Flirting With Fire: A Witch's Night Out (1Night Stand) Read online

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  Flirting with Fire

  Copyright © 2014 by Tara Quan

  ISBN: 978-1-61333-745-5

  Cover Art by Mina Carter

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work, in whole or in part, in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Decadent Publishing Company, LLC

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  www.decadentpublishing.com

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  Flirting with Fire

  A 1Night Stand Story

  By

  Tara Quan

  ~Dedication~

  To all the patent secretaries out there.

  Chapter One

  Leonardo Difuoco stared at the sleek, short-haired black cat stretched out on his white kitchen tiles. Crouching, he placed an open can of tuna-flavored Friskies on the floor. “Come on. Give it a shot. It’s the highest rated brand on PetSmart.com.”

  The feline’s emerald-green eyes narrowed. She yawned and twitched her whiskers from side to side. Before he’d inherited this house and the damn cat from his great-aunt, he hadn’t realized an animal’s face could express emotions like boredom and annoyance. He’d since learned the species bore a remarkable resemblance to humans.

  “Work with me, Cat.” He stood, crossed his arms, and invoked his most serious courtroom voice. “I can’t keep making you breakfast. I subsisted on protein bars until you came along, and spending twenty minutes every morning to whip up eggs and sausage doesn’t fit my schedule. I understand Nonna’s dying depressed you, but it’s been six months. Every other cat eats Friskies.”

  His silent-conversation partner curled onto her feet, lifted her butt, curved her back, and swiped the can with her right paw. The container crashed into the wall, its contents flying in all directions. With one last over-the-shoulder glance at him, the destructive housemate from hell loped off. As far as messages went, he’d received this one loud and clear.

  “Talk about high maintenance.” He scooped up the mess and dumped it into the trash bin. Then he took out a bottle of diluted bleach, sprayed the tiles, and sanitized the area. This burst of bad behavior added to his growing list of gripes. Though the beast didn’t have much fur, he’d spotted random hairs all over the house. The little demon seemed to have an ax to grind. She targeted his furniture when sharpening her claws, leaving the few remaining mahogany mammoths he’d inherited from his departed great-aunt in pristine condition. Thank God for the self-cleaning litter box. The white cylindrical machine seemed to require no maintenance, and he hadn’t caught a whiff of pee in the past six months.

  His father, a first-generation Italian immigrant and staunch Catholic, was a stickler for spotless surroundings. His mother had loved her cranky borderline OCD engineer enough to adapt to his meticulous ways. For his sake, she’d minimized contact with her eccentric, cat-obsessed Romani family. With her husband’s severe psychological allergy to dirt and dander, any visits to homes with pets had been out of the question.

  Along with black hair, blue eyes, and a complexion so pale he suffered from sunburn at the slightest provocation, Leo had inherited his forbear’s particularities when it came to cleanliness. Not once in his twenty-seven-year existence had owning a pet crossed his mind. For reasons he couldn’t fathom, his mother’s aunt’s dying wish had been for him to take care of her cat, to whom the old bat had bequeathed half of everything she’d owned. Her request made little sense, considering he’d not once set foot in this house prior to owning it. He’d run into Nonna a few times at funerals and weddings, at which his father had insisted they spend as little time as possible. But since she’d left him several hundred thousand dollars in assets and property in addition to guardianship of her pet, adhering to the terms of her will seemed the honorable path.

  And, to be honest, the cat, who was also named Cat, more or less took care of herself, aside from the whole not-eating business. It’d taken him over a month to notice the level of pet food in the automatic dispenser never decreased, after which he’d tempted her with human fare. Breakfast food, cake, and chocolate seemed to do the trick. Even though she appeared far from malnourished, he couldn’t stand the thought of the old girl being hungry. He’d become accustomed to her greeting him when he came home, even if it was with a distracted meow. Besides, a bit of cushy padding made her more pleasant to hold, and having a green-eyed black cat curled up on his lap added a whole new dimension to slumming on the couch with an episode of Supernatural.

  Cat chose this moment to return. Plunking down her plush bottom with her front legs straight and her heart-shaped face tilted up, the little minx stared up at him with a comical approximation of puppy-dog eyes. “Meow.”

  Keeping a straight face took significant effort. “Feeling guilty, are you?”

  Those uncanny eyes grew even wider, her long, dark tail wagging in a slow, hypnotizing pattern. He found his muscles relaxing, all tension and anger melting away. Unnerved by the almost-magical effect, he picked the creature up and held her in front of his face. “Your little tricks won’t work on me. I’m not letting you get off so easily. What you did was very rude.”

  Her claws sheathed, she batted at his nose with one paw. “Meeeow.”

  His resolve melted. He’d grown soft over the past six months, and the damn cat had learned to use it to her advantage. “Fine. I accept your apology. Now, run along. I need to wash up and get ready for work.”

  When he set her down, she padded after him to the master bedroom, which he’d refurnished as soon as he moved in. Aside from not wanting to sleep in his great-aunt’s bed, the gothic decor had given him the creeps. What kind of old Italian-Gypsy used black sheets and installed a massive upturned crescent moon as her headboard? The memory of the blood-red carpet, emblazoned with weird black spirals, circles, and stars, still made him shudder.

  He’d banished everything from the room, including a wall-sized, cross-bisected circular mirror, several dozen candles in all shapes, sizes, and colors, and multiple bouquets of odd-smel
ling herbs to the Salvation Army. He’d no clue what they’d do with it all, but he liked clean, sleek lines and modern furniture too much to have such bizarre items in his house.

  Cat had been none too happy with his decision. Her housewarming presents were claw marks on every corner of his bed’s leather base. The rest of his furniture, including his chrome desk, rolling ergonomic office chair, and black IKEA chest of drawers all met with similar fates. To his relief, the feline soon grew tired of vandalism and started bothering him in other ways.

  Accompanying him into the bathroom was a good example. While unaffectionate, the cat never ventured more than a few feet away. She had the decency to stay outside until the shower came on, but the sound of cascading water seemed to act as a trigger. Within seconds of him rinsing off, her sleek dark head would poke into the stall. His great-aunt must have installed some weird hi-tech cat sensor on all the internal doors. The creature roamed every nook and cranny of the three-story brownstone as if locks didn’t exist.

  Testing his limits must be on today’s agenda since a black streak crossed his line of vision before he could shut the bathroom door. Already behind schedule, he crouched and jabbed his forefinger between his pet’s green eyes. “You know the drill. No coming in until after I strip.”

  In lieu of an answer, she jumped to sit on the new granite sink. Unlike his furniture reshuffle, Cat had no beef with his bathroom and kitchen remodels. His stainless steel appliances, copper fixtures, and terra-cotta tiles all escaped the wrath of her claws.

  Rising, he swept his arm toward the open entryway. “I don’t have time for this. Out you go. I mean it.” When his stern warning failed to achieve the desired effect, he heaved a sigh. Past experience taught him a chase almost never ended in capture.

  Not bothering to close off the room, he hooked his fingers under his boxers’ waistband. “You’re a little pervert. Can’t you at least act like you’re not looking?” Very few sane people had lengthy conversations with their pets. He needed to get a life.

  His audience of one lay down on her stomach, her face resting on her paws. The first couple of months, she’d pretended to be interested in something else—his assortment of fluffy white towels, for example. Now, she watched him shower like it was nobody’s business. Sighing, he took off his shorts and tossed them into the hamper, his aim perfect enough to remind him of his basketball-playing days. She meowed and nodded, as if in approval.

  He stepped into the glass enclosure, feeling oddly self-conscious. With a twist of the handle, water fell like rain over his head. As he scrubbed, he continued to address the cat. “I’m going out tonight. It’s Halloween, and the guys are beginning to think I’ve turned into a hermit.”

  The ensuing meow was pitched higher than usual. Though he hesitated to read too much into feline noises, his brain somehow interpreted the sound as an expression of enthusiasm. The plan he’d been lukewarm about gained appeal. “Besides, costume parties are great places to pick up chicks.”

  He cringed at a loud crash. Poking his head out, he took stock of the damage. Ceramic shards from what used to be his soap holder covered the floor, along with globs of shiny translucent liquid. His fingers itched to take care of the mess, but his schedule dictated he leave the task to his daily housekeeper.

  His destructive cat sat with her back facing him, her tail forming a perfect C.

  “Careful. I’m beginning to think you’re jealous.”

  He heard a low growl over the din of falling water.

  Shutting the shower off, he stepped onto the miraculously unscathed bathmat and patted himself dry. The cat continued to face the wall. “You’re grouchy because a special episode of Supernatural airs tonight, right? Don’t worry. I’ve already set the DVR. We’ll watch it together, tomorrow.”

  She remained silent, but her tail twitched.

  “It’s not like I’ll get lucky. Whenever I bring someone home, weird shit happens and gets in the way. You wouldn’t have anything to do with it, would you?” Crazy to blame the cat, but his gut insisted she triggered all the surreptitious ends to his dates, perhaps because she never failed to leave claw marks on his guests’ shoes.

  After a prolonged back stretch, she pivoted to face him. The slow lip lick accompanying her smug expression did little to alleviate his suspicions.

  A towel wrapped around his waist, he scooted around the danger zone and preceded her to the walk-in Container Store-outfitted closet. Padding about the house naked with the cat trailing him felt weird, an illogical reaction since she watched him shower on a regular basis. He should be used to her by now. She fell asleep next to him on the couch almost every night. He’d made a conscious decision not to install a television in the bedroom, thinking it might deter him from indulging too much in the pastime, but his penchant for dozing off on the oversized leather sofa in the living room dashed all hope of kicking his TV habit.

  Pulling on a starched, French-cuffed white shirt, he made a mental note to give the maid a raise. The woman had called his office soon after he moved in and told him she’d been cleaning his great-aunt’s house for the past three years. Since she already had a set of keys and charged a reasonable fee, they worked out a system where he left her week’s wages on the kitchen island every Monday. He also created a shared Amazon account, so she could order cleaning supplies and nonperishable food items online.

  He never returned home in time to meet the lady, who happened to have a remarkably sexy voice. But she kept the house in tip-top shape, his pantry well stocked, and saved him a small fortune in dry cleaning. Although she refused to go out to shop for groceries, she always combined his hodgepodge of edible items into microwave-ready meals. He found the shopping lists she left him very helpful. Before she’d entered his life, he seemed incapable of remembering he preferred 2% milk in his cereal but whole milk for coffee.

  In honor of Halloween, the pagan-festival-turned-consumerist American holiday, he shrugged on a black suit and looped an orange tie around his neck. A silver tie clip patterned with smiling jack-o’-lanterns completed the outfit. Fastening on a pair of bat-shaped cufflinks and matching them with socks bearing the same pattern, he jogged down the stairs.

  Opening the entryway closet door, he took a moment to appreciate his collection of shiny, Italian-made lace-ups, all of which had stitched leather soles. His one battered pair of Nike sneakers created a bit of an eyesore, but he’d worn them in too well to buy something new.

  Having followed him down, the cat sidled against the bottom of his trousers, leaving behind a furry trace. He’d figured out a while back why sticky lint brushes ranked among the top ten bestsellers on PetSmart.com. Removing the trail of hair almost on autopilot, he nudged the feline’s head in the direction of his array of footwear. “What do you think? Black, dark brown, light brown, tan, or burgundy?”

  She drew an infinity sign with her nose, which he’d long since decided was the feline equivalent of an eye roll. Nonetheless, she snaked through his legs and stopped in front of his plainest black pair.

  He made a mental note to order a refill for the lint remover as he swiped at the loose hairs. “Come on, now. Not even wingtips?”

  She lifted both front legs and placed her paws on the chosen shoe. Facing him, she purred.

  “Talk about boring. Fine, I’ll give you this one, since I’m leaving you alone tonight.” Lacing up, he cast his gaze around in search of his briefcase.

  Cat jumped onto the kitchen island, rubbing against the black leather attaché.

  “You’re a mind reader.” He rose from his crouch and grabbed it. “Okay, off I go.”

  A meow prompted him to halt. He swiveled around to find the cat on the small table in the foyer where he’d left his keys and wallet. Patting her on the head, he stuffed both into his pocket. “What would I do without you?”

  ***

  The moment the door clicked shut behind her boss, Catalina Gato shifted into her natural human form. Twisting the dead bolt into place, she shook her head.
The man took forever to get out of the house. As much as she appreciated high-quality eye candy, she had better things to do with her morning.

  She sniffed her sweaty T-shirt and winced. The clueless warlock had returned home earlier than usual yesterday afternoon, obliterating her window of opportunity to rinse off. Even though she’d spent their entire time together as a cat, she found staying in the same clothes for over twenty-four hours beyond gross. Padding to the smallest guest bath on the third floor, she stripped and shuffled into the glass stall. Though not as nice as the massaging rainfall in the master, she preferred to shower here since Leo almost never wandered into this section of the house. His absence allowed her to leave toiletries out in the open and commandeer the closet in the adjoining bedroom to store her stuff.

  After a near miss early in their cohabitation, when he’d come home to grab some lunch while she was washing her hair, she’d decided to maintain a strict his-zone her-zone rule. His epic sense of denial somehow made him not question why a cat had streaked out of his bathroom sopping wet, but she’d rather not take any chances.

  Rubbing shampoo into her chin-length black hair, she contemplated her options. Since tonight was All Hallows’ Eve, she had twelve hours of absolute freedom. At sunset, she’d gain the ability to leave this damn house and not risk morphing into a cat if she somehow ventured within ten feet of her master. She could embrace the holiday spirit and go out for a night on the town, or she could track down the bumbling new owner of her contract and tell him the truth.

  Though any familiar would describe her situation as unsustainable, she would hate to break her promise to her departed mentor, Nonna the Great. But she’d given the woman’s great-nephew six months to come around, and he was no closer to accepting his magical side. Because he had no inkling he was a warlock, he couldn’t formalize his status as her master. This made it impossible for him to give her express permission to reveal her human form, take vacation days other than Halloween, or leave his domain.