Something rubs at my face, and I try to pull away. “Try again,” they encourage, and I don’t want to. I couldn’t see anything! “Come on, Beautiful. Let me see those eyes.”
I can’t!I can feel the panic increasing all over again.
Strong hands grip my face. “Open them.”
Something about the voice sounds familiar and safe. The guys from that night aren’t here anymore. Just a light sandalwood scent and a cologne I’ve smelled before, but I can’t place it.
Hands keep stroking my cheeks, wiping my tears away. “Breathe, Beautiful. In and out. Come on.”
I focus on that voice. It’s deep but smooth. A voice you want to whisper into your ear. I want to see the face attached to it. I finally pry my eyes open again and blink a few times to focus. His perfect face comes into focus. Strong jaw, dark stubble coating it. A slightly crooked nose. Dark slashed eyebrows over concerned whiskey-colored eyes. Full lips.
“Zane?”
Chapter 48
Zane
“Zane?” Les’ sweet voice whispers.
I rub shaky hands across her tear-stained cheeks again. “Yeah, Beautiful. It’s me. I need you to take several deep breaths with me, okay?”
When I saw her drop to the floor of the garage, I almost forgot to put my car in park in my rush to get to her. I helped lean her back against the side of her Ferrari, yelling her name. Her mind was a million miles away, locked in memories I have seen so many times. I knew she was having a panic attack, but I couldn’t get her to listen to me. Hearing her yell for her dad almost ripped my heart out.
She takes a shuddering breath; her eyes still locked on mine. Ryder is seething over my shoulder, but even he sees how important it is not to upset her after he first saw me kneeling over her in the garage.
“That’s my girl,” I praise. “A few more times.” I imitate what I want her to do, taking exaggerated breaths. “One more time, Beautiful.”
She takes a breath like someone that has been drowning and finally breached the surface; I see her eyes start to clear. I breathe with her until her breathing starts returning to normal.
I glance down at her poor knees tucked against her chest; they’recut and bleeding from where she hit the concrete. “I need a first aid kit and some water,” I tell Ryder without turning around. He growls under his breath but surprisingly disappears into the house.
“What are you doing here?” she asks, voice hoarse from screaming. Her screams ripped through the garage, echoing all over the walls.
“You told me to come over,” I remind her, and I can see the confusion all over her face. “I needed to talk to you.”
She shakes her head, and I know she doesn’t remember.
Ryder steps up beside me. “You can fucking go now.”
Instead of arguing like I want to, I go to stand up because I don’t want to upset her. She latches onto my arms before I can get to my feet. I glance at Ryder out of the corner of my eye. His eyes narrow, but he thrusts the things I asked for at me.
I crack open the water bottle and hand it to her. “Take a few sips.” She stares at it like she doesn’t know what to do with it. I tip it up to her pouty lips. “Open.” She opens, and I tip it further. “Swallow.”
When she had them before, it took her a little bit to become fully functional. The first time she had one in front of me, it was one of the nights she actually stayed the night at my apartment in the city. She woke up from a nightmare screaming, scaring the shit out of me.
“You drink. I’m going to clean up your knees,” I tell her once she remembers how to take a drink. She nods, and I smile at her, stretching her legs out between mine. I gently take her water bottle and pour some over the cuts to wash them out before handing it back to her. I take a gauze pad and swipe around the cuts, wiping up the blood.
“Ryder?” I hear someone say quietly.
“She’s okay, Holden,” Ryder says so gently it surprises the shit out of me.
I start patching up her knees with her eyes locked on my face the whole time. I can feel her staring without even looking up. I know she’ll be kicking my ass out once she’s with it. And I’m just enough of an asshole to soak in whatever she’ll give me.
I place the last piece of tape. “That should hold. They aren’t toobad.” I finally look up at her face, and some of her color is coming back.
“What happened?” Ryder asks, looking between Les and me. Les finally looks up at him, and you can see her mind struggling to catch up with the fact that she knows him. He squats beside her, realizing he looks intimidating as hell, standing over her. “Hey,Il mio sole,” he says softly, and I have to keep from grinding my teeth.
“I don’t know. When I got here, she was collapsing in the garage,” I answer when I can tell she has no idea what happened.
