Page 12 of He's Mine

Someone yells out that an ambulance is coming, and I spot the look of panic on the man’s face. I start to go for him, but Kat is clinging to me and sobbing. She grabs my shirt between her fists and tries to talk to me in between the hiccupped sobs.

“No! Stop! I…I don’t have anywhere else to go, Whit.”

“Sweetheart, you can’t stay here now.”

She starts crying even harder. I pull her closer as she buries her head in the space between my arm and body and clings to me.

I take a moment to look around the empty apartment. No one lives here…so why did she think the Super’s place was here? We are hustled out of the group of people standing around when the ambulance finally arrives. I end up carrying Kat down and arguing with them to look at her first. Kat won’t let me go long enough for someone to do anything to her so I keep holding her while they check her out sitting in my lap.

I keep telling her over and over that everything is going to be alright as my mind whirls with ways to make this better. By the time both of us are cleared by the paramedics, I think I have figured some of it out.

“Look, everything will be alright, kittycat. We’ll rent hotel rooms tonight and tomorrow we’ll figure out a better solution. It’s all going to be alright. I promise.”

She looks tired and stressed and I don’t like it. There is no doubt in my mind I am going to find a way to fix this…and get that fucking Super fired from his fucking job if I can’t do even worse and involve the right authorities. Instead of giving me a reassuring nod or a weak smile she just kind of stares blankly at me and waits for me to bundle her up in my truck.

Chapter Eleven

Kat

It’s so late by the time we finally find a hotel to stay at, that they only have one room left. And the room only has one bed. He tries to be a gentleman and tells me he can stretch out on the floor with no problem but he’s just as exhausted as I am. Maybe more so since he had to carry my ass around for a little while after the whole floor thing.

“Don’t be silly. Both of us can sleep in this bed. No problem. If it’s really a problem, you can stay above the covers, and I will stay under them.”

Eventually, he gives in and both of us end up on the bed side by side. Even though I am exhausted, I can’t fall asleep and lay just staring at the ceiling thinking about what I am going to do now that I have nowhere to go. Well, nowhere but Bear and Bea’s.

“Try not to worry about it, Kat. Everything will be alright. Just let me worry about it.”

“It’s…,” Not his problem. Oh my God, this time tomorrow he’ll be gone somewhere else and I’ll be with my brother and Bea…and we won’t see each other again. There won’t be a reason to hang out with one another, there won’t be any hanging with him and Spade and not being a third wheel but like one of the guys.

Sadness hits me so hard it’s like a physical punch in the gut. Silent tears leak down my face as I mourn not just my freedom and independence but the loss of my friend too. How can things get any suckier?

He looks over and I guess can tell tears are leaking down my temples glinting in the low light from the bathroom. He takes my arm and rolls me, so I am up against his side with his arm around me, pulling me close. He starts rubbing my back in comforting circles as the time between my blinks becomes longer and longer.

In the morning when I open my eyes, it’s to find myself draped across Whit like a cheap whore. The shirt I was wearing as a nightdress, one of his I had to borrow from a duffle bag in his truck since all I was wearing when the floor gave way was a freakin’ towel, and neither of us was allowed back into the apartment afterwards, has ridden up around my waist leaving me bare.

And his hands are holding my ass, pressing me into the hard ridge of him that seems to rest between half my body. Surely that can’t be how long he is? It has to be an illusion that makes it feel like it is that long? Right? I wiggle around long enough to realize…oh fuck, that is all him. And it’s past time I need to be up and away from him. The last thing I want is for him to wake up with me on top of him especially after he pretty much told me the only reason he kissed me yesterday was because I was handy. And didn’t that just drive a nail straight through my ego. Who would he have used as his girlfriend if I hadn’t been close? One of the other teammates’ sisters?

I try to roll off him, but he is having none of it, squeezing the handful of buttcheek he has in each hand. The motion has me squealing and going stiff in his arms which alerts him that something is wrong. I know the moment he wakes up because his hands let my ass go at last. I take the opportunity to put space between the two of us.

“Sorry.”

“It’s alright. No worries.”

My face is turned back so I have to look at him when he grasps my chin gently. “It’s really not. No one should put their hands on you unless you ask them to, sweetheart.”

He’s such a sweet man. “Maybe I was the one in the wrong. Maybe I was the one touching you without your consent. Which then I would have to apologize to you.”

He laughs a little before he pulls me into his lap and captures my attention once again. “That’s different, baby.” When I am about to ask him why it’s different, he keeps going and answers my question without me having to ask it. “I would never object to you touching me. You can touch me anytime you want to.”

His mouth drops to mine but it’s in the lightest kiss ever, barely brushing my lips with his before he slides me off his lap and makes his way to the bathroom. “Okay if I take the shower first?”

“Yeah, go ahead.”

What the hell just happened? I woke up on top but somehow, he’s flipped things around and taken control of everything while leaving me unbalanced and wondering why. I always wonder why when I am with Whit. Is that even normal? Am I supposed to feel so unbalanced around my friend? And do friends casually kiss one another like he just kissed me? Not that it was really even a kiss, I suppose.

By the time I come out of the shower, Whit is just getting off the phone an before I can ask what’s going on he is walking over to me with a bag in his hands. It takes me a minute to realize it’s one of mine.

“Wh…Where did you get that?”

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