Cat Scratch Fever

by Sophie Mouette

  Lance beamed at the admiration. ‘Hurt like a bitch, but it was worth it. Gotta keep in shape, though – nothing worse than a sagging dragon.’

  ‘Looks like you’ve been doing a good job,’ she said weakly.

  She tried to concentrate on his wound, she really did. Thankfully it was just a long shallow scratch; already crusting at the edges, it showed no sign of infection. She had basic First Aid training – with animals, at least – and that part of her brain kicked in and moved her hands where they needed to go, as opposed to where they wanted to go.

  They wanted to roam across his smooth chest, tracing the intricacies of the tattoo. They wanted to slide down past his narrow hips and become intimately acquainted with the contents of his jeans. They wanted to clutch at the expanse of his back as he…

  Her fingers trembled, just a little, as she taped a gauze pad over the newly cleaned gash.

  She meant to give him back his shirt, sit him down, drink some coffee and then boot him out. Really, honestly, she did.

  ‘Hope that didn’t hurt too much,’ she said, moving around in front of him.

  ‘Nah.’

  ‘Good.’ And that’s when the reptile part of her brain, the part that always suggested that physical contact was A Good Thing, took over. There was no logical, rational thought involved when she slipped her arms around his waist, meaning to give him a quick big-sisterly hug.

  OK, maybe not quite big-sisterly. Lance reminded her of the bad boys she’d always had crushes on in high school. If she happened to enjoy cuddling up to him, what was the harm?

  He froze in confusion for a second, and she wondered if she’d offended him somehow. Then his arms locked around her and he lifted her slightly off the floor with the force of his response, pummelling her senses with young heated flesh and cheap aftershave, which he’d evidently used to cover the effects of the day. ‘Oh my God, Mel,’ he groaned, just before he kissed her.

  Mel’s body and her common sense got into a bit of a debate as to how to respond. Her common sense was pointing out that he was still a few months shy of nineteen. It reminded her that she liked older guys, like José. But, it argued right back that her relationship with José wasn’t exclusive, and variety was, after all, the spice of life. Her body ignored the debate entirely and responded with complete enthusiasm.

  Lance may have missed a few lessons on grammar or manners somewhere along the line, but he’d learnt a lot about putting his heart and soul into kissing. It was a little rough, a little awkward, and the aftershave was overwhelming. But it was impossible not to respond to the sheer force of his desire. He’d become hard against her almost instantly, taking her back to her teenage years and boys’ amazing insta-erections that were the source of so much wonder and, frequently, embarrassment for all concerned.

  Lance was certainly not embarrassed. He was doing his best to introduce her to what he had to offer, rubbing it against her, moving her small frame so she was straddling his crotch. Parts of her were liking this a lot. Even if her brain was still a little unsure, her nerve endings were tingling, her nipples were perking up and most of her blood seemed to be rushing between her legs, leaving her light-headed, unable to think clearly.

  She remembered all the little gifts she’d been finding on her desk of late: wildflowers, a lottery scratch ticket, a cheap but cute mug, once a single red rose. Lance hadn’t done what he did to help us, she realised. He did it to help her. And that was just too much.

  Her judgement made one last-ditch effort to assert itself. She broke away from the kiss and said, a bit breathlessly, ‘Lance, we can’t do this.’

  ‘No, I guess not,’ he agreed with surprising ease. Then he added, ‘Your coffee table doesn’t look too sturdy, your sofa’s not bad but a little small, the floor’s not real comfortable, and I’m too beat to even try it standing up.’

  She did her very best to look stern and serious, but the last bit was too much for her. She burst into sputtering laughter. And, as soon as she did, she knew she was lost. She wasn’t laughing at him, but at the fact that she’d been making the same mental checklist.

  ‘I have a nice big bed in the other room,’ she said. ‘Problem solved.’

  By the time they got to her almost monastic bedroom, all black and white except for red pillows on the bed and the family photographs on the dresser, Mel felt thick and stupid with lust. She fumbled with her own clothes, fumbled with his, couldn’t manage to undo her bra without his equally awkward help.

  Lance wasn’t wearing underwear, and his cock blossomed out of the fly of his shorts as soon as she unzipped him.

  ‘Wow!’ It wasn’t his size that impressed her – he was unusually thick, but just about average length. What captured Mel’s fascinated attention was the stud through the edge of the head, right where it would hit a G-spot in certain positions. She’d seen pierced eyebrows, pierced nipples and pierced tongues (although she hadn’t been personally acquainted with the latter), but this was her first close encounter with a pierced dick.

  ‘Like it?’ He wriggled out of his shorts so she could get a better look.

  She stared at it for a little while longer, considering the question. ‘It’s sexy. But I can’t get past how much it must have hurt.’ Thoughts of it teasing her G-spot almost blocked the picture of a needle going through that very sensitive territory, but not quite.

  He shrugged. ‘Wasn’t so bad. It’s fast, anyway. Me and the guys all dared each other. Dog said –’ He fell silent.

  He was obviously thinking about Dog and Just, and his lost expression was more than Mel could bear.

  Well, certain activities might not solve a man’s problems, but they made a great distraction. ‘So, anything I need to know about handling the jewellery?’

  ‘Handle away. It’s healed. Just don’t go all military on it.’ The last few words came out a little brokenly as she wrapped her hand around the thick shaft and began to stroke. The cock jumped convulsively at her touch. With her other hand, she explored the piercing, delicately stroking, playing with the barbell.

  ‘Sweet,’ Lance breathed.

  She paused just long enough to lick her palm for some lubrication, then returned to her explorations. It lay in her hands like a small animal, hot and hard and silky and very much alive. It twitched occasionally, adding to the impression of having a life of its own. As she stroked, enjoying the texture, his noises, even the smell rising off him (which even yet wasn’t entirely free of hints of eau-de-sewage – then again, she suspected she wasn’t either), her own body twitched in response.

  Between Lance’s thickness and the piercing, she had visions of chipping her teeth but, as his excitement grew, she couldn’t resist tasting him. She knelt down, began to lick at the piercing with catlike lappings until Lance was moaning and squirming. Only then did she stretch her mouth around the head and begin to suck in earnest.

  But she’d forgotten how short a fuse young guys could have. Just as she was settling into a rhythm, getting used to the odd but exciting feeling of the stud, within what seemed like seconds, and certainly wasn’t more than a minute or two, he groaned, ‘Gonna come.’

  She could tell from the pulsing in her mouth and the tightening of his balls that she had seconds to make a decision. She enjoyed a cock exploding in her mouth – the heat, the taste, the intimacy – but she hadn’t had what she liked to think of as a porn-star moment in a long time. If things might be abbreviated – and, given the exhausting day and night, Lance might just pass out on her after coming – she was going to milk all the pleasure from the situation that she could.

  Keeping her hands on Lance’s cock, she pulled back at the right moment. ‘Come on my tits,’ she commanded.

  Lance looked a little confused, but the confusion was displaced almost instantly by the happily contorted face of a man in the throes of orgasm.

  Hot come sprayed on to her breasts and throat. While Lance still stared at her, slack jawed and glassy eyed, she rubbed his juices into her skin, paying
particular attention to her throbbing nipples.

  He started to mutter an apology, then registered her expression and did a double take. ‘You like that?’

  Mel smiled dreamily, playing with her slick nipples. ‘Sometimes it’s fun to be nasty. That always makes me feel like I’m in an X-rated movie.’

  A grin that could only be described as ‘shit eating’ spread across his face. ‘I win!’ he crowed, striking a superhero pose.

  Then he grabbed her hands, pulled her to her feet and all but threw her on to the bed.

  Lance’s tongue was pierced, too. Mel had noticed it when he was interviewed for the volunteer position, had asked him to get a Lucite stud so it would be less obvious to visitors and hadn’t really given it any thought since. That changed quickly.

  She’d heard that tongue piercings made a huge difference for oral sex – and, from other people, that they didn’t. Mel was enough of a scientist at heart that she tried to maintain a certain objectivity and figure out the truth. She could definitely feel the stud, a hard ball slipping over her slippery flesh, tantalising the nerve endings in a slightly different way from the tongue itself.

  But it’s hard to stay objective for long when a gorgeous boy is licking your clit – with or without a pierced tongue – and pushing two fingers inside you. Maybe it was the piercing, the rush from the ‘porn-star moment’, the fulfilment of her long-time yearning for a down-and-dirty session with a bad boy. Or maybe Lance just liked eating pussy and did it well. All she could say for sure was that she was rapidly losing her mind.

  When Lance tried to lift his head, she put one hand on the back of it, not forcefully, but enough to keep him where she needed him. The fingers of her other hand clenched into the firm muscles of his shoulder.

  She was soaring. It was almost too much, the fingers working in and out, filling her (but not as nicely, alas, as that thick, studded cock would have done), the tongue working at her, the memory of his come searing into her skin and the stunned but triumphant look on his face when he realised she’d liked that. He must have thought she was all prim and proper like the tough guys back in high school did. If they could only see her now.

  Her hips arched up. Her hands clenched involuntarily, digging her fingernails into Lance’s skin.

  The orgasm struck like a seizure. She didn’t make a sound – she somehow couldn’t – but every muscle in her body seemed to convulse.

  Lance kissed his way up her body while she was still shaking until he was lying over her. Then she remembered the bonus side of younger guys: they might have short fuses, but they also had short recovery periods.

  There were times when sex was a ballet, a delicate, intimate dance. This was not going to be one of them. As soon as she said something truly deep along the lines of ‘Oh, yeah’, he raised her legs and sheathed himself into her, one quick hard stroke that took Mel’s breath away. Once he was in, he paused and looked down at her as if awaiting confirmation. ‘Don’t hold back,’ she choked out. ‘I’m tougher than I look.’

  ‘I know. I like that.’ He marked each word with a hard thrust.

  She could feel the piercing stroking at her inner walls, an insistent, glorious pressure, just on the right side of the fine line between amazing and too much.

  She didn’t always like it this hard and fast. Before things got quite so crazy at the Sanctuary and there was such a thing as days off, she and José would sometimes spend a whole afternoon in bed seeing how long they could draw it out, a kind of homemade Tantra. But there were times when something close to brutality felt perfect and, after the stress of the night, she was ready for quick and rough and intense.

  She whispered a suggestion. Lance moved to his knees, raised her up to meet his cock and then knelt up, arching her halfway off the bed. Gripping her hips, he slammed her against him, pounding into her straining body.

  She loved this feeling: full and stretched, her body contorted, not at all in control. ‘More,’ she groaned, and he complied, shifting position a little so she was barely in contact with the bed.

  It was all about his muscular arms directing her movement, his hips pounding against her so his balls slapped her ass, his cock moving in and out of her rippling pussy, the piercing stroking over and over against the most sensitive spot inside her.

  More was the last recognisable word she managed to get out. She tried, a few times, to tell him how great it felt and to urge him on to something even more frenzied and athletic. But she couldn’t make actual words come out, just noises.

  They were nothing compared to the ones she made when she started to come though. If she’d been silent under his tongue, she made up for it now, sounding like a mating leopard, snarling and growling and shouting as convulsion after convulsion rocked her.

  Sometime in the midst of all the screaming, Lance finished with a series of staccato thrusts and a howl.

  * * *

  Felicia woke, briefly disorientated by the unfamiliar hotel-room atmosphere, to the sound of Gabe’s voice, a low murmur somewhere not too close. She was reminded of his cell phone ringing, late at night, and hated the flash of suspicion that bloomed in her stomach. She rolled over and watched him hang up the phone on the desk in the other room, admiring the muscles flexing in his back before he turned and saw her.

  ‘I’m sorry. Did I wake you?’ he asked. ‘I was ordering room service. I’m starving.’

  ‘Me, too,’ she said vaguely

  ‘It was a long night of wild sex,’ he said easily. When she didn’t respond, he narrowed his eyes. ‘You OK? Not having morning-after second thoughts?’

  ‘No, it’s not that.’ She caught her lower lip between her teeth, considering how to ask what she needed to know. ‘The night we had dinner and you left your phone in my car, I found it because it rang. I saw the message from someone named Tom.’

  ‘Tom’s my boss,’ he said.

  ‘He was calling awfully late,’ she said. ‘It must’ve been after midnight in New York.’

  ‘Tom,’ Gabe said easily, leaning back against the pillows, ‘is more of a workaholic than you are. Since I hadn’t checked in earlier in the day, he decided to ping me.’

  That made sense. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe him. It was that there were still unusual circumstances involved. ‘He asked where you were on the problem so far. You’ve got to admit that could be read several ways.’

  ‘Look, I’ll be honest with you,’ Gabe said, sitting back up. ‘You deserve nothing less. But you’ve got to keep this between us.’

  ‘I’ll do whatever’s best for the Sanctuary,’ she said.

  He nodded. ‘Fair enough. This wasn’t just a random site visit. We were asked to come out and check on things.’

  Felicia felt like she’d been doused with a bucket of icy water. ‘Someone told the Zoological Association we needed to be monitored? Dammit!’

  ‘No, no.’ He took her hands in his. ‘I can’t tell you who it was, because we promised anonymity. But I can tell you that it was someone who wants the Sanctuary to succeed. Someone who loves the place and was worried. They thought a fresh pair of eyes might help, especially if someone working at the Sanctuary was part of the problem.’

  She stared at him, desperately wanting to believe him. ‘Really?’

  ‘Really. And I’m willing to bet that if we join forces, rather than suspecting each other, we’ll be able to figure this out.’

  So very, very tempting. She’d been so tired and stressed for so long, trying to keep everything together. Oh, she could talk to Katherine or Mel or José, but they were just as busy and stressed as she was. The idea of teaming up with Gabe – and, more importantly, of having someone to share the problem with, someone to lean on – was close to exhilarating.

  She either trusted him, or she didn’t. She had to decide. ‘You’re on,’ she said, and felt weak from the relief as she said it.

  Gabe stalked over to the window and cracked the blinds, letting in a stream of brilliant sunlight. ‘It’s another g
orgeous day – do you ever have any other kind here? Maybe we should get outside for at least a little while. There has to be someplace we could play outside, or where I could at least tease you. Nibble the back of your neck. Caress your breasts when no one was looking. Flip up your skirt and take you quickly from behind. That kind of thing.’

  That delightful idea, unfortunately, immediately led her to think of all the reasons she should be doing other, far less pleasant things instead.

  ‘What time is it?’ She moved one of the many bed pillows that had gotten tossed around during their energetic frenzy, and found the digital alarm clock. She groaned.

  ‘It’s Sunday,’ Gabe said. ‘It’s your day off.’

  ‘Is it really Sunday? I’ve lost track of the days.’ She rubbed her face, trying to think straight. ‘And I don’t have time for a day off until this damn fundraiser is over and the cheques are safely in the bank. And the bills are paid. I really should go in and check email and –’

  ‘No,’ Gabe said. In one swift move, he had captured both her wrists, pinning them down on the bed over her head.

  A frisson of excitement skittered through her. She wasn’t into hardcore S&;M, but a little light frisky bondage was a nice diversion from the usual. She hadn’t had a chance to wonder whether Gabe felt the same way.

  ‘You’re staying here,’ he said. ‘In my bed. I’m far from being through with ravishing your naked body. The only reason you can leave is if we decide to go exploring while we regain our strength, or you’ve got pets to feed at home – and if you do, I’m going with you, because I’m not letting you out of my sight.’

  She insinuated a thigh between his, pressing against his crotch. ‘Well, if you’re going to be that insistent about it…And no, there are no pets.’ She could check email tonight.

  As if reading her thoughts, he used his free hand to caress her breasts. ‘All day,’ he said. ‘All night.’

  Hmm. She liked the way he thought. He was certainly distracting her and goodness knows she hadn’t felt less stressed in months. OK, she could handle emails in the morning.