what it used to be. So, I thought, maybe I didn’t lock up correctly.”
Ethan bit his tongue.
He’d pulled Vee over not three years ago, and her driver’s license had declared her sixty-eight years old. Mentioning this at the moment wouldn’t only be counterproductive, it was against every survival instinct his ancestors had passed down through the ages.
The Brits were famous ear twisters, and his were sensitive.
Slapping the curtains aside with a jangle, she tugged him into a room twice as big as the one they’d only just occupied. “When checking on my inventory to see if anything was, indeed, missing…I discovered this!”
She swept a hand to an empty, four-tiered display case that rotated at a melancholy pace.
Ethan’s jaw hit the carpet.
Not because of the display case and its missing contents, but because of everything else crowded into the room.
Cocks, mostly.
So. Many. Cocks.
Shelves and shelves and more shelves were lined with phallic objects, dildos and vibrators and butt plugs, jeweled cocks, polished cocks, cocks that glowed in the dark, cocks that sang, cocks that vibrated, cocks that were curved like carrots, cocks smooth as carvings by Michelangelo himself, cocks with openings large enough to fit a fist into, and cocks small enough to fit in the palm of your hand or in a pocket.
The far wall boasted an endless array of leather, lace, and lingerie, and the one adjacent displayed erotic art, movies, and books.
Ethan fought the urge to tug on the collar of his shirt or wipe at the mist on his upper lip, knowing the canny woman would immediately sense his unease.
And crucify him for it.
“What—” Were those nut sac clamps under the table? Who in their right mind—? “Uh, what is missing from the display case?” he asked. “Jewelry?” Judging by the price tag she’d put on the missing items, it was the only thing that made sense.
“After a fashion,” she said with a trembling wink. “This case is on loan to me as one of the only physical U.S. vendors of the Lillith LUXE line of exclusive pleasure products.”
“The what now?” Ethan gulped at the thought of the report he was going to have to write.
If he wasn’t imagining things, her eyes went somewhat dreamy, hands moving as if she were presenting the Crown Jewels. “Five items handcrafted in Milan and Antwerp by the most indulgent of artisans. Each implement takes thirty days to manufacture to customer specifications.”
Ethan swallowed once again, which didn’t work, so he was forced to clear the cobwebs from his throat before asking, “You’re telling me someone stole five high-end luxury—er— dildos from you?”
She burst into a throaty laugh that ended on a wheeze. “No, you simple man, I’m telling you someone pilfered a g-spot stimulator, a butt plug, a clitoral vibrator, a cock ring, and a dick sleeve that could only be defined by the decadence in the lavish twenty-four-karat gold plating!”
“Ohhhh. Kaaaay.” Whatever warmth that started in his ears spilled down his neck and surged into his cheeks. “Someone stole five gold-plated—er—objects from your inventory.”
“Sex toys, yes.”
“And this…inventory you have no receipts for?”
“That’s what I was trying to tell your pompous predecessor,” she snapped. “They’re on loan for display. I have paperwork, somewhere, but I need to fish it out of storage.”
“Someone loaned you twenty-five thousand dollars’ worth of gold-plated…adult—um, and you’re not certain where you left the paperwork?”
Vee brushed a bit of hair off her forehead and tucked it behind her ear as she narrowed suspicious eyes at him. “Oh, sheriff, please don’t tell me you can’t say the words.”
