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 side 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.