Page 23 of Catch of a Lifetime
“Keep pushing,” I said.
“No problem.”
Another quick glance behind me showed Jerry’s face red and his quivering arms at full extension as he held Dave’s naked arse and shoved with everything he had.
“If either of you would like to help out, be nice,” he grunted.
“Let’s go, Dave,” I said, and coaxed him up the next step. “That’s great, Jerry. Keep going. It’s helping.”
“Cool.” He made anaarrrrghnoise and his boots skidded.
I did not miss the gleam of amusement in Dave’s face.
“Are you messing with him?” I hissed.
Dave’s face was still tight with pain, but yeah. He was messing with Jerry.
I resettled my arm around his waist, doing my best to avoid the wounds, and coaxed him up another step.
His amusement was over; his expression set in fierce concentration and we made our way up the stairs.
By the time we reached the top, Dave was sweating and making a constant, faint groaning sound. It was hard to hear over Jerry’s equally constant and significantly less faint complaints, but I heard it.
“He weighs a fucking ton,” Jerry said, coming into view and joining us on the landing, slotting himself under Dave’s lifted and waiting arm. “I can only imagine you’re on top when the pair of you go at it, because otherwise he’d flatten you.”
“Don’t imagine it at all,” I told him primly.
I preferred to be on the bottom and I happened to adore his gargantuan weight on me.
“Right, what d’you reckon? Are we going to put him in the bathroom, or the bed?”
I hadn’t thought that far. “Uh. Bathroom?” I heaved Dave up on my side. He was sagging and getting heavier. “Yes. Bathroom makes sense. I’ve got to clean him and?—”
“Never mind,” Jerry said. “He’s off again.”
We hustled to keep up—and to keep him up—as Dave turned towards the bedroom and grimly forged on, groaning louder.
“There, there,” Jerry murmured absently as we all staggered along the landing. “We’ll get you settled any minute now. There, there.” He couldn’t help himself. He was like one of those cats or capybaras who would mother absolutely anything.
We lurched through the doorway and Dave grunted as soon as his gaze locked on the bed. He sped up, we all but ran across the room, and he fell onto it face-first.
Since his arms were still around us, and our arms were still around him, all of us fell onto it face-first.
I extracted myself and hauled Jerry out from under Dave.
“We did it!” Jerry said. “Uh-oh. Now what’s he doing?”
Dave was moving feebly over the mattress, inch-worming his way up to the pillows, grabbing fistfuls of the bedding as he went and taking it with him. He turned onto his back.
“Oh. Don’t worry about that. He’s nesting.”
Jerry looked at me. “He what?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “He does it a lot. Drags it all into the middle. Likes it when I get in there with him.”
As we watched, Dave’s eyes rolled back in his head and his big body went completely lax. I moved up to the top of the bed, reached down and put my fingers to his neck. His pulse hammered against my fingertips, still at that frightening speed. “Oh, Dave,” I said, and cupped his cheek.
I was hit with a sudden wave of utter exhaustion. I wanted nothing more than to climb onto the bed with him and hold him.
