Page 37 of Desperately Seeking Kitty

Hey, a girl could be seasonally appropriate if she wanted to be. Sometimes I even paired the turtleneck with my robe for extra warmth. But even I wasn’t ready to drive to McDonald’s in my bathrobe.

I switched my turtleneck to the snowman one and swiftly decided to up my bra game to my most supportive. Turtlenecks put the girls on full display even if I tried to disguise them with my sweater vest.

He probably wouldn’t want sex after catching a load of me this outfit. And maybe that was for the best. I wasn’t going to pretend to be someone else just to try to interest him. That never ended well.

I mean, I wanted his cat still. For Princess Goldenrod, of course. But I’d never intended to be more than moderately friendly with the dude.

Why I’d propositioned him impulsively for bareback sex was between the universe and the desire to offer him comfort after the difficult night he’d had. I certainly couldn’t explain it.

Oh, yeah, and my hormones had played a large part too. But I had them under control now.

I was almost sure.

I paired my turtleneck with a long black wool skirt and dark tights, my version of a chastity belt. You had to work to get tights off. There was no quick dives and quicker escapes.

To seal the deal, I put on my beloved leather boots that weren’t meant for snow but to look cute. I’d worn them approximately twice. But they reached my knees and were one more lock on the chastity belt.

Surely with this kind of no-access clothing, should I slip in my resolve to not have any kind of sex with Clintondale Hauser, DVM, I would be deterred long enough to come to my senses.

Besides, the turtleneck was a surefire erection deflator. I’d been told this more than once. Despite its inherent cleavage highlighting abilities, turtlenecks represented a weird juxtaposition between childhood and older women for men of a certain age. Especially ones with cartoon snowmen.

This article of clothing should not represent sex in any shape or form. And I liked them, dammit. So eff the patriarchy.

Or something.

“What do you think?” I did a slow spin in front of my disinterested cat.

Nada. Not even an eyelash bat. She was a cold woman. Didn’t she get I needed reassurance?

I didn’t date anymore. Especially absurdly hot men like Clint who suddenly wanted to date me for real and not just to satisfy his parents. Pretending to date meant trying to make our story seem real, so maybe we’d have some hot sex then part as friends while ensuring our cats were happy together. Or unhappy together, depending.

But he’d changed the whole script now. Best for me just to cool things down on the personal front so that he realized any kind of dating for us was not in the cards.

The butterflies in my stomach were about to take over my entire body.

And he was due to arrive in nine minutes.

I perched on the edge of the window seat and braced my hands on my thighs as I forced myself to take deep breaths. This was no big thing. Friends went out for a quick meal all the time.

But he specifically said this wasn’t a friend thing. And you’re not exactly an expert on friends, since you don’t have any.

That wasn’t entirely true. I was friendly with my authors, some more than others. Some of them I’d been editing their books for years. And I was friends with Magnus, my BookDoctor business partner. He handled the formatting and cover design while I was the proofreader and editor.

In the coming years, we hoped to add audio book narration—I’d been told I had an appealing voice—and maybe even translation services. That was off in the future though. That was why I’d decided to take a German language course, so maybe I could at least act as an audio proofreader for translations someday.

Lots of maybes.

Speaking of, I needed to do today’s lesson. I could do that while I waited for Clint.

I grabbed my phone and pulled up my language course app. I cleared my throat and read out loud the first phrase to translate into English.

Entschuldigung, wo ist das café?

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Princess giving a head shake of disgust before she slinked away.

I frowned. Considering I was a beginner, I thought my German accent wasn’t half bad.

The ring of the buzzer a couple minutes later caused me to jolt. I checked the time.

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