Jurassic Heart (25 page)

T
HE
NEXT
time I woke, it was because Boner was trying to get out of bed on his own. I told him off and then helped him to the bathroom, then back to bed, then fed him more painkillers and water to wash them down.

“How are you feeling?” I asked as he settled against the pillows.

“Like I got shot,” he said, turning to me with a grin I recognized, one that told me he was absolutely fine and he was going to milk this for all it was worth.

A quick glance at my phone told me it was nearly midday. I had a message from Hunter and a missed call from Sam. I read the message first, which just said that he was back home and to call him when I was awake. With Boner leaning against me, I called Sam.

“Nick,” he said when he answered. “Is that little fucker okay?”

“Yeah,” I said, looking down at Boner. “He’ll live.”

“Good. Tell him to get back on that dig. I’m not paying him to sit around on his ass moping.”

It was all an elaborate front. I knew Sam would have been as worried as the rest of us. He just wasn’t as good at showing it.

“I’ll make sure he gets the message.”

“Good. The cops have sealed off my fucking dig as a crime scene, so no one’s doing any work today. I managed to get hold of everyone this morning and told them to stay away. They all want to know about your dreadlocked shit of a best friend who worried us all half to fucking death overnight.”

“I’ll send around a message,” I said. “Let everyone know he’ll live.”

“Fine. You were told to call someone called Officer Romano when you were ready?”

“Yeah.”

“Do that,” he said in his usual clipped tone. “Call me if you find out anything before I do.”

“Okay. Thanks, Sam.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he said, and hung up.

“God, he’s a charmer,” Boner muttered from my shoulder.

“You heard all that?”

“Yeah. I think he loves me really.”

While Boner kicked back and watched TV, I made a series of phone calls, to Hunter and Officer Romano and then to Raven, who was worried but pleased to know there’d be no lasting damage other than a few manly scars. I had a feeling when he was all healed up, he’d actually quite like them.

The police had agreed to come to the motel to take our statements, since I’d told them I didn’t think Dr. Tsakoumis was up to leaving his sickbed just yet. I then had to convince Raven to stay away until after they were done with us, which made me rethink my once-excellent plan.

Officer Romano only took about thirty minutes to arrive, giving me just enough time to shower and change. The officer from the very first night, when Eric got attacked, was with her, and I gave him a grim nod in greeting.

They insisted on taking our statements before releasing any information to us. I wearily recounted the events of the previous evening, having the feeling I’d likely be doing it several more times before we were done.

“What can you tell us?” I asked when we were finished. “No one would tell us anything last night.”

“The two men we currently have in custody have claimed they were working under the instruction of Eric White.”

It took a moment for me to interpret that. “Wait, what?”

“But Eric got beat up,” Boner added.

“Apparently Mr. White had hired these men to incapacitate you, Dr. Eisenberg. He wanted you to be removed from his dig site so he could claim the discovery of several skeletons as his own.”

I must have still looked confused, because she laid her hand on my arm and gave it a gentle squeeze. “You were supposed to be somewhere, at a bar, and you came back here instead because you had a headache. You weren’t where Mr. White had told these men to find you. He was there instead. They mistook him for you.”

“How insulting,” Boner muttered. “You don’t look
that
much like him.”

I blinked several times. “So… if I hadn’t gotten a headache, they would have put
me
in the hospital instead?”

“Yes.”

“Holy fuck.”

“You found all this out already?” Boner asked as he wrapped his arm around my shoulder.

“Yes,” Officer Romano said. “The two men Dr. Eisenberg caught last night were very forthcoming in telling us they were acting under the instruction of Mr. White. My colleagues questioned him from his hospital bed in Calgary early this morning.”

“I don’t get why, though,” I said. “Once he was attacked, why didn’t they stop?”

“These men aren’t assassins, Dr. Eisenberg,” she said, fixing me with a level, penetrating stare. “They are merely colleagues of Mr. White’s. You are, it seems, very rarely alone, and after their first mistake, they were wary of making another. They decided to continue with their attempts to remove you from the site.”

The other detective caught my attention. “I believe the intention was to scare you away from the dig and then take back over, claiming anything you had found since Mr. White left as their own.”

“This is all for credit in some academic journal?” I asked, bewildered at the concept. “It’s crazy.”

“Apparently some men are willing to go a long way to get the recognition they think they deserve,” she said, standing. “Hopefully, we’ll be able to allow you to return to your work tomorrow.”

I stood too and let them out, taking Officer Romano’s card and promising to call her if I needed anything. The slap on the wrist she’d given me for not waiting for the police the previous night was well deserved. I didn’t mind being told off when I agreed with her. My response—that I didn’t know there was a gun, and that some of the finds were invaluable—went some way toward placating her. Although she did tell me, “No one ever expects a gun.” I supposed that was fair.

“I feel like I owe people apologies,” I said to Boner once the police had left.

“Who?”

“Pete. Andre. I thought they could have been behind it all.”

He shook his head. “Don’t beat yourself up, Nick. Everyone knew Eric was a fucking asshole, but I never thought he’d hire a hit on you to get you off his dig.”

“It was never his dig,” I said. “Not even at the beginning. He never put the time or the effort in, he just wanted to take credit for the work other people were doing.”

“Brad.”

“Brad, yeah,” I agreed. “Mavis.” The first skeleton. The not-Velociraptor.

“Forget about Eric,” Boner said, squeezing my leg gently. “This was never about him. We’ve done some fucking amazing work this summer. Don’t let him wreck that.”

Both Raven and River arrived not long after I told them it was safe to come over, armed with chicken soup and a variety of different foods. I got the impression Boner was going to be clucked over for a few hours, and he looked delighted with this prospect, so I left him with the twins and stole his car to drive out to Hunter’s.

He was sitting on the step and looked up as I approached.

“Hi,” I said, slamming the door behind me. Hunter gave me a small smile. He looked tired.

Instead of standing, he wrapped his arms around my thighs and rested his head on my stomach. I gently stroked his inky, silky hair and hoped this was the right thing to do, that I could comfort him like this.

It felt like the fabric of our relationship had changed overnight. I couldn’t ignore what I felt for him any longer. My true feelings had escaped when I heard that gunshot, and there was no putting a lid on them again. Yet it still felt too soon to be making grand declarations of love or promises for the future. We had only been dating for such a short time, and I wasn’t ready for that yet.

Part of me wanted to go back to that cabin in the woods. Everything was easier out there, and not just because of the lack of facilities.

“How’s Boner doing?” Hunter mumbled into my belly.

“Good,” I said. “He’s good. The twins are over there now, feeding him soup and treating him like a prince. He’ll milk that for all it’s worth, I’m sure.”

He chuckled softly and then fell silent again.

“Did the police talk to you yet?”

“Yeah,” he said. “They told me as much as they could, said they might call on me as a witness if it all goes to court.”

“Is that likely?”

“I don’t know yet. We just have to wait.”

“I’m no good at waiting,” I said, tugging at his hair until he looked up at me.

He stood then and took a tiny step back. “I’m sorry, Nick, but I can’t do this anymore,” he said softly.

I looked at him and tried not to get angry. “Why?”

“It’s obvious to anyone who looks at you two that you’re madly in love. I couldn’t ever come between that.”

“Between who? Boner and me?”

“Yeah,” he said with a sad smile.

I shook my head. “No way. That’s…. You’ve got it wrong. So wrong.”

“Do I?”

“Yes,” I said emphatically. “Boner is my best friend. I’m not in love with him.”

“Are you sure? Because you certainly act like you’re in love with him.”

The frustration of not being able to explain made me want to tear my hair out. “It’s not simple,” I said. “I suppose from someone looking in, then yes, it might look like we love each other, and we do. But it’s not a romantic kind of love.”

“No? What is it, then?”

I had to look away from him for a moment, to try to clear my mind of the look of desperate sorrow on his face, what I thought might be one of the stupidest and most noble things I’d ever encountered.

“Neither of us have brothers,” I said eventually. “So I suppose it’s a bit like that. More than that, though…. We met each other at that time in your life when you’re free for the first time. We were first-year undergrads living together in the same dorm. Then we found out we were both interested in guys and started fooling around with each other when we were drunk. We shared most of our twenties with each other, Hunter. Everything that happened to me in those ten years, I did with him. You can’t break apart that kind of friendship overnight.”

“I’m not trying to break it apart,” he said. “I just think the two of you were meant to be together.”

“We don’t!” I exclaimed. “He’s interested in Raven now. The two of them have been dancing around each other, and it’s only a matter of time before they get together. Boner will be a part of my life for the rest of my life. But I’m not going to share it with him in that way.”

Hunter combed his hair back from his face with his fingers, sighed heavily, and grabbed my wrist to pull me close to him. I hopped up on the step into the RV, the boost making me taller than him for the first time.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. Very sure.”

“I feel a bit stupid now,” he admitted as he wound his arms around my waist once again and tilted his head to look up at me.

“Don’t,” I said. “You’re not the first to think we’re more than just friends. It’s just the way we are with each other. We kiss and touch each other a lot. It’s not a sexual thing, though. Not all the time, anyway.”

“Have you slept with him since we started dating?”

“I haven’t slept with him since I arrived here from London,” I said.

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.”

I took over the task of smoothing his hair back into place from where he’d been messing with it. Hunter’s eyes flickered closed, and he leaned into my touch, humming quietly to himself.

“Come on,” I said eventually.

“Hmm?”

I stepped up into the RV and pulled him with me. “I came out here so you could work off some of the tension and aggravation from last night on me,” I said with a little smirk.

“Is that so?”

“Yes,” I told him. “I’m a bit battered and bruised. I might need someone to check me over.”

“And I thought you were the doctor,” he said, trying not to smile.

“I am,” I said. “But in this instance, I’m more than willing to put myself in your capable hands.”

He spread those capable hands over my skin, under my shirt, making my stomach muscles clench in anticipation. We stumbled our way to the bedroom, and he lifted his hands to draw my shirt up over my head. He gently touched the faint bruises starting to develop on my shoulder, courtesy of ramming my body into someone else’s, and the ones on my neck and throat from where that someone else had used his elbow on me.

Soft kisses followed the fingertips, whisper-light over the sensitive parts.

“I think you’ll live,” he murmured.

I nodded and pulled at Hunter’s shirt, stripping it off before attaching my lips to his neck, his collarbones. I ran my hands up his strong forearms, mapping the muscles there, then wrapped them around his biceps and squeezed.

This big, strong guy used his strength in a way that enhanced my own, complementing me perfectly. I never felt like I was less than him. Hunter put me on a pedestal when we were alone together, quietly worshipping my body in the same way I adored his. He was my equal in every way that was important to me.

We lay down on his bed in a tangle of limbs and immersed ourselves in each other’s kisses. This slow, solid connection was exactly what I needed after the night we’d had. I wanted to show him
exactly how much he meant to me. I wanted him to know what I felt for
him.

Hunter’s lips moved from my own and started kissing over the bruises, pressing lightly on each one so I felt the little sting of pain, then the sweetness of his kiss. It was only when he stopped to record each bruise that I realized exactly how many I had, and in the weirdest places.

I wasn’t about to complain about his lips on my shins, though, or on the inside of my knee. I definitely wasn’t complaining when he kissed back up my body and enveloped my cock in wet heat.

He teased me in a slow build until I was trembling underneath him, fingers twisting the sheets as my toes curled in anticipation. When he pulled away, the rush of cool air over my wet cock was enough to tug me back from the edge.

“If I fuck you, I’ll hurt you,” he said, teasing my balls with his fingers.

I bit my bottom lip, wondering how forward I could be without embarrassing myself.

“Here,” I said, awkwardly pulling at him until he was lying on his back. Then I threw a leg over his thighs so I was straddling him.

“Oh,” he whispered. “I see.”