why does my cat lick me then bite me

You are being groomed one moment and gently gnawed the next, and you would like to know which of these the cat meant. Both, is the answer. The lick and the nip are not a contradiction, they are two halves of the same message, and once you understand that, you stop taking the bite personally and start reading it as the punctuation it is.

the lick is grooming, and grooming involves teeth

When a cat licks you, it is grooming you, and grooming you is a compliment: it means you have been folded into the cat's inner circle, the small group it bothers to keep clean. But cats groom each other with tongue and teeth together, a lick followed by a little nibble to work through a knot. So the lick-then-bite is often just the full grooming routine applied to a human who has, frankly, let their coat go. It is not aggression. It is the cat doing your maintenance to feline standard.

the other half: you overdid the stroking

The less flattering explanation is overstimulation. A cat enjoys being stroked right up until, quite suddenly, it does not, and the switch from pleasure to too-much can flip in an instant. The bite is the cat saying enough, and it usually comes with warnings you missed a moment earlier: a twitching tail, ears turning back, skin rippling along the spine, a pause in the purring. The lick can even be part of the wind-down, a soft note before the firm one. Learn those signals and you will feel the bite coming, which is the whole trick, covered further in why does my cat bite me.

how to keep the lick and lose the bite

Watch for the tell-tale signs and stop stroking before the cat has to tell you to. Keep petting sessions shorter than you think, and favour the head and cheeks over the belly and the base of the tail, which most cats find provoking. Never turn a bite into a game by wrestling with your hand, because a cat that learns fingers are toys becomes an adult that draws blood. And take the lick for the honour it is: you have been claimed, cleaned, and issued a small warning to stand still. That is a cat that likes you. It simply likes you on its own terms, as we all do.

Related reading from my desk: why does my cat lick me, on the grooming half, and why does my cat bite me, on reading the warning before it lands.

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