Chapter 14: Close Enough To Breathe
His hands hit the chair on either side of me and the whole thing skidded an inch against the concrete. The rope around my chest creaked. My right arm was free now, tingling from my shoulder to my fingers, and his face was so close I could see the stubble along his jaw and the faint shine of sweat at his temple.
We both stopped.
That was the strangest part. After all that pulling and scrambling, we just stopped. His chest rose and fell hard. I could hear his breath and mine, too loud in that warehouse, out of sync at first and then almost matching. The overhead bulb swung a little from when he'd lunged, throwing his shadow across my lap and then off again.
He stared at my mouth, then my eyes. I stared back.
His snake tattoo jumped when he swallowed. The control he'd worn since he taped my mouth was cracked right down the middle. His brows were pulled together, but his eyes kept flicking to my freed hand like he wasn't sure what I'd do with it. His lips parted. He was breathing through his mouth now, not that slow, measured way from before.
"You think this changes anything," he said, low. It wasn't a question.
My hand hovered near the arm of the chair. I could have hit him. My nails were there, his cheek was right there, his eyes were close enough to scratch. For half a second my fingers curled to do it. It would have felt good for a second and then it would have given him exactly what he wanted — proof I was just flailing.
I didn't hit him.
I reached forward and wrapped my fingers around his wrist. The right one, the hand gripping the chair beside my hip. My palm was damp. His skin was warm and his pulse hammered against my thumb.
He flinched. Not big. Just his eyelids tightening and his fingers flexing on the wood.
I held on. I didn't pull. I didn't push him away. I just held his wrist the same way he'd held my chin at the start, thumb on one side, fingers on the other, firm enough that he felt it.
His eyes snapped back to mine.
"What are you doing," he said.
"Seeing how tough I am," I said. My voice shook but it came out. "You wanted to see. So look."
The rope was still tight across my ribs, but my shoulder could move now. The tape he'd peeled off earlier was stuck to the other arm of the chair where he'd pressed it, black and curled at the edge. The warehouse smelled like dust and old wood and the hot metal of that bulb.
He could have torn his hand away. He was stronger. He could have grabbed my free arm and shoved it back down and pulled the rope tight again. I saw him consider it — his jaw worked, his other hand lifted a fraction off the chair like he was going to do exactly that.
Then he looked at my hand on his wrist and something shifted in his face. The intensity didn't leave, but the smirk was gone completely and the stare softened at the corners. He exhaled slowly through his nose.
"You could have hit me," he said.
"I know," I said.
He let out a sound that wasn't quite a laugh. His breathing slowed. He didn't pull away. He turned his wrist slightly in my grip, not to break it, just to test it, and I let him turn but didn't let go.
The light steadied overhead. The crates along the back wall stayed dark and still. For a long second neither of us moved, my fingers around his wrist, his hands caging me in, rope half-undone between us.
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He had to choose now. Pull tighter and prove he was still in control, or admit that I hadn't broken the way he expected.
He stayed where he was, close enough to breathe the same air, and waited for me to decide what happened next.
