Page 9 of I'll Catch You
6
Peter
I hopoff the couch and grab two beers from the refrigerator when Claire starts to wake up. By the time she’s peeling her eyes open, I’m back by herside.
“What happened?” she asks as she looksaround.
“You got a little cut on your foot,” I tell her, putting a beer in her hand. I did some detective work while she was out, but not before Cassie assured me she’d be okay. Sometimes she gets a little faint if she hasn’t eaten and she hates the sight of blood, clearly. Once Cassie helped me bring her in here I checked her out on social media. I saw that one of her favorite things to do in the summer is take a late afternoon nap after a full day of working and then waking up to an ice-cold beer. At least this is the story I made up in my head about her. In truth, all she wrote on social media under the picture of her hand wrapped around a glass bottle on what looked like a picnic table was “best day ever.” I’m so into this girl that I’m not just making up stories for our future together, I’m making up stories about herpast.
“Thanks.” She puts the neck of the bottle to her thick pink lips and takes a long, slow pull. “Yep. Neededthat.”
I feel my lips pull into a tight line and take the bottle away from her, placing it on the coffee table. Maybe she was a little bittooenthusiastic about the beer. Though, if my girl had a problem with drinking, she and Cassie would have been playing a drinking game when I walked into Crabby’s earlier today. I’ve found that people who have a drinking problem are the first to pull out the booze at the first mention of having nothing else to do. Though, on the other hand, the people with the drinking problems are also the people who’ve already tied one on long before they let boredom sidle up next tothem.
I lean back on the little plush couch and watch as Claire goes to the window, peering down at the beach and over to the bonfire where her friends are still partying. Her plump ass is calling to me, the bare skin beneath the hem showing off a hint of the swell hidden inside. I watch her tits as they rise and fall softly, her body turned slightly to the side. It makes me wonder if her nipples are hard and small or soft, plump. What color they are. If they’re the same shade of pink as her shapely lips. I’m always hard around her and I wish I could go over, crush my lips to hers and show her what it’s like to be claimed by someone who cares for you more than they should given how recently you’ve met. But I have to go slow withher.
“Don’t worry,” I tell her as I uncap my beer. “Cassie knows where you are. She even helped me get you inhere.”
I can see she’s working out in her head whether to trust me. She quickly resolves that she can. Cassie is still down there galavanting like most women these girls’ age like to, and if I were kidnapping Claire right now I wouldn’t know her best friend and cousin’s cousin’s name, or whatever the hell Cassie explained she is to Claire. It turns out Cassie is a talker. Apparently it took all of her will and discipline to not cut in on the argument Claire and I had this afternoon. I got an earful of it when Cassie and I got Claire in heresafely.
“I don’t remember that,” she tell me dismissively. As though I’m lying about how I got her here. In case she doesn’t remember, she’s the one who passed out on the beach after cutting her foot on something she may have herselfunearthed.
“Do you remember telling me you’llsell?”
Her lips gape and she turns toward me with a hitch in her throat and her hand over her heart. She thinks I’m a bad influence on her subconscious mind. She’s right. I am. At least I’m trying tobe.
“I did no suchthing.”
“Did I have youfooled?”
“No.”
She prances toward the door to see herself out and I stand to follow her. If I hadn’t seen the blood myself I might think she were faking her injury to get into my house and now she’s changed her mind because she thinks she was close to actually agreeing to whatever I’d ask from her in the small space of just a few minutes when she was flirting withunconsciousness.
I make her a little nervous. Good. A girl as strong and fixed as she is must give off the impression to most men that she’s unflappable. Now I know the way to get under her skin. Next I need to figure out how to staythere.
“Thank you,” she says as I grab the door for her. She gives me a defiant look with her chin in the air as I try to usher her out the door. Her lips part and I think she expects me to make a move. I want to, but there’s something I need more. I need her to see how serious I am, so I hold back. But I give in a little, deciding to split the difference and do something that’s just forher.
I take her chin in my fingers and tip it up softly. A gasp escapes from her chest and she turns soft in my hand, her chest brushing against me. Her breasts in this triangle bikini try to spill out the top and I feel her nipples tighten, puckering between us. I put my other hand on the small of her back and rub my thumb along the line of her ribs. She’s soft. I like that. If I were doing this for me, I’d spin her around, yank these shorts down and see how soft and plush her thick ass is and how good it would look disappearing behind my hands as I slice throughher.
No. I hold off. This is just for her. Though her eyes aren’t just giving me permission. They’rebegging.
“Have a good evening, Claire,” I say against her ear. Her hollow breath asks formore.
I pull away from her and she falterssoftly.
“What…” her lips struggle to find what she’s lookingfor.
“Mike is right across the street waiting for you. Brynn is with him. Cassie is at her place, safe and sound. I’ll see youtomorrow.”
I put my hand out to shake hers and she gives me her hand, her bones like liquid as she look between our hands and myeyes.
“See you tomorrow,” she says. I usher her out, close the door and peer through the window next to it, pulling the thick curtain aside. I watch as my girl ambles down the two steps to the sidewalk. As promised, Mike is waiting in his car across the street. Claire takes a final look up at my rented house and shakes her head, but I can also see the smile on her face as she gets inside and shuts thedoor.
