Kitten Around (Shifting Hearts Dating Agency Book 3) Read online

  Her inner cat hissed and backed away and Paige groaned. Finding people their other half was a passion but it was times like this that tested her match making skills. She shot Sylvia a death stare and clenched her teeth when her perky, blonde partner smirked and gave her a pinky wave.

  Bitch.

  This was her revenge for the coffee incident last month. She should have known better, but the office was begging for a new coffee maker that hadn’t been around since oh…nineteen sixty three. Her partner may have been blessed with Aphrodite’s line of match making prowess, but give her anything with technology and she botched it.

  Sort of like Paige was doing right now with the woman in front of her. Unhappy clients didn’t help gain more customers. They’d already had an issue with the werewolf doctor at the hospital and twice in one month was not going to help their bottom line. Word of mouth, especially for a new business like theirs, was vital. She would make the woman happy. Even if she had to start trolling farmer’s markets and hanging out under bridges.

  Then there was the issue with the witches. More and more shifters were leery of outing themselves so the pool of potential clients was drying up. Someone needed to take out Hexen and quick. Witchy terrorists were just not something she wanted to deal with. Like ever.

  She was going to have to think on that one. Her brother had been in the military. Maybe he knew someone to ask about stealth ops. He might have written back to her. She hadn’t checked her email in days.

  Maude fidgeted in the chair and Paige snapped out of her revere. Pizza. Outing. Failed connections. Right.

  “Did you hear what I said?” The woman stared at Paige, her vulpine features twisting into an unpleasant frown.

  Paige sighed. “I’m sorry the last place didn’t work out. You should have told me you were vegetarian.”

  “It shouldn’t matter. It’s pizza.”

  But it did.

  “Yes, well sometimes it’s easier to get like people together with better similarities. Like a gathering at a fruit stand or farm outing.” Paige responded, mentally counting to ten.

  The woman brightened. “Oh. Now that would be fun.”

  “Great,” Paige smiled. “I’ll set something up for next month and we’ll see how it goes.”

  “Very good.” Maude rose, her long skirt swishing around her legs. “I’ll be waiting for your call then.” The door chime jangled as she opened the door, walking out into the bright Texas sunlight.

  Paige closed the file on her desk and rubbed her eyes. She didn’t know how she was ever going to find a placement for the woman. Then a wicked thought rattled through her brain. She could always try fixing Maude up with her ex.

  Her cat spat at her and she couldn’t help but feel a little guilty. Not even bat girl deserved that.

  No. Not cool. Javier was unhinged and just another example of why she was in this business. Relationships were fine for other people, but for her they never seemed to work out. That was another reason she liked BDSM. All rules and no surprises.

  Last she heard, he was getting way too cozy with the Hexen types and that was all she needed. The man just wouldn’t take no for an answer. She wasn’t interested in magically bonding with him, or anyone else for that matter.

  “You’d be a wonderful familiar, darling. Part cat and part witch. We could do great things together.”

  Never had he ever mentioned the word love. With him it was all about one upping all the other magical families in town and jockeying for position, not what she wanted. A home. A family.

  Her mother had introduced Paige to Javier and they'd dated long enough for her to figure out it was never going to work. Had she cared when Paige tried to tell her about his involvement with Hexen? Just the opposite.

  “Oh, you two would make such a lovely couple. With our two families together, the Winston clan wouldn’t stand a chance. Besides, you aren’t getting any younger, are you, dear?”

  At that point it had seemed better to get the hell out of dodge before her mother came up with any other crazy schemes. Family, in her case, were the ties that bound and strangled.

  Paige was done. This wasn’t even the first time her mother had tried to push her into something with another witch but the deal with Javier had been the straw that broke the mystical camel’s back.

  No more magical manipulations for her. She’d had enough. That was why she lived here and her mother, along with the witch side of the family, lived in Austin. Her father had moved on long ago and had found true love in the arms of a sexy bunny shifter in Denver.

  Finding Ventures was the luckiest thing ever. No commitments. No hurt feelings. Just play time, and you got to go home and be yourself with no one trying to magically bind you to the nearest ley line.

  Thank Goddess her cat shifter side was the most dominant. Most days she hardly felt the urge to do magic and when she did, she made sure there wasn’t a soul in the area. No one needed to know her witchy little secret.

  But she was sorely tempted to zot the crap out of bat girl and give her a personality that didn’t resemble a mountain troll.

  Paige sighed and her thoughts drifted once more back to Ventures. She needed to go and scratch her itch. And then, there was the elusive Dom she kept seeing around the club. He never seemed to stick with one sub but she’d yet to get his name. A shame he wasn’t teaching some classes. She’d love to have his hands wielding a paddle or giving her intimate instruction about where to put that new toy she’d picked up last week.

  “Got your hands full with that one,” Sylvia commented.

  Lost in her thoughts, Paige blinked and realized what her partner was referring to.

  She glared at her. “You did that on purpose.”

  “What?” All innocence, the shapely blonde stood up from her desk and wandered back to the break area. The sound of the fridge opening and shutting resounded through the office and she returned to her desk, cold water bottle in hand.

  “What?” Paige mimicked. “You could have handled that with your mojo but instead you dumped that,” she wiggled her fingers at the door, “in my lap. Not nice.”

  “She needs your help. You’ll find her a mate.” Sylvia shrugged and lowered herself into her chair.

  “That is a daunting task at this point, believe me.” Paige stared down at the file in front of her and searched the information sheet to see if the woman had indicated she was vegetarian. Nope. The spot was blank.

  It figured. She hadn’t gone over every line of the file with Maude, but maybe she should have. Hindsight, the great all seeing eye.

  “You will. I promise.”

  Right. She swiveled in her chair and started searching for farmer’s markets in the area. Crazy bat lady was not going to foil her match making plans. She was a professional, dammit.

  Cat Woman trumps Bat Girl.

  A small smile slid up her lips and she reached for her computer glasses, sliding them onto her face. She had this. Oh yeah. Bring it on…

  Her phone buzzed with a message from Javier and she frowned. It was the third time he’d texted her today.

  I need to talk to you. Call me.

  Tough shit. She wasn’t his beck and call girl. Not anymore. Not this cat. Not this century. Shoving the phone back in her purse, she put him out of her mind and tried to focus on the client files in front of her.

  “You might want to watch this.” Sylvia called out from the break room.

  She’d just confirmed a meet-cute set up with two of her other clients and distracted, angled her head to find Syl in front of the television.

  “What’s up.”

  “Harvey.”

  “Is he a new client?”

  Sylvia’s lips flattened into a frown and she angled her head toward the television where the local weather station was reporting.

  “Rain bands will be taking over the area tonight with potential for local flooding. Residents are cautioned to beware as the prospect of flooding will grow with each day of torrential rains.”
<
br />   Well, shit.

  “Are they talking about tonight?”

  Sylvia nodded. “Apparently the storm has grown and we’re about to get a week’s worth of rain.”

  “Oh.”

  Just rain?

  Paige sighed. Weather stations frustrated her and it seemed like all they wanted to do was scare everyone. A little rain couldn’t hurt, right? Goddess knew it had been a dry summer and now with fall coming on, it couldn’t hurt to have a little of the wet stuff.

  The forecaster prattled on and out of habit, she glanced at her watch. With a jolt, Paige realized she had totally lost track of time.

  She was going to be late.

  Bolting up from her chair, she nabbed her purse and scooted toward the door.

  “Where are you going?” Sylvia called after her, the patter of rain hitting the glass windows of the office.

  “I’ll tell you later.” If she didn’t get tied up and paddled within an inch of her life for making her instructor wait.

  Chapter Two

  M aster Tyler Blackburn eyed the students for the BDSM 101 class, his lips turned down in a frown. They milled around the seating area just below the stage talking amongst themselves and had yet to find their chairs. Had they not read the protocol at all?

  He’d sent out a detailed information package via email to each member of the group. Fourteen in all, if memory served. And now he counted an uneven thirteen. That meant one of them was late. Even with the threat of bad weather, nothing had happened yet and he expected each of them to be present and ready to tackle the curriculum set out for him. The original instructor would be back next week and he didn’t want to miss anything.

  In all of the years since he’d been back in the states and teaching others the lifestyle, he’d never had the occurrence. But this technically wasn’t his class. His students simply wouldn’t dare. Taking over this session at the last moment was also unprecedented. Normally he would have vetted out each of his students personally but when Lucas asked him to step in to cover the first day of classes when the instructor had to attend to out of town family matters, he’d done it without hesitation. It was one hour of his time and he didn’t mind.

  Lucas and Jonathan were good people. So was their little hedgie mate and he would do anything for them. He’d enjoyed his time playing at Ventures and when Jonathan had offered him a part time job teaching the odd class here and there, he couldn’t say no. The other club he’d spent time at previously was not as well put together and after a few run ins with the owner, he decided it was best if he took the job. It fit nicely around his woodworking and restoration business and he came and went as he needed. Most days at least.

  Today had been a busy one. A few bookshelves for the local library were in need of repair, and he’d been called in to do a quote for one of the houses in the historic district downtown. The place was a dilapidated wreck, but to his mind’s eye he could see what it had been and the jewel of what it could be with some love and patience. Just the kind of challenge he enjoyed. His time on the job ran over as the owner agreed to the bid and he barely made it a half an hour before class began.

  Tyler’s phone vibrated against his hip and he absently unclipped it from his belt. Scanning the message from his sister, Sheree, he had to suppress a smile.

  What time are you coming over? Need a confab about Pepper.

  He hammered out a brief reply, and glanced at the group milling about.

  Will be late. Out at 6:30.

  His sister hadn’t responded. Which meant she was either dealing with Pepper, his very willful niece, or she was wrestling with whatever she was throwing together for dinner. She’d been making noises about him staying over so she could talk to him about something and judging by the biting tone in her voice, it had something to do with a very precocious ten year old and her talent for getting into trouble at the drop of a hat.

  He ground his teeth and checked his watch. Any later and he was going to have to start, class complete or not. If Sheree needed him, he made time for her. Without her husband, he was the closest thing Pepper had to a male role model and he didn’t take the job lightly.

  The phone buzzed in his hand.

  Lasagna in two hours. I got your favorite Texas toast.

  Tyler smiled and shot her a quick response.

  You had me with lasagna. How’s the weather?

  He’d have to stop and get some of the chocolate gelato at the store. That always made her smile and Tyler had a feeling they were going to need it. Sheree was worried about the impending storm and knowing her, she’d have the news on, obsessing about how many batches of muffins to make to get them through this latest apocalypse. And that didn’t even go into what his adorable, trouble-sniffing niece was up to.

  Last week Pepper had ‘rescued’ Walter, the class guinea pig and it took all three of them to find the little bugger. She’d liberated him via her backpride and let the fur ball loose in her room.

  Tyler allowed his cat to take over and found the rodent under her bed. Then the fucker had the audacity to bite him when he shifted back to human to pick it up.

  Not cool.

  And his little minx of a niece just stood there, the most contrite smile on her face he could imagine. When she thanked him for finding Walter with a kiss to the cheek, he couldn’t help but forgive her. Grudgingly.

  It was hard to stay mad at the pint-sized squirt and he couldn’t help but remember what Sheree was like at that age. Only, his niece seemed to be taking after a part of Marc that he hadn’t seen very often. The guy always insisted he had a strain of witch in his family tree, but in a shifter unit it wasn’t much talked about. After seeing some of Pepper’s antics, he couldn’t help but wonder if it was true.

  Levitating stuffed animals. Math homework doing itself. (A useful trick, that.) Clothes floating to the dirty clothes hamper.

  Yeah. His niece was anything but run of the mill, and he loved her fiercely. That did not mean, however, that he wouldn’t kick her butt for upsetting her mother.

  A burst of thunder outside brought him back from his revere and reminded him he had a class to run.

  “You will be seated,” he snapped, stalking out onto the stage, his leathers moving with him like an old friend. The black tee he wore was a comfortable extension. Working with his hands like he would be doing for the next hour, he would need it. All Lucas had asked him for was a brief overview of some techniques in BDSM and a conversation with the students gathered. It should have been a cake walk. If everyone had arrived on time.

  The dozen or so adults quickly bolted for the nearest seat, scrambling to get out of the line of fire.

  “For those of you who haven’t met me around the club, my name is Master Blackburn. While I realize it was short notice, which of you actually read the syllabus I sent out?”

  He reached the podium and picked up the stack of papers he’d printed off. Leaping off the edge of the stage, he handed half of the sheets to the end person on one row of chairs and the last half of the stack to the second row.

  The students passed the sheets down and returned the one set that hadn’t been accounted for. As he walked around the group, he got a good read on what he had in front of him. A smattering of humans, two or three shifters, a phoenix, a dragon, and was that a vampire? This early in the evening he hadn’t thought to see one, but with the winter season upon them and dark falling fast, he shouldn’t have been surprised.

  “Good. For the next five minutes I want you to read this quietly amongst yourselves. We seem to be missing a student, so that will give you a moment to reflect on this class before we start promptly at five thirty.”

  He flipped to his listing of names. Maybe it would be good to know just exactly who he had in front of him.

  “When I call your name, please raise your hand.” He went down the list, systematically ticking off each person until one name remained.

  At that moment, a familiar young dark-haired woman burst into the room, her hair damp fro
m what must be becoming a downpour outside. She paused, taking in the group, her eyes narrowing on him, a question glittering in their depths.

  “Is this the BDSM 101 class?”

  “It is,” he drawled, a smile sliding over his face. It was her. The young woman he’d seen at the spanking bench with Master Rick a few days ago. The lucky bastard had paddled the lass’s backside a lovely shade of pink, but at the end the two had simply parted ways, the other Dom kissing her on the forehead.

  “Thank you, Paige. You have wonderful form.”

  “You’re welcome, Sir.”

  “Call on me any time.”

  She’d nodded, a watery smile on her tear stained face. “Thank you, Sir.”

  Now why had he thought she seemed familiar? He remembered a young woman few years ago when he’d first went into business with Ross. They’d met at a convention and she’d modeled for them, but right after she’d gotten away and he’d never gotten to explore the spark he’d felt between them.

  He found himself considering how well she would fare under his tutelage and when she began to speak, he was brought up short by his cat.

  Cock at attention, his leathers were suddenly too tight. His cat slunk under his skin, alert for the first time in he couldn’t remember when.

  She was a shifter. A cat judging by his own animal’s reaction.

  Mate.

  Ours.

  Tyler seized the beast and backed him into a corner. He wasn’t here to find a mate. Quite the contrary. And his cat knew better. They were at the club to play or work. Nothing else.

  But now the urge had sunk in, and he couldn’t get the image of burying his cock inside of her and marking her as his own out of his head.

  Fucking feline. God. He could practically hear his mother laughing at him from here. She’d been scolding him that it was high time he found a nice girl and settled down to start a family. He’d tried that once and it hadn’t stuck. Or at least, she hadn’t. The moment he’d gone on ops, she’d betrayed him with another guy. He wasn’t in the market to have his heart stomped on again.

  Ever.

  His cat stared back at him with glowing eyes and his dick hardened again.