Chapter 21 #2
Cat nodded. “And I feel pulled in a bunch of different directions. I’m constantly screwing up, even for the events, because it’s just me and a single part-time marketing intern.
I feel completely incompetent most of the time, but I can’t just stop.
I need to keep going to get donations, or I don’t know if we’re going to make it. ”
“Who’s doing your work while you’re here?”
“Someone from a different department is holding down the fort since I was only supposed to be gone for a few days, but I’m worried she’s going to be overwhelmed too.
I had a breakdown at work, blew up at the receptionist for forgetting to pass on a very important message, and that’s why they forced me to take this vacation. ”
“Holy shit,” he said again. “Cat, you could have told me.”
“What could you possibly do about any of this? Nothing. So what’s the point?”
“Maybe I can’t do anything, or maybe I can volunteer to help when I don’t have classes, but you don’t need to carry this whole load on your shoulders. If your boss or the board won’t listen, I will. I don’t know why you think you can’t lean on me.”
“I don’t want to get used to it. Because what if someday you’re not there…
like my dad?” Cat had only talked about her father a few times.
Trey knew the man had left Cat and her mother when she was very young to be with another woman.
She mostly treated the incident with a shrug of her shoulders and a simple statement of fact, as though it had never truly affected her.
And though his own parents were divorced, both had remained in his life, so he hadn’t known what it was like for her.
At the same time, he got it. When his parents sat him and his brother down in grade school for the divorce conversation, there was a moment of fear that had sat in his gut because he didn’t know what it meant for his future.
There had been a real fear of losing his connection with at least one of his parents.
Her thinking he’d get up and leave her to fend for herself was understandable, given her history, but it pained him nonetheless.
How could she believe he was capable of doing something so horrendous?
As much as he wanted to be angry with her, he realized he had done the same thing with his careless adultery accusation—for even assuming, no matter how briefly, that there was a chance she’d do something just as horrendous.
He didn’t blame her for being furious. Flinging these types of assumptions proved to be painful for both of them.
He leveled a serious look in her direction.
“If this experience taught you anything, it's that it’s pretty much impossible to shake me. I will find you whether you’re inside of sargasm, empanadas, or seashells.
I’m not leaving. Not ever. I’m going to use every last breath I have to be with you until I have nothing left to give. ”
Trey thought he’d put together a pretty romantic speech. He was surprised when she started laughing. “Sargasm?”
“That stinky seaweed stuff.”
“Sargassum. Although, now I’m curious. It sounds like a sarcastic orgasm.”
“I thought the same thing!” He popped his hips in exaggerated motions. “Oh yeah, that’s totally going to make me come, baby,” he said flatly while rolling his eyes.
She laughed harder, sounding more carefree and lighter than she’d been in a while. He loved it.
Trey pulled her back into his arms, and she settled on his chest again. “Let’s just say, for the sake of argument, things go back to our normal life and you could pick anything for yourself without guilt.”
“I don’t know if I can drop the guilt completely. I was raised Catholic, remember?”
“From my perspective, the current situation at your job is unmanageable, and it’s not because you’re incapable.
It’s because it’s unmanageable for pretty much anyone.
There wouldn’t be all those positions in the first place if it were possible to be done by a single person, right? What do you want?”
“I can’t just quit. Money would be—”
“I’ve been working towards finishing my teaching license. I’m going to do it full-time if I can. If I have to get a second job, then I’ll get a second job. You’re not helping anyone if you’re so stressed out that you shut down or have breakdowns at work. We’ll figure it out together.”
She reached for him, lightly crying again and kissing him. “But if you work that much, I’ll never see you.”
“And you want to see me?”
“Yes, you jackass. I want to see you.”
He grinned, finally getting the words from her that he’d been dying to hear for so long. Trey cupped her cheek. “I’m proud of you, Cat. You’ll never stop being amazing to me.”
“What’s wrong with you? I don't know why you put up with me,” she said, blubbering lightly.
“That wasn’t exactly the kind of response I was hoping for.”
“Yeah, I bet. I assume you expected me to just throw myself into your arms and screw your brains out or something.”
“Well, maybe a little. Or at the very least let me screw your brains out.”
“God, I hate you so much.” As she said this she climbed on top of him, straddling his hips.
“If this is the way you show your hatred of me, then yes please. Feel free to suffocate my face with your body.”
She leaned down to press kisses into his chest as he sunk his fingers into her curls as much as he could. “I hate how easily you made me fall for you again.”
“Ha! You think that was easy? Every day you’ve been mad at me has been pure torture.”
“Poor baby. Do you want me to make you feel better?” Her voice was dripping with seduction, her tongue flicking out to lick across his collarbone before gently nipping there.
His heart rate increased. “God, yes.”
She took his hands, pressing them into the ground on each side of his head. “Then be a good boy and let me hate on you a little longer.”
She bit his lip before plundering his mouth, her tongue taking complete control of the situation.
Cat squirmed, rubbing herself on his dick.
The teasing was rough and a bit angry and was driving him to the brink of feeling wild and feral again.
Taking whatever she was willing to give him was agony.
The control he had to maintain to keep his hands locked with hers and not touching her everywhere, wasn’t the type of control he could demonstrate for long.
The same Cat who battled the crab for him was still here, and maybe had always been there just beneath the surface.
All he could do was marvel at her beautiful light at full force.
When she moved on from kissing him to dragging her breasts across his chest, he couldn’t stay silent any longer. “Please, Cat.” His moans became straight begging.
“You think you’ve been good long enough?”
His hips ached from wanting to move. “I’m not sure I’ve ever been good enough, but I can’t take this anymore.”
A coy smile ghosted her lips, liking this response, and she hummed a satisfied noise.
“Good things come to good boys who wait.” But she was kind enough to end his torture, sliding herself onto his dick.
She sat up, taking him all in, her hands planting on his chest, sitting with the moment.
His own hands were free. He slid them up her chest, taking her breasts in his palms, enjoying the feel of her.
“I love you,” he said because he couldn’t help it. He was completely hers.
“You just want me to marry you again.” Her head tipped back with her eyes closed.
“Yeah. What’s wrong with that? Stay married to me and marry me again.”
“You might get lucky.” Her eyes finally opened, and she began to move. First the rhythm was slow, as though proving how much more in control she could be compared to him. There wasn’t going to be any argument.
He moved a hand between her legs to rub soft circles there, hoping to show he could torture with the best of them.
The speed between them increased, becoming less graceful and more needy, and soon she was begging as much as him, both of them meeting in the middle of giving and taking.
Cat dug in her nails as she cried out with him, unable to stop herself from collapsing onto the ground beside him.
“I think I’ve died,” he said between heavy pants. He wasn’t sure he could feel any of his limbs anymore. “But if so, it was the best kind of dying I’ve ever experienced in my life.”
“I think… I think I feel wet.”
He laughed. “Good. Mission accomplished.”
“No, seriously. I feel really wet—” She gasped, snapping to sitting. “Get up.”
He thought it was merely the cool surface of the shell, but then he felt it too. A soft push of salt water suddenly swelled around his feet, sending him into a sitting position as well.
“Shit! We’re filling up with water. Are we not allowed one moment of peace? Must there always be something?” Cat jerked to her feet, grabbing her bikini and cover-up and yanking them on.
“How is this possible?”
“Maybe it’s the tide coming in. I don’t know. Get up! We have to get out of here.”
He couldn’t help being disappointed at Mother Nature for ruining their moment of bliss, but getting upset was pointless.
Following his wife’s example, he shot to his feet, grabbing his clothes.
Unlike Catalina's, his clothes were mostly still dry.
He pulled them on before grabbing the last remaining water bottle.
With the next swell, the water pushed up to his calves. It was becoming more difficult to slog through the shell’s interior with the surface slippery and the sand shifty. All they could do was rush out as quickly as possible, hoping they could escape before the rising tide overtook them.
Once on the outside, he grabbed her hand. “Come on, we have to move further inland or higher ground while we can!” He wasn’t even worried about crabs or his sore ankle at this point. The only goal was to move. They raced across the dunes, attempting to put enough distance behind them to be safe.
“I don’t know how much further I can run!” Catalina called beside him, tripping in the sand again. He didn’t blame her, as he barely had any energy either, his strength was almost tapped, but he’d push himself until his legs gave out to keep her safe.
“Let’s just…” He was panting hard. “Let’s try to make it to that tuft of grass over there. There’s a rock we can climb onto.”
It looked doable, not too big, more like a boulder.
Of course, once they were at the chosen destination, everything was a lot more overwhelming size-wise.
The grass sloped overhead like awnings, and that small boulder was more of a hill.
Both he and Catalina were tired, and climbing a hill wasn’t an easy feat, but it had to be better than being at sand level.
Using the last of his strength, he helped drag Catalina, who continued to fight with everything she had, even while looking as though she was about to collapse.
It was darker in this area of the beach, probably due to the growth of plants, but at least the boulder had an easy slope to it, and the surface was textured, making it easy to walk across and not slippery like the seashell.
They got to an area that was more or less flat.
At which point, they both dropped to the ground, rolling onto their backs and letting their limbs fall outward like exhausted starfish.
“I’m sorry,” he managed to mumble, closing his eyes while waiting for his racing heart to settle once again.
Catalina crawled toward him before collapsing again, curling into his side. “Why?”
“I made a wish earlier. I wished there was a way for us to clean off because I knew we both felt really grungy. So that high tide thing was my fault. My wishes are too powerful.”
She huffed a laugh. “In that case, why don’t you wish for this to all be a bad dream and for us to wake up in our hotel room?”
“Can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because I also wished for you to forgive me, and I’m not giving that up for anything.”
“We can’t fall asleep,” she murmured, already on the brink. “What about your concussion?”
If falling asleep led to him going into a coma, he no longer had the energy to care. He couldn’t keep his eyes open any longer, and he had his wife spooning into his side, which was the ultimate comfort position.
“I love you,” she whispered.
He drifted off with a smile on his lips. He finally had everything he needed.