She thought about opening his mail to see if anything was urgent, but decided she didn"t have the right to do that. She"d have to ask him first, and he"d retreated to the depths of her bedroom closet. It didn"t take a mind reader to know he didn"t want to be disturbed. Even Orion left him alone.
Although she hadn"t had much sleep recently and was tired, she wasn"t about to go to bed. Now she knew, even if he didn"t, that he"d become a man again for at least an hour and maybe for longer. Unless he figured out the reason, though, she couldn"t imagine how he"d extend his time. He couldn"t accomplish many acts of kindness when most of his existence was spent as a cat cooped up in an apartment.
By ten, nothing had happened. She kept peering into the closet, but Jasper was still huddled way in the back, curled up as if sound asleep. She"d had so much coffee that she was jittery and tense. A hot shower was the answer, but what if he transformed while she was in there?
Not that she was afraid of him, and he"d certainly seen her naked the night before, but she still didn"t want him suddenly walking into the bathroom. She decided to go for the shower and lock the door.
Dear Zeus, this was a h.e.l.lish position to be in for both of them. She wondered if he"d thought about the stress she was under. Probably not, and if he did, he might think she deserved it. Maybe she deserved some of it, but that spell should have come with a warning in twenty-point type.
Once she was under the hot water, she felt marginally better. She had to deal with an unantic.i.p.ated side effect, though. Because she expected him to transform at any time, and because of what had happened the last time he"d become a man, she was naturally thinking about s.e.x.
She came out of the shower wide awake in more ways than one. Maybe she should have taken a cold shower, but she wasn"t that much of a m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.t. Besides, she"d been s.e.xually frustrated before in her life. It wasn"t the end of the world.
He was probably still in the closet, anyway. By the time he transformed, she"d be over this shower-induced s.e.xual hunger and would be curled up in the living room, drinking herbal tea. She liked that image of her-cool and collected, glancing over with only mild curiosity when he walked down the hall wearing . . . whatever he chose to put on. She would- The doork.n.o.b turned slightly, stopping at the lock point. Her pulse rate skyrocketed.
"Anica, open the door."
She clutched the towel against her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and gulped for air. He was right there.
No time for cool and collected. No time for tea, a good book and a casual response to his sudden appearance. She glanced at the tiny clock sitting on her bathroom counter. Ten thirty-two. Somehow he"d gained another two hours. And judging from the urgency in his voice, he wanted to spend it exactly the same way she did.
Jasper didn"t understand how he could resent Anica so much, be so absolutely furious with her, and crave her body at the same time. He"d come out of his cat form once again with an aching erection and a primitive surge of l.u.s.t he couldn"t remember feeling for other women. He"d always before maintained a certain detachment, but not this time.
Maybe the tomcat psyche carried over somehow when he became a man. Anything was possible. That statement meant more to him now than it ever had before. Literally anything was possible.
He"d headed for the bathroom, knowing that she"d just showered and would be naked in there, knowing what he wanted to do once he found her. But he wasn"t totally consumed with his need, because he"d stopped to open the bedside drawer and take out a condom. He"d counted how many were left-three-and run a hand over his jaw. Still no beard stubble. He took note of the time-ten thirty-two.
Why he had another two hours was a mystery, but he wasn"t going to question it now. Maybe, after he"d exhausted himself with Anica"s body, maybe then he"d think about why he seemed to be adding time.
He waited impatiently for her to unlock the door. If necessary, he"d break it down. Whoa! Had he actually thought that? Had Mr. Cool, the guy who made sure he never invested more than he could afford to lose, contemplated destroying a door to get to the woman he wanted?
Yes.
He would think about that later, too, because the door opened.
Anica had wrapped herself in a thick white towel that covered her from armpit to midthigh, and she"d piled her golden hair on top of her head in an arrangement that was quickly coming loose. Without jewelry or makeup she looked young and vulnerable, but so s.e.xy that he shuddered with eagerness. Her blue eyes were wide with an emotion he couldn"t read. Surprise? Antic.i.p.ation? Fear?
He reached for the towel and yanked it away. It fell unnoticed in a heap on the tiled floor between them. At first all he wanted was to look, to drink her in visually while he was firmly in his own skin and could see her the way a man would see her.
Had he ever really looked at a woman before? Had he appreciated the wonder of her body, or had he been too busy planning his next move? Tonight he had three hours. A sinfully luxurious number of minutes. So he would take his time. And look.
Her skin was pink from the hot water and dewy in spots where she hadn"t finished drying off. He watched her nipples go from soft and full to puckered and rigid. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s quivered with her rapid breathing.
She had a tiny, flat mole above her right nipple. In his frenzy to experience her, he hadn"t noticed it last night. Soon he would lick and kiss that spot, but first he wanted to make sure he saw her, really saw her.
He longed to span her small waist with both hands and lift her to the counter, but he would do that later, too. For now he admired how her hips flared, creating a graceful curve down to her firm thighs. At last he allowed his attention to settle on the blond curls between her thighs, and he almost lost it.
Tiny drops of water left over from her shower trembled there, silently inviting him to the feast he"d enjoyed the night before and wanted to savor again. First he would capture each drop of water on the tip of his tongue, and then he would- "I want to touch you."
His gaze lifted to discover that she was looking at him with equal intensity. Her eyes were no longer wide and innocent, but heavy-lidded and sultry. He remembered how fantastic her hands had felt on him last night, and instantly his c.o.c.k jerked and his b.a.l.l.s tightened.
She ran her tongue over her lips and her smile was pure seduction. "And this time, Jasper, I plan to taste you, too."
Oh, G.o.d. If a man lived who could resist that kind of suggestion, Jasper hadn"t met him. But then he had an awful thought, that she was offering oral s.e.x because she felt terrible about the whole cat situation. That would take the zing right out of the experience, if that was her motivation. Well, not all the zing. He"d still enjoy it, but not in the same way.
He found himself hesitating. "You don"t have to."
"I want to."
"Because of what"s happened to me?"
She shook her head, still smiling that temptress smile.
"I don"t want a pity b.l.o.w. .j.o.b."
Her low laughter was the s.e.xiest thing he"d ever heard. "That"s not the kind I had in mind."
Moisture pooled in his mouth as he imagined what she did have in mind. "I . . . then . . . yes."
Holding his gaze, she knelt on the towel that he"d dropped at her feet. As she wrapped her warm fingers around his p.e.n.i.s, he thought he might come on the spot. He clenched his jaw and curled his hands into fists. The condom wrapper crinkled under the pressure, and he tossed it to the counter. Later.
She extended her tongue and licked the drop of moisture from the end of his d.i.c.k. Then she glanced up at him. "I"ve heard it"s even better if you watch."
His response wasn"t even a word, really. It was more of a strangled acknowledgment that somehow she"d read his mind and probed his deepest fantasies. He"d met women who didn"t want to do this at all. He"d met women who only wanted to do it in the dark. Some were willing to do it when they could use a dimmer switch to mute the glare, or by candlelight, with soft music playing.
But this woman . . . this woman not only knelt before him under the bright lights of a bathroom, she"d invited him to watch her take his eager c.o.c.k into her luscious mouth.
Apparently he looked as awestruck as he felt, because she laughed again.
Then she reached over and pushed the bathroom door closed. "That will help."
He couldn"t imagine why until he glanced over and discovered a full-length mirror on the back of the door. That"s when he almost forgave her for turning him into a cat.
For a p.o.r.n movie, it would be the perfect camera angle. He could see everything-her lips sliding back and forth over his happy c.o.c.k, her hands fondling his lucky b.a.l.l.s, and her b.r.e.a.s.t.s bobbing in time to the whole maneuver. He wasn"t going to be able to take more than ten seconds of that combination of visual and physical stimulation without coming.
So he closed his eyes and concentrated on not coming. Even then she was slowly destroying him. She"d suck for a while and then she"d lean back and use some sort of twisting motion with her fingers that had him gasping in delight.
Then she"d lick him as if he was an ice cream cone about to drip all over the sidewalk. Which he was. It was hotter than the Fourth of July in this bathroom.
Ah, but a cool breeze tickled the head of his p.e.n.i.s, and he had to look. Sure enough, she had pursed her lips and was blowing on him, which was another kind of crazy-making, climax-building, torturous ecstasy. She began to lick again, and he groaned and closed his eyes again.
"Don"t close your eyes," she murmured.
"If I watch I"ll come."
Flattening her tongue, she rubbed it back and forth over the underside of his p.e.n.i.s before hitting that spot with another burst of cool air. "Why hold back?"
He spoke through clenched teeth. "Because I want to do you."
"You can do me later." This time she ran her tongue up and down the ridge that contained about a billion nerve cells, judging from how he was shaking.
"But I want you on the counter." The selfsame counter he was now hanging on to for dear life so he wouldn"t fall on her.
"You can have me on the counter." She paused to lick him thoroughly. "And you can have me on the kitchen table." She took him in, all of him, in one long, slow, slide. She spent the same amount of time on the return trip and finished with a kiss on the very top. "You can also have me on the living room floor." She circled the tip of his p.e.n.i.s with her tongue. "Just come now."
He moaned. "I want to wait."
"No, you don"t. Open your eyes. Watch me."
Cautiously he opened his eyes.
"That"s better. Here we go. Home stretch." When she started sucking this time, she obviously meant business.
What was a guy supposed to do? He came. No more cool dude, either. He was loud. He was quivering. He was . . . her slave.
Jasper had been willing to slump to the bathroom floor and stay there while he recovered, but Anica coaxed him back to the bedroom so he could recover in comfort. She was inordinately proud of herself for that last episode. She wasn"t normally a femme fatale, but the drama of this situation with Jasper seemed to be inspiring her to new heights of s.e.xuality.
If her relationship with Jasper had gone the way she"d expected and they"d come back here after dinner the other night, she had a feeling the s.e.x would have been okay, but nothing out of the ordinary. Now her entire life was out of the ordinary, so things occurred to her that never had before.
For example, until tonight she"d only used the full-length mirror on the back of the bathroom door to check her hemline or see if her shoes looked okay with her outfit. Even tonight she hadn"t remembered the mirror until she was already on her knees. The person she"d been three days ago would have canceled the idea as too outrageous.
But Anica wasn"t that person anymore. One reckless act had launched her into a whole other s.p.a.ce. Because she couldn"t put the world back the way it was, she was learning to take advantage of whatever opportunities came along, such as giving head in front of a full-length mirror and blowing a guy"s mind.
She had done that. Whatever the consequences of her turning Jasper into a cat, he would never forget that experience in the bathroom. She was honest enough to admit that was one of her goals.
But it hadn"t been her primary goal. Pleasure had been her primary goal when she"d opened the bathroom door and found him naked and aroused. He might think he"d had the lion"s share, but she"d loved every minute of that seduction. She"d felt s.e.xy and powerful, which had mended some of the recent damage to her self-esteem.
Now they lay face-to-face in her bed under the covers, smiling at each other. She"d already closed Orion in the coat closet. No sense taking any chances that Orion would interrupt the scheduled activities.
As she"d picked up her cat, she"d noted that he wasn"t getting any lighter, but that could be because Jasper was sharing his meals whenever her back was turned. If there was a chance that might count as an act of kindness, she"d look the other way. More hours with Jasper would be a blessing, especially if they could spend them like this.
Jasper shifted his weight and moved closer to her. Then he brushed his index finger over her lower lip. "That"s some talented mouth you have there."
"That"s some talented d.i.c.k you have there."
He gave a snort. "Yeah, well, you wouldn"t know that from my contribution so far tonight."
"No, but I have an excellent memory for what your d.i.c.k can do."
He grinned and tweaked her nose. "You"re not the woman I thought you were, Anica."
"Because I"m a witch?"
"Well, that too, I guess." He combed her hair back with his fingers. "But I"m talking about how sa.s.sy you"ve become recently. In the times we dated, I never picked up on you being sa.s.sy."
"That"s because I wasn"t. I let my sister have that playing field."
"And now?"
She shrugged. "If I"d been able to cancel the spell right away without anyone knowing, I probably would have continued to play the good-girl role. But I couldn"t cancel it, so why not see what it"s like to be a bad girl for a change?"
"I hope you"re not going to sell the coffee shop and open a strip joint."
"I said I wanted to be bad, not stupid." She sighed. "Not that I haven"t been stupid, as well."
"You got mad. We all do stupid things when we"re mad."
She recognized that was a concession on his part. Although he might never admit that he"d driven her to take that action, she wanted to acknowledge any ground gained in that direction. "That"s nice of you to say, considering."
"You"ve put me in a mellow mood."
"You look good in mellow." It was a joke, but she meant it. She liked this relaxed version of Jasper, when he wasn"t thinking about the market and how he could score big and retire early.
"Ha, ha."
"Yeah, I know. Lame. I"m just pa.s.sing time until you perk up."
"See, that"s what you get. I warned you not to make me come."
"I could go fetch your mail for you to read."
"No, thanks." He reached for her under the sheet and cupped her breast. "I"d rather fondle you than a pile of junk mail."
"Mm. I"m sure the post office would be devastated to hear that." She arched her back a little and pushed her breast into his hand. "More."
"Hussy."
"Bite me."
"Think I will." Easing back the covers, he scooted down and took her nipple into his mouth.
She arched her back a little more. "Good, very good."
"Um-hm." He became more enthusiastic, rubbing his chin against her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.
"I can feel your beard."
He lifted his head and gazed at her. "Does it hurt?"
"No." She rubbed her thumb along his jaw. "I like that tiny bit of scratchiness. It"s s.e.xy."
He looked into her eyes. "If I were a cat right now I"d be purring."
"But you"re not a cat so it probably doesn"t do anything for you at all."
"You"d be surprised." He captured her hand and guided it under the covers.
Her fingers closed around his firm p.e.n.i.s. "Nice."