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I blinked.
“Come on, Preston—take a goddamned breath before you pass out!”
My eyelids grew heavy. I started to drift away into darkness.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Drake muttered.
Soft warmth pressed against my mouth, deliriously sweet in the midst of prickling facial hair he always used to shave.
A rush of air shoved past my lips, straight into my lungs.
I coughed, jolting in Drake’s hold as he ripped his mouth from mine.
My chest exhaled on its own, another ragged sucking in of oxygen.
“Fuck.” Drake still held my face, and I gained my focus as an unconscious inhale filled my starved lungs. “You okay?”
Drake kissed me…
No.
He’d forced oxygen into me to snap me out of my panic.
Thick black lashes blinked over his blue eyes, and a delicious, agonizing ache crept through my chest that had nothing to do with my heart scrambling to get oxygen through the rest of my body.
I lay curled up on the elevator’s floor?—
Reality hit my brain, shooting adrenaline through my bloodstream. Air became scarce once more as my eyes widened.
“No. Fucking stay with me, Preston,” Drake demanded, sounding calmer than he should. “Breathe with me.”
I fought to focus on his counting, trying to inhale and exhale when he did, but I didn’t succeed fully until he sat against the back of the unmoving elevator’s wall and pulled me onto his lap. Those fingers of his I’d clung to countless times threaded through mine, and I closed my eyes, shoving my face against his chest.
The familiar warmth of him surrounded me, slowly filling my lungs with his scent.
His other hand held my hip, thumb stroking in a comforting gesture that flooded me with equal amounts of arousal and gratitude. Slowly, peace settled inside me as it always did when I was with him, quieting my panic until my lungs relaxed and functioned without prompting.
The elevator hadn’t moved, nor had the doors slid open, but in that stolen moment in the arms of the man I loved, I didn’t care. Time could stand still, and it would never be enough.
“Are you all right?” Drake asked, his low tone rumbling pleasure down my spine along with the heat of his breath against the top of my head.
“Mmm,” I agreed, knowing I had to escape his tender hold before I did something stupid like attempt to give him mouth to mouth. With tongue.
“Your mom is going to shit a brick over our being late.”
Talk about a jolt back to reality.
We both chuckled, and I forced myself to straighten a bit so I could see Drake’s face.
This close, I could make out the hint of freckles over Drake’s nose. The darker ring of navy around his pupils.
He stared at me with an intensity that lit my body on fire. My cheeks heated, same as whenever our eyes met.
Space—need space.
But I couldn’t move, trapped by desire and his large hand still firmly clasped on my hip. His grip on my fingers tightened.
Drake’s focus flitted over my face as though drinking me down like a cool glass of water on a hot summer’s day. His gaze stalled on my mouth, lingering for a pregnant moment that left me breathless for a whole other reason.
