Holiday Mates: Supernatural Enforcers Agency Short Stories (18 page)

“Or maybe they still have the same friends, and she will have heard about him being in town.  And if it were a messy break up then she’ll be happy to tell us where he is.”

Well, he had a point.  Dejectedly she read the sign for the third time. 
Nude Beach
.  The sign that women everywhere with body issues dreaded.  Nudity was for the bedroom when all the lights were off, not for bright, sunny days with disturbingly clear skies!  Even her bunny blushed at the idea of it, and the lucky creature was covered in fur.

A man who had to be in his eighties strolled past the car, and Judy was at just the right height to get an eyeful.

“Ugh!  Well, at least if I look up I won’t have to see too much.”

“Yeah, there’s kind of a dress code on the beach…”

“Oh no…”  Her rabbit was at panic stations.

“Yep, no clothes allowed.  They’ll allow shoes and socks in a pinch, but no clothes.”

“That’s barbaric!” she snapped, automatically trying to cover her private areas, even though she still wore clothes.

His eyes seemed to twinkle.  “Want me to go in alone?”

Yes!
  “No, I want to be there, I just, ah…” 
Preferred keeping the parts that jiggled under wraps.

Mason cocked her a half smile.  “It’ll be fine.  Everyone will be naked – no big deal.  We’re shifters; nudity is normal for us.”

He heaved himself out the car and started stripping on the spot.  She followed suit, although stripping with a little less alacrity.  To be fair, it was hard to concentrate while trying to take in every detail of Mason’s body.  Thick, taut, yummy flesh was displayed in all its glory, and her eyes feasted on it, trying to devour and memorize every inch. 
And oh lord there went his boxers! 
She felt a definite tingle down below.

No, bad girl
.  For all intents and purposes, he was her partner.  She should not perv on her partner.  On the plus side, just the brief glance had given her enough material for a years worth of dirty dreams.  She could stop borrowing the erotic books from the library which she hated doing. 
She could never meet the librarian’s eyes
.

A couple of slinky young women sauntered past him and said, ‘hi’ and ‘looking good’.

“Friends of yours?” snapped Judy as her bunny growled.  It was a tiny growl, but it was a growl.

Mason gave her an unconcerned look.  “Nope.  You ready?”

Right, he was perfectly okay with nudity.  Of course, he was.  Why wouldn’t he be?  He looked even better nude, and he looked amazing with clothes.

“Almost,” she sighed.  “Just a few more layers.”

Damnit, all she wanted was to kickstart her career.  There was much more nudity than she expected.

*

Judy attempted to cover her breasts, cover her mound and write in her notebook all at once.  It wasn’t easy, and it was particularly dicey when she dropped her pen.  Thankfully Mason picked it up for her.  It was one thing to show your butt cheeks; it was another to flash the seventh planet from the sun.  Her bunny had her paws over her face in shame and was not moving them until they had left the beach.

Mason for his part didn’t bother to cover anything.  Truthfully, Judy doubted even his huge hands could completely cover him. 
No wonder he had no issues
.  Even flaccid he was enormous.  He gave other men issues.  Not that she had looked.  No, she caught a slight glimpse of it… mostly because it took up her entire view.

While she was getting very hot under the figurative collar, Mason was currently cajoling Franny, Moe’s ex, into telling him what she knew.

Franny ran the snack bar.  Judy hoped it came with hazard pay.  Being around the grease from the fryer must have been dangerous for someone showing so much flesh.  And she had a
lot
of flesh in the chest department.  Judy assumed she was hired for her assets rather than her skills as a cook.  She was serving people while talking to them and most of the customers were repeat offenders – men of all ages kept coming back for more.

To give Mason due credit, his eyes didn’t leave Franny’s face.  Nor was he reacting to any of the looks or come-ons from the interested females on the beach.  Judy scowled at them although she couldn’t blame them.  She was half-tempted to make a come-on herself.  Oddly enough, he seemed less annoying when he was naked.  He hadn’t changed, but the sight of him in all his massively muscled glory seemed to mediate his personality.  His ass was particularly fine
.  Ugh, she was so going to hell.

Franny shrugged a shoulder, making her globes jiggle.  “I told you, I don’t know where he is.  I thought he was in Los Lobos.  Besides, my new boyfriend doesn't like me seeing my old boyfriends if you catch my drift.”

Judy rolled her eyes, and even her embarrassed bunny snorted.  Of course, they caught her drift – she wasn’t speaking in code.

“I liked him; he was fun.  But we were never serious.  He was totally in love with me and wanted me to marry him, but I wasn’t interested in that.”  Franny smiled cockily.

Mason nodded.  “Yeah, we figured it was a long shot.  We’ll go to the next girl on our list.”

“Next girl?” spat Franny, slamming a soda onto the counter.  Splashes covered her customer – a teenage boy – he didn’t seem to notice, his attention was elsewhere.  “Who is it?  It’s that whore Tina Blake, isn’t it?  I knew she was after my Moe.”

“Thank you for your time.”

Mason walked away with Judy scurrying after him, trying to figure out a way to cover both her front and rear with only two hands.

“What list?” she panted.  “Other than her, all his associates were male.”

“Yeah, and most are in prison – which is to be expected because this whole case is a long shot - but I thought she might be overcompensating.  Either he dumped her or she caught him cheating.  Else, I don’t think she’d be so quick to tell us how he felt about her.  So I took a chance, and now we have another potential girlfriend.”

“Well done,” she said grudgingly.  Her adoring bunny actually lifted her paws to give him a round of applause.

“Thanks, although…”

“Yep, long shot, got it, thanks.”

*

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Previously, when Mason looked at her, he just imagined her naked.  Now that he knew what she looked like naked, it was a different matter. 
A very tantalizing matter
.

Yes, he figured she’d be dick-hardeningly gorgeous, but now he knew for a fact she was.  And it was making it hard for him to concentrate… because another part of him was so hard.

Those freckles were all over her body, and he just couldn’t stop imagining himself from licking and kissing his way all over them…

He could feel his arousal mounting, and he tried to calm the raging beast within.  He thought of turn offs.  His younger brother in bike shorts –
ugh
.  The look on his ex-girlfriend’s face when he pissed her off for the hundredth time -
depressing
.

“Please tell me Tina Blake works somewhere they keep all their clothes on,” grumbled Judy.

Mason smiled slightly.  “Unless it’s a naked yoga studio, we should be fine.”

“We?  You didn’t look like you had a problem back there.”

“Neither did you.”  The only problem he and his beast had was other males daring to take a look at the delectable rabbit shifter.  He managed to stop them all with just a glare.  There were some types of shifters that just emitted a ‘don’t fuck with me’ vibe that all others paid attention to, and gorillas were one of them.

A blush started creeping up Judy’s neck.  “I was naked.”

“Everyone was naked.”

“Yes, but
I
was naked, and there is a big difference between
me
being naked and
everyone else
being naked.”

“I… I don’t follow.”

“You wouldn’t,” she snapped.  “Oh my god, pull over!”

She clutched his arm, and his gorilla rumbled.

“What’s up?”

“That’s Moe’s car!”

She pointed to a banged up, puke green Gremlin in the yoga studio parking lot.

“You sure someone didn’t just leave it there in the hope that it would be stolen?”

Judy bounced up and down on her seat.  “No, that’s the car he drove in Playa Lunar – you can see the Playa Lunar bumper sticker.”

Mason squinted.  “Playa Lunians do it on the beach.  Classy.”

“That means he’s here.”

He enjoyed seeing her so happy, so bouncy, parts of her jiggling mesmerizingly, but even the snarls of his beast couldn’t stem years of conditioning from his mother. 
He just had to ruin it.

“Or he sold his car,” suggested Mason.  “Or he gave his car to Tina before he fled the country.”

Judy screwed up her face.  “Thank you, Mary Sunshine.  Are you always this optimistic?”

“Just don’t think you should ever get your hopes up.”

“That’s so… so
depressing
.”

He shifted in his seat.  He didn’t like the sad look she was giving him.  “No, it’s realistic.”

“So you don’t have dreams or goals?”

“Sure, but achievable ones, like getting a new car – a reasonably priced one.”  He wasn’t going to aim for the sky where cars were concerned.

“Your girlfriend must be a special kind of lady.”

“I’m single,” he said at the urging of his beast.

“Oh.”

Mason raised an eyebrow.  The lights in the yoga studio turned off.  He pulled out his phone and brought up Tina’s photo as some skimpily clad, willowy women poured out of the studio.

“That’s her over there – the brunette.”

They watched as she kicked the side of the Gremlin and got in.

“See?” Judy said triumphantly.

Mason scratched his jaw.  “Doesn’t mean anything – like I said he could have given her the car before he skipped town.”

“Why would he drive that piece of crap car all the way here just to give it away?”

“Maybe he left town in a hurry and…”

“Must you argue about everything?!” she howled.  Her face turned red, and she immediately muttered, “Sorry.”

Mason grunted, barely even noticing her tone.  It was nothing compared to some of the things his exes had said.  Besides, his gorilla loved the way her nose twitched when she was angry.

“Let’s follow her home,” he said placidly.

*

They followed her back to her house and watched as she embraced a large man at the door.

“Doesn’t look like she and Moe are that close anymore,” commented Mason.  “And that guy looks familiar.”

“So why does she have Moe’s car?”

“Look, it’s getting late.”

“We should question her,” said Judy, firmly.

“We barrel in there now, I doubt she’ll tell us the truth – especially if the weasel really is her ex.  Her new guy will want to know what’s happening, and she probably won’t tell us anything.”

“We could stake out the house.”

“Because that worked so well on his mom’s house.”

“We can’t just let it go!”  Judy gave him an exasperated look.

“No, but we can go home, get some rest and come back in the morning and hopefully catch her on her own.  Relax, I’ll bet you want to call home, talk to your boyfriend…”

“No boyfriend.”

“Roommate?”

“No roommate.”

“Pet cat?”

“I’m allergic to cat hair.” 
That and assholes
.  She told herself that was why she kept sneezing around her ex.  Course the fact that he had been cheating with a bobcat shifter may have contributed.

“Friends?”

“No…”  She blushed.  “I, ah, I’m usually busy working.”  She’d been trying to crack a case for seven months and had kind of let a few things slip.

Mason gave her a sympathetic look that on anyone else would have made her grind her teeth.  But the sincerity made her bunny swoon.

“Aw, cottontail, I’ve had girlfriends who’ve called me the most boring man on the planet, but even I know when to kick back.  C’mon, let’s get a drink.”

*

Judy traced the rim of her wine glass.  Some people waved at Mason. 
Well, some women
.

“Come here often?” she asked, eyeing the obviously slutty women while her bunny ruffled her fur.

He looked around.  “Actually no.  Never been here before.  Saw the sign, thought it looked okay.”

“But those girls over there waved at you.”

“Yeah, they were just being friendly.”

She harrumphed. 
Too friendly
.  “Strange women just wave at you and say hello wherever you go?”

Mason chuckled.  “Yeah, it’s really annoying.”

“Yes, you look annoyed.”