I gripped the paper bags tighter and prayed for the shuddering to stop.
“I think you need to leave,” I managed to force out, my voice thin and hushed.
“Or what?” Travis asked with a low chuckle. “You’ll write me up and report me? Tell the judge I said boo in a parking lot?”
His hand reached out and grabbed my wrist where it held the paper bags. My fingers tingled under the sudden pressure of his grasp. The pain was sharp and immediate. His thumb found my tendon, deliberate and practiced. As if he’d learned the spot that makes men compliant with him.
Travis squeezed as though he wanted to see how much he could make me squirm. Air rushed from my lungs and my bag tilted dangerously as a carton of eggs shifted inside.
“See?” Travis grumbled as his smirk curled. “You’re paying attention now.”
Hallway, bag strap. Parking lot, wrist.
Escalation had a shape, and a name.
My chest tightened as the sharp edges of fear and the humiliating rush of adrenaline coursed through my veins and flooded my body. I tried to pull my wrist back, to yank it away from him.
But his grip tightened, and his fingers dug into my skin hard enough to make me wince.
Then I heard the unmistakable sound of footsteps.
A distant movement caught my eye, and for a second, I thought I’d imagined it. But near the light pole, a shape moved. A shadow closed in, pressing forward from the darker outlines across the lot.
My stomach dropped again, this time for an entirely different reason. Because the shape that emerged from nowhere was big, heavy-shouldered, and moved with an unmistakable pent-up energy.
Colt.
He didn’t say a word at first, but his presence pushed like wind. The sound of his boots against asphalt was enough to pull every ounce of air from my lungs as night remained silent around us.
Travis froze then snapped his head toward the sound. “What the hell was that?”
Colt appeared in the faint yellow glow, a tornado given shape. Hoodie, jeans, shoulders an impenetrable wall. His face was defined by shadows, but his gaze was locked on Travis with a laser-sharp focus that made my skin shiver.
“Let go,” Colt demanded, his voice low.
Lethal.
Travis’s smirk momentarily disappeared. “We’re just talking here, bud.”
“Let. Go.”
Colt didn’t raise his voice or drift another inch forward. He didn’t need to. He’d issued a command that wrapped around the spine and squeezed until the recipient complied.
Travis hesitated for a moment as his eyes flickered from Colt to me. Then back again.
“I’m here to make sure the counselor understands the consequences of his actions,” Travis snarled.
Colt didn’t respond.
“You following Blair?” Travis asked. “That’s fucked up.”
Colt moved closer and closed the space with deliberate steps.
Travis hesitated for a moment but gripped harder on my wrist. As if by reflex, a stubborn, smug show of control. His fingertips drove into my flesh so hard my knees shook. Pain flared through my arm, and I called out.
Colt moved.
He stepped between us and wedged two fingers under Travis’s thumb before he peeled it back. The hold broke with a shocked shout from Travis. My skin was red and flushed where his hand had been and my wrist ached.
