“I’ll take her.” The words were out of his mouth before Dom could stop them. He had no idea why he’d said them, but now that he had, the idea actually sounded like a good one.
“You?” Keeland snorted. “I hardly think you could provide her with a good home.”
Dom noticed the set look on Keeland’s face, his clamped jaw and fixed eyes, and bit back the angry retort sitting on the tip of his tongue. Letting his anger out at Keeland was not the way to win the man over.
And something deep inside of Dom told him he had to win Keeland. He didn’t know if it was the man’s spitfire personality or the cute way his lips twisted together right before he said something scathing, or even the wonderful way Keeland smelled.
Dom just knew he had to have the man.
“Maybe you should get to know me a little before you make assumptions about my life, Keeland.”
“You ride a bike.” The words sounded like an accusation.
“Yes, I do,” Dom said. “What of it?”
“How do you plan to take her to the vet and such? It’s not like she’ll fit in your saddlebags. And what about when it snows? You could crash…again.”
“We live in Black Rock.” They were high enough up in the mountains to get a fair amount of snow in the wintertime. “I have a truck I use when the weather gets bad. Only an idiot tries to ride in the snow.”
Keeland snorted, but didn’t say anything.
“Besides, I kind of have an in with felines.” And then some.
He’d only known about being a shifter for a couple of weeks, but he already felt more settled in his skin. He spent a lot of time getting to know his inner cat. Some of it was pure desperation, but a majority of it was curiosity.
He could suddenly do things he’d never been able to do before. He was faster, stronger, could hear better and see in the pitch dark. The change in his senses was probably the most astonishing. The things he could smell and the intensity with which he smelled them astounded him.
Keeland smelled delicious. Dom wanted to lick him from head to toe on one side, then work his way back up the other side. His panther was going insane over the sweet scent. Dom could feel him pacing back and forth. He clenched his hands at the agitation boiling up inside.
“You’ve had a cat before?” Keeland asked.
Well, shit.
“No, not exactly, but I’ve been around them all my life.” That was one way to describe it. It wasn’t as if he could tell Keeland he had a feline inside of him. The man would laugh himself silly and then never speak to him again.
“My mother didn’t allow pets,” Dom said. He didn’t admit the part where she didn’t allow pets because she’d rather spend the money on alcohol. He really didn’t remember a time when his mother didn’t drink.
After growing up in hell, finding out the woman he thought was his mother, wasn’t, had been quite the blow. He still didn’t know how he felt, and at the moment, he didn’t want to think about it. He wanted to think about what he would do to sweet, sweet Keeland if he had a flat surface and a few hours to indulge every fantasy floating through his head.
“What do you think happened to this little girl’s mama?”
“My guess would be that she got hit by a car,” Keeland replied.
Dom glanced up at the sadness lacing Keeland’s voice. “Did you see any sign of that?”
Keeland shook his head. “I didn’t get a lot of time to look before you came flying around the corner and tried to mow me down.”
Dom chuckled. Keeland wasn’t going to let that go. “Well, maybe if you spent less time standing in the middle of the road and more time looking for Henrietta’s mama—”
“Henrietta?”
“Yeah.” Dom grinned as he held the kitten up. “Don’t you think she looks like a Henrietta?”
Keeland snorted. “If you say so.”
Dom knew he was getting to the guy. Keeland kept shooting him quick glances when he thought Dom wasn’t paying attention, except Dom was always paying attention. Keeland fascinated him.
He just needed to figure out why.
