I shake my head, because I am not about to walk in there with him so he can breathe all over me, but the Aryans are getting closer by the second.
Maybe he can hide, and I can kill them. I could try to take on six of them. I have my butterfly knife in my pocket, still.
There’s a tense pause before Colm frowns and huffs. I think he’s about to shut the door between us. Finally cutting me loose, like he should.
Instead, he reaches out, snags my sleeve and yanks me so hard that I practically stumble into the tiny room.
It’s pitch black, cold and empty, and it feels like there’s a drain under my feet. It’s also so tiny that Colm can barely fit his shoulders in here, and the entire front of his body is pressed against my back. His breaths are coming in shallow, even pants, his adrenaline spiking, I’m sure, but just like I feared I can feel the air on my skin.
No.No. This is unacceptable.
Maybe it’s a punishment for how I got all day-dreamy earlier. I let myself consider that letting Colm touch me might not be the worst possible thing, and this is what I get. Trapped and surrounded, with every second of it totally out of my control.
The Aryans’ voices are loud now, right outside the door, but I don’t care. Let them kill me. I can’t stand the feeling of panic rising in me and my heart is about to pound out of my chest. I don’t realize I’m actively struggling to leave until Colm gives up trying to give me space and wraps both of his thick arms around my chest.
He wraps me up, pulls me away from the door and against his too-hot body, and then he squeezes. Not like he’s going to crush me, but with so much pressure it’s hard to thrash.
“Shh.”
He makes the noise directly in my ear, so the guys outside can’t overhear it. It’s hot, too, and too close. It’s all too close.
I pull against Colm again, and he splays one hand out over my chest like a brace. He keeps shushing me softly, pulling me farther and farther from the door that looks like my salvation, the edge of it limned in moonlight.
It takes all my self- control not to audibly sob, but my face is making some awful expression, I’m sure. It’s too much. It isn’t supposed to be like this.
Colm’s hand moves up until it’s covering my mouth. My breathing picks up, harsh rasps through my nose, but it smothers the noise I was about to make.
“I don’t think they’re here, man. This place seems empty.”
Their voices filter through the door. They’re still speaking quietly, but I can hear them loud and clear, so they must be right in front of us.
“They have to be here. The tracker led us to the car, and it’s parked right fucking there. Where else would they be? Do you think they wandered off into the desert to look at the stars or some shit?”
The voices continue, arguing about where we must be and how they can find us. My mind is still stuck on the fact that they have a motherfucking tracker on our vehicle, which explains a lot, but I’m too distressed to process that right now.
They need to step away. If they just go look for us somewhere else, I can get out of this fucking closet and think. Instead, they seem to be getting more intent on bickering with each other like children while my panic is slowly threatening to choke me.
Colm is the only thing holding me together right now, even though it’s being shoved against him like this that’s making me freak out in the first place. If it were literally anyone else in here with me, I would have slit their throat already.
He’s shushing me in a rhythm and rocking me at the same time, one hand still on my mouth and the other arm barred across my chest.
Shh. Shh. Shh. You’re okay. It’s just me.
It’s barely audible, but I hear it. I try to let the words sink into me, but my heart still feels like it’s going to rabbit out of my chest.
I can’t stay here like this. I can’t keep doing this, but I don’t want to die over my stupid obsession with keeping people at arm’s length. There has to be a fucking distraction.
“Fuck,” I whisper, barely able to form the word through my panic.
Colm tentatively moves his hand away from my mouth and tilts his head close to hear.
“Fuck,” I breathe again. “Fuck me. Distraction.”
Colm freezes, but I’m pretty sure he’s been half-hard from his cock being pressed against my ass this entire time. I know he lives for this secretive high-tension shite, even if he denies it.
“Yeah?” he asks, also breathless.
I nod. He can feel it. The voices aren’t going anywhere, because they’ve gotten into a fucking fight about something, and I need to think about anything else if I want to survive.
