Felidae Page 8

  The footsteps behind Tabitha were gone and she hastily looked about but whoever had been behind her was nowhere in sight. But Tabitha’s eyes had seen one thing as certain as she was standing living and breathing on the sidewalk outside Casey O’Malley’s. The face of the car’s driver was as familiar as the back of her paw. It had been Brenton sitting behind the wheel, his handsome face contorted in hatred. Brenton had tried to run her down!

  * * * * *

  Tabitha’s nerves were frayed and she wanted to pounce on someone to relieve her anger. There wasn’t much sense in visiting Casey O’Malley’s when the man she was to meet was trying to kill her but Tabitha could certainly use a drink.

  The interior of the pub was a mixture of stale whiskey and the glow of neon beer signs. Tabitha’s sensitive nostrils did a double dive, as she smelled body odor and cheap cologne as thick as Vaseline. The few women in the place were pros and Tabitha stuck out like a sore thumb. She wasn’t sure what angered her more, Brenton for suggesting this place, or for trying to run her down. Either way, all thoughts of hot sex with Brenton were erased and she only wanted revenge and a piece of his hide.

  Tabitha ordered a Kahlua and crème and nursed the drink from a dark corner where she could see without being seen. She had no intention of dodging drunken lewd proposals all night but safety in numbers seemed to be a wise choice. The bar’s clientele favored blue-collar workers, some from the docks and some from the warehouses that lined the back alleys of this part of town. For the most part they seemed cut from the same cloth; heavy canvas clothing or coveralls and wool knit caps or bare-headed with coarse features from a hard life and harder drinking.

  Tabitha stood with her back to the dingy plaster-flaked wall. From behind her she heard a rustling noise through the thin wallboard then a husky voice, “How do you want it?”

  A man’s low tone answered, “Straight fuck and talk dirty. I like that.”

  A thump against the wall sounded then as pounding began, the vibrations building into a rhythm, “Yeah, shove it in me. You’re sooo big. That’s it. Ooh, slam it home big fella. Come on. Come on. You’re the best I’ve ever had. So big. Fuck me. Fuck me. Make me come. Yeah baby…”

  Tabitha rolled her eyes. The woman’s tone was so false she was obviously a pro making her living. The sound and noise were a play-by-play that Tabitha didn’t need to witness to know what was going on. But it did nothing to arouse her the way Brenton had. Damn, him! Why did he have to turn out to be a louse and try and kill her? That was just plain rude!

  A moment later a lady appeared from the back, her blouse half-undone and her breasts bulging from her push-up bra. Her red garish lipstick was smudged and the scent of sex came off her in waves. A man followed behind her, his pants unzipped and his dick partially visible. Tabitha watched the pair walk unsteadily towards the bar where one of the man’s cronies must have pointed out his dangling peter as a sudden guffawing and raucous laughter broke out.

  The acrid stench of a cheap stogie drifted to Tabitha and she recognized it as the same smell that she had noted right before the car had accelerated towards her. Not that quite a few of the pubs patrons didn’t reek of tobacco but this was a peculiar odor, sour and sweet all in one. A particular brand, cheap but distinctive. The kind of smell that clung to everything it came in contact with, including the air.

  Tabitha glanced to where the smell drifted from. Standing just inside the pub’s doorway stood a man in polyester-checkered suit. From his mouth protruded a stogie of obscene proportions. His features were a mass of wrinkles and lines mixed with pockmarks. His body frame was big, not fat but solid and pear-shaped. Tabitha’s sharp eyes noted the man’s own piggy gaze as he swept the room, trying for casual interest and failing miserably. He was looking for someone and Tabitha had an intuitive suspicion it was she. Her skin prickled with unease. The man was trouble; she sensed it with every fiber of her being.

  Tabitha leaned back further in the shadows and considered her options. It seemed best to get out of the pub undetected and that meant transforming. Damn, she was fond of the soft tunic she wore and she would lose it in the process, but her life was more important. With a last sip of her drink Tabitha crouched down in the corner and stretched. Her skeleton made a few popping noises as it adjusted but in the noisy pub it went unnoticed, as did the small furry animal sidling through the crowd towards the door.

  Tabitha paused behind a plastic plant in an urn that had seen better days. It now served as a spittoon for the pubs uncultured clientele. She was a hair’s breath away from the stogie puffer in the cheap suit. He reeked strongly of bay rum and rancid breath. He didn’t seem in any hurry to vacate his post in front of the door.

  Further irritated that her evening had gone from bad to worse, Tabitha made an impulsive dash towards the man. She unsheathed her claws and in a flurry of movement ran up his leg straight for his groin. Her claws found their mark and dug in with a vengeance. The man howled with shock, obviously thinking a rodent from the docks had attacked him in the darkened pub, he yelled with terror. The pain in his dick and balls had to be excruciating as it radiated outward like a hot probe of agony, shooting through his groin, causing him to collapse in a heap screaming, “A rat. A rat bit my balls! For God’s sake call an ambulance!” He shrieked in pain, “I think it bit off my dick. Someone do something! The pain…”

  But it was too late. The crowd thinking he’d yelled the plural “rats” was a tide of shifting bodies trying to get out the door before the vicious rodents took over. No one in their right mind relished going through the series of rabies shots that were mandated for a rat bite and outside in the open air seemed the best antidote. Bodies stepped on and over the prostrate form lying on the floor, writhing in pain. No one noticed the small slinky form that raced through the door ahead of the crowd and disappeared across the street.

  Tabitha had little choice but to remain in feline form and try to find a way back to the hotel. She couldn’t very well transform into a naked human and hitch a ride. Likewise her purse was back at the pub with her clothes and she had no way to retrieve it. Her money was as good as gone as well as her clothes. She was in a pickle. She could have taken her car to the pub but at the time it hadn’t seemed like a good idea as any car on this side of town was a vandal’s dream.

  She caught a ride in the back of a flatbed pickup headed back from the docks. At the intersection a few miles from the hotel, she spotted a shuttle bus and jumped onto the bumper, hanging on for dear life. As the bus passed the hotel Tabitha jumped off into the darkness, narrowly being missed by a taxicab pulling up to the Arpel hotel.

  Now she was faced with an entirely different set of problems. The hotel doors were minded by a doorman as well as bellhops waiting to help with luggage. There was no way Tabitha could gain entrance that way. But there were alternate routes for savvy felines with inside knowledge of the hotel’s workings.

  Tabitha scooted around to the back of the hotel to the kitchen entrance. Damn! The doors were closed until deliveries in the morning. But further on, the basement windows were opened to let the steam from the laundry evaporate. Tabitha sighed, which came out a meow of sad proportions. The windows were easy to negotiate in her current form and she landed inside a room as steamy as a sauna with hot tumblers rotating towels to dry and hot presses going full steam.

  A kind maid Tabitha recognized as Gabby caught sight of the red tabby cat meandering between noisy equipment and paused to murmur a few kind words, “Poor kitty. Are you a stray?”

  Tabitha had always liked Gabby in her brief contact with the laundry maid, but Gabby’s status in Tabitha’s eyes was about to be promoted to adoration as Gabby scooped Tabitha up in her arms and stroked her soft fur. “Come with me, kitty. I’ll bet we have some nice leftovers in the kitchen for you.”

  Tabitha purred with relief at being home and the thought of dinner made her knead her claws with happiness. True to her word Gabby poured a generous bowl of cream for Tabitha in the vast kitchen area
of the hotel. She also found a platter of smoked salmon quiche and offered it to the feline, not sure if it was cat-digestible. But Tabitha’s purr settled the issue as she delicately picked through the quiche eating the salmon bits until she was full. Then bless Gabby’s heart she brought a large warm towel from the laundry and folded it for the tabby to lay on.

  Tabitha didn’t have the heart to refuse the kindness. She would just lie down for a few minutes until Gabby went back to work then she would find a way up to her room. Just a few minutes, Tabitha thought as she curled up on the toasty warm towel and drifted off in an exhausted sleep.

  * * * * *

  Tabitha woke sometime in the middle of the night. She was lying half on a towel and half on a hard cement floor and she was in human form, naked. Damn it! She had fallen asleep on the kitchen floor and transformed in her sleep. She sat up and moaned…the floor was hard as a rock and her body felt every bit of it.

  Tabitha wrapped the towel around herself and tiptoed out to the back hall where a network of passages kept the staff of the Arpel out of public view as they did their menial duties. Using the freight elevator she reached her room unseen, retrieved a hidden pass card, and quickly let herself in. She headed straight for the shower, taking time to ease the stiffness and foul odors of the pub. One thing was on her mind, payback for her trouble. Brenton was going to get his and it wasn’t going to be the pleasurable experience that Tabitha had planned for him.

  When she was clean and groomed to perfection, Tabitha donned a pair of jeans and a nondescript pullover. She wanted another look at Brenton’s suite, assuming he hadn’t returned. She checked by phone at the front desk where Maurice was back on night duty. No messages from Brenton and he hadn’t returned to Maurice’s knowledge. Thankfully, Davey wasn’t on duty as Tabitha rode up to the penthouse in the elevator.

  There was no way Tabitha was going to dirty herself on Brenton’s behalf crawling through the air vents again. Not a chance in hell! In the supply closet she rummaged through the small tool chest and emerged with a hammer and flat-edged screwdriver. Gentleness being the last thing from her mind Tabitha wedged the screwdriver in the doorframe in front of the mechanism and slammed it a few times with the hammer, almost humming with satisfaction as the violent action gave her temper an outlet. The mechanism snapped and the door clicked open, an ugly gash marring its smooth, polished surface. She hoped Brenton would be livid at the blatant vandalism.

  The penthouse was dark and silent. It looked the same as Tabitha had left it. Brenton’s bedroom still showed the ceiling vent missing and the pieces lying on the thick dark Berber carpet. Brenton’s cell phone on the nightstand rang softly, more of a chirp. Tabitha grabbed it and looked at the small display window. Only the battery needing to be charged. The phone chirped again, reminding her of its fading power.

  Startled, Tabitha almost dropped the small instrument as her turbo-charged nerves overcompensated and her quick reflexes responded. She literally twitched with irritation and indecision. She was about to toss the phone on the bed and leave when an idea struck her. She pressed the menu key on Brenton’s cell and searched for the right buttons until his dialed calls appeared.

  Using the cell’s diminishing power she pressed send and dialed the last number Brenton had called, noting the time he’d placed the call. An answering machine picked up and gave a spiel about Regeant’s Fine Imports and Furnishings. That wasn’t especially odd as Brenton liked the finer things and could be doing business with the firm. But the time Brenton had placed the call was a little before three a.m., not too long before the two men in cheap suits had arrived and Brenton had disappeared. Now that did bear looking into.

  Tabitha noted the address the recorded message had given for Regeant’s was Cobble Street and Old Harbor Road. For an import business to be located near the docks wasn’t unheard of, but was it a coincidence that Old Harbor Road was remarkably near Casey O’Malley’s, the pub where Brenton had tried to run her down, and the awful man in the checkered suit and stinking stogie had turned up? Tabitha knew she was on to something. Her feline intuition was working overtime telling her it all was linked. But she also sensed more danger than just Brenton trying to run her down.

  She would try to exercise caution though it went against her inherited instincts not to just drive over to the warehouse and slap someone around until they came up with some answers. Too bad she wasn’t of the Panthera onca species, now that was a cat that could so some panther-sized damage! Sometimes it sucked being a runty tabby of the Felidaen subspecies.

  Tabitha was about to throw the weakening cell phone onto the bed when she noticed something peculiar. Her fingers where they had touched the keypad were growing warmer. Curious, Tabitha sniffed her fingers and smelled just a trace of Brenton’s scent where the oil from his fingers lingered on the keys and had transferred to Tabitha’s own skin. She glanced at the phone in her hand, was it her imagination or was it growing warmer in her palm?

  The phone looked innocuous enough but the LCD display suddenly lit up and the low battery words disappeared. It was becoming warmer in her hand. Tabitha peered closely at the display. The picture of two batteries appeared in the top right corner. The phone wasn’t as low on juice as she had thought.

  A sudden tingling in her fingers traveled into her hand and made her gasp. The phone’s display glowed brighter and the third battery sign appeared. What the hell? The phone was charging itself.

  There was a sudden twinge in Tabitha’s cunt as a surge of electricity traveled down her arm to her nether regions. She swore the phone began to vibrate in her palm. Tabitha’s knees weakened and she fell to a kneeling position. Of their own volition her hands traveled down to the crotch of her jeans and rubbed the phone against her pubis. A spasm shot through Tabitha like a blowtorch through ice. She was unable to help herself as she unzipped her jeans and moved aside her panties. She touched her clit and moved it back and forth but the heat wasn’t enough. She eased the cell phone inside her underwear and pushed it against her labia. The fire shot through her unchecked and she rubbed the small vibrating cell against her cleft like a lover’s fingers stroking her. She swore it was Brenton’s long fingers encircling her, teasing her before inching their way inside her, inciting her to move with their to and fro motion.

  She hated Brenton for trying to kill her, but God help her she’d do anything to have his cock pulsing inside her at this moment! To feel him pushing inside her, filling her with his girth and length, making her writhe and moan, pleading for him to fuck her.

  A rush of thick secretion flowed from Tabitha’s cunt, bringing her back to reality but she was helpless to stop the burning from within that drove her to work her clit mercilessly. She arched her back and screamed, a primal sound between a groan and a shriek, as if her soul were being torn from her body. She wanted to come so badly and she swore her blood pressure was rising by the second with the quickening of her breath. Her vaginal muscles clenched but as if discovering Brenton’s cock was absent, Tabitha’s whole body went cold and she shivered uncontrollably. Kneeling on the floor, no longer riding the cell phone as it pressed against her mons, she quivered like a bewildered idiot. The cell was cold now and emitted a low battery beep.

  Tears gathered on her cheeks and she had no idea when she had started crying. She let herself fall back onto the soft, thick Berber carper and lay dazed, not knowing what had just occurred. After a few minutes the cell in her hand began to warm up and pulsed in her palm again. The LCD display was lit again and the batteries were recharging themselves.

  Instinctively Tabitha knew she had to get rid of the phone to be free of its cursed lure. With viciousness born of shame and anger at her weakness, she heaved the phone against the bedroom wall, taking comfort in the sound of it cracking, pieces flying in all directions. Tabitha lay back with a relieved sigh.

  Within moments her fingers began to burn with that tingling intensity that traveled down her arm and invaded her cunt, insidious and insistent that she touc
h herself, and rub herself into a frenzy. It had to be the aftermath of Brenton’s skin oils from the phone pad, Tabitha realized, as she leapt to her feet and hiked up her jeans, rushing into Brenton’s bathroom and hitting the tap knobs to full force. She lathered her hands several times and washed with scalding water, wincing as her skin took the brunt of the punishment.

  The potion! Tabitha knew without a doubt whatever was happening had something to do with the potion. Anything that had come into contact with Brenton’s body would send Tabitha into a sexual frenzy. And the delay time seemed to be in the realm of five minutes before the mania peaked again. Her grandmother had warned her to be careful and like an errant child Tabitha had not listened. Hadn’t she rashly taken more potion than prescribed? Now just a touch of Brenton’s skin oil or his scent would send Tabitha into a sexual high that could not be assuaged, no matter how much she touched, stroked or even fucked herself. Oh God, she couldn’t even achieve orgasm! Only that hollow almost there, but can’t be relieved frustration that made her want to yowl like a tomcat and tear into something.

  What the hell was Tabitha going to do? The man who had tried to kill her was also the one she wanted to fuck her to death!

  Chapter Six

  Tabitha’s other quandary should have been easy. Getting to the dock area and Regeant’s Imports. But since her handbag had been left at Casey O’Malley’s, so was all her cash…which meant no money for a cab. Likewise, it also meant no driver’s license or car keys. There was one solution and Tabitha wouldn’t have thought twice about using it, but for one factor.

  Brenton had a car, a rather nice one. An Aston Martin Vanquish, mega-expensive and well-bred, if you were a millionaire with no cares about high-priced repair bills. Tabitha knew where the keys were. Brenton made no bones about flouting the sterling silver key ring with steel wings engraved prominently. But Brenton had touched that ring plenty of times and his scent and skin oils were bound to be all over it. And for Tabitha that meant unfulfilled sexual mania all over again. The answer was gloves. Tabitha needed gloves.