her way back to the bar. She had to laugh when she squeezed onto her bar stool again.
Someone—Max, of course—had put a crudely lettered Reserved sign next to her drink. Ignoring the dirty looks from the customers forced to stand, she hitched up onto the stool again and waved at Max, filling an order at the end of the bar.
He smiled and winked at her.
Gods, that wink was so utterly sexy. If anyone could kick start her pheromones, it would be him, but she had as much chance at that as she had of winning the lottery. He was kind, friendly, even a protector when he thought she needed one. But he’d never once given off a vibe that told her he’d be interested, even when she’d had a drink too many and deliberately flirted with him. No silent sexual messages. Nothing.
Since she’d found out about The Litter Box, she’d taken to hanging out here several nights a week. Hoping to find that one person who could help her get past her trauma. Make the act of sex so arousing that she lost herself in the climax and finally, finally came into full heat and shifted.
She’d tried, the gods knew. She’d probably fucked half the clientele of the shifter bar. But they all left her cold. Incomplete. Most of them didn’t even care that the orgasms she had were faked. Assholes. Why did she even bother again and again? It always ended the same way. Afterwards she couldn’t even stand to talk to them.
Only Max had been a constant. Sexy as sin Max Rogan who had become her best friend. The only person who knew her sad, pathetic story. The one who always kept a watchful eye on her. The one she could always count on.
The man who never saw her as anything but Aisha, vodka stinger on the rocks.
The one she really, really wanted more than any of the others.
She stirred the ice cubes in her drink with her finger then licked off the moisture. For a brief moment she wondered what it would be like licking Max’s cock and a totally unfamiliar surge of lust rolled through her. She squirmed on the seat trying to satisfy the sudden craving in her pussy. Where had that come from?
Quickly she downed the rest of her drink and tapped her glass on the bar for a refill. She ignored the scowl on Max’s face and just gave him her biggest smile, pointing to her empty glass. What the hell. Drinking seemed to be her only pleasure these days.
Max finished pouring a fresh brew for the puma sitting at the end of the bar, mixed a quick gimlet for the panther in the red dress, and refilled a bowl of pub mix before making his way back to Aisha. He was worried about her.
Tonight she seemed to be strung tighter than usual. Had the guy she’d taken home the other night hurt her in some way? It bothered the shit out of him that she seemed to be working her way through the entire male clientele of The Litter Box without ever letting any contact affect her. She’d dance with them, take them home then never speak to them again. And she always looked so alone.
After a while, he found himself consumed with raging jealousy every time Aisha left with a different cat. He wanted to be the one going home with her. The one in her bed. The one under her, over her. In her. Like that was going to happen any time soon.
His gut still twisted when he thought of the story she’d blurted out to him one night. A story so traumatic that he wanted to find the shifter who attacked her and destroy him.
She had only been eighteen when it happened, just on the verge of her first heat. A rogue member of her pack, spurned both by her and by the alpha as a potential mate for her, attacked her in a fit of rage and nearly destroyed her. Left unable to shift, she was cast out by her pack, sent off on her own. Now she made a half-life for herself on the outskirts of both human and shifter societies, belonging to neither. According to what he’d been able to pry out of her, she just kept moving from city to city, seeking some kind of attachment but unable to connect with anyone.
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