Death by Cuddle Club

by Norah Wilson

  Gaetan was sitting up in bed, but leaning heavily into a couple of pillows as I walked into the room. Yep, he still looked like crap, but maybe a little less so. He still didn’t have his wig back on, and oh, where were the magic markers when you needed them!

  It really was strange the transformation that wig had had on the man. Gone was the cloud headed, clapping cuddle fuck from Gaetan Land, and here was... well, an angry bald guy in a velour jumpsuit.

  Gaetan absolutely did not look happy to see me. Padre hat, fake mustache, flattened chest and all, he knew me the moment I walked into the room.

  “Dix,” he croaked. “I figured when Dylan took Babe out for coffee a few minutes ago, you’d come skulking around. What are you doing here?”

  “I’ll give you three guesses.”

  “I only need one. You’re not Dix Davidson, you’re Dix Dodd—a sleazy, two-bit PI from the wrong side of town.”

  Offended? Well, I probably should have been, but I was more surprised. “How did you—”

  “Let’s just say I have my own sources, Dodd. My own suspicions. I’ve heard about your near-famous intuitive abilities. Well, I have a bit of that myself. I suspected you and Dylan Foreman from the moment you walked into Gaetan Land. He’s way too young for you to really be his love interest.”

  Okay, yeah, now I was offended, and dying to give this sawed-off little fucker a piece of my mind. But first things first: “Just how famous did you hear I—”

  “What do you want, Dodd?”

  Always a loaded question!

  “All right, Cuddle Man,” I said. “Here’s what I want, exactly what I want—tell me about the blackmail.”

  He chuckled in a kind of dark, kind of groaning way. “I don’t suppose there’s any point in my saying ‘What blackmail?’”

  Oh shit, I was right! There was this whole happy dance thing going on inside my head now.

  “Fuck it,” Gaetan said, his voice suddenly decisive. “I want it out in the open now.”

  “Off your chest?”

  “Out of my hair!”

  Stifling laugh. Killing me.

  “This has gone on long enough,” Gaetan continued. “Albert Valentine was blackmailing me.”

  Yes, dear reader. Just as I’d thought.

  “For free cuddle sessions?” I’d seen his lack of payment on the books of course, but couldn’t very well admit to going through those ledgers in the cuddle club’s office. “Maybe some Cuddle-Uppies for the black market—”

  “Don’t be an ass, Dodd!” His tone suddenly changed. “Bless me father, for I have sinned.”

  I blinked. What the hell? Then I realized the door had opened behind me.

  “Excuse me,” the nurse said in an apologetic voice. “I’ll come back later.” She let the door fall closed behind her.

  I looked at Gaetan. “Why did you do that? Cover my butt?”

  “Contrary to what you might think, I’m not a monster. And I sure as hell don’t want to be a killer. Yes, I use pheromones and lighting and music and this fucking roly-poly, cuddle-me, non-threatening persona to get members and keep them coming back. But I’m a business man, Dix. A damned good one. If, as you say, people are dropping dead at my club, I want my good name cleared and the problem rectified so I can get back to business as usual. The doctor was kind enough to inform me that there was nothing in the pheromones to cause heart attacks. Nothing. But if something else is causing them—someone else—I need to know what the hell is going on.”

  Yeah, that Gaetan, he was all heart. “Tell me about the blackmail.”

  He sighed. “Albert Valentine found out about the pheromones. He said he’d tell the whole club about them if I didn’t give him what he wanted. I know a few of them wouldn’t have cared, but others... God, they’d have had a big hairy fit.” He raised a self-conscious hand to his head. “As you saw tonight when you so inconveniently spilled it, Dix Dodd. This knowledge could make things in Marport City very difficult for me. Not how I wanted to break into the Canadian market. So I had to buy Albert’s silence.”

  “With what?” I had a pretty good idea, but dammit, I wanted him to say it!

  “He cuddled for free. And believe me, that horny little bastard cuddled often.”

  “And?” No way. No way in hell could that be all there was to it.

  Gaetan wiped a hand over his suddenly-sweaty brow. “Pheromones!” he said. “I gave him free pheromones. Vials and vials of the stuff.”

  I wanted to get up and smack Gaetan Gough right about then. Hard. And more than once. (And, oh, wouldn’t that be a sight for a nurse to walk in on—porn-starrish priest smacking around a patient.) “So Albert was using the pheromones to get close to someone that he’d otherwise have no chance of being close to. Is that what you’re telling me?” My stomach roiled as I pieced this together further.

  “Yes, he was using them to seduce someone. Jesus H. Christ, I think he practically bathed in the stuff! Albert used to brag about it. Laugh about it—how turned on he used to make this certain individual. How he’d gotten away with... so much. And I couldn’t do anything to stop him.”

  “You could have said no.”

  “And lost the Canadian business? Hardly.”

  “Who was Albert manipulating?” I asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Bullshit!”

  “No, I really don’t know. He wouldn’t give me a name. Just the sordid details. But I swear, if I knew, Dix Dodd, I’d tell you in a heartbeat.”

  I have every confidence he would. Because whoever Albert was manipulating with those chemicals would have enough anger inside to do almost anything. Maybe they’d even be angry enough to kill him.

  Oh, I was more than betting on that.

  I jumped up. “I have to go.”

  “Fine by me,” Gaetan said. “You really are an asshole, Dix Dodd.”.

  “And you’re a jerk off,” I countered.

  And with that we were done for the night.

  I still didn’t know who had done the murder. I still didn’t know how. But damn it—I more than had a hunch—I knew—why death had come to the cuddle club.

  I left the room, pulled out my cell, hit the newest entry in my speed dial.

  “Detective Head,” came the gruff answer.

  “We need a serious toxicology panel on our dearly departed Albert.”

  “I take it you found something out from Gaetan?”

  “Yeah, I found out he’s as much of a prick as I thought he was. And Albert Valentine was a dirty, rotten, manipulative, lascivious pig. And someone killed him because of it.”

  Chapter 19

  AS I WAS heading down the corridor, my cell phone buzzed again. I knew it was Dylan.

  “Yeah, Sis, I’m thinking you want to let the cat back in now. It might rain. Might come pouring down all of a sudden, in fact, so get the cat back inside! Now!”

  Translation: My cover had been blown. Crap! Perhaps it had been the direction-seeking bystander who’d figured I was out of place and mentioned something to someone. Or maybe it was the nurse who’d poked her head into Gaetan’s room. Was it the padre hat? I’m no fashion maven, but don’t tell me those things had gone out of style! Or was it Gaetan himself, maybe not so interested in cooperating after all?

  So yeah, priest-robes and all I was hightailing it down the hallway back to the maintenance closet. Quick-change artist? You don’t know the half of it! I was back in my jeans within seconds. I took a few seconds to struggle out of the too-tight sports bra (God, it qualified as a freakin’ torture device), then hauled my shirt on.

  As much as I hated to lose a good disguise, I threw the priest attire in the big grey garbage receptacle in the maintenance closet—wide-brimmed hat on top. I doffed the socks and shoved my feet into killer high heels (well, high for me; two-and-a-half whole inches). Ten tissues later, I was hiding my face behind the wad of Kleenex as I boo-hooed/snuffled/honked my way down the hallway. Yep, right past security who really didn’t want to star
t a conversation with such a distraught (and snotty) damsel in distress as myself. Yeah, gross as it sounds, the more loudly one honks into the tissues, the more likely one is to be left alone.

  I rock! I just do.

  Dylan got back to the car a few minutes after I did.

  I saw him, jogging across the moon-lit parking lot to the SUV. Oh, God what a sight. Handsome. As I sat there in the silence of the closed-up SUV, watching this guy crossing the parking lot to come to me, it made my heart do that little fluttery thing.

  Yeah, nothing to do with my functional heart murmur.

  He opened the door and climbed in. Given his urgency in there when my cover had been blown, I expected him to strap himself into the seat in full let’s-get-the-hell-out-of-here mode. Instead, Dylan Foreman, all six-foot-four of him, and twelve years my junior, leaned across the console, hooked a hand behind my head and pulled me close for one hell of a kiss.

  “I was so worried about you, Dix,” he said when he pulled back. “When I heard that woman talking to security about a creepy preacher up on the third floor, I knew she had to be talking about you.” (Oh, if I had a dime for every time I’d heard that!)

  His hand tightened on my neck, which he hadn’t released. “I know you can take care of yourself in any situation, but impersonating a clergyman to access a patient... If they’d apprehended you, they might have taken a hard line. God, they might have arrested you.”

  Well, when he put it like that, I guess it did look pretty ugly. And if security had nabbed me and turned me over to the local PD... I couldn’t quite suppress a shudder at the thought. Can you just imagine Dickhead’s reaction? And the press would have had a field day. That would be just weird and kinky-sounding enough to sell newspapers.

  I lifted a hand to his chest, partly to soothe him and partly because... well, I wanted to lay hands on him. “Thank you for the heads up. You saved my butt. Again.”

  He pulled me close and kissed me again. I let my hands wander.

  This time, it was me who broke the kiss. “Why, Mr. Foreman,” I said, breathing into his ear in my most seductive, yet teasing voice. “Is that a flashlight in your pocket or are you happy to see me?”

  Dylan pulled back. “Dix, that’s the hoagie. You told me to get you a big sandwich while I was at the cafeteria, remember? Extra onions and jalapeños, heavy on the mayo.”

  “Er, yeah, how could I forget?”

  I sat back in my seat.

  Dylan reached into his pocket, drew out the plastic-wrapped sandwich and tossed it onto the dashboard. Mmmm, jalapeños...

  But Mr. Foreman had something else in mind. He pulled me close again and kissed me.

  Can I just say this? The man knows how to kiss. His mouth slanted over mine, those full, sensual lips hard and thrillingly possessive. But then he pulled back until his lips barely grazed mine. I moaned a protest, clutching at his shirt, but his fingers tangled into my hair, restraining me.

  “Easy, Dix.” He angled my face, tormenting me with the warmth of his breath and yeah, the heat of my anticipation. Oh, God, he was killing me with those almost kisses, grazing and retreating, nibbling.

  When I couldn’t stand it anymore, I caught the back of his head with my own hand, pulled him to me and kissed him. Full on. With tongue. That was the end of those butterfly brushes, but I couldn’t regret it. Not with him kissing me senseless. Not with his big hand splayed on my chest, hot and exciting, and sliding south (or souther) to—oh yeah!—grasp a breast.

  I released the handful of hair I’d grabbed and dropped my hand to his chest again. He stopped the kneading-my-breast thing, which drew a moan from me. But then he grasped my hand and placed it somewhere much more interesting.

  “This,” he said thickly, “is what it feels like when I’m happy to see you.”

  Oh, God! Now I got the difference.

  (Oh, boy, did I ever get the difference!)

  “Come home with me, Dix.”

  “Your place?” I pulled back. I’d never been to his place. “Really?”

  “It’s five minutes away,” he pointed out. “Yours is at least fifteen. Plus we might not be able to find your bed.”

  “Ha ha,” I said, but he had a point. He’d seen my bedroom, of course, when I’d sent him to fetch a change of clothes for me while I was on stakeout. My wardrobe, or most of it, dwelled on my bed. Well, the stuff that wasn’t in laundry baskets in my living room.

  He trapped my hand against him and squeezed. “Five minutes or fifteen?”

  “Your place it is.”

  Four minutes later (yeah, I didn’t spare the horses), we pulled up outside Dylan’s place. I didn’t require directions, having picked him up a time or two outside this giant Victorian monstrosity, but I’d never been inside.

  He took my hand when we got out of the car and led me along a paved walk that carried us around to the back of the house.

  “Hope you don’t mind steps,” he said, gesturing to the metal fire-escape stairs that had clearly been added to the building in its latter days as an apartment house.

  “Not at all.”

  I preceded him up the stairs, which felt a lot sturdier than they’d looked at first glance. At the first landing, he grabbed me and pulled me back against him. “I’m in the attic,” he murmured against my ear. “Might be best to pace ourselves.”

  I couldn’t have agreed more as his hands roamed my belly and that big, rangy body curved around my smaller one, enfolding me, surrounding me. Oh God, I couldn’t wait to be under him! Or over him, or beside him...

  He released me. “On second thought, the hell with pacing. Come on.”

  Taking my hand, he drew me up the next two landings to his door. As he drew his key out and worked the lock, I sidled up behind him. I slid my arms around him and splayed my hands over his abdomen and chest. To my gratification, his hands fumbled on the lock. At last it gave and he shoved the door open. I followed him through and he slammed the door shut behind us.

  “Dylan?”

  He had me in his arms by this time. “Yeah?”

  “You left the keys in the door.”

  “Crap.” He whipped the door open, yanked his keys out and shut it again. “And I was trying so hard to be smooth there.”

  I smiled. “Oh, you’re plenty smooth, Mr. Foreman.” I glanced around, the only light coming from a streetlight outside. “You think maybe we could have some lights so I can get my bearings?”

  He reached to the left and hit a switch. Warm yellow from a suspended fixture illuminated the room. Or should that be rooms? Kitchen, dining room and living room seemed to blend into one another. Much as I wanted to get skin-to-skin with him, curiosity about his living space kicked in. The space was tidy and organized, which I suppose such a small space demanded. But even if he’d had ten times the space, I knew he’d still be organized. That was Dylan, through and through.

  “Welcome to Casa Foreman.”

  I scanned the room(s). Where was the bedroom? Or was that sofa a Hida-a-Bed? “Is this... um... all of it?”

  He laughed. “Not quite. I don’t think it’d be legal to rent an apartment without a john.”

  “Oh, right.”

  He took my hand again. “C’mon. I’ll show you the rest.”

  As he led me across the room, I absorbed all the detail I could. The floors were wide softwood planking, painted a darkish brown color. The walls were sort of taupe or a sage green—it was hard to tell in this light—and the furniture was nice but mismatched. I spied a leather chair that looked expensive and a couch that looked like a yard sale find. The flat-screen TV was smallish, but the computer station in the corner looked very well equipped with a large-screen Mac. The kitchen I would have to inspect later, because we were entering Dylan’s bedroom.

  I don’t know what I expected, but this wasn’t that. The small room was made smaller by the fact that the ceiling on one side sloped sharply until it met the wall a few feet up from the floor, reminding me that I was in an attic. The room was
dominated by a queen bed. It had no headboard nor footboard, but rather butted up against the wall with the sloping roof. But what caught my attention was how masculine, yet elegant, the bed was. The duvet bore a pattern of small tan and white checkers. The pillows at the top of the bed were a crisp white, as was the utilitarian looking coverlet or sheet or whatever it was folded at the bottom of the bed. A nightstand stood on the right side of the bed with a reading lamp on it, and a tall, old-fashioned dresser hugged the windowless wall to the left of the bed. The two pieces were mismatched in style, but both were virtually clutter free.

  That sealed it—we were never having sex at my place.

  I turned to tell him so, only to find him right there, so close I brushed him as I turned. His hands came up to grasp my upper arms and I forgot what I was going to say. In fact, I tried to press closer, dying to feel my breasts crushed against that lean, hard chest, but he held me back.

  “You want this, don’t you, Dix?”

  “God, yes!” I blinked up at him. “Don’t you?”

  “Oh, hell, yeah,” he said, and from the heat in his eyes, I believed him. “I just wanted to give you one last chance. Because once we start, I’m going to do my damnedest to make sure you can think of nothing else but me, the next touch, the next sensation.”

  My excitement took a leap. Keep talking like that, Mr. Foreman, and you might not even have to touch me to set off the fireworks.

  “You know,” he added, “just in case.”

  Oh, yeah, bring that up again. I could see he was never going to let me forget that time—okay, those two times—when I’d interrupted... um... proceedings after having a big aha! realization about the case of the day.

  “Hey, last time it was you who called the halt,” I reminded him.

  “True, but I thought there were pheromones involved. Now we know better.”

  His voice had dropped into that low, gruff, sexy-as-hell register as he delivered that last part, and I knew he was remembering how greedy I’d been for him. I shuddered, remembering too.

  “So we do.”

  He released his grip on my arms and slid those big hands around my back. Which left me free to press myself against him. He groaned and his arms tightened, crushing me as close as I could have wished while his mouth found mine. Just as he’d promised, I didn’t have a chance to think of anything but sensation as his hands scorched over my back. When they dropped to my butt and urged my pelvis into closer contact, it set up a delicious tingling.