Cat Scratch Fever (2 page)

‘The Barbery Foundation isn’t.’ She sent a curse in the general direction of their former largest funder, who had cut them off without any warning. ‘The Zoological Association isn’t. Whoever let the ocelots out and hurt Magnolia isn’t.’

‘That’s one thing we don’t need to worry about. No one hurt Magnolia. She stepped on a sharp bit of gravel – it was still in the cut when I got here. And she’s going to be fine.’ José made a movement as if he wanted to hug her against his broad chest.

Out of the corner of her eye, Felicia could see the big steel operating table. Despite wanting very much to have hysterics, José’s closeness, the heat of his body and the table that had been the setting of her earlier fantasy were affecting her. She could see herself stepping into his arms, rubbing herself against him, reaching for his cock.

‘That’s a relief!’ she said, pretending not to notice his body language. Instead of leaning into the hug and anything else it might entail, she angled herself away from him so she could scratch Magnolia through the bars of the cage. ‘This is sad; I’d almost rather have her trying to bite me like she usually would. But her fur’s so soft. I can’t resist stealing a chance to touch her.’

Felicia could still feel her clit pulsing and her nipples straining against her bra, but the critical seconds had come and gone. She’d maintained professionalism. Barely, anyway. And that, she told herself, was more important than a hot fling.

Her brain believed it, even though parts of her were chiming in with another opinion.

*   *   *

By the time she was partway home, she was wishing she’d taken the risk. Now that the immediate crisis had passed, horniness seemed to have taken over all the brain cells it had been occupying. Her whole body ached with frustrated desire. Fantasies were coming between her and the road – Bob-from-Texas, José, various ex-boyfriends, Antonio Banderas, Jude Law and that guy who’d played Spike on
Buffy: The Vampire Slayer
doing her in every possible way and some which might not be possible but were pretty hot to imagine.

Finally, on a lonely stretch of Desert Canyon Road, Felicia pulled over, turned off her lights and opened her moon roof to let in the cool, pinon-scented night air. Heart pounding, she raised her skirt over her hips and wriggled out of her soaked panties. She hiked up her shirt and unfastened the front hook on her bra, letting her oversensitised breasts pop free.

Exposing herself to the stars, she clasped both nipples and began to twist and knead. Sometimes, a slow, light build-up was good but, overheated as she was, she craved the kind of stimulation she liked when she was about to come, a little harsher and more direct; an edge of what might be called pain, except it felt too damn good.

The good feelings flowed down her body, pooling between her legs. Her hips began to rock as if she were fucking thin air, but she continued to concentrate on her nipples, first twisting them like taffy, then caressing them more gently. Her juices had been flowing before, but she could feel herself getting wetter.

Faces, bodies, cocks flashed through her mind. She couldn’t settle on one so she conjured up an imaginary gang-bang: Antonio Banderas in her mouth, Bob-from-Texas caressing her clit with excruciating skill, José fucking her hard but tenderly and an ex-boyfriend who’d been particularly good at such things doing her up the ass. And, what the hell, Mel playing with her breasts. Felicia considered herself ‘straight though not narrow,’ but Mel, with her cool, pixie-Asian looks and short-cropped black hair, was cute enough to nudge her towards ‘mostly straight’, at least in her fantasy life.

Her posse of imaginary lovers in place, Felicia moved one hand between her legs. Two fingers plunged inside while her thumb worked on her clit. Oh yes, good, but not quite good enough. She relinquished her nipple, used the freed hand on her clit and adjusted the other so she could caress her ass as well. Her mouth worked as if she had a cock in it.

Picturing the scene with as much detail as she could – José’s warm, spicy smell and deep voice; the noises her ex used to make when he was buried deep in her ass; Antonio Banderas’s sexy accent; Mel’s small callused hands – she worked herself over. Her internal muscles milked at her fingers and she tried to imagine how José would move faster when he felt that, pounding into her to bring them both over the edge. That image was doing it. She was so close…

The gunning of a motor jerked her back from the edge of the abyss. Startled, she saw headlights in her rear-view mirror. The truck slowed as it got to her, probably wondering why she was at the side of a deserted road and whether she needed help. She motioned him by.

It was only after he’d passed that she realised she hadn’t pulled her skirt back down. Well, if he’d got an eyeful, more power to him.

Once her heart rate got back to normal, she cleaned herself up with some paper napkins she’d found in the glove box and rearranged her clothes into something resembling propriety. As tempting as it was to continue, that had been too close a call. Getting herself arrested for indecent exposure would most definitely not help SCCS’s publicity.

Grinding her teeth, she slammed the car into gear. Now her only goal was to not get arrested for speeding on the way home.

‘Yes, Mrs Turner.’ Felicia doodled Mrs Turner’s name in the margin of a yellow legal pad. The rest of the page was covered in notes, scribbles, circles and arrows, and a few exclamation points near things she absolutely had to remember. It echoed the organised chaos that was her tiny office at SCCS.

Her laptop sat on the only guest chair, drawn up next to her. Most of the time she typed with it on her lap, because her desk had been taken over by catering brochures, tent rental booklets, a pile of letters that needed to be reprinted because she’d spelt someone’s name wrong, pens, Post-It Notes and a very dead aloe. She was still distraught over the plant. Who killed aloe?

‘That’s certainly a unique take on the idea, Mrs Turner.’ On the yellow pad, she drew a circle around the name and a slash over it so hard that her pencil lead broke.

Valerie Turner was certifiable. Crazy as a skunk. She was a board member and the zoo’s biggest donor, though, so Felicia had to listen to her. Even when she came up with the world’s stupidest ideas.

‘I’ll see what I can do, Mrs Turner. Thanks for your always valuable input. Have a great day!’

Felicia dropped the phone and buried her face in her hands. Clowns. Now she wants f-ing clowns. The image of clowns fucking flashed into her head. That wasn’t fair. Why should the clowns get all the fun? It should have been silly but, in her sexually charged state, it made her thighs tremble.

Unsurprisingly, Rob (Bob? No, Rob) was long gone by the time she checked back at the hotel. The aborted attempt to pleasure herself in the car had almost driven her insane. Desperate for relief, she’d crawled into bed with Mr Twitchy, her bunny-eared vibrator. Mr Twitchy never let her down – unless his batteries died. Thankfully, she’d recently fed him fresh ones.

She’d been horny enough that she didn’t need to reach for a convenient magazine. Instead, she let her mind wander. Her sadly departed date, his long blond hair tickling her chest as he sucked on her nipples. José, his hands both strong and gentle – they would feel so good on her body, caressing, squeezing, lifting her up to impale her on his cock (which she imagined was dark and uncut). Mel joined in Felicia’s fantasy, as she imagined the other woman’s kittenish tongue lapping against her clit…

A knock at the door. Felicia jerked upright, realising she’d been squirming in her chair, her hand starting to slide up under her skirt as she relived the memory of the orgasm she’d given herself last night. An orgasm that hadn’t quite curled her toes the way she’d wanted it to. It had taken the edge off, but only just.

She pulled her hand up and smoothed her skirt as the door opened.

‘Off the phone?’ Katherine, her boss, asked, poking her head in. Katherine had the ever-present pinched look on her face, a furrow between her eyes. Katherine lived on caffeine and tightly wound stress.

Felicia firmly believed that what Katherine needed was to be relieved of all control; ideally, to be tied up and spanked. She could picture her boss, her face as red as her curly hair, squirming helplessly, finally free to scream away all her tension. Not that Felicia wanted to be the one administering the spanking particularly – after all, Katherine
was
her boss – but she knew that the experience could be liberating.

Stop. Thinking. About. Sex.

‘
Finally
,’ she said in answer to Katherine’s question. ‘Mrs Turner thinks we should have clowns as entertainment.’

The furrow deepened. ‘You’re the expert, but I’m not sure how that will fit with our theme.’ Poor Katherine. No sense of the absurd.

‘Don’t worry, there won’t be clowns,’ Felicia assured her. ‘I’ll figure out a way to let Mrs Turner down gently.’

‘Well, good.’ Katherine almost looked relieved for a moment. ‘I’m glad you’re free, because Gabriel Sullivan is here, and I need you to show him around.’

Who? Felicia scanned her desk, looking for a note to herself that might reveal who Gabriel Sullivan was and why she had to play tour guide.

‘The representative from the Zoological Association,’ Katherine said.

Oh. The Evil Suit who was coming to make sure that their budget issues weren’t affecting the cats. The very thought made Felicia want to growl and unsheathe her claws. It was unthinkable that anyone on the staff here could bear to see anything happen to one of the cats. Hell, they’d all already taken voluntary pay cuts. OK, SCCS looked a little shabby around the edges, but it was all cosmetic. Their first priority was the cats: food, shelter and the breeding programme.

She didn’t like him already.

Gabriel. The name conjured up the image of a nebbish little man, short and round and balding, with squinty eyes. Someone who hadn’t been laid in far longer than she had. Felicia licked her lips and smiled. Fine. She’d blind him with her charms; he’d write a nice report and everybody would be happy.

‘I’ll be right out,’ she told Katherine.

She felt around under her desk until she found the strappy sandals she’d kicked off, and stood, straightening her skirt. With the heat, she hadn’t bothered to wear tights. Her legs were long, toned and tan.
All the better to entice you with, nebbish man.

She slathered lip gloss on her lower lip and went to meet him.

There was no short, balding man in the gift shop. However, there was someone akin to Felicia’s primary sexual fantasy: tall, broad shouldered and narrow hipped, with a fine ass evident even beneath the crisp khakis he wore. His light-brown hair was tipped with gold, like a Bengal cat’s.

He turned from the rugby shirt display (the SCCS logo was appliquéd on them) and smiled. A dimple flashed.

Her mouth went dry. ‘Mr Sullivan,’ she managed.

His handshake was strong, his hand warm and dry with a hint of rough calluses that implied he worked with his hands.

Do not think about the work his hands could do on your body.

‘Gabe, please,’ he said.

Ah, now
that
name suited him. Short, masculine, easy to cry out in the height of passion.

No! She had to stop thinking like that. He was the interloper, the enemy. She plastered on her best marketing smile, took a deep breath and began her promotional spiel about SCCS. ‘We’re home to some of the world’s most endangered species of cats, and are considered a foremost breeding centre.’

She held open the glass door for him. The dry desert heat slapped against her as they stepped outside, stealing the moisture from her mouth. They paused, letting their eyes become accustomed to the glittering sunlight. In the desert this far from Los Angeles, neither clouds nor smog filtered the sun’s direct rays.

‘I’m familiar with SCCS’s work, Felicia,’ he said. ‘I’ve done my homework – I don’t need the brochure.’ Before she had time to huff out a breath of annoyance, he continued, ‘How did you end up working here?’

‘I was sick of working in the city,’ she said simply. ‘Sick of the backstabbing, the people who didn’t care about where they were working, who just wanted to get ahead. It was all so…pretentious.’

He didn’t say anything as they walked, and something compelled her to add, ‘I’ve always loved animals, especially the big cats – my parents used to have to bribe me with stuffed tigers to get me to leave the tiger enclosure at the LA Zoo – so this just seemed perfect.’

Good lord, she was talking about herself as a child. It was both unprofessional and unsexy. But he was smiling, and she totally lost her train of thought, staring in fascination at the dimple that flashed on his left cheek.

Then the smile was gone, and he was looking, not at her any more, but at the stark-looking cage before them. In the back, sprawled on a plywood box that served as a ‘cave’, a jaguar eyed them lazily.

Felicia hastened to explain. ‘While we do have a few older cages left, we’re working towards having natural habitat enclosures for all the cats.’

‘Is that what your upcoming fundraiser is for?’

She debated what her answer should be. He probably already knew, and was testing her. ‘Not exactly,’ she admitted. ‘Although that is our long-term goal, this fundraiser is for more basic needs. We’ve lost some key donors in recent years, and we need to build that support base back up.’

She didn’t tell him about the wolves at the door. The local community of Addison had expanded closer to SCCS’s land, and that land was now prime space for, say, a mall. If they couldn’t build up their donor base, get some serious contributions and pay their bills, a buyer already lurked near by ready to snap up the land for his nefarious commercial purposes.

As if she wasn’t under enough stress organising this fundraiser.

She was hyper-aware of Gabe’s presence as they walked along the simple concrete path between the sets of enclosures. He smelt good, some sharp, spicy scent that was half aftershave, half healthy masculine sweat. He looked unfrazzled by the heat, though; his short-sleeved dark-blue shirt (which matched his eyes) was still crisp and dry.

None of it, not one bit of it, helped her libido. Or maybe it helped itself.

Her nipples tightened beneath her professional-looking, apricot silk shell, her lace bra suddenly erotically confining. In fact, all of her clothes seemed too constrictive. She wanted someone to peel them off her, slowly and deliberately. She wanted to sink into a cool pool of water with a very naked, very hard man.

She tried very hard, really she did, not to think about Gabe being that very naked man but, for crying out loud, she was only human!

His body hair would mirror the hair on his head, she guessed: gold tipped. There would be a dusting of it on his chest, just enough that she could run her fingers through it, gently tug on it. Pink nipples would peek shyly out from beneath the fur. She’d flick her tongue over them, and he’d respond with a gasp and a wordless plea. Many men didn’t know how erogenous their nipples could be, and she amused herself by trying to decide if he was one of them, or if he knew, and would appreciate that she guessed the truth.

Either way, he’d like it – a lot. His cock, pressed against her belly, would twitch and throb. What would his cock look like? Pale at first, then blushing like a virgin bride as it fully hardened and begged for attention, a single sweet tear escaping, which she would lick away. Then she would pause, looking coyly up at him to see his reaction. Those blue eyes would darken further, to slate. Would he ask for more with just his eyes, or more? She guessed – hoped – he’d be verbal. It made her shiver with delight when a man pleaded. Told her what he wanted. Beseeched her for more.

But it went both ways. He’d want more, but he’d also want to give more. Oh, he’d be the type to not be satisfied unless he knew the woman he was with was satisfied, too. It would be a matter of pride.

Her thighs trembled, weakened by lust. The spike heel of her sandal caught on the edge of the walkway, and she stumbled. Gabe reached out a steadying hand and caught her arm. She swore her bare flesh sizzled where he touched her. Her already peaked nipples began to ache. His hand was strong, large, and then she was imagining that he was spanning her waist with those hands, lifting her up, pressing her against the bars of the cage and driving himself into her…

‘Are you OK?’

She came out of the fantasy to see Gabe staring at her with concern.

She couldn’t stop herself. She rested her hand on his and purred, ‘I’m better than OK. I’m sensational.’

*   *   *

Later, she wasn’t sure how they’d managed to finish the tour. After her unwise but unstoppable flirtation, he’d just stared at her – no longer in concern, but with an unreadable expression in those baby blues of his. He took a long slow deep breath in through his nose, and she realised he was struggling for control. It took every ounce of effort not to look down and check out his crotch.

Finally, she managed to smile. ‘Anything else you’d like to see?’ she asked, before she realised just how that sounded. The smile stuck on her face while, behind her eyes, the words ‘I can’t believe you just said that!’ flashed neon in her brain.

His nostrils flared. ‘Yes. Definitely, yes.’

This whole encounter was falling under the heading of ‘the stupidest thing she’d ever done’.

But then he said, ‘I’d like to talk to your vet, if he’s not busy.’

Weak-thighed and wobbly-kneed, she led him to the gate that separated the public venue from the behind-the-scenes private area. She managed not to fumble the lock too badly, even though she could feel him standing very close, and the whole thought of locks and chains was suddenly more appealing than it ever had been.

She introduced him to José, then beat a hasty retreat back to her office. As much as she’d like to ogle the eye candy until her head exploded from unfulfilled desire, she had a mountain of work to do. If the fundraiser wasn’t successful, it wouldn’t make any difference what Gabe’s report said, because there wouldn’t be an SCCS any more.

The air-conditioned building felt blissful (it was one of the blue-moon days when it was working) but it couldn’t entirely quell the heat inside her. Between returning the eight voicemails and thirteen emails that had gathered in her absence, she stood in front of the fan in her office and tried to think about anything except Gabe.

She succeeded. Mostly.

It certainly didn’t help matters when she looked up to see Gabe standing in her office doorway, that incorrigible dimple flashing as he smiled hello.

Of course, with her sitting and him standing, she had a direct line of sight to his crotch. No erection (and, if he had one after visiting with José, she’d grossly misinterpreted Gabe’s – and José’s – proclivities), but she got the distinct sense of a nice package between those firm thighs before she dragged her gaze up his body, wishing it were her hands following that path.

‘I just wanted to thank you for the tour, and say good-night,’ he said.

Could he smell her arousal from across the room? She clenched her hands on her lap. ‘No problem. Have a great evening.’

‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’

He was coming back? ‘Tomorrow?’

He nodded. ‘Didn’t Katherine tell you? I’ll probably be around until your fundraiser.’