Azzo glanced at her then looked at me. A new smile of malice covered his lips. “He did, did he? Well now, we wouldn't want to add petty theft to his charges.” Azzo opened my vest and said in my face, “Would we?” He found the portraits instead of bank notes. Miffed that they weren't notes, he dropped the pictures without care and searched my black cotton slacks, discovering the five hundred in my pocket. “I wonder what poor slob you stole this from?” He eyed me then shrugged. “Not having seen the crime, I guess I can't haul you in for that, but as you seem to be well-endowed with notes, you most certainly would've wanted to leave a large tip.” Azzo counted out sixty and dropped it on the counter. “Keep the change, Nastya. Mr. Snow, here,” he said with a nasty inflection in his voice, “won't be needing to pay for any meals for some days to come.” He put the rest in his upper pocket and patted his shirt. “I'll just hang onto the rest until after booking.”
Nastya eyed me while telling Azzo, “If you're trying to bribe me into silence, you best paw the rest of that over!”
Azzo stalled long enough in thought to question his mind if she might have seen him activate the CO2 cartridge. His face belayed his thoughts to which his partner gained his side and I heard him whisper, “This is a legitimate bust, right? Because I won't be a party to a false arrest just because you hate P.I.s.”
“Ulrich,” Azzo hissed. “Now's not the time to discuss this.”
For a brief second I considered telling Ulrich that Azzo had activated the CO2 cartridge in my pistol, but a look on Azzo's face as he considered lying to his partner shut my jaw tight. One word from me and he'd proceed with this farce, leaving me to call my lawyer from jail, paying out more notes that I couldn't afford and still possibly losing my license to carry a pistol.
Ulrich reached his own conclusion a second later and pulled the cuff keys from his utility belt. “Mr. Snow, my partner was just telling me he may have tripped the CO2 cylinder when he pulled your pistol out. Whether he did or not, we've agreed to err in your favor.” Ulrich unlocked the cuffs and gave over the pistol with a stiff warning. “However, next time we find a cartridge in your weapon, primed or not, you're going to jail.” He leaned into my ear and growled. “Understand me?”
“Fully, officer.” I nodded, knowing full well that wasn't how the laws were stipulated in the books. Even if his threat was carried out, my lawyer would have me out in no time, but that wasn't the intent of the threat. The intent was to waste my time dealing with the court system while spending bank notes on my lawyer. In the meantime, the whole incident would be added to my record, even though the arrest was bogus. With a sigh of irritation, I checked the pistol and found Ulrich had already removed the cartridge.
Azzo looked as if he wished to say something in his defense but Ulrich stared him into silence. He made certain those seated around them saw him remove the banks notes Azzo purloined from me and then dropped them on the counter before he propelled Azzo out the door.
As for myself, I shoved my pistol back into its holster while exhaling a breath I was holding to keep my muzzle shut. I pocked my notes before I bent to pick up my pictures and flat cap. I was shaking with slowly released anger. Nastya saw this and patted the counter.
“Here, honey, sit your tail down.”
I eyed her, nodded, and sat.
She turned briefly to run a tap and then gave me a beer. “This will help calm you down.”
Again I nodded, knowing Nastya had saved me hours to days waiting for either Azzo to release me on account his arrest being bogus, or days until my lawyer tore apart his story with the use of witness statements. I downed half the beer in gratitude.
Nastya laid down my plate alongside the sixty bank notes. “I'm no thief,” she said. “But I will accept a nice tip.” She winked and walked away to her other customers. I looked at the notes and added up my bill, which amounted to fifteen. I ate my fried ground squirrel, finished off the beer, pocketed a twenty and strolled out.
Outside, a nice cool breeze flowed over my fur. I readjusted my flat cap, checked the pictures in my pocket, stretched, feeling every developing bruise from the fall outside Mr. Sullivan's window, and set my sights for home and a hot shower.
****
Chapter 5:
Things Always Happen in Threes
I lay on my stomach with the bedside light on. In one paw I looked at the picture of the wolf clan. My eyes, though roaming, kept centering on the four wolves in the middle of the ten, the alpha male and female and their two daughters proudly accepting their parents' paws resting on their shoulders. They both have grown so much. My thoughts suppressed the years that had gone by. And my parents still look more then capable. I ran a nail around the image. A noise outside my door had my ear twitching and I turned to watch as Joann entered and then locked the door behind her. She took note of me on the mattress, still awake. She looked wrung out, her ears drooping.
Joann gave me a half-hearted smile and walked into the bathroom. By her shoulders and her silence I knew she'd had a bad day. I rolled and put the picture in a drawer of the bedside table and sat up with a twinge or two from the bruising. “Bad day?”
“You could call it that.” Her clothes flew across the open space of the doorway, headed to the hamper for the dirty clothes pile.
“You want to talk about it?”
“Only if you can talk me out of quitting.” The water turned on in the shower.
“Aw shit, not again…” I mumbled and got up to cross to the bathroom. “What happened this time?”
Joann was checking the water temperature and glanced at me in the doorway. She sighed and turned fully to me, blurting, “Do I look like a piece of meat?”
I raised an eyebrow. More ways than one, I wanted to say aloud but stifled those words in my throat, as her face and ears told me this was not the time for levity.
Her shoulders stiffened and her eyes turned hard, seeing my face which I didn't control. “Oh, get out if you're not going to be serious.” She stepped into the tub and pulled the cotton shower curtain closed with a jerk.
I dropped my shoulders, feeling remorse, and came up to the curtain. “Joann…”
“Go to bed, Braxton.” Her tone was harsh.
I watched her distorted form through the white fabric curtain as she stood face first in the shower spray, ears laid back and paws held under her chin.
I sighed and leaned on the wall. “You knew perfectly well why Millie hired you. So what's changed between then and now?”
The curtain jerked aside enough so she could see me. “This is not the life I wanted,” she snapped. “I have hopes and dreams. I want a career that means something, not a paycheck for the way I can swing my hips and wiggle my tail.” She pulled the curtain back in place and I heard her mumble, “and a family.”
I understood the underlying message. Aw, so that's it. Her sister hadn't simply shown off her latest male-friend, she'd shown off the animal Joann felt her sister was serious about. I grimaced, knowing as long as Joann stayed with me a family was an impossibility, as different species can never have a litter unless they adopt.
My ear picked up on her first sniffle under the spray and knew she needed more than words. I opened the curtain and stepped in, ignoring the hot spray to hold her tightly against me. At first she fought half-heartedly to free herself, calling me an idiot and worse names. After the initial struggle her angry frustrations melted away and she snaked her arms around my back and pressed her face against my chest to start crying in earnest.
When she seemed to settle or run out of tears, I helped her out and set about drying her off. When my face was close enough to her shoulders as I dried her back, she turned her head and used a paw to gently turn my muzzle to her lips and kissed me. I returned the kiss, feeling her turn fully to press up again my chest as her passion rose. Though I had not intended this, I gave as good as I got, pressing her to me with the strength of my arms and paws as I breathed her scent in deeply. Primordial lust spilled over us as if she were in
heat. My paws slid up and down her back, digging into her damp, silky soft fur. Her arms under mine, her paws flowing over my back, told me she needed this more than anything right now. I lowered my paws to her firm buttocks and squeezed her cheeks before I bent slightly. Her arms came out from under mine to wrap around my neck as I took her full weight with ease until she wrapped her long legs around my waist.
Our lips never left each other in the movement of my lifting her off the floor, until I raised her high enough to taste her breasts. Joann adjusted her paws to my shoulders and leaned over enough to lay her head on mine. I caressed her luscious mounds with lips and tongue and heard her moans of pleasure as she caressed the back of my neck. Heart pounding, rushing oxygen-infused blood to active muscles and other parts, I lowered her slowly to lock my mouth around her neck, pressing my teeth ever so slightly on her skin while rolling my tongue along her jugular vein to feel her pulse of life a bare centimeter below. In the depths of my mind, a surge of power enveloped extinct memories, bringing forth an undefinable excitement that heightened my sexual arousal. Joann's moans heightened as I increased the pressure of my jaws. Her heart sped up and she tilted her head away, making certain I had full access while her breath flowed hot and heavy in my ear.
My jaws closed to the point of severing skin and remained so for the count of several breaths, before she whispered in my ear, soft and gentle but filled with longing, “Enough preliminaries, lover. Take me to bed.”
I let go of her neck and she melted over me as if we were one until I reached the bed. Kneeling, she let go and layback, her gray eyes finding my ice blue ones. Her soft paws came up to my face and she pulled me down to her lips. Shifting under me, her luscious leg rubbed my own in shifting so her pad could slide back and forth over my calf. I pushed up to gaze into her hungry eyes as I moved my hips around until the tip of my engorged organ found the lips between her legs. Her eyes closed in delight to my penetration. Her back arching, her pelvis pressed up into mine to take me up to the hilt. She grabbed my forearms with strength in her paws. Her mouth opened. Her face contorted in pain and pleasure.
The heat of her body flowed into me as I began to love her. With passionate eyes, I watched her. Her long graceful ears, her beautiful eyes, her small cute nose and lastly her lively mouth, which aided in showing me how much she was enjoying my administrations as I slowly moved in and out of her. Her throat worked, her lips pulled back from ivory incisors. Her head rolled to either side as my rhythm increased. She shifted her pelvis working to aid in the building sensation of euphoria between her legs. Then her thighs locked on my downward thrust, her claws dug into my forearms and she arched, her jaw tightening. Incomprehensible sounds escaped her throat.
Still able to move, sensing my own climax coming, I lowered my head in concentration. Gritting my teeth so I could ram myself faster and deeper inside her, I heard her outpouring breath of gratification, which caused my pleasure to heighten and explode in a powerful orgasm. Exquisite sensations flowed over my skin as muscles constricted to pressure seeds in my sack to exit my body like a geyser within her vagina. Animal instincts to aid the seeds in their journey to her cervix had me ram myself deep within her for three more powerful thrusts until she fell flat on her back and I, finally spent, lowered myself over her.
Breaths labored to fill lungs. After a short time, she pushed on my shoulder that I might roll onto my side, whereby she cuddled up, her head below mine, her long ears laying on my neck and her arms pressed to my expanding chest. Kissing her blue hair, I laid an arm over her shoulder and shifted a leg over hers. Hearts slowing, breath slowing, moments before we both fell asleep, I heard her whisper.
“Thank you for being here.”
I thought up several responses of endearment to this but knew none would mean more to her then sighing in contentment and holding her close.
****
I stretched, and immediately regretted it. “Ow, shit!”
Joann was lying on her stomach and opened an eye. “Such a remark is normally what I say the morning after sex. What's your beef?”
Her speech was so clear that to derail her from learning my problem, I asked, “How long have you been awake?”
She adjusted to lay her head on her arm. “About an hour.”
I turned my head to look at the clock. It was eight in the morning. She'd slept maybe five hours. I rolled to face her. My bruises complained but I sought to leave it off my face. I used two fingers to push aside her blue hair to better see her eyes. “Care to talk about it?” I knew she'd been lying there thinking of her life and where she meant it to go from here.
She laid her paw on my arm. “You know I love you.”
“But?” I asked, knowing what was to come but feeling an ache in my heart nonetheless.
She sucked in her lip and looked down the length of my body before she turned and sat up, pulling her knees up to her chest, both ears drooping. “I want a family, Braxton, but I know you're not the marring type.”
I sat up, mirroring her pose. “And we can't have a litter together,” I finished for her.
Joann slid an eye my way and nodded. “There is that.” She turned her face away so I wouldn't see her eyes moisten up from checked tears.
I sighed in regret. “We both knew this day might come.”
She used her paws to clear her eyes before she looked at me, her expression sorrowful. “Truth is, I hadn't thought about it until yesterday.” She leaned into me and I put an arm around her.
My heart began to pound. A heat wave flushed over my body. My throat froze and it took me three tries to clear it. I have to be nuts! flashed in warning lights in my mind. “Would you consider an adoption?”
Joann stiffened beneath my arm. She slowly pulled away to stare at me, ears rising.
I closed my eyes and swallowed, then looked into hers. “We'd have to see about a bigger den.”
Her paw came up to her mouth, eyes going wide. “Your, your—” Tears spilled from her eyes. “Oh yes. Yes I'll marry you!” She engulfed me in an embrace that had me cringing both from my bruises and from the fear of being responsible for someone other than myself.
Her excitement at my oddly-worded proposal led to hugging and kissing, followed closely by overflowing passion, ending only after heart-pounding orgasms. Chests expanding as we sought to resupply our bodies with needed oxygen, Joann, perched on my hips, slowly laid herself on my chest. I wrapped my arms around her as her fingers idly made circular motions around one of my nipples.
“Tell me truthfully,” Joann said, once she could talk without hesitation. “You didn't propose to me simply to have sex to work out the soreness of your muscles from the bruises you gained yesterday?”
Surprised, I used my forearms to push up. “How did you know?”
She smiled. “Black and blue discoloration on your skin is easy to see under your white fur.” She playfully nipped at my nipple.
“Ow…Joann?” I complained.
Her smile broadened and she patted my breast. “Besides, you kept adjusting our weight off your right side.” She became serious. “Braxton, if we are to wed, you're going to lay off jobs that could be dangerous. I don't want to worry about your welfare every time you go to work.”
I thought about her request and suggested, “You could come work for me. Be my secretary and do other odd jobs I pay other animals to do. In this way you could keep an eye on my doings and if it bothers you, you can tell me.”
Joann shook her head negative. “One of us has to keep a steady paycheck coming in.” She laid her head down on my chest and for a heartbeat remained quiet. “Besides, the adoption agency will look at such things.”
“I could always tell my lawyer to settle on these apartments. That ought to give us enough bank notes to satisfy them.”
She murmured something I didn't catch, then pushed up and got to her feet. “Whatever we do, we don't have to rush into this. In any case, I guess I need to keep my job for the present time. So you need to go to wor
k and I need to get some sleep to keep mine.”
I sighed and she kicked my pad.
“You best take a shower before you leave, I don't want the whole world thinking you're a gigolo.” She smiled and headed into the bathroom to start the water.
****
Dressed in denim blue vest, pants and blue flat cap, I walked up to the security doors to the local police department and surrendered my pistol. The entrance I used was for the public; a side entrance out of sight of the public eye was used by the officers and any criminals apprehended.
The bulldog behind the glass labeled the weapon with a check on my license for good measure before he asked, “Who do you wish to see?” Using a pencil as a pointer, he pointed to a printed signs above my head.
I read each. Complaints. Report a crime. Talk to a detective or Turn yourself in. That last almost had me bust out in a laugh; it was a new addition and more likely meant as a joke. I suppressed my smile and said, “I'd like to talk to Lieutenant Barkly.”
He made a note and gave me a green card. “Show this to the sergeant inside. She'll direct you to the stairs and have an officer take you up. “He looked past me and said, “Next!”
I glanced behind, having smelled a Ringtail Raccoon, Long Eared Owl, and what most animals called a mixed breed, a mutt comprised from a mating between a Doberman and a Dalmatian. The woman was softly crying. As for myself, I thought the word mutt was demeaning. A lot of animals intermingled in their own species and produced some very good-looking females. This mating, in my opinion, did not. Of course I simply could be biased, as I didn't like Dobermans. Perhaps because the ones I'd met were bad-tempered street cops. I shrugged off my thoughts and saw the sergeant.
I followed a honey badger four flights up. He found Lieutenant Barkly's door at the end of the hall and knocked.
“Enter…” came the gruff voice of Fergus Barkly.
Braxton Snow P.I. (The Snow Adventures Book 1) Page 8