A lot about them.
He yanked himself out of the lust-weighted reverie by homing in on Fox’s comment. “Most people,” he noted. “But not you?”
The guy’s expression remained smooth and neutral. “Once upon a time, yes,” he replied. “Until I realized that princesses are not exactly my preference.”
Brick chuckled. “More the stablegirl type, hmm?”
“More like stableboy.”
Oz snorted. “Stableman.”
Fox hitched half a smirk. “Whatever you say, koala baby.”
Brick let a small smile curl his own lips. Well, that explained a lot about Oz’s historical hesitance about invitations to go kink clubbing to celebrate successful missions. Though by now, the guy had to have figured out that when a dude owned a full-service dungeon, anything was okay short of dragging in minors or donkeys.
In the time it took him to generate that thought, Ozias wrested the subject off the air with his return to an all-business demeanor. “This is all semantics, anyway,” he asserted. “As of this moment, or any from the last three days, we’re not talking about anyone’s princess.”
“Three days?” Brick jerked up his head and nailed his friend with a perplexed stare. “What the hell happened then?”
Despite Oz’s brief flare of dominance over Fox, the Arcadian stepped forward to lead the conversation again. “She disappeared,” he supplied. “Not literally, of course. Not into thin air.”
“Then in what way?” Brick pressed. “Symbolically? Temporarily?”
Oz stuck in a grunt. “Brickham, how are you not truly aware of all this? Even the rock you live under in Seattle isn’t that big. Never mind that we’re not in Seattle…”
Their exchange was forced into some tense beats as a tourist group tromped by. As they thinned out, Fox said past his still-gritted teeth, “She departed Arcadia.” His jaw clenched tighter. “No. She escaped. That is the clearer truth.”
“Escaped?” This time, Brick didn’t issue the echo for the sake of logic. Not when there was none of that shit to be had here. “All right, officially down the hole of confusion, kids. Escaped how? And why? From what? And are you absolutely sure?”
“We’ve got video footage,” Oz supplied. “She was in a good disguise, but thanks to enhancement software, we picked up enough details to know she boarded a fishing trawler off the western coast of the island.”
“Which was not her original plan,” Fox offered by way of a disgruntled mutter.
“Which part?” Brick countered. “The escape or the disguise?”
“The trawler,” the Arcadian clarified. “She and Requiemme were going to get across the water on a helicopter.”
“And you know that how?”
“I was going to be their pilot.”
“That’s solid.” But Brick cocked his head with another question. “Who the hell is Requiemme?”
“Her lady’s maid.”
“Her lady’s what?” He barely kept his laugh subdued. “I mean, you all actually still do that kind of stuff? Lady’s maids?”
“The role has grown into more of a personal assistant now,” Fox explained.
“Regardless,” Oz inserted, “and whatever the title, we need to be mighty grateful about her commitment to Jayd. Without her there, we might not have snagged a positive ID.”
Fox added a steady nod. “We were able to confirm the dockside security cam footage by recognizing Emme first. From there, it was a matter of interviewing the trawler’s crew and double-checking some important tells about Jayd.”
“Such as?” Brick prompted.
“Her very steps, to start,” the guy replied. “She walks at the same pace that most people jog. When she manages to stand still, it is not for long. She fidgets, especially if her stress levels invade her stomach.”
Brick acknowledged all that with a short grunt. “Sounds like all this qualified as stressful.” Though the guy had yet to divulge why. But if this tale was even close to its end, Brick was a brain surgeon with nerves of steel. Alternate realities weren’t that easy.
Sure enough, the Arcadian paused for only half a breath before continuing. “She enjoys pacing and usually taps a matching cadence on her thighs. If she sits, she will do the same to tabletops, counters, balcony rails… Any surface that is readily available. And of course, no matter what she does, the woman cannot hide her distinct eyes.”
“Nicely done homework,” Brick complimented, though the guy had a handicap on the last point. The woman’s eyes were practically her calling card. Even if she cloaked their unique shading with contacts, there was no way of concealing their huge expressiveness, enhanced even more by their lush lashes, sultry lids, and expressive brows.
Expressive was damn right.
To the point that just a few thoughts of those eyes led his brain to a matching number of fierce fantasies about them. Visions he could not afford right now, if he was sticking to the theory that they still danced on the tip of this proverbial iceberg.
“But as we all know,” he went on, “homework isn’t always full preparation. And your plans for recovering your royal asset have hit a few glitches.” He swung a knowing look between the men. “How am I doing so far, kids?”
Ozias huffed and rocked back on his heels. “Hotter’n a fried crotch hair, as per usual,” he drawled. “But now we’re running out of tarmac on keeping the news contained from the global press. Ears are starting to prick at the screams of the Arcadian royals watchers. If Jayd’s absence from the public eye is picked up and goes viral, and then the whole world starts hunting for her, we don’t have an edge of anonymity. We’ll have less of a chance to find her before…”
“What?” Brick demanded into the guy’s sudden silence, prompted by a fast and terse look from Fox. “Finding her before what, Oz? Or whom? Maybe the people behind why she left—escaped—in the first place? And maybe why you’re frantically trying to get her back, after you helped her leave in the first place?”
He paused to sliced his own hard stare into the mix. “Look, you guys can’t trust me with just half the details here. Unless you really don’t need me after all and just want to stroll inside for a look at the large-format paintings?”
When neither man told him to fuck off right away, he accepted the pause as a figurative opening of the secret clubhouse door. But stepping inside the clubhouse didn’t mean access to the decoder rings. Years of experience, infiltrating the clubhouses of his country’s darkest enemies, had taught him that truth.
In the years since then, his attentiveness for those kinds of details had served him well as a skilled floater for privately funded ops, helping him pocket enough side money to actually think about buying a second home. The talent also served him well for unraveling stubborn submissives, who eventually came around to thanking him for the fun in the end. But that was when they were actually headstrong instead of acting the feisty part just to get in his pants.
But nothing in his pants was important right now.
That much was proved out when Fox, encouraged by a new nod from Oz, dropped his arms and moved forward. The guy looked like he was stepping out of a cave and grimacing at the sunlight. Brick was tempted to tell him how thoroughly he related but decidedly bit back his words. Wasn’t his turn for the talking stick right now.