Cat Haus - The Complete Story (18 page)

My eyes drifted shut as I concentrated on the sensations assaulting me, until the sound of John saying my name had them flying open. I found him lost in the act above me, his own eyes squeezed tightly closed as concentration creased his brow. His breath came and went in short, sharp bursts each tinged with a low grunt as he neared completion.

"Oh, God. Cate." Eyes slammed shut, he plunged deep into me.

I felt the full body shudder pass through him as he came. He'd been totally immersed in what we were doing, yet he'd uttered my name, not once, but twice, probably without even realizing it.

An unbidden warmth spread through me, making my heart clench and a hope I didn't want grow inside me. As my own orgasm broke over me I couldn't help but think, when it came to this man I was good and truly fucked.

CHAPTER 14

"Hungry?"

"Uh, yeah. Sure." I was used to men fucking me. That was just part of the daily grind on this job. What would take some getting used to was John trying to feed me afterward. It was strange, but nice.

He sat upright in the bed, swung his legs over the side of the mattress and stood. After walking gloriously naked across the apartment to the kitchenette built against one wall, he glanced back at me. "I didn't get a chance to eat after my flight."

The thought that he'd come directly here from the airport gave me all sorts of thoughts. Things like maybe he couldn't wait to see me. Crazy. Of course it had to be that he'd wanted to see his new apartment and check in on the business.

What was it we were talking about again? Oh, yeah. Food.

"Will there be any food here?" The apartment had literally been completed that morning, the final touches put in just in time for John's arrival.

He glanced at me over the top of the open fridge door. "I won't tell Henry you asked that. He'd be extremely insulted."

Of course John's manager, Henry, would have outfitted this place with everything his boss could possibly need. I blamed my mistake in assuming otherwise on my inability to think whenever John's naked butt was in view. "You're right. I apologize to Henry in absentia."

He paused in his perusal of the contents of the refrigerator to stare back at me. "You went to college."

Maybe we weren't done with the line of questioning quite yet. Though he seemed to say it as more of a statement than a question, I answered anyway. "Yes. Did you read that on the resume in my employee file?"

John's brow creased above his eyes as he glanced at me again. "You submitted a resume?"

I laughed. He had asked a serious question. John was still getting his bearings in this strange new turn of events in his business holdings. "Not the kind you're thinking of."

My
resume
for this job had been a few emailed pictures of me partially unclothed and in various provocative poses. Those had been enough to land me an interview with Gus that ended with me blowing him to prove my proficiency and willingness to work in this profession. I must have done it to his satisfaction since I got the job.

The
interview
was a piece of cake compared to Gus's initiation and job training after I'd been hired. All new girls had to go through the same thing. A summons to Gus's bedroom where we'd suck him, fuck him, and then turn around and bend over so he could stick his dick in our ass. The excuse was he needed to know all the girls could handle it if a customer asked for it. In reality, I think he was just a pervert who liked making girls do things they'd never do with him if he hadn't been their boss.

Good thing he was hung like a Chihuahua, so it wasn't as bad as it could have been. It had still been hard to handle. Me being so new to this life, I'd gone back to my room and cried my eyes out for a good half hour. Right up until the first customer of the day walked through the front door and I had to put on a happy face and greet him with the rest of the girls. Maybe Gus had been right and there was a method to his madness. After the horror of that initiation, nothing a customer did could faze me.

I spared a brief moment to wonder where Gus was now, and to hope he'd done something bad enough to land him in prison where he could get the same treatment being some guy's bitch that he'd subjected us girls to.

It was impossible to think about Gus or anything else for very long with John in the room, and that brought me back to him and his questions. "I know you're looking for answers—"

"No. Really, Cate. Stop. I don't need answers and I was out of line to ask."

"No, you—"

"Seriously. Don't answer. Please." His tone had shifted. Curious or not, it seemed he really didn't want to talk about this any more.

It made me wonder, so I asked, "Why not?"

"Because sharing works both ways and I'm not ready to open that door quite yet." He disappeared behind the door of the fridge again, but his statement only raised a dozen or so more questions in me. "Cheddar cheese omelet all right with you? I know it's getting to be past breakfast time but . . ."

"That's fine." I swallowed, not feeling all that hungry anymore as all the possible things John didn't want to tell me whirled through my brain.

Was he married? Or did he have a serious girlfriend back home? I'd wondered it a hundred times before, but the idea hit me doubly hard now given his statement.

It wouldn't be difficult for him to live two separate lives—one here with me, one home with whomever. He was only in Nevada for one week or less a month as far as I could tell and it was for his business. He could easily have a whole family stashed back in California or where ever. They'd never suspect a thing. Neither should I—but I did.

As the aroma of butter sizzling in the pan filled the apartment, I pictured the sickening domestic scene.

Daddy has to travel for work again. Be a good little boy and girl and I'll bring you home a present from Nevada
.

He'd give the little woman a sweet, chaste kiss goodbye and then board the plane, on his way here to a life she'd never know about. I glanced at the cell phone he'd left on the nightstand. What was in there? Whose numbers? Whose pictures? I could grab it and look, quick while he was in the shower later. My heart began to pound just thinking about it. What would I find? Nothing good, I was sure, and the reality was it shouldn't matter to me either way. We weren't dating. I wasn’t his girlfriend. We enjoyed each other for a couple of days a month. That was all.

As I watched John cooking the post-coital meal the two of us would share, everything I was trying to convince myself of felt like pure bullshit. I glanced at the Pandora's box that was his cell phone one more time and then slid out of bed.

Enough. I was usually real good at compartmentalizing my life. Time to shut down my thoughts and my feelings and lock all that shit away where it belonged. Behind the big padlock I kept secure around my heart.

I padded barefoot and naked across the shiny wood floors. They felt cool against the bottoms of my feet. Call me strange but in the midst of my identity crisis as to what I was to John I couldn’t help but wonder if these were the original floors refinished, or if he'd had new flooring installed.

I wrapped my arms around him from behind where he stood at the stove, marveling one more time at his tight, flat stomach. He was the polar opposite of Gus, who could have been ready to give birth to twins based on his girth.

"Mmm." Pressed against his back, I couldn't help the sound that escaped my throat as I ran my hands down to his cock. "Don't burn anything I might need later."

His laugh vibrated through me. "Don't distract me and I won't." John put down the spatula and moved my hand away.

"Maybe I'm hungry for something else besides food." Yeah, I was acting over the top. Flirting with the man like he was a customer, as if he hadn't just pleasured me in that big, new, king-size bed. As if he hadn't already come twice in the past hour or so.

"Again?"

"What? Too much for you?"

"No. I'm prepared to fulfill all your needs, but
after
I get some food in me. All right?"

"Yes." The crazy part was I feared—knew deep down—that he could give me all the food and sex I could physically handle but there would still be an emptiness inside me. A place I wanted John to fit that I knew he shouldn't.

Smiling, he turned and dropped a kiss to the top of my head. "Good. This is just about done. Can you set the table for us? Henry said there are utensils and napkins in the drawer."

With that one kiss, and that one deceivingly simple request, he started to wiggle his way into that place inside me. That void yearning to be filled. The cell on the nightstand caught my eye once again. Maybe I did need to get a look at that phone. A picture of the little woman and the kiddies might be the reality check I needed right about now.

I moved to where John had dropped my robe on the floor before our lovemaking. I bent to retrieve it and pulled it on. I'd do many things naked, but setting the table in preparation of eating this surreal meal with John wasn't one of them.

He slid the omelet onto a platter and grabbed two plates from the cabinet above his head, and I decided to take back control of my life. Armed with two forks and two napkins, I sat at the table. "You know, after we eat I should probably think about getting back downstairs to work."

I saw the reaction in his eyes as they shifted to me and he set the platter between us. "All right."

The pause before he answered had been long enough I suspected he wasn't as onboard with the idea as he pretended. "I mean I don't have to. I suppose the others can handle it. It's just that weekends are so busy—"

"Cate. You do what you have to do. My apologies for keeping you away from your work for so long."

My need to get back to reality was one thing. Risking losing what little I had with John over it, was another. I reached across the table and covered his hand with mine.

"No. Don't say that. I'm exactly where I want to be." I scrambled for an excuse to let him know I wanted to be here, but I also needed to not fall into his bed for the next forty-eight hours straight, or however long he'd grace us with his presence this time. That would really mess with my head. "I just don't want the other girls to get mad I'm not pulling my weight when it's busy."

"If that's truly an issue, that the women here are overworked, I'll have Henry hire more."

I smiled at his effort to try and solve all the problems of the world—or at least, in the world immediately surrounding the Cat Haus. "Where would you put them? There aren't any available bedrooms."

He lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. "That too can be fixed."

Great. The other girls would really hate me if they ever found out I was responsible for John bringing in more workers. Then we'd all make less money. Time for damage control.

"Or I can just switch my schedule around. Cover a shift while you're busy in the city doing whatever it is you do. But while you're here at the Cat Haus, I'll spend my off hours with you.
If
that's what you want." Crap. I couldn't resist this man.

"Make sure it's what you want, Cate and don't worry about me."

"Sorry, but I'll always worry about you. I'm a people pleaser at heart." I stood and moved around the table. I straddled his lap to face him in the chair.

He rested his hands lightly on my hips. "Our food is getting cold."

That, in addition to his distant expression, was like a bucket of cold water thrown on me. I swung one leg over him so I could stand. "You're right. And you're starving. I'm pretty hungry myself."

I sat and grabbed my fork, not as hungry as I pretended to be.

CHAPTER 15

"Nice of you to join us." Tiffany's face twisted into a scowl at my late arrival in the parlor. Juvenile that I was, I wished what mothers always told their children was true, and if she kept making that face it might stay that way.

"Yes, I see you're overwhelmed here. Glad I made it in time for the crowd." I glanced around the room. Sahara was playing Solitaire with a deck of cards on the bar. Sasha looked half asleep where she lounged on the sofa and Trina was asleep. Meanwhile, Tiffany had been inspecting her manicure until her attention had turned to spewing attitude at me. It seemed there was one character missing from my shift's usual cast of characters. "Rhonda with a customer?"

Sahara glanced over her shoulder at me. "Nope. She's sick. Been puking for hours."

"Really. That's too bad." After thinking I hoped whatever Rhonda had wasn't contagious, I shot Tiffany a look to tell her that I called bullshit on her being irate I was late getting to the parlor. We all knew things would pick up and get busy later in the day, but early? Not so much, so she was just being a bitch.

The dozen of us worked when needed, but we were responsible to cover a twelve-hour shift each, six at a time. On occasion there'd be someone out sick, or who'd had to work off-shift because a regular came in or a party ran long. But all in all, the floor was always covered.

Tiffany didn't matter. I had enough on my mind worrying about this thing that I couldn't call a relationship with John. It was one reason why I kind of wished business would pick up earlier rather than later today and distract me.

I walked the high-as-sin black heels I'd put on for the day over to the bar and perched my ass on a stool next to Sahara. I'd gone with thigh-high stockings and a sexy but classy miniskirt topped off by a plain black corset. I didn't know what it was, but men went nuts over a corset. Well worth the cost for me since I was convinced I could ask a higher rate when wearing one. I was in the mood to be in all black today after feeling a bit too vulnerable in John's apartment while wearing nothing but my robe.