“I kinda want you to kiss me, like, right now,” she whispered.

“That would be foolish since I absolutely want to kiss you, like, right now, but I want it in a way that it won’t stop at kissing and I’m not keen on finding out what your mother will do if she walks out of that house and sees me fucking her daughter who I mounted on the hood of a car.”

“Okay, maybe kissing right now isn’t a great idea,” she replied, still whispering.

“Agreed.”

“Though, if you’d find the time, you know, sometime”—she made her eyes big—“soon, I’d appreciate it.”

“You’re being charming again,” he noted.

“I’m not sure how to stop that,” she returned.

“This is part of what makes you charming,” he murmured, again looking to the house.

“Yuri?” she called.

He sighed and turned his eyes back to her.

“I have a feeling I’m gonna be super glad you chased me into my house and started choking me,” she declared.

That was when it happened.

That was when Yuri stood outside a hoarder’s hovel, staring down at a beautiful witch in the middle of nowhere in Texas, threw back his head, and burst out laughing.

With fortunate but disastrous timing—because when he was almost done, instead of pulling Aurora in his arms and giving her the kiss they both wanted—Barb made her presence known by demanding, “What on earth in these circumstances could possibly be funny?”

Without hesitation, Yuri looked to her approaching and answered, “Your daughter.”

She shrugged a shoulder and muttered, “Right, I get that.” She stopped three feet away and declared, “I’m driving.”

“Barb, we had this discussion on the way here. You aren’t driving. If I’m in a car, I drive. And further, it’s my car,” Yuri said.

“I’m still driving,” she retorted.

“You absolutely are not,” he returned.

“You got to drive here,” she pointed out.

“Indeed, as it’s my car,” he replied.

“This car kicks butt,” she stated, swinging a hand out to the Jaguar he’d rented upon arrival in Dallas. “I wanna drive.”

Yuri looked to Aurora.

When he did, he saw that Aurora was having trouble not laughing. But even fighting her humor, she caught his hint.

“Mom, Yuri’s driving. It’s his car.”

“Aurora—” Barb began.

“But,” she said quickly, interrupting her mother, “maybe he’ll let you drive out to get us some Kentucky Fried Chicken when we get home.”

Suddenly, for the first time in nearly seven hundred years, he wanted someone to kill him.

“Kentucky Fried Chicken?” he asked, and Aurora turned bullshit, guileless, big blue eyes up to him.

“I’ve got a craving.”

Looking at her, he understood craving.

Also looking at her, he understood he was not only eating fast-food fried chicken that evening, he was letting her mother use his car to go and get it.