I WOKE IN a cold sweat, my heart pounding violently. I lay in the master bed, panting, my mind clawing up from the depths of sleep.
“Get off me!”
Gideon. My God.
“Don’t fucking touch me!”
Throwing off the covers, I scrambled out of bed and ran down the hallway to the guest room. I searched frantically for the switch on the wall, hitting it with the flat of my palm. Light exploded in the room, exposing Gideon writhing on the bed, his legs twisted in the bedding.
“Don’t. Ah, Christ …” His back arched up from the bed, his hands fisting in the fitted sheet. “It hurts!”
“Gideon!”
He jerked violently. I raced to the bedside, my heart twisting to see him flushed and drenched with sweat. I placed my hand on his chest.
“Don’t fucking touch me!” he hissed, seizing my wrist and squeezing it so hard I cried out in pain. His eyes were open, but unfocused, still trapped in his nightmare.
“Gideon!” I struggled to get away.
He jackknifed upward, his lungs heaving and his eyes wild. “Eva.”
Releasing me as if I had burned him, he shoved his damp hair out of his face and lunged out of bed. “Jesus. Eva … did I hurt you?”
I held my wrist with my other hand and shook my head.
“I want to see,” he said hoarsely, reaching for me with trembling hands.
I dropped my arms and stepped into him, hugging him as tightly as I could, my cheek pressed to his sweat-slick chest.
“Angel.” He clung to me, shaking. “I’m sorry.”
“Shh, baby. It’s okay.”
“Let me hold you,” he whispered, sinking to the floor with me. “Don’t let go.”
“Never,” I promised, my lips whispering over his skin. “Never.”
I ran a bath and climbed into the triangular corner tub with him. Sitting behind him on the highest step, I washed his hair and ran soapy hands over his chest and back, washing the icy sweat of the nightmare away. The heat of the water stopped his quivering, but nothing so simple could remove the dark desolation in his eyes.
“Have you ever talked to anyone about your nightmares?” I asked, squeezing warm water out of the sponge onto his shoulder.
He shook his head.
“It’s time,” I said softly. “And I’m your girl.”
He took a long time to speak. “Eva, when you have nightmares … are they more like re-creations of actual events? Or does your mind switch them around? Change them?”
“They’re mostly memories. True to life. Are yours not?”
“Sometimes. Sometimes they’re different. Make-believe.”
I absorbed that a minute, wishing I had the training and knowledge to be truly helpful. Instead, I could only love him and listen. I hoped that was enough, because his nightmares were ripping me apart as surely as they were him. “Are they changed in a good way? Or bad?”
“I fight back,” he said softly.
“And he still hurts you?”
“Yes, he still wins, but at least I hold him off as long as I can.”
I dipped the sponge again, squeezing water over him, trying to maintain a soothing rhythm. “You shouldn’t judge yourself. You were only a child.”
“So were you.”
My eyes closed tightly against the knowledge that Gideon had seen the photos and videos Nathan had taken of me. “Nathan was a sadist. It’s natural to struggle against physical pain, so I did. That’s not bravery.”
“I wish it had hurt me more,” he bit out. “I hate that he made me enjoy it.”
“You didn’t enjoy it. You felt pleasure and that’s not the same thing. Gideon, our bodies react to things by instinct, even when we don’t consciously want them to.” I hugged him from behind, resting my chin on the top of his head. “He was your therapist’s assistant, someone you’re supposed to be able to trust. He had the training to fuck with your head.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Then make me understand.”