Page 38 of Convincing the Catcher

“If all criminals looked like you, I’d throw myself in jail tomorrow,” drawls in my ear.

Right away, I practically leap forward to put some distance between myself and whoever the hell that is.

I crane my neck to look at him, and it’s a dude with brown hair and perfectly manicured facial hair. His eyes are glassy, and I’m not sure if it’s from alcohol or something more potent.

He simply smirks at me before reaching forward and resting his hand on my waist. “Fuck, sweetheart. This jailbird costume? It’s doing things to my dick.”

“Excuse me?” I growl, pure anger laced in the two small words.

“Come on,” he coos. “You’re wearing that.” He waves to my costume. “And you’re out here, shaking your ass for everyone in this room to see. I know what you’re looking for.”

I’m not scared of him because I guarantee I could lay him the hell out if he tried to touch me. I’m stronger than he is, I have no doubt. But the crude things he just said? And the way he’s looking at me, raking his gaze over my body like I’m just a display free to ogle, has my stomach turning and me almost frozen in time. But when his hand slides to my ass, I snap out of it fast.

Fury floods my veins. Within a split second, I reach my arm back to land a punch right on his nose, but before I make contact, he’s down on the ground with a thud. Cane steps in front of me, looking over the guy he just laid out before turning toward me.

“You good, Catch?” he says, sweeping his eyes over me, but not in the way the scumbag was looking at me. No, Cane is looking to see if I’m okay.

“I’m fine,” I utter quickly, slightly irritated that it wasn’t me who got to teach that son of a bitch a lesson when I know I’m plenty capable.

“Good,” he whispers before his body turns away from me.

“Get the fuck out of here, asshole,” he growls at the guy as he quickly scurries to his feet. “Or you’ll be leaving in a fucking body bag, I promise.”

I expect the guy to argue that he didn’t do anything wrong, but one look at an angry Cane with his chest heaving above him, and he quickly finishes standing, grabbing his bloody nose and darting for the door. Once he’s gone, everyone in the room seems to be staring at us.

“Carry on,” Cane calls out. “There’s nothing to see here.”

After a moment or two, everyone finally seems to go back to what they were doing, which is dry-humping each other, dancing, drinking, or smoking, and Cane turns toward me again.

“Sorry, Catch. I know you probably had that covered and all, but I couldn’t fucking stand to see him touching you, unwarranted.”

As much as I’d like to be annoyed, how in the world can I be when he’s looking down at me the way he is right now? Like he’s so concerned with my well-being.

No man—besides my dad—has ever looked at me like that.

Finally, I relax my shoulders and attempt to flash him a small smile.

“It’s okay,” I say, cringing. “He was disgusting.”

“Yeah, he was,” he agrees. “I’m so sorry he did that. Motherfucker deserved that broken nose—and worse.” Cane’s hand reaches forward, touching my side tenderly. Only, instead of feeling my stomach churn the way it did when the other guy’s hand touched me, now … the spot where his hand rests just about catches on fire. “You sure you’re okay?”

“I’m good,” I say honestly. “How were the trick-or-treaters?”

Dropping his hand down from my body, he reaches up, adjusting his hat. “There were a lot of them. My mom sent my dad back to the store for more candy twice.” He pauses, reaching in his back pocket, and takes out a few small packets of Skittles. “I grabbed these for you. I noticed you seem to always have the snack-sized bags with you for when your sugar is low.”

All I can do is stare at the packets of candy as he holds them out in front of me. Maybe these packets don’t seem like a lot to most people, but to me … it tells me that he pays attention to small things. And for some reason, those small things mean a lot.

“Thanks, Cane,” I say, somehow peeling my eyes from his as I take them from him and slide them into my crossbody purse. “They’re even my favorite flavor.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen you with the Wild Berry ones, so I figured that was a safe bet.” He grins. “I’m more of an original Skittles guy myself.”

I’m still so caught up on the fact that he saw those in the candy stash and thought to grab them for me. I know we’re supposed to be fake friends, but that’s something an actual friend would do.

Who am I kidding? Haven is my friend and does nice things for me all the time, and my heart’s never pounded like this any of those times …

“I’m sorry you were enjoying yourself and that asshole ruined it,” he says dipping his head down closer to my ear when the music gets seemingly louder. “And I’m sorry if I made it worse by punching him and creating a scene. I feel like you always take things so seriously and never get to just … let loose. I’m sorry that happened when you finally did.”

Again, he’s noticing something about me, and my heart squeezes even though I inwardly tell it not to.