Page 15 of Desperately Seeking Kitty

Then again, he wasn’t here. He hadn’t called to alert me he’d had a delay. And it was snowing.

Maybe he’d skidded off the road into a ditch somewhere and it would be my fault for luring him into the darkness with the promise of pussy.

Not the first man to meet such a downfall.

I turned on Loreena and forced myself to open my editing document. My client was expecting me to return the first quarter of her book to her by the end of the weekend and I’d barely started. Missing deadlines wasn’t something I did.

Ever.

I wasn’t going to start now. If Clint had encountered trouble, he could text me to tell me he was injured, dammit. Otherwise, I was editing.

The sound of my buzzer sometime later nearly jolted me off the edge of my chair. Blearily, I rubbed my eyes and checked the time.

12:30.

He better have an excuse. He’d interrupted the good part.

Flustered, more than a little turned on, and questioning all my life choices to this point, I made sure my edits so far had saved in Track Changes and set aside my laptop.

When he buzzed again, I stumbled to the door. Assuming it was Clint.

Did serial killers ring the buzzer?

I had to figure usually not but this was considered a safe neighborhood. Maybe they changed up their modus operandi depending on location.

I pressed the speaker. “State your business.”

“Kitty?”

“Who is this?”

“Clint. And Lucky.” His cat let out a plaintive meow to demonstrate proof of life.

Or his extreme displeasure at being jailed for a late-night, sexless booty call.

For thecats.Even if I’d just edited a scene hot enough to frizz my already curly hair. I had my eye on the prize and it wasn’t Clint’s body.

“Are you expecting someone else?” Clint asked crossly.

“I could be. You took fucking forever.”

“Look, my sister stopped by unexpectedly and she just went through a breakup with a guy who was old enough to know better. Then Lucky bit my hand as I was trying to get him in the carrier. He even has a damn custom-made mobile, the little fucker. So I had to change plans.”

“A mobile?” I had to laugh. “Like one for a kid?”

“It distracts him,” Clint muttered. “I even told him he was going to meet a woman and he didn’t care. He’s on his way to being a crochety old man like his dad.”

“You can’t be crochety. Haven’t you read romance novels? One is sunshine, one is grumpy. You can’t be grumpy because I am.”

Here I went again, spewing nonsense. My vocation was going to ensure I never got to first base with a man again.

Or a woman.

Or a particularly full plant.

Basically, I was destined to live alone forever with only my cat for company.

Gah, I had sex on the brain and this wasnotthat kind of playdate.

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