Heart beating thickly, she bent down. A hand shot out and grasped her throat. Max’s blue eyes burned up at her as she tried to suck in a breath to scream around the crushing grip—
Gasping, Starla shot up from the depths of the nightmare to find herself still in her bed, sweating profusely, her heart knocking erratically in her throat. It took several moments before she realized she was chanting fuck fuck fuck over and over. Unable to sit still, she swung her feet to the floor, a terrible sense of déjà vu haunting her as she ran for the door. She made for Jared’s bedroom, daring Max to be there—she would beat the shit out of him on pure adrenaline alone. Hitting the light switch in the hallway, she cracked opened his door…and the slice of hallway light fell across Jared’s precious sleeping face.
Exhaling her relief, she began to close his door again. Before she could, though, he squinted and lifted his head, prying open one eye. “Starla? You okay?”
Just wanted to make sure you weren’t a knife-wielding maniac. “Yes. I’m sorry.” Quickly, she pulled the door closed and scuttled back to her room, but she should have known putting distance between them wouldn’t be sufficient. Not even two minutes had passed before a soft tap on her door preceded a swath of hallway light falling over her own bed.
“Hey,” he said, voice gentle with concern. “What’s the matter?”
She felt stupid and childish to admit it. “I had a nightmare. Don’t worry about it.”
He was quiet for a long time, and her pulse kicked up. It brought the dream back to her, along with the way he was silhouetted against the light and she couldn’t clearly see his face. Then he said something that made her heart leap for an entirely different reason. “Do you want to sleep with me? I would’ve offered when you first came here, but I didn’t want to come off as sleazy or presumptuous.”
Jesus Christ. Men like him weren’t real. Not in her world. A slow melting began in her chest, and she didn’t think it would stop until there was nothing left of her inside. “The last thing you could ever be is sleazy or presumptuous.”
He pushed her door open the rest of the way. “Come on.”
It was a mistake, she knew that, but the knowledge didn’t stop her from getting out of her bed and going to him. “Do you need some water or anything?” he asked as he walked her back to his room. Starla had to force her eyes in front of her and not gawk at his chiseled torso with those low-hanging pajama pants perfectly accentuating his ass. God, how she wanted to get her hands down his pants again, get her lips around that rock-hard thickness she’d felt.
I just need you. “No.”
And she knew she was gone over him as soon as she climbed between his soft clean sheets and his scent enveloped her, reminding her in the midst of her turmoil of everything that was calm and secure.
As he settled beside her, facing her with only inches between them, it felt like home. Only a home she’d never been to before. The feeling shook her like no nightmare ever could.
“Bad dreams,” he said softly after they’d lain in silence for several moments. She’d almost begun to think he was dozing—it was so dark she could scarcely make out his features. “I had them for weeks after seeing Macy get hurt.” All at once, the mention of that name doused her swelling sense of security. It wasn’t hers to have, was it? It probably never would be. Almost as if Jared sensed a shift in the air between them, his big, warm hand found her cold one and held it as he went on: “Not to bring all that up. I just know what you mean.”
“You can talk about her,” Starla said despite herself. “I know she’s important to you.”
“She was, and she still is.” He chuckled. “But she’s someone else’s problem now.”
Starla felt her mouth stretch in a smile, maybe the first genuine one since Brian was attacked. No guilt came with it this time. “Problem, huh?”
“She always was a handful. But let’s not talk about her. Are you holding up okay? All things considered?”
“I guess so.” Hearing his voice here in the dark was doing things to her. Was that completely awful of her? That a man she’d always loved was lying in a hospital trying not to die because of her and she was here lusting after someone else? No. Awful was loving Brian in the first place. Awful was spending her life trying not to think about him. She didn’t want this anymore. She would always love Brian Ross as a friend, as a person. But she couldn’t do this. She couldn’t suffer the shame, the guilt.