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When he placed his hand on her narrow back, he could feel her heart rate slowing. Good.
“Do you want to tell me about the nightmare?” he asked quietly. “Sometimes it helps to talk it out.” He personally never talked about his own nightmares, but he imagined women would talk it out. Women were more verbal. Used words instead of sex and alcohol to work their way through things. Once, after a particularly vicious firefight, the barracks was full of men moaning and thrashing in their sleep and a heavy silence the next morning.
If they hadn’t been in a dry country, a lot of them would have gotten drunk that evening, including him.
She sighed. “It’s becoming vague, but I remember the feeling. The feeling of fear and doom. Something bad coming and then something bad right there.”
God, that sounded like every nightmare ever.
“Do you remember anything else?” She’d shuddered and he ran his hand down her back. For comfort, and because it was a delight to touch her.
“Henry.” Her voice choked.
“What?”
“Henry Yu. My friend and boss. He was on the ground, bleeding, but I couldn’t find the wound. The ground beneath him was soaked in blood, but I couldn’t staunch his wounds because I couldn’t find them. He barely had breath to talk. He said to stop them, but I didn’t know who. Just that I had to stop them. The air was hot, hard to breath. Then Henry died and I walked and walked, through mud and ash. Then there was a mushroom cloud on the horizon, and a hot wind and … and then you woke me up.”
There was silence. “Well,” Pierce said finally. “Not hard to interpret.”
“No. I’m terrified it might come true.”
He couldn’t say anything. This was one smart lady. Reassuring her that the worst wouldn’t happen would be insulting to her intelligence. The fact was that he was terrified, too, that the nightmare might come true.
One thing being a SEAL had taught him was that wishing something wouldn’t happen wasn’t any kind of a plan. Shit happened. Shit happened really often.
“Do you—do you have nightmares?” Her voice was the merest whisper in the night.
Oh fuck. What to say? Pierce didn’t like spending the whole night with women because of this. But she deserved the truth. “All the time, actually. I have nightmares all the time. Several times a week I dream of my commanding officer shooting a pregnant woman in the stomach and watching her die, screaming, in a dusty street. While he smiled. It took her a long time to die, and I see that in my dreams. Nightmares.”
“Emma told me the story,” she whispered into his chest.
He nodded. “Yeah.”
“I’m so sorry.”
Her head lifted and fell with his big sigh.
“You’ve earned your own nightmare. But we’re going to put it right. You’ve got ASI and Black Inc. and your brainiac friends on your side.”
“And you,” she said softly.
His arms tightened. “And most definitely me.”
Pierce knew his limitations. He wasn’t a geopolitical genius, he didn’t own a company that ran with the big boys. Nothing he could ever say could change government policy. He was a soldier, an operator and a good one, but he didn’t have any political power. So he wasn’t the one who was going to have to go to the top guys and convince them to call off the dogs. But by God he was going to keep her safe while his company and Jacob Black did their thing. It was not going to be a case where in the end right prevailed, but whoops! The wrong person got whacked. Nope, she was going to stay safe.
“Pierce?” Her voice was a little slurred. She was falling back asleep.
“Hmm?”
“I’m really glad I have you.”
God. His arms tightened again and he had to work to loosen them. Because he wanted to hold her close, hug her so tightly she could fit inside him and he could keep her as safe as safe could be.
“Yeah.” His voice was rough and he coughed to loosen it up.
He was going to say something else, but she’d fallen asleep.
Riley was usedto waking up fast, refreshed and ready for the day. Instead, she came up slowly, in swoops.
