Page 25 of Hungry Like the Wolf

He blinked, confused. Of course she didn’t smell like him. She smelled like floral shampoo and lavender, of coffee and the faintest, faintest whiff of burning. Right now, he smelled like wet dog. He needed a shower. He needed to eat. And then he needed to sleep for a solid fourteen hours. He looked at the clock on the stove. Nine o’clock. And he was starving.

“I don’t smell like you. Like… I don’t smell like we’ve touched each other. At all.”

Oh. Oh.

“They’re going to start to get suspicious. This is what I’m most sorry for. It’s more than just a little lie. It’s what we need to do to make it believable. And Robbie, I just… I can’t. I?—”

“Mating” this woman would be no hardship. She was beautiful, with the sort of dangerous grace that poisonous fish in the nature shows had. But it was obvious as hell that she wanted nothing to do with mating him, even if she’d agreed to pretend to be his mate. And Robbie only slept with people who were not only willing but enthusiastic about the prospect.

“I don’t want to have sex with you, Nadja,” he said, making sure she looked at him when he said it. “K?”

“But… but how else can?—”

“We can sleep together.”

“But you just said?—”

“Sleep, Nadja. We can sleep together. I swear I’ll be a complete gentleman. I won’t touch you at all. I’ll lay there like a corpse.”

“Jesus Christ, Robbie.”

He smirked and held his hands up in surrender. “Okay, I’m sorry. But I’ve got to believe that sleeping in the same bed would make us smell like each other, right? Enough to be believable.”

“I did tell them we were waiting to… ‘make it official,’” she said with air quotes.

“You’re a goddamn genius, Doc,” he said, snapping his finger and pointing at her. “Look at us. So pure. Waiting for mating.”

She blushed, a little color returning to her cheeks.

“Hey,” he said, reaching out a hand, palm up. She hesitated but eventually put her hand in his. Her skin was cool and soft. He squeezed her hand gently and smiled when she reciprocated. “You did good today. You saved me.”

“You needed help.”

“Yeah, but not everyone would have gone the distance like you did. Literally. I appreciate you.”

Her blush deepened. “You’re welcome.”

Robbie clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “Now, shall we go and see what JJ meant by ‘unperishables’?”

CHAPTER 11

As it turned out, “unperishables” meant a can of cream-style corn, a can of baked beans, two tins of sardines, a sleeve of saltine crackers, some mustard packets, a package of chocolate sandwich cookies, a jar of peanut butter, and some honey that didn’t have an expiration date.

“Don’t eat that. We don’t know how old it is,” Nadja warned.

Robbie squinted at the bottom of the jar. Something had been printed there once, but it was long gone now.

“Didn’t they excavate honey from ancient Egypt that was still edible? This is fine.”

Nadja arched eyebrow at him. “That was wine. And I think ‘edible’ is a relative term.”

But Robbie was in his element now, making something out of spare parts. It had been his favorite part of working on the line in restaurants. One chef he’d worked with had given him liberties to create the daily specials, which Robbie took as an opportunity to help the overhead by clearing out inventory. Making beauty from chaos.

Pivoting had always been his strength. He was lucky. Waking up on a wolf commune hours from home to find out that not only was he a shifter but that he had a mate, albeit a fake one, was a hell of a pivot.

When he was growing up, his mama had always talked about the importance of balance. “Balance in all things, Robbie baby,” she’d say when she’d peel an apple with a cigarette bouncing on her bottom lip as she talked.

But Robbie had seen a video online of a person saying that they would much rather have rhythm than balance. If you only have balance, the slightest shift of the wind can make it vanish. But rhythm? Rhythm moved, it pulsed. It changed depending on the needs of the song.