Page 6 of Claimed By the Panda
I couldn’t tear my eyes away from his body—the definition of his pecs, the tattoo of Chinese characters trailing down his ribs, the V-cut of his hips leading to... I swallowed hard.
Focus, Cody. The man was just a panda. That’s the priority here.
“I don’t understand why my panda would come out like that. I never shift while I’m sleeping unless I’m very comfortable and—” He stopped and scrubbed his hands over his face with a groan.
“Your... panda?” I repeated. “You’re naked. Did we have sex?”
“Of course we didn’t have sex. You were way too drunk to make a decision. Hell, you wouldn’t even tell me your address to take you home!” “So you tucked me into your bed?” “You crawled in and told me you wanted to snuggle!” “So, we snuggled?” “No.You passed out. Besides, I’m straight. Mostly.” I’d met enough mostly straight guys to know that probably meant he was bi and just hadn’t realized it yet, but I teased him anyway. “Why would a mostly straight guy need a boyfriend?”
“Fake boyfriend,” he corrected, running a hand through his long hair. “Remember? I told you I needed someone to pretend to be my boyfriend to get my family off my back. You agreed because I said you could see a panda.”
The memory clicked into place. “You said it was a panda sanctuary! Not that you were one!”
“I’m not—” He started pacing the small room, muscles flexing with each agitated movement, his cock bouncing between his legs in a very distracting way. “This is all fucked up. You were just supposed to come to breakfast, then I was going to fake a little panda sanctuary somehow.”
“I knew there wasn’t a panda sanctuary around here. I should’ve trusted my gut instinct.”
“Do you even have a gut instinct to trust?” he asked. “You got into a car with a guy you’d known for five minutes.” “Jian, are you aware of how hot you are?” I shot back. “A drunk gay is going to have zero self-control around that.” I waved my hand at his general hotness. “Wait, this isn’t actually a kidnapping, is it?”
“Of course not. Just a favor.” He paced back across the room, still naked. I should probably have reminded him to put on pants, but who was I to rob myself of a show?
“Are you some kind of... werewolf?” I asked. “But, like, a werepanda?”
Jian stopped pacing to glare at me. “That’s not a thing.”
“Well, excuse me for not knowing the proper terminology for people who turn into pandas!”
The fluffy white cat meowed loudly from the floor, circling Jian’s feet.
“So demanding! You look hungry, Dandelion.” He scooped up the cat, which immediately started purring loudly against his chest. I didn’t blame her.
I watched in disbelief as he walked out of the room; the cat cradled against his bare chest, like we weren’t in the middle of the most insane conversation of my life.
“Wait!” I scrambled off the bed, pausing to rub my forehead as my hangover headache made the room spin.
“The cat needs to be fed.”
“You can’t just—you have to explain!”
I followed him into a small kitchen, where he was already opening a can of cat food. Dandelion sat on the counter, tail swishing impatiently.
“There’s nothing to explain.” He scraped the food into a bowl. “You were drunk, you had weird dreams, and now you’re confused.”
“Bullshit! I know what I saw!”
Jian set the bowl down for Dandelion, who attacked the food with enthusiasm. He scratched behind the cat’s ears, then dug through a cabinet for a minute and returned with a bottle of ibuprofen and a bottle of water. I took it gratefully, swallowing a couple of pills and chugging down the water.
“Look,” he said. “Can we just stick to the original plan? You pretend to be my boyfriend for breakfast with my family, you pet a panda, and I drive you home after.”
I rubbed my temples, trying to ease the headache. “Not until you explain how you turned from a panda into a naked man right in front of me.”
“I didn’t.”
“You did! Stop gaslighting me.”
“Even if what you think you saw was real,” he said. “Would you really want to know more? Some truths are dangerous, Cody.”
The way he said my name sent an unexpected shiver through me. “I’ve wanted to see a real panda up close for my entire life.If you’re somehow... connected to that, then yes, I want to know everything.”
