I stared at the orange tabby on my desk as if it had just pulled an elephant from its ear. Like some pop-eyed toy, my eyes and mouth were frozen wide open and my brain was trying, and failing, to comprehend what was happening.

It was all in the eyes.

They were a bright shade of yellow that was hard to describe. I felt myself become almost hypnotized by the brown that crept in from the edges. Looking into them, I nearly lost myself.

Emotions swirled in their depths, dancing like fire. Pain. Longing. A desperate yearning that burned my bones and ignited something in my soul. In that intense feline stare, I found my home.

Stepping over the mess of stir-fried noodles, I slid into the chair behind my desk with a stupefied expression. The cat tilted its head to watch me. Yellow eyes flashed. I couldn't look away. Couldn't bare it.

"What? How?" I dragged a hand down my haggard face with a shake of my head. The small animal's eyes shouldn't be so human-like. "It's a cat, for god's sake."

She gave an excited chirrup that sounded oddly like a cross between a meow and a purr. I watched her closely. I somehow knew she was female despite the male to female ratio regarding orange tabbies. She hobbled across my desk, her tail raised imperiously as if daring me to comment on her malformed appearance. I didn't. Even emaciated by hunger and wobbling from side to side with a teetering gait, she walked with surety that she had only been temporarily disadvantaged.

I didn't exactly agree. She was a moggy, a cat with no real pedigree that carried herself with regal feline pride despite her unknown origins and destitute circumstances. I could respect that. Admire it even. But I couldn't overlook that she dragged her back legs in an obvious limp that must have been from an injury that never fully healed right. I couldn't ignore the bold patches in her long fur that had more scars than a porcupine had quills. The bones sticking through her skin. The sight of her pained me. Grabbed at my soul and threatened to rip it apart.

Mewing for a fuss, she knocked a stack of papers from my desk with her tail and jumped on my lap. A small shock buzzed through my thighs, but I quickly disregarded it as static electricity. Tail high, she arched her back in typical feline behavior and rubbed her head against my stomach. Obviously, she was a snuggly attention lover that didn't consider me unworthy of petting her.

I scratched gingerly at the distinctive tabby mark that resembled an 'M' on her forehead, but quickly pulled away when there was that same zap in my fingertips. That shock filled me with an odd sense of happiness and pain. A feeling that the cat I had picked up in front of my club in a moment of pity for the starved creature, was unique in all the world and had irrevocably changed a vital part of my being.

My arms wrapped tentatively around her thin frame, pulling her protectively against me. "Don't worry, kitten. You can stay with me. I'll take care of you now. Give you the love and attention every cat deserves. You'll never go hungry another day in your life again."

The tabby purred like a tractor when I dragged my fingers through the knots in her dirty fur. I gave a smile of growing happiness. We made quite the pair. What could I do when she had twisted my emotions with such ease? I had to take her in. Give her a home. I was tired of being lonely. Tired of going home to an empty house where nothing and no one awaited me.

Leaning forward, I gingerly placed a kiss to the only clean spot between her mangled ears. "It'll be the two of us together now, kitten. Just us."

There was a sudden sharp sting against my lips that made me sit back in shock. Pulsing from the cat in my lap was a strange bright light. She looked like a cutout against the rising sun's rays through the window as the changing colours flickered and danced around her. The light was blinding. My vision erupted in spots of amber and gold as the weight in my lap shifted, growing bigger and heavier.

My hands stilled against the moving form that had become almost too hot to touch. I sat frozen in my chair. I couldn't move. Not when the cat I had been petting mere moments ago, now sat straddling my lap, rubbing against me with hoarse little moans.

The bright light subdued into a soft glow. The colours muted and absorbed into the warm tempting skin beneath my palms. I couldn't produce a single coherent thought, but my body's reaction to the naked woman in my lap was instantaneous. Whatever magical phenomenon had transpired, the creature sat across my thighs, rocking against me in all kinds of seductive ways, was definitely human and all woman. And if there had been any doubt, the growing bulge in my pants was a clear testimony to her appeal.

My hands instinctively clenched around the supple flesh of her full round hips. There was something so disarming about the way she cupped her milky breasts and molded them to her form as she rocked against me. Slightly low, but perfectly in proportion to her small frame, my eyes were drawn to the glimpses of well defined pink nipples. I couldn't look away. Everything about her was so natural, her movements so sensual.

But it was her eyes I really wanted to see.

My heart stopped before it started beating again, faster than ever before. Every ounce of breath was taken from my lungs when she looked at me. Yellow. They were still that amazing mix of browns and yellows that was so typically feline. Rimmed in thick dark lashes that made them look like they had been traced in coal. Open, honest and so utterly breathtaking, I wasn't sure I would ever recover from that stare.

Seated in their depths were emotions I would have never thought to find there. Among them such intense desire and love that I found it impossible to believe. It terrified me. Not because I was in some kind of denial, or because everything was so extremely strange and happening so fast. Never that. The thought that constricted my chest in fear was that this magical being, this amazingly beautiful woman, would no longer look at me with the same eyes once she truly saw me.

My stomach felt weak at the thought that she would look at my scars and feel only disgust like so many before her. My hand went there automatically, subconsciously trying to cover something that was still hidden by the shirt I wore. For once I didn't recall the fire that took my parents when I had only been sixteen. I was more worried that a glimpse of the damaged skin that spread from the center of my chest around to the side of my ribcage and back, would make the beautiful woman sitting astride me disappear.

It wouldn't be the first time and I was ashamed enough to want to hide them from her. They weren't marks of honor – stripes. They were a daily reminder that I had failed my parents in the worst way possible.

"What are you hiding, handsome?" she purred into my ear.

Every nerve in my brain was electrified by her husky voice. My cock strained painfully against the fabric of my jeans. Her scent, her touch, everything about her was sending me into a heady trance.

"What?" I shook my head and tried to lift the instant intoxication from my mind. "Who are you?" A better question probably would have been what, but I really only wanted to know her.

Her gaze caught and held mine. She looked into me as if she knew all my wants and needs. Her eyes were bold with an invitation to learn and explore every inch of her smooth unmarked skin. Every dip. Every crevice. Her skin was flawless in this new form, her cheeks a rosy pink. No ribs poking through her skin. No scars. Soft wisps of honey hair spilled over her shoulder. Unable to control myself, I leaned in close and brushed the silky strands back.

"Please. I want to know you."

She rotated her hips with a flirty tilt of her head. "I can be whoever you want me to be."

"No," I said perhaps a little harsher than I had intended. With a little more confidence, I wrapped my hands around the velvety skin of her waist and held her still against me. "I want to know you."

Uncertainty clouded her eyes. "You do?"

"Yes, kitten," I reverted back to the name I had already given her. "Who are you?"

Tracing patterns into the creases of my shirt with her index finger, she lowered her dark lashes against her cheeks and bit her lip. My breath hitched. It was more than the desire to take that lip into my mouth to nibble and suck. I had suffered severe nerve damage across most of my abdomen that left the area largely numb. But her touch had those same little shocks buzzing over the jagged ridges and edges of my scaly skin.

"Circe," she replied and lifted her gaze back to mine. "I was a witch. Am a witch," she corrected and magically ignited a small flickering flame in her palm for me to see. "But more than anything else, I am your souled."

Souled? As in soulmate? I gulped. Breath rapid and shallow. My hands spread like starfish around her waist, anchoring my fingers into her yielding flesh. "What does that mean?"

I couldn't think straight. I had a feeling there was a lot hinging on my reaction, but I was still stuck on the irony of her name. My father had been a professor in Greek mythology and I could still recall the tale of the witch, Circe, Helios's daughter, who had turned Odysseus's crew into swine.

"Exactly what you think it means. We were perfectly made for each other, Graham. You are the only person in this universe who holds enough of my heart to break it."

I stilled. "I never told you my name."

Her husky laughter was the sweetest melody to my ears. "I'm no psychic by any means, but I know how to poke my head around the human mind." She rested her hand in a soothing gesture over my heart. "I see your insecurities. All of them. You have to let them go. Don't hide from me."

I hated that she knew my weakness. Yet at the same time I was aware that I craved her attention and approval. Her palms slid down my chest to lift the hem of my shirt and slip underneath. My hands shook with fear and anticipation when she pulled the shirt over my head. The burns had impeded the mobility of my left arm and I held my breath as she pulled it free with care for the taut and lumpy skin. It was another one of those things she just knew about me.

Circe traced the raised splotches of discoloured skin with a curious tilt of her head. "I think it's cute you only grow hair on one side of your chest."

Warmth seared my cheeks and for a moment it felt like my face was on fire. Burns like mine typically didn't grow hair no matter how hirsute the victim had been prior to receiving them. I waited to see the disgust on her face, but it never came. Just a keen interest to know every part of me and that same heat in her eyes that made it hard for me to focus on anything but her. She moved her head closer to mine. I leaned in as the tension grew between us. Her sweet scent flooded my senses and I couldn't fight the need that was shooting through every part of my body.

Her lips brushed mine.

"Kitten," I almost begged, savoring each letter.

My control was shot to hell the moment she slammed her mouth against mine. Fiery. Demanding. I wasted no time pressing my tongue to the seam of her lips and delving inside. My hands encircled her waist and pulled her closer. Her warm breasts pressed against me as she arched up into my chest. Her arms reached up and tangled around my neck. I was completely unprepared for the passionate way she kissed me. Circe's touch was spreading a special kind of addiction through my veins. The kiss was hungry. The way our lips crashed together obliterated all thoughts of shame and uncertainty from my mind.

The anticipation of being with this woman, sharing our minds and bodies, made me feel electricity over every inch of my skin. I moved a hand up to wrap in her hair, angling her head to deepen our kiss. The other wound a burning path to the swell of her breast, kneading the flesh as it spilled from my palm. She broke from our kiss with a moan and I moved my lips down to explore her jaw, the delicate curve of her neck and collarbone – further down to take a puckered nipple into my mouth.

Circe untangled her hands from my neck to fumble with the button of my jeans. Next was the zipper and then her hand was reaching inside to wrap around my pulsing length.

I groaned. "Fuck, kitten. You're killing me."

"This is mine," she nipped her claim into my neck as she worked me free.

The head of my cock was swollen to an angry purple and precum leaked from the slit. I threw my head back against my chair with a grunt of frustration. It's been too long. Too long since I had a woman. Since I let anyone close. I wasn't going to last.

"Tell me you understand." She lifted her hips and rubbed the tip of my shaft through the liquid heat that had been gushing from her pussy. "I want this cock, Graham. Your heart. Your soul. I want it all. Tell me it's mine."

"Oh god, yes." My hands dug into her ass and fingered the wetness that drenched her hole. She whimpered and slammed her hips down to take me deep inside her. My breath hitched. Circe withdrew and I lifted my hips to drive back inside her, thrusting to the hilt. Her sheath clenched around me. "Fuck you're tight."

"More, Graham. Harder!"

A savage heat filled me. I surged deeper, filling her completely as she slammed down to meet me. Her eyes glowed a bright yellow as I took her to the edge. Flesh slapping against flesh. Hot and hard. Her back arched when her climax took her. I swept in with a claiming kiss to swallow her scream and muffle my own roar of release.

She collapsed against me, panting into my neck, her inner walls contracting around me. Breathing hard, I held her tight against my chest and traced a slow caress down her spine. The idea of something permanent scared the hell out of me, but I wanted my kitten to stay. In my arms. My bed. Forever wrapped around me.