“Damn.” I gesture toward his arm, which bears about eight long, reddened scratches, inflamed on the edges. How a guy his size could be bested by a cat—even a gigantic Maine Coon—is beyond me. I find myself fighting back a laugh. “What happened? Did he hold you at gunpoint? I mean, he’s a cat. And you’re, like…a fireman.”
He looks chagrined, sheepish, and offended all at the same time, which is a lot to pack into one expression. “He’s a horrible cat,” he says, then looks like he wishes he hadn’t. “The bastard hates me. I don’t know why. I haven’t done anything to him, I swear. I think there’s something wrong with him. Cats do shit like this when they’re sick, right? Maybe he’s got something in his paw, or, I don’t know, colic or something.”
“Babies have colic.” I know this from personal experience. “Cats do not have colic.”
“Whatever. I just want to see the vet to be sure he’s…normal. I don’t want to have to go through this again tomorrow.” His forlorn expression indicates his lacerated arms.
I fold my arms across my chest and give him an arch look. I’ve got Jesse right where I want him. Only problem is, I’m not sure what to do with him. Well, part of my brain is definitely coming up with ideas, but none of them would be appropriate for my office. Not even after hours. Plus the doctor is still here, and I doubt she’d approve of me having naked monkey sex with a fireman on my desk.
Under the circumstances, I don’t have much choice but to settle for petty revenge. “So we’re asking for favors now, are we?”
He moves closer to my desk and sets the cat carrier on it. The cat inside hisses. I’ve never heard a cat hiss that loudly before. There’s a loud thump as the cat flings himself against the side of the carrier, and the carrier itself almost flies off the table. Jesse grabs it almost automatically, like this has happened on more than one occasion. I have to give him credit for impressively fast reflexes.
He doesn’t seem to have even noticed what he did. Instead he’s looking me in the eyes. Heat crawls up my neck to burn my cheeks.
“Look, I’m really sorry about what happened last night.” He sounds sincere, but like he feels like he needs to be sincere. Like he’s saying this because he wants me to help him out. Which of course he does. But if I can get something out of him, too, so much the better. So I just wait.
“I’m sorry I broke the door,” he adds. By now his hand is clenching and unclenching on the handle of the cat carrier, the tendons in his forearms flexing and releasing. He has very nice forearms. They’d look even nicer if they weren’t covered in six-inch-long cat scratches.
I fold my arms over my chest and lift my eyebrows. “Go on. I’d like to hear more.”
Jesse almost rolls his eyes, but stops just in time, so abruptly it looks like he might have hurt himself. He takes a second to consider what kind of “more” I want to hear. “The cat is a terror. I think he might be possessed. Maybe he has worms. Do cats go crazy when they have worms?”
“Not generally.”
“What do you think is wrong with him, then?”
“He doesn’t like you,” I say, even though that’s probably not the case. “I bet a lot of people don’t like you. Like people you manhandle out of their showers. Or people whose doors you break.”
His lips press into a thin line. “You’re not going to let that go, are you?”
“Hell no, I’m not. I still have to fix those doors, you know.”
He’s starting to get a little red all along the edges of his ears. “Fine. Fine. How about I take care of them for you? Shit, I’ll come by and fix them myself. No charge. I’m handy. I can do that stuff.”
I believe him. I could feel all his muscles when he was carrying me out of my apartment, but now I can see them. Rounded pecs pressing against the cotton of his T-shirt. Biceps that strain the shirt’s short sleeves. Big shoulders, a solid neck—not too thick, though. His stomach is flat and firm, and I can only imagine what his ass looks like in those jeans. Probably round and grabbable. I can picture him working on the doors, all those muscles flexing. Maybe he’d take his shirt off and be all sweaty and shining…
I realize I haven’t said anything for a few seconds. Suddenly my cheeks go warm, and I wonder if he can tell where my mind just wandered. But when I look back at his face, all I see is desperation. And finally, in a low, tortured voice, he says, “Please?”
He’s begging. He’s actually begging. Like he thinks I’m the only person in the entire world who can save him.
I like this little twist. How often does a girl have a hot, hunky guy at her mercy, after all? Especially a girl like me. I’m dorky, geeky, and I’ve been out of the dating market so long I don’t even know what the etiquette is anymore.
Begging seems like a good place to start, though. “It’s up to the doctor. Normally we don’t stay open for people who show up late. We also charge extra for missing your appointment.”
His face crumples. “How much extra?”
“Fifty dollars.” I feel almost bad lowering the boom on him like that, but it’s the policy of the practice. “You have to consider how much you inconvenience the other patients when you show up late.”
“There are no other patients.”
“Then you’ve inconvenienced the doctor. She wants to go home. I want to go home. We all want to go home.”
The desperation is back in his eyes, and there’s a blue vein throbbing on his temple. “I don’t want to go home. Don’t you get it? This cat is ruining my damn life.”
“I seriously doubt that.”
But he sounds serious. He looks serious. He is actually scared to death of his cat. “I need to fix him.”
“He hasn’t been fixed? That could explain a lot right there.” I make a move toward the carrier, prepared to pull out the big cat and check to see if he still owns all his man-cat parts.
“No, no, that’s not what I meant.” He tips the carrier so it’s just out of my reach. “His balls are gone and all that. I just need him to behave.”
“Maybe you should just be nicer to him.”
“I am nice!” That vein is throbbing so hard and so fast I could dance to it. “I am so nice! That’s what I don’t get. He’s just—”
Dr. Raczek picks that moment to poke her head out. Jesse stops talking immediately, swallowing whatever else he was going to say about his apparently homicidal feline. “What’s going on, Maddy?”
“Mr. …” I stop, realizing I don’t know Jesse the Fireman’s last name.
“King,” he offers.
“Mr. King here is a half hour late for his appointment, but he wants to see you because his cat is having problems.”
Dr. Raczek frowns, glancing back and forth between me and Jesse and landing another look on the big cat carrier. “Is the cat sick?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is it an emergency?” She’s giving Jesse the once-over, I can tell, taking in the scratches on his arms and the way the cat carrier lurches a few inches across the desk every minute or so. The cat has stopped its loud hissing, but it’s making noises now, little chitters that sound like incredibly pissed-off birds.
“I don’t know,” Jesse admits. “He’s got behavior issues. Cats act up when they’re sick, right? Or when they get hurt?”
The doctor purses her lips. “Yes, they can. It’s not unusual for a cat to act out when it’s in pain.” She glances at her watch. “I can go ahead and look him over, see if it’s anything obvious. Maddy, could you take Mr. King to an exam room? I’ll be there in just a few minutes.”
I nod and wave Jesse toward the back part of the office. He picks the carrier up again, taking a second to balance as the cat shifts its weight, sending the carrier tilting. I pick the closest exam room and gesture him in. He sets the carrier on the table and shakes his hand out, flexing his fingers. “He weighs a ton.”
“What’s his name?” I bend to peer into the carrier and see a furry gray face and yellow eyes looking back at me. He doesn’t look particularly demonic. In fact, with his gray fur and the long, white whiskers framing his pink mouth, he’s rather pretty.
“Thor,” Jesse says, and I grin.
“Hi, Thor,” I say, and decide not to put my fingers into the carrier. “How are things in Midgard this week? Have you seen the rest of the Avengers recently?”
Thor doesn’t answer. Jesse looks at me like I’m nuts. I’m used to that reaction from people, but, strangely, it stings a little coming from Jesse. I clear my throat and straighten, putting my professional face back on. “Has he been eating all right?”
“Yes.” Jesse shifts into what looks like a more professional mode, too, and I know he’ll take my questions seriously. “I feed him twice a day. He always eats it all.”
“Vomiting?”
“Not really. Hair balls once in a while. Usually in the middle of the night.” He pauses. “Is it normal for him to sound like he’s choking on his own spleen when he does that?”