Master of the Deep by Cleo Peitsche

a bird shifter, I’d rather take the boat.”
    “He’s not a pterodactyl. Spencer has had his pilot’s license since he was eighteen. I can promise you that we’re safe with him. We’ve got time, though.”
    “Really?” She pulled out her camera and scrolled back to the photos she’d taken of the building. “Do you know what this is?”
    Koenraad looked at it. “I do.”
    “Well?”
    Grinning, he took her hand and began pulling her back toward the boardwalk.  
    She loved how physically affectionate he was. And her hand in his… There was nothing sexual about it, but it turned her on.  
    “This used to be quite the happening spot,” Koenraad said. “Before my time, obviously.” He pulled her up under his arm. When he pointed to the far end of the boardwalk, it brought her even closer to him. “There used to be a Ferris wheel there. And just next to it, a merry-go-round, but no animals. All furniture.”
    “Sounds boring.”
    “I guess if you were a kid in 1920, you’d be glad to have it.”
    “How do you know this?”
    “I did quite a bit of research before choosing this location for the lab. I wanted to make sure that no other shifters owned anything in the vicinity.”
    “Why?”
    “Privacy.”
    Hm. Not the sort of answer that invited followup questions. She turned her attention back to the screen. “So what’s the building?”
    “Look at the picture on the sign.”
    “A smiley face?”  
    Koenraad suddenly kissed her. “I’d love to give you a Rorschach test. It’s not a smiley face.”
    He brought her to the door, then released her. She was wrapped in his scent, and she liked it.
    “What are you doing?”
    He yanked away several of the boards, making enough room for them to enter. “Come on.”
    “I can’t believe you’re breaking in,” she said.  
    “No one cares. As long as I put the boards back after.” He ducked through the hole he’d made, and she carefully followed. There was the squeak of a door opening, then a gust as it closed behind her.  
    The inside of the building was dusty, musty, and very dark. “I can’t see squat,” she said.
    A moment later, a beam of light shot from Koenraad’s phone. “Put your bag there,” he said, shining the light at her feet.  
    After she lowered it, he swept the light in a semicircle. This was one large room. A counter in the back, cubicles behind it.
    “Know yet?”
    She shook her head, and Koenraad played the light over plain wooden chairs and tables on the far side. Then across the room in front of her.  
    “Bowling alley,” she squealed when she saw the telltale lanes, the recessed gutters.
    “Yup.”  
    “So it’s a smiling bowling ball on the sign?”
    “Just a bowling ball. Three holes. The smile is all in your mind.”  
    “You’re just jealous because it doesn’t smile at you,” she said. “Shine the light down this way. I wanna see if there are any balls or pins left.”
    She didn’t get far, though, before she realized the place had been cleaned out. “There’s a surprising lack of cobwebs,” she noticed. “And it should be dustier.” She came back to Koenraad. He held the light in front of him, so she couldn’t see his face.
    “You’re gorgeous,” he said. He swept the beam slowly up and down her body, lingering on her breasts, then her hips. “Nice ass, too, as I recall. It should be illegal for you to be in a wetsuit.” He made a growling sound, exaggerated to drive home his point. “I was worried you’d look down and see my boner.”
    She laughed because Koenraad saying the word boner was hilarious.  
    “You think my physical discomfort is amusing?”
    “Given the circumstances, yeah. If I’d seen both of them, I would have died.”
    “I told you, it’s not like that. I have to make a decision for both to be on display.”
    “So display them now.” She said it with a flirty smile, but she was serious.  
    “I’ll show you one.”
    One was better than nothing, she decided.