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I shivered and tears began to slowly streak down over my cheeks, unbidden. Frost softened his grip on my hands, but did not release me. I tightened my fingers in his and whispered his name hoarsely, my throat raw from screaming, “Frost.”
He swallowed hard and looked to his hands in mine, his body straddling mine. “Sorry,” he said quietly. Carefully he moved to kneel beside me, just as I had beside him in the nightmare. He was still leaned over me and his silver chain hung over me, but whatever was hanging from it remained hidden beneath his thin t-shirt. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know what else to do. I think you’d have killed me if I didn’t.”
I didn’t answer, only tightened my hands in his, fearing that he would pull away. Frost looked down at me sadly and his thumbs softly rubbed the backs of my hands. “Say something, Poe. You’re scaring me.”
Shuddering, my skin ice-cold and slicked with sweat, I stared up at him, hesitating. His hands were so warm. Something inside me felt like it was breaking and I was losing the pieces. “Hold me,” I finally gasped wretchedly.
For a moment, he just looked down at me in surprise. Then, not letting go of my hands or my gaze, he lied down beside me on the bed. I shifted onto my side to face him and he carefully slipped his arms around me, encircling my shaking body, his hands pressed softly against my back so I could feel their heat through my tank-top. I let my palms rest against his chest so I could feel his heart racing beneath my hand. Looking into his molten eyes through tears, I said, nearly inaudibly, “I dreamed your death.”
Frost didn’t say anything for a minute, finally kissing my forehead softly and whispering against my skin, “I’m not going anywhere.”
My eyes fell slowly closed and I felt my muscles relax in the warmth of his arms, beneath the heat of his kiss. So softly that I wasn’t sure I had actually done it, I kissed his throat. For a moment, he lay there immobile, as if in shock; then he pressed his forehead to mine, his nose nuzzling mine, and let his breath fall upon my lips. He kissed me gently, briefly, and I kissed him back less briefly. I opened my eyes drowsily to look into his and saw the same sadness, the same fear, the same longing there that I was sure was in my own expression. I let my eyelids fall again and he kissed me tenderly, longingly. The warmth of the kiss seared through my veins and made my clammy skin burn. He paused in the kiss and whispered against my parted lips, “You scare me sometimes, Poe. I don’t know how to…”
“Yes you do,” I whispered back, cutting him off. I felt his fingers tangling into my dark hair, his palm pressed against my spine. Hesitantly, I wrapped my arms around his shoulders, pulling myself closer, and shivered against the heat of his chest pressed against mine. He tightened his arms around me and kissed me again deeply, but with brevity. “Poe,” he whispered. “What do you want?”
I pressed my cheek to his and softly kissed his collarbone, just barely exposed above the collar of his thin t-shirt. “This. I want to never be afraid of this. I want to be the girl I wish I was.”
He pressed his lips to the side of my neck in a lingering kiss. “It wouldn’t be like this if you weren’t who you are. The only thing I’d change about you, darling, is I wish I could heal you. That I could make it end and make every moment like this.”
“I’d give the rest of my life for an hour of feeling like this,” I whispered.
“You can have that hour and it won’t cost you a thing. Just hold on to me. Hold on to this, okay? Please don’t shut down again.”
I felt my lips begin to tremble against his warm skin and he softly cupped my cheek in his palm. “Darling, don’t let me go,” he whispered, his quiet voice a plea. He kissed along my neck, across my jaw to my lips. I pushed back the fear and kissed him back desperately despite my tears. He clutched me to him and we struggled to gasp for air between kisses, but, though we were both struggling to breathe, neither of us dared to slow or stop. My body felt as though I would melt through the floor, as though we could have been lying together on a cloud or a bed of nails and I wouldn’t have known the difference. I had never been so warm or comfortable in my life and only a scarce few times in my life more terrified. Because in so little time, at any moment, I could panic and push him away. I knew I would and I hoped to God it wouldn’t hurt as bad as I suspected it would. If it did, I thought my heart would burst in my chest.
Something deep in the pit of my stomach twisted and burned not uncomfortably and I wrapped one leg around him, pulling myself as tightly as possible against him. His heart beat loudly, rapidly against my breast and his hands wandered all across my back, my arms, down my sides, as though he was memorizing the way I felt in his arms, just as I was memorizing how the warmth of his body felt pressed against me and all around me.
And gradually, we slowed the kiss, each of us resetting the pace at the same moment, thinking the same thing. Ever-so-slowly, ever-so-painfully, we pulled ourselves apart until we were tightly clasping each others’ hands, otherwise not touching, and staring into each others’ unbearably sad eyes. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“So am I,” he returned. “I promise you, Poe. Someday.”
----
Just like the last time we had stayed together, he didn’t need to wake me every three hours. I woke myself. The dream was the same each time and each time, he dragged me from that dark abyss at the same point in the nightmare, hands gripping mine white-knuckle-tight, pinning me down. The second time, he held me in silence until I cried myself to sleep, slipping his arms carefully from around me as I drifted off. The third time, I awoke with my arms wrapped around myself like a straitjacket, Frost’s hands tight in mine and his face buried in my back between my shoulder blades. Sobbing quietly, I twined my fingers in his and shuddered, pulling his arms tighter around me. “Oh God, Frost…” I gasped. “I can’t stand this. I can’t watch that again.”
“Shh…” he whispered soothingly, pressing a brief, soft kiss to my bare shoulder. “Hey, it’s okay. I told you, I’m not going anywhere. I promise you that.”
My eyes wandered to the digital clock on the nightstand and I gritted my teeth. “Four-thirty. Just enough time for one last round.”
He sighed sadly and pulled me tight against his chest, kissing my shoulder again lightly before laying his head on mine, his cheek pressed to mine. “Why are you on insomnia medications, Poe? Clearly they don’t work and if they mess with your head and your writing, what’s the point?”
I let my eyes fall shut sadly, the tears turning cold and icy on my cheeks. “Because with them, at least I sleep. Without them, I can’t fall asleep at all or the nightmares are even worse. I tried to go off them once. After three days without an hour of sleep, I gave up. The deprivation is far worse.”
“I don’t know why I bothered to set an alarm,” he said wearily. “I should’ve known you’d wake up every other hour anyway.”
“I’m sorry, Frost. You don’t deserve this,” I said, the dejection and guilt wearing on me like the world on my shoulders.
He sighed again and buried his face in my now-wild hair. “Darling, I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
I rubbed his fingers with my thumb and asked, “I thought you were afraid to call me that. You’ve said it several times tonight, though.”
“I know you don’t mind right now. It doesn’t quite make sense why you’re whole after such an awful nightmare, but I can see the difference.” I left a fleeting kiss on the back of his hand and he exhaled deeply in content. “I can feel the difference.”
“I’m scared.”
“You’re always scared.”
“It’s different. I feel like I’ve just lost you. I need the reminder that you’re really here and to come back to reality. And losing you…” I paused in hesitation, biting my lip anxiously. Frost lifted his head, whispering in my ear, “Yes?”
