answer that question.”
She stares at me, her mouth curling. Her tail serpentines on the floor until it finds my leg, curling around my limb like usual. “All right,” she finally says, dropping her shirt. “If you’re going to remain so adamant about it.”
“I will,” I confirm. “And you look fucking amazing. That’s your takeaway.” Then I yank her into me and pop a kiss on her forehead. My hands find their way to her hips. “You ready to go?”
She stares at me, her eyes hooded, her ears held low, the face of a hunting cat watching a stumbling deer. “Yes. I am.”
Tipping my head, I lean back and take in her face, the sheen on it. She’s covered herself in glitter spray. It makes her look… faker. It’s… brilliant. “You look like you spent eight hours in a makeup trailer.”
She gives me a small smile. “Is that a good thing?”
“It’s the perfect thing,” I assure.
She bows her neck almost demurely. “Oh, thank you,” she says so politely with her lips.
But her hands have found my ass and she’s beginning to knead it—and also letting me feel her claws, which she knows is a quick way to get fucked. I reach back and catch her wrists. “Behave, or we’ll be late. And speaking of, we need to go now or we’ll be late as it is.”
She glances to the counter, where she has a small assortment of makeup stuff that Stacy gave her to try. “I was considering adding the lead sulfide darkening agent to my eyelids to make it appear as if I were deliberately heavy on my makeup.”
I kiss her nose. “You don’t need it.”
Her smile grows wider, her eyes even warmer. “Thank you for this too. I have a strong urge to have my way with you.”
I drag her wrists between us, and suck in a breath when her hands make the most of their new location. I push her back until she’s pressed up against the bathroom wall, pinning her wrists above her head, giving her a little grind before releasing her. Before I do though… there’s one more thing. “Inara?”
“Yes, Matt?” Her eyes are direct on mine.
“Have you been feeding my fish?”
She blinks rapidly. “Ah,” she says on an exhale. “No.”
I squint at her. “Are you eating it?”
She winces. “Yes.”
I slide my grip down her arms until I’m cupping her shoulders. I’m bemused as I ask, “Why are you eating fish food, baby?”
“It’s delicious,” she admits.
“Huh. Okay.” I let it go at that with a shrug. Because what the hell else can I say? I take a deep breath, but let out a groan and force myself to step back from her. “Good Lord, your perfume is making me insane. We better go.”
She bites her lip—and she knows she can’t bite her lip, or we’ll be showing up late to this picnic—and grins slowly, her eyes changing. “You are driven mad by my scent?”
I give her a slow once-over, then glance down at my dick, which has swelled to the point that everybody is going to know I tuck left. “Oh yeah.”
She notices. Her gaze locks on my bulging crotch, not helping the situation. She licks her lips and spares my face the barest glance. I could feel objectified if I wasn’t already so hard. “Could we please mate? My hormones are insisting that you breed me at your earliest convenience.”
Growling at her, I start unbuttoning my fly. “I should have known this was coming. Did you know your eyes turn dark as plums when you get turned on? We’re going to end up being late, woman!”
“We’ll be fast,” she promises, sinking down to my knees to help me get my cock out.
***
The food is good, and the entertainment is great. Inara is straight up crazy for music of all kinds. We listen to Jason play most prominently on Prokofiev's Fifth Symphony and Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries and cheer loudly enough to make him blush—because Inara doesn’t do anything half-assed and she loves to cheer people on—when the group finishes their set.
Inara asks Jason if he’d be willing to show her how to play a tuba, and he wastes no time in dragging a foldout chair to her, wiping out his mouthpiece, and giving her a crash course on how to buzz her lips and move the buttons—which he calls the vowels—of a big ass tuba.
She’s thrilled, having an absolute blast. Her tail is sticking out of the back of the chair, and it’s found