Page 6 of Claiming His Reunion Obsession

Why are they so mean?

I wished Quinn had come in here with me now…

Shit!

C’mon girl, you’re adults now. This is bullshit.

I finish what I came in to do and take a breath, making my way out to wash my hands.

I can’t help it, but a sound escapes me when Cindy pushes her hand down over mine when I go to turn on the faucet.

She grips my wrist hard and I wince, trying not to cry out in pain, trying not to let her know how scared I am.

“You haven’t changed a bit, Miss-smell…” she taunts me with gritted teeth. I can smell liquor on her breath, even though it’s been advertised as a dry event. Her and the other girls must’ve smuggled some liquor in.

It’s just like them too, breaking the rules and ruining other people’s fun in the process.

This woman’s more than just tipsy. She’s loaded and she’s mad at me for some reason

“Let me go. Cindy.” I hear myself saying with some authority. It’s part of my nurses training to deal with things like this, but I never thought it would be someplace like the ladies room in my old high school.

“Make me,” she spits out, gripping me tighter, making me cry out.

The door behind us swings open violently, hitting the wall behind it with a bang. I breathe a sigh of relief as Cindy relaxes her grip before tossing my hand away from her like something that wants to bite.

It’s Quinn. I knew he’d come rescue me.

Eventually.

“Everything alright in here?” he says, his deep voice full of calm control, full of power and real authority.

Cindy traipses over to him, her joints as loose as her mouth and, no doubt the rest of her anatomy.

She gets herself as close to Quinn as her height allows, looking up at him and tracing a finger down his chest.

“You wanna good time, big boy? I’m ready when you are.”

Quinn’s eyes narrow in disgust and he turns his head away from her to get a breath of fresher air.

“You’re drunk at a dry event, do you really want to end your evening, which is already over with a trip to the police station for assault?” he snarls at her, looming up over her as she shrinks back from him.

“You alright, Chelle?” he asks me, not taking his eyes off Cindy for a second.

Before she can even manufacture one of her slutty, drunken bimbo comebacks, he tells her how it’s gonna be.

“You’ll go home, now. You can catch a cab or call an Uber, but I won’t see you driving home. I’ll be checking to make sure you’re gone. You got five minutes.”

She hesitates for a few moments, giving me an evil stare in the mirror, before puffing out a hoarse, cruel little laugh.

“Go your hardest, cowboy… If you wanna ride that fat hog instead of my fine ass, then be my guest,” she makes like she’s gonna say something else, but Quinn looms up large again and she slinks out, mumbling hateful things that only remind me of a past I thought I’d grown out of years ago.

It hurts me so much to feel the same things all over again.

Far worse than the pain in my wrist from where she grabbed me.

“You alright, Chelle? I’m sorry… I didn’t think she would…” but it doesn’t matter anymore.

I hurl myself at Quinn, burying myself in his huge chest as I croak the first wave of tears as they flow out of me. Pouring from the depths of my past, from all the times I wanted to cry, all the times I needed the strength of his hug. I cry for my past.

The life before Quinn.

“It’s alright,” he murmurs in his deep voice, vibrating through his body into mine, “I got you now, nobody’s gonna hurt you any more.”

He holds me so close, so tenderly and I’m gripping him at times, thumping his chest as I tell him how bad those girls all treated me, how they made my whole life hell. Made it so I didn’t want to come to school at all.

“The same people, or people just like them…” I pause, “They were all at college too… people like her everywhere, making it impossible for me to even get on with my life.”

“You should’ve said something, you could’ve come to me,” he tells me, and I know he’s right. But there’s just something about the fear when someone like Cindy Sanders has something over you.

As quickly as my fear and memories came, they almost vanish.

Almost.

Just being close to Quinn, having someone to listen as well as his huge chest to cry on helps, I can’t reach his shoulders…, but knowing that he actually cares, more than cares. Knowing he wants me all to himself. It’s the most incredible feeling I’ve ever known.

It’s like everything bad that’s happened to me has been building up to this moment, the moment I realize that I want to be his, nobody else’s.

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