Meant to Be Immortal (Argeneau #32) - Lynsay Sands Page 0,56

back for something and he was afraid he’d get rung up before she returned,” Bricker suggested.

“I don’t know. He— Yes, that’s probably true,” CJ found herself saying, and was suddenly quite sure that was the case. In the next moment, she’d forgotten all about both customers and their unusual behavior. In fact, she found herself oddly unconcerned about anything as the cashier finished with the customer in front of them and started to ring up their order.

“Damn,” she murmured as they stepped outside moments later and she saw Mac and Decker sitting on the hood of her car. “I forgot I locked the doors. I should have given them the keys so they could sit inside with the air conditioner on.”

“Yeah,” Bricker murmured, some concern in his own voice. “They shouldn’t be sitting out in the sun.”

He began to move more quickly then. The man had long legs and was moving so fast she would have had to run to keep pace with him. Deciding she wasn’t in the mood for that, she let him run ahead with the shopping bag.

CJ was still a good distance back when Bricker reached the other two men and Mac took the bag. She saw him riffle through it, and pull out the shirt she’d picked. Her steps slowed and her eyes widened, though, when he then stripped off the shirt he was wearing.

She’d recognized that the man was well put together when he was wearing the T-shirt, but without it . . . Good Lord in heaven, Mac was beautiful, his chest wide and sculpted in a way one wouldn’t expect from a geeky scientist type. He was a marble statue come to life and she definitely felt heavy disappointment when he covered up all that male beauty with the new shirt she’d picked out. That disappointment turned to shock, though, when Mac followed that maneuver with suddenly pushing down the pajama bottoms he’d worn since she’d first met him. CJ stopped walking altogether, her eyes nearly falling out of her head when he then stepped out of them, leaving him only in the polo shirt and tight white boxer briefs that revealed more than they covered.

“Oh, my God,” she muttered, and turned abruptly to walk back to the store entrance. She could feel that her face had gone hot with embarrassment, and peered around to see if anyone else had witnessed Mac Argeneau stripping in a parking lot. Much to her amazement, no one had. Part of it was because she’d parked at the back of the lot, a habit she’d taken up several years ago to get in extra steps during her day. The other part was just human nature, she supposed. CJ had come to realize through her years as a detective that people just weren’t very observant anymore. They walked around with their cell phones out and their gazes locked on them, even when walking to their cars in a busy parking lot. They didn’t know what they were missing. The man shirtless had been a wonder, but without his pants and in only a pair of tight boxer briefs and his shirt . . . well, CJ had never really thought of the male body as beautiful, but Mac’s was. It was a sight she wouldn’t soon forget. She was quite sure it was burned onto her retinas.

Shaking her head, she risked a glance back over her shoulder, and was just in time to see Mac pulling on the new jeans she’d picked out. CJ turned forward again at once.

Taking deep breaths, she kept her gaze forward until she reached the covered area in front of the store entrance, and then she stopped and turned back the way she’d come to see what was happening now. She was more than a little surprised to see that not only was Mac now fully dressed, including socks and shoes, but that the men were less than half a dozen steps behind her and closing quickly.

Spotting the Walmart bag Mac was carrying, CJ asked, “Do you want me to unlock the car so you can stow your bag in there?”

Mac shook his head. “Thank you, but no. I’m done with these,” he assured her, and proceeded to drop the bag in the garbage bin next to her, before offering her his arm. “Shall we?”

CJ eyed his offered arm with distain. “What do I look like? An old lady who needs help crossing the street?” Snorting, she walked around him and into