Page 79 of Desperately Seeking Kitty

“I didn’t know when he bought me a vibrator he was signaling he wanted intercourse,” I said miserably, then wanted to saw off my own tongue.

Clint’s laughter as he shook his head made me frown.

“You think it’s funny?”

“Kind of, yeah. Now. At first my reaction was very different.” He came to sit beside me on the bed, holding out his fingers for Princess to sniff. She tucked her head into his hand with a look of adoration similar to the one I often wore in his direction.

Hopefully, he hadn’t noticed.

“You thought I was hoeing around?”

His brows rose. “No. I thought you were hopelessly oblivious to your own appeal.”

“My dad said he made a mistake in calling me Muffintop as a kid.”

Clint’s brow pinched and gently, he nudged Princess aside so he could roll up my sweater. There was no hiding the pudge above my jeans at this angle, and I fought not to shift to try to make it go away. He bent to kiss me, right above my navel. My eyes prickled as I scooped my fingers through his soft, thick hair, wondering what I’d done to deserve him and how long it would be before I screwed up somehow and drove him away.

“I buried the bullet beside my parking space,” I said hoarsely.

His eyes crinkled and mirth filled them before he wrapped his arm around me to cuddle me closer. He pressed a flood of kisses to my stomach while his shoulders shook with laughter. Before I knew it, I was laughing too, and Princess stared coolly at both of us before jumping down and streaking out the open bedroom door.

“Should we hear screeching any minute now?”

“They were getting along pretty good this morning but I think they were both full of fishy treats. You’re not wondering why I brought him over here?”

“Well, you did want to continue our rental agreement last I knew, so…” He walked his fingers up my bare stomach and hissed out a breath a fraction of an inch from the lacy cups of my bra. I did have a couple of cuter ones so I’d banished my more serviceable lingerie to the back of the drawer. “My lunch break is over. I spent too much time smoothing Magnus’s feathers when I should’ve kept my eye on the prize.”

“Like actually eating your lunch?”

“That too.” He was still unabashedly staring at my bra.

“Does he hate me?” My voice sounded so small. The last thing I should’ve done was hide out in here while these two men who didn’t even know each other discussed me or…God knows what.

But that was what I did. I ran and I ignored and I checked out to avoid the hard stuff.

“Hardly. More like he hates me, but I doubt it’ll stick.” He shook his head. “You really had no clue how he felt about you?”

“No. I thought we were friends.” I sat up in bed and shoved my hands through my hair. “He knew I was basically a hermit who stayed inside all day editing racy books and playing with cats and basically dropping out of life. What part of that is sexy to him?”

Clint entertwined his fingers with mine. “We all drop out of life sometimes.”

I scoffed. “Yeah, right. Like you ever would.”

“I did. I left my job and followed an ad to a romance book convention and got a job doing the absolute opposite thing to what I’d trained for, because the stress and the death and the heartbreak got to me. I thought I could take it. That I had to, because I was needed. But it turned out the best thing I could do was to walk away so I could regroup and come back, if not stronger, at least a little wiser about filling my cup before I completely broke the thing in half trying to help others. I learned that term in a book, by the way. Thought the cup thing was New Agey until mine was in pieces.” He smiled grimly. “Never truly managed to fill it before though,” he said lightly, rubbing his thumb over the back of my hand. “Until you.”

I turned my hand over to clutch his. “I have agoraphobia. Not just a little touch of anxiety, like the real deal. It waxes and wanes but it hit its peak when Muffin was sick. I didn’t even know what was happening at first, just that I couldn’t breathe whenever I got behind the wheel of my car. I got to the point that I couldn’t go out to take him to his vet appointments.” I tried to swallow over the boulder in my throat. “He got sicker and sicker. I did everything I could to get him to eat, special foods and treats and all kinds of things, but he still died. And if I hadn’t been such a horrific mess…”

“I’m so sorry, honey.” He wrapped his arm around me, pressing his hip against mine so that I could lean on him if I needed to. “What was wrong with your boy?”

“Cancer.” The word tasted bitter. “In his head. Among other things but that was the worst of it.”

“Then you have to know that even if you had taken him to the best vet in the world every single day, all you probably would’ve done was buy him some time. Look at me,” he said gently, lifting up my chin so his greener-than-green eyes were all I could see. “Likely not all that much time even with the best treatments.” He tipped his head against mine. “I know how hard that is for you to hear, and we always think we should’ve done more, but sometimes loving them is the only thing you can do. And I know you were the very best at that.”

I sniffled. “If I’d known you then, maybe you could have helped him. Maybe you could’ve made him feel better at least.” I covered my mouth to hold in my sobs. “You would’ve made me feel better, too.”

“I’d like to think I could’ve helped, but maybe it happened how it was meant. Not his illness, but maybe the fact you didn’t put him through experimental treatments that probably couldn’t have done much more than prolong things was what was best for him in that moment.”

I let out a slow breath, allowing the tears to come no matter how much I hated them. “Magnus talked me through some of my worst moments. I didn’t want to blur the lines between professionalism and our personal lives, but I had to lean on someone. God knows my father wasn’t around much.” I rubbed the back of my hand under my nose. “Afterward, I closed down even more. I don’t know how many days I spent in bed, just getting up to feed Princess and take care of her. If I hadn’t had her, I would’ve been even worse.”

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