“Wes…” I slipped off my nightgown, allowing the fabric to skim down my body and pool at my feet. I didn’t even bother with underwear since the nightmares. He ripped every pair right off me, sometimes resulting in welts at each hip where he pulled them away.
The man I loved was not in himself at that moment. He’d been doing well and hadn’t had a dream for two days. I figured they’d be back, but was hoping for more than a two-day respite.
“Need you,” he growled.
“Why?” I tickled the tips of my breasts for his benefit more than mine. Though it wasn’t a hardship. My hair was loose and hung down my back in ebony waves the way he loved.
His teeth clenched, and I could have sworn I heard a low hum, a warning at the back of this throat. “Mine,” he grated.
I shook my head. “Nope, not good enough. Tell me you love me.”
“I love you,” he said instantly, but it wasn’t with a tone that said hearts, flowers, and walks on the beach. Wes told me he loved me in myriad ways. Sweet, tender, soft, desperate, and more, but not in that tone. I wouldn’t accept it. This raging inferno was not the man I loved. This man was a broken replica of someone, but this was not him. His mind was lost in a hut in a compound that had been decimated by the American military.
“No. Why do you love me?” I clarified, walking around the bed getting closer.
Wes’s eyes seemed to follow every step. “Because you take it away?”
That desperate tone broke me down to my own base level where the mushy side usually won over.
At least we were getting somewhere. Sweat trickled along his skin, toward his chiseled torso, and along the highway of muscles making up his fine abdomen.
“And how do I take it away?” I cocked a naked hip to the side. His eyes traced the movement. “Because you’re not being hurt, right? Not here in our bed.”
He flinched and shook his head.
“Wes?”
His head jerked and he winced.
“Do I look hurt to you?”
He needed to see the truth. Connect with reality once more.
He raked his gaze over my naked body lustfully but with that hint of familiarity, connection. He was coming back, slowly but surely. I’d done my job. If anything, I’d always bring him back to me.
“No. You look good enough to fuck.” The vulgar word arrowed its way right to my core where I softened, readying for him. I had to be strong, get to the end of this before I pounced the same way he wanted to.
“And why do you want to fuck me?” I countered.
“Because you’re everything good and right in the world. I can breathe near you.” His voice was gritty and untamed, all man.
My heart split wide open and tears threatened to fall, but I stayed solid. For him. For me. For us.
“And why can you breathe near me? Is it because you’re safe at home, in our bed?”
The words seamed to resonate deep within his mind because he blinked several times and the blackness dissipated. Green, the color of fresh shamrocks, rose to the surface, swallowing all the darkness. “Mia, sweetheart, come here.” Wes was speaking in a tone that I adored. One I’d go a long way to hear each and every day.
I swayed my hips with extra oomph as I got on the bed, crawled up his legs, and straddled him. His cock was as hard as granite against my thigh. “This for me?” I asked while wrapping a hand around the base.
“You know it is.” He smirked. From night terrors to a smirk?
Pat, pat, pat. Thank you very much. Good job, Mia.
“And what should I do with it?” I asked coyly, licking my lips, debating between my mouth or the throbbing heat between my thighs.
I expected a joking retort, but he lifted his hands and threaded his fingers through the hair at my nape as he cupped my face, soft thumbs centering my jaw as he looked directly into my eyes. “You’re going to love me. Any way you want. For as long as you want. Until it all goes away. Because that’s what you do. My Mia. My everything. You take away all the horrid memories and replace with them new ones.”
Tears pricked at the back of my eyes, but I held them at bay. Now was the time for love, for reunion, not sorrow and sadness.
“Make love to me,” I pleaded softly.
“Christ, I thought you’d never ask.”
I giggled as he took my mouth, the laughter turning into moans, which turned into cries of the pleasurable variety long into the night.
* * *
Bizz. Bizz. Bizz.
I swatted near my face and snuffled back into Wes’s warmth.
Bizz. Bizz. Bizz.
Fuck me. Slowly opening bleary eyes, I checked the clock. Five in the morning. Seriously? Wes and I just barely finished our fuck-a-thon some time near three a.m.
I figured the phone would eventually stop as I attempted to go back into dreamland. Wrong.
Bizz. Bizz. Bizz.