The Carrero Contract - Amending Agreements (Book 2 of Contract Trilogy)

17

The car park is less stuffy and a welcome break from the club indoors. Even with all its sexy lighting and modern exterior, it is still a huge black box that has little to no natural daylight inside and the way it is secured means it doesn't ever have open windows for fresh air. It relies heavily on electrical lighting and air-con to keep the flow and temperature.

It doesn't compare to coming outside to just breathe and feel some real sun on your limbs. Something I did a lot of when working in the diner, inhaling fried grease all day long.

I perch my butt on a low brick wall that juts out along in front of one the new metal fences. It used to be the old territory marker for where to park, but is pointless since he turned this into a hemmed in paddock and acts as a makeshift bench of sorts. Leaning my head back against the fence I slide my shoes off and stretch out my naked legs to warm in the sun for a while. My dress is knee length and rides up a little as I sit, so it's glorious.

Closing my eyes and letting the tightness seep out of my body as heat beats down on me, I jump when a tiny little mewl noise startles me from my right.

I flinch a second time, heart jumping, when I notice a little ginger, scruffy furball curled aggressively behind the tyre of the nearest car, glaring at me fiercely. Eyes almost illuminated from his shadowy vantage point and intensely honed in on me. When I lean down to look more closely it growls at me angrily in a long, evil and forbidding noise that sends my nerves rattling, and I recoil apprehensively. He's a little demonic and wild for my liking.

'Calm yourself, psycho. I wasn't planning on touching you.' I move further along the wall, shifting on my butt to put distance between us and turn away from the scabby little stray. Picking up my shoes carefully and sliding them back on my feet while keeping an eye on it, in case it's in attack mode for breaching its territory. It makes me nervous with that beady gaze stuck on me relentlessly.

Stray cats are common in New York, especially down the back alleys and where the large dumpsters sit. This one looks like he has been through the wars and is a little worse for wear, hiding in the shadows of one of the four-by-fours. Even from here I can tell it's scrawny and filthy.

I get up and walk to the back steps of the club and attempt to sit there instead, on the low wall at the base of them. Not really in the mood for taking on a crazy cat, and jump when it appears to my left, crawling out of its little shelter to stare at me from under the bonnet of the car. Slinking after me as though it's trying to intimidate me out of its parking lot. He doesn't seem as ferocious in the light and looks more flea-bitten and pitiful than anything.

'What do you want? Stop eyeballing me. I don't have anything for you.' I turn my back on him to get it to go away and head up the steps to the doors to put a little more space between us. I slide down to perch on the top one and lean back against the solid security door as a backrest to watch the little demon sidekick as he snarls at me from his position.

He's scruffy, skinny and not the most attractive of kitties. Looks like a tom judging by the missing eye and half an ear ... probably not had a decent meal for a long time. He is all loose skin and obvious bones, and the funny angle of his tail midway suggests it was broken long ago and has healed crooked.

Despite his little aggressive nature, something in me feels kind of sorry for him, and in this heat, he's probably desperate for a drink. I wonder how long he has been living out here as it's the first time I have noticed him.

I yelp in alarm, head torn from thoughts of the cat when I catapult backwards as my backrest caves in with someone opening the door behind me. I land flat on my back with an ungraceful thud, my head in the gloomy hall of the club, facing up at the smug looking prick that just opened it.