No, lust.
No, love.
"I couldn't scream if I had my mouth full of you."
Wow!
He stripped off his underwear as he had the last time he had taken a shower, and this time got both the shorts and the T-shirt into the wicker laundry basket, the latter with a rim shot.
And then he stepped under the showerhead. This time he didn't even turn on the hot water. He just closed his eyes and let the cold water stream on him until he heard his teeth chatter.
Edgar Delchamps, Alex Darby, Jack Britton, and Tony Santini were waiting for Castillo, when he came down the stairs dressed in a polo shirt and swimming trunks, five minutes later.
"We need to talk, Ace," Delchamps said seriously. "Okay?"
Oh, shit! They know!
Castillo nodded, gestured toward the door of the library, and raised a questioning eyebrow.
"Fine," Delchamps said.
What the hell am I going to say?
"Sorry, guys, it won't happen again"?
"Excuse the stupidity"?
Or maybe "Well, you guys know how it is. When was the last time you turned down a piece of tail?"
No, that one I won't use.
That wasn't a piece of tail. I don't know what it was, but it was a hell of a lot more than a wham, bam, thank you, ma'am quickie.
The words "a meeting of souls" just popped into my feverish brain.
Castillo was somewhat surprised--But not really; the help here is incredibly efficient, and thank God for that . . . I need a jolt of caffeine--to find an insulated carafe of coffee and a half-dozen china mugs on a tray in the center of the library table. There was a red leather-upholstered captain's chair at the head of a library table. Castillo poured a cup, sat in the captain's chair, and made a two-handed gesture signifying Let's have it.
"Charley, we've been talking," Delchamps began.
I'll bet you have. And have decided the appropriate course of action for me to take is resign my commission and check into one of the better mental health facilities.
"We think there's something to the chemical factory in the Congo," Delcha
mps said.
What did he say?
"Something really heavy, Charley," Darby added.
"You ever wonder, Charley, why the ragheads didn't hit us again after 9/11?" Santini asked.
"Other than us good guys are doing a helluva job shutting them down? Last I looked, the Liberty Bell was still intact."
"There is that," Delchamps said. "But there's something more."
"What 'more'?" Castillo said.
They don't know about me and Svetlana?