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Another moan came, wrenched from the depths of his being.
Priya rushed to his side. His covers were tangled around his lower body. His naked chest gleamed with perspiration.
Her body lit up like some kind of sensory panel as the musky, heated scent of him filled her nostrils. Everything about him, even the pain etched into his tightly drawn features, called to her.
But for her own sanity’s sake, Priya considered walking away. Leaving him to what was clearly a nightmare. He’d made it clear he didn’t want her help or comfort. And yet, how could she let him suffer like this?
Brow furrowed, the soft duvet twisted in his fists, he was writhing on the bed. Dark shadows hung beneath his closed eyes. His thick hair, badly in need of a cut, stuck to his damp forehead.
Heart racing, Priya sat down on the bed. Her hip nudged up against a solid rope of thigh muscle, sending awareness prickling through her. Smoothing away the damp hair from his forehead, she touched him. He was hot and damp.
A throaty murmur left his lips as he thrashed again. His arms shot out suddenly, almost sending her flying off the bed. Thanks to fast reflexes, Priya managed to hang on by gripping onto the tight, tense muscles of his shoulders. His head shook from side to side with a force that scared her might damage the tendons standing out in his neck.
Bending forward, she clasped his jaw, the pads of her fingers holding the hard bone firmly so he couldn’t shake her off. “Christian, it’s okay, baby. Shh... You’re okay,” she whispered like she did with Jayden. “I’m here, I’m not going anywhere.”
Behind his eyelids, his eyes moved rapidly, as his body continued to writhe. She wished she had the upper-body strength to hold him still. Her arms clenched painfully against the increasing pressure. Sculpted lips that used to be ready to smile parted with a hiss, murmuring unintelligible words between painful-sounding groans.
Priya shook him again, her fingers almost losing purchase on his damp skin. “Christian, wake up.”
Whatever nightmare held him in thrall, it was tormenting him. Her eyes prickled with wet heat, but she arrested the tears with a deep breath. If it took the entire night to rouse him, she’d do it.
Bent low over his face, she continued with the litany of soothing words. Pressed a trail of soft kisses over his collarbone and farther down. She crooned to him, the same lullaby she’d used to sing to Jayden when he’d had a bad night.
Electric-blue eyes suddenly held hers, vacant and unseeing.
The blankness of his stare made her flinch, more than his rough thrashing had. Fear of losing him again, fear of being left behind, was a stroke of lightning, scorching every little spark of joy she felt in him being back. An abyss of grief welled in her chest and her words broke on a sob. “Christian, come back to me, baby, please, you’ve got to—”
That gaze that had mocked and laughed and teased flicked toward her again and this time, recognition danced in his eyes. He went from asleep and thrashing to alert and present in two breaths. And in between those two breaths was her biggest nightmare. That he’d forgotten who she was. Again.
His hands moved to her bare arms, his fingers gripping her tightly. “Pree, is it Jayden?”
“No.” Unshed tears clogged her throat. “I’m scared, Christian. So scared.”
He shot up into a sitting position. The remnants of his nightmare were there in his pinched features. “It’s okay, Starling. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere, ever again,” he whispered into her hair, repeating the same words she’d whispered to him moments ago. It was the infinite tenderness in an otherwise hoarse voice that did it.
That cloak of practical competence she wrapped around herself like armor splintered. With a soft cry, she buried her face in the sweat-damp hollow at his throat. Clung to him like a child, seeking reassurance. Crawled into the space between his thighs, half kneeling, half shaking. And completely undone.
He went utterly still. And then those steel band-like arms squeezed her so hard that her heartbeat happily rattled against his. After a few seconds, his hold became loose. As if she was some wild, tangled thing that might break if he held her too tightly.
Priya soaked it all in—the salty heat of his skin against her lips, the rapid beat of his pulse, the damp warmth of his body, the clenched tightness of his muscles. She reveled in the soothing words he whispered at her ear, in the tenderness in his tone, in the up-and-down motions of his fingers combing through her hair gently. She felt as breakable as she’d been once, as fragile as they’d all thought her.
“I’m here, Pree,” he whispered again, and the vibrations of those words swept through her, lighting pathways through her nerves, to every limb, to her heart, to her lower belly. “Whatever you need, it’s yours.”
The words landed like a soft crooning her soul was desperate for. Her tremors subsided, the tears dried up and something new broke through. “Anything, Christian?”
“Yes, baby, anything,” he said, laying the world at her feet. But she didn’t want the world.
She wanted him. Not as her son’s father, not as a friend, not as a partner, but as a lover. She wanted the man who’d once broken down all her barriers and dragged her screaming and kicking into living her life.
She grazed the skin at his throat with her teeth. His broad, powerful shoulders stilled and his heart thumped. He was pure male on her tongue. She did it again. Pressed the tip of her tongue to that hollow. A little nip here and a quick lick there. And she felt the rumble of the groan building in his chest, the clench and release of his muscles around her.
Refusing to be chased off, she brought her mouth to his chin and he looked down. Their gazes held, bare and honest, for the first time since he’d returned, and something almost like gratitude filled the moment.
“Kiss me,” she begged.
The first press and slide of his lips sent her heart thundering at a dangerous pace. His beard rasped against her lips, providing an alarmingly pleasurable contrast. His fingers slipped into the hair at her nape, holding her still as he ravaged her mouth.
His tongue tangled with hers, swept over every molten inch of her mouth, pouring his need into hers, taking her breath into him. Hands filled with the taut muscles of his shoulders, she pulled herself closer to him. The press and slide of her flimsy-lace-covered breasts against his chest had her groaning into his mouth.
