Petting Them: An Anthology of Claw-ver Tails

by Tate James

  While Hunter made his way to the bar to order, I snagged a tall table with two bar stools as a middle-aged couple left.

  “Good score,” Hunter commented as he joined me, carrying a table number and two frosty bottles of beer.

  “Beer, huh?” I remarked, taking the offered drink and peering at the label.

  Hunter paused with his own drink halfway to his mouth and gave me an uncertain look. “Shit, that was presumptive. Do you even drink?”

  As tempted as I was to mess with him and say no, I was genuinely thirsty and not fussy in the least. “It’s fine,” I assured him with a grin, then took a long sip. “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome, Cleo,” he smiled back, and once again I got the impression he was purring my name. It was the strangest thing, but maybe I’d been spending too much time with cats rather than people.

  “Tell me a bit about yourself, Hunter,” I prompted after a pause. His gaze on me was just that little bit too intense, like he was reading my mind again, and I needed to break the tension.

  “What would you want to know?” he asked, cocking his head to the side and not taking his eyes off me.

  Shifting slightly on my stool, I ran my fingers through my neon hair and averted my gaze back to the band. “I don’t know; that’s why I’m asking. What is a guy like you doing in a middle-of-nowhere town like this? You’re Australian, right?”

  I glanced back to him, and he nodded. “Sure am. Sydney boy, born and raised.”

  “So, how did you end up here?”

  Hunter finally took his eyes from me and tipped his head to the stage where the gorgeous, bronzed god was still jamming out on his guitar.

  “Came to visit Adriel—that devastatingly handsome bastard on guitar—and just never quite made it home again.” There was something off in the way he said this, like the humor had suddenly dropped out of his voice. “Maybe one day I’ll make it back.”

  I raised my eyebrows at him. “Well, that sounds like a story.”

  He gave me another devastatingly sexy smile and took a long—seriously seductive—sip of his beer. “Story for another day. Why don’t you tell me about you, Cleo? You’re clearly an animal lover.”

  “Because I’m on my way to rescue kittens?”

  He nodded. “That and all of your tattoos have got animals incorporated somewhere. Or the ones I can see so far do.”

  I choked a little on the sip of beer I’d just taken, my mind fixating on his suggestion that he might see more of my ink later… with considerably less clothing. Damn, this dude was doing a number on my libido.

  “Good call,” I replied when I trusted my voice not to sound too sexed up. With my free hand, I rubbed a finger across the foxes on my chest and tried not to think about the big cats woven into the design under my clothes. All that would do was make me picture Hunter taking my shirt off and—

  “My best friend, Meg,” I explained, “she owns her own tattoo parlor and uses me as a living canvas.” I didn’t bother explaining that I had been letting her tattoo me in increasingly more obvious places, like my neck or the backs of my hands, because of my intense need to piss off my straight-laced, pearl-clutching mother.

  Hunter smiled, his eyes following my finger across my chest ink. “Well, she’s a talented artist.” He paused then as a waitress arrived and dropped two identical burgers on our table. “Crap, I didn’t even ask if you were a meat eater.”

  With the tip of my finger, I tilted the top bun up on my burger and inspected the heavy meat patty and strips of bacon.

  “Quit second-guessing yourself, Hunter,” I told him, picking up the whole thing to take a bite. “Love beer and meat. Just ’cause I look like a Portland hipster doesn’t mean I’m a vegan.”

  Hunter snorted a laugh and took a bite of his own burger. For a while, we ate in comfortable silence, listening to the band play and sipping our drinks.

  It wasn’t until the band took a break that I hopped off my stool and went to grab us more drinks. I’d been nursing an empty bottle for most of the last song but hadn’t really wanted to take my eyes off Hunter’s friend—Adriel.

  I paid the bartender for two more beers, then almost dropped the damn things when I arrived back to our table and found the object of my attention casually chatting with the sexy Australian who I was equally as attracted to.

  Fucking hell, who knew small towns were the place to meet hot men?

  “Cleo, this is Adriel,” Hunter introduced us. “I was just telling him how I rescued you from the side of the road today.”

  I dipped my head in a nod, avoiding the stunning man’s intense gaze. Up close, his eyes were green but seemed almost backlit, like a wild cat at night.

  “Uh, yeah,” I mumbled. “I was having a pretty shitty day, so it was a good thing Hunter found me when he did.”

  There was a bit of an awkward pause, and I could feel Adriel staring at me. Or was he glaring? It was really hard to tell without staring back, and for some reason I was too scared to meet his gaze, instead choosing to focus on the ink curling over the back of his hand and up his strong forearm.

  “If your day was so shit, why are you drinking this piss water?” he asked me finally, and shock made me glance up. His face was serious, and I couldn’t work out if he was joking or not. On closer inspection, I decided he was probably Native American rather than Middle Eastern or North African like me.

  “Are you... accusing me of lying?” I spluttered, frowning at the handsome asshole. “I wouldn’t make up a day as shitty as I was having. No one could make that crap up.”

  He shrugged one of those broad, muscular shoulders and quirked a brow. Not once had he blinked that I’d seen. “I’m just saying, you might want something a bit stronger.”

  Without waiting for my response, he sauntered towards the bar with a sexy swagger, and I caught myself staring at his denim-clad ass the whole way, until Hunter let out a long sigh.

  “What?” I feigned innocence, turning back to my new friend.

  He rolled his eyes and took a sip of his beer. “You,” he replied, “drooling over Adriel. Here I was thinking that I might have been in with a chance seeing as I met you first.”

  This made me choke a little on my own drink again, and I did a bit of a double take to check that he wasn’t joking. He was grinning, sure, but did that mean he was kidding? Why was it so damn hard to tell?

  “You’re kidding, right?” I decided it was easier to just ask rather than assume.

  He arched a brow at me. “No, why would I be kidding? That wanker constantly gets the girls. Here I was thinking my accent would work for me, but he has to swoop in all brooding and angry with that gorgeous hair and strong jawline. Ugh. I hate him.”

  I squinted at Hunter for a moment, feeling like I’d just stepped into an alternate universe or something. Seriously, Allison and her Underland had freaking nothing on the craziness that was Hunter questioning his own attractiveness.

  “Okay, now I know you’re fucking with me. You look like the sort of guy who would be a jeans model or an actor or something. Aren’t all you Australian men related to the Hemsworths, anyway?” I gave a nervous laugh, grasping at my necklace and rubbing my thumb over the pendant.

  Hunter barked a short laugh. “Not quite, but are you saying I’m still in the game here, Cleo?”

  “I don’t know what game you’re talking about, but if you’re trying to make me say I’m attracted to you, then yeah, I am. You’re stupid hot; you both are. Happy?” I tucked my necklace back inside my shirt and picked at the label on my bottle while I desperately searched for a change of subject.

  Thankfully, Adriel returned then carrying a full bottle of whiskey and four shot glasses, saving me from what was sure to turn into a super awkward conversation. Not that it wasn’t already.

  “Who’s the fourth for?” I asked, curious.

  “Boden,” Adriel replied, then didn’t elaborate. He really did have the brooding thing down as he poured out three of the glasses and handed on
e to me without another word.

  Hunter took his and clinked it against mine before downing it in one gulp. “He lives with us,” Hunter explained as I drank my own whiskey a little slower. “But I thought he wasn’t getting back to town until later tonight?” This question was aimed at Adriel who just shrugged.

  “So, you three live together?” I asked when it became clear Adriel wasn’t replying to Hunter about their third friend’s whereabouts. It was a dumb question, given Hunter had just said as much, but sitting opposite these two was making my brain malfunction.

  Again, without really meaning to, my fingers found my necklace and fiddled with the pendant.

  “That’s an interesting necklace, Cleo,” Adriel remarked, his voice somewhat sharper than a casual observation required. Hunter must have thought so, too, because the table jerked as he kicked his friend in the leg.

  Glancing down at the pendant between my fingers, I nodded. “Thanks. I got it in a junk store when I was a kid. I’d just gotten to the age where I actually understood that I was adopted, and my friend Meg and I went a bit nuts researching my Egyptian heritage. So, when I saw this in a shop, I just... had to have it.” I traced the little hieroglyphics carved into the metal disk with my fingertip. “It’s probably a bit stupid that I’m still wearing it after all these years, given it was just a cheap knock-off.”

  “Not stupid at all,” Hunter corrected me with a small frown. “It clearly speaks to you, and that’s all that matters.”

  “Do you know what it says?” Adriel asked, still in that sharp tone that made me feel a bit on edge.

  I shook my head and responded with sarcasm. “No. In case you weren’t aware, ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics aren’t commonly taught at school in Oregon.” His tone had been that perfect blend of snarky and condescending that made my blood boil. Pretty soon we would come to verbal blows. Or I’d just kick him in the balls, one or the other.

  He must have come to the same realization because he gave me a tight, insincere smile and poured us all another shot. “Of course. Just wondered if you’d looked it up. No need to get catty about it, Cleo.”

  My eyes narrowed, and I opened my mouth to bite back at him, but Hunter’s hand on my wrist stopped me. He turned my hand over and pushed my sleeve up a bit to reveal my freshest ink—a cute cartoon voodoo doll with a pink bow. Meg and I got them on a trip to New Orleans recently, and it was the only one I had that wasn’t done by Meg herself.

  “This is cute,” Hunter commented, stroking the doll with his fingers.

  I wasn’t even going to pretend that I didn’t shiver at his touch. It felt like he’d just zapped me with electricity or something... except the jolt went all the way to my sex drive. Weird. Not that I was complaining; it had been a long-ass time since any guy had lit me up like that.

  “Souvenir,” I explained, feeling my heart thundering in my chest and desperately hoping I was pulling off casual-cool and not needy–turned on. “Do you have any tattoos, Hunter?”

  His lush lips curved up, and his chocolate-brown gaze captured mine in a way-too-heated moment. “You’ll have to wait and see, Cleo.”

  Ugh, there he goes again, purring my name. So freaking hot.

  “Tone it down,” Adriel snapped, and I jerked out of Hunter’s grip. For a moment I’d forgotten we weren’t alone and had somehow ended up leaning intimately close to the Australian Adonis.

  Clearing my throat uncomfortably, I took a huge gulp of my whiskey and almost missed the irritated glare Hunter shot his friend.

  “Don’t you have another set to play or something?” he prompted, jerking his head back to the small stage where Adriel’s bandmates stood chatting but clearly waiting for him to return. “Go on, mate. I’m perfectly capable of entertaining Cleo alone.”

  The bigger man scowled at his friend, his inky-black lashes framing those glowing green eyes in a way that made my breath catch—in arousal or fear, I couldn’t be totally sure.

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” Adriel muttered but placed his glass back on the table and returned to his band anyway.

  Alone with Hunter once more, I shifted on my stool and poured another shot of whiskey. The strange feeling of intimacy when he’d touched my skin was making me uncomfortable in retrospect. What the hell had just happened? It was like the whole room had disappeared from around us and all I had been able to focus on was him. Hunter.

  “Okay, spill it,” I ordered him, sick of asking myself questions I had no answers for.

  “Spill what?” he replied, arching a brow at me but not losing the amused tilt to his lips. Did he know how badly his innocent touch had affected me?

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “There’s something weird going on here. It’s not normal to break down in the middle of nowhere, only to be rescued by the sexiest import since Hugh Jackman and his drool-worthy bad-boy best friend. So what gives? Why are you two here in this blink-and-you-miss-it town, why do you seem so interested in me, and what the hell just happened when you touched me? This isn’t normal, Hunter.”

  His smile spread wider, and I already knew I wasn’t getting any straight answers from him. I also knew I wasn’t off the mark because he didn’t act confused in the least by my questions.

  “You think I’m sexy, huh?” He, of course, grabbed onto the compliment and ran with it. Typical man. “Maybe that explains what happened when I touched you? You were just overcome by my raw sex appeal?”

  I rolled my eyes, but the thought had crossed my mind. Maybe the stress of my day was finally catching up to me and making me space out. “Sure, keep your secrets for now,” I conceded. “I think I can get you to fess up by the time this bottle is empty.” I tapped the whiskey bottle with my glitter-painted fingernail, and Hunter barked a laugh.

  “You think so, Cleo?” he purred my damn name, and I found myself focusing way too hard on his mouth. “Challenge accepted.”

  Hunter shifted in his seat so that his back was to the band—and Adriel—and his focus was locked entirely on me. Almost as though he was taunting me, his fingers brushed against mine as he took the glass I was offering him.

  For that brief moment of contact, the same damn thing happened, and when our skin parted, I could feel my heart thundering like I’d been running. Or... some other form of vigorous exercise.

  Hunter took my challenge seriously but was dragging me along with him. By the time Adriel’s set finished, we only had an inch left in the bottle and were both laughing like hyenas over some ridiculous story Hunter had just told.

  “Seriously?” the darkly handsome musician snapped as he rejoined us and picked up the almost empty bottle.

  A lazy, drunk smile pulled at my lips, and I shrugged. “Don’t blame me; I was fine with beer until you bought that.”

  Adriel glared at me a moment, then shifted an exasperated look to Hunter. “This is your idea of entertaining Cleo?”

  “Damn skippy, it is,” Hunter slurred slightly as he replied with a grin. “We were just getting to know each other better, and what better way than with a little social lubrication, mate?”

  Whatever reprimand Adriel was about to dish out was interrupted by the arrival of a third man with equally startling good looks. He was tall, like the other two, but with naturally sun-lightened blond hair. For some reason, my drunken brain decided he must really love nature. Hiking and rock climbing and shit. He just looked like the type, all muscled and tanned and whatnot.

  “Hey, Boden!” Hunter greeted the newcomer with a slap on the back. “You’re back early!”

  The blond guy frowned slightly at Hunter’s inebriated state, then flickered a curious look at me. “Yeah, I had a feeling there might be something going on tonight.” His frown smoothed out, and he offered me a hand to shake. “I apologize for my friend’s manners, miss. I’m Boden. You are...?”

  “Cleo,” I replied, taking his hand in mine. “Technically, that’s not my name. It’s a nickname that Meg gave me when we were kids; my real name is Margaret.”


  Startled at the little pile of word vomit that had just spewed from my mouth, I clapped my free hand over my lips. The new guy hadn’t released me from his grip yet but looked seriously amused by my confession.

  “It’s nice to meet you, Cleo,” he finally said and let go of my fingers.

  I sighed in relief that he hadn’t decided to use my real name, but a quick glance at Adriel’s smug face said I would probably be hearing it from him. Dammit.

  “Sorry, I don’t know why I just told you that,” I admitted as Boden dragged a stool over to sit between Hunter and me. “All the whiskey must have loosened up my filter a bit.”

  “Looks like I missed all the fun,” he commented, raising his brows at the bottle still held between Adriel’s fingers, but the surly rocker just scowled back.

  “Hardly,” he grunted, flicking a glare between Hunter and myself like we were naughty children. “These two have been drinking like fish and then howling with laughter over something while I was playing with the band. What was so funny, anyway?”

  His question brought back the giggles, and I started shaking silently with laughter as Hunter just shook his head and tried to swallow back his own laughter.

  After a few breaths, he explained. “I was telling Cleo about our trip to Cancun.”

  This, of course, set the two of us off again in drunken giggles while Boden grinned and Adriel’s glare darkened like a toxic storm cloud. Of course he wouldn’t have found it funny; the whole story of their trip to Cancun involved how Adriel had accidently drugged himself and streaked through a crowded nightclub, evading all the security and eventually needing to be tackled by a drag queen.

  With a pissy look on his face, Adriel poured the remainder of the whiskey into his glass, then slammed it back in one huge gulp.

  “Oh! End of the bottle!” I cried out, pointing to the empty container, then reaching past Boden to whack Hunter on the arm. Even drunk as I was, I was careful to whack him on the shirtsleeve, not his bare skin. As good as it felt when his skin touched mine, it was tripping me the hell out, and I wanted an explanation before giving in to it.