Page 47 of Savage Ruin
Please, please, say something else, I plead silently.
He motions me over to stand in front of him. “Face me. I’m going to reach out and grab your wrist, and I want you to try to get away.” His fingers lock around my wrist.
I pull and twist, but they only tighten. “I can’t.”
He places my hand on his wrist. “Grab my wrist. I’m going to walk through the move slowly, okay?” He swings around a hundred and eighty-degrees to grab my wrist from the top, thrusts forward, and I suddenly find myself on the ground.
I press my lips together. He grabs my wrist, and I swing around, grab his, and push. The next thing I know, he’s on the ground with his arm at an awkward angle above him. I blink. I did it.
“You have all the control in this move for a few seconds. Push your attacker’s arm hard, then run away,” he tells me. “Again.”
Every time we practice the front hold, I get it right. Then he slips in a rear choke hold, and I can’t do it.
“Is there another way to break the rear choke hold?”
He thinks about it for a second. “There is. I threw them out because this is more effective, but if you can’t do it, it’s a moot point. Let me think about it on the plane. I’ll find something for us to work on at the hotel. Grab some breakfast. We leave in an hour.”
CHAPTER24
THIAGO
Henley’s gripping the armrest next to me so tightly her knuckles are completely white. We haven’t even taken off yet. Why didn’t she tell me she was afraid of flying?
“Nervous flyer?” I comment casually.
The plane starts taxiing to the runway, and I hear her inhale sharply.
She lifts her shoulders. “Never flown before,” she reveals, her voice cracking with nerves.
Shocked, I stare at her. Twenty-eight and she’s never flown?
When she sees the expression on my face, she blushes. “We didn’t vacation much when I was younger, and I couldn’t exactly fly the last few years. Too many cameras at airports.” She turns her face to the window.
Even before her stalker, her life was limited. No wonder she adapted to a life in hiding so easily. I pry her hand from the armrest and grip it with mine. “Squeeze as hard as you want. You won’t hurt me.”
She looks down at our joined hands. “Thank you, Thiago. That’s really sweet of you.”
My teeth grind together when I hear the word sweet. First the big brother comment, now this. It makes me want to show her I’m far from either. The tight grip of her fingers gives me some satisfaction, at least.
The plane revs and takes off down the runway. In seconds, we’re in the air and turning in the direction of our destination.
She’s looking out the window, and when we bank, she squeaks at the sight of the ground.
I chuckle. “We’ll level off in a minute, and the flight should be smooth from here on out.” My thumb skims lightly back and forth across the top of her hand to help ease her anxiety.
Opening my laptop with my other hand, I skim through the information accounting sent over. It’s a copy of VRDeck’s last four quarterly reports. Her hand flexes in mine, and I lose my train of thought.
“Coffee?” the attendant asks. I nod, then turn to Henley to see if she wants anything, but she’s fast asleep. Her head is tilted to the side at an awkward angle. Motioning to the flight attendant to get me a pillow, I lean over and push the button to recline her seat, then place her head in a better position. A smile appears, but she doesn’t wake.
When she came down for training this morning, the dark circles under her eyes told me she hadn’t slept much. I didn’t hear her call out with nightmares, but she might have slept in Mateo’s room. The thought of something else keeping her awake makes me scowl.
When I’d come home yesterday, the moans coming from her room had made me hard as a rock until only a shower could help me find relief. Not willing to face her or Mateo across the dinner table, I’d thrown myself into SEI reports. It worked until I went to bed. Images of them together played repeatedly in my mind, and I’d tossed and turned for hours.
“We’re thirty minutes out,” the flight attendant murmurs beside me.
With a snap, I close my computer. Standing and stretching, I refresh myself and let the security team know we’re landing soon.
She’s still sleeping when I return. “Henley, querida, wake up,” I murmur near her ear, not wanting to startle her. “We’re landing soon.”
