you didn’t secretly wish to be my slave you would not have brought it up to begin with,” he argued.
His arrogance aggravated her, and her eyes flashed as her smirk became a sneer. “Could you really be so conceited that you think what I meant by my remark was that I wanted to be your slave?”
“I would bet my tail on it.”
“As confident as that, are you?” she challenged, looking for an opportunity to make him see how wrong he was. She was too inexperienced in the game to realize that he was baiting her.
“Shall I prove it to you?” he asked, returning her challenge.
“Prove—!” His audacity was really too much. An alarm of some kind flashed a warning inside her brain, advising her to be cautious but she was too provoked to heed it. Besides, it was exhilarating to finally meet a cat with a little bit of backbone and such a quick wit. Ancestral courage welled up within her in response to his challenging posture. She felt it was her duty to put him in his place, and so without another thought she blurted, “If you can prove anything but my utter disgust for you, I will be your slave for this very evening!”
As soon as the words were out she felt a flash of terror. Had she really just said that? And when had she stepped out of the protective shelter of her mouse hole?
It didn’t matter. She would never give in to him, and he would eventually be forced to leave her with his tail between his legs, unsuccessful and humiliated. This thought made her smile.
Cat was smiling, too, thinking, just when it seemed that all the mice were docile little fools, ready to submit to anything put before them, he finds this little gem. Why, she was exactly what he had been searching for his entire life. And to think that he had nearly avoided her, at the advice of the many other cats who had rejected her. “Bitchy,” they all called her! What fools! As exquisite as she was, it was to be expected that she would instinctively want a cat that was willing to put up a fight for her. He recognized this because he came from that same species of animal as she, who prefer a struggle before mating. He needed to continually prove his right to possess his partner, while she needed a mate that was worthy of her and unafraid. Through instinct he knew that they both felt these things, though he also knew that she did not fully understand them yet.
Cat stepped closer to Mouse and lightly brushed her hair to one side. She felt his warm breath on her face as he murmured, “How shall we put it to the test?”
She sucked in her breath and held it. A thought or two crossed her mind but she remained silent. She was utterly stumped.
“Perhaps a kiss,” he suggested finally, after allowing her thoughts to wander a bit.
She sighed in relief. All she had to do was withstand one kiss without swooning over him. She was certain that she could do that. How sweet it was going to be to send him packing after he did his damnedest to impress her with his best kiss. She nearly chuckled at the thought.
He looked in her eyes and saw the amusement there. So she was already congratulating herself on her victory, was she? Good. He needed to catch her off guard. But he warned himself to be careful. She was one-of-a-kind in their world, and he was not about to let her get away.
Confident now, Mouse tilted her head back in anticipation of Cat’s kiss, all the while looking expectantly into his eyes. He stared back at her while his lips hovered directly above hers for what seemed like an eternity. An uncertainty came into her eyes, and suddenly she was impatient. Was he going to do it or not? What kind of a simpleton says he’s going to kiss you and then doesn’t do it?
His lips remained so close that they were almost brushing hers. “Well,” he finally whispered, “where would you like it?”
“What?” she whispered back.
“The kiss,” he explained. “Where would you like me to do it?”
She stared at him in shock. Images that made her dizzy entered her brain, but she instantly forced them out of her consciousness. And yet she was trembling. She once again reminded herself that the wisest course would be to get this over with quickly.
And just how was she supposed to answer his question without sounding like she wanted him to kiss her? He really had an infuriating way of setting her up. What she would really like to do is— Suddenly she had an idea.
“I think the least-offensive place would be my foot,” she said at last, with an eager smile.
“Your foot it is,” he replied without disappointment. He had expected no less of her. Besides, his suggestive question had had the desired effect. He had noticed her loss of composure, if only for a few moments.
He went down on one knee before her in a deceivingly submissive gesture. As she prepared for her attack, Mouse felt a peculiar disappointment that he had allowed himself to be beaten so easily, and a strange regret that it would all soon be over. It occurred to her that, from somewhere within herself, she had hoped he would be smarter or stronger or something…but immediately she reproached herself for being so foolish, remembering that it was her pride and her freedom that were on the line here.
Cat gently picked up her foot and placed his warm mouth on it for a lingering kiss. Immediately after the kiss was concluded, Mouse yanked back her foot in a swift motion, with the intention of kicking Cat in the face—an act that would once and for all show him her utter self-possession and lack of response to him. But as she swung her foot forward to deliver the blow, his hand flew out with razor-sharp precision and caught her ankle, holding it in a grip of steel. She gasped at this unexpected turn of events. The strength she felt in the grasp he maintained on her leg sent a thrill through her. She tried to shake him off but he held her with as little trouble as she might have had holding a butterfly by the wing. All at once she was completely disarmed.
Suddenly she lost her footing, balancing and struggling on the one foot as she had been. With arms and legs akimbo, she fell, bottom first to the floor. With the swiftness of a panther, Cat reached out and caught her, breaking her fall with his hands. She was at first relieved and then horrified. His hands cupped her buttocks. She moved to get up, but he held her.
“We haven’t determined the effect of the kiss yet,” he said with smile.
“What do you mean?” she asked, still struggling to get up and away from his hands.
“What I mean,” he explained calmly, “is that I want to see if I was able to inspire ‘anything but your utter disgust’ for me with my kiss.”
“Oh…well I can assure you that disgust pretty much sums up my feelings,” she lied, trying to appear calm and unaffected. But it was difficult with his strong hands holding her the way they were.
“I don’t believe you,” he replied. “And I like to verify things whenever possible.”
“Well, it’s not possible,” she snapped back. “So you’re just going to have to take my word for it.”
“But it is possible,” he argued. “It’s not only possible, but it’s also simple and painless.” So saying, he removed his hands from beneath her and pried open her legs.
At last she realized what he meant to do. A persistent tingling had been building up between her legs since before the kiss and now her desire was all but throbbing within her. “No,” she protested. “No.” She shook her head back and forth as she struggled desperately to close
