Chapter 2 #2
A sharp stab of pain speared through her chest. Laurel tried to hiss in a breath but couldn’t seem to manage it.
A thousand-pound weight had dropped onto her ribcage, keeping it from properly rising and falling.
One hand went to her sternum to press and rub, as if that would somehow alleviate the ache.
But it didn’t. Not like it usually did. She’d had a milder version of this before, and it always went away, but this…
this was so much worse. Her vision was starting to go spotty.
Jesus, was she going to further ruin her brother’s wedding by having some kind of a cardiac event because she couldn’t be bothered to make time for a physical in the middle of the semester?
Large, warm hands closed around her upper arms from behind. Sebastian. Laurel didn’t question that she recognized his touch without him saying a word. He steered her toward one of the chairs on the wraparound porch and nudged her into it.
“Sit before you fall. You need to breathe.”
Her legs folded like a newborn foal’s. “Having some trouble with that at the moment,” she wheezed.
He knelt in front of her, those big hands circling her wrists, the tips of his fingers resting against her pulse points. His touch was electric, even in the midst of…whatever crisis this was.
“Look at me.” His voice was firm and gentle.
Laurel lifted her gaze to his, appreciating for a moment that she could look her fill without feeling embarrassed. She’d had enough embarrassment tonight.
The porch light cast faint shadows on his face, sharpening the lines of his cheeks above the close-cropped beard.
Her fingers itched to stroke it, to find out whether the hair would be soft or rough.
His eyes were dark, focused entirely on her.
What would it be like to have that kind of focus on her when she wasn’t in the middle of a medical emergency?
“Match your breath to mine. In and out.” He sucked in a slow breath, his broad shoulders rising.
She followed suit, feeling the unbearable pressure on her chest ease a fraction.
They let out their synchronized breaths slowly, then did it all over again.
With each inhale, she seemed to find more oxygen.
With each exhale, she noticed more details about him.
The breadth of his shoulders. The outline of his defined chest, visible in the way his shirt stretched across it.
The coiled power in the body crouched at her feet.
Something about that leashed capability did something to her, making her belly swoop and swoon.
Or maybe that was his thumbs brushing the insides of her wrists, shooting little trails of lightning up her arms. That sensation was much more pleasant to think about than the pain in her chest, so she let her focus narrow in on the tingles and imagine what it might be like if he touched her somewhere beyond her wrists.
“You get panic attacks a lot?”
Laurel blinked, pulled out of the hazy, half fantasy. “Panic attacks? I don’t get panic attacks.”
“Pain in your chest, trouble breathing, racing pulse, clammy skin, possibly nausea, dizziness. How’m I doing?”
Clammy skin? Suddenly embarrassed, Laurel wondered if she should yank her hands away. Instead, she held herself still and answered the question. “Spot on…but…I don’t feel panicked. I’m not afraid of anything.”
“Anxiety presents itself in all kinds of ways.”
She scowled a little. “You’ve been hanging around my brother too much.” Logan, her brilliant big brother, who’d bucked family expectation to get his graduate degree in clinical psychology, before bailing on that, too, to become an organic farmer.
“As he is fond of saying, you can take the therapist out of the master’s program…” Sebastian said it with the kind of ease that told her he’d been a target of Logan’s occasional armchair psychologist routine. Somehow that made this easier.
“Yeah, yeah. I still don’t understand why this would be hitting me now.”
Sebastian angled his head, those dark eyes studying her. “Being used as a blunt instrument to bash your brother’s choices probably didn’t help matters.”
This man was too observant by half. He’d been thrown into the deep end by standing in at this wedding, and he’d already zeroed in on their fucked up family dynamics.
Wincing, Laurel closed her eyes, wishing that would wipe away the scene still playing on a loop in her head.
“God. Dad has no shame. I can’t believe he just did that.
This is Logan’s wedding. None of this is about me. ”
“For what it’s worth, it’s not you everybody’s judging.”
Laurel opened her eyes at that, noting the simple sincerity in Sebastian’s expression.
“I feel like I should go apologize for him.” And that would go over like a ton of bricks. “Except nobody calls out Lawrence Maxwell.”
“You aren’t your father’s keeper,” he said easily. “As to the rest, I’m getting the sense you’re not too keen on the job your dad thinks you’re going to accept.”
That was putting it mildly. She began to think about the rock and hard place she was wedged into, where the choices were to be railroaded into a job and a life she was no longer sure she wanted, or to give up the accolades and approval she’d worked so hard to attain in favor of…
what? She wasn’t like her brother. She didn’t have another plan.
Law was all she knew. It was the only path she’d even considered.
And now…now it felt like a cage door was swinging shut, trapping her.
That just kicked off the panic again. She recognized it now that Sebastian had pointed it out. Her breath went ragged.
Not wanting to descend into the depths of another attack, she focused on him again, on leaning into that feeling of attraction.
Because he was still touching her, still stroking his thumbs gently over the insides of her wrists.
She wasn’t even sure he was aware of it.
But she was. Oh, mercy, she was. And she wanted—needed—more of that contact.
Slowly, she rotated her hands in his grip so she could curl her fingers around his wrists, linking them.
His pulse seemed to jump against her skin.
She was surprised to find it wasn’t as slow as his rock-steady manner made it seem.
Was it possible this attraction wasn’t one-sided?
Before she could process the idea of that, she heard footsteps on the porch. Ari circled the corner of the house just as Laurel yanked her hands away, folding them into her lap.
Ari went brows up at the sight of Sebastian still kneeling in front of her. “Sorry to interrupt. I got sent to check on you.”
“I’m fine.” The answer was automatic, but Laurel was surprised to find it was true. She could breathe again. Sebastian had effectively squashed the anxiety. For now, anyway.
Ari’s lips pursed a little, as her gaze slid from Laurel to Sebastian, who rose smoothly to his feet. “If you hurry, there’s extra dessert.”
“Who do I have to arm wrestle for it?” Sebastian grinned and held out a hand to Laurel. “C’mon. You didn’t actually get to eat your first helping.”
She let him pull her to her feet, disappointed when he released her hand.
She was the one who’d pulled away first. He’d been watching her closely enough to know she hadn’t eaten?
What did that even mean? As she preceded him into the house, trailing after Ari, she tucked that little detail away to pull out and examine later.