Lust was an arid sandstorm filling my chest, searing outward like turbulent wind whipping sand that flayed every inch of my flesh, pinching my nipples to hard points in my cheap white bra as blazing dry heat scorched a straight line, down, down, down to there...and my inner sex ached and pulsed, hungry for friction, for fulfillment, faster, faster, faster. In sweet horror I realized Mr. Whiskers had me so turned on, my body was balanced on the knife point of a climax.

"Standing there in your ugly avant-garde dress with your innocent Bambi eyes," he growled. His breath and gruff voice was a weapon he used against me. "And that godsdamned sassy mouth of yours, I'm dying to see what else it's good for." The raw need in his voice spoke the truth. Lightning threatened, not outside but in the room, crackling through the cool moist air. "Tabby cat..." he rumbled once more. The sonorous vibration of his voice sparked against my inner ear, and this time I couldn't stop the desperate moan from escaping my throat. "How about you sink your claws and fangs into me," he hissed, and then he sucked my earlobe into his hot, wet mouth.

It was a sensory overload. I was swallowed whole by his enormous body and his indelible scent, the bristles scratching my throat, his hot breath and carnal sucking on my ear, the lick of his tongue, the heated words. It was too much...too much... I was nudged over into that place of blinding-white pleasure when that hard length, hot, even through the layer of the ugly dress and his pants, the imprint of a hard zipper pressed against my soft stomach, ground against me in a torturous movement, seeking friction. My swollen, greedy sex exploded with an electrifying pulse. And I tipped over the edge and free-fell.

The climax crashed through me and scoured every single inch of my body. I squeezed my eyes shut and collapsed against the wall, suffocating under the intensity of the orgasm surging through me, and rode out the pleasure in tumultuous cresting waves. I couldn't stop the strangled cry from leaving my mouth. Or how my fingers bit into his biceps as if my life depended on it. Or the low, strained groan as my quaking knees buckled beneath me, and the messy words that kept pouring from my mouth "Ohmygodsohmygodsohmygodsohmygods..."

I was only half aware of the hands that grabbed hold of my waist. I was dazed, unable to even focus as the orgasm finally began to recede and I was left lax and useless, as if I'd tumbled down the slope of a coastal dune. I blinked blearily, panting down sharp, ragged breaths.

"Holy hellsgate," Mr. Whiskers breathed as he righted me, and held me steady as I wobbled and swayed. He leaned back to look at me better, wide-eyed. "Did you just—"

"No!" I shrieked, mortified.

He arched an eyebrow, clearly not believing me.

"No, maybe...alright YES!" My shoulders slumped. "Ugh...yes..." I admitted, too humiliated to even look at him. Swiping the tendrils of hair from my flushed face, I tried to regain my breath and release all the pent-energy that had my body still zinging with aftershocks, to make sense of what had just happened. Not even the spray of the shower head between my legs, stolen in brief harried moments in the bathroom, had ever given me that kind of orgasm.

Oh my gods...how freaking embarrassing.

I pushed away from him, and on wobbly legs made my way to the cooling system and fanned my face with the damp moisture gently blowing outward. Quite frankly I really needed to sit down on something shockingly cold too. I didn't even care that he was still there, watching the madness unfold as I beat the cool air faster and faster, trying to dampen down the nerve endings still firing. I gave up and slumped down, right in the middle of a crate of apples. Uncomfortable, but icy-cool. Oh my gods, that felt better as my lower body finally calmed right down.

Mr. Whiskers was standing frozen to the spot, his mouth slightly agape as he stared at me, stunned and somewhat in awe.

"I'm a freaking powderkeg of sexual frustration," I confessed, throwing up my hands. I bit down on my bottom lip and stared miserably at his shoes which were a little muddied and grassy, because I was too crushed with embarrassment to hold his gaze. I shrank inward, wishing I could just disappear in a puff of smoke, or crawl into a hole in the ground and lick my wounds, as I watched those shoes approach. My cheeks were burning so hot I was sure I looked as fire-engine red as the fingernail polish I'd wanted to coat my fingers in. Except I hadn't, and my nails remained unadorned, like me—dull.

"There's more where that came from," he said, laughter in his voice as he stood in front of me. "To think, I just sucked on your ear and you fucking came. Just imagine what will happen when I fu—"

I was just about to shriek at him—don't you dare finish that sentence—when some strange noise of spitting anger and thumping feet diverted our attention.

Mr. Whiskers moved impossibly fast. All of a sudden I was yanked to my feet and shielded behind his massive body. He whirled around, widening his stance just as Tomas burst into the cool room.

Tomas, his face sweaty and panicked, spun around and slammed the door shut. He lodged his back against it. There was no lock on the cool room door, and the only way to barricade it, apparently, was with his body.

"Shit, shit, shit..." Tomas hissed, looking awfully pale, his floppy hair disheveled.

I stepped around from behind Mr. Whiskers, who grabbed my arm with a low warning growl, but I shook him off and hurried up to Tomas, wondering what the hells was going on. Through the small window in the door behind Tomas's head, I saw Beckah's furious face. She pounded on the metal with her fists, the force of it jostling the door and Tomas too. "I'm going to kill you!"

My confused gaze flicked from Beckah to Tomas and back again. "What's going on?"

"Dolcie's pregnant!" Beckah yelled.

All the color drained from my face. I staggered back a step, a hand pressed to my chest in shock. My gaze snapped to Tomas. "What?" The word wheezed from my mouth like a wrinkled balloon losing air. "That's why you broke up with her..."

"Huh?" Tomas said, his face slackening for a moment.

I'd thought it was me. Stupidly, I thought he'd liked me enough to break up with his secret girlfriend. "You kissed me,"—kind of—"last weekend..." I was talking and running it through my head at the same time, pacing back and forth. And it all started to make perfect, horrible, sickly sense.

Tomas had obviously come to visit Dolcie last weekend...discovered she was pregnant...and then, then what?

He'd found us in the Servants' Hall, late at night, dancing and drinking, and we'd invited him in. He'd downed a glass of wine really quickly...and kept drinking. He'd been brash and loud and out of sorts.

"You," I said, rounding on him and pointing a shaking finger at him. "You came to my party last weekend, but you'd already seen Dolcie—"

"It's not—"

"You found out she was pregnant and dumped her like a coward," I cut him off, my voice rising in disbelief and disgust. "You came in here and found us drinking," I'd only had half a glass of wine myself, enough to make me lightheaded and relaxed, and I'd snuck into the kitchen cool room for one of Markel's chocolate mousse desserts. "You followed me in here...and thought you could make a pass at me?"

I was only half aware of Mr. Whiskers stalking over to stand closer. The clamor of noise surrounding me competed with my rapid heartbeat. Beckah was shunting her shoulder into the door that thumped and rattled as she tried to barge her way in while yelling, and I heard Oswin's voice, just as loud, trying to calm Beckah down.

"I made a pass at you?" Tomas gaped, while his body rocked with the force used against the door. He raked a dubious gaze down my body, his pouty lips curving downward into a contemptuous line. He shook his head, and his eyes bugged as if he was thinking to himself, yet said it out loud. "I must have seriously been drunk to kiss the Uptight Spinster."

Heat, horrible embarrassed heat, scorched my face. My insides twisted painfully to be thought of as such a joke. For some sad, pathetic reason, it was more upsetting than orgasming in front of a stranger. And now Mr. Whiskers had overheard the humiliating truth.

"Miss Uptight Spinster?" A rough drawl came from the side of me, anger simmering beneath the words.

But Tomas wasn't done with me. He looked at me like I was this weird thing he'd found stuck to the bottom of his shoe. "I can't believe I made a pass at you. You're so uptight and frigid—"

A fist struck out, so swift and fast no one detected it, least of all Tomas.

His nose crunched and blood spewed, spraying down his mustard top and denim jacket. He screamed, falling heavily back onto the door, his feet sliding along the lino floor.

I whirled around in shock. Mr. Whiskers leaned one hand against the wall while shaking his fist. "I much prefer tabby cat," he purred with a wink.

And I think a little piece of me fell in love with him right there and then.

However, I wasn't finished with Tomas. I spun back to face him, and stomped closer to hiss at him, "Listen up, Toolface—"

"Toolface?" Tomas blinked, his voice nasally and full of pain. He righted himself, keeping his back to the door that shuddered with Beckah roaring and slamming herself into it to get to him. Blood poured from his nose, slipping over his puffy lips to drip all over the floor.

"Yeah, Toolface. It's like..." I had no idea where I was going with this. I glanced to Mr. Whiskers, who pointed downward and made some kind of down-there cranking motion as if he was holding a spanner and half-rotating it around his...Ohhh...

And then I realized his pants were still tented...Ohhhhhh...

Beckah's voice rose several octaves. "You knocked up my sister and kissed my friend?!"

Tearing my gaze from the impressive ridgeline, I turned back to Tomas as he cradled his bleeding nose. "It wasn't like that!" He then twisted his head around and shouted at Beckah. "It wasn't like that!"

Oh my gods. If Beckah didn't kill him, I was going to.

"The baby's not mine!" he yelled at Beckah, keeping his shoulder against the rattling door.

"That's what they all say—the boys who don't want to own up to it!" Beckah screeched, pummeling her fists on the door.

Tomas barked back, "No. I—"

"He won't own up to the responsibility," Beckah shouted to me through the window, her face blotchy with rage.

"Of course, I wo—" Tomas began, but I interrupted him.

Anger wound through me as tight as a corkscrew. I stomped my shoe on his sneaker, making sure the heavy heel ground into his toes really good. Tomas howled in agony, jumping up and down on one leg before bending forward, reaching with his hands to rub his foot. I drove a knee under his bloodied chin, hearing a satisfying clack of teeth, and sent him sprawling backward, wailing like a little girl. He hit the door and slid sideways, and sprawled on the floor in a mess of limbs.

"That was the hottest thing I've ever fucking seen." I heard rumbling beside me, the deep voice filled with astonishment. I whipped my head to the side and met a fiery lustful gaze. Mr. Whiskers raked his teeth along his bottom lip and looked like he was going to pounce on me and do unspeakable things.

Do it!

Except—

Chaos erupted.

Tomas was shaking his head sluggishly from side to side, propping himself up into a half-sitting position when Beckah barged her way inside. The door slammed against a metal shelf with a thunderous crack.

Beckah launched herself at Tomas with something like a battle cry.

Oswin lunged at her, grabbing hold of Beckah's arms, who'd latched her hands around the collar of Tomas's denim jacket, practically strangling him.

My gigantic gardener friend yanked on Beckah, who pulled at Tomas, and somehow managed to drag the two of them from the cool room back into the kitchen—while Beckah bellowed how she was going to dice Tomas into tiny pieces, while Tomas was shrieking and scrabbling to free himself, his stupid frost-tipped hair flopping about.

If the situation wasn't so serious, I'd be laughing. But that wasn't stopping Mr. Whiskers, who, in my periphery, was shaking with laughter. "Holy shit..."

I hurried to follow them, stopping at the threshold of the open doorway when I saw Dolcie enter the kitchen. She ran up, pale and crying. "Beckah please..." Dolcie begged her sister and hit out at Beckah's hands to make her let go of Tomas.

Beckah unlatched her white-knuckled fists from Tomas's collar but still struggled in Oswin's arms, trying to free herself. "I'm going to kick his ass!"

Dolcie crouched down next to Tomas, shaking, with tears streaking down her wan, fearful face. "I'm sorry...I'm sorry..." Tomas kneaded his throat, blood still trailing down his lips and chin. Dolcie helped him get to his feet, but he shook her off, shooting her a black scowl before escaping, careful to skirt around the hissing and yowling Beckah.

Dolcie hurried after Tomas, crying out, again and again—I'm sorry, I'm sorry!

Oswin let Beckah go and ran his hand across his curly blond hair, breathing out a pent-up breath. So far neither of them had noticed I had company in the cool room with me. Beckah pushed off to chase after Dolcie. Oswin gave me a resigned look, then swiftly followed.

"Beckah," I cried out before she slipped through the kitchen door.

My friend whirled around, looking terrified and upset and full of impotent rage. She flung up her hands in defeat, her expression collapsing. "She's pregnant."

I hugged the doorframe, worried. "What's Dolcie going to do?"

She shrugged, her eyes starting to well with tears, and her bottom lip trembling. "You know what happens to girls who get pregnant out of wedlock."

They disappear or get married in a hurry, or they hide their child—their parents or one of their siblings raising it as if it were their own.

Oswin placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. Beckah glanced up at him and wiped away her tear-filled eyes with a hand. "I need to speak with her."

Oswin nodded. "I'm coming with you." No doubt to make sure she didn't wrap her hands around Tomas and choke him.

The door slammed shut behind them.

And Mr. Whiskers and I were left alone in the quiet.

I should have been thinking about Dolcie and Tomas and this unplanned pregnancy out of wedlock. I should have been going after Beckah and Oswin to comfort my friend, but selfishly I kept thinking about what Tomas had called me—uptight and frigid. How he voiced what everyone thought of me—the untouchable, unwanted Uptight Spinster.

But someone did want to touch me.

I could feel his want vibrating in the room like the threat of an oncoming storm, crackling through the air.

I spun around, deciding not to overthink this—Just do, don't think.

"Up against the wall," I barked at Mr. Whiskers, who was standing there with his hands braced on his hips. His startled gaze snapped to mine. I grabbed hold of the step ladder leaning against the wall on the other side of the cool room door. "Wall, now," I ordered, hauling the step ladder with me as I advanced on him. "And don't move a single muscle," I warned him.