He’d seen her whiskers and not said a word about them? What kind of gay friend was he? And he’d noticed her breasts . . . which excited her. Which made her even angrier.
She tried to shrug his grip off, but he wasn’t letting go. The clasp of his lean fingers on her arm made her insane with two things. Lust and lust. Bad, bad, Katie. “Perky breasts and a firm ass are considered a fair trade for whiskers and a paw? What planet do you suspect you hail from?”
Beck’s dark lashes fluttered against his cheeks while he looked down at her with that glare that saw past her angry platitudes. “I’d bet there are more than a hundred women who’d call that more than fair, and they’d take the deal in a New York minute.” He snapped his fingers, long and lean, under her nose.
“Well I’m not one of those women. I was fine with the aging process. So if you thought gratitude was what I was handing out, you’d be mistaken.”
Beck held up his hand, still keeping her in his grip with the other. “We’ve gone astray. That isn’t why you’re conflicted.”
Katie rolled her eyes up at him and crossed her arms over her chest in a gesture of bored indifference. “Oh, then by all means, share your diagnosis.”
“It has to do with me. I leave you on edge because you’re conflicted.”
“I’m on edge because I don’t know what to expect next when I plant my foot on the floor tomorrow morning. I’ve been a cougar for two days—today it was the twenty-four-hour boob lift and bulldogs in my head, then it was whiskers and a perky ass. I’m not much for surprises.”
“Really, Katie? Well, I have one for you.”
She clapped her hands, mocking his statement. “Oh, boo and yah. Please—please tell me it’s another perk like maybe next I’ll gak up a hairball.”
“I’m not gay.”
Wait, wait, wait.Yes, he was. She bit back a groan. No. No. No. She must insist he be gay. This wasn’t an option he was allowed to take off the table. If he wasn’t gay, she was doomed. So she bluffed. “Yeah? So what? Me, neither.”
His smile was condescending and confident when he answered, “Thus the explanation for why you’re so edgy.”
Okay, now he was getting under her skin and burrowing there. “Wow. You’re on fire tonight, Mr. I Can’t Even Remember I’m a Cat. How do you figure you’re being heterosexual factors into my edginess?” Damn, damn, damn. For someone supposedly so young, his insightful observations were not just mature, but killing her.
“Ah,” he drawled as if he’d found the answer to evolution. “But now that I’ve told you I’m a heterosexual, your edginess will have a new facet.”
“Holy circles.”
“It’s simple. Pay attention. You’re edgy and conflicted because you find me attractive, Katie. It was easier to deny your attraction to me when you thought I was playing for the other team. Now that you know I’m not, you’ll take issue with my age, an age that can’t exactly be pinpointed with any accuracy, especially if the changes in your body are any indication to my own outward appearance. Maybe I’m not the twenty-two-year-old, skateboarding, candy-bar-eating teenager you thought I was. This presents a dilemma for you.”
Hoo boy, did it ever. She continued on the journey she’d begun. Playing dumb. “That being?”
Beck’s cheeks sucked inward, and then he smirked. “How to keep your hands off me.”
Her hands were staying right where they were. That went double for her paw. “Funny how you can’t remember anything, but you can remember how to be an arrogant egomaniac. Maybe you really are older. Only a mature man could have compiled that much conceit. It’s a man gift, I think. One that even sprawls the great divide of amnesia.”
Rocking back on his heels, Beck stared her down not even a little fazed, if his arrogant expression was any indication. “Call it what you will, it’s the truth. I’m not gay, and that makes you uncomfortable. Very uncomfortable.”
Oh, so the hell what? “It does not, teenager.”
He made a mocking face at her. “Oh, it does so, Grandma. I can prove it.”
“With your sage words of wisdom, Confucius?”
Beck lowered his head to her level, leaving an inch between their faces. “No. With this.”
Those confident words between them in the chilled air, he gathered her up, pulling her to him with a hand to the back of her head and the other at the small of her back, plastering her length to his.
Katie’s head tipped back, letting her catch a glimpse of his eyes seconds before his mouth swooped down to land on hers. They glittered with a self-assured amusement—a devilish glint of the hijinks he planned to embark upon.
Curling her hips into his, Beck slanted his mouth over hers, pausing but a moment to chuckle at her surprise before he parted her mouth. His hands splayed across her back, forcing her body to mold with his.
Hot fissures of pleasure were his instant reward, pricking awake each of her nerve endings like small ignitions of heat. She bucked beneath the smooth, heated feel of his mouth, the insistent pressure, the glide of his tongue when it touched hers.
If he was only twenty, they sure made ’em better kissers these days than they’d ever been when she was in college.
And then she found herself forgetting everything, succumbing to the swirl of hormones, racing and rushing to come out of their dark closet in a tumble of gleeful, targeted assaults on her body. The space between her thighs clapped imaginary hands of decadent joy. Her nipples, now crushed against Beck’s sexy chest, newly revived and awake, cried out at the friction their bodies made pressed so tightly to one another.
Katie’s hands gripped at his shoulders, feeling the rigid curves and planes beneath his thick, flannel jacket. They made her fingertips tingle with the need to discover his hot flesh naked, touch the place where his heart beat so fast, she felt it even through her jacket.
And an irrepressible need grew, spiraling from deep within her belly until her blood rushed through her veins and her heartbeat thumped in her ears like claps of thunder.
Beck’s mouth worked hers, driving his tongue into it, the rasp of silky flesh making her entire body tremble with molten hot need. His kiss was wet, demanding, and so delicious, her knees began to buckle. The rigid press of his zipper against her abdomen drove her stand on tippy-toe to press even closer so she could explore the hard length of him.
A sigh fell from her lips as their tongues dueled. A sigh of delicious satisfaction. A sigh she hadn’t sighed in a very long time. The sigh of a woman who wanted the pleasure this odd contradiction of a man wrought from someplace deep inside her.
Beck’s groan, low and thick against her lips, and then his hand, large and hot, cupping her breast was what snapped her out of this bubble of wanton lust they’d created in the middle of the woods. It reminded her that she had no business kissing someone she hardly knew. Someone who’d wreaked havoc in more than just her loins.
Someone who was a kid. Despite his lip-locking skillz.
Katie tore her lips from his mouth with a ragged gasp, but he didn’t loosen his hold on her. Instead, he forced her to look up at him by pulling her closer. Their chests crashed together, Beck’s breath huffed in and out in puffs of condensation while his stare bore into hers. “Did that in any way feel like gay teenage boy to you?”
She shot him a guilty glance before finding a tree just over his shoulder to focus on. “We don’t know how old you are. And I’m not kissing someone who could quite possibly be young enough to be my son. As to the gay thing, my only defense is you said you liked Project Runway. I know of maybe one straight man who does, and he’s one pink shirt with the collar flipped up from gay.”
“Correction. I never said I liked Project Runway. I don’t know what I like unless you count cartoons. Which I saw briefly because I’ve been so busy doing household chores, I haven’t had the chance to channel surf. I did recognize the tagline for Project Runway. That’s beside the point. The point here is you find me attractive. I definitely, if the snug fit of my jeans is correct, find you att
ractive, too. That’s the point. The other point being, you can’t use my supposed homosexuality as an excuse to freely check out my arse anymore without some kind of guilt attached to it. Now you’re just like me.”
She was puzzled—horrified to have been caught, but puzzled. “Like you?”
“Checking out your sweet backside because it’s sweet and I want it. Period.”
That heat he’d fanned to a flame rushed back to her insides, making her chest tight. “I don’t indulge in casual sex. With anyone. No matter their age.”
“Well, maybe that’s why you’re so bloody tight-assed and tense. There’s more to life than crossword puzzles and a marathon of Hoarders. Don’t deny you watch it. I saw the look of dismay when you realized they had a new episode on tonight and you were going to miss it because we ate dinner late. And lighten up. Checking me out isn’t a sin. I’m not opposed to you enjoying having a look at my body.”
That’s because Beck’s body was hard and tight and sculpted to within an inch of his life. Oh, wait, hers was, too. Almost. Who knew if tomorrow wouldn’t bring abs of steel and thighs like weapons that would need registering with the government?
And this was the second time in as many days someone had told her to lighten up. She’d once been light. Too light. No more light. Light meant you didn’t pay attention, and when you didn’t pay attention, bad things went on behind your back. Things you just couldn’t convince anyone you knew nothing about. “I can assure you, I did not have a look at your body. And even if I did, that’s still not a reason to . . .”
“Have one off? I think it’s every reason. And here’s another thought. Now that we’ve gotten the question of my sexual preferences out of the way, we are sharing the same space. You’ll have trouble keeping your hands off me in such tight quarters,” he said, following his bold, downright egomaniacal words with a boyish grin.
Oh, really. “Only a boy could make a statement so pathetically immature.” That’s the way, Katie. Strike back at all those hormones he made scream in any old mature way you can.
“We’ll see who’s immature when you can’t stop your estrus.”
Her who-us? Wait, she knew that word. It was Latin. She’d learned it in veterinary school, but she couldn’t remember what it meant because she couldn’t think clearly since this had all gone down. A frown wrinkled her brow. “My what?”
Beck’s expression said he knew something she didn’t know, and it was all too confident for her liking. “Huh. The lady with all those big words doesn’t know what an estrus is. I’ll give you a hint. It’s a four-letter word for the opposite of cold.”
Heat? She clearly wasn’t making the connection.
His laughter at her failure to guess made her eyes narrow at him. “Your heat, in simpler terms. It lasts upward of possibly ten days, and it’ll make you writhe with need.” His words came out quite matter of fact, shooting from his mouth like he was narrating a cougar fact while reading a script for a Nat Geo program.
Katie’s mouth fell open. Her heat? Like the kind where she was rubbing up against trees and lampposts while she howled, advertising her availability to any male within a hundred-mile radius heat? Flashes of the hundreds of animals she’d spayed and neutered in her career zipped before her eyes.
But wait again. How ironic that he could remember that part about being a cougar, yet nothing else sprang to mind? “It’s funny how sexually selective your amnesia is, don’t you think?”
Beck’s delicious lips pursed and then he frowned, too. A frown that said he didn’t know where that cougar detail had come from. “That just came out of—”
“Nowhere,” she finished for him on an exaggerated sigh. “I’ve heard this song before. Look, forget it. Forget everything that just happened because it won’t happen again. Ever. There’ll be no slap and tickle with me to pass the time while we Murder, She Wrote this out. No way. Kissing me was a mistake. Don’t make it again.”
As she turned to leave him there in the middle of the woods, his big hand slapped her on the ass with a playful thwack. “That motherly tone of yours turns me on. Big, old lady.”
Narrowing her eyes, Katie gritted her teeth. “You do that again, and I’ll show you the meaning of the word grounded. Now let’s hit it. If we screw around here in the Enchanted Forest any longer, Nina will come looking. You do not want me to tell her you had the nerve to touch my butt.” She turned with a stomp to head down the hill, furious he took absolutely nothing seriously.
He virtually squealed with laughter, the clunk of his feet right behind her, his breath, hot on her neck. “Ooooh, no! Not the big, scary Nina. Please, please, anything but that.”
Katie whipped around, her anger sizzling and spiky. “Are we going to take this seriously, or do you want to keep fooling around until we get caught?”
“I’m all for fooling around.”
Her lips thinned in utter fed up.
Beck rolled his eyes with exaggeration, throwing up his hands and giving in. “Okay, fine, Mom. This is me serious and ready to storm the castle.”
“Good. Now be quiet and let’s go.”
As they made their way down the steep hill leading to the parking lot, Katie fought the insane emotions Beck had dredged up in her. He’d made her feel like a living, breathing woman. Sexy, wanton, aware.
He’d also made it clear he wanted her in all of her estruswhateverthehell.
She’d made it clear that would go absolutely nowhere.
Watching his ass while he took the hill with sure feet, she had to ask herself why she’d done that?
“Are you looking at my ass, Dr. Woods?” Beck mocked over his shoulder with a chuckle.
“You are an ass!” she hissed in return, her face hot with embarrassment.
Dear Ruler of the Universe—I can handle paws and a frisky décolletage and even whiskers. I mean, what are razors for if not to shave your chin every day? But could we take a pass on the heat thing? I’ll swap ya for hairy legs and an out-of-control hairball . . .
CHAPTER 10
Katie’s heart throbbed in her chest. But it wasn’t with fear. It was with utterly euphoric, youthful jubilation.
She hadn’t felt this good in more years than she cared to count.
Beck stared up at her from down below just as she crested the top of the chain-link fence. He’d promised to catch her if she fell, but the confidence with which she’d climbed it left her unafraid to jump to the pavement below. What worried her was what her back would feel like once she made impact.
She wasn’t twenty like Teen Cougar. If she hit that pavement too hard, there was some Icy Hot and a muscle relaxant in her future. Or a hip replacement. She swung a leg over, straddling the fence, her minor fear of heights as far off as yesterday’s saggy ass.
“Mind making haste up there, Spider-Girl?” he whispered, giving a cursory glance around the all too well lit parking lot.
Katie stifled a giggle. She’d climbed the fence like she was an extra ape in Gorillas in the Mist. Hand over hand, she’d attacked the climb without much forethought and totally as though it was instinctual to crawl up a chain-link fence like she had suction cups on her feet and hands. When she hit the top, she felt like a young, athletic eighteen-year-old had possessed her body. No creaks, no aches, and absolutely no hesitation for what she was about to do next.
Without a qualm, Katie lunged to the ground, landing on all fours with a hushed thump.
Beck looked down at her with admiration in his eyes, his hands jammed into his jean pockets. “Impressive.”
She rose as though her knees had springs, her adrenaline rushing and her cheeks hot with the flush of his praise. “That was awesome times a million.”
His eyes held concern when he met hers. “I saw video cameras. We’re going to have to skirt them if we hope to avoid being caught. I think it’s possible, but better safe than sorry. We should use the ski masks.”
Katie nodded, dragging hers out of her pocket and pulling it over her face. Somewhe
re between the woods and hitting the parking lot, this whole breaking-and-entering thing strangely excited her. Adrenaline pumped through her veins at warp speed and fire burned in her gut. “Ready?”
“Let’s do it. Follow me, which won’t be a hardship, I gather.You will have that view of my bum you so vehemently deny indulging in. But I think I’ve located all of the cameras, so I know where to go.”
She rolled her eyes at him before falling behind his back.
They crept along the length of the fence, zigzagging in spots, ducking in others to keep from getting caught on the cameras.
Somehow, they’d found their way to the outer offices where the staff worked, passing huge outdoor waterfalls and trees designed for the cats to climb. There were faux caves and holes, a cougar’s favorite place to hide and sleep, according to Ingrid’s research online.
When they came to a padlocked door, Katie cursed at not having brought something to cut the heavy lock with, then shook her head in disbelief that this was all that kept criminals from getting in and dangerous animals from getting out.
“Shit!” Beck pulled up his mask and grabbed the lock in his hand, then yanked at it in angry frustration.
And then, as everything was wont to do in Beck’s hands, the steel lock virtually melted away, clattering to the ground.
“Uh, Spider-Girl, meet Superman,” she joked from over his shoulder.
Beck looked as surprised as she was when he stared down at his hands. “I just know there has to be X-ray vision in this for me.” He popped the door open, peering around the corner before allowing her to follow him. His hand at her waist to prevent her from walking into a dangerous situation made her glow—then curse under her breath for even remotely considering a hint of a glow.
Katie’s eyes went instantly to the corners of the ceiling. “No cameras? How can they possibly entertain ensuring the safety of these animals when their security is, at best, archaic?”
“Let’s just be grateful it’s archaic and get moving,” Beck replied, heading down a long hall, taking her hand and pulling her behind him.
Accidentally Catty Page 15