Page 64 of Puck
She stayed in that position for a long time, and I sat beside her, content to wait and just be there. After a couple minutes of near total silence, except for our breathing and the ticking of a clock somewhere in the room, I heard a sniffle from beneath her hands. And then her shoulders shook a little. And then a little harder, and she sniffled again.
I tentatively slid my arm over her shoulders. “Hey, listen, there’s no shame in letting it out, babe. You went through a hell of a hard time, and you’re allowed to let it out. Now’s as good a time as any. You’re safe, we’re safe. For one thing, I’m here, and ain’t nobody getting within twenty feet of you while I’m breathin’. And for another thing, this place belongs to the one and only Valentine Roth. Nobody is getting close to us, not here, not tonight. And you will be taken care of in the future, okay? You’re on a very short list of people for whom Nicholas Harris and Valentine Roth will provide personal security service free of charge for as long as it’s needed, and that’s no joke. Harris and Roth are among the most powerful people on the planet, and that’s no bullshit. Roth could get a goddamn Apache if he wanted one, and Harris could fly it.”
I pulled her closer.
“Shit, I’m rambling,” I said. “I don’t know how to be the sweet, comforting kinda guy, Colbie. But I’m here. And if you need a shoulder, mine are plenty big.”
Colbie sniffled again, but it was laced with laughter. “Why would anyone need an attack helicopter, Puck?”
“You’d be surprised, babe.” I laughed. “You never know when a few dozen Hellfire rockets are just what the doctor ordered.”
She laughed again, and then let out a sigh, and her shoulders shook. “I just can’t shake it. I keep—I keep reliving the moment they took me, over and over and over again. I thought sleeping would help, but it’s . . . I’m—”
“Talk it out. It helps.” I held her against me. “Tell me what happened.”
She swallowed hard. “It was after work. I’d actually left early because I’d gotten everything done, and it was Wednesday, and my favorite sushi bar has really good happy hour specials on Philadelphia rolls, which are my favorite, and I just wanted to get some sushi and go home and relax. I’d been busting ass trying to nail down a really big order, and I’d finally gotten it, so sushi was my little celebration. I walked out of the building, hit the sidewalk, started walking toward the sushi place, just a couple blocks down.” She shuddered all over. “This plain white van with some generic company name on the side pulled a stop on the curb ahead of me. The doors flew open and four big men in worker’s coveralls jumped out in front of me. One grabbed my feet, one grabbed my shoulders, one put a bag over my head, and then they all tossed me into the van. I heard the doors close, felt the van start to move. My hands were yanked behind my back and tied off with something cold and hard, zip ties probably. None of them even said a word. I never had a chance to even scream—it just happened so fast. Literally, I had the bag over my head and was tied up in the back of the van in under fifteen seconds.”
I blew out a breath. “Shit, that’s pro, man. I mean, to pull off a snatch that smooth, that fast, in broad daylight in the middle of Manhattan? They must’ve done it a thousand times.”
“I know, I had the same thought. I knew I was being kidnapped, and since there’s no one to pay ransom, it was obvious what they were going to sell me for.” She trembled, sniffed, and now I heard the tears in her voice, even though she was still bent over, face in her hands, hair obscuring her features. “There wasn’t anything I could do. Not a damn thing. The zip ties were too tight, I couldn’t see, and—I started talking, asking what they wanted, begging them to let me go, which I knew was as stupid as struggling, but I couldn’t just lie there and accept it, you know? But then they stuck a needle in my arm, and I passed out. Next thing I knew, I was sitting in that old airliner, still tied up, all woozy, surrounded by a bunch of other women, some tied up, some sleeping, some awake and not tied up.”
“And then the flight to Kiev.”
She nodded. “I had no idea where we were going, obviously. And there were guards on the flight, ten or twelve of them, armed with machine guns. They sat in every other row and if anyone tried to move or talk, we’d get a gun shoved in our faces. No talking, no moving.” She sucked in a breath, held it, let it out slowly. “I felt like there wasn’t much chance they’d actually shoot us, since we were only valuable alive as a commodity, but . . .”
She sniffed. “I was scared. I thought about trying to . . . I don’t know. Do something. But I didn’t—I didn’t want to die.” Her voice broke.
I felt her shaking again, and I realized she was still fighting the urge to cry. I pulled her closer, and she nuzzled against my chest, like she wanted to burrow into me, so I lifted her onto my lap and twisted on the couch to lay her on my chest. “Let it out, Colbie. Just let it out.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know how.”
I ran my hand up and down her back, over her shoulders, smoothed my fingers through her silky auburn hair, sticking to comforting, non-erogenous touches. I felt the tension slowly bleed out of her, felt her melt against me. I wanted to say something to her, but I wasn’t sure what.It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay? That was bullshit. It wasn’t okay, and it didn’t have to be okay, which was the entire point—if it was okay, why would she be crying? Shushing her? She wasn’t a baby to shush and rock and shit. What else was there to say?I’m here?Duh, obviously I was there; she was lying on top of me, ergo . . . I was there.
What other comfort could I offer her? Not fuckin’ much. Words wouldn’t fix the hurt or the fear or the trauma. All I really had to offer was my presence. So that’s what I gave her, my hands roaming her back and shoulders and combing through her hair, not trying to cop some kind of feel, not pushing her, not demanding anything from her.
And, apparently, that’s what broke through. She didn’t shake, didn’t sob or howl or wail or do any of that shit. She just . . . cried. Softly, quietly. I felt her tears wet my shirt, heard her sniffle now and again, felt her body wrack now and again, and I just kept doing what I’d been doing, gliding my hands in circles around her back, massaging her shoulders, teasing my fingers through the mass of her hair.
And then I was seized by some mushy, fuckin’ stupid-ass impulse—I kissed the top of her head.
I hoped she’d let it go, just accept it and not make a big deal of it.
But Colbie wouldn’t be Colbie if she weren’t a ballbuster.
Her crying paused, and she twisted her head to meet my gaze; her eyes were red and damp, and curious, and . . . I wasn’t sure what else. “Did you . . . did you just . . . kiss my head?”
I rolled a shoulder in a not-quite-a-shrug movement thing. “Yeah, I’m not sure what came over me.”
She did a weird thing where she sniffled and tears slipped down her cheek, but she also smiled at me and laughed. “It was sweet.”
I swallowed hard. “It was weird. It’s like my mouth was possessed or something.”
She wriggled and somehow ended up closer to my face, and it took a shitload of focus to not make it sexual, to not let my dick do the deciding.
“I liked it,” she whispered.
“Yeah?”
She nodded, her hands resting on my chest, now. “It was sweet. You should do it again.”