Page 8 of I Would Beg For You
A quick glance shows she’s still clenching the armrests in a death grip. Her face is frozen with trepidation.
“Naomi,” I prod.
“Hmm?” She whimpers.
Damn it. I have to stop thinking about how this small sound might raise the heat in the privacy of my bedroom.
“We’re in the air now.”
She gasps. That doesn’t sound relieved, or even good. And is that sweat pearling even more on her forehead?
“Naomi?” I ask with more concern this time, even turning around a bit to face her more. “Talk to me. Tell me what’s wrong?”
“In. The. Air.”
The ventriloquist is back. Fuck.
“Naomi? Look at me.”
She shakes her head. “Can’t,” she mumbles.
This was worse than I imagined. I thought she would just be terrified while the plane was taking off. Clearly, she had a debilitating fear of flying from takeoff to landing and everything in between.
“Do you need something? Do you have something you can take?”
Her throat ripples as she swallows. “Yes.”
Okay, so there is a way to make her come down from the ledge on which she’s climbed.
“Where are they?”
“Suitcase.” Her lips press together even tighter.
“In the overhead compartment? Let me get it for you.”
I undo my seat belt as she shakes her head.
“It…went…down. Not up.”
I frown; she isn’t making much sense.
The plane jolts as we hit some turbulence. Naomi goes even paler, if that’s possible. I’m sure a corpse has more color than her.
I try to parse through her words. Not up—so not overhead. Down means— “It’s in the cargo hold?”
She nods, barely, but I see it.
We just cleared takeoff; there’s at least another four hours ahead of us on this trip.
Naomi won’t hold it for that long. No one with such debilitating anxiety in flight will, for that matter.
I have to do something…
I know if I touch her, I won’t be able to stave off my hunger for her. The incident at Christmas, I managed to rationalize it. She was eighteen, and I was a grown man. No man in his right mind would allow himself to touch an eighteen-year-old still in high school and kid himself he was doing something that isn’t dishonorable.
Naomi Smith isn’t eighteen anymore. She turned twenty-three a few weeks ago, in late November. Something can happen between us.
Touching her will mean the death of me…yet what choice do I have? She’s deep in the throes of an anxiety attack. I cannot stand by and let her continue to suffer. As much as I enjoy riling her, I’m not a monster who’ll let her remain petrified like this for four hours.
