Slow Shift by Nazarea Andrews (best summer reads of all time txt) 📕

so he closes his eyes and waits until, softly, she says, “Death. I taste death and screams.” There’s a shuddery breath over the line. “I let him fuck me,” she breathes, and Lucas tips his head back, wraps a hand around his hard cock and strokes himself slowly. “I wanted to feel alive, so I let him eat my pussy and fuck me. I rode him, Lucas, and all I could taste was sweat. I—”

“You didn’t want to scream,” he grits out, and she makes a breathless noise of agreement. “You want to scream with me. Even when I don’t touch you.”

“Lucas,” she whispers.

He tightens his grip on his cock, just so he doesn’t come. “Don’t deny it, darling girl. You want it when you feel my eyes on you. What kind of screams could I coax from you, if I were the one touching you?”

“Sure of yourself, aren’t you?” she says, and it would be tart if her voice was anything but a breathy pant in his ear. He can hear the slick slide of her fingers and he smiles.

“You’re touching yourself,” he murmurs, and she gasps, a shuddery little noise. He can’t stop it—he groans, coming across his chest, his cock pulsing in his hand as she breathes and gasps, whining out his name as she comes.

“When you go back to the young deputy’s bed, Aurora, remember that mine is waiting for you. I won’t beg, but I won’t pretend I don’t want you here, naked and screaming in my arms.”

She’s quiet for a long moment, then murmurs, “Goodnight, Lucas.”

He closes his eyes and says gently, “Sleep well, darling girl.”

~*~

Tyler is leaning against the door of his truck when Chase walks outside, and the young man grins at him. It’s not a surprise, exactly, but Tyler usually warns him when he’s going to show up at the library to pick Chase up.

“What’s up?”

Tyler shakes his head and Chase doesn’t push, just slides into the passenger seat and changes the radio station—because they’re not going to listen to Tyler’s classic rock. There’s only so much of that Chase can be asked to accept and they passed that threshold before Chase hit driving age.

When they reach the edge of town and Tyler keeps driving, Chase glances over at him. “What’s up, big guy?”

“Wanted to get out of town for a while.”

“So you’re kidnapping me?”

Tyler tilts a smirk in his direction and Chase is never going to be able to take that look without wanting to die—or to jump him.

Possibly both.

“Where we going?”

~*~

They go to a drive-in movie four towns over, a place that Tyler says his family used to go to once a month because the kids did best if they weren’t enclosed in the noise of a theatre. It’s not very busy—maybe because the movies tonight are 80’s cult classics—so they park the truck and Tyler trots off to buy popcorn and drinks, instructing Chase to dig blankets and a small mountain of candy out of the backseat.

Then they sprawl out in the bed of the truck, propped up on a nest of pillows Tyler stowed for them.

“Did they always show old movies?” Chase asks.

Tyler laughs. “Yeah. Sometimes it was monster movies. Lucas would run around half shifted and howling until Mom got pissed and made him stop. Of course, her roaring Lucas into obedience usually freaked out the normals more than glowing eyes and fangs.”

Chase snorts and steals a Reese's cup from Tyler, grinning cheekily when Tyler growls and snaps his teeth.

“Mom loved doing shit like this. And going stargazing,” Chase says, “We used to go once every few months, and she’d tell me the stories of the stars and the heroes who lived there.” He wiggles and Tyler catches him by the waist, holding him still. “When I was eight, they got me a telescope. Dad was so sure I’d break it because I wasn’t really good at staying still, but when Mom showed me the stars, I was always still, like if I wasn’t, I’d ruin the spell, and I never wanted that.”

Tyler hums against his hair and says, “Do you ever go anymore? Stargazing?”

Chase shakes his head. “Not since—”

“I—I haven’t been back here either.”

He knows what it means, that he’s coming here again, that he’s sharing it with Chase.

“Do you think one day it’ll stop hurting?” he asks and Tyler’s hand latches onto his.

“No,” he whispers hoarsely. “But I think it helps, having someone to help carry it.”

Chase is quiet for a long time, and the movie starts. He picks at the popcorn while Tyler murmurs the lines in his ear.

Then, like a secret, he whispers, “Chelsea called me.”

Chase goes stiff against him, all the easy contentment draining away. Tyler’s grip holds him in place and his lips brush Chase’s ear when he murmurs, “She said she missed me. That there was a place for me, in New York, with her and the Cahils.”

Chase closes his eyes. He’s always known that Tyler came back to take care of Lucas. Chelsea didn’t want her Pack when Lucas was healthy—but now? Now, with a degree, a life ready to start and a healthy brother and an Alpha who wanted him back—why the hell would he stay?

“Breathe for me, sweetheart,” Tyler murmurs.

Chase takes a shuddery breath, whining just a little. “When—” he chokes, then stops. He licks his lips and forces it out. “When are you leaving?”

Tyler is quiet and still, then all of a sudden, the stars and moon wheel overhead, the giant screen flashes, and then all he can see is Tyler looming over him, pressing him into the blankets, the long hot length of him blanketing Chase from toe to nose.

“Idiot,” Tyler breathes fondly, then—

Chase makes a noise, shocked and hungry, deep in his throat, and Tyler licks it from his mouth, uses that little noise to deepen the unexpected kiss. It’s nothing like that kiss so long ago in the kitchen—this one is deep and wet and dirty, like Tyler’s pouring everything he’s never