Cat Scratch Fever

Max was in heat. She’d been trying to ignore it, pretending it wasn’t that time of year just like she always did, but then Logan reached up to get a canister of paprika off a high shelf, his shirt pulling up to show his abs, the still-healing scar where a bullet had clipped his spine and almost taken the lower half of his body, and her head swam. All of Logan’s expensively furnished penthouse blurred before her eyes. Her body flashed hot, then cold, and she tingled in her arms and legs. Max perched herself on a counter before her numb feet could make any false moves.

“You okay?” Logan asked her, noticing a little of her distress—only what made it through her carefully composed features.

“Can’t a girl take a load off?” she asked him, keeping her voice chipper.

“A girl, yes—you, maybe. You don’t really sit down much when you come in here. You’re like some skittish cat, always ready to take off if something rubs you the wrong way.”

“And you wanna pet me, that it?” She ran a hand through her hair, finding it wet with sweat. It went disheveled as her fingers filtered through it, not as smooth and straight as it usually liked to settle.

Logan looked away. Max hadn’t exactly ever flirted with him before, just needled him with her sexuality, flaunting her body to see what reaction she would get. So far, he hadn’t taken the bait, halfway thinking that Max was just doing it to prove he wasn’t so above it all—that Eyes Only had eyes for her.

“Anything I can get you? Glass of water? Some Aspirin?”

“Think I can’t manage a faucet by myself?” Max teased. “Or do you just like the idea of being my love slave?”

His eyebrows raised. “Max, you’re not usually this—“

“What?” she asked when he trailed off.

“Nothing. Forget I said anything.”

Max flicked a finger at her temple. “No can do, chief. Photographic memory, remember?”

He cleared his throat. “Maybe we should focus on business.”

“What business? I thought we were just hanging. You were gonna fix some bomb hors d'oeuvres for me or whatevs.”

“Yeah,” Logan said with a deep breath, seeming to remember the paprika in his hand. “Let me get on that.”

Max lay back on the counter, painfully aware of how Logan could see her in this hot mess state—he kept taking his eyes off his soufflé or whatever to check up on her, though she was sure he was telling himself he was just making sure she hadn’t gone into a seizure or something.

Her heart pounded and the tingling that had started in her hands and feet spread to the rest of her body. Max bit her lip to keep from cooing as the feeling touched the tips of her breasts and the satiny triangle between her thighs, like a washcloth wet with something warm that reached deep into her. Cut through her pores and muscles and got right to her nerves, turning them into irrepressible little jolts of pleasure.

Fuck. It was more intense than before, it had to be, it hadn’t been like this before. She never would’ve survived it if it had.

Max didn’t get nervous often, but when she did, she talked. “Yo, bossman, you ever think this is a pretty lopsided deal we’ve got going?”

“How’s that?” Logan asked, distracted by his cooking. Maybe distracting himself with his cooking.

“I help you save the world, you dig me up info on the other Manticore kids. Wouldn’t you say I’m getting the short end of the stick? After all, who’s to say they came up a model of grace and civility like me? Imagine, me busting my hump to find these fuckers, and then they turn out to be assholes?”

“I suppose that is a risk.”

Max pedaled her legs, rubbing her thighs together, writhing right on top of Logan’s kitchen island while he made her dinner. And what was she supposed to do with all the energy she’d get out of that meal? Just ride a motorcycle around? That wouldn’t even get her breathing hard.

“So maybe you should throw in a little something extra,” Max drawled suggestively.

“More paprika?”

Max sat up. She couldn’t hold out anymore. She would go fucking crazy if she didn’t do something with all this stuff inside her, so hot it was like a homicidal rage. She could’ve smashed something, she could’ve ripped someone’s head off, only she didn’t want that. She didn’t want that.

“I want more,” she breathed, and came off the counter to land on her feet and stalk towards where he was standing and what the fuck are you doing, Max?

She almost physically pulled herself in another direction, shooting past Logan and carrying herself to another room. Logan turned, completely unaware of how close he’d come to being ravished by a genetically engineered killing machine.

“Max? Dinner’s almost ready…”

“Fuck off!” Max barked, pulling herself to the guest room Logan had offered her so many times. She only kept from breaking out in a run because any amount of physical exertion seemed like it would give her body free rein. With a dazed expression of need on her face, she threw the door open and slammed it shut behind her.

Logan stood there, not knowing what to do, hoping that either an idea would come to him or Max would sort through her issues before dinner was finished cooking.

And Max sorting through her issues was not something he’d put money on.

***

The knock at the door was both terrifying and a relief. No matter what happened, it had to be better than the last several minutes, locked up in this claustrophobic room, trying to ride out these waves of lust that left her feeling wrung out and smoldering. Her body was not taking no for an answer.

Her hormones were in overdrive and that had to be on Logan. Somewhere in her freakshow body, some little bastard of a DNA strand had decided she didn’t just need to get laid, she needed to get bred, and Logan was the ideal mate. What was it? Some subconscious dickering about how he had a soul to go with all the muscles and designer glasses? Were their pheromones just on the same wavelength?

Fuck. Fuck. Max almost wanted to go through with it, but have him wear a rubber, just to show that motherfucker of a gene who was in charge. And once she thought that, she couldn’t forget it. Photographic memory and the thought of having Logan on top of her in this kitchen, putting a bun in her oven instead of the KitchenAid KSGB900ESS 30-inch 5 Burner Gas Convection Slide-In Range with Baking Drawer, was a real pretty picture. Too pretty a picture.

Her clothes lay strewn around the room and she’d used a bottle of conditioner in the shower to… well, to do a lot of things, really, but not half of what she wanted to do. Still wanted to do. Her body was not assuaged after all she’d done for it.

“Max? You still in there?”

Max chuckled darkly to herself. Like what, she’d gone out the window? Okay, she might’ve, but that hadn’t been high on her list of priorities on this particular occasion.

Logan’s voice came through the door again, soft as an insinuation. “Look, Max, you know I hate to broach your privacy… we’ve got a pretty good thing going here and I know it works best when I keep my distance. But whatever you’re going through, if there’s something I can do, I’d like to help.”

Max wheezed with laughter now. Oh, he could help. Help her quite a lot, judging by that bulge in his pants. Her photographic memory recalled every time he’d looked at her, every little sampling of her body by his eyes, and she’d looked too. Seen what stirred when he saw the tight outfits, the her bending over like she didn’t know what it did to him.

The knock came again. “Max, you’ve got to talk to me here, or I’m going to break the door down, trust or no trust.”

“Shit,” Max cursed. “Gotta get something on…”

A moment ago, every stitch of clothing had been a dagger into her tanned skin, but now she needed to cover up again. Her mind whirling, she went for the closet, knowing she could never sort out and put on her old clothes in time. She found a terrycloth robe that was easy to put on and didn’t arouse her hypersensitive senses any further, but she was too frenetic to properly tie it shut.

“Max!” Logan yelled, pounding on the door with a note of finality.

Max went to open it, knowing if she had him break it down that she’d never dissuade him from mother henning her, but when the door swung open, she presented a spectacle so stunning that Logan was left speechless for a long moment.

He could see nothing but the absolutely wanton beauty of Max’s body. He’d previously known her as too wild and untamed to ever really be approachable, but now she was something out of his wildest fantasies. Her dark, honey-hued hair spilled down her shoulders in sharp contrast to the cream-white of her robe, which was fastened, but loose enough to show off the full tantalizing plumpness of Max’s breasts, all the way to a dusky, beestung nipple, as she faced him.

Below—Logan’s eyes couldn’t help but wander over Max in an attempt to commit this tantalizing glimpse of her to memory—Logan saw more of her taut belly than he’d ever seen before, leading to a pierced navel, then a delta of pubic hair drawing his eye like a river’s current to her totally bare sex.

“Jesus, Max,” he gasped, barely even realizing he had spoken.

Hearing his strained voice, husky with lust, everything simplified for Max. He had a cock. She definitely had a pussy—it was throbbing away between her thighs like there was no tomorrow. And why did there have to be? All she needed was tonight.

“You were gonna break the door down, Cale? Wanted to see me that bad?” The maddening desire that ran beneath every inch of her supple skin, underlaid every thought, now dripped from Max’s words as she spoke. “I wanted to see you too. Don’t know if I’d break the door down. Not when you’re giving me so little to see…”

“Are you feeling alright?” Logan asked. This definitely seemed weirder than usual for her, but it was hard for him to gauge what was wrong when he was so stunned by her body. Her face was always beautiful—even more gorgeous now, with that sultry expression on it, but her body—Christ, what a body…

He entered, closing the door carefully behind him, then stood there, watching Max uncertainly.

Max sat down on the bed. “Don’t be shy… get over here… sit down right here, Logan… I thought you always wanted to get close to me…”

Logan sat down with her, close to Max, but not as close as she got, sliding across the mattress until her ass was against his hip. Logan tried to see if he could smell alcohol on her breath—maybe her being a lush would explain this—but he only smelled some sweetened mouthwash. He didn’t know what else it could be. Drugs? Would any of them even have the proper reaction on Max? He had seen her shake off horse tranquilizers, so what would do this? It was hard to think about it now, with her so close and acting so… friendly.

“Where were we, Logan?” she asked slowly. Her fingers worked at the sleeve of his jacket, fingering it almost like a cat would use a scratching post. Her sharp eyes looked deeply into his, seeming to plead with Logan. “Were we talking about what more you could do for me? How you could thank me for all my hard work?”

Logan felt as if he were dreaming. This side of Max bore so little resemblance to the person he’d gotten to know—it was fundamentally her, but he was completely taken aback that she could be this way. And then there was his body’s reaction. His thick cockhead pulsed impatiently while Max’s loosely tied robe came completely undone. Max didn’t seem to either notice or care.

“Max!” Logan breathed. He wanted to fuck her as bad as she apparently wanted to be fucked.

“Maybe you could take your clothes off? That’d be one way you could show your appreciation… spare me the effort of ripping them off myself.” As Max finished the unsubtle hint, her eyes flashed dangerously. Logan gulped at the thought that she really would do it—tear his clothes right off his body. But he couldn’t find anything unappealing about the idea.

Max blinked at length, like a cat with someone it trusted, and as she opened her eyes again, the image of Logan pulling off his clothes was blurred. The sight of it was unimportant next to the raging fire inside her. She barely cared about the sight of him, she only wanted the feel. His touch was what would take care of the fire.

Max flung off her robe, showing him the perfect beauty of her body, from hips to breasts to thighs. She was athletic, slender, not truly voluptuous, but her pert breasts and svelte ass were still generously proportioned, tempting any man to grab a hold of them as he possessed her sleek body, her supple flesh which seemed designed to be flaunted before a lover.

“Logan, Logan, Logan,” she moaned, her heavy eyelids closed again, fluttering nervously, opening to the sight of him and his hardness and his sweat and his own gaze, how much he wanted her. Her trembling thighs opened sensuously, while her fingers moved down to the silken hair that surrounded her womanhood protectively.

She sensed him coming closer to her and opened her eyes just the slightest bit to be sure, to reassure herself that it was him, that she almost had him. There was an answer for the desire she felt in her heaving breasts, her undulating belly, in the engorged folds of her tingling sex. It was all for him and he was all for her.

Logan’s cock throbbed, hard and fast. He was reminded that normally, he’d stroke himself a bit here, just to ensure he was at peak readiness. He didn’t need to do that now. The sight of Max’s naked body was so alluring that he felt like his cock was a bomb with the countdown timer at zero, at the precipice of going off.

He reached down to caress Max’s bare flesh, seeming so delicate, so beautiful, so tempting even after all he’d seen her do. He groaned as his hands roved, with nervousness and excitement, along the tender skin she presented him with. And, as impossible as it seemed, his cock throbbed even harder.

Max closed her eyes again. Her body was getting more and more receptive to his caresses, responding more and more, until her skin felt like it was on fire with red-hot passion. Goosepimples covered her arms and legs, while her tits heaved with shallow breaths and her belly undulated like a pumping bellows.

All of her ached to be touched and anything that couldn’t be touched was irrelevant. Her mind swam and her senses reeled, thoughts and feelings paling in comparison to the thunder building inside her. The lust and anticipation was almost better than sex, but then she felt virginal, like she’d never had sex before—not like this and not with him.

His maddening fingertips moved steadily, confidently, over her defenseless flesh. “Fuck me, Logan… come inside me, Logan… breed me, Logan!”

“Fuck,” Logan muttered, remembering then that he didn’t have a condom—hadn’t exactly thought he’d needed protection to check on his friend. His mind whirled, restless intelligence managing to strike out through the haze of lust that would have wholly occupied a lesser man.

Was Max on birth control? She was a reckless girl, but careful in her recklessness… probably. But would birth control even work on her? It wasn’t something they’d ever discussed. He knew she wasn’t a virgin and as secretive as she was, her having a kid or having been pregnant was something he was sure was big enough to have come up between them in the last few months…

His supercharged libido brought a certain clarity to this quibbling. She might’ve been safe or she might not’ve been. The smart thing was to go get a condom, but reviewing the steps he’d have to take to find one—it had been a while and he wasn’t sure where he’d left the package—Logan knew he couldn’t pull himself away from Max long enough to tend to that. Even now, as he thought it through over the course of a few frenzied seconds, his eyes were still feasting greedily on Max’s body, watching every undulation as she writhed obscenely in waiting.

So if she wanted to be bred, he’d damn sure breed her. A kid would be a small price to pay for the body laid out before him.