Page 34 of Squatch Out!
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
SEAN
S lowly, I look up at where Olivia hasn’t moved from my lap. She’s still watching me. Her beautiful face is carefully expressionless.
She’s still here. She hasn’t left, not even after you acted like a complete tool.
“Are you hungry?” I ask her.
“I could eat,” she replies quietly.
I’ve missed how she feels pressed against me like this.
Her scent in my nose and her arms around my neck with her fingers curled in my hair.
I hate to move her, but I promised her food.
Carefully, I lift her off my lap and set her on her feet, then I take her hand and lead her into the kitchen—and wince at the mess.
How long as it been this bad? Maybe she won’t notice?
Olivia carefully lets go of my hand and looks under the sink for a trash bag, which she starts filling with the piles accumulating around the overflowing garbage can. Yeah, she noticed.
While she’s doing that, I cross the room to the fridge, only to find…nothing. Not even a carton of milk. Just a block of cheese and some half-empty condiments. I try the freezer above the fridge.
“Is frozen pizza okay?” I take the last cardboard box out and drop it on top of the oven.
“Pizza is fine,” she calls back from the living room, where she’s started gathering more empties that have been accumulating for the last couple months.
I preheat the oven and then start working on the mountain of dishes overflowing the sink, only to realize the dishwasher is already filled with dishes, and I can’t remember if they are clean or not. Probably not . So, I start that, then move on to?—
“Sean. Sean? SEAN !”
I jump when she shouts at me, spinning around to find her in the doorway.
“The oven beeped; you can put the pizza in now.”
I look over to see that the pre-heat light is, in fact, off now. I toss the frozen pizza right on the rack, set the timer for twenty minutes and turn back to the dishes.
My back goes stiff when I feel her gentle touch on the back of my shoulder.
“Sean, please talk to me.”
I turn around and start to look for an escape, but there is nowhere for me to go. I’m backed into a literal corner, and it’s like my jaw is glued shut, so I shake my head.
She steps closer. And closer. With each inch, my heart pounds harder against my ribs. I want to grab her and pull her into my arms. But after the way I’ve acted, that doesn’t seem like the right thing to do.
She’s standing right in front of me, close but not touching, and I’m trembling all over. “Please, Sean. All I want is to understand.”
Her request is beyond reasonable, and yet… I try to sidestep her. To get away.
When she reaches for me, I start to shake. The moment her hand brushes the side of my bicep, I lose control and squatch out.
Her eyes widen with surprise, but she doesn’t back up or run away. Instead, her plush pink lips curl up into a smile. “Maybe I can reason with you .”
Without the hesitation I had before, I lift her off her feet and put her against my chest. Then I bolt out the back door, carrying my woman into the night.
The warmth of summer has given way to brisk early autumn nights, but I know my body will keep her warm as I carry her deeper and deeper into the trees to the large spruce where she let me have her the last time I was like this.
Only sex isn’t on my mind right now. Well, not just sex.
When I find myself in front of a familiar tree, I’m hit with flashbacks of pressing Olivia up against its rough bark while she let me into her soft body.
I lean against the sturdy trunk and, slowly, slide down to sit against it, curling her in my lap so she’s resting against me.
She feels perfect in my arms like this, with her head on my shoulder and her small fingers twirling the long hairs covering my chest.
The sense of rightness is overwhelming and my squatch can’t understand why I keep fighting this. Why have I been so determined to push her away when it’s so easy to be with her?
One giant hand cups the back of her head, while I gently stroke my thumb back and forth across her soft hair. The other curls around her small body, holding her tightly against me. A deep purr rumbles through my chest, and she nuzzles even closer.
“Sean, I’m not leaving this time,” she says quietly. “Well, unless you really want me to.”
I growl, and she sighs into my chest. “Yeah, I didn’t think you did. So, I’m going to need you to listen to me for a minute, okay?”
I go back to purring for her.
“I quit my job. I broke my lease on my apartment. Sold all my furniture and packed the rest of my life into that car parked outside your house. I ordered the satellite internet to be installed because my new job lets me work remotely. Meaning, I can work from anywhere I have an internet connection.”
I want to ask her why? Why would she leave everything she’s known? But I can’t when I’m like this, which means I have to listen. I wonder if Olivia did this on purpose. Probably. My girl is too smart for her own good.
“Do you want to know why?” she asks quietly, as if she can read my thoughts. “Because nothing was keeping me in that city, on that side of the country, except a job. I have a few friends, but no one I’m terribly close to. I haven’t had a meaningful connection to anyone in so long… until I met you.”
She reaches up, lightly brushing her fingertips across the side of my face, then turns my head so I’m looking down at her.
“Sean, you are my home. Wherever you are, that’s where I want to be. You are where my happiness is, even though you ripped my heart out and made me want to clobber you with a Cast Iron pan. Being here with you is where I’m happy.”
Just like before, I have no control of my shift. One moment, I’m a giant furry creature, the next I’m naked with my woman’s soft body curled up against me.