Accidentally Catty Read online

  Shaw knew her body well enough by now to know the signs. He licked her until her fingers clawed at his shoulders and her knees were weak.

  There was no rest when their lovemaking got to this point. Pulling her down to his level, he slid beneath her, lying flat on the braided throw rug. Katie straddled him, letting his cock rub against her clit while she stroked him hand over hand. His hard shaft sent her heart racing again; the buck of his hips made her wet her lips in anticipation.

  She made a move to position herself between his thighs, but Shaw grabbed her upper arms with strong hands. His eyes, blue and hot with desire, pierced hers. “Not now, Katie,” he warned in a sex-drenched lust of a grumble. “Right now I just need to fuck.” He dragged her back upward, spreading her thighs to wrap around his waist, claiming her lips as he did. “I just want to fuck you—hard and fast. Now, Katie. Put my cock in you now.”

  Katie shivered her delight at his crude words. She’d never been much of a talker during lovemaking; now she wondered if that wasn’t because there wasn’t much to talk about. She groaned her compliance, lifting her hips and steadying the head of his cock at her entrance.

  Shaw growled low and feral at her teasing. In contrast to his almost always calm, humorous demeanor, when it came to the bed sport, he was possessive, insatiable, and sometimes harshly demanding. And she was drawn to those demands like a moth to a flame, craved his words, longing for his slightest touch. “Don’t toy with me, woman,” he commanded, gripping the flesh of her hips with biting fingers and driving her down on his fiery shaft.

  Katie screamed her pleasure, clinging to his neck by sliding her arms beneath his head. He drove upward, lifting her on his strong thighs so that she felt every muscle in his body contract and flex.

  His hard chest scraped against her nipples, his hands dug into her ass, forcing her downward in a harsh demand for satisfaction. The pulse of him within her, thrusting into her silky wet passage, made her dizzy. Flashes of white lights screamed behind her closed eyes as their hips picked up a harder pace.

  Shaw latched onto her earlobe, suckling it, whispering erotic words in her ear, encouraging her to come. Without meaning to, her teeth dug into the flesh of his shoulder, the pleasure was intense. Sweat glued them together, making their bodies glide in a decadent slip and slide of skin against skin.

  “Christ, Katie,” he said between clenched teeth.

  Katie acknowledged the beginnings of his climax by nipping at his hard jaw, lifting her hips high, then jamming them back down, hearing the slap of their flesh.

  Tendrils of electricity seized her, her every nerve screaming its need for release. It bit at her, clawed her until she could hear nothing but her blood rushing in her ears and the molten heat of orgasm.

  Shaw thrashed his hips upward one last time, the strength of his muscles in full force, his climax jolting her.

  Katie fell against him, letting her cheek rest against his chest while she gasped for breath. His arms went around her as they always did while they came back to Earth, stroking her back, running circles over her skin, still sensitive from their lovemaking.

  “Woman, you’ll break me like this,” he muttered against the top of her head.

  “Me?” Katie jabbed a finger into his chest. “I was minding my own business, cleaning Tinkerbell’s cage and perusing my new crossword puzzle book. This is on you.”

  “My only defense is the notion you had on another pair of those silky wisps of underwear you call panties. Your fondness for naughty underthings will be my undoing.”

  His words made her heart skip a beat, and she found for the hundredth time in so many days, she had to tamp down her romantic notions. Shaw liked a good toss—developing feelings for a man who didn’t even know his own telephone number would just be stupid. She pushed off him, rolling away to gather her clothes, refusing to snuggle against the warm cocoon of his chest. It always took all of her determination, but in the end, maybe when he returned to wherever it was he came from, it would hurt less.

  Pounding at the boardinghouse’s door startled them both into action.

  “Yoo-hoo! Demi and Ashton!” Nina yelled. “Break it the fuck up in there. Jesus Christ, there’s steam on the goddamned windows from all this cranking. Can’t you two keep it in your pants until we’re all asleep? Get back to the house now. Darnell’s here with some shit about Dr. Green.”

  Both Katie and Shaw scurried to gather their clothes, making assholes and elbows to the door, clothes askew, hair mussed.

  Just before they hit the front steps of the porch, Katie stopped and clutched the banister.

  Shaw came up at her rear, tapping her on the ass. “You okay?”

  What if Darnell held the elusive key to Shaw’s mysterious life, and this was all over? There’d be no more late nights of fierce lovemaking. No more giggling at the thought of being caught by Teeny. No more watching Shaw as he swung an ax to chop wood, his muscles bulging and flexing in the late afternoon sun. No more ridiculous cartoon watching. No more. A tear sprang up in the corner of her eyes out of nowhere.

  Shit. Clearly, those feelings she didn’t want to develop were developing. Her heart fluttered at this new emotion, tight in her chest and uncomfortable in its newness.

  “Katie?” Shaw said again, cupping her chin. “Are you okay?”

  His blue gaze met hers. Sucking up her inner whine, she smiled. “Fine. Just a cramp in my leg, thanks to you and your yen for all things Kama Sutra-like.”

  “Blame, blame, blame,” he said on a laugh, loping up the steps and holding the door for her with his charming grin full of white teeth and dimples. “Come now. Aren’t you excited? Darnell has deets. I bet if you had confetti, you’d throw it.”

  Yeah. Yippee.

  Katie forced her legs to move, taking the steps with the kind of exuberance Shaw expected of her, light and quick.

  It was her heart that was heavy.

  So fucking heavy.

  "HEEEEY,” Darnell called from the corner of the kitchen, Paulie propped against his wide chest. “Gimme some, brotha,” he ordered Shaw, holding his fist forward.

  Shaw bumped it with a welcoming grin. “Darnell. Good to see you.”

  Well, look who was all jazzed to up and leave her like some discarded mistress. Bet his bags were already mentally packed. Player.

  Darnell’s wide grin greeted Katie. “How you feelin’?”

  Katie’s return smile was reserved. She didn’t want to shoot the messenger, but she wanted to at least wipe the infectious grin from his face. With the palm of her hand. Oh. Harsh, Katie. Harsh. “I’m okay, Darnell. How’re you?”

  He leaned back against the counter, crossing his feet at his ankles, the white of his Nikes glaring at her in all their cheerfulness. Happy, happy, happy. Darnell exuded it. And it sucked hairy ass when she was so unaccountably miserable. “I’m good, cougar lady. So, I got news. Not a lot, but some news that might help y’all, leastways a little.”

  Shaw’s face was unreadable, yet the tension in his body was palpable—at least to Katie, who’d begun to read his body language in just a mere shift of his stance. “Have you seen Dr. Green? Is he better? At least physically?”

  Darnell fiddled with the wide gold medallion on his chest. “Yep. I seen him aaiight. Doctors say he’s comin’ out the coma, and the bruises is fadin’. Least ways thass what I hear when I hover.”

  “Hover?” Katie asked, her eyebrows raising.

  “Yeah. I don’t just show up like me and the doc are homies. Hooo-wee, how’d that look? Me a big old scruffy bear and him a respectable doctor. ’Sides, they ain’t allowin’ him no visitors now. Police orders. So I lay low. I do it when I’m invisible. Hover. Ya know, like a UFO or a helicopter?” He held a wide, beefy hand up parallel to the floor to demonstrate.

  Of course. Hover, stoopid. “Got it,” she replied, her lips thin and trembling. “I didn’t know you could be invisible. I’m still learning.”

  Darnell popped his lips. “I can only do it fo’ a
little bit. I’m practicin’, though. Thass why I can only hear some stuff thass goin’ on. But I heard the doctors say he might wake up.” His face turned sour with distaste. “Shoot. He was some sight there, too. I dunno who took to him like that, but I like ’em to mess with old Darnell. Jack those shits up and make ’em cry fo their mamas, I would. Beatin’ on an old man ain’t right.”

  God. What a mess. Her heart constricted in pity for the confused, muttering man she’d encountered. He had to be at least seventy. Who would beat an old man almost to death?

  “So what else do the doctors say, Darnell?” Shaw’s words, cultured and inquiring interrupted her thoughts.

  “Ain’t heard much mo’ from the docs, but that poor old man’s been talkin’ in his coma.”

  Katie swallowed hard, her throat almost too tight to speak. Yet she forced herself to find her words with clenched fists at her side. “What is he saying, Darnell?”

  Darnell’s wide face filled with sympathy. His chocolate brown eyes liquid in the late afternoon sun. “He says you gotta save them. Save Nissa. Save ’em all. Over and over. I don’t know who Nissa is. I tried askin’. He got so riled up the other night ’bout it, I sat with him for a li’l bit. Held his hand till I knew the nurses was changin’ shifts. He was bangin’ around in that bed like he was gonna get up and go do what ’ere it is he seems to think needs doin’.”

  Katie couldn’t help but smile, even in spite of Darnell’s mention of this Nissa. He had a good heart and a gentle soul. How someone with such a good heart became a demon must have some story behind it.

  Shaw frowned. “He said something similar in my vision, too. He said he’d keep me safe, but there was no mention of a Nissa.”

  “Is that it, Darnell? Did he say anything else?” Katie’s eyes sought his, waiting, fearing his next words.

  His face returned to usual, cheery and bright when he flashed his white teeth at them and blew in Paulie’s face with a chuckle. “Nope. Thass all I got.”

  A breath of pent-up relief escaped Katie’s lips. Okay. So Shaw and his life was still a mystery. She fought to contain her joy, especially when Shaw muttered a curse.

  He shook his head, leaning a hand on the counter. “Damn. We’re getting nowhere here. We’re no closer to finding out who I am. We just keep adding pieces to an already enormous jigsaw puzzle.”

  Yeahhh. Bummer that. Katie shot him a look of sympathy. She did sympathize. Really. She wanted him to know who he was just as much as he did. She just didn’t want him to have a family or a nice English cottage by the sea with ivy crawling up the sides of it, and two-point-five children to greet him at the end of a day when he did it.

  That was petty, but there it was. The truth. She liked his presence in her life, more and more with each passing day. She liked when he smiled at her in the dark of night after they’d torn the sheets up.

  She especially liked that he was the one outside chopping wood when it was thirty degrees out. She liked. “I’m sorry,” she offered. “I know this is frustrating for you.” Well done. Appropriate disappointment displayed and noted, Katie Woods.

  But Darnell wasn’t done. He hoisted Paulie up over his shoulder to scratch his back. Paulie’s eyes rolled back in his head while he nipped at the earring in Darnell’s ear. “I got some other stuff, too.”

  Katie’s hackles went back up. “About Dr. Green?”

  “Nah. ’Bout you kitty shifters. Thought I’d seen prit-near ere’ thing since I been a demon, but you cats is da shit. Hardly nuthin’ out there ’bout ya. Usually, I can find someone who knows sumthin’, but your world’s like damned Attica. ’Scuse my bad language.” Yet, there had to be some information given Darnell’s pleased-with-himself expression. “So this is what I heard. I hear through the grapevine that you shapeshifting kitties are almost extinct’cuz someone’s been pickin’ you off one by one.”

  Shaw’s head bobbed upward. “What?”

  “Uh-huh. Thass what I heard. Nobody of consequence told me, so don’t think I got some important stoolie or nuthin’. Just a harmless demon thass been around awhile. There ain’t any of ya that can make baby cougars to add to the breed, either, add to that the fact that there ain’t been a baby cougar by a shifter in almost sixty years, and you all dyin’ off. And somebody likes it that way.”

  Katie’s sharp gasp filled the room. “But why?”

  Darnell’s wide shoulders shrugged. “I don’t know whass gone wrong or why, but you all ain’t reproducin’ nuthin’. That just leaves the elders in your community—whoever they are—and now you, Doc, and Shaw here.”

  “Which means all that moaning and groaning coming from your room is officially considered safe sex, huh, Doc?” Nina said on a snort, Wanda hot on her heels.

  Katie blanched.

  “Nina Statleon! I told you to stay put, you eavesdropper. God, do you always have to be so crass?” Wanda yelped.

  Nina gave her a blank stare. “Yep.”

  Wanda’s eyes narrowed. “You are the ultimate heathen! I told you to give them some privacy, didn’t I?”

  She gave an embarrassed Darnell a playful shot to the arm. “I can’t help it. Jesus, Wanda. It isn’t my fault I have fucking super hearing. It’s not like they were whispering. And it’s true. They’re all ridin’ each other like that roller-coaster Hercules every fucking night, screamin’ with their hands in the air to catch a wave. I’m nocturnal. I hear shit. Sue me.”

  Katie’s face flamed red, but Shaw had the nerve to chuckle. Chuckle. “Ah, Nina. Ever honest. I find it, despite an almost always jaw-dropping reaction, very refreshing.”

  Nina grinned, tightening her hoodie around her head. “Thanks, Spanky-Beck-Shaw. So what’s up with the chick?”

  “The chick?” Darnell repeated, making cooing noises at Paulie, who responded by burying his nose in Darnell’s Giants jersey.

  “Yeah. This Nissa. I told you, Doc. There’s always a woman, and I’d bet my tolerance for two and half bites of Twinkie that that bitch wants your ass dead. Maybe she’s Three Name’s wife or some shit. I dunno. I just know it’s always the way. There’s always a woman, usually rabid and out-of-her-bird jealous. I called it. Just you remember that when we have to beat the whore down.” She gave them all a pointed look.

  Wanda’s lips were turning blue from the clear effort not to slug Nina. Grabbing her by the back of her hoodie, she yanked her hard. “When will you realize you only make things worse? You’re like some metaphoric spoon, always ready to hop into a pot of boiling pasta and stir. Go. Teeny needs help with her pressure socks.” Wanda gave her a hard shove in the direction of the bedrooms upstairs.

  Nina slunk off, but not without a parting shot and the flip upward of her middle finger. “Spanky-Beck-Shaw thinks I’m refreshing. So in your face,” she muttered.

  Wanda gave Darnell a hug. “I’m sorry. You know Nina. You all finish chatting, and when you’re ready to tell us what you know, please do. I’ll be upstairs beating Nina with a wire hanger until she screams, ‘Please, Mommy! No more wire hangers!’” She laughed at her clever joke and followed Nina’s path.

  Katie’d had a moment to gather herself, and the questions had begun forming. “So maybe what Dr. Green was doing had something to do with the shifting population dying out? Maybe whoever tried to kill him knew he knew something? Maybe he was researching a cure? Or maybe he was using them as guinea pigs to find out why they can’t shift?”

  Now Shaw’s typically tan skin turned pale. “Maybe when Daniel said we have to save them, he meant the other cougars at the park? Jesus Christ, Katie. Maybe they’re shifters, too?”

  Oh. Hell. “Do you think that’s why that cougar jumped up on the glass? Remember, Shaw? I couldn’t tear you away. Maybe, much like when I shifted, if the cougars at the park are half human, half cougar, they can understand everything we say, but they can’t do anything about it because they’re in cougar form?” Though she’d only experienced it briefly, it was painfully frustrating. Dear God, how awful.

&nbs
p; Shaw began a brisk pace across the braided rugs, stepping over a sleeping Dozer. “There were at least five or six of them in that sanctuary, Katie. So why wouldn’t they just shift and get the hell out?”

  “Well, why didn’t you? According to Tink and Delray, you were there for several weeks, and you didn’t shift until you were in that cage here in my office. Maybe they can’t shift? Maybe it’s why you haven’t shifted? Maybe it’s why I haven’t shifted since that night? I don’t know. I haven’t even twinged since that night. I had a horrible buzzing in my head that just kept growing worse, and then it felt like everything was falling away—out from under me—around me—off of me. But since then, nothing.”

  Shaw dragged a hand through his hair. “Fuck,” he swore, clearly frustrated, as he almost never used a word so harsh. “I don’t know. I just know I felt a connection with that cougar. It wasn’t like she was talking to me in my head the way the other animals have. I just couldn’t tear my eyes away from her.”

  Katie’s eyes filled with tears, her anguish over her own dilemma all but gone. “We have to help them.”

  “That’s gonna be hard to do,” Kaih said, entering the room from the outer office.

  “Why?” Both Shaw and Katie asked in unison.

  Kaih jammed his hands into his lab coat, his face grim. “Because they moved them all today. Every last one of them and all the other exotics. They’re closing the park, and everyone in town’s blaming you and the ‘city people’ as they call them, for it.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Katie let her head sink to her chest as she sat on the edge of her bathtub to steady her shaking legs. She stared at her red painted toenails, lost in thought.

  “Katie Minerva! You okay in there?” Aunt Teeny knocked on the door with harsh knuckles.

  She cringed at the use of her middle name. “Fine, Aunt Teeny. I’m fine.” Fine. Fine. Fine.

  “Why do you need time?” Teeny yelled.

  Katie pressed a hand to her clammy forehead, pinching her cheeks for color before cracking open the door from her seat on the edge of the tub. “I said I’m fine, Aunt Teeny. I’ll be out in a minute.”