Page 66 of Twisted Trails
“But I don’t know how it’ll be when the pain comes back. I mean, the heavy painkillers for my fingers are doing their job. I’m not feeling the hip, the ribs, everything that’s usually there. Right now, it feels doable, but when they wear off? I don’t know.”
“Okay.” Luc’s thumb strokes over my knuckles. “Then we make sure you get those painkillers until we’re through the season, and the World Cup’s over. I’m sure we can ask the doc tomorrow at your appointment.”
“Sure.” I agree easily because that was the plan anyway, since the fingers need six weeks to heal. What worries me is the aftermath, when the fingers are healed and the season is over. “But, what happens after?”
The car comes to a stop, and Luc turns to look at me fully. “After that, we find a way to keep you going. Whatever it takes. I’ve got you.” Something in me cracks, and I blink fast, halfway crying again, but he just adds, “We’re here.”
I look around, disoriented. Luc just cut the lights, it’s pitch-black outside, and I realize I haven’t paid attention to where we were going.
“Where are we?”
“It’s a surprise.” He grins. “Can you do me a favor?”
“Anything.”
My quick answer makes him grin. “I want you to close your eyes.”
He reaches across me, his fingers brushing the seat beltrelease. It clicks free, and I swallow hard as he leans a little closer.
“I’m going to get out and open your door, and when you hear it open, I want you to take a deep breath, hold it, and don’t breathe again until I tell you to.”
I feel my nerves jump. “Luc…”
“You can do that for me, right,Petite?”
I nod, my heart racing. “Yeah. I can do that.”
His hand finds my chin, tilting my face to him, and his eyes glow in the dim cabin light as he whispers against my lips, “Tu es parfaite.”
Then he kisses me softly, a promise tucked between breaths, and I can’t help but lean forward, following his lips when he pulls away too soon.
When I hear his door shut, I don’t open my eyes. I stay still and wait for him to come back for me.
Like he always does.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Alaina
When the door creaks open, I suck in a deep breath like Luc told me to.
One second. Two.
By the third, something claws at my chest. The air is too full and too stuck, like I’m choking on it, andI’m seventeen again, lungs collapsed, unable to move, to speak, to breathe?—
A hand finds my wrist.
Warm. Steady. Real.
Luc.
The panic that bloomed in my chest fizzles as quickly as it came, replaced by his grounding weight.
He pulls me gently from the car and arranges me close, so my back is against his chest, before he wraps his arms around my stomach, anchoring me to him, his breath warm against the shell of my ear.
“Breathe for me,Petite,” he whispers, and I let out the breath I’ve been holding and take in another.
The air isn’t just air.It’s lavender.
