My heart jackhammered in my chest as I gaped at Mr. Whiskers, trying to make sense of the words that had spilled from his mouth. He angled his head, raising one dark eyebrow, daring me to answer. In his mind, I realized, this wasn't a statement. It was a question, to which he actually wanted a reply. I. Want. To. Fuck. You.

"Hmmm...I...uh..." The words croaked from my dry mouth. His heated gaze dipped to my mouth as my tongue darted out to nervously wet my bottom lip. Fire burned in his eyes and his fingers flexed minutely around the nape of my neck in response, sending a thrill rippling down my spine. I blew out a breath that teased the locks of hair around my face and squinted up at him. "Excuse me?"

His gaze snapped to mine. "You heard me. I want to—"

I slapped my hand across his mouth. I wasn't sure if I would survive hearing those words again, rumbled in his rough, dark voice. I was hot and flustered and was barely thinking straight. Touching him might have been the wrong thing to do. His beard felt strangely soft yet prickly, his lips and breath hot against my sensitive palm, and it sent a crackling bolt of pure lust right down to my sex. I bit back the moan as my inner walls clenched on nothing, my panties dampening between my thighs.

Holy hells-gate...oh my gods...

I covertly rubbed my thighs together to extinguish the flames, but it was seemingly impossible to completely erase the desire throbbing between my legs.

His brows slanted over eyes that seemed now to be gleaming wolf-bright above the ghost of a smile I felt brushing against my palm as if he knew what his presence and touch were doing to me.

I rapidly blinked away the shock of his proposal, offer—whatever the heck it was—and my muddled, lust-drunk senses, trying to pull myself together. I cleared my throat and shook my head as if I were sweeping cobwebs from the corners of my mind. I shot him a suspicious glance.

Was he laughing at me?

Taunting me?

Was this how he approached every woman he wanted?

Maybe he was playing some sort of sick, twisted joke with me.

Did he think that we were just going to strip our clothes off here in the kitchen cool room and just do it? Do it against the wall? My first time...

I haven't even been kissed before.

I frowned up at him, my hand still splayed across his mouth. "Is this some kind of joke? Are you making fun of me? Does that line actually work on the girls you use it on?"

He huffed a broken, rusty laugh—a caress against my palm. I dropped my hand away, fast, flexing my fingers to release the overwhelming electrical sensation. The wall behind me was cold, a chilling contradiction to his body pressed against mine, hot as a fire raging in a hearth.

"All. The. Time," he replied, cocky and sure of himself.

It was a splash of cool water on my face and it woke me up from the madness and doused the sexual energy sizzling through my off-kilter body.

Curving my hand around his, I pried his fingers from my neck. And when I pressed the tip of my finger against his hard chest, his gaze narrowed, questioning, but he stepped back a few paces.

I skirted around him cautiously, like he was a wild beast. Sucking in a deep breath, I moved a little unsteadily into the middle of the cool room. Bitterness hit the back of my mouth. He'd admitted it—he'd asked plenty of girls the same question. I was just one of many I was sure that he entertained himself with, before pushing them out of bed. And even though it was something I'd longed for, to be intimate with a man, I'd only been aiming for a freaking kiss. This was way out of my league. Way out of it.

I cast him a sharp, swift glance.

He was gorgeous and intimidating. Severe, yet casual in his attire, which even I knew was bespoke. The room was far too small for someone of his size and presence. For some reason, I wasn't afraid of him, even though he could easily overpower me. He was dangerous and lethal, and as a hunter, he was obviously skilled with blades. Blades, that I noted, were still tucked into his belt, and I couldn't stop the inner Uptight Spinster from thinking how irresponsible it was to carry them about so nonchalantly.

He silently watched me as I paced back and forth in the cool room, trying to decide if I should just leave or not. For some ridiculous reason, I couldn't even get my dull navy heels to lead me in the direction of the metal door.

I stopped pacing and stood with one hand on my hip and the other hand kneading my temple, staring at the door to the cool room. I should leave. Just walk out. I didn't owe him an answer. I owed him nothing.

Behind me, I heard a deep, weary sigh. Startled and curious, I spun around to see Mr. Whiskers leaning a shoulder against the wall, his head bowed, as if he was too shy, the moment too vulnerable to share what was swimming in his gaze, as he toed the ground with a black Oxford shoe. "I...I haven't used that line on any girl before."

"Oh," I said quietly, taken aback. His vulnerability rent a crack in his beast-like status. He was human after all, and something inside of me melted a little bit with the naked admission.

I realized I'd underestimated him, when he glanced up with a wholly wicked smile searing through his eyes that sparked the lust, like embers catching flame, between my legs, and growled, "I haven't needed to before."

Holy hellsgate I was out of my depth with this man.

He was serious, deadly serious. He really did want me that way. Me.

Did he want to have sex, with me?

Could I have sex?

No strings attached sex, like some of the other girls who had secret boyfriends or secret flings.

Was I really taking this seriously?

Why on earth was I taking this seriously?

"I can see your mind ticking over," he said, pushing off the wall. His eyes searched my face as if he could read all the thoughts scrambling through my mind. "You're overthinking this."

"How can I not?" I shot back, crossing my arms over my chest like a shield. My gaze slid down his arms—his big, powerful arms—as his hands, nicked with old and new scars, wrapped around each dagger hilt, and he pulled them out from his belt and placed them on a metal shelf beside a row of leathery pumpkins and squashes.

Why was he doing that?

As if he read my mind, he said, "You've been eyeing them as if they're a Health and Safety risk."

I momentarily relaxed, just a fraction, my mouth twitching as I bit back a smile.

I quickly checked out his ring finger. He wasn't married, but that didn't mean he was single. I cocked my head, narrowing my gaze. "Are you seeing someone?"

"No," he answered sharply. Perhaps too sharply. I caught something painful lingering in his eyes, haunting them before he quickly shuttered it away. I believed him. For some crazy reason, I did. But I couldn't help wondering if some girl had hurt him in the past.

I half-turned away, gnawing on my bottom lip as I began pacing back and forth once more, the clacking of my heels the only sound in the room. We'd met...when? We'd met for the first time only last night when he'd been a complete jerk about helping me with the flowers for Mrs. Deniaud's mid-winter room. And then we'd spoken this morning in the forest; we'd spotted each other through the course of the day, and briefly spoken once more this afternoon. I spun around to face him, lifting up both hands. "We don't even know one another." A sound reason not to end up in bed with him.

Mr. Whiskers walked toward me with slow, careful steps, as if I were a skittish creature he didn't want to startle. He stuffed his hands into his pant pockets and shrugged one shoulder. "We don't need to know one another."

He called me Miss Uptight because he didn't even know my name. I gasped because it had only just occurred to me that he really didn't know it. "What's my name?" I demanded, stamping a foot and propping my fists on my hips. I shot him an accusing glare.

"How the hells should I know?" he retorted, looking back at me as if I were making a big deal out of nothing.

"Exactly," I said, shoving a finger at him. "Because you haven't bothered to ask. You just pegged me with that nickname, Miss Uptight." Which was so close to Uptight Spinster it would have stung every time he used it but for the way it rumbled from his throat in that deep, gruff voice of his, and the fact that he seemed to spark with life when he spoke it. I liked it.

Oh my gods...I did like it. And the surprise of it all stunned me.

He drew a hand out of his pocket to rub the tips of his blunt fingers under his chin, staring at me down the length of his nose. A nose that looked like it perhaps had been broken. "Does it matter? I'm not asking you to fucking marry me."

I took a step back and he took one closer. I backed away. My spine bumped up against the wall. I gave a startled gasp, glancing aside to find I was snuggly tucked between two shelving units holding wicker baskets of fruit, and when I swung back his way I discovered he'd closed in on me again, caging me in with his broad body. He braced a hand against the wall beside my head and quirked up an amused eyebrow. His gaze was piercing as he pinned me in place. "This is simply me fucking you out of my system. Or you fucking me out of yours. Either way Miss Uptight," he said, waving a finger between us, "you and me—this is happening."

What does that even mean?

I stared up at him, wide-eyed.

Who did he think I was?

Who am I?

Reality, confronting and sharp-edged and glaringly unvarnished, was a crack in a sea wall with the ocean slowly seeping in and running down green barnacled cement.

My heart yearned for a romance, one that would be written in a flourish of midnight ink across a twilight sky, painted in soft watercolors of grays and purples and vibrant flashes of peach. And here he was, standing before me, offering...

What was he offering?

Sex.

And that hesitant, quiet, unsure part of me whispered poison into my mind, reminding me there was a reason I was called the Uptight Spinster. I was standing before him in a badly made dress. I was a Between Maid, not even from a family of good standing within our world. If not for my aunt I would have been an orphan. I had no experience whatsoever with intimacy, let alone sex. Everything I knew came from the romance books I devoured at night and they were all romanticized, curated words and moments between characters that were the figment of another woman's imagination. They all ended with I love you and The End.

Deep down, I knew what it was.

I was too shy, too guarded to allow myself to be vulnerable, but mostly I was a coward.

I looked away because it was too hard to stare back at him while he was close, too close. "I'm not sure what kind of offer that was. Thank you,"— I think— "but no thanks," I said quietly, my voice threaded through with defeat.

I jolted when calloused fingertips curled beneath my chin. My head was tipped gently back to him with nowhere else to look but into those deep violet eyes. His head was bowed and he was so close he could lean in to brush a kiss against my lips.

The silence in the room was heavy with his intent and want. Tension vibrated through the air, taut and drawn like the last note of a symphony, the audience holding their breath.

A shiver of awareness ran down my spine as his thumb stroked along my jawline, gentle yet domineering, just like his gaze staring unblinkingly back at me. And there was the vaguest sense of familiarity. His eyes...the color of them scraped against my mind like a door scraping open. They were such a dark purple they were almost black, and they filled my vision...so familiar, yet I didn't know why.

"What's your name?" he asked, a layer of darkness in his tone.

I was powerless against his magnetism.

Worse, I wanted to be powerless.

Much worse, right then, he realized he had me.

All my resistance washed away like stones dragged into the sea by the tide raking back down a rocky shore. His presence mesmerized me. The way he stared at me, with a rich challenge in his eyes, unnerved me. I was standing on the bow of a rocking boat, my equilibrium swaying from one side to the other. He was a beast cloaked in a mortal's body. Brutal with his striking looks. Feral with the obvious want burning in his gaze. I was a meal he wanted to take a bite out of...and right at that moment, I wanted him to take a bite out of me. A really, really big bite.

"Tabitha..." I answered, barely a whisper. "Tabitha Catt."

Something swift scored through his expression—confusion—and I had the distinct impression that my name meant something to him but he didn't understand why, and then the puzzlement was swept aside from both of us, when he said, "Tabitha Catt," rolling my name around in his mouth. And I loved how it sounded, low and husky and thick with desire. "Tabby cat."

For one brief moment, something spun through my mind, a voice I couldn't quite make out...Quietly tabby-cat...quietly. Don't let them hear you...and the words curled through my head, only to be blown to wisps like a breeze coursing through a forest floor scattering dried, curled leaves, when he leaned closer, saying it one more time. "Tabby cat," he purred the nickname, and it evoked bare skin sliding against silk and hot, humid nights and sweat-slick bodies entwined. The secret place between my legs ached acutely, desperate for friction. My heart drummed in my chest, faster, faster.

I gasped as his hand threaded through my locks of hair, curving up the back of my head, and fisted, tugging sharp enough to sting, but gentle enough not to hurt, to arch my head to the side. His beard abraded my neck, the side of my face, my ear. His teeth, sharp, scraped against my earlobe. His hot breath caressed the inner shell as his hard muscled body pressed against mine...

Oh my gods...

I had no idea how sensitive my ear could be. I bit down on my bottom lip, hard. My hands instantly grasped his large upper arms to hold myself still, trying desperately not to mewl and writhe against the wall.

And a hard length throbbed against my lower stomach...and stupidly, stupidly, it took a long, long moment for me to realize what it was.

Holy freaking Skalki...

"No one's ever made me as hard as this," his gravelly voice breathed into my ear.