“I said don’t fucking touch me!”he yells, to whatever face he’s manifested over hers.“Get your hands off me! Off! I’ll fucking kill you….I said….don’t….”
She’s only afraid because she’s human. She can’t control how her body shakes or how wide her eyes have gotten.
“Wake up, wake up, please wake up,” she nearly sobs. “Wade, it’s me. Wake up. Look at me.”
Kara doesn’t struggle. She lies there while his hands bruise her wrists and he stares a thousand yards into the ground below her. Her voice remains calm even as the tremors escape. She didn’t know she had it in her to be this stoic and tranquil amid such aggression. Turns out, for Wade, she can do anything.
“You’re in the blue house with me and the dog. Remember? You’re safe. It was just a nightmare. Just a dream.”
He would never forgive himself if he hurt her. It would shove everything back so far they may never be able to reset it again. She can’t allow that to happen.
“Look at me, look at my face. I’m right here with you. I’m real, I promise I’m real,” she says softly.
If she was in her right mind, she might attempt to tell him a random fact to prove it, but there’s not a chance in hell that shecan think clearly enough right now. Odds are, he’s too far gone to hear it, anyway.
The moment he truly sees her again, his horror and confusion are instant. The grip on her wrists loosens, and the defensive anger on his face breaks with a quiver of his lower lip. He’s not dangerous anymore, but so broken that she’s amazed he’s been able to recover as much as he has already. What she sees now has been there this whole time, yanking him down while she’s been trying to lift him up.
In a moment of desperation, he sways in her direction, looking for all the world like he might move in against her before thinking better of it and shifting in reverse.
What she does next may be stupid, but it happens anyway. They areso close,and she can’t let him pull away again. Can’t allow this moment to pass without helping him embrace it.
One arm slips free of his hold to reach up and cup his cheek, catching him before he can run. “It’s okay. You’re already here with me. You’re already here.”
The sound that escapes him reaches into her chest and squeezes as she fights to remain calm. When he collapses, it’s a slow fold, reluctant and ashamed, but a welcome relief as he tucks his face into her neck with a shuddering inhale.
His arms curl under her back and over her shoulders, pulling her to him like he can’t get close enough.
It’s a culmination of everything she hadn’t dared to hope for since the first day he disappeared. Every moment she spent alone, wondering where he was, every tear shed and enemy killed. Every piece of her soul she stained with blood in her quest to find him…it was all worth it a hundred times over to be here now, holding the man she loves.
Kara wraps him up tight, her arms a steady pressure around his back and legs parting to hug his hips and keep him here.Every heartbreaking sob that wrecks him shakes her own body, too, wrenching out her tears to drop against his temple.
His pain flows like a salty river against her skin while her fingers stroke the back of his neck, the heel of her foot rubbing absently along his leg every few minutes. Their position is undeniably intimate, yet despite all her persistent arousal earlier, there isn’t a trace of that in her body now. She longs only to comfort him in a way that she’s craved since he was ripped away from her.
He’s heavy on top of her like this, but she welcomes it because she’sachedfor it. Has to be heavy to mend even the smallest of all their cracked pieces. Suffering like his is so much lighter when it’s shared. She could never let him shoulder any of her burdens before the turn, or let herself feel it in a way that allowed him to carry it, too. Now, at least she can bear some of this weight for him.
If it were up to her, they wouldn’t move all night, but eventually he rolls to the side, clinging to her as tightly as before and falling into an exhausted sleep.
She’s not sure if this is only a temporary reprieve from their limitations, but for the first time, everything feels right again, and the possibility of a brighter future together is more than just a fantasy.
Chapter 12
He’d forgotten what it was like to feel safe.
Maybe he never really knew in the first place because nothing’s come close to this, not before his time in captivity or any delusions within it.
Wade lies awake but keeps his breathing even and muscles lax to fake sleep. He isn’t embarrassed yet about how close they are, intimate in the most comforting of ways. Can pretend he’s where he belongs and this is normal and expected so long as he’s not forced to meet her eyes.
Kara is curled around him like a protective cocoon. It’s so much better than all his fevered dreams. He isn’t sure how long this massive leap in progress will last, but any internal struggle long since tapered off during the night. Now he only wants more. He wants to hold her tighter and get lost in the fluttering heartbeat beneath his ear, the only music he ever wants to hear again.
Maybe she feels some small change in his behavior because she tenses, bracing for his reaction.
“It’s only me. Don’t be afraid. You’re in the blue house, remember? With me and the dog.”
She’s telling him these things as if he’d forgotten, but he hasn’t. Not this time. Can’t find his voice through the sandpaper in his throat, so he only nods, praying she won’t shove him away. She doesn’t. Her relief comes out in a light exhale, and then she’sall soft curves again. The best thing he’s ever felt. He lost count of the ways he’d imagine them like this, and now that she’s here, he can’t help but be greedy.
He’s already holding her like a pillow, one arm over the slope of her stomach and curled up her ribs. All at once, he pulls her in a fraction more, nuzzling his face along her collarbone. The haze of sleep and endorphins all tumble together into the best drug. Whatever pheromones she’s putting out are as encouraging as her soft hum of approval.
She didn’t sign up to have him hanging off her like this, but he can’t let go. Her reaction mirrors every time she visited him in his head and returned all his foolish gestures, arms tightening to hold him close, and fingers stroking the back of his neck.
