Sunset Hearts by Macy Largo Page A

mind, recalled the feel of Alan’s warm body on the couch.
    She rolled onto her stomach, plunged her fingers between her legs and imagined not one but two hunky guys making love to her. A deliciously naughty fantasy. Thinking that, it didn’t take long before she moaned into her pillow as her own orgasm flooded through her. As she drifted to sleep, she thought maybe staying with Alan, for a while at least, wouldn’t be such a bad idea after all.

 
     
     
     
     
    Chapter Eight
     
    Jerald arrived at the marina at his usual time on Saturday morning. He wished he’d spent the night at Alan’s. He’d barely slept and felt like a grouchy bear.
    Goddammit.
    Yes, Daphne seemed sweet and nice. Still, something did not set right with him. She’d practically wrapped Alan around her finger in just a few days. Nothing he said about her even slightly negative would go over well. Alan felt bound and determined to take care of her, regardless of the circumstances.
    As much as it aggravated Jerald, it also warmed him. Alan, a truly nice guy and a kind-hearted man, would go out of his way to help others.
    And he was his boyfriend.
    Now if they could only get some time to themselves now that he’d managed to wrap his mind around that little factoid, life would be just skippy. At least they’d go out tonight. Alone.
    Please let her be asleep when we get home. Thank god Alan had been relatively patient with him. Of course, the irony didn’t escape him that if Alan was a girl he would have no hesitation whatsoever about making love to him with someone else in the house.
    One of these days, I need to let go of my fear. Thinking it didn’t make it any easier to do it.
    He loaded his gear into the boat. After cranking the engines, he cast off and headed down the channel. A nice Saturday, every weekend warrior would be out. At least he’d remembered to bring an extra citation pad.
    He suspected he’d need it.
    A short time after noon, he had pulled over an old wreck of a boat and was going through a safety inspection when he heard the VHF radio go off. “Hey, Major Carter, marine patrol. You out here? It’s Bob Diego.”
    The boat’s owner had all his required equipment, and the vessel appeared seaworthy despite looking like it was held together with duct tape and fiberglass patches. He cut them loose and grabbed the radio mic. “This is Major Carter. What’s up, Bob?”
    “Do you have my cell number on you?”
    “Yeah, why?”
    “Call me. Right now.”
    Bob Diego was one of the local shrimpers Jerald regularly dealt with professionally since he worked out of the Aripeka marina. If Bob couldn’t say something over the radio, it must be bad. A moment later, Jerald called him on the cell.
    “I’m about five miles southwest of Hernando Beach. I’ve brought up a body.”
    So much for my dinner plans tonight. “Dead human body?”
    “Um, yeah. No question about it.”
    “What’s the coordinates?” He wrote them down, then called it in to base on his police radio. He would beat the sheriff’s office and Coast Guard out there.
    With relatively calm seas, he made good time. It took him twenty minutes to reach the location. Bob had gone out in his pleasure boat with his family. He’d been teaching his two sons how to dive on a shallow rock ledge in less than thirty feet of water when they stumbled upon the man’s body.
    Bob had brought the body up, laid it on his dive platform, and covered it with a beach towel. His two sons, fourteen and twelve, looked freaked. Bob’s wife looked sick to her stomach.
    The man had been wrapped in a light chain hooked to a fifteen-pound fluke anchor. Jerald was surprised it hadn’t floated with an anchor as light as that. The anchor must have hooked into the bottom or on the rocks. From the condition of the body, he looked like he’d been down there a couple of days, at least. Jerald would have to wait on the ME to discern the cause of death. The man’s left arm was gone below the elbow.