Chapter 13 #2
Her rich, throaty laughter jogged something loose inside me. “You think I’m repressed?” I couldn’t decide if I was insulted or if she was challenging me.
Daring me to prove her wrong.
“Right now? Now I think you’re lust-drunk.”
“And I think you talk too much.”
I slanted my lips over hers, kissing her long and slow before capturing her nipple between my teeth once again.
The last rays of the sun sparkled on her crystal necklace, dangling so erotically between her breasts.
One of which I hadn’t given any attention yet.
I freed the other and swallowed at its sheer perfection before I took her nipple into my mouth.
Her hands returned to my hair as I devoted myself to my task. I was very good at focusing. And from her quickened breathing, she didn’t mind one bit.
Distantly, I heard a meow. Then another. Concern pricked at the edges of my consciousness, but Ryan was moaning now, her nails rough against my scalp as she rode my cock through my trousers.
“I want to taste the rest of you.” She had no idea how close I was to begging.
How close to just pushing back my seat all the way and taking her right here, possible witnesses and potential public embarrassment be damned.
I was burning up for her. My clothes felt too tight. I needed to get out of this tie, this jacket, these freaking torture device pants.
And I needed to get in her. So deep that neither of us could think straight.
Not that we were now.
“Mmm. I think we can arrange—” She turned her head and gasped out a laugh.
Panting, half crosseyed, I turned my head and discovered my new cat sitting on the passenger seat, watching us unrepentantly.
“What the hell?” I tried to catch my breath, to resist her shiny nipple gleaming up at me. My lips were humming from just the feel of her.
Ryan tipped her head against mine. “Did you forget to latch the carrier?”
“No?”
“That doesn’t sound very certain. Did you head bonk your way out, Smoky?” Her hand shook a little as she held it out to the cat, who rubbed his head against her in a clearly adoring manner.
One I fully identified with, especially when she was seated on my lap. My damn zipper was about to bust.
“Smoky is a great name. Do you like it?” I asked the cat, and then I frowned and pretended I hadn’t.
Ryan’s laughter rumbled in her throat. “He’s probably hungry. Or has to pee.”
“We all have needs.”
“Don’t we just?” She arched a brow, clearly amused at me. She was recovering much faster than I was. “You have a setup at home?”
“What kind of setup? I have bathroom and kitchen facilities like everyone else.” As her mouth curved, I leaned back against the headrest and took another moment to look my fill at her breasts before covering them back up.
The last thing I wanted was anyone to wander by and get a glimpse of her like this. “I blame blood loss.”
“You mean blood rerouting.” She rubbed against my painfully aroused cock. “So, about that fitting conversation...”
I grunted. “I need a damn litter box. And cat food. I wasn’t thinking. I’ve never been a parent before. Pet parent,” I added belatedly, but it was too late.
“You always surprise me, PMS.” Her expression softened beautifully in the fading sunlight. Her skin had the sexiest flush from the rasp of my whiskers, and her lips were puffy from mine. Her nipples were too.
Just the way I wanted them.
I brushed my thumb over her mouth. “I like seeing you swollen from me.”
She nipped the pad of my finger before she slid a glance down my body to where my erection was still doing a mighty fine job of trying to escape my trousers. “Same goes.”
Before I could say the words circling in my brain—how about we fuck like people who don’t work together—she let out a long sigh. “Let’s go to the pet store.”
“Really?”
“You have a better idea?”
“Define better.”
Her throat rose and fell on a quick swallow. “That was hot, but…”
“But?”
How was there still a but between us? All the many, many logical reasons aside.
Ones I was not considering at all. Not until I’d handled the situation that was causing my precipitous drop in IQ points.
She dropped back her head, exposing the long line of her throat. “I’m not looking to be your morning-after mistake.”
“I made a choice,” I reminded her. “I kissed you with almost all my faculties intact.”
“With a dick that hard, I doubt it. Impressive, by the way.” She climbed off my lap and managed to land in the passenger seat without flashing more than a forbidden glimpse of her thigh or crushing the cat.
“C’mon, Smoky.” She scooped him up. “Let’s get you back in that carrier and go get you some toys and goodies.”
I reached down to refasten my jacket and adjusted myself with a wince as she got out to settle Smoky in his carrier. I briefly worried about his potential to flee, but he didn’t seem to be a flight risk while she was holding him.
Who could blame him?
“Do you have pets?” I asked as she latched the carrier.
She got back in her seat and clicked her belt back into place as I did the same. She looked seductively mussed with her lipstick partially worn off and her dress askew, and I couldn’t stop staring at her.
“I have my hands full with plants.” She grinned, studying me. “Your hair is a wreck.”
I flipped down my visor mirror and discovered she wasn’t lying. I tried to get it back into a semblance of order, and she huffed out a sigh before grabbing her purse. “Come here.”
I came.
She did some magic with her hair brush and some spray I didn’t question yet probably should have. “Have you ever tried guyliner? You have the eyes for it. That panty-melting golden brown.”
“Not sure it’s the proper image for a law office,” I said dryly once she moved back.
Luckily, she hadn’t added a pink stripe or God knows what to my hair. I just looked put together again.
I had no reason at all to be disappointed.
Smoky let out a plaintive meow, which was my cue to slip the car into Drive.
We arrived at Pet-O-Rama a few minutes later. I wasn’t back to normal, but I was no longer prepared to take her in the front seat. Although I could be ready in an instant, should the situation warrant it.
I had a feeling it wouldn’t.
As I parked, Ryan quickly fixed her lipstick and rearranged her hair, ensuring that no one in the world would ever guess we’d behaved highly inappropriately. My biggest regret was that we’d been interrupted.
“I had sex in a fountain once,” I announced as she was about to get out of the car.
She glanced back. “Drinking or ornamental?”
I had to laugh. “Ornamental. It ended with us in the back of a police car.”
“Ouch.” She grimaced. “But did you get an orgasm first?”
I frowned. “I can’t quite remember.”
“I’m gonna go with no then. Pro tip—always make sure you have the orgasm first. C’mon, Smoky,” she said into the back. “We’re going in to get you all kinds of stuff. Daddy’s got a platinum card.” She climbed out to open the back door and free the cat from his prison.
I was still smiling when it fully clicked in what she was doing. “You can’t bring a wild animal into a retail establishment.”
She snorted as she nestled the cat against her chest. “Watch me, PMS.”
She shut the door on my astonished expression.
I joined them at the double doors and she tapped the sign that said pets welcome before we walked inside.
We were immediately confronted with a leashed Saint Bernard who lifted his head and licked my likely terrified cat with a pink tongue the size of a chaise lounge.
I expected the cat to hiss and jump down before running away to hide in the bowels of Pet-O-Rama, never to be seen again.
Instead, Smoky turned his head and began to wash his face.
“I thought cats hated dogs,” I said when my voice returned and we’d turned down an aisle with many fish tanks.
“Don’t believe the hype.”
“Hmm.”
“All animals are as different as all humans are. Take you and me.”
“You always get the orgasm first?”
It took a father hurrying his young daughter down the aisle away from us for me to fully grasp I was not using my indoor voice.
Ryan buried her face in the cat’s fur to stifle her laughter. Then she glanced up and gave me a sly look. “I’m going to say no. Because you definitely left me hanging in the car.”
“Don’t blame me for that,” I said under my breath and nodded to the cat.
She scratched his neck. “Don’t listen to him, Smoky.”
I followed her down the maze of aisles after accepting the basket she thrust at me, vowing not to speak again unless I was spoken to—at least not before I’d had an opportunity to relieve myself properly in the shower.
Obviously, I wasn’t capable of rational, voice-modulated discourse beforehand.
We wandered through the store, filling the basket. Cats needed a lot of items, apparently, although they themselves were quite small. Things such as dishes for dry and wet food and for water. At least that was what I believed, but she shoved a fancy fountain thing at me and told me fresh was best.
Next up were treats. Soft ones. Hard ones. She offered them along with a lecture about not overfeeding, which seemed counterintuitive since she was the one suggesting I offer my cat all manner of junk food.
When the basket overflowed, I traded it for a cart, and Ryan put Smoky into the extra large bright pink litter pan she had selected.
I expected the cat to jump out, but he seemed quite content to be pushed around while we loaded up on jumbo bags of cat litter—how much did one animal go?
—and dry food containers and cans of food.
Throughout, Smoky observed all, silently and without judgment. Well, without much judgment.
It helped that she found a large catnip snake for him to amuse himself with.
Half the filling had spilled out and was smeared all over his chin and cheeks by the time we made it to the checkout line.
I blamed my distraction with the destroyed toy for how Ryan was able to sneak a cat harness into our purchases.
Also bright pink.
Worst of all, it had a pouch-like add-on called a Pussy Papa. Or maybe that was what they thought you’d be called if any of your neighbors saw you wearing one.
“I’m not putting this on,” I said once we were in the parking lot, and Ryan was loading Smoky into the carrier. I held the ensemble up by its two pink straps. “Not in this life or any other.”
She shut the back door before yanking the contraption out of my hand and tucking it into a bag with some paw-shaped lights she’d added to the cart when I wasn’t looking. I had no idea what I was supposed to do with those either.
“Being secure in your masculinity is sexy,” she informed me before closing the trunk.
“My masculinity isn’t in question. What makes you think Smoky wants to ride around in that? We got him a leash, which again, he’s a cat not a dog. If he wants to go outside, I have a backyard. Fenced, I might add.”
“Right, and all it takes is one errant wild dog to leap the fence and take him out. And you know they can climb, right?”
“Oh, but he’s going to be safe strapped to my chest?”
“Well, of course.” She reached up to pinch my biceps, fluttering her lashes. “Why, you could protect a little defenseless feline without even breaking a sweat.”
“I can still fire you even if you’re a temporary worker.”
She leaned up against me and whispered in my ear. “So you can get my breasts in your mouth again? You don’t need to fire me for that, obviously.”
The part of me that cared obsessively about rules bristled. What we were doing—what I was doing—wasn’t proper in any way. Then she turned around and sauntered back to the passenger seat, putting a swivel in her walk that could’ve drawn me straight to the gates of hell.
And I didn’t care about wrong or right.
I got behind the wheel and glanced into the back. Smoky was sleeping head down, the partially destroyed catnip snake mashed beneath his face.
Clearly, I wasn’t the only one getting high on my own supply.
I put on my belt and started the car. For all of ten seconds, I contemplated going back home. I thought of my empty house, waiting in the dark for me. Lights burning to give me the illusion I wasn’t all alone.
“You hungry?”
She didn’t hesitate as she clicked on her belt. “Yeah.”
Already my mind was wheeling. “We could go to The Stadler House. It’s private and remote and—”
“How about Denny’s?”
I frowned. “I haven’t been to Denny’s since college.”
“Were you sober?”
“Definitely not. Does anyone eat at Denny’s when they are?”
“I do.” Her amusement came through loud and clear. “I can introduce you to a few things that will blow your mind.”
“Are we still talking about Denny’s?”
She laughed, low and rich. “Feed me and see.”