by Max Monroe
His response to my teasing only made me like him more.
There was a part of me that felt like I already knew him, which was crazy. Technically speaking, I hadn’t even really met him.
Yes! Introduce yourself. It will be the perfect icebreaker.
“So…uh…I feel like we know each other’s names, but we haven’t really been introduced…” I smiled and held out my hand. “I’m Cat. Well, my full name is actually Catharine, but everyone calls me Cat. Oh, it’s Catharine Wild, by the way. Or Cat Wild, if you take the whole nickname thing into consideration.”
Wow, Cat. Real fucking smooth introduction.
His eyes glimmered with a smile. “It’s a pleasure, Cat.” He took my hand in his. “I’m Quinn Bailey. No nickname, though.”
With my small hand engulfed within the warmth of his and our eyes locked, we stayed like that for way longer than two people normally would.
I think you’re insanely handsome, my brain whispered as we released hands. Can I keep you?
A slow, warm as honey smile crested his mouth, and I had the insane urge to run my tongue across it just to get a taste.
Good God. Was I really going to get to spend a nearly four-hour train ride sitting beside this man?
What he was, what was so alluring about him, I couldn’t quite put my finger on. It was like it came from somewhere deep within.
And the intrigue, well, it was beyond my control. It just was.
I barely knew the guy, but hell if I wasn’t fascinated as fuck.
My phone vibrated in my lap, and I looked down at the screen.
Casey: O-M-fucking-G. That’s my husband!
It looked like I wasn’t the only one who remembered Quinn.
Casey: I’m so jelly right now. Quick, tell him I love him.
Nor the only one to understand the overpowering allure.
Me: Sorry. You’re breaking up. I must not be getting good service.
Casey: We’re texting, you whore! You either get the message or you don’t.
Me: Then I’m definitely not getting yours.
Casey: Wow. Bold-faced lying. That’s cold. I wasn’t going to say anything, but bitches get stitches. Carol can’t make you take a train to make your flight. Either they get you there, or you don’t fly. Too bad you’re already on the train. Buh-bye now!
Well, fuck. Carol probably laughed her fucking eyebrows off after I’d left.
But I was already on my way now, and thanks to Quinn, things were just getting interesting.
God, I just hoped I could manage to keep awkward rambles under wraps.
As I adjusted myself in my seat, I remembered how my arrival to the train station had been—a thirty-minute sprint, frizzy hair, and makeup that was pretty much sweated off.
Instantly, nerves fluttered inside of my belly.
Fucking hell.
Why couldn’t I have at least had a moment to freshen up before this train ride?
She’d introduced herself on a ramble, and it had only made me more smitten with her presence. This girl, Cat Wild, was fucking adorable.
Now frazzled and blushing, she searched for the most comfortable position in the seat beside me. She was antsy and maybe a little uncomfortable, and the way she flopped her bag around like a fish on the floor beside her feet made me smile.
Thanks to Casey and Journey, it’d been easy to break the ice.
Even though the train had been running behind schedule, she’d still whirled onto it in a flurry, giving me one of the best surprises of my life.
She hadn’t even noticed my presence, or really, anyone else’s for that matter, and as she strode down the aisle, erratically looking for a seat, a wave of her delicious scent had hit me like a lightning bolt. Orangy and light, every note of it felt fresher than the last. It was a scent I’d become wholly familiar with after two hours in a metal tube in the sky, and one I thought I’d never smell again.
She twisted in the seat, back and forth, trying to calm down, and I couldn’t help but tease her about it.
“You accidentally sit on an anthill since the last time I saw you?” I asked softly. Her eyes jerked up to mine, and her body settled immediately on the command of her embarrassment.
I watched intently as a pink stain bloomed across the apple of her closest cheek.
“What? Oh. No,” she stuttered. “I just had to rush to get here, and the adrenaline crash has me a little…” She jiggled her hands in front of herself instead of using a word.
I smiled.
“Plus, these hose are about to drive me to insanity.”
I blinked, trying to understand, before letting out a little chuckle when I couldn’t. “I’m sorry, what?”
“My…” She blushed again, looking down to her lap as she spoke, “panty hose. They’re cutting off my circulation.”
My cock jerked awake on the word panty, and suddenly, I was glad for her inability to look directly at me. Nuns, grandmothers, grandfathers, wrinkled ball sacs, I recited in my mind, quickly trying to calm my half chub back to no chub.
“Well, don’t feel obligated to keep up the uniform for me,” I told her, trying to be solicitous but flushing when I realized it sounded flirtatious.
She looked up at me then, chewing nervously on her lip and then looking over to the restroom. I followed her gaze to see the little light above it shone red, with a big X through the picture of people above it.
She chewed her lip some more, and all I could do was watch, transfixed by the manipulation of plump flesh, until she got up the guts to speak again. “Would you… Do you mind covering your eyes? I’m literally two seconds away from murder if I don’t get these things off.”
I smiled and immediately covered my lookers with a beefy hand. “I’m looking to live, Cat,” I mumbled through my fingers. “Take all the time you need.”
She laughed, the sound echoing around in my self-imposed darkness, and I tried to fight against my body’s desire to soak it all in.
What is it about this girl?
Pulling my hand away from my eyes enough to look down at the floor and let in some light as the train moved from side to side, thinking that might assuage my body’s bid for companionship, I caught a glimpse of her feet as she slipped her heels off one at a time. Her toes were long and painted, and I swear to God, she had some of the sexiest little feet I’d ever seen.
Feet? Really? What the hell is wrong with me?
I willed my eyes to close again, but they disobeyed me. The slide of her panty hose as they slipped off of her feet and left her skin bare made me shiver.
Oh God. My brain swam inside my skull.
“Almost done, Kitty Cat? I’m getting a little motion sick with my eyes covered like this.”
“Oh, shoot,” she squeaked. “Yeah, of course. All good.”
I uncovered my eyes as she slipped her heels back on and tucked a hunk of curlier hair behind her ear. The humidity had obviously been to work on it. “Sorry about that,” she apologized.
I shook my head and scrunched my face. “It’s fine…as long as you feel less like killing me now.”
Her laugh was melodious. “No worries. The murderous rage is all gone.”
I slapped my hands together playfully in a prayer position and looked to the ceiling. “Thank God.”
We were silent for a moment, the train rocking and clacking on the tracks. Lights from outside flashed through the dark windows like a strobe, lighting Catharine’s face so much her eyes glowed and then plunging it back into darkness in an erratic rhythm.
“I’m surprised to see you here,” I commented softly when all the flashing light finally blurred into a soft glow.
“Really? Why?”
I laughed and shrugged, crossing one ankle over my other knee and sinking farther into the worn fabric of the seat. “Well, you are an employee of the airline. I figured if anyone would be able to get on another flight, it would be you.”
She pulled her feet up into the seat, leaning her knees into the si
de so she could cuddle up comfortably without flashing me. “Sadly, no. I’m relatively new, and RoyalAir is relatively small. There were other stranded fish, and they were much bigger than me. And I need to be on a flight out of Birmingham tomorrow morning.” She shrugged. “So here I am.”
“Here you are,” I murmured to myself. She heard me, of course, because I wasn’t silent by some form of magic, so it seemed a little creepier than intended. I kept talking to try to play it off.
“I’m on my way home to see my brother and my folks. A real quick trip, and the soonest they could get me there on a plane was Tuesday.”
“Ouch,” she remarked, scrunching her nose. “Sorry about that. If I ever get to talk to upper management, I’ll tell them to make a note to change that.”
I laughed. “Ah, Luke. He was a real peach, huh? You’ll be thrilled to hear I ran into him again at customer service.”
“Oh, no.” She sat up straighter, her face draining of every drop of amusement.
“Yeah, he was just as lovely.”
Her giggle was delicate as she found her humor again in my playfulness. “There’s almost always one on every flight.”
“A douchebag?” I asked, and she laughed. Hands together in a cute knot, she lifted them up and settled them under her chin.
I watched her slender wrists flex as she nodded on top of them.
“I’m sure. Are you always on the flight to Birmingham?”
“Mostly,” she confirmed. “Occasionally, I have to do another route. But they just transferred me over to JFK for my home base, and I do this run five days a week.” She blushed a little, looking at her lap and back up again. “Truthfully, though, I only started about six months ago.”
“Oh, wow. A fledgling flight attendant,” I teased with a smile. “Is it everything you thought it would be?”
“Not really,” she admitted. The train rocked hard as we rounded a curve in the track, and one of her navy pumps teetered in front of her seat and fell over. She reached down to right it, but I was already there. The skin of her fingers was cool against my own.
She paused briefly, her eyes jumping to mine as she gathered her train of thought again. “But I really like it, and I have some good friends.”
I smiled and tried to ignore her touch as it lingered like a phantom. “Yeah, Casey seems like a hoot.”
She nodded easily. She might occasionally play the part of annoyed when it came to her friend Mr. Bloomingdale’s, but under the surface, there was nothing but a whole lot of love and respect.
“Five days a week, huh?” That was a normal work schedule, but it seemed like an awful lot of days to spend so far away from home. Of course, who was I to talk? During the season, I was almost never at my own fucking place. “What do you do in your free time? Play any sports?”
Her nose wrinkled, and I laughed outright. “Not into sports, then?”
“Not particularly. I’m more the type to trip over my own feet.”
I shrugged. “I’m sure you could get enough people together to start a league for that if you really wanted.”
She laughed, rolling belly laughs like she thought maybe I was a lunatic.
Hopefully, psychopaths are her type…
“What about you? What do you like to do?” she asked as she gathered herself, sighing hard like the laughter had tired her out before nuzzling deeper into the seat.
I rubbed at the back of my neck, suddenly eager to lie down. Preferably with her next to me, in a bed big enough to sustain some sexual gymnastics, but if an opportunity presented itself, I’d try not to be picky. “A little bit of everything, really. Rock-climbing, hiking, skiing…”
“Geez, stop rubbing it in.”
I chuckled. “I’m pretty good at drinking beer and watching TV too.”
Her eyes lit up. “What shows?”
“Uh oh. I feel distinctly like this is a test.”
Her smirk was enthralling—sexy and edgy and confident. “Only to see how honest you are.” I liked this side of her.
“Well, let’s see. I like NCIS because Abby is a badass, and Live PD because criminal America is endlessly entertaining, and Teen Mom OG because—”
“Teen Mom OG?” she asked, her voice shaking with laughter.
“Of course. Tell me you could watch Tyler’s vows to Catelyn and not tear up. Tell me, and I’ll call you a liar.”
She laughed and settled deeper into her seat, finally relaxing in a way that said she was comfortable around me. Her arms fell to her sides, and her chest opened up, her shoulders rolling back to allow it. I let out a deep breath I didn’t know I’d been holding.
“And what’s your favorite show, kitten? MSNBC?”
She bit her lip, blushing slightly at the nickname, and admitted, “I don’t know about favorite, but the one I watch most often is the Kardashians.”
“Ahh. Now it comes out. “
“They run those dang reruns all the time!” she shouted. “This is a timing and availability thing!”
“Sure,” I taunted. “Like you weren’t hanging on to Kim’s Instagram last Christmas just waiting to see Kylie’s baby bump along with everyone else.”
Her cheeks turned so red I laughed harder.
“Speaking of a gang of attractive siblings,” I segued. “How about you? Do you have any?”
She shook her head slightly, a fond smile curling her mouth as she thought about her family. “Nope. Just me and my mom and dad. But Casey and my other friend, Nikki, might as well be. They’re just as annoying anyway.”
I laughed at that. I knew the feeling.
“You?” she asked.
“Yep. I have one brother by blood and a whole bevy of asshole friends who act like they are.”
She nodded with a smile, but her face softened sweetly then. “It’s nice.”
“It is,” I agreed.
Nicer than I ever could have expected, I thought as I looked at a woman I hadn’t known six hours ago.
At a woman that I suddenly couldn’t get enough of.
“Well…” Quinn started and looked toward me with a soft, maybe even slightly gloomy smile. “I guess this is it, huh?” The question hung in the air, heavy and thick with hesitation and melancholy, as our train pulled into the station in Birmingham.
“Yeah.” I felt my lips turn down at the corners of their own accord. “I guess so.”
We both stood when the train came to a stop, and like a gentleman, Quinn motioned me out of the way and proceeded to pull my carry-on down from the overhead rack.
“Thanks,” I said, and his blue eyes shone.
I felt compelled to say something witty, something memorable, but my brain wasn’t up to the task. I guessed it was still reeling from the fact that I’d just spent three and a half hours on a train—speeding through the middle of nowhere Alabama in the late hours of night—and I’d done the exact opposite of what I’d expected.
Instead of napping or finding solace from boredom with Candy Crush and random playlists on iTunes, I’d chatted with a complete stranger until it felt like we weren’t strangers anymore.
Quinn Bailey—a man who held the power of comfort and ease and apparently knew all of the right things to say to a girl. He was a force to be reckoned with, an enigma among my usual male acquaintances.
Where most men would have come across as pushy and too overzealous, his vibe was the opposite. A Southern gentleman to his core, he was playful and flirtatious, but only when he understood those qualities were welcomed.
And good God, he was funny.
I honestly couldn’t remember the last time I’d laughed so much with another human being.
“You know what I think?” he asked, and my eyes met his.
“What do you think?”
“I think you should give me your phone number. Just in case of emergency. Or, you know, just so I can call you.”
A soft laugh escaped my lips. “Okay.”
His blue eyes lightened. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,”
I responded with one simple word, even though on the inside, I was jumping up and down like a giddy lunatic. It took all of my willpower to appear cool and collected.
Quinn pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, and as I recited my phone number to him, he saved my info into his contacts.
The doors of the train opened with a loud creak, and people started to file out in a surprisingly slow and easy manner. I guessed it was hard to be in a rush after spending the entire night on a train.
Preparing for our turn to exit, I started to wrap my hand around my carry-on handle, but I had to redirect it when my phone started ringing inside my purse. I pulled it out of my bag to realize it was an incoming call from a number I had never seen before.
“Just checking,” Quinn mused, and I turned and looked up to find him gazing down at me with a little smirk.
I hadn’t really calculated how tall he was until that moment—him standing behind me while we waited to file off the train. At five foot seven, I wasn’t a short girl by any means, but Quinn was well over six foot.
He raised the screen of his phone, and when Cat Wild shone back at me, I quickly realized he was the one calling me.
What the heck?
A second later, he ended the call with a quick tap to the screen and slid his phone back into his pocket.
“Wait…” I paused for a brief moment as my brain put the puzzle together. “Were you just checking to make sure I didn’t give you a bogus number?”
Quinn shrugged and sent a sexy little wink in my direction. “You never know, Kitty Cat.”
I had a hard time imagining that type of situation had ever happened to a man like him. If anything, women probably Sharpie-tattooed their numbers all over their bodies, just hoping he’d catch a glimpse of one.
“But good news,” he added. “Now you can call me whenever you like.”
“Emergency purposes?” I teased and promptly added him as a contact.
“Any purposes,” he clarified, and I blushed under his flirtatious gaze. “All the fucking purposes.”