Page 9

CHAPTER

FIVE

Avery

The cougar is cute. Like, really cute. Cuter still is that the cougar is Sascha, who Avery swore he’d never see again…

Yet here they are.

Sascha veers to rub against Avery’s legs as he saunters through the open gate, heading toward a gravel-covered lot with a single car parked within.

Avery latches the gate before following him, stopping to watch Sascha scratch at the wheel well.

A soft sound of feline frustration leaves him when whatever he’s doing produces no visible results.

“Do you, um, need help?” Avery isn’t sure about proper etiquette for interacting with shifters in their animal forms. He’s never had a good, or even neutral, interaction with one before.

One of Sascha’s ears twitches, then he pauses to consider Avery.

His eyes are so pretty—dilated pupils sitting in blue irises that melt into gold, like sunlight on a lakeshore.

Avery gets lost trying to remember the color of Sascha’s eyes in biped form, but then the space around Sascha ripples, distorting the view behind him.

Avery blinks twice—first at Sascha’s disappearance, then at his reappearance, tall and pale and very, very naked.

Avery steps back, alarmed and preparing to cover his eyes, but it occurs to him that Sascha had been prepared to fuck him in that hotel room. Had Avery not fallen asleep, he’d have seen a lot more. Sascha doesn’t make any attempt to hide himself, so Avery doesn’t look away.

Damn, he’s sexy. Toned but not ripped, with a masculine jaw and a strong, dimpled chin. There’s a trail down from his navel that’s only a few shades darker than his upswept blond hair.

And, god, his eyes are the same bright blue, limned in gold.

Sascha should be on the cover of a magazine—where he can’t look back at Avery while he gawks, as Sascha is doing now.

Lips curving into a teasing smile, Sascha reaches under the wheel well and withdraws a backpack.

He removes a bundle of clothing, at which point Avery does look away, because watching someone dress feels too intimate.

After his usual one-night stands, Avery would put himself together in the bathroom, leaving his date to tend their own business.

Not that it matters. Falling asleep on Sascha’s chest, still fully clothed, is the most intimate thing Avery has done in years.

“Sorry for crashing your party,” Sascha says once he’s dressed.

“You didn’t. Food here sucks.”

Sascha laughs and scratches the back of his head. “I could get you something better.”

Raising his eyebrows, Avery can’t help but ask, “You’d risk someone you know seeing you buy food for a werecreature?”

The laugh melts into a frown. “There’s always drive-thru.”

Now Avery can’t help his own laugh, one that grows into a grin at Sascha’s surprised expression. “Isn’t the closest fast-food restaurant, like, two cities over?”

“I have a car,” Sascha says, gesturing to it.

“I can see that.”

“Get in, then.”

Avery allows himself approximately three seconds of hesitation. He should think about this before jumping into a stranger’s car. It could be a set-up. Could be a trick.

Or , it could be the nicest person Avery’s met in eight months sneaking onto some asshole’s farm to find him and whisk him away to the closest McDonald’s. If that ends with Avery’s body decomposing in a ditch, the McChicken would be worth it.

Having made his peace with any possible outcome, Avery jogs to the passenger door and slides in.

A wave of cool air from the vents hits him at full blast, and he slumps against the seat with a groan of relief.

Unyielding heat has become a constant of Avery’s days, and this is the first time he’s felt air conditioning since the hotel, a whole week ago.

Feels like longer. Avery slams the door to keep the blessed cold in and the oppressive heat out, then rubs his sweaty hands together.

“Where to?”

Sascha taps his fingers on the steering wheel. “There’s a Dairy Queen in Mackinac City, about twenty minutes north. Or, a Wendy’s in Petoskey, forty minutes south. Your pick.”

Avery doesn’t know much about either city, so he goes with what will get him fed the fastest: “Let’s do DQ.”

With an agreeable hum, Sascha curls his long fingers around the handle of the gear shift. He has beautiful hands. Avery’s never been attracted to something like that before.

Despite wanting to fill the drive with conversation, Avery can’t think of anything to say. He spends every minute wracking his brain, begging for a question that won’t sound awkward or embarrassing. By the time Sascha pulls into the drive-thru, not a single word has passed Avery’s lips .

He’s forced to speak then, ordering the cheapest items possible so as to not impose on Sascha, who orders a large combo for himself along with a handful of other sides and desserts.

“You hungry?” Avery asks as they pull up to the first window, trying to make it a joke.

Sascha hands the worker his card with a brief smile, which widens when he looks back to Avery. “Yeah, and I bet you are, too.”

Manic butterflies join the knot of nerves and hunger that has been settled in Avery’s stomach. It’s so intense, he might actually throw up before the food even makes it into the car.

At the second window, Sascha accepts several full bags, the first two of which he hands to Avery before having to put the third in the back so he can wrangle three drinks and a Reese’s cup blizzard. He tips the worker twenty dollars cash and, with a cheerful goodbye, pulls back onto the road.

Avery sits still, hot food burning his legs through the bag, too stunned for speech. The nighttime city passes by as Sascha drives, visible only as dark blurs.

“Where are we going?” Avery finally asks.

“Somewhere we can eat without being bothered. Do you like movies?”

Avery’s ‘yes’ brings him to the entrance of a drive-in theater, where Sascha exchanges pleasantries with the booth worker as he pays for admission.

Bewildered, Avery stares at the massive screens illuminating several lots around the vast property.

Sascha checked the double-feature action and horror showing with Avery before entering, but Avery can’t remember either of the titles.

He stays silent until Sascha backs into a first-row parking space and opens the trunk.

His car is a little hatchback with just enough room for them to sit when he flattens the back seats.

Their eyes meet while Sascha is halfway through unfolding a musty blanket to spread over the mostly flat expanse.

“Um,” Sascha says, “is this okay?”

A hard swallow hurts Avery’s throat and does very little to wet his dry mouth. “Yeah. I’m just…”

“Nervous?”

“Trying to adjust.”

“You don’t have to sit with?—”

“No, it’s fine!” Avery barely avoids spilling one of the fast-food bags as he jumps out of the car.

He catches it just in time to avoid the contents tumbling to the gravel beneath his boots.

Sascha doesn’t scold Avery for being careless; he simply helps settle the packaged food, then fetches the speaker.

With everything ready, that leaves nothing left to do except crawling into the nest together. Avery stares at Sascha, captivated by how his blue eyes are identical to the wide, imploring ones of his cougar form.

It’s too much. Unable to maintain the prolonged stare, Avery shimmies into the farthest corner, sitting at a slight angle on the folded seats with his back against the passenger seat.

He pulls his legs to his chest, giving Sascha a clear space to settle within.

Sascha ducks under the hood, then scrunches his long limbs in so he can crawl deeper inside.

At last, he manages to straighten, snagging his backpack to use as a pillow.

The movie hasn’t started yet, so Avery can’t justify staring at the screen instead of meeting Sascha’s questioning gaze. He smiles weakly, unsure why he feels so nervous.

“Hungry?” Sascha asks, lifting a wrapped burger without looking to see what it is.

Avery nods, smile becoming more genuine, and accepts the offering.

It isn’t what he ordered, but he chomps down anyway.

Wordlessly, Sascha pushes a large container of fries and a drink toward him, along with a handful of different sauce cups.

He remains quiet while digging into a box of chicken tenders.

Previews play while they eat. Avery doesn’t ask for anything else when he finishes his burger, but more food appears anyway. Sascha feeds him a steady stream of assorted items—a fish sandwich, onion rings, a baked pie, before he finally offers Avery a second spoon for the tall cup of ice cream.

Sharing food isn’t a big deal. Rather, it shouldn’t be, not any more than watching someone get dressed or a night of extremely chaste cuddling, but Avery’s intimacy meter got warped somewhere along the timeline, leading him to hesitate before he accepts the slender red spoon.

It’s worth it when he does, for the look of relief that lights up Sascha’s face.

Two spoonfuls in, the screen goes dark, and the opening notes of the movie soundtrack play.

It’s the action film first. Avery stays wedged in the corner for the first ten minutes, reaching to dig his spoon into their shared dessert.

When the ice cream gets low, he finds himself inching into the space between himself and Sascha, using the excuse of getting a better angle.

By the time the last bits of candy are scraped from the bottom of the waxy paper, Avery’s shoulder is nearly in contact with Sascha’s elbow.