by Desiree Holt
A Total-E-Bound Publication
www.total-e-bound.com
Pretty Kitty
ISBN #978-0-85715-495-8
©Copyright Desiree Holt 2011
Cover Art by April Martinez ©Copyright March 2011
Edited by Andrea Grimm
Total-E-Bound Publishing
This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher, Total-E-Bound Publishing.
Applications should be addressed in the first instance, in writing, to Total-E-Bound Publishing. Unauthorised or restricted acts in relation to this publication may result in civil proceedings and/or criminal prosecution.
The author and illustrator have asserted their respective rights under the Copyright Designs and Patents Acts 1988 (as amended) to be identified as the author of this book and illustrator of the artwork.
Published in 2011 by Total-E-Bound Publishing, Think Tank,
Ruston Way, Lincoln, LN6 7FL, United Kingdom
.
Warning: This book contains sexually explicit content, which is only suitable for mature readers. This story has been rated Total-e-burning.
PRETTY KITTY
Desiree Holt
Dedication
To Amy, Steven and Suzanne, who never fail to give me the encouragement I need,
even on the worst of days.
Chapter One
The Litter Box was rocking. The band was ramped up to high energy tonight, every seat and square foot of standing space was taken, and the rumble of conversation vied with the band for volume. A familiar hangout for cat shifters, the place was usually full even during the week. Tonight being Friday, it was more jammed than usual. People working off the stress of the week. Letting loosely all their inhibitions.
Everyone seemed to be connecting with someone except her. Aisha McClellan took a sip of her vodka stinger and tried not to feel sorry for herself. She’d been in San Antonio for six months now and except that this job paid better than the others she’d had, nothing was much different. Same impersonal apartment. Same lack of friends. Same absence of social life. She wondered if she had a sign tattooed on her forehead that shouted, “Keep Away”.
She took another sip of her drink, letting the chilled liquid slide down her throat.
No one wanted damaged goods. It was as simple as that. And she was about as damaged as one could get. A full-blooded snow leopard shifter, she had never recovered from an assault when she was eighteen and just coming into her first shift. Since then she’d been stuck in a half-life, unable to fully transform into a leopard and unable to derive any pleasure at all from sex. She was sure the vibes she gave off were unpleasant no matter how hard she tried.
She drained her glass and thumped it on the bar.
“Fill ’er up,” she told the bartender.
Max Rogan looked up from where he was rinsing glasses.
Gods, she loved looking at him. A lean six feet of hot male, his black hair hung like silk to his shoulders and was usually tied back with a leather thong. Thick black lashes almost too pretty for a man framed eyes that could only be called electric blue. A strong jaw called attention to his very masculine face, with its brackets on either side of his sensual mouth and his high almost exotic cheekbones. Defined muscles moved smoothly beneath the black tee and the dark jeans he wore, hinting at great strength.
Oh, yeah. Max Rogan was a dream and a half. Unfortunately she didn’t think she was on his radar except as someone who hung out at The Litter Box, drank too much and went home with strange men she never talked to again. If she did that much longer, she’d run out of men to take home with her. Not that any of them had ever done her any good.
He’d become a friend. Probably her only friend. Someone who’d got under her defences and wormed the whole ugly story of her assault from her one rainy night. The good thing about Max was he’d listened quietly, nodded his head in the right places and didn’t offer either criticism or advice. And he was always there when she wanted to talk on nights the bar was quiet.
Yes, a good friend. Damn it. Recently she’d realised her feelings for him went beyond that, but she didn’t know how to pursue them. Him. What would he want with her anyway, when he probably had women hanging on him like fleas on a dog?
So he had become someone who now watched out for her, giving her a safety net if she ever needed it. It was great except for the disapproval he sometimes expressed. Like right now.
“Drinking a little fast tonight, aren’t you, princess?” Max set a fresh drink in front of her. His voice was so low and deep it sent shivers skating over her spine.
“Just occupying my time,” she told him, looking as nonchalant as possible.
“Maybe you should occupy it with some coffee for a change.”
In order for her to hear him, he had to lean over the bar so his mouth was close to her ear. Heat washed over her, fingers of flame that set her pulses throbbing. Oh, great. The only man to get her sexual juices flowing was the only one who didn’t seem to have any interest in her beyond being a good friend. She had much more than friendship in mind if they could ever get to it.
“I’m fine, Max. Take care of the real customers.”
He winked at her then went back to his work. “You’re a real customer, princess. More real than a lot of them.”
Oh, Max, if you only knew.
She raised herself up and leaned way across the bar, putting her face as close to his as she could get. “So, Max, tell me something.”
He looked up. “It better be something short and sweet because screaming’s not my thing and the noise level in here could raise the dead.”
“How come you never go out with the women who hang here? I’ve seen a lot of them come on to you.”
“Because my heart belongs to you, princess.” He winked again. “I’m waiting for you to get around to me.”
“Ha, ha.” She sat back down on her bar stool and let the sound wash over her.
If only.
Maybe if she wasn’t such a freak. If her long hair was a nice beautiful colour instead of the weird streaks she’d been left with when unable to complete her shift. Or her eyes were amber like the other cats instead of the ugly pale grey she was stuck with. If she was long and slinky instead of short and dumpy. Okay, maybe not dumpy but certainly shorter than she liked. She saw how men drooled over long legs.
Sometimes she lay in bed at night and imagined what it would be like to find her cat. To stretch out the sinewy body and race with the wind. To be sleek and graceful and totally free. Like all the others who came to The Litter Box. They were all manner of cat shifters, some just looking to hang out, but many of them looking to mate. Something she’d never be able to do, even if someone should want her.
Yeah, right. Who would want a freak of nature, someone stuck in two worlds but not of either?
She had just taken another swallow of her drink when she felt a hand at her elbow. Looking up, she saw a tall, blond man smiling down at her. The green of his shirt was almost the exact colour of his eyes. Cat’s eyes. She wondered which breed he was. Cougar? Puma? Not panther, he was too light. Not snow leopard like her. She’d have at least been able to sense that.
Oh, well. Not that it mattered, anyway. None of them could help her.
She raised an eyebrow. “Yes?” She had to mouth the word because the noise level had risen again.
He stroked a hand down the bare skin of her arm, then hooked a thumb ove
r his shoulder, pointing to the dance floor, and wiggled his hips.
“Dance?” he mouthed at her.
Sure. Why not?
“Watch my drink?” she shouted at Max as she slipped off her stool.
She and the blond managed to find four square inches on the dance floor to squeeze their bodies into and began moving to the heavy beat of the bass and drums. They were pressed so close together it was impossible not to feel the hard thickness of his cock straining behind the fabric of his pants. Or to keep her breasts from being pressed against his chest.
When he put his hands on her waist to keep her body tight against his, Aisha looked up and saw sexual hunger blazing in his eyes. The message was as clear as if he’d spoken it aloud.
I’ve heard about you. I want to take you home and fuck you. I can be the one to make you lose your mind.
As if, she thought. None of them could. Not one. While they heaved over her naked and sweaty, she always lay beneath them willing it to be over. She knew the reputation she’d garnered. Maybe they all had some kind of wager going, to see who was the first one to break through the wall of ice around her sexual response.
The assault the night she was just coming into her first heat had left her both unable to shift and traumatized where sex was concerned. And nothing and no one had been able to make it pleasant for her.
When her dance partner slid his hands up her rib cage and brushed his thumbs against her breasts, she’d had enough and jerked away from him. He grabbed her arms, tightening his hold on her, anger in every line of his body.
Taking a deep breath, she broke his hold on her, pushed through the mob to get off the dance floor and made her way back to the bar. She had to laugh when she squeezed onto her bar stool again.
Someone—Max, of course—had put a crudely lettered Reserved sign next to her drink. Ignoring the dirty looks from the customers forced to stand, she hitched up onto the stool again and waved at Max, filling an order at the end of the bar.
He smiled and winked at her.
Gods, that wink was so utterly sexy. If anyone could kick start her pheromones, it would be him, but she had as much chance at that as she had of winning the lottery. He was kind, friendly, even a protector when he thought she needed one. But he’d never once given off a vibe that told her he’d be interested, even when she’d had a drink too many and deliberately flirted with him. No silent sexual messages. Nothing.
Since she’d found out about The Litter Box, she’d taken to hanging out here several nights a week. Hoping to find that one person who could help her get past her trauma. Make the act of sex so arousing that she lost herself in the climax and finally, finally came into full heat and shifted.
She’d tried, the gods knew. She’d probably fucked half the clientele of the shifter bar. But they all left her cold. Incomplete. Most of them didn’t even care that the orgasms she had were faked. Assholes. Why did she even bother again and again? It always ended the same way. Afterwards she couldn’t even stand to talk to them.
Only Max had been a constant. Sexy as sin Max Rogan who had become her best friend. The only person who knew her sad, pathetic story. The one who always kept a watchful eye on her. The one she could always count on.
The man who never saw her as anything but Aisha, vodka stinger on the rocks.
The one she really, really wanted more than any of the others.
She stirred the ice cubes in her drink with her finger then licked off the moisture. For a brief moment she wondered what it would be like licking Max’s cock and a totally unfamiliar surge of lust rolled through her. She squirmed on the seat trying to satisfy the sudden craving in her pussy. Where had that come from?
Quickly she downed the rest of her drink and tapped her glass on the bar for a refill. She ignored the scowl on Max’s face and just gave him her biggest smile, pointing to her empty glass. What the hell. Drinking seemed to be her only pleasure these days.
Max finished pouring a fresh brew for the puma sitting at the end of the bar, mixed a quick gimlet for the panther in the red dress, and refilled a bowl of pub mix before making his way back to Aisha. He was worried about her.
Tonight she seemed to be strung tighter than usual. Had the guy she’d taken home the other night hurt her in some way? It bothered the shit out of him that she seemed to be working her way through the entire male clientele of The Litter Box without ever letting any contact affect her. She’d dance with them, take them home then never speak to them again. And she always looked so alone.
After a while, he found himself consumed with raging jealousy every time Aisha left with a different cat. He wanted to be the one going home with her. The one in her bed. The one under her, over her. In her. Like that was going to happen any time soon.
His gut still twisted when he thought of the story she’d blurted out to him one night. A story so traumatic that he wanted to find the shifter who attacked her and destroy him.
She had only been eighteen when it happened, just on the verge of her first heat. A rogue member of her pack, spurned both by her and by the alpha as a potential mate for her, attacked her in a fit of rage and nearly destroyed her. Left unable to shift, she was cast out by her pack, sent off on her own. Now she made a half-life for herself on the outskirts of both human and shifter societies, belonging to neither. According to what he’d been able to pry out of her, she just kept moving from city to city, seeking some kind of attachment but unable to connect with anyone. Someone who could help her shake off this curse.
He knew she had a certification in computer science so she had no problem finding work. Nor did she have trouble finding willing partners for meaningless sex. But she hadn’t been able to hook up with a new pack. If she couldn’t shift they didn’t want her. And apparently no one was stepping up to the plate to help her.
Max was appalled by her story and distressed by the life she was living, but he didn’t know what to do about it. Several times he thought about talking to the alpha of his own pack, but then he’d have to explain why he was involved with her and he wasn’t even sure he knew the answer to that himself.
What he did know was he felt some kind of very strong emotion for her that he didn’t want to give a name to. And that every time she walked into The Litter Box, his cock stood up at attention and saluted. Which sometimes meant a quick trip to the men’s room and ice cubes in his shorts so he could continue doing his job at the bar.
There was something so vulnerable about this pretty kitty that kept him from making his move. Besides, he didn’t want to be just another body she took home to fuck and never spoke to again. He’d rather remain her friend, even if it meant suffering with a painful hard-on.
Tonight she seemed to be more despondent than ever. She was certainly drinking more heavily than usual. A fact that worried him. He was even watering her drinks, a no-no for a bartender but thankfully she didn’t seem to notice. He was at least grateful that she’d walked away from the guy on the dance floor. He knew personally that particular cat was trouble. He might have been forced to step in if he’d seen her heading for the door with him.
Instead, however, she was lapping up the sauce like it was cream.
Thank all the gods she always gave him her purse to hold. Her intent was to make sure someone didn’t steal it while she was on the dance floor or otherwise not paying attention to it. But Max had formed the habit of slipping out her car keys and sticking them in his pocket until the evening was over. If she was sober enough when she got ready to leave, then he tucked them back in and she was none the wiser. But tonight he was sure he wouldn’t be giving them back. He wasn’t too anxious to pour her into a cab, either. Cab drivers weren’t the most trustworthy guys in the world.
A glance at his watch told him they were just thirty minutes from closing time. Thank the gods. He reached behind him and yanked on the rope of the bell hanging there. It was the signal for the band to stop playing for a minute and give him a chance to make his announcement.
�
�Last call,” he shouted. “Better get ’em now.”
People immediately surged from the dance floor and crowded the bar or waved down the waitresses from their tables. The next half hour was a blur for Max as he uncapped beer bottles, drew draught from the taps, mixed drinks and poured shots. In ten years he’d become one of the fastest, most efficient bartenders in the city and the customers appreciated it.
Then finally, finally, everyone was gone. The last stragglers ushered out the door by the bouncer. All the cars safely out of the parking lot. Those too drunk to drive dumped into one of the cabs they’d called and sent on their way.
Max blew out a breath, wiping his hands on a bar towel. Now he just had to deal with Aisha.
She was still sitting on the bar stool, arms crossed on the bar and her head resting on her forearms. Her beautiful streaked hair spread out over the varnished surface like a curtain, tempting him to run his fingers through it. Touch that delicate skin. Stroke the smooth surface of her arms.
Suck it up, you lech.
He wondered if she’d passed out, but when he touched her hand she lifted her head and looked at him from beneath heavy lids.
“Hey, Max.”
“Hey, Aisha.” He couldn’t help himself. He brushed her hair away from her face, revelling in its silken touch. “Time to pack it in for the night.”
“Oh. Hmm. Okay.” She dropped her head back onto her arms.
Max sighed. He had two choices here, at least ones he’d feel okay with—take her home himself or stuff her into a cab. Not that he didn’t trust the cab drivers—oh, okay, he didn’t trust them and he rejected that option. That left just him. Sir Galahad to the rescue.
Yup, that was him. Good old Max, saviour of drunken women. He went through his usual closing routine—locking the doors, cashing out the till, putting the money in the office safe for deposit the next day. Shutting of everything that needed to be shut off.
