Page 92 of The Price of Scandal
“You forget. I run your calendar. I’m happy to pencil in sex, naps, perhaps some naked happy hours.”
Her smile was slow as she trailed her fingers down over my chest to my stomach. “Your shirtlessness makes a compelling argument.”
“Let me take my shorts off,” I volunteered.
She laughed. A real laugh, and I felt a brightness in my chest.
“You should do that more often,” I told her.
“What? Sweat all over the floor?”
“Laugh.” I kissed her again, enjoying the salt and softness. She was spectacular.
“Steve,” she said, putting her hand on my chest.
“No. Derek.”
“No,” she laughed. “Steve. I have to feed Steve. He doesn’t like it when I’m late.”
* * *
Steve waseight feet of hissing alligator at the end of a long lagoon dock marked “Steve’s House” in the center of the enclave.
“So that’s really an alligator with a prosthetic leg,” I asked, observing the reptile as it opened its massive jaws.
“It is. One of the residents had his lab print a 3-D stump for him. Poor guy lost it to a boat propeller and kept swimming in circles. He couldn’t be released into the wild, so we let him stay,” Emily explained. “Ready, big guy?”
She held a rotisserie chicken over the railing. I pulled my phone out of the pocket of my gym shorts and snapped a picture.
“Has he ever eaten any residents?” I asked.
Steve hissed as if offended, and Emily tossed him the chicken.
He snapped it up with one prehistoric lunge. I got him mid-jump.
“We have a deal. He gets fed every day as long as he doesn’t snack on any Bluewater pets. He’s pretty chill.”
“I’ll have a mai tai, sweetheart!”
I whirled around at the flash of color, and feathers alighted on the dock’s railing.
“Hi, Frank,” Emily said wryly.
“Nice tattoo, shithead,” the fat parrot said.
“Am I hallucinating right now?” I asked, fascinated.
“I’m afraid not,” she told me. “Frank is our free-range jerk. His previous owner was an asshole. As you might have guessed.”
“And now he lives here in Bluewater?”
“His previous owner died—bar fight, surprise surprise—and Frank here escaped the animal rescue that came for him. Bit the animal control officer in the ear and took off. He ended up here when the landscaping started going in.”
“And you let him stay?”
“What are you lookin’ at, dickhead?” Frank asked Steve, bobbing his colorful head.
The alligator hissed his response.
