Chapter Nineteen

CHAPTER NINETEEN

H ow did you know where this supermarket was?”

As Mahrci spoke up from the SUV’s passenger seat, Mayhem put things in park and killed the engine. Even though locating the store hadn’t been rocket science—all he’d done was Google “24 hr grocery stores in Plattsburgh, NY”—he took a certain satisfaction in the female next to him thinking he was a fucking genius.

A lot of people thought a lot of things about him. “Genius” was usually not it.

“Just like magic,” he said. “And honestly, I think we need some real food, and I like to cook.”

Bullshit. All he really cared about was getting her to hang around a little longer and he was willing to leverage anything he had. Even if it was her own digestive tract.

“Okay, Chef,” she said.

Then Mahrci laughed a little, but not in the easy way he liked so much. There was a determination behind the sound, just like there had been a forced pleasantry pushing the conversation she’d shared with him during the forty-five-minute drive here.

“But I should be the one offering to make you a good dinner.” She opened her door. “Not the other way around.”

While she hopped out and closed things, he followed her example, landing in the salty slush of a parking lot that was big enough to play football on. No problem getting a parking space right up close. There were only five other cars on account of the time of night and the frigid weather.

Meeting up with her on the opposite side of the SUV, he had a stupid impulse to take her hand—and he cured the problem by shoving his fists in the front of his jeans. He told himself that it was better to keep them physically separate as much as he could. He was not hellren material, and going down some kind of rose-colored rabbit hole with a female he didn’t know, who was keeping secrets like an FBI agent, and possibly on the run from somebody dangerous, was not going to be a good outcome for him or her.

Well. Wasn’t that a nice little pep talk.

Too bad his libido totally middle-fingered the shit—

“What do you fancy,” he asked, to get himself to stop thinking.

“How do you feel about meat sauce on a big ol’ plate of pasta?” she countered.

He glanced over. Her stare was fixated on the glowing Hannaford sign over the entrance like it was the promised land, her rapt concentration the kind of thing someone sported when they were desperately trying to convince themselves that Everything Was Just GREAT.

“Great, that would be great,” he said.

Fuck.

“You’re so easygoing,” she murmured.

“I’m not sure Mr. Personality would agree with that.”

“You mean Apex? Yes, he is intense. I mean, he’s always seemed disapproving to me, too.”

Mayhem looked over sharply. She was still staring at the entrance—and no doubt hadn’t heard her own words.

“You got a freezer?” he asked. Before he followed up on things that shouldn’t have been any of his business.

“Oh yes. A walk-in.”

That was right, he thought. He’d—well, walk ed in to it last night when he’d foraged for food.

“We can get some Tater Tots, too. I love those little—”

A scent filtered through the wind from behind him and shut him up. Frowning, he glanced over his shoulder. A human man was getting out of a truck, and pulling a broad-billed trucker’s hat down on his head. His field camo flak jacket seemed like it was two sizes too big for him, the folds billowing out as the guy leaned back into the cab.

Flaring his nostrils, Mayhem tested the air again.

“Whoa!”

Mahrci threw out a hand as she slipped on some black ice. With a quick grab, he caught her and pulled her against him—and for a split second, all he could feel, all he knew, was the sensation of her coming up to his body, his arm around her waist, a wisp of her hair tickling his chin, her thigh brushing against his own.

With a laugh, she locked a hold on the front of his jacket—and then they were looking into each other’s eyes.

Clearing his throat, Mayhem kicked his own ass as he set her on her feet properly. “Close call.”

“Ah . . . yes. It was.”

As they awkwardly entered through a preliminary set of electric glass doors, they were greeted with a rush of warmth and distant Muzak, and he glanced at a lineup of little two-level pushcarts. “We’re going to need something more heavy-duty than that.”

“We are?”

Heading for the big-boy version, he yanked one free and pinned a let’s-do-this on his face.

“I say we take this one row at a time.”

“Oh, you are serious.”

“I don’t mess around with meals.” He clapped himself in the six-pack. “Energy is required to keep my God-given talents upright and moving, and though there is no shame in frozen dinners, I say we home-make everything but the pasta.”

On that note, he indicated the way through the next set of doors, where a surface-of-the-sun-bright interior filled with seventeen thousand different brands of twenty million different comestibles awaited them.

Hopefully, it would clear the air some.

“Let us forage together—”

From out of nowhere, the guy with the trucker hat and the camo jacket plowed through the space between them, catching Mahrci with his elbow.

The effect was instant. One minute, Mayhem was pretty much coloring inside the lines. The next, his fangs were descending, and he actually took a step out and around the cart, his head lowering, his shoulders coming forward over his hips—

The touch of Mahrci’s hand on his arm was enough to stop what certainly would have been murder—and a bloody one at that.

“I’m fine.” She put her face in his, like she wanted to make sure she was the only thing he could see. “Really. I am. So how about we hit the bread aisle.”

Mayhem nodded absently—and tried to pretend he wasn’t searching for that rude asshole in the fruits and vegetables department immediately to the right.

“Sounds great,” he said in what passed for a fairly non-growlish voice. “I love bread.”

What he didn’t love? What he could absolutely have done without?

Was him acting like he’d bonded or some shit. But have fun arguing with your internal wiring.

And that human better stay out of range, if he knew what was good for him. Some people just had the wrong vibe, all the way around.