Page 33 of S.O.S. Billboard

This time the cat didn’t hesitate. She came forward with purpose, and quickly ate everything she’d been offered, then head-butted O’Shea’s hand as if to say, “Where’s the rest?”

O’Shea laughed. “You’re a bossy one, aren’t you.” She shook a few more treats out, and this time the cat purred while scarfing them down. Taking a chance, O’Shea patted the feline with her free hand, and the cat arched into her touch.

“You’re friendly, too,” she hummed.

Making a quick decision she’d probably regret, O’Shea dumped a few more treats on the ground before standing up to pull off her sweatshirt. Without hesitating, she bent, placed it over the thin, gray body, wrapping the cat up in its folds while preparing for a battle.

When the two yellow eyes simply regarded her calmly from within the clothing’s warmth, O’Shea felt a thrill of acceptance.

“Oh, snap. You’re going to be mine from now on, aren’t you?” she asked, and the cat purred more loudly than before.

O’Shea, feeling suddenly giddy, reached down and picked up her bag of chocolate.

“Okay then. Now I just have to figure out how to smuggle you into the hotel.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Billboard woke to the sound of his phone ringing, and groaned.

Dammit.The only reason his device would be going off after he’d managed less than an hour of sleep time, was if there were an emergency at work.

He grabbed for his phone and squinted at the screen.

What the fuck?

Not the office.

O’Shea.

He stabbed the button. “What’s wrong?”

There was a snort.

“Uh, not what you might imagine,” she came back with a bit of a forced laugh.

Billboard’s shoulders relaxed. If O’Shea sounded even semi-amused, she couldn’t be under attack. He lay back in bed, placing one hand beneath his head to stare at the darkened ceiling.

“I have a great imagination,” he returned. “But even so, I can’t figure out why you’re calling me an hour and a half after we parted ways. Unless you miss me.” He meant it as a joke, but it came out sounding a little too serious.

“Aww, Billboard,” O’Shea replied, clearly hearing some kind of need in his voice. “Of course I miss you. Wasn’t I the one who wanted to drag you kicking and screaming into my boudoir?”

Now Billboard snickered. “Your…boudoir?” he responded amusedly. “I’m not sure I even know what that is, but it sounds…interesting.”

O’Shea snorted. “Right. Interesting. If it had interested you atall, you’d be naked in my bed right now, and I wouldn’t have the problem I called about.”

Billboard sat upright, his nerve endings on alert again. “You have a problem?”

“Yeah. I do,” she admitted with a huff, “and I’ve named her Zoe.”

“You’ve… Uh, O’Shea? Maybe you should start at the beginning.”

Billboard had to be a little sleep-fuddled because he wasn’t reading the situation at all.

“Right,” O’Shea sighed. He could hear her pacing. “So after you left, I realized I didn’t have any good chocolate in my room. The mini bar has some generic shit that I wouldn’t feed to a goat, so I decided to go out and find something decent.”

Billboard growled. “You went—?"

“Down, boy,” she cut him off. “You know I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself if any thugs in Boston stupidly decided I looked like fresh meat.”

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