Froggy Style (9 page)

T
en minutes later, Beauty safely tucked back in bed, her curtains drawn, and Marvin standing guard outside her door, I slowly walked down the hall, a litany of complaints following me.

“Great. Now my room smells like hair products and musty amphibian, thanks to you, Jean-Michel,” Beauty called out.

I rolled my eyes and kept walking. My mind swirled with a jumble of emotions. Until a few minutes ago the threat to Sleeping Beauty hadn’t seemed real. Not truly. Yet, as a bullet flew past my head, the reality of what I’d done slammed into me with the velocity of a sniper’s shot. This was my fault. All of it.

Well, three-fourths at least.

Half if you considered I was drunk at the time.

Okay, one-third seemed more realistic. After all, I’d tried to stop Spindle. Now that I thought about it, this was far more the responsibility of Ms. Lollie Bliss. Damn her and her sexy, ink-covered body. When I got my hands on her...

“What are you doing here?” Handsome, Beauty’s stepbrother, growled from the top of the stairs. A lock of dark hair fell over one of his dark eyes, giving him a rakish appeal that drove princesses crazy. His muscles were gym sculpted for much the same reason, as were the strategic bulges in his freshly pressed uniform, the tin star on his shirt nearly blinding in the sunlight.

What a tool. I could out-handsome Handsome any day. “What’s it to you?” I said, my tone as cold as Jack Frost’s frigid wife.

“Beauty’s too good for the likes of you,” he sneered.

“Good” wasn’t exactly the word I’d have used. “Listen, I get it. You’ve got a thing for your stepsister. Creepy, sure. But it’s not going to happen. Beauty will be my wife. So give it up.”

Handsome’s handsome face crumpled a bit, but he quickly recovered. “I don’t have a thing, as you put it, for Beauty. I love her. Truly love her. Can you say the same?”

“Of course,” I lied.

“Then say it!” He smashed his fist on the banister.

I tried to form the words in my mouth, but no sound emerged. What was wrong with me? I’d said “I love you” a million times to a million different women. Granted, I was now telling it to some guy with perfectly waxed eyebrows, but still....

“That’s what I thought,” Handsome said with a sneer. “If you know what’s just, you’ll leave her alone.”

I grinned. “Is that a threat?”

“No,” he said, his eyes blazing with fire. My nose wrinkled. The overwhelming scent of Old Spice and pissed-off stepbrother filled the corridor between us. “It’s a promise,” he said. “You will never marry Sleeping Beauty. I’ll see her in hell first.”

 

“Did you tell Sleeping Beauty the truth?” Karl asked as we drove away from the palace and down the winding canyon road. Hot desert air and the smell of day-old prince wafted throughout the limo. I shut my eyes, allowing fear to surface for the first time since Beauty’s shooting. I’d almost lost her, and therefore, my only chance to end my curse once and for all.

“Sir?” Karl prompted. “Did you tell Princess Beauty her life is in danger?”

“Of course I did,” I lied.

In the rearview mirror, I watched as Karl’s eyebrow rose.

I rolled my eyes in response. “Okay, maybe those weren’t my exact words.” I grinned, picturing Beauty’s startled face as a barrage of bullets slammed into the wall above her bed. “But I’m sure she got the gist.”

“But, sir—”

“I was about to tell her when . . . well . . . the shooting started.”

“What?!” Karl’s face paled. “Shooting? Is the princess all right?”

“Seemed to be,” I said. In fact, five minutes after nearly dying, not to mention cursing me out, Sleeping Beauty had fallen right back to sleep without a care in the world, leaving Marvin and me to station two guards outside her room, and two more below her window, as well as an hourly patrol around the perimeter of the palace.

Killing Beauty wouldn’t be easy. I’d make sure of it.

I stared out the window of the limo, noting the swirl of orange and red in the sky as dusk fell on the desert. Our limo sped down the valley toward the city, the sun glinting off the windows like the reflection in a pond.

We flew past palace after palace as their occupants prepared for nightfall. Lights came on. Kids came home after a long day playing hopscotch. Old couples walked hand in hand. On the side of the road a lone woman leaned against a motorbike.

“Stop the limo!” I yelled.

Karl did, with amazing speed. The limo skidded to a halt, tires screaming against the pavement. I leapt from the vehicle and ran down the street toward the woman leaning so innocently against hundreds of pounds of steel and chrome.

“You!” I pointed an accusing finger in the direction of Ms. Murderous Bliss. She looked as good as, if not hotter, than the last time I’d seen her. Her hair was twisted up on top of her head, leaving small curls to frame her face. Her dark eyes softened in the twilight, appearing almost amber in color.

Attempted murder seemed to agree with her.

I swallowed a wave of lust, disgusted with my reaction. Less than an hour ago, she and her lover had nearly killed Beauty, I reminded my penis. Unfortunately, that failed to cool my ardor. However, her next words worked wonders for my rising libido.

“Sorry I missed you, Kermit.”

“What?” I grabbed Lollie’s arm, jerking her from the bike. She tried to pull away, but I held tight, resulting in a human tug-of-war. In the end, Lollie won, after kicking me in the shin with her biker boot.

“Ow!” I yelped, rubbing at the fresh, very large bruise growing on my leg. For her smallish size, she had extremely big feet. Which came as a sort of surprise, but then again on our last two encounters, I’d paid far more attention to other areas of Lollie’s anatomy.

“What’s your problem?” she screeched, her face pinched with anger. “I apologize for missing you at my shop this morning, and you manhandle me? What do you do when someone offers to buy you dinner, punch them in the nose?”

I straightened. “What?”

“Don’t you ever listen to anyone but yourself?” She blew out a harsh breath. “I said, I was sorry about not being at the Rose this morning when you came by.” She stopped, the annoyance on her face replaced by relief. “But I’m glad I caught you. I have something for you.”

“Perhaps an apology for bashing me in the head?” I took a menacing step toward her. “Or maybe you’d like to say you’re sorry for trying to kill my fiancée?”

“Are you crazy?” She tried to push me away, but I stayed firmly in front of her. “Why would I try to kill your fiancée? I don’t even know her. If anything, I feel sorry for the poor girl.”

“What about your lover, Lollie?” My tone grew soft. “Are you helping him? Is that why you’re here?”

She chuckled. “I’m here, as you put it, because I had a job to do.” When my eyes narrowed, she added, “A tattoo job. Up the canyon. Hence the ink stains on my tank top.” She pointed to a red splotch right below her breast.

I wasn’t sure if I believed her. Her words sounded right, and the ink stain was real enough, but I’d fallen for her innocent act before, and it had cost me, namely my favorite pair of pants. Not to mention a lump on the head the size of Wee Willie Winkie after a dose of Viagra.

“Well, Kermit,” her lips curled into a smirk, “don’t you want to know what it is I have for you?”

I nodded, slowly, unsure.

“Are you sure?” she asked, her tone filled with laughter.

I nodded again.

Lollie reached into the black leather saddlebag behind her.

A gun emerged.

A gun aimed at my heart.

Her finger flexed on the trigger.

A
stain of red spread across my chest, growing larger and darker as seconds passed. Lollie dropped the gun, the smile leaving her face. “Oh God, I’m so sorry,” she said, dabbing at my sweatshirt.

“What the frog?” I glared down at the cherry-colored ink on my now-ruined sweatshirt, and then back at Lollie. “What’d you do that for?”

“I . . . ah . . . it was an accident,” she said, motioning to the tattoo gun on the ground. “I meant to grab these.” She reached into her black saddlebags again. I took a step back, my hands out in front of me to ward off another inky attack. But rather than another tattoo gun, Lollie removed a pair of grimy Levi’s from the leather tote, the same pair I’d worn last night.

“Here,” she said, holding the Levis out to me.

Taking the jeans from her ink-stained hand, I quickly checked the pockets. My wallet and p-Phone sat tucked where I’d left them, but the matchbook as well as the rose petal, my only pieces of evidence against Lollie, was missing.

I thrust the jeans her way. “Where are they?”

“What?” she repeated, her black eyes staring innocently up at me. “I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”

My eyes narrowed. “Really? I find that hard to believe.”

She gave me an eye roll.

I decided to let it go, for now, and focus on a more important issue, like why Lollie had my jeans in the first place. So I asked a question I’d never expected to ask a woman in this lifetime. “How’d you get my pants?”

“I did not smash you in the head!” Lollie yelled.

I raised my eyebrow. “Then who did?”

“How should I know?” Her eyes smoldered, turning jet black in color. “You probably have a hundred people willing to smash in your head. Mostly women would be my guess.”

“Perhaps,” I acknowledged with a nod, “but they all live a couple thousand miles away. Which leaves only you, Ms. Bliss.”

She laughed. “What about your sweet fiancée?”

“Funny,” I said without humor. But my mind flashed to my fiancée as well as her overly protective stepbrother. Had Handsome smashed in my head? I shook said wounded noggin and focused on the tattooed lady. “Beauty wouldn’t hurt a fly.” It might take too much energy. On the other hand, she could complain so much that the fly flew into the bright blue light of a bug zapper to make it stop.

Lollie raised a disbelieving eyebrow.

“Let’s just ignore my upcoming wedded bliss, Ms. Bliss, and focus on the important stuff, namely . . .” I motioned to my jeans.

“Can’t you think of anything but your crotch for even a second?” She picked up the tattoo gun, shoved it her bag, and then straddled the motorcycle, her long legs squeezing the chassis like a vise. She stared at me for a moment, as if debating, and then held out a black motorcycle helmet. “Coming?”

I pondered her and then her offer. On one hand, the idea of going anywhere with Ms. Bliss seemed demented.

Perhaps a bit suicidal.

Masochistic at the very least.

Now I knew how the fly felt.

“No head smashing?” I pointed at her. “Poison? Or tattoo guns?”

She crossed her fingers over her heart. “Cross my heart and hope you die.”

“What?”

She smiled, innocently. “I said, cross my heart, hope to die. Now get on the bike.”

My eyes narrowed on her sculpted face. Her head tilted to one side, revealing the subtle slope of her neck. I wanted to run my fingers down her throat, to feel the inky designs underneath the pads of my fingertips. “Come on, Kermit. You’re in Cin City, take a gamble,” she ordered with a grin.

I glanced from the motorcycle to Karl and my limo, and then to Lollie’s face. Her dark eyes dared me to defy my survival instincts and ride away into the sunset with a wicked tattooed woman.

“Sir?” Karl called from the window of the limo.

Against my better judgment, I threw my leg over the back of Lollie’s bike and wrapped my arms around her waist. Her breath quickened under the palms of my hands. Her skin felt so warm, and she smelled like the desert and strawberries, hot, deadly, and deliciously juicy. I wondered if she tasted as dangerous as she smelled. A thought a soon-to-be-married frog prince was better off not thinking. Not when his bride’s life was on the line.

Lollie revved the engine.

Karl opened the limo door. “Sir! Wait!”

I gave Karl a small wave. Lollie gunned the large motor. The bike buzzed to life. The back tire spun. Gravel flew up. And then we were gone, flying down the canyon, the wind ripping across our bodies. The only sound was of the chrome and steel engine between our thighs.

Well, that and the occasional manly scream of “Fuck, I think I swallowed a fly.”

 

Lollie parked the bike in a narrow alleyway. A sign above the door of the brick building in front of us read, “The Biggest, Baddest BBQ in Town.” I assumed it meant the food, not the door. Yet as hungry as I was, given enough BBQ sauce, the door didn’t sound half-bad either.

Pulling off her helmet, Lollie’s black hair spilled down her back like an oil slick. “Hope you like BBQ.” She leapt off the bike and motioned to the run-down building. “This place is a Cin City icon. It makes the
New Never News
three or four times a year.”

From the looks of the cracked windows and crumbling brick, I suspected those news articles often started with “three dead,” but decided not to voice my concern.

I held the BBQ-stained front door open and waved Lollie in. She shot me a smile and sashayed inside. My eyes locked on her nicely shaped bottom as I followed her through the door, wondering about her sudden invitation to dinner. Was she yet another victim of my frog prince charm? Or was there something far more sinister to her invitation? From the look of the place, death by salmonella seemed like a possibility. Perhaps Spindle had run out of bullets? I grabbed her arm and spun her to face me. “Why did you bring me here?”

“Why do you think?” She sighed. “I was hungry.”

“And?”

“And when I’m hungry I eat. It’s not rocket science, Kermit.”

I stared into her eyes, debating if she was telling the truth. Her nostrils flared under my assessment, a sure sign that Ms. Bliss was being less than truthful. “You’re lying. You want something from me.” People, women especially, usually did. Money, houses, cars, paternity tests. Everyone wanted a piece of the prince. “What is it?”

“Fine.” She crossed her arms over her breasts. “I’m flat broke since I had to buy a whole new set of knuckle busters and clip cords after you destroyed my equipment last night. The least you can do is be a good Kermit and buy a girl dinner.” She paused to lick her lips. “I promise I’ll make it worth every cent.”

I nodded my agreement and released her arm, once again enjoying the view of her backside as I followed her inside the restaurant. Unlike Lollie’s butt, the interior of the joint was sadly lacking in beauty, let alone anything remotely nice. Straw covered the floor where two sets of empty picnic tables sat. A bar ran along the far wall filled with a flock of bikers dressed in leather. They turned to stare as we entered. Their eyes looked Lollie up and down like a lollipop. A low growl, almost like the engine of a motorcycle, reverberated around the small room.

I stepped in front of Lollie.

She giggled, pushing me aside, and grabbed the table closest to the doorway. “Sit down, Kermit. You’re making Bo Peep nervous,” she said, gesturing to a very large, very hairy biker dressed in a bonnet and carrying a sheep-herding staff.

The biker growled again.

I quickly sat down. A little piggy wearing a blemished apron approached our table. “Can I take your order?”

Without glancing down at the BBQ-stained menu stuck to the wooden table, Lollie said, “We’ll have two of the BBQ chicken platters. Extra sauce. And two beers.” She added loud enough only for me to hear, “And a nice poisoned apple strudel for dessert.”

“Funny,” I said, my eyes locked on hers. “But I’ll have the ribs. Full rack.”

The pig swallowed hard. “Would you like beef or . . . p-p-ork ribs?”

“Which do you recommend?”

“Beef!”

“Yeah, maybe,” I said. “Doc says I should watch my intake of red meat, though . . .”

The little piggy whimpered.

“What the hell, you only live once, right?” I hesitated.

“Beef it is. Well done.”

“Thank you, sir.” He grinned from ear to curly piggy ear.

“No . . . Not that you’re not doing a bang-up job . . . but I meant, that’s how I’d like my ribs cooked. Well done.”

“Oh,” he said, his face crumpling. “Can I get you anything else?” Lollie smiled and shook her head. The waiter turned to leave, but I stopped him. “Do you guys have any pork rinds?”

The piggy squealed wee, wee, wee all the way back to the kitchen. Good help was so hard to find. Leaning back in the metal chair I contemplated the enigmatic and alluring Lollie Bliss and wondered just what kind of help she’d be to me.

She lifted up one dark eyebrow, followed by the other.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing,” she said.

I scowled. I hated when women did that. “Nothing” was girl code for “the guy next to me is an idiot,” which nine out of ten times proved to be completely true.

Silence grew between us, thick and heavy, much like the smoke curling through the restaurant. I cleared my throat. “Care to explain how you got my pants?”

“I found them on the doorstep when I opened the shop this morning. I remembered you wearing them last night, so I figured I’d bring them with me and drop them off at your hotel this evening,” Lollie said with a smile. “My good deed of the day.”

Her words seemed plausible enough, but I still had my doubts. Lollie was a liar, a pretty damn good one at that. But she was no match for a frog prince. Besides, someone had shot at my princess. “How kind of you.”

“I do try,” she said, an innocent smile on her plump lips.

Before I could devise an appropriate response, our waiter appeared at the table. “For my lady,” he said, placing a plate piled high with food in front of Lollie. The chicken was perfectly cooked and slathered in BBQ sauce. My mouth watered just looking at her looking at the food on her plate.

My own platter came next. Smoke curled around the burnt remains of what looked like a mouse that ran up a clock, was electrocuted and then drowned in sauce to finish the poor bastard off, served with a side of wilted coleslaw.

“Bon appétit,” the piggy said.

“Um . . . wait a second,” I said. “My ribs are a tad bit overcooked.” I forked the tiny, charred entrée, which crumbled into a pile of ash.

The pig’s eyes widened as if shocked by my statement.

Lollie made a slashing motion across her throat.

“Overcooked, you say?” the pig whispered, his piggy eyes darting from me to the kitchen door and back again.

The restaurant went quiet. Deadly silent, in fact.

I glanced at Lollie. But before she could say a word the room shook with a gale-force wind strong enough to topple Biker Bo Peep and all her equally hairy leather-clad flock. Mugs full of mead flew in all direction. Glass shattered as the ferocious wind battered the restaurant.

Lollie wavered on her chair and then crashed into my arms. I caught her, folding her against my body, and waited for the sudden windstorm to end. A loud howl sounded from the kitchen, followed by a crack of wood, and a shower of thousands of toothpicks rained down on us.

As suddenly as the windstorm came, it stopped, leaving a path of debris in its wake. BBQ sauce coated everything, from the straw on the floor to the fan slowly twirling overhead. The smell of charred pig flesh hung in the heated air. Yet there wasn’t any serious damage to the restaurant or its assortment of oddball patrons.

Lollie was still pressed against me, her mouth buried in the crook of my neck. Warm, sweet breath teased my skin, sending the blood in my brain far south. My body tensed, and all I could think about was kissing Ms. Lying Lollie Bliss’s plump pink lips. Her lips parted, drawing me in like a fairy to applause.

I bent down, stealing a kiss before Lollie had time to regain her senses. My lips settled on hers. Rather than fight me as I’d expected, she wrapped her hands around my neck and pulled me closer. The brief stolen kiss twisted into something much darker, dangerous, and infinitely more appealing.

All thoughts of my future bride, Lollie’s assassin lover, and my possible return to frogitude vanished under the heat of Lollie’s body. This was the One, my penis stated in no uncertain terms.

And in that perfect moment, she was—until reality, or rather, a hairy paw, smashed me in the back of the head.