Page 4 of My Forbidden Valentine

"I was doing paperwork before you called." My mouth says before my body unfreezes.

"Ohh!" she coos suddenly, her voice soft with delight. "You must be Marshmallow!"

"You finally deigned to greet us with your presence, Marsh?" He comes to greet me, expecting I pet him until he's satisfied. He's the king of the garage, that's for sure. He's very independent and only lets me pet him on his terms. That's one of the reasons he stays here and not at my place. He has so much room to do whatever he wants and plenty of people come and go, which allows him to pick and choose who he will pet him. He's a diva. Nothing mellow about him.

Thirty seconds later, he's out and going towards Emma's heels.

"He's not the most amicable cat. Be careful so he doesn't scratch you," I warn her.

"He seems friendly to me," curiosity getting the best of me, I roll towards them.

Marshmallow is purring! Purring! He never does it with me. But I understand him, just the brush of her fingers was enough to make me crazy, I'd purr too if she was stroking mybody. Great. Now I can't get that image out of my mind. I shift slightly, trying to contain my erection.

"What kind of sorcery are you applying?"

“Why?”

“He never purrs with me.”

“Never?”

I shake my head, frustrated by my cat’s betrayal.

"Maybe it's the fact I can smile?" She says in a playful way, not to hurt me or criticize me, clearly just trying to get a reaction out of me.

"He should purr with me. I'm the one who feeds him." I grunt, rolling back to my work. It's no use trying to make sense of this cat.

Emma laughs. I'm glad I can make her laugh like that, even when I'm not funny.

Nevertheless, the side of my lip quirks up while I'm inspecting the car, partly because of Emma, but because of Marshmallow too. It was nice to hear him purr like that.

"Bye!" Emma says after a while. "Guess he got tired of me."

"He does that. At least you’ve made him purr."

"Maybe I should come by more often, see if that helps to soften him up."

"Right." Just the thought of her coming back more often is enough to make me stop whatever I'm doing.

"Maybe I could soften up you too." I hear her teasing me once again. "Why are you working on a Friday night? On Valentine’s?"

"The garage is quiet at night. It's easier to do the hard stuff."

"Isn't there anyone waiting for you?" She stops for a second. "At home."

"Not really, I'm not really into relationships."

"Why not? You're easy on the eyes." Her smile is flirty, and I don't know what to do with it.

It's the second time she mentioned my attractiveness. A part of me wants to cling to those words somehow. But I don't answer her question. In one hour, she will be out of my life and I'm not going to pour out my heart for some woman I barely know, even if I desperately want to. She's off-limits.

She takes the hint and changes the subject.

"Why did you open the garage?"

"I've always been good at fixing stuff and my parents put to work me as an apprentice to a mechanic who lived here when I was in high school. I was a crazy kid, always getting into trouble, so having a job did give me a lot of structure."

"It's hard to see you that way."

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