Page 56 of Facing Off
I start shaking.
A mouth presses against my temple. Words register. These low, deeply solid promises. “I’ve got you. Don’t worry, I’ve got you. You’re okay, you hear me? You’re safe, I promise.”
Arms gather me close.
At this point, my lungs are burning.
I feel palms cradle my face. “Breathe. You have to breathe.” The voice is gentle, but insistent worry strains each syllable.
I struggle, eyes clamped shut even tighter and what feels like thumbs fluttering across my jaw. “Darling, can you take a deep breath for me? Please?”
I’m struggling. Shaking harder.
“We’ll do it together,” he says.
I hear it. He demonstrates a deep inhale.
Following his lead, I try gasping for air.
“Again,” he commands, more than a little desperately.
Another wretched, fast inhale.
“That’s it. Just slower now.” He demonstrates the speed. “Together with me.”
I try and follow orders, encircled in the steadiest, strongest arms. We breathe together, in and out, exchanging air as if time is an hourglass placed on its side. There’s no pressure. No rush. Nothing matters but how I’m doing.
I keep breathing. More evenly now.
The relief in the voice is a jumble of words, overlapping each other. “Hey, hey. That’s it. Good. So good. You’re doing so good. It’s okay, I’ve got you. I’m not letting go, okay? Whatever you need, you’ll get. I’m not leaving. I have you. Keep breathing. Just like that. Breathe for me, baby.”
I’m doing it now. I’m breathing, but I’m also exhausted. My knees knock together. All I want to do is sink to the ground.
My chin drops and my cheek presses into their shoulder. Very slowly, the rest of the tightness in my chest eases.
Until it’s mostly all gone.
And then I open and focus my eyes.
The corner of an ear. Blonde hair. A chiseled jaw.
Even though my pulse leaps, I’m not surprised to see who caught me.Sandalwood, soap, mint. If I was being honest with myself, I knew it was him all along…and for once? The part of me that always fights him off is too exhausted, too raw from the panic to even try.
Deep down, some part of me clearly felt I was safe.
24
ADRIAN
The same womanwho once gave me the finger in the middle of a hockey game when I skated past her in the stands is pale. Her eyes are heavy and dark, glancing down to where I’m holding her in my arms, as if she can’t believe what’s happened.
She’s probably processing the reality of it, the way her brows are knitting together slowly. All of a sudden, Sonya stumbles back a step like she’s realized how pressed against my chest she is.
She shakes her head when I try to reach for her again.Fuck.
“I need to go,” she says, her voice rising with panic.
“No.”
