Free Quintic by V. P. Trick Page B

the
toilets gave her time to calm down and compose herself. No doubt
when she returned in a few minutes, she would have a few chosen
words for Hamilton.
    Chris
turned his attention to Ham, as did
everyone else. Hamilton had turned a little white himself. The guy
acted crude and macho around her because he enjoyed sparring with
her and, as Chris had fucking noticed, because the guy liked her.
Everyone on the team liked her. Le and Des thought of her as a sexy
cousin, Frankke more like an annoying kid sister. Shapiro expressed
paternal feelings; Reid considered Patricia her best female friend
(if not her only female friend), and she was Bridget’s godchild.
Hamilton was different, though. More like Fred but with a
knowledgeable dick in his pants.
    Plainly put,
Ham was hot for her but hid it under
sexist remarks and sexual innuendo. It had worsened in the last
weeks. Months. OK, it had been there right from the start, but
Chris had no intention of protecting her from Ham’s interest. He
didn’t need to, Patricia could hold her on in the verbal
department, and he suspected the damn woman enjoyed the badgering
almost as much as Ham. Chris didn’t doubt Hamilton’s loyalty, the
guy had taken punches for both Chris and her in the past, but her
kissing the guy awhile back to lure the quartet out seemed to have
fried Ham’s self-restraint.
    “ Sorry,
Boss. I’ll go get her.” Hamilton left sulking.
    It took a
good ten minutes for them to come back. The guy must have pleaded
some. She might have made him beg a little too. Knowing she would
be OK, she was damn tougher than she looked, the team was trying
hard to act as if nothing had happened. At their return, the
pictures were all back in the file, the file closed and in
Charles’s hand.
    Her face was
as pale as when she had run out. “Sorry about that,” she whispered
staring at her shoes.
    She had felt
sick before , and the following
embarrassment had made her blush. Something was wrong for she
wasn’t blushing now. It might not be shyness that made her avoid
eye contact. Did Ham do something inappropriate? The guy had his
paw at her elbow, but she wasn’t shying away. Think, MacLaren!
    If not Ham then the picture itself? Had she seen
something in it? Chris took the file from Charles and looked at the
picture again. Hard. He didn’t see anything he had not seen at the
scene. And since she had found the fucking body, he didn’t see
anything she had not seen herself at the scene.
    She had seen
naked guys before as she had also seen
naked dead guys before. She had seen that particular dead naked guy
before too, in the flesh, lying on the ground, dirt smeared all
over, cock ring full-on. Yes, the discovery of the body had shaken
her, yet he thought not by the corpse or his nakedness but by the
fact that it was her who had found it. The damn woman sure had the
knack way of stumbling on dead bodies. It angered her, depressed
her, made her physically sick, but her reaction was temporary as
anger would kick in and bypassed her fear. Her coping mechanism,
pretty damn effective too.
    She kept her
eyes glued to the tip of her shoes. Tell me what’s going on in that complex brain of yours,
Princess . Was she embarrassed because of
Charles? Angry at Ham? At him? She didn’t look angry, though. He
could hear her soft pants. Knot tightened low in his stomach. He
looked at the picture again, mentally comparing it to the body at
the motel as she would have seen that afternoon.
    Was it a
d elayed reaction from the motel? Why? If
anything, the picture was easier to look at now, the guy all
cleaned up on, his eyes closed like he was sleeping. Eyes closed . Shit. The photo showed the john’s fucking eyes, the
jerk’s fucking face! Good-looking face, not a bruise on it. As a
piece of black underwear had previously covered the stiff’s face,
she had not seen said face at the scene. Now that she had, she had
reacted to it. A hair-trigger reaction. Shit. It could only mean
one thing.