Page 4 of Deadly Panther's Fake Fiancée

I think about that one and almost blurt out that I don’t need to tell Delilah anything because we both want nothing to do with this arranged marriage.

We are nothing more than childhood friends. My parents have orchestrated quite an attempt, but I’ve had separate conversations with Delilah and we are very clear about a marriage. We don’t want it.

I look at my mother. “I’ll have that conversation very soon. Delilah, I’m sure, will be understanding.”

She most definitely will be. In fact, though this whole thing with Katrina pretending to be my fiancé was spur of the moment, I’m sure Delilah will applaud my ingenuity.

My Mother shakes her head and waves her hand at me as if dismissing me.

The conversation stalls and we simply head to dinner.

The rest of the night nothing more is said about Katrina. My parents, I know, are showing great restraint about the situation because they are both going to be working together on a plan to fix things so I can be with Delilah.

But it isn’t going to happen. There’s nothing wrong with Delilah and she sees nothing wrong in me. Perhaps if our parents hadn’t decided we would marry, we might have fallen inlove and decided on it by ourselves. Instead, they entrenched the relationship as it is. Katrina is going to be my one and only until they leave me alone about it.

So, we talk about the weather and home and work and some human politics in Austria and Europe, and then, dinner is finished and they head back to the hotel. I wave as they drive away and then, I get into my car and blast death metal until my car is shaking.

Yeah, a panther who likes death metal. Don’t ask me to explain it to you.

When I get back home, I see that Katrina is already back from work. It feels like everything has happened so quickly, but I realize that between the initial grill session and the dinner, the day is gone.

I park and climb out of my car. I look around and try to pull thoughts together. What am I going to tell Katrina? How much do I need to share about who and what I am?

I shake my head. No use avoiding more questions. I walk over and knock on the door.

She answers and all my answers and explanations melt away. All my thoughts just die.

She’s stunning.

She’s wearing a short flowing blue dress that falls about her body like a cloud. Her hair is down and soft on her shoulders.

And her smile is just as beautiful as ever.

She steps forward. “Welcome home, honey.”

And then, she takes both my hands in hers and pulls me into her house. As she does, she slides up to me and kisses me.

This is not the sweet goodbye kiss of earlier in the day. This is hard and full of need.

My thoughts completely abandon me.

Chapter Three

Katrina

The kiss is wonderful.

Breathtaking, even.

This kiss is a little different than the earlier kisses. For one thing, there are walls around us, and that means there’s automatically a little less restraint than there was before. For another thing, I’m being very aggressive, kissing him eagerly and running my hands up and down on his chest not in a passive, responding way but in a…

Aw hell, the point is that I’m trying to make it clear I want more than the kiss. For all I know, everything else is just in my head. I mean, I have experience back in high school. We were fifteen and sixteen and then sixteen and seventeen. It’s not like I can really analyze anything here. All of my experience since then, so all of my adult experience, is fantasy, just silly romance in my head.

But the kiss feels different, and I need him to understand that I want more. Probably because of that need, I take hold of his shirt and pull it so it untucks from his pants. I slide a handunderneath and then under his undershirt. Holy wow, try saying that five times fast! Anyway, I end up under his tee shirt and the feel of his taut, muscular abdomen under my fingertips is so damned perfect.

I’m not aggressive like this by nature. In fact, I’ve never behaved like this before. In high school everything seemed so naughty and hidden, if that makes sense, so I never really got to be sexy but not immediately to the point. It was all just sneaking around and getting right to it. So, this is a kind of weird situation for me. No, not weird. Just brand new.

And damn I want him.

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