Read Tiger by the Tail: A Midnight Liaisons Novella for Free Online

nevertheless. She declined the offer of money, but told him she’d take a free ride to classes when she needed one.
    From there, they’d spent the afternoon running errands. Mandy bought her textbooks for classes, Adrian had to pick up a part from a specialty dealer across town, and Mandy had accompanied him. They’d passed a farmer’s market and when Mandy pointed out how much she loved fresh peaches, Adrian immediately pulled over and bought her a basketful.
    That evening, they ordered pizza and watched television on Adrian’s couch together. It turned out they both liked watching the same kinds of shows – true crimes, forensics, and repeats of Law and Order. She’d spent most of the evening with her feet against his leg, happily munching on triple-meat pizza and eating fresh peaches.
    At some point, she’d dozed off on the couch. She woke up back in his bed, under the covers, his back to her. She drifted back to sleep, snuggling a bit closer to him. He smelled really good.
    Two hours later, though, her stomach revolted once more, and she spent the rest of the night hugging the toilet. Adrian kept his place at her side, smoothing her hair back and giving her sips of water between puking. And when she was completely wrung out once more, he carried her back to bed.
     
    ~~ * ~~
     
    The next morning, Mandy craved sausage. Badly. She got up and headed to Adrian’s fridge, only to growl at the sight. “There’s nothing in here but beer.”
    “I eat out,” he told her with a yawn. “Want to go get breakfast?”
    Boy, did she. She was ravenous. So she nodded and grabbed his car keys off the counter, tossing them at him. “Come on. I want breakfast as of yesterday.”
    They dressed and headed out to a tiny little pancake house off the highway, and Mandy ordered extra sausage, extra bacon, and every meat product she could find on the menu. Omelet? Extra ham, please, with extra chorizo, bacon, and extra-extra sausage.
    Adrian’s brows wrinkled as he watched her order. “Maybe you should have pancakes or something…benign.”
    “Maybe you should shut up,” she shot back, feeling surly. Why was he bossing her around suddenly? “The order stands.”
    He shrugged and returned to his order.
    By the time the food came, Mandy’s mouth was watering and she was about to toss back the bottle of ketchup sitting on the table when the mountain of breakfast meats arrived. She made a small moan of pleasure and tucked into the food before the plate was set down in front of her. God, she was so hungry.
    It was midway through her extra-bacon, extra-sausage, extra-chorizo omelet that she realized she was going to be sick. Her stomach gurgled unhappily and she shot a panicked look at Adrian, eyes wide.
    “Shit. Meat.” He pulled out his wallet and tossed several twenties on the table. “We need to go, now.”
    For once, she didn’t argue. Her organs were giving that weird, painful twist that told her that something was going to be shifting whether she liked it or not. It was like last night’s barf-session in the bathroom, but worse. The meat, she groaned, hating herself. Adrian had warned her that it triggered a shift, and this morning she’d woken up all fired up to eat as much greasy meat as she could shove down her throat.
    Her body was telling her it was time for a shift, whether she wanted it or not.
    She bolted up from the table and raced out, Adrian’s hand pressed against her back. She barely made it back to the car before her stomach gave in and she doubled over in pain. “Oh God.”
    “Are you going to puke?” Adrian’s voice was soft, soothing, even as he reversed the car out of the parking lot at high speed. He reached over and smoothed her hair off her damp brow.
    “Worse,” she told him, panting hard. “I’m going to shift.”
    “We can handle it,” he told her. “Just stay calm and breathe.”
    “I don’t want to shift,” she told him, a bit of a whine in her voice. “I want to go back to my