Pretty Kitty by Desiree Holt Page A

customers.”
    He winked at her then went back to his work. “You’re a real customer, princess. More real than a lot of them.”
    Oh, Max, if you only knew.
    She raised herself up and leaned way across the bar, putting her face as close to his as she could get. “So, Max, tell me something.”
    He looked up. “It better be something short and sweet because screaming’s not my thing and the noise level in here could raise the dead.”
    “How come you never go out with the women who hang here? I’ve seen a lot of them come on to you.”
    “Because my heart belongs to you, princess.” He winked again. “I’m waiting for you to get around to me.”
    “Ha, ha.” She sat back down on her bar stool and let the sound wash over her.
    If only.
    Maybe if she wasn’t such a freak. If her long hair was a nice beautiful colour instead of the weird streaks she’d been left with when unable to complete her shift. Or her eyes were amber like the other cats instead of the ugly pale grey she was stuck with. If she was long and slinky instead of short and dumpy. Okay, maybe not dumpy but certainly shorter than she liked. She saw how men drooled over long legs.
    Sometimes she lay in bed at night and imagined what it would be like to find her cat. To stretch out the sinewy body and race with the wind. To be sleek and graceful and totally free. Like all the others who came to The Litter Box. They were all manner of cat shifters, some just looking to hang out, but many of them looking to mate. Something she’d never be able to do, even if someone should want her.
    Yeah, right. Who would want a freak of nature, someone stuck in two worlds but not of either?
    She had just taken another swallow of her drink when she felt a hand at her elbow. Looking up, she saw a tall, blond man smiling down at her. The green of his shirt was almost the exact colour of his eyes. Cat’s eyes. She wondered which breed he was. Cougar? Puma? Not panther, he was too light. Not snow leopard like her. She’d have at least been able to sense that.
    Oh, well. Not that it mattered, anyway. None of them could help her.
    She raised an eyebrow. “Yes?” She had to mouth the word because the noise level had risen again.
    He stroked a hand down the bare skin of her arm, then hooked a thumb over his shoulder, pointing to the dance floor, and wiggled his hips.
    “Dance?” he mouthed at her.
    Sure. Why not?
    “Watch my drink?” she shouted at Max as she slipped off her stool.
    She and the blond managed to find four square inches on the dance floor to squeeze their bodies into and began moving to the heavy beat of the bass and drums. They were pressed so close together it was impossible not to feel the hard thickness of his cock straining behind the fabric of his pants. Or to keep her breasts from being pressed against his chest.
    When he put his hands on her waist to keep her body tight against his, Aisha looked up and saw sexual hunger blazing in his eyes. The message was as clear as if he’d spoken it aloud.
    I’ve heard about you. I want to take you home and fuck you. I can be the one to make you lose your mind.
    As if, she thought. None of them could. Not one. While they heaved over her naked and sweaty, she always lay beneath them willing it to be over. She knew the reputation she’d garnered. Maybe they all had some kind of wager going, to see who was the first one to break through the wall of ice around her sexual response .
    The assault the night she was just coming into her first heat had left her both unable to shift and traumatized where sex was concerned. And nothing and no one had been able to make it pleasant for her.
    When her dance partner slid his hands up her rib cage and brushed his thumbs against her breasts, she’d had enough and jerked away from him. He grabbed her arms, tightening his hold on her, anger in every line of his body.
    Taking a deep breath, she broke his hold on her, pushed through the mob to get off the dance floor and made