The Shape of Desire Read Online Free PDF

I’ll have to drive you out to Christina’s. You can sit in the front seat with your head sticking out the window.”
    He gives this sally a brief smile. “I ought to be good through Monday at least. I guess we’ll see.”
    “Last time it was eight days. The time before that, ten days.”
    He nods. “So Monday or Tuesday sounds about right.”
    “What are you going to get to eat?”
    “I was looking at the steak tartare.”
    I’m silent. I always find it disturbing that he likes his meat so rare. It makes me think about how he must eat when he’s in animal form, catching small creatures and devouring them raw. No wonder shape-shifters have a short life expectancy. God knows what kinds of toxins they absorb with their strange diets.
    “Or the sushi,” he adds.
    “Maybe you should have a salad,” I say. “You know, get some greens. And some fruit while you’re at it. You don’t want to develop scurvy.”
    He gives me a look filled with mockery. “Heartworms, more likely,” he says. “Rabies. I don’t think it’s malnutrition that’s going to do me in.”
    “Don’t
talk
like that,” I plead. “It makes me so sad.”
    “I’m a realist. You’re a romantic.”
    “Well, maybe I am. Indulge me, just for tonight. Don’t talk about death. And don’t eat uncooked food!”
    The waitress returns to deliver our drinks and take our orders. “What would you suggest?” he asks her. “My girlfriend thinks I should eat something healthy, but I want something that tastes good. And has a lot of calories.”
    “Our specialty is beef stew,” she says. “It’s got vegetables in it, is that healthy? But it’s really hearty. Most people can’t eat the whole bowl.”
    He folds his menu and hands it to her. “I bet I can. Let me have the stew. And some bread. And another beer.”
    I’m the one who gets a salad, though I’ve already lost my appetite,as well as any inclination to talk. But silence never bothers Dante. I suppose that’s because he lives for weeks at a time without exchanging words with anyone. He leans back in his chair and looks around at the other diners with idle interest.
    I always wish I could tell what he’s thinking when he studies strangers in this way. Is he wondering if they, like he, conceal shocking secrets even though they look so normal? Is he wishing he could try on their ordinary lives, if only for a day or two, if only to see what he’s missed all these years? Is his wolf brain or his cougar brain wondering what they would taste like if he ripped out their throats and began munching on their flesh for dinner?
    I hate that such thoughts even cross my mind. I never voice them. But every time I see Dante grow as still and focused as a predator, his eyes on some stranger across a room, those terrible images fill my head.
    The food is good, and Dante does indeed manage to polish off the whole bowl of stew. And a third beer. I eat most of my salad, split a dessert with him, and take the car keys from his hands as we leave.
    “You remember the rule,” I say, keeping my voice light. “More than two beers and I drive.”
    “I remember,” he says amiably enough.
    The alcohol has made him amorous, though. During the entirety of the short ride home, he sits half turned toward me, his left hand resting on my leg, his fingers curled around the inside of my thigh. I love to feel the weight of his hand, not moving, not stroking, simply
there
, a silent statement of intimate connection. Of possession, perhaps. It comes as no surprise to me that I feel as if I belong to him.
    We’re barely inside the door before he takes me in his arms, kissing me hungrily and pulling at the straps of my dress as if he cannot wait for the thirty seconds it will take me to undo the ties and buttons myself. I cling to him, suddenly desperate to feel his skin against mine, though our feverish kisses impede both of our efforts to undress. Webreak apart long enough to shed our clothes in a tangled pile just a