“Not tired,” I mutter and smile when his chuckle rumbles against my cheek.
“Sure you’re not.” He kisses my forehead again and sighs deeply, contentedly, and the sound of his steady heartbeat and the warmth of his arms around me lull me into sleep.
***
“No, no, no!”
I wake abruptly, eyes wide, to find Leo thrashing in his sleep, soaked in sweat. The covers have all been kicked onto the floor, along with his pillow. He’s not touching me at all, and the sounds coming from him are tortured, strained.
“Leo?” I ask carefully, not knowing if I should touch him, or even wake him. He thrashes again and grimaces, as if in pain.
“No, you motherfucker!” Tears begin to fall from his eyes.
What the fuck is this?
“Leo, wake up,” I state firmly, and touch his arm gently. He recoils from my touch and his eyes spring open. He sits straight up and shoves himself against the headboard, pulling away from me as if I’m going to hurt him.
“Hey, sweetie, it’s me,” I croon quietly. “You’re okay.”
He blinks at me for a minute, looks around the room, and then exhales deeply.
“Fuck,” he whispers and clenches his eyes closed before pressing the heels of his hands against them.
“Leo.” I reach out for him, but he recoils again.
“Don’t touch me.” His voice is harsh. Angry.
Not Leo.
“Okay.” I hold my hands up and back away. “Okay.”
Suddenly, his eyes go wide and he grips his hands over his mouth, flees the bed for the bathroom and throws up violently.
Oh my God. My poor Leo.
What should I do? I sit still for a minute, and when it sounds like the retching is over, I stand and wet a washcloth and press it to his neck, like he did for me when I was sick. Before I can pull my hand away, he grips it in his and holds on tight, pressing it against his cheek.
“Don’t go. I’m sorry.”
“Hey, I’m not going anywhere.” I sink to my knees beside him and stroke his hair, his cheek, his back. “I’m here.”
His eyes are clenched shut and he’s concentrating on breathing. Whatever it was that he was dreaming about is still repeating in his mind, and it’s terrifying him.
“Stop,” I murmur and kiss his temple. “You’re safe, Leo. It was just a dream.” I continue to reassure him and murmur softly, comforting him, until the shudders stop and he’s breathing normally again. He turns suddenly and grips onto me, buries his face in my neck, wraps his arms around my middle, and just clings.
Finally, after a few long minutes he backs away and I wipe his face with the cloth, trying to soothe him.
“I’m okay.” He takes the cloth from me and scrubs it across the back of his neck and looks at me, square-on. His eyes are sad, still a little haunted.
“Want to talk about it?” I ask.
He shakes his head and stands, crosses to the sink and rinses his mouth, splashes his face with cold water and then just braces his hands on the counter top and hangs his head while the water runs.
It occurs to me that we’re both still naked as the day we were born.
I stand and turn off the water and take Leo’s hand to lead him back to the bed. He climbs on and I pull the covers up, spreading them over us and hand him his pillow.
“I can’t go back to sleep,” he murmurs.
“The nightmares won’t bother you,” I tell him confidently and wrap myself around him, as if I’m protecting him.
“How do you know?”
“Because I’m here, and I said so.” I shrug, like that should be the end of it and flinch when he runs a hand down my back.
“You haven’t flinched in a while.” I hear the sadness in his voice and I prop myself up on my forearms on his chest so I can watch his face as I talk.
“I just didn’t expect you to try to comfort me right now, Leo. I’m comforting you, and for the first time in my life, it doesn’t scare the fuck out of me.” His eyes widen and he pulls his fingertips down my cheeks. “I enjoy having your hands on me. Please don’t start thinking that I’m afraid of you or some bullshit like that because you’ll just piss me off.”
“So, this is you comforting me?” He asks with a grin.
I exhale and rest my forehead against his sternum. “Big jerk,” I mutter.
“Thank you,” he whispers and kisses my hair, his hands roaming up and down my back.
“You’re welcome. Will you ever tell me?” I ask softly as he starts to relax beneath my cheek.
“Yeah, but not tonight.”
“Okay.”
***
Leo
Sam is draped over me, her arms holding me tightly, as though she’s going to single-handedly protect me from whatever might try to hurt me.
And damned if she wouldn’t. She’s the strongest woman I’ve ever known.
I stroke her back, push my fingers through her hair, and grin when she purrs like a kitten and leans into my touch.
Yes, she’s grown used to me touching her.
The nightmare still sits like dead weight in the pit of my stomach, the images flitting in and out of my mind. I don’t have them nearly as often as I did about ten years ago, but they do still come. I can’t figure out what triggers them. There’s no way in hell that making love to Sam, singing for her, watching her eyes light up with joy and excitement, should trigger the fucked up mess that lives in my subconscious.
I need to talk to her, to tell her about what happened when I was too young to protect myself. She deserves to know. But I’ll be goddamned if I want it to touch her. To see the pity in her eyes, or even worse, revulsion, would destroy me.
I’m just not ready.
“Leo,” she murmurs, surprising me. I would have sworn she was asleep.
“Yes, sunshine,” I whisper and gently caress her soft cheek. Damn she’s soft. She’s soft everywhere, and I can’t stop touching her.
“Go to sleep.”
She’s so damn stubborn.
“You sleep,” I mutter and kiss her head.
“Not unless you do.”
Yep, fucking stubborn.
“Okay, I’ll sleep.”