Thank you for all your messages! I'm happy so many of you liked it so much! Like I said in my first AN, this is more of a bonus scene and I feel it's slightly less good but… Well. Here it is.
Just as a precision, I'm not a native speaker so I'm sorry if there were mistakes in the first chapter (or in this one), I did my best but it was long and I proofread it by myself. I know it's not really an excuse but there are ways to say this kind of things without sounding too much of a douche you know. Just saying. (it was only one review but that one review ruffled my feather the wrong way because that kind of messages put in that way only makes me want to stick to my own language XD sorry for that small rant).
"It's been a month and a half!" Karen's exasperated sigh echoed in her earpiece. "You're going back to acting just like before!"
"That's not true." Claire denied, taping on the control board of the treadmill to increase the speed. One good thing of having limited staff around was that the Hilton's gym was more or less always deserted.
"The boys miss you." Karen said. "I miss you."
"I spoke to Gray yesterday and I called Zach this morning." Claire argued. "I can't come back right now."
"It's been a month and a half." Karen repeated. "Can't you take a week-end?"
"Actually… I am. Taking my week-ends, that is." she hummed. "I just can't leave the island."
They had made a lot of progress in those few weeks. Most of the paddocks were back to being operational, now it was a matter of putting the dinosaurs back to where they belonged. Owen's team was good at that though and even if, to some of their investors, it looked like it was taking forever they were making progress. For one thing, they had managed to drive the microcetarus and the metriacanthosaurus back to the cretaceous cruise area. That was one carnivorous specie left on the loose and the golf course back. She counted her victories where she could. The real danger, the T-Rex, was still at large – and so were Blue, some Barionyxes and herds of various herbivorous that, if feeling threatened, could be just as dangerous as their carnivorous counterparts. But they had made progress and they were fairly confident the pteranodons and dimorphodons problem was over.
"Why not?" Karen sighed. "I'm sure the whole damned thing won't collapse because you go away for a couple of days. And if it does, good riddance."
"Well…" Claire hesitated. "I am sort of seeing someone."
She could hear Karen's frown all the way through the phone. "Sort of? How can you sort of seeing someone?"
"I am seeing someone." Claire corrected herself. "We're just… taking it slow."
Slow was a way to put it. A snail pace would be another. Between the fact that they barely could catch a moment to breathe between the two of them, there was hardly a suitable place to go on the island for a date that wasn't either dangerous or crowded with staff. As a consequence, they spent most of their free time in one of their rooms, watching stupid movies on TV, eating junk food and bonding. They kissed and had make-out sessions, sometimes they shared a bed but nothing had happened despite the fact that Claire was more than ready to go to the next level. Owen wasn't. It wasn't that he took sex more seriously than she did, she thought, it was more than if he had sex with her, it would make their relationship real. She guessed. She hadn't asked. Having the "why aren't we fucking like rabbits" talk with her boyfriend wasn't something she felt ready for.
Other than that part, they were doing great. She couldn't say she had ever dated someone like him but she was in way over her head. He made her feel safe which wasn't something she was taking for granted since the I-Rex fiasco. He made corny jokes that sometimes made her frown but he was attentive and caring and she could never stay mad even when he made fun of her – mainly because unlike most of her past boyfriends, he was actually teasing instead of criticizing. She had never been the cuddly type but with him, she was happy to lie on his chest for hours doing nothing more than breathe his smell in and kiss all the skin she could reach. They were slowly learning how to rely on each other be it for their panic attacks or everything else. It was actually close to perfect.
Except that she was horny and frustrated and that running an hour a day on a treadmill was doing nothing against that.
"Well, okay. Bring him." her sister retorted.
"I can't." she sighed. "If I leave, Owen has to be on the island. One of us has to stay to supervise."
"Owen?" Karen almost purred the name. "I-ride-my-bike-with-raptors-Owen? He-s-not-my-boyfriend-Owen?"
"He wasn't at the time." she grumbled.
Her nephews had a strong case of hero worship. Owen had come up in conversations more times than she could count and, in the beginning, Karen had brought him up during every call, eager to hear more about her "boyfriend".
She heard the tell-tale clicking of fingers on a keyboard.
"Are you looking him up online?" she accused.
"Yummy." Karen declared. "Tell me everything. Every saucy detail. Is he good in bed?"
"Karen!" she gasped.
"What? I've been divorced for five months and my sex life was a desert long before that." her sister retorted. "I'm starved. Let me live through you."
She increased the speed of the treadmill again even though she was starting to get breathless. "Nothing happened yet."
"Oh." Karen's voice was clearly disappointed. "How long have you been together?"
"A month and a half." Claire cringed.
There was a long, long silence and with a resigned sigh, she turned off the treadmill, dab at her face with a towel and tugged on the sports short that kept inching up to the point it barely covered anything she wanted covered. Her top was drenched in sweat and she took a long swallow of water before starting to stretch.
"When you say a month and a half… You mean you've been dating for a months and half? How many dates in all? Because…" Karen was obviously trying to be tactful but the mistrust was there all the same. "I mean… Does he have a problem or…"
"I left him in Costa Rica in the middle of the night after promising him we would built something and now he has trust issues." Claire admitted. "And I don't want to push."
"Ah, yeah, that's understandable." her sister agreed. "You left him in Costa Rica?"
"In the middle of the night. While he was sleeping." she confessed. In for a penny… "I got scared, alright? It felt so serious and… I don't know. I got scared."
"Typical Claire." Karen laughed.
"It's not funny." she growled. "Have you seen him? You're not the only one who's starved, Karen."
"Yeah, I bet…" her sister sighed.
She only hoped she wasn't daydreaming about Owen. Owen was hers to daydream about.
"I just…" she started only to be interrupted by Andrew running through the gym's doors, out of breath and a horrified look on his face. "Karen, I have to go." She hung up and tore the earpiece away. "What is it, Andrew?"
"T-Rex…" Andrew panted. "Caught… Team… Apatosaurus…"
It didn't take much more than that before she was running. She ran straight out of the hotel and up Main Street to the control room. Her chest was burning when she arrived but Lowery didn't even glance at her.
"Status." she ordered, coming to stand right behind him.
The screens were displaying different feeds from different people on the security team and she instinctively looked until she found Owen's. His heartbeat was strong if a little quick and the knowledge that he was alive helped her control her own breathing.
"They were herding the Apatosaurus back to the gyrosphere course when Rexie arrived." Lowery explained, drumming on his keyboard so the main screen displayed a view of the field where the T-Rex was busy feeding of a dead dinosaur. "She didn't see them. Owen says it's as good a time as ever to try and get her back into her paddock."
"What?" she asked. "No! It's too dangerous. Let me talk to him." He wordlessly handed her a Bluetooth earpiece. "Owen, do you hear me? I want you to get away from there."
"Dammit, Lowery, I told you not to get her." Owen grumbled.
"Hey, she's the boss." Lowery scoffed. "And she's scarier than you."
"I want you to get out of here." she repeated. "I didn't authorize this. I…"
"Claire, there will never be a perfect time." he cut her off. "We have enough tranquilizers, she's feeding, she's not paying any attention to us. It's a good gambit."
"I don't want gambits." she hissed. "I forbid you to try, do you hear me? It's too dangerous."
"I'm in charge of the dinosaurs capture." he pointed out.
"And I'm in charge of you." she retorted.
"Look, Claire, if you want to reopen the park at some point, we have to get Rexie back in her paddock." he sighed. "I'm telling you. We can do this but we're losing time arguing."
"It's too dangerous." she begged.
"It will always be dangerous." She could see his camera moving as he inched closer to the huge dinosaur, signaling at his team to move with him.
"Owen." she insisted.
"Claire, you have to trust me." he demanded. "You know I wouldn't do it if I thought it was too dangerous. I've got people out there, I'm not alone. I wouldn't risk their lives. You're the one always saying we have to be professional. I need you to be professional right now. Call for another security team and start organizing transport."
She didn't like being berated in front of everyone. All the more so when he was right.
She gave the calls and then put Andrew in charge of doing the rest when he finally reappeared. She kept her eyes on the screen as Owen's team surrounded the T-Rex and, on his signal, started shooting the anaesthetizing darts. The T-Rex roared and thrashed almost stomping on Owen, trying to bite at the tiny humans… It took almost a full minute for the anesthetics to work. It took a full minute for the T-Rex to start wobbling on her feet and then Owen shouted at everyone to run before she fell and crushed them.
Claire held her breath the whole time.
There was no time to start breathing again once the T-Rex was down. Nobody knew how long she would stay knocked out for and naturally Owen volunteered to ride with her. She barely even glared when Lowery finally muttered a mocking "Nice outfit, Claire.". She didn't have time to go change, she didn't want to risk missing something important so she headed to the T-Rex paddock and waited impatiently for them to arrive.
If any member of the security team was amused by her sport shorts, sweaty tank top and disheveled hair, they didn't show it. Then again, maybe the glaring didn't encourage it. Because she glared, she very much glared when Owen finally appeared, his shirt torn at the shoulder but looking otherwise unhurt.
"You." she hissed, jabbing a finger at his chest.
"Everything went fine." he said, lifting his hands in a defensive gesture. "Claire, I'm fine."
"My office. Now." It was almost a growl. She grabbed his shirt and dragged him after her, leaving him no choice but to follow.
"Claire…" he tried to pacify her. She didn't listen. She shoved in the elevator without any remorse. "Claire…"
She pressed the last floor button and then pinned him to the wall. The kiss was forceful, brutal and dirty. He was surprised at first, she could tell because he didn't respond at once, but then… Then it was her turn to be pinned to the wall and there was nothing nice about it. He lifted her up and she instinctively wrapped her legs around his waist but then the elevator chimed and he stopped.
"Claire." he sighed against her lips and it sounded like a prayer and a curse all rolled into one.
"You're going to carry me to the couch in my office and we're going to have sex." she stated. "No discussion."
"Bossy." he snorted. "Are you sure?"
She frowned. "What do you mean am I sure?"
"I mean are you sure?" He rolled his eyes. "You ran away once because you were scared it got too serious, I'm not about to make the same mistake twice… I don't want you to feel you have to or…"
"Owen, if you don't shut up and fuck me I may very well kill you." she spat. "Idiot."
He pounced on her.
She laughed.
The End