Page 14 of Deadly Sacrifice

That image pushes me, and I manage one foot after the other through the darkness until I’m pressing my palms flat to the door. It takes a second for me to find the doorknob and unlock it, but the moment he hears the soft click, Asher pushes his way inside.

The light coming in from the hallway is blinding, casting a warm halo behind him and shrouding his face in shadow. And in that moment, it doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter that I heard him calling for me, doesn’t matter that I can smell the expensive cologne he wears. Without the sharp edges of his face in view, I’m once again thrown back to the attack.

Everything clashes inside me, coming to a painful peak, until I have no choice but to fall over the edge of delirium.

Stumbling back with a choking sound, unable to see or hear or feel fucking anything, I rapidly put distance between myself and the shadow at my door. I trip over something, falling back on my ass and embedding shards of glass in my palms.

But the pain doesn’t surface in the wake of my fear. I don’t feel anything more than a pinch and the pool of warm liquid building beneath my hands as I scramble backward.

The dark form at my door lunges after me, dropping to their knees. I’m shaking and heaving out labored breaths. It takes all my strength to throw my arm up in front of my face, slamming my eyes shut and praying that I never have to feel the icy sting of a blade against my skin again.

Warm, trembling hands take my face, halting my terrified thrashing. “Breathe, Griff,” a familiar voice begs. “Look at me. I need you to open your eyes and see me.”

I shake my head as best I can between sturdy hands. My eyes are sealed shut, and memories of that day are berating my mind.

There’s a soft rustle of fabric, an almost inaudible hiss of breath, and then body heat presses against my senses. Knees bump into my legs and a forehead rests against my own. “I’m right here.” Then a hand is pressing to my chest, above my heart and settling the racing behind my ribs. A gentle touch guides my hand to the same position on his chest, pressing my palm flat to the overheated skin. “Open your eyes, man.”

The cracking in his voice is what undoes me. Blinking through the terror chilling my veins, I grunt and lean into Asher’s body. He’s kneeling in front of me, our noses almost touching, our hands feeling the other’s heartbeat.

“There he is,” Asher breathes out, cupping a hand around the back of my neck and keeping my face close while he studies my expression. “Breathe with me, alright? Can you do that for me?”

I nod stiffly, feeling the concrete tightness in every one of my muscles.

Asher tries a smile, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. With our foreheads pressed together, he takes in a deep breath, holding it for a count of three, and then releases it slowly. On the second pass, I join him.

After five or six times, I feel some of the color return to my face and the clamminess in my hands subsides. My lungs feel fuller, my head less messy, and my throat isn’t sandpaper dry.

Asher sees the transformation. The tension in his shoulders deflates, and he pulls back, slowly standing and wincing. I frown, reaching out and gently brushing some glass from his knees. He’s in dark jeans, but I can still see the blood seeping through the denim.

“I’m fine. Wasn’t the first time I’ve been on my knees for you. I think I got hurt then, too,” he tells me with a casual smile, offering me his hand to help me stand. A raging heat spreads in my cheeks, and I thank every deity there is that it’s too dark for him to notice. Once I’m on my feet, Asher pulls me in tight against his chest, thumping my back with his other hand while I tentatively return the embrace. “You scared the shit out of me.”

As much as I want to sink into the comfort of his familiarity, I can’t let myself get lost. Not with him. Not again. Because the rejection will cut me worse than the glass embedded in my palms.

I lean back until his arms slip away from me. Sorry, I sign bashfully, not meeting his gaze.

In my peripheral, I watch Asher glance around my ruined bedroom before turning back to me. “Let’s get your hands cleaned up,” he rasps softly.

I look down at my hands, at the cuts and the blood dripping between my fingers and pitter-pattering onto the floor. With a nod of approval, I let Asher wrap a hand around my wrist and guide me out of the room, down the hall, and into the bathroom at the end. My feet are heavy, and my memories are still battering at me. It’s all I can do to keep my eyes open after that panic attack.

Inside the white-tiled bathroom, Asher nudges me to sit on the closed toilet seat and then he digs under the sink for the first aid kit. My hands are shaking, a combination of the pain now surging up in my palms and the lingering clutch of fear against my lungs.

Asher kneels in front of me for the second time tonight, and it sets my heart thrashing against my rib cage. We had a drunken moment once, before someone slit my throat and left me for dead. Asher and I have always been close friends, but until that night, I never anticipated the evolving feelings I experienced were two sided.

He was the first — and only — guy I’d ever been with like that. I always knew I was bi, but I’d never been brave enough to actually do something about it. Until that night. We’d both been drinking, and he kept, I don’t know… looking at me. I decided to just take the fucking leap and see how far I could fall. But then things were awkward. He told me he was wasted, horny, and felt comfortable enough in our relationship to test the waters with a guy. What’s a little sex between friends? It was nothing, man. That’s what he’d told me a few days later, after I got fed up with being avoided and just showed up outside his class.

And just like that, the crush I’d been harboring for Asher for months turned hard and black. It began to fester and burrow, equally painful and embarrassing. A week later, I almost died, and he’s babied me ever since. Tonight is the first time he’s let himself get this close since the night he had my dick in his mouth.

Don’t think about that right now. I can’t get hard with him so close.

I clear my throat, dislodging the errant thoughts and my confused, angry arousal. I haven’t had the easiest recovery. And it’s hard to trust strangers and one-night stands when one wrong move could trigger a torrent wave of panic and I’ll have an episode like this in the middle of trying to seduce someone.

Just thinking about that gives me fucking hives. No, thanks. So instead, I’ve been celibate. Asher was the last for me.

And there go my thoughts once more.

Thankfully, he pulls me firmly from my mind when he says, “What were you doing, locking your door like that? You know better.”

I roll my eyes, nodding down at my hands, palms up in my lap, as he meticulously picks out shards of glass from one. Meeting his gaze, I arch a brow.

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