Page 22 of Love vs The Ooze Monster!
Sylvester looked nothing like his uncle. Where Lew had been large and rough spoken, Sly appeared like a young college professor. His golden hair was neatly combed. His spectacles brightly polished. He dressed in a natty seersucker suit. He could’ve been teaching at any university in the land.
Except his hands were splattered with blood.
“Lots of bootleggers add formaldehyde to hooch. Even if it kills a few folks, it doesn’t rip them apart. There’s gotta be more to it than this kid knows. He didn’t even understand what we were talking about, when we showed up here.”
Boyd made a low sound of fury, as he recognized the lecturing cadence of the second voice.
Mabel knew it, too. It belonged to Rico, Boyd’s lieutenant. She’d never much liked him, because of his tendency to self-importantly lecture everyone. Rico seemed to think he was smarter than Boyd, which was frankly ludicrous. Still, she mentallytsked in disappointment at his defection.
You really couldn’t trust anyone, these days. At the moment, she was too busy drowning in the tight confines of the coffin to worry about firing Rico, though.
She automatically shifted, wanting to escape.
“Shhh.” Boyd’s voice was so low it barely stirred the hair at her temple. “I got you.”
Actually, hedid“got” her. His body surrounded Mabel’s. His very large, muscular body… which was, unless she was mistaken, growing aroused by their close proximity.
She blinked and some of her panic ebbed.
“Who else could have poisoned the hooch, besides Norris?” Sylvester demanded, wiping his hands on a clean handkerchief from one of the funeral home’s neat piles. “We paid that dope for some cheap moonshine and he screwed up the recipe somehow. You know how I know? The only place he delivered to, was the only place that got dead.” He bent down to pick an orange flower up off the floor and stuck it in his lapel. “Simple.”
Mabel had to admit there was some sense to that logic. She was also nowcertainabout Boyd’s arousal. She could feel the hardness of him. For some reason, it calmed her. Instinctively, she rubbed against him.
Boyd’s breathing got harsher and he pressed forward injustthe spot she craved. Sparks of pleasure exploded. Her body dampened in a very unrespectable place. She’d never done anything like this before. Men hadn’t exactly been beating down her door, dazzled by her beauty. And even if theyhad, she probably would have refused.
There was only one man who’d ever made her lose all common sense.
Boyd’s lips grazed her cheek and now his hands were on her, too. Touching her. She couldn’t very well stop him, in the tiny space and with armed gangsters ten feet away. Well, shecouldhave, but she didn’t want him to stop. She just wanted more.
“We can’t have the law tracing the O'Shaughnessy deaths back to us.” Sylvester told Rico.
“Something just doesn’t seem right. We should’ve questioned the guy some more.”
Sly hated to be contradicted, so he went on the defensive. “None of this would be an issue,at all, if you’d dealt with my bitch of a cousin, like I told you to. With Mabel around, we wouldn’t have needed to make quick cash with the undertaker. We’d be rolling in greenbacks, already! Like Lew was! Like Cassidayis! She’s the key to everything. She was supposed to leave that grubby dockworker and come running right back to me, by now!”
“I put the letter on his desk, like you wanted.” Rico was visible through the crack, too, wearing his customary all white. He looked frustrated that he was being blamed for this mess. “Boyd confronted her, like you wanted. Mabel walked out, like you wanted. …But, Boyd isn’t ever gonna let the girl go. Itoldyou that. He’s stuck on that little bookworm.”
“She’smybookworm. Not his.”
Boyd didn’t like Sylvester’s possessive claim. Tension tightened his muscles, as if he was preparing to leap from the coffin and pummel the man.
Mabel gripped his wrist, before he did something stupid and ended up shot. She drew his attention back to her body, moving his palm up to cover her breast.Thatshould work.
He let out a shuddering breath. His touch was more demanding, now. Big palms covered her breasts through the fabric of her dress without a bit of hesitation. Like he had every right in the world to explore her body.
Her body agreed.
Mabel’s nipples beaded, pushing up against his palms. Her breasts had always been small, but they responded to Boyd’s touch like magic. He made a low sound of pleasure when he felt her arousal. His thumbs strummed against the hardened points, his mouth grazing her neck. Mabel’s eyes fluttered closed, loving all the sensations he created. She was barely even aware of her duplicitous asshole of a step-cousin.
“Boyd thinks Mabel’s justsospecial, because she went to college.” Rico complained. “I’m smarter than she is, but I’m not allowed near the money anymore. Only Mabel gets to work on his accounts.”
“Soon enough, she’ll only be working onmyaccounts. We’re bleeding cash. Nothing runs right, without that know-it-all Old Maid overseeing it.” Sylvester was clearly annoyed by his continued failure. “She was Lew’s secret weapon, all along. Now, Cassiday thinks he’s going to snatch her away? No! I should have just nabbed her weeks ago, like I wanted to.”
“Boyd would destroy everything he owns, and everything we own, and everythingeverybodyelse owns to get Mabel back.” Rico retorted. “He whacks any man who comes within five feet of her!”
Sylvester thought for a beat. “Here’s what we do: Find whatever poisonous shit Norris put in the moonshine and plant it at Cassiday’s warehouse. Then, we call the cops. He’ll catch the rap for the slaughter at that gin joint, you take over his business, and I’ll have a clear shot at Mabel.”
Rico nodded in deep consideration. “That might work.”
