He wasn’t responsible for his brothers’ asshole behaviour, but he felt guilty anyway. If their wives found out how they’d acted tonight, there’d be hell to pay. And why not? None of his sisters-in-law were evenallowedto go to Cheryl’s bachelorette party. His brothers dressed it up as ‘too expensive, someone needs to look after the kids’ bullshit, but the truth was, they were just hypocrites—rules for thee, not for me, as Cheryl would say.
How had he wound up so different from the guys he’d grown up and shared the bulk of his DNA with? He already knew the answer. Cheryl. She’d been in his life since he was nineteen, insisting on being just friends because of their age gap. At the time, he’d have killed to get straight to the sex, but now that the dream was real and he was marrying her, he could admit it was probably a good thing. He’d been the baby of his mostly-male family, grew up comfortably, and got drafted to play AFL when he was seventeen. The shit he didn’t know about being a non-private school white guy could have filled an ocean.
Cheryl grew up broke with a terminally ill single mother. She had few illusions about the world. When she talked, she didn’t sugarcoat things. She asked tough questions and demanded tough answers. She opened his eyes to the ways the world sucked for people who didn’t have what he did without ever holding that luck against him. She’d been patient and fair, and in being his best friend, she’d taught him how to be a man. The kind of man he’d always wanted to be. Someone who took responsibility and refused to ignore what they didn’t want to see. And once he’d become Cheryl’s equal, she’d let go of her fears and trusted him to become her partner and future father to their children.
Hadn’t she?
With a surge of panic, he pulled out his phone, half-convinced maybe he was wrong that he and Cheryl weren’t engaged. That he was going to get home and find everything the way it had been back when they had just been friends.
His screensaver photo was still the two of them. Patrick studied it: Cheryl’s big smile and her engagement ring. She had agreed to be his forever. Not only that, but she’d asked him to come home early so they could do what he’d wanted to do all goddamn day and take her. She’d looked so sexy in her bachelorette dress it had turned his head around. He’d have gladly ditched his idiot brothers to go out with her mates and drink where he could see her dancing. Not that he hadn’t appreciated the naked girls pouring oil on each other at The Gentlemen’s Lounge, but he felt like a fuckwit in the strippers. Self-conscious.
How many blokes had tried to fuck Cheryl tonight? Had she gotten turned on watching the dancers? Had she wanted to touch them? He was usually pretty good with guys finding Cheryl hot—as long as they were respectful—but how she’d been acting about the wedding worried him. He didn’tthinkshe’d changed her mind about getting hitched, but she wasn’t as excited as he’d hoped.
His phone pinged, a text from his brother, Ant.
The fuck are you, Youngest? How are we still outlasting you?
Patrick rolled his eyes. His brothers couldn’t help making everything about them. It was just the way they were. But they weren’t taking the front seat at his wedding. Cheryl was going to outshine all of them: his brothers, his teammates, their influencer wives, her friends,everyone.
She’d always played second fiddle to her DJ mate, Eden. Always made do with second-hand and second-best. She was self-conscious about being nine years older than him, about being working class, about being the daughter of a man she’d never met. ‘A bastard’, she insisted on saying, like it was her fault her dad had had an affair with his teenage employee then bailed like an asshole.
Maybe that was why she was getting freaked out by the wedding. Her dad was a Greek billionaire, and his legitimate daughters all had weddings bigger than Ben-Hur. But that was all the more reason for him to go all out for Cheryl. To show her she didn’t need that fuckwit to have a great wedding. Theirs would be one for the ages, and when Cheryl Karalis-Walker stepped into that church, everyone would know she was the most beautiful, undeniable goddess who’d ever lived.
Maybe you’re putting too much pressure on her?
He shoved the thought away. Cheryl was shy about being centre stage, but this wasn’t one of his footy events; it was her wedding. She would shine as bright in front of their friends and family as she did when it was just the two of them. She deserved it.
His Uber pulled up in front of his house, and Patrick saw that the bedroom light was on. He said goodnight to the driver and practically leapt out of the car. After a long day of bullshit, he wanted nothing more than to see his future wife on all fours, looking at him over her shoulder, the way she did when she was close to coming.
The driver could keep his sauna; Cheryl’s tits were his best shot at melting the stress in his body.
He bounded up the stairs, praying she was still in the tight white dress she’d had on when they’d kissed goodbye this morning. His cock was already hard against his thigh, throbbing in a way that would have cost him a fortune in the strip club.But he wasn’t at the strippers; he was in his own home, about to fuck the hottest woman in the world. The bedroom door was open, and he grinned as he headed straight for it, unbuttoning his shirt. “Hey, baby, how was your?—”
Patrick almost choked on his tongue.
His beautiful fiancee was curled up on the carpet in front of their bed. She was all in pink—pink underwear, pink gloves that went to her elbows and pink thigh high stockings with little pink bows. But that wasn’t what had blown his mind, at least not all the way. What had blindsided him like never before were the sparkling pink cat ears pushing through Cheryl’s dark hair, the matching collar and the fluffy pink tail trailing between her thighs.
Cheryl tilted her head to the side. That had always been the contradiction with her—how she could be so fucking cuteandblow-your-brains-out hot at the same time. This costume felt like that idea jacked to the millionth degree.
Somehow, Patrick found his voice. “Well, hi there, KitKat.”
Cheryl sat up, her brown eyes gleaming. She raised a hand, her fingers curling in as she swiped the air. Her gloves were sheer, and when he saw the line of pink and white fur down the sides, he thought he would pass out. What was he supposed to do? Would she talk? Was he meant to pet her? Be mean? Be nice?
As he stood gulping and mentally running down his options, Cheryl put her palms on the carpet and shook her hips a little. There was a tinkling sound, and he realised her collar had a bell. Why that was so fucking hot, Patrick couldn’t have told anyone, but goddammit, it was.
He swallowed, deciding to go for it, to follow her lead and see what happened. He walked toward her, undoing the last of his shirt buttons. “Have you been a good girl while you’ve been home alone, KitKat?”
Cheryl made a humming sound. Not quite a purr, but in the same universe. Up close, she looked fucking incredible. The pink of her ears and collar brought out the golden tones in her skin and eyes. Like the gloves, her lingerie was see-through and lined with fur, her big tits swelling over the cups of her bra. He drank in the sight of her, taking in her hard nipples, her barely-there panties, the flush already spreading across her cheeks.
“I think you were a good girl,” he said, pulling off his shirt and tossing it to the corner of the room. “Did you miss Daddy while he wasn’t home?”
He’d never called himself that before, but it just slipped out in this context. For a second, he froze, but Cheryl made that same small humming sound, pressing her face into his shins. The contact—even through his pants—made him jolt. He reached down and pushed a hand into her hair. “I missed you, KitKat. I’ve been thinking about you all day...”
Another small purr, and Cheryl got onto her knees, resting her still-curled hands on his upper thighs. Looking into her perfect face, her high cheekbones and wide eyes had constantly reminded him of a kitten’s, but it was her aloofness through all the years they’d been friends that led to him calling her ‘KitKat.’ She’d been affectionate one moment, withdrawn the next. Sexy, mysterious and utterly self-reliant. But he’d always been her… well, not owner. Protector, maybe. The person who looked after her and defended her as best as anyone could protect something so beautiful and independent.
Now, it was like they’d distilled that feeling into its highest concentration. Her, a pretty, volatile animal. Him, a master, needing to care for his creature in the filthiest way possible.
He rubbed her scalp, massaging around the headband holding her pink ears. Cheryl dug her fingertips into his thighs.
