Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CATALINA
Everything was dark. His clothes, his face, his voice. He struck out at me. I threw my hands up in front of my face to stop the barrage of blows. They kept on coming. He struck my arms, my hands, my wrists.
I cried out for him to stop, but he didn't. Over and over, his fists pounded into me.
I begged him to stop but he didn't even slow.
I was lying on the ground and he was kicking me again and again. The toe of his heavy boots slamming into my ribs, my stomach, my chest.
I tilted my chin back and screamed.
And screamed.
"Cat," a low, soothing voice spoke in my ear. "Shhh. It's okay."
A strong arm surrounded me, holding me close until I stopped thrashing and screaming.
"Shhh, it's just a dream. Just a bad dream. I've got you." He rubbed a hand up and down my back, slowly and deliberately.
My eyes popped open. "Shaw?"
"Yeah. You were having a nightmare." He didn't stop soothing my back.
I blinked tears out of my eyes. "It felt so real. He was right there."
"I know it felt real, but it wasn't. You're okay, I've got you." He held me tight, muscular arms chasing away the worst of the shadows. "Did you notice anything you didn't remember before?"
"It wasn't you," I said vaguely.
He made an indeterminate sound in the back of his throat. "I already knew that. But something made you say that. What was it?"
"I heard his voice. I remember thinking it wasn't you. I still can't place who it was."
I closed my eyes and thought back, but couldn't pin it down. His words were too few and in the moment, I was too overpowered with fear.
"At least you can rule me out." He turned me around to face him and kissed my forehead. "I don't want you to have any doubts about me. I'm in this for the long haul. You're it for me."
"Shaw…"
He pressed his finger to my lips. "You don't have to say anything. You're still recovering. When you're ready, I'll be here."
I waited until he lowered his finger. "I want to say something. I need to say thank you."
"What for?" he asked.
"For finding me when you did," I said. "I think he would have killed me if you hadn't. Thank you for being here for me. The last couple of days have been difficult. You've helped me through it, more than I can ever express."
I exhaled softly. "I'd like to go back to work so I can stop thinking about all of this, but I'm not sure it'd help. I can't stop. Those fucking crutches won't let me." Not to mention the cast.
I nestled into him. "Thank you for not giving me pitying looks." Those were the worst. I appreciated that people cared, but I didn't want them feeling sad for me.
"I have a feeling if I looked at you like that, I'd get a crutch to the nuts," he said dryly.
I snorted softly. "Exactly."
He lightly ran his knuckles down my cheek.
"When I look at you, I don't see someone who should be pitied.
I see a gorgeous, intelligent woman with bigger balls than most guys I know.
A woman who won't be held back by what happened.
If anything, this will make you even stronger.
If I were those pricks, I'd be shaking in my skates. "
"I have a feeling not much scares you," I said.
"It doesn't," he agreed. "The only thing I'm scared of right now is that you won't feel the same way I do.
If you don't, I'm willing to put in the work to convince you we belong together.
I've never been more sure of anything in my life.
" He sounded amused at the subtle pun of rhyming with his own first name.
"I'd be lying if I said I didn't care about you," I said. "Right now, I feel like you're the only one who really gets me. You make me feel the most… I don't know, normal."
He hummed his disappointment. "I'm not doing my job if I make you feel normal. I want you to feel as beautiful as you are." He skated his lips lightly over mine.
The touch sent a jolt of electricity snapping through my core, igniting me from the inside out. I immediately wanted to throw a bucket of water on it. I believed he had feelings for me, but he couldn't be physically attracted to me when I was such a mess.
Could he?
"Shaw," I whispered.
"Cat." He kissed me again and lightly ran a hand over my stomach, under my pyjama shirt. "So fucking gorgeous."
"I'm so broken," I said.
"Just your bone. The rest of you is perfection." He ran a thumb across the underside of my breast. "I want to touch you everywhere."
I shivered. "Promise me."
His hand stopped moving. "Anything."
"Promise me this has nothing to do with any bets." If it was, another part of me might break.
He placed his other hand on my cheek, his fingers stroking my temple. "I swear on everything I care about, being with you is because I want you and I want to make you feel good. No games. No bullshit. I want you so fucking bad."
"My leg—"
"I'll be careful," he assured me. "If I do anything that makes you uncomfortable, just say the word and I'll stop." He resumed his exploration of the underside of my breast with his thumb, gradually moving it up to circle one of my nipples.
Every movement was slow and careful, every touch, every caress.
He pushed up the front of my pyjama shirt and traced circles around my nipple with his tongue. He drew my sensitive peak between his lips and sucked gently.
At the same time, his hand wandered down the front of my pyjama pants and to my pussy. The tips of a couple of his fingers grazed over my clit, gently at first but then more persistent.
He pressed a finger inside me. "I was hoping you'd be wet. You're even wetter than I imagined." He slid his finger in and out a couple of times before working my pants down over my cast and off onto the floor. He shimmied down and bent my good knee to open me up to him.
He lowered his mouth to my pussy and started to lick and suck my clit and all around my pussy. "You taste incredible." He slid his fingers back inside me and worked me from inside and out.
My body responded to him, but rolling my hips was difficult with the heavy cast. It took a few tries to get the rhythm right. When I did, I forgot all about my broken bone and enjoyed the way he was feasting on me.
"Come for me, Cat," he insisted. "I want to hear you."
With my father in the house, I wasn't going to scream, but I moaned his name as I shattered into more pieces than my leg bone. I arched my back and ground my pussy harder against his stubbled face.
I came back together faster than my bones would heal, but with less anguish and a lot more pleasure.
"You're perfection when you come." He kissed his way down the inside of my thigh to my knee and back the other way.
He kissed up my hip, my stomach and over my breasts.
He grabbed the hem of my pyjama shirt and pulled it over my head.
His T-shirt and track pants were next, leaving him a naked, muscular hockey god.
In the glow of the streetlight that peeked in from the edge of the curtains, I saw all of him.
His flat stomach, chiselled abs and the V of his hips.
A cock so big I wasn't sure how it fit in his pants.
His chest and arms were covered in tattoos, most of which I couldn't make out.
I hoped I'd get a chance to see them in daylight.
He lay beside me, angling me carefully so one leg was bent to give him access without having to lean any of his weight on my cast. Instead, he rested his weight on his knees and elbows and carefully positioned his cock outside my entrance.
"Tell me you want this," he whispered.
"I want this," I said. "I want you inside me. I want you to fuck me." I wanted to feel as beautiful as he kept telling me I was. Wanted and needed. Desirable.
"Good, because I want to fuck you." He slid himself slowly inside me, stopping every few moments to let me get used to his size. "Holy shit, Cat, you feel incredible." He went on pressing until he was all the way inside me.
"So do you," I said breathlessly. I knew I needed this, but it wasn't until he was fully seated inside me that I realised how much. He was right, I wasn't someone to be pitied. I was tough and strong and beautiful. I wasn't going to let anyone or anything hold me back.
He slid out and all the way back in again, always moving slowly and carefully. Always keeping his weight off my leg.
"The first moment I saw you, I wanted to sink into you like this," he said. "But this is even better than I imagined." He palmed my breast, rolling my nipple with the heel of his hand.
"I don't think anyone would have imagined this," I said. "Unless you have a thing for plaster."
He chuckled. "If you're in it, I'm into it.
But when I thought about claiming you, claiming your body, a cast might not have occurred to me.
It doesn't diminish how fucking good you feel.
If anything, it gives me something to look forward to.
The day you can drape both of your legs over my shoulders. Then, I can fuck you harder."
His words gave me delicious shivers. Maybe I should think it was wrong for him to suggest he was claiming me, but I didn't. Something about it felt very right. I wanted to be his.
I hated a few hockey players, but what I felt for him, it was the opposite.
If I wasn't careful, I was going to fall for him.
Really fall. Not just the physical attraction I had for Cruz and Easton.
I wouldn't let myself think I felt anything more for either of them.
I couldn't. That vulnerability all but broke me.
"I better work hard at my rehab then," I said. "So we can do that."
"Good girl," he said softly. "I don't doubt for a minute you'll do that for me. For us. You know I'd do anything for you."
"I do know," I replied. I placed a hand lightly on his abs, closed my eyes and enjoyed the feeling of him thrusting into me. I'd never been called a good girl before. I liked the way it sounded, coming from his lips.
"Shaw," I whispered.
"Yes, beautiful?" he whispered back.
"Come for me," I said. "I want to feel you come inside me." I wanted him to feel as good as he made me feel.
He groaned. "You're such a fucking good girl. Just for you, I'm going to come inside your beautiful body. I'm going to fill your pussy with my cum."
His words drove me over the edge again into a second, more intense orgasm. He was half a heartbeat behind me, thrusting a little faster before he stilled and came, grunting and grinding into my body.
"Fucking… Yes…" He panted. "Good girl. Take every drop of my cum. Such a good fucking girl."
I ground against him, milking myself every drop of pleasure and him for every drop of his own release.
When I came back down, I was warm and wet and satisfied as hell. And fucking glad my cast hadn't gotten in the way too much.
"That was—" I panted lightly.
"Just the start," he said softly. "Just the start."
The start of something incredible.