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She was quivering. Quivering so hard that each tremor rocked through me, and she gulped over these little sobs that she couldn’t quite fully emit.
Each bottled and suppressed.
“I’ve got you, Charleigh. Shh, I’ve got you.” I tried to soothe her as I moved, my boots thudding hard against the floor. “I’ve got you.”
She needed to understand that as long as she was with me, she wasn’t in danger.
I’d raze anything or anyone who dared to get close to her.
At my words, she only choked and cried harder, like my voice had been the hammer that had finally made all her fractured pieces crack.
Or maybe she was just letting go.
“I’ve got you,” I promised again, muttering the truth against the crown of her head where she was tucked tight against me.
I angled to the side so I could get to the handle of the office door. I pushed it open and kicked it shut behind us to give her privacy.
I carried her over to my desk. The top was littered with papers, different sketches that I’d been working on, random ideas and notes and thoughts, and I swept them aside with my forearm before I carefully set her on the edge of it.
I didn’t step back. I stayed close, an arm around her waist and the other up high on her back.
Refusing to let her go.
Couldn’t have if I tried.
Not when I felt this overpowering need to hold her forever.
Keep her close.
From here to eternity.
And I had no fuckin’ clue how she could make this mark on me, like she was the one who’d forever etched her soul somewhere on mine rather than the other way around.
I ran my hand from the back of her head and down her back.
At the contact, electricity crackled.
“Breathe, Charleigh. Just breathe. That’s all you’ve got to do. Nothing else matters. Just breathe.” I forced it out through the chaos that raged in the middle of me.
She hiccupped and wheezed, and I kept caressing down her back.
Softly.
Slowly.
Praying the placid strokes of my hand and the tranquil tone I was trying to coerce my voice into would cut through the anxiety attack that had gripped her.
“That’s right, just breathe. You’ve got this. You’ve got this.”
She finally inhaled deeply, fully inflating her lungs, and that wasenough to have me shifting a little farther back so I could take her by the chin.
I gently prodded her to look up at me.
Though rather than letting me see, she threw her hands over her face.
Obstructing the beauty.
“You don’t have to hide from me, Charleigh. I already see you.”
