Sealed with a Hiss: Book Four Supernatural Enforcers Agency (17 page)

Chapter Twenty-One

Jessie squeaked, and she practically dislocated her jaw as she yawned. 
It had been a long night.

“Yeesh, I thought you were going to swallow me whole,” laughed Robbie.

“Yeah, sorry late night.  I was up all, ah, playing an online RPG.”

Robbie nodded.  “Been there.”

Jessie nodded, and they stepped off the elevator together.

“Meeting with Director Sayles.”  He shrugged, explaining why he was on that floor.

“Good luck with…”

She froze, and her squirrel chittered in alarm.  She was first alerted that something was wrong by the whispering, laughing agents.  They suddenly quieted and pointed at her when she arrived.  She saw Hester, and Wyatt the liger, and there was Lake from tactical, not to mention her friends from tech support.  What was going on?

Then she saw the pictures.

There were photos all over the walls of her and Gerry kissing.  There was no way anyone could mistake the fact that it was her and Gerry.  Someone had photographed them kissing and plastered the pictures all over the walls.

Oh god!

The urge to shift and run up a tree was almost too much.  But no, she had to face this.  And there were no trees nearby, so that put the kibosh on that plan.

It was always a possibility that someone would find out, but she didn’t think it would be quite this embarrassing.  Everybody knew in the second worst way possible. 
The first would have been everyone walking in on them having sex
.  She sometimes made weird squeaking noises when she orgasmed.  Gerry insisted it was sexy, but previous boyfriends told her she sounded like a hinge in desperate need of oil.

Jessie snatched one of the photos from the wall.  The picture was taken at the hospital. 
Someone had spied on them!

“Jessie,” said Robbie.  He looked at her in distaste.  “He’s a married man.”  He took a step away from her and her squirrel growled. 
Thank you, friend!

The gossiping whispers intensified, and someone actually snorted.

Robbie shook his head and walked away from her.  She felt her cheeks flame in embarrassment.  Did he not know her well enough to know there had to be a good reason?! 

Dick
.

Her squirrel growled at a familiar scent.  She smelled the photo and narrowed her eyes.  She’d know that mixture of sweat and cheap cologne anywhere.

Jessie strode towards Barry Sayles, currently leaning against a wall and smirking at her.  She thrust the photo at him.  “You did this!”

He raised his eyebrows in comic and completely unbelievable surprise.  “Me?”

“Don’t bother pretending – you did this!”  Her beast hopped about, lividly.

Barry shrugged indifferently.  “If you ask me, Sanders is a low, cheating son of a bitch.  Everyone has a right to know.”

“He’s a thousand times a better male than you are!”

Barry’s naturally red face seemed to boil in annoyance, and Jessie wasn’t even done yet.

“You’re nothing compared to him, you moronic pig!”

He snapped and slapped her across her face with a resounding crack.  She dropped to the floor clutching her cheek. 
Ow!  Just fucking ow!
  She wasn’t sure she knew pain before then.  And that included the time that wild fox got her between it’s teeth when she was first learning to shift to her squirrel.  Her cheek burned, and the ringing in her ears almost drowned out the enraged shouts and screams around her.

However, she wasn’t so out of it that she didn’t scent Gerry a second before he roared and threw himself at Barry.  She wasn’t proud, but she did feel a thrill at watching him trying to protect her and going after the male who hurt her.  Although, she did feel a little concerned that Gerry might get hurt in the process, but her loyal squirrel was confident that the jackass rhino shifter was no match for her python.

Barry tried to block the punches Gerry was aiming at him, but he was too slow.  Before the rhino could do anything, Gerry burst out of his clothes and shifted to an enormous python. 
Think horrors of the deep enormous.

The beast wrapped itself around Barry and squeezed with all it’s might.  Barry tried to shift, but the grip of the python was too strong, and his face started turning almost blue.

Jessie was vaguely aware of Cora, who was pulling her to her feet, but she couldn’t take her eyes away from the grappling males.

The agents trying to pull them apart stepped back; it was one thing trying to break up a fight between two males in their human form.  Trying to stop a python mid-attack was not something to be taken lightly by anyone. 
They were, after all, slippery bastards.

However, there was one person unafraid.

Juliet strode forward and easily pulled the two men apart.   Her eyes glowed red and fangs grew from her teeth.

“Enough,” she hissed with difficulty through her huge fangs.  She didn’t yell, but she was obeyed. 

“Gerry, shift,” she ordered.

The snake hissed, but after she told him again, he did.  He sneered at the rhino before running to Jessie.  He was over six feet of taut, naked flesh trembling with anger.

“Are you okay?” he asked stroking her cheek

Jessie nodded, only shaking slightly.

“What the hell is going on?” snapped Juliet.

*

Jessie gave him a sympathetic look.  “Are you sure you want to do this now?”

“Yes, there’s no point in pretending now.” 
About damn time thought his snake
.

Both Gerry and Barry had been suspended indefinitely.  Gerry for attacking Barry and Barry for attacking Jessie.  Although he suspected that the prank of the photos hadn’t gone unnoticed by Juliet.  She tolerated a lot from agents, but attacking a small female and trying to disgrace her was intolerable to Juliet, who had been an advocate for women’s right for well over four hundred years now.

He was on his way to his house for the last time.  He was planning on packing up all his things and moving in with Jessie for the time being. 
Forever corrected his snake.

He’d already spoken to Edith, and she understood.  In fact, she already knew what happened at the SEA – because her father told her.

News travels disturbingly fast.

Edith had already spoken to her father and told him they were both seeing other people, and she reported to Gerry that,
surprise, surprise
, the conversation had not gone well.  Her father had already turned up at the house and got into a screaming argument with Bruno.  Edith had cried.  Grant had threatened.  Bruno had yelled. 
Gerry was glad he missed it.

Gerry had fielded his own phone call from Grant, who expostulated that his family was going to lose the hotel, he was going down, he would never work at the SEA again,
yada, yada, yada
.  Gerry told him to worry about his son and hung up.

He’d have to talk to his parents about the money, but they’d understand.  Really, they would.  They hadn’t asked him to marry Edith, and they would never have forced him to do so.  He was sure they were grateful for the money when they got it, even though they never said so, but they were proud enough to believe that they would have managed without it.  They would be adamant that it was their problem, and they would solve it. 
Which they would have to now.

His eyes flickered to Jessie as she pressed an ice pack against her cheek.  His snake rumbled unhappily, encouraging Gerry to turn the car around and hunt down the bastard who did that to her.  She’d be okay, but his python wished he could murder Barry for even touching Jessie, never mind, hurting her.

That being said, his beast wasn’t in a terrible mood, like Gerry suspected he would be.  No, the snake could, grudgingly, see the upside to the day’s events.  For one thing, it meant that he no longer had to pretend they weren’t in a relationship.  He could openly show the world that Jessie belonged to him and him alone.  Yes, always an upside to every situation.

However, Gerry was concerned about the open cases.  But he would brief Gunner about the revenge cases and the murdered otter, and he was sure the polar bear would be able to crack it.  He just hoped that Gunner didn’t give up on Lance.  But that wasn’t something that Gerry had to worry about anymore.  In fact, he didn’t really have anything to worry about anymore.  He had an odd feeling of lightness.  For the first time in his life, he had nothing to do.

So what was he going to do with his time?

Chapter Twenty-Two

Barry Sayles stared long and hard at Madam.  “Don’t I know you from somewhere?”

“No,” she lied, refraining from rolling her eyes.

He’d seen her virtually every day for over a year, but she wasn’t going to mention that, she preferred to stay anonymous.  Meeting him without checking him out or getting his name had clearly been a mistake, but he had been referred to her and she didn’t feel like she could say no to a former client.

But she wasn’t sure how much longer she could go on like this.  Yesterday when the damn otter shifter turned up at the SEA, she virtually lost ten years of her life.

The idiot wanted revenge on his wife for leaving him.  He had an affair, so she left him and found a new male.  And he wanted revenge on her for daring to leave.  No, she couldn’t possibly arrange revenge on that woman. 
There was no justification!
  The whole point of her helping people was to punish people who deserved it.  The woman sounded like a saint for putting up with him as long as he did.

But the otter shifter hadn’t seen it that way.  He didn’t take rejection well. 
Probably the reason why he wanted to kill his wife in the first place.

Thankfully, when he saw her at the SEA he ran off – he knew soliciting her help wasn’t legal, and he got scared and left.  She caught up with him after and tried to reason with him, but the idiot wouldn’t listen.  He wanted revenge or nothing.  And when Madam said no, he came at her.  She had to kill him – he was trying to attack her, she had no choice!  It was just a lot harder than she expected it would be.  She couldn’t stop shaking for hours afterward.  Thankfully she wasn’t so out of it that she couldn’t call in her team for clean up, but the thought of it still made her sick.  She facilitated death, but actually taking life was awful.  She didn’t want to have to do that again.  She just wanted everything to get back to normal.

Of course, she wasn’t off to a good start.  She almost had a heart attack when Barry stepped into the vehicle.

Luckily he didn’t really recognize her - he was too self-centered to notice anyone around him so even though she’d been at the SEA for over a year, he still had no idea who she was.  Course, she was wearing a huge wig and sunglasses – she wasn’t
that
easily recognizable.

Barry eventually stopped staring at her and shrugged.  “I want vengeance on Gerry Sanders – I should have had his job to begin with and because of him, I’ve just been fired.”

Madam hesitated.  That wasn’t exactly accurate. 
She was there
.  She knew Barry had plastered the walls with pictures of Gerry kissing a squirrel shifter, and she saw Barry attack the squirrel.  The bastard almost knocked out a female he had a foot and over a hundred pounds on.

Could she really do this?
  Could she really help this man?  The last time she said no it didn’t end well.  Did she dare risk saying it to this man?  He wanted to hurt someone because he blamed them for getting the promotion he didn’t.

But couldn’t this work to her advantage?

Gerry Sanders was already suspicious about the otter shifter.  She saw him – she was there.  He ran after the guy like there was no freaking tomorrow.  He was already working Lance Collier’s case to death.  How long before he made a connection to her?

Perhaps getting rid of him would be a good thing.  But could she really?  She started doing this so that people who deserved to be punished would be.  Did Director Sanders really deserve anything for this idiot’s claims that he got his job?

But what choice did she have?

Madam licked her lips.  “What do you want?”

*

Gerry woke to a good morning kiss, and the feel of a warm, lush body pressed against his.  It was
divine
.  His snake almost swooned.

“Morning,” she murmured and snuggled against him.

Gerry curled an arm around her waist and cupped her round ass.  “This is the first time we’ve woken up together.”

“Mmmm, I know.  I didn’t think you’d be a morning person – I’m pleasantly surprised.”

He chuckled.  “You expected me to be grumpy?”

Jessie kissed his chest.  “Well, it seems to be your go-to mood.  Not that I’m complaining.  You’re a sexy grump.”

“Well, I’m too happy right now to say anything about that, you minx.”  He lifted her chin and kissed her nose.

His growing arousal pressed into her stomach.  “Ooh, I like waking up with you.”

“Well, get used to it, I doubt I’ll be going to work for a while.” 
Unless Hola Sunshine was hiring.
  Or maybe Stop ‘N’ Go would need a new greeter.  He could growl at customers and not know where anything was located – he was a natural for that job.

“Don’t talk like that – you’re only suspended.  They’ll want you back,” she said confidently.

“Suspended is SEA speak for delayed firing.  I’ll be getting a phone call from Juliet any time now.”

“But it wasn’t your fault.  All you did was…”

“Almost kill one of my colleagues,” he finished with a humorless laugh.  “It wasn’t the first time I almost strangled him either.  Plus I imagine that Grant is also trying to stop me from coming back to try and punish me.”

“When was the fist time?”

“Hmmm?”

Jessie scooted back and frowned at him.  “When did you try and strangle Barry before?”

“Oh, I can’t really remember.  He said something about you - something about your ass maybe.  So I tried to strangle him.”

“Oh.”  She bit her lip.  “Well, if it comes to it, you’ll find something.  Or you could be my house husband.”  Her lips curled into a mischievous smile.

His python rumbled happily.  “You still want to marry me?” he asked with a slight puppy dog pout.

Jessie traced her finger in circles on his chest and fluttered her eyebrows.  “I do if you do.”

“The only thing that’s got me through this past year is that thought,” he told her honestly.

She smiled and kissed him.  “I’m happy to hear it.  Now, lie back, relax and enjoy yourself.  I am going to the store to get cranberries and oranges for my Christmas cranberry pancakes – I make them in the shape of stars.  You’ll love them.”

She slipped out of bed, and his snake grumbled.  Gerry tried to sit up. “I should come with you.”

“No, stay, I’ll only be a few minutes.”

“Well, at the very least I should call Gunner,” he said reaching for his phone.

Jessie skipped over and plucked it out of reach.  “No, you should relax.  You’ve been working nearly every hour of the day for the past few weeks – maybe it’s time to let someone else do the worrying.”

A sentiment his beast agreed with, but one that Gerry was still a little uncertain about.  “But Lance...”

“His case is in Gunner’s very capable paws, and I already filled him in on our otter shifter – he’s looking into it.”  She pulled on a t-shirt and jeans.  “If there is anything you want to be passed on, I can do it.”  She hesitated.  “Although, I am a little nervous about facing everyone at work.”

Gerry growled.  “You’ve done nothing wrong, and if anyone of them dare say anything…”

“Gunner and Erin have been very supportive, and Isis messaged me to say I have a lot of balls.  But seriously, having an affair with the married boss isn’t exactly good for the reputation.”

He smirked.  “I imagine it’s enhanced mine.  I’m sure everyone will be impressed that I managed to hook such a pretty, young female.”

Jessie gave him a sour look.  “Ummm hmmm.”

Gerry smiled lasciviously and followed it up with some waggling eyebrows.  “They probably guessed it’s the size of my snake.”

“Well, why don’t you and your snake take it easy and I will be back in a moment.”

She kissed his forehead and after she managed to untangle his arms that were clamped around her ass, she sashayed out of there, giving him an extra ass wiggle for good measure.

“Hurry,” he entreated huskily.  He meant it, too.  They still hadn’t tried morning sex as a couple, and he was more than ready to give it a whirl.

Gerry lay back and tried to ignore his concerns over the open cases.  His teams would work them out; he oversaw the teams, but they could manage without him.  Other directors would probably pick up the slack if any of his agents needed help.  They were all good investigators.

He closed his eyes and tried to go back to sleep, but he was awake, and that was it.  Well, he had just slept for over eight hours.  He hadn’t slept that long since… actually, he couldn’t remember a time when he had slept for such a long length of time.

He got up and called his parents to break the news about his marriage.  He wasn’t surprised to learn that they already knew.  Grant had been in touch to call in the loan and told them that Gerry had cheated on his daughter, and they were getting a divorce.  His snake howled at that.  His parents didn’t seem to care.  They didn’t want an explanation from him, nor were they upset with him.  As he suspected, they told him not to worry about the money.

The phone call didn’t exactly make him feel better.  Perhaps if they had yelled at him, it would have. 
At least, he would have known they cared.

Bored, he got out of bed and puttered around the apartment.  He put away all his belongings – it didn’t take long, he didn’t have much, just clothes really.

The apartment hadn’t changed since his brother lived there, other than when Gerry repainted the bedroom.  Jessie hadn’t done much, probably because she didn’t think of it as her home.  She hadn’t even put up her pictures – a number of framed pictures were sitting on the floor leaning against the wall.  There was a family portrait and, hmmm, a poster of the original King Kong movie.  Well, she has interesting taste. 
He didn’t have any taste.
 

Maybe they should get a new apartment together.  Then she could do whatever she wanted with it.

Speaking of his delectable little mate, where was she?  She’d been gone for a while.

He tried her phone a couple of times, but there was no answer.  Impatient ass, maybe, but it shouldn’t take her this long.

He donned some sweatpants and a t-shirt and wandered down to the corner market.  Her scent was fairly fresh; he could easily follow it.  But where was she?

He went into the market and followed her scent down the fresh produce aisle.  It mingled with the scent of fresh fruit and vegetables, and he couldn’t follow it any longer.  Worry oozed along his spine.

He looked around the market, but he couldn’t see her anywhere.  He even grabbed a couple of terrified looking workers and demanded to know where she was.  Unfortunately, his description of a red headed angel wasn’t overly helpful, and he let them go.

He went back to the aisle where he lost her scent and growled impatiently.  His beast was not happy. 
Where the fuck was she?
  Unless she had the worst sense of direction in the world, she couldn’t just go missing on the way down to the store.

Something on the ground caught his attention.  Something shiny was peeking out from under the shelf.

His python hissed as he bent down and he brought out Jessie’s phone

Oh god, Jessie.
  Something happened.  There was no other explanation.  She never went anywhere without her phone.  She practically slept with the damn thing. 
He was actually a little jealous
.  No way would she lose it.

He dialed Gunner.

Fuck, fuck, fuck!