8. Yuri and the chocolate cake
Chapter eight
Yuri and the chocolate cake
N ow you’ve gone and done it. I stared at the stove, cranking it high again to heat up the stew. Desire and mindless need took over me back there. I shouldn’t have done that, but fuck, did I want it. I wanted her like nothing else. She took over my mind, replacing all thoughts. The only thing behind my eyelids was her face as she broke apart.
The washer dinged with the reminder that it was time to put her clothes in the dryer. I flipped her items over before grabbing the water glass, the original reason for coming out to the kitchen. When I came back through the bedroom door, she laid there, hands draped over her head, sex drunk smile still plastered to her sweet lips. Her arms fell to the side as I moved to her. She did her best to sit up, and I helped her the rest of the way with an arm.
“Drink up.” I nodded toward the glass before grabbing the shirt off the bed frame. The last thing I needed was to be tempted again. If she sat around my cabin naked, I’d make more poor choices .
“Thanks,” she croaked, taking a hardy gulp then sitting it aside. My human pulled the shirt over her head, croaking through the fabric, “That magic tongue of yours doesn’t work on raw throats, does it?”
I shook my head, nodding to the glass. She picked it up, and I scooped her up into my arms. Ignoring the feeling of her delicious smooth skin against my arms, I brought her to the dining room table and sat her down as gently as I could. She sucked in a breath through her teeth. I flinched, and she chuckled, shaking her head. “It’s fine. You did warn me. It’s a good sting.”
“Hope you don’t have to sit on any hard surfaces for a while.” I stepped back, inspecting her for a long moment before heading for the stove. “Your clothes are in the dryer. They should be ready in an hour.”
“Thanks. What’s that smell?” I straightened painfully, twisting to face her. Her lips were spread dreamy smile as she took a big whiff. “It smells amazing.”
I earned a growl from her belly, and pride surged through my chest.
“Stew. The cure to a hangover and also that raw throat.” I grabbed up a ladle and stirred. Garlic, thyme, beef, and hearty vegetables filled the air around me as I was greeted with the steam of a bubbling stew. Quickly, I grabbed a loaf of bread out of the fridge. Usually, I used it to feed birds and little forest creatures, as breads and I didn’t mix, but a crusty loaf with stew? That ought to put the bones back in my human.
I sat a bowl in front of her, spoon and crusty bread next to it while I filled her water. When I finally sat down across from her with my own steaming bowl, sliding her glass across the table to her, she looked at the loaf and split it. I shook my head when she offered it to me. “Can’t eat bread.”
“Oh… Probably a gator thing, huh?” She drenched a chunk of it in the broth before tossing it back. The moan that came from her at the taste made my cock stir even from its depth.
“Uh, yeah. Ultimate strength, healing saliva, durable hide, and yet my weakness? Bread.”
She chuckled, taking a sip of the frosty water. “If you can’t eat it, why keep bread around?”
“Birds,” I answered too quickly, hating the awkward grumble of my voice. Yet, when I peeked up from my bowl, I found my human smiling to herself. We sat in relative silence, spoons clinking against the edge of bowls and the ripping of bread crust. I finished before her, but when I glanced at the dryer, I found thirty minutes still staring back at me. I twisted to find her stacking her empty bowl with mine. “Do you like cake?”
“Cake?” She raised both her brows in shock.
“I have this chocolate cake with ganache on it.” I grimaced. What the fuck was ganache? Yet, she lit up and nodded. “Yeah? Let me grab you a slice. ”
“Wait.” She crossed her arms under her chest. “If you can’t eat bread, why do you have cake? I know for a fact birds can’t eat chocolate cake. Or, well, they shouldn’t.”
I stood at the other side of the table, suddenly feeling bamboozled, which was strange for me. I’d never had a conversation with anyone this long in years, let alone have it go so well. Usually, anyone lasting longer than a few phrases thought I was a massive dickhead. Gator instincts. I’m naturally prickly. And yet, she looked me dead in the eyes, a cheeky grin on her face.
I opened my mouth and closed it a few times before I confessed, “It was on sale.”
“One heck of a sale to get you to buy somethin’ you can’t eat!” She snorted.
“It was a BOGO,” I huffed.
“And so, you bought two cakes that you can’t eat ?” She was laughing, eyeing me with disbelief.
“No!” I stomped to the sink, dropping the bowls into it along with the sudsy pot, now empty of stew. I whirled to face her. “I only bought one.”
“So, it wasn’t really a sale then, was it?” She lay her cheek in her palm, wiggling her brows at me suggestively.
“You know what? Keep it up, and watch—your pussy’s not the only sore thing you’ll go home with.” I ripped the fridge open with my tail. Her cute giggles bouncing around the cabin made the air warm. I would never say it out loud, and if anyone found out, I’d break their skull open against a rock, but to hear her laugh, I’d do just about anything. I plucked the cake from my fridge and found her holding her stomach, tears streaming down her face, whimpering ‘ow, ow,ow’ as she did. I snickered. “Not so funny now, is it, Dollface?”
“My everything hurts ,” she whined, laughing harder before whining more.
Swagger in my step, I sauntered to the table and cut her a slice while she made herself laugh harder, only to regret it. A smug curl on my lips and pride in my chest, I served her a massive slice. Not like I can have any! At least someone would be able to enjoy the damn thing. I flopped down into my seat, tail flicking to my right as she wheezed for air.
After a long time of struggling and failing to sober her laughter, my human eventually wiped her cheeks clear of tears. She sat up, taking a fork to the cake. Her glowing green eyes peeked up at me, and I arched a brow. That familiar blush crossed her cheeks, and my cock stirred again. If I hadn’t promised to take her home after her clothes were dry… I glanced down to my lap, stealing the thoughts at the forefront of my mind and stashing them away for another day, when I was alone and the only thing of hers I had left was the image burned in my brain.
She stabbed the cake before snickering, “This isn’t some fey trap to steal my soul or anything, right? ”
I blinked once before staring up at her, dumbfounded. “What?”
“You know, fairy lore says that if the fey feed you, it’s to keep you trapped in their realm for seven years for every bite you take. Oh shit, was the stew a trap too?”
A deep from the belly, rumble through my chest, make my foot kick, laugh burst from me. She glared at me playfully as I cackled. My teeth clamped down in my jaw as I clenched my belly. I wheezed, “Doll, if I was a fey, you would have been trapped even before the stew. If you don’t remember, I did stuff your belly full of me already.”
Her mouth dropped open. “Is this a confession?”
“No!” I hacked up a lung into my elbow, cackling harder as I shook my head. “No, Dollface, it’s not. I’m not a fey, and I’m not trying to trap you here. I promised I’d take you home when your clothes were dry, and I fully intend to do so.”
She took a tentative bite of the cake, failing to hide the giddy smile on her face. “So, uh, if you’re not fey… how’d you get the wicked cool strength and scales? If you don’t mind me askin’?”
I shrugged, dropping my hands onto the table softly. “I am the prime example of you get what you ask for, just not what you expect.”
She nodded solemnly, flashing me an appreciative smile before taking more bites of cake. What if I was a fey? What if I could keep her? What if she let me? I knew better than to ask. The trees listened no matter how quietly I whispered it in my head. Best to not even let it cross my mind. My human was an experience, a once in a lifetime gift, and when I dropped her off back home, I expected to never see her again.
I took her empty plate and cleaned off the table as she sat patiently. After a moment, I helped her into her panties and shorts, stopping to linger on her burning hot skin, soaking it in and reveling in her touch one last time before I offered her a piggyback ride. Her wallet and phone in her pockets, arms draped around me, she settled against my back. I ducked out the front door, not bothering to do more than shut it. Who’s gonna go inside? Squirrels? I toed into my boots and trudged through the wet moss toward the truck.
She asked about the forest, about the area, about the town. Thankfully, it turned out she lived on her mother’s farm, not too far away from my cabin. It was a three-hour hike, which was impressive, as she did so without shoes. It would take twenty minutes from my garage. I hadn’t been to the town vet, but everyone talked about Lannie Murphy like she was a saint. Most vets, especially the ones who made house calls, were loved in rural places like our little town.
“How long ago did you move back?” I asked, setting her in the passenger seat of the truck.
“Uh…yesterday,” she laughed sheepishly, looking out the windows.
Well, that explains it. Most people either found out about me at some point or never saw me. I was our town’s cryptid, so to speak . The gator man who lived in the cabin in the woods.
“You intending to stay?” I cranked on the truck.
“Don’t have much of a choice,” she sighed, sinking back against the truck chair. “He kicked me to the curb. Divorced me, closed the accounts, threw me to the sidewalk. Told me to eat shit and die like my bucktoothed father. ”
I nearly jerked the truck into a nearby tree as I snapped my attention to her. “He what?”
She shook her head, sadly gazing out the window. “Doesn’t matter.”
I wanted to tell her it very much did matter. No one got to treat anyone like that, divorcing partners or not. That kind of cruelty was not something to glaze over. However, she wasn’t mine, and I had no claim over her heart. The protective urge to demand his number and address was just that: an urge. As much as I’d like to show up at his house in the middle of the night and bite off his fingers one by one… I had no right.
So, I scowled to myself and drove her safely home. After we got out onto the main road and hit one of the stop lights at the edge of town, she recognized where we were. She guided me with soft words and pointed fingers toward the farm. My truck rattled down the mile-long, gravel driveway. We passed through paddocks of horses and cows and goats. There was even a turkey waddling next to a massive peacock. Doctor Murphy had a full waiting room, it seemed.
I slowed to a stop as the farmhouse came into view: a simple, one-story house with a massive, screened in porch, two SUVs and the local sheriff’s pickup parked off to the side. My sad-eyed human popped open the door, and an older woman came swooping in to catch her. “Hunny! There you are! What happened?”
Rob Wentworth bowed his head to me, tipping his hat slightly. He sauntered up to my side of the truck. I cranked down the window, watching Rob try not to snicker at me as it slowly wound down. “Evenin’, Yuri.”
“Evenin’, Sheriff.” I bowed my head slightly.
“Thanks for bringing little Miss Murphy home. Lannie was worried sick. Where’d you find her?” He sat back on his heel, arms softly tucked behind his back. Rob and I grew up together; he was maybe two years older than me. He’d been at the lake the day I stopped being human.
“She was wandering the woods near my cabin, shoeless. Stepped on some glass. I got her cut cleaned up and brought her home.” I rested a hand on my steering wheel, glancing over my shoulder at the house. Lannie Murphy was hugging and crying all over her daughter.
Shit… I didn’t even know her first name. That’s what I get for calling her Dollface this whole time .
“Well, we appreciate you being on the lookout, Yuri. Have a good night.” The sheriff patted the window of my truck before waltzing back around the hood. Likely to ask Dollface if what I said was true. Would she tell him the truth? Would she tell him she’d stumbled into my neck of the woods, cut her foot, let me nurse her back to health, and then begged me to kiss her?
It took a minute to crank up the window, and I began to slow, tedious drive back to my cabin. “Careful what you wish for, Dollface,” I murmured to no one but myself.
I still didn’t know her name… but I wanted to. I glanced back in the rearview and caught her watching my truck pull away. My chest ached. Without a single ounce of consideration for what could go wrong, the words tumbled out of my lips. “I wish I knew your name, Dollface… and that I could see you again.”
My phone tumbled off the dashboard as I nearly floored it out onto the main road. I put the truck in park to fish it out of the floorboard, but the phone I picked up…wasn’t my phone. It had my name on it. A black phone case of a newfangled device, much like hers, with a yellow sticky note, Yuri scribbled on it.
I fished for my actual phone and cursed every second as I realized…S hit, you did it again. I turned on the phone in my hand, nearly cracking it from how hard I gripped it. The screen lit up in green and yellow before a photo of the woods opened before me. I swiped my thumb across the screen and rolled my eyes. Fully functioning phone, not what I wanted. New tech and lack of service did not go together .
However, there, on the main screen, was the only app that caught my eye. Kis-Meet!
Cute. I put the phone aside and drove back toward the garage. The last thing I wanted was to indulge in whatever nonsense the woods had in store for me. I did my best to keep my eyes peeled on the road and not think about the hunk of plastic next to my thigh. It lasted until I parked the truck. I snatched the device back up and opened the app. It made a loud kissing sound that made me audibly gag.
Then, a name appeared at the top, next to a profile picture that was vaguely familiar. Aurora . And when I clicked on the contact, it was my Dollface, smiling in front of a barn, holding up a baby goat, caught in a glorious laugh.
Aurora, huh? There wasn’t a way to text or call her from the app, but something altogether more curious: under her profile picture was a blank map with a heart beating on it. You’ve been matched, and tag, you’re it, Yuri. Check back later to see when you can meet up with me ;)