Title: "Mistletoe and Catnip"
Author: Pirate Turner
Dedicated To: My beloved, wondrous, and always inspirational and amazing Jack, and our darling babies - Merry Christmas and Happy Solstice, my loves! This is the eighth story in my 12 Days of Solstice/Christmas for my beloved Jack and our darling babies of the year 2011.
Rating: R
Summary: Alek knows Chloe will be his.
Warnings: Het
Date Written: 7 December, 2011
Word Count (excluding heading): 2,363
Disclaimer: Alek, Chloe, Mrs. King, the Mai, all other recognizable characters mentioned within, and The Nine Lives of Chloe King are ﾩ & TM ABC Family and all other rightful owners, none of whom are the author, and are used without permission. Bast belongs to Herself. Everything else belongs to the author. The author makes absolutely no profit off of this work of fan fiction, and no copyright infringement is intended.

Chloe stopped, her green eyes blinking in surprise, as a powerful scent met her nose. She lifted her head and sniffed again. Her wild eyes flashed, then grew round as her body tingled. Never before in her entire life had she smelled anything like the delicious scent currently stroking her nostrils! Her blonde hair shimmered around her shoulders as she looked all around her, but still she saw nothing that could be causing such an alluring smell.

It wasn't food, she thought. It wasn't meat or sweets or money or leather. After her Mai powers had started to kick in on her sixteenth birthday, Chloe had soon found that every individual thing in the entire world had its own scent. Some were definitely more inviting than others with food and leather, thus far, topping the list, but every single thing had its own distinct smell. She shook her head in confusion as her mind ran through all the different scents she'd become accustomed with since then and came up short. She'd definitely never smelled anything even remotely like this before!

Her head tossed back as she tried to follow the scent playing over her senses. An urge was building deep within her, and she didn't understand it any more than she had thus far been able to identify the source of what she was smelling. It was coming from somewhere above her head, and Chloe's black pupils narrowed as she spotted the mistletoe hanging directly above her. She cocked her head slightly to the side and studied the mistletoe, never realizing that a confused mew had crept out of her mouth. Could the mistletoe be what was smelling so delightfully?

She jumped as she suddenly felt strong arms sliding gently around her body. She arched upwards as Alek encircled her waist and pulled her against him. "Mmm," he murmured next to her ear, and she tingled from head to foot as his warm breath blew softly across her tender flesh. "Chloe King under the mistletoe and at my disposal." She couldn't see his face for he was behind her, but she nonetheless felt his roguish grin. "I couldn't ask for anything more for Christmas!"

He kissed her ear, and Chloe promptly melted in his arms. Still that delicious and alluring scent was playing havoc over her senses. "Alek," she breathed, wondering why her voice shook, "do you smell that?"

"Hmm?" he asked, and passion screamed red hot through Chloe's veins as his tongue flicked out of his mouth and licked the spot just underneath her ear lobe. "You smell delightful."

"No," she said and laughed, her green eyes sparkling. She pushed playfully against him. "Not me. That . . . That whatever it is . . . " She moaned and let her arms encircle him as he nibbled her ear. She sighed and began to drift in the pleasure he was steadily building inside of her with his every touch, kiss, and caress. The scent drifted with her, taking her higher. Her fingers arched, and her claws popped out. She tugged at his shirt. "Whatever that is . . . " she moaned again as his lips started descending down her neck, raining one scorching kiss after another onto her willing body. " . . . that . . . that smells so . . . so delightful . . . "

"You smell delightful," he spoke again, his own brown eyes twinkling with mischief. He shifted his body around hers, tilting her back, and she went with the movement, not even thinking of fighting against him for the first time.

"Is it . . . " She gasped as he ran his tongue along her jaw line. Her claws dug into his shirt and began to tear the thin fabric separating them. "Is it the mistletoe? Is it . . . Is it real?"

He smirked playfully at her, his brown eyes dancing. "Of course the mistletoe's real. I wouldn't use anything less." If he'd had a tail, it would have been whipping through the air and then moving in to surround them both in its embrace. "Just don't eat it," he warned. "Mistletoe's poisonous to us cats, you know."

"I'm not . . . a cat . . . "

He nuzzled her cheek. "Yes, you are," he informed her with a slight shrug. His grin grew. "Close enough, any way." She'd never be reacting to the scent filling their nostrils so dangerously as it was now if she wasn't.

He moved again, and this time Alek placed his lips firmly down upon Chloe's. What little concentration she'd had left melted entirely the rest of the way away as he held her and kissed her deeply. She moaned, and her lips parted underneath his. He grasped the advantage and slid his tongue down into her mouth. His pink tongue uncurled inside her heated and silken contours and slid across her tongue. She purred, her green eyes rolling back into her head, and answered his embrace by curling her own tongue around his.

They dueled in the sweetest music ever created, Chloe's restraints and inhibititions completely forgotten by the scent that clouded her mind and edged away all the reasons she'd had for keeping Alek at bay. His hands ran up and down her back, and his deep purr answered her own. His body slid across hers, and she answered his unspoken request, arching harder against him and instinctively cradling the rising bulge in his jeans.

She was his! She was completely soft and pliant against him, like all women should be but as she had refused to be since he'd met her. At long last, Alek had his beloved in his arms, and she was no longer fighting him! He smirked against her mouth and strove his tongue deeper into her silken web. He could take her right here, right now, make sweet and passionate love to her, and mark her body forever as his. Though she refused to admit it, he knew her heart and soul already belonged to him. They were the perfect match, and now, at long last, was his ample and justly deserved opportunity to prove it to her.

She wouldn't argue. She'd go with him. She'd let him take her wherever he wanted and bring her to heights of passion far beyond where any mere mortal human could ever take her. If he made love to her just one time, Alek knew he'd have her forever. She'd never look at Brian or any other human the same way again. She'd be his as fate had intended, and he was already hers.

Yet something tugged at the back of his mind. He twitched against her, cupped her upturned face in his hands, and kissed her even harder and deeper, his tongue trysting inside of her as he longed for his staff to do. He wanted her. He had wanted her since the very moment he'd laid his eyes upon her. But he didn't just want her this way. He wanted her forever of her own free will. He loved her, and despite the frenzy and scorching heat of passion they were now sharing, Alek knew he wouldn't be content if he took her this way.

It was a guilty conscience that was tugging at him, he silently and reluctantly admitted at last. He knew what the smell was, and though he wanted Chloe so badly with every inch of his being that it sometimes even physically hurt, he wouldn't take her like this. He wouldn't take her until she freely decided she wanted him, and when he did take her, he wouldn't take advantage of her. He'd never take advantage of the woman he loved, even if it would help them both to achieve the pure and complete happiness they deserved a great deal faster than she, with all her mortal beliefs and complications, would allow to happen.

With a moan breaking from his lips, Alek lifted his mouth from hers. Every part of his body screamed at him that he was being a fool, but his heart and spirit knew he was doing the right thing. She leaned up, her lips blindly seeking his again, and he yowled inwardly as he felt every inch of her lithe and luscious body pressing against his. He was harder than he'd ever been before in all his life! It would be so easy to take her now, and it was, he knew, in truth, what they both wanted even if she kept fighting against it when under her own control!

He couldn't do it, though, he reminded himself as his shaking fingers threaded through her long, golden locks. He couldn't do this to her. He had to wait until she was ready, and when he did finally take her, their love making would be so beautiful, passionate, heated, and sweet that not only would it be well worth waiting for but they would put to shame all the other couples who had ever done it before them. They were purrfect together! They were destined for each other, and their love was the stuff of legends! It just wasn't time yet.

"Alek?" Chloe whimpered, and it took every last bit of his self control to gaze down into her dazed eyes, smile as though everything was normal, and not kiss her again.

"That," he breathed, lovingly stroking her face, "was amazing! But I have to go or I'll be late for the Mai meeting. You've got to get to your mother for that dinner you promised her." He flashed her a grin. "Don't worry. I'll find the purrfect excuse for you." A purr slipped out of him, and he instantly regretted it as his control began to melt again.

She petted the side of his face, and he could feel her trembling against him. "You don't really have to go." She pouted. "Do you?"

"Uh, yeah, yeah, I gotta," he stammered out and forced himself to push her away. She looked at him with hurt and then cocked her head to the side and watched in growing puzzlement as he leaped through the air, retrieved the mistletoe from her bedroom ceiling, did a back flip, and landed on her open window sill.

"Alek?" she asked. "Can't you stay for dinner?" Her innocent pout was one of the most seductive sights he'd ever witnessed, and he knew she was asking for much more than dinner. He shook his head and closed his eyes hard. He forced down the lump rising in his throat and wished it could be that easy to get rid of the burning lump in his pants.

The Chloe King he knew would never ask for more from him so easily and openly . . . at least not yet. She would one day, he reminded himself. One day, once his advances and slow and steady loving had wiped all humans from her mind, she would be his, but tonight was not the night. This was not the way, and he should never have tried it. She'd hate him if she even suspected what he had done to her, but she'd never find out. He clutched the mistletoe behind his back.

"Chloe?" Relief passed through Alek as he heard Chloe's mother calling her. He watched as Chloe snapped her head in the direction of her mother's voice, and then he jumped out of her window. He raced away from her and well out into the growing dark of Christmas Eve before he could change his mind, go back to her, take her in his arms, and give them both the ultimate passion and never ending love they deserved. He'd do that one day soon, he promised himself, but only when she was ready for it and not a moment before.

He finally stopped running when he was several blocks away and looked at the decoration he held tightly in his hand. The sprig of mistletoe was small and deadly, but what had even the greater potential was the other natural plant he'd wrapped around it. He shivered and thought, for a fleeting moment, of indulging in the catnip the rest of the way himself.

Bast knew he needed something to calm him down! He would, he promised himself, ease away his burning desire the only other way he knew how, with a bit of catnip in hand, later in the evening, but first he had that meeting to get to before he got into even further trouble. He hid away the catnip and mistletoe with another promise that he'd use it again however many years from now it took for Chloe to truly be ready for all the love and passion he was holding just for her.

He grinned as he leapt on through the night. He didn't know how long it would take for her to be ready, though he prayed it would be soon, but he already knew that, however long or short a time it took to get them there, that would be the best Christmas of his life. He'd show his beloved Chloe then everything catnip was good for, and he'd make sweet love to her not only that night but every night for as long as she wanted him. His grin grew, and he let a small yowl of happiness escape him.

When the time came, he knew, it would be every night from then on out forever and beyond, and all his waiting would have been well worth it and for the worthiest cause ever He loved Chloe King with all his heart, soul, and being, and at that time, he would love her openly with every inch of his body forever more! She would be his, willingly, and he'd never give her cause to regret it and never, ever stop loving his beloved Uniter throughout all eternity and forever beyond. "Merry Christmas, Chloe!" he called, and though she couldn't hear him and he could hear her no better at the time, he still heard her purr in his mind. He'd make her purr again, and he'd keep her happy, safe, and loved forever!

The End