Cattitude (16 page)

She hoped Sorcha would come back soon.

In the meantime, she’d discovered something
she liked more than catnip, more than eating tuna, and even more
than ice cream sandwiches.

Reading.

After she’d read the books Max had bought
just for her, Ted had gone into his room and brought out a book
about Harry Potter. He complimented her on learning so much so
quickly, then ruined it by saying her memory was coming back fast.
She’d turned up her nose and took the Harry Potter book, which he
said was the first one.

Five chapters in, she was turning pages fast,
bending forward in the chair, her breaths shallow, her entire
attention focused on the words and the story. 

“You’re reading Harry Potter?”

She started, Max’s voice shocking her head
up, her jaw open, her heart hammering. The only other time she’d
been surprised by a human was the day Caroline grabbed her.
Caroline had snuck in, but Max didn’t sneak anywhere. He always
strode in boldly.

“Harry Potter is wonderful,” she said. “He
had a bedroom in a room beneath the stairs. The Dursleys are mean
to him.”

“You learned how to read that well already?”
He frowned, and she wondered if he thought she was faking, like
Annette on 
The Love Chronicles.

“I’m not faking anything.” She scowled at
him. Yes, she was lying, but he should still believe her. He should
believe everything she told him.

He remained standing over her, his expression
hard instead of soft. She liked soft much better than hard. “Your
memory could be coming back.”

“Or it could be that I’m very smart.” Or
brilliant. She’d always suspected she was brilliant. Or perhaps she
was tapping into the body’s brain cells. Though Sorcha had vacated
the body, maybe some of her knowledge remained. Maybe that was why
she was catching on so quickly.

She shifted in her chair, then shifted back.
She wanted her own knowledge, not Sorcha’s. 

He grinned and she sucked in her breath,
feeling as if she’d been kicked in the heart. 

His smile never made her feel this way when
she’d been a cat. 

Bending down, he grabbed one of the books
she’d set apart. “Did you read this?” He showed her the cover, a
cartoon cat in a hat, tall with stripes.

She made a face, though she was glad to talk
instead of think. “It’s a silly book, the worst ever.”

His eyebrows climbed up his forehead and his
body relaxed, an odd look on his face that she couldn’t place. A
good one, not bad. “Sure it’s silly, but everyone loves 
The
Cat in the Hat.
”

She waved her hand in the air. She didn’t
care what everyone liked. Everyone was human and didn’t know
better. “Cats don’t wear hats,” she said. 

He laughed harder than she’d ever heard him
in all the years she’d lived with him. Looking at him, she felt the
kick in her heart again. She swallowed a scream that
said, 
No, no, no! I should not feel this way about
him.

“What about a book about a dog?” he
asked.

The horror made it easy for her to ignore the
kick and remind her that Max was not perfect, though this stupid
body seemed to disagree. 

“I don’t like dogs.” 

“You remember that too?”

She glared at him. She supposed it wouldn’t
be appropriate to give him a warning nip. “I don’t remember
anything.”

One corner of his mouth quirked up. “You look
so offended.” 

She wasn’t sure what he meant but she nodded.
From his face, offended was a good thing to look like. 

“If you change your mind, I saved one of my
favorite dog books.” His mouth straightened, and his mood changed.
“I wish I could forget I’d read it, so I could read it all over
again.”

His eyes darkened, touching a spot within her
heart, making her ache for him and want to say something that would
warm his eyes and curl up his mouth again.

“Why?” Her voice sounded funny to her own
ears, and she couldn’t think of one thing to say that would make
him smile. “Why does it make you sad?”

He shook his head and backed up, his face
closing. “Just thinking. It was a favorite of my dad’s. I’d better
get back to work. I have a lot to do.” He gave a sharp nod
and left. 

She watched him turn into the hall, the ache
still heavy in her chest. Frowning, she sat and returned back to
reading Harry. It stopped her from thinking about what had just
happened. It stopped her feeling sad because Max was sad. It
stopped her from thinking of the kick in the heart because he
laughed.

Most of all, it stopped her from thinking how
un-catlike she felt when Max was around.

This was not good, not good at all.

Belle read until a crick started in her neck.
Standing, she stretched her neck as high as she could, the way she
did when she was a cat. She wondered what time it was—then slapped
her hand to her mouth.

Cats never cared about time. What was
happening to her?

Her fingertips went numb and the book fell to
the floor. She started to walk away, but hesitated, thinking of the
book on the floor. Rose wasn’t here to watch her, so she didn’t
have to pick up after herself. Humans did that, not cats. Not even
dogs did that.

She turned back. She couldn’t mistreat Harry
Potter. He got enough of that from his uncle, aunt and cousin. She
whipped through the pages until she found where she’d left off, and
a yawn came over her, along with a wave of tiredness. She put the
open book face-down on the table. In case she found Sorcha tomorrow
and changed bodies, she’d try to finish the book before leaving the
house.

Then she remembered Ted saying there were six
more Harry Potter books.

She put a hand to her throat, feeling sick.
But she dropped her hand and lifted her chin. She would not be
seduced by Harry Potter into staying human.

She hurried out of the room. Busy reading
Harry, she’d missed her usual naps today. No wonder she was
unsettled, She needed to sleep.

In the bedroom, she stripped off her clothes,
climbed into the bed, pulled up the covers—and knew immediately
something was wrong. It smelled different, like spring when buds
popped out of trees and birds flew outside the window. Not a
horrible smell, but not the right one.

She turned her head into the pillow and
breathed.

Max. It didn’t smell like Max anymore.

Bonnie did this. When she cleaned the house
this morning, she changed the sheets and the pillowcases, taking
away the old ones with Max’s scent.

Belle rolled onto her back, closing her eyes
tightly, willing sleep to come. But nothing was right without Max’s
scent. No matter how many places she slept in the house during the
last four years, it was Max she cuddled against every night.

Her eyes opened. Hissing through her teeth,
she flung aside the covers. After flicking on the light, she
stalked to the walk-in closet and stepped inside.

She started pulling shirts to her nose, one
after another. But they smelled like the sheets and pillowcases.
Like spring.

Bonnie again. Did she have to wash
everything? Belle didn’t want spring, she wanted Max.

There must be something in the bedroom he was
using that smelled like him. Max was in his office in the other
part of the house, working as usual. If she hurried...

She rushed out of the closet and across the
bedroom, poking her head into the hall. No Max in sight. She
slipped out of the bedroom and hurried along the hall. Thunder
boomed outside. A breeze stirred against her skin. She glanced at
her jiggly breasts, not stopping her stride. So what if she was
naked? Only humans covered their bodies, trying to compensate for
being furless.

Anyway, no one was here to see her.

Passing the bathroom, she heard the sound of
running water. In mid stride, she hesitated. Ted was working at the
bar tonight, and she and Max were the only ones in the house. He
must have left the office and decided to take a shower.

She strode forward. When he was finished,
he’d have to dry off and comb his hair. Hadn’t she watched the
routine many times? She’d be in and out of his room before he put
the towel away.

The first thing she noticed in Max’s
temporary bedroom was the neatness, clothes picked up, bed made. A
sound of frustration came from her throat. Bonnie had been here
too. Then something on the floor on the other side of the bed
caught her gaze. Afraid to hope, she hurried around the bed.

Max’s jeans! Max’s T-shirt! She pounced on
the T-shirt. One thing she knew after years of lying on clothes was
that T-shirts were softer than jeans. Bringing it to her nose, she
rubbed her face in it.

Max. It smelled just like him.

Now she could sleep.

A sound made her turn, still holding the
T-shirt against her cheek.

Max stood in the doorway, a towel wrapped
around his waist, droplets of water tangled with the curling hairs
on his chest.

Her breath stopped.

She’d been looking at him naked for four
years. He was the human she’d chosen above all others, so of course
he was special. But for the first time, she realized how special.
For the first time, she realized the magnificence of the human
body.

Max’s body.

One of his books had pictures of statues. Men
with muscled legs and arms, their shoulders broad. Sculpted men,
she’d thought, looking at the photos.

Max was a sculpted man.

She wondered what it would feel like to touch
him. Would his muscles be hard? Or just firm? Would his skin be
smooth? Would he be warm?

For four years, she’d rubbed his skin, but
she’d never noticed any of this. Never cared.

Now she cared.

Warmth flushed through her body, on her skin,
under her skin.

Between her human legs.

She wanted to rub against him.

She wanted to get her scent on him.

And his scent on her.

The rain drummed on the window. It was dark
outside, but inside there was light. Inside there was Max and there
was her. They were the only two people in the world.

People.

Not cats.
People.

Her stomach felt as if giant claws squeezed
it. What was she thinking?

***

The towel wrapped around Max’s waist tented
out. He gripped it to keep it from falling. Jesus, he wanted her.
She stood only a few feet from his bed, slender and soft and
gleaming, holding his T-shirt against her cheek. Her eyes were big,
her lips parted. Her nipples budded, rose-colored against an
alabaster background.

Perfect. She was perfect.

But why was she here? Why was she holding his
T-shirt like it was something precious? And why did that make his
need all the more urgent?

“We can’t do this,” he said, the words
dragged out of his mouth.

“What?” Her voice was a husky croak. Her lips
were pink and lush.

“Have sex.”

She shook her head.

“You don’t know who you are. You might have a
fiancé, a boyfriend, someone who cares about you, someone you
love.”

She shook her head again. Her green eyes
looked bruised, her expression dazed.

He backed into the hall. If he stayed a
minute longer... If she came after him...

But she remained standing as if frozen.

“You’ll have to leave the bedroom,” he
said.

She nodded. Finally, she started walking
toward him. He backed up another step. If she brushed against
him...

But she glided out the door and down the hall
like a sleepwalker. The smooth line of her back, her slender
shoulders, her curving hips and buttocks moved farther away from
him. And still she held his T-shirt to her cheek.

Torture. Watching her was torture. Letting
her walk away was torture.

Only when she turned into his bedroom did he
exhale a shuddering breath, feeling as if he’d run a marathon. He
wiped his forehead and found he was sweating. And he didn’t have to
look down to see the boner still tenting his towel.

His jaw clenched. Tomorrow he’d demand an
explanation. From the look on her face, she’d been as shocked to
see him as he was to see her. But if he saw her tonight, he might
forget that and only remember the way she looked.

Perfect. As if God had made her just for
him.

Max woke with a hard-on. Not the usual
half-sized, ready-for-action-if-opportunity-comes hard-on. This was
ready-for-action-now.

A dream lingered in his mind, misty and
fading. Sorcha had been in it. He remembered that much. And he
remembered what she wore too.

Nothing. She’d held his T-shirt to her cheek,
but not one stitch of clothing covered her beautiful body.

He jumped out of bed and very carefully
pulled on his jeans. He walked stiff-legged down the hall to the
bathroom, shucked the jeans, stepped into the shower and turned it
on.

***

Belle walked along the hall, stopping outside
the bathroom, listening to the rushing water from within. Another
shower? She didn’t remember him taking so many when she was in her
cat body. She’d tried the shower, but liked the bath better with
the water jetting out on all her body parts.

A picture formed in her mind of Max in the
tub with her, the water jetting out at his body parts.

Her face heated, she hurried through the
kitchen and out of the house. The sun shone, warming the earth. The
air smelled fresh, as if the rain had washed away the last of the
winter. Beneath her shoes, the ground squished, the grass a
brighter green than yesterday.

Would she find Sorcha today?

She had to. Quickly. If she didn’t change
back soon, she might give in to the feelings for Max that were
consuming her human body. She couldn’t do that. She shouldn’t.
Because she wasn’t human, she was a cat.

“I am a cat,” she whispered fiercely. “I
am.”