by E A Price
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 t
he 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.”
“I take comfort in the fact that they’d lose interest when they got to know me.”
Her bunny frowned. “That’s not true.”
He grinned. “Really? How many times have you wanted to throttle me today? A dozen?”
“No, it was way less than that – five or six tops.”
“Yeah, my sunniness,” chuckled Mason, “it’s why I go through so many girlfriends.”
Judy let out a breath. “At least, you have a dating life; I spend so much time working and trying to catch a break that I don’t even notice when the bag boy at the grocery store is making eyes at me.” Of course, that could just be her wistful imagination.
Speaking of which, the case…
Judy put her drink down; she’d yet to take a sip. “Maybe we should go back to Tina’s house – maybe her boyfriend’s left, maybe we could talk to her.”
“Pretty sure she’d be pissed if we turned up at this time of night. Tomorrow. We’ll do it tomorrow. Or, tomorrow, we could look at his file again and maybe follow a different lead. Plus, I’ve got feelers out about anyone buying the eggs. Rare items like that won’t go unnoticed.”
She blinked at him. “You have?”
“Sure, you seem surprised.”
“I just kind of thought that…” Heat bloomed across her face, and she looked at her shoes. “I don’t know.”
Mason grunted. “You think because I’m negative that I’d half-ass this case?”
Her nose twitched. “Well…”
“You don’t get far in the SEA by half-assing it.”
“You mean the basement?”
He growled.
“I’m sorry,” she stammered.
“No, that was my fault. I underestimated a guy, and people almost got hurt. I thought he was a regular lunatic. It turns out he was a lunatic with a witchbay account.”
“I’m sorry, you’re right, you’ve been nothing but helpful to me.”
“You just wish I was as excited as you are about this case.”
“I don’t think anyone could be as excited about this as me,” she admitted wryly.
He leaned over her and murmured, “Yeah, you kind of have a one-track mind.”
Judy smiled at him and bit her lip. A surge of confidence burst through her as his sexy growl sent tingles through her body. “Maybe you could do something to take my mind off it.”
She wrapped her arms around him and pulled him down for a kiss.
*
Judy crept around the side of Tina’s house. Her bunny thumped her foot, wiggled her tail and waggled her ears, but Judy was not interested.
She was going to find Moe and recover the eggs all without that big oaf’s help. And then she was going to get the hell out of Los Lobos while she still had a shred of dignity.
She peeked up through the kitchen window. She saw Tina sitting at the kitchen table on the phone but no sign of her boyfriend. Maybe now would be a good time to knock on her door.
“Who the hell are you?” demanded a gruff voice.
Her bunny squeaked as rough hands gripped her. She turned to find herself looking at an enormous walrus shifter who looked as friendly and inviting as a heart attack. She let out an eep.
*
“Where is she going now?”
Mason watched as the red dot pinged across his phone. Of course, she went back to Tina’s place – he expected that - but what was she doing in the fishing district? Was Tina moonlighting and his annoyed little rabbit was tailing her?
His gorilla grumbled and sulked. Hey, it wasn’t Mason’s fault. Well, it was kind of his fault.
Yes, he peeled her off when she threw herself at him for an impromptu kiss, but he had very good reasons. None of which seemed to make sense now. None of which his disgruntled gorilla could fathom.
Hey, he enjoyed her company and found her attractive to the point of distraction – that wasn’t in dispute, and the painful wood he was sporting in his pants was more than evidence of that - but did he want to take advantage of her while feeling depressed about the fact that she didn’t have any friends? Hell no, when they did have sex, her mind would be totally on him. He wanted his flopsy bunny begging him to take her harder, not wondering why she let him paw at her in the first place.
Course, after she’d flounced out of there, nose twitching up a storm, he was glad he’d thought to put a tracker in her coat pocket. He’d done it because he had a bad feeling that she couldn’t let the case go and he didn’t want her getting into trouble.
He inhaled, his shirt smelled of her and it was delicious.
When she stormed out of the bar, she left him stranded. He had to call the office and have someone drive his car over to him while they laughed at him for being punked by a bunny.
Maybe he should have just let her have her wicked way with him. His inner beast and his twitching dick agreed with that sentiment.
Her dot stopped, and he pressed the gas. Whatever trouble she was getting herself into, he was going to be the one to rescue her.
*
“You can’t treat people this way.”
No answer.
“I just wanted to ask Tina a couple of questions.”
No answer.
“People will know I’m missing.”
No answer.
“My nose itches.”
No answer. Nothing worked. Her bunny whined.
After being found at Tina’s house, she was manhandled into a truck, driven somewhere and now she was dangling from a meat hook in a huge freezer awaiting her fate. She waggled her legs around, but she was a foot off the ground and no acrobat. Her current options were dangling and waiting for death. And no one knew where she was.
Perhaps running out on Mason wasn’t such a good idea. But her pride was hurt. She threw herself at him, and he rejected her point blank. Her bunny pouted. Why would such a big handsome guy waste his time with such a…
The door swung open, and she struggled, kicking her legs as the walrus and a polar bear shifter entered.
“Come ten feet closer so I can get you!” she yelled.
They snorted and roughly pushed someone into the room, letting him fall to the ground. The walrus gave him a kick in the stomach. He let out a moan and the two men grunted in satisfaction as they left.
“Mason!” she exclaimed as her rabbit yipped in happiness.
Oh, this was all her fault.
“Mason, are you okay? I’m really, really sorry, and unlike all the times I’ve said sorry today, this time I mean it.”
Mason looked up and grinned. “How’s it hanging, cottontail?”
Yep, he was fine. How could one male be so exasperating? “Funny. Are you hurt? What are you doing here?”
“I’m fine. No, thankfully I have a thick head. And I was looking for you. They caught me snooping around outside.”
“They didn’t kick you in the head.”
“Thick everything.” He winked.
Her bunny twittered. She was well aware of that. “Get me down and please don’t tell me there’s no point because we’re practically dead anyway.”
“Have you learned your lesson yet?”
“My lesson?” she spluttered.
“You asked for my help and then ditched me – there’s no ditching between partners.”