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On the other side of the bed, he was thrashing. Shouting while he fought an invisible enemy, and it was clear he was not showing them any mercy. There was just enough light for me to see the shape of him and the lines of his face.
My stomach sank. This. This was what he was afraid of. It was why he didn’t want to go to sleep and why he looked haunted. Only one thing he didn’t realize—this didn’t scare me. I had my own nightmares, and I understood what they could do to you.
Plus, I knew Jude would never hurt me.
He moved again with another shout, and I moved too. Toward him. Reaching past his arms, I took his face in my hands. “Jude.”
His head jerked, trying to get away from me, but I held on. “Jude, it’s Lena. You need to wake up.”
Jude’s face twisted into a snarl, and he moved so fast I couldn’t track it. One moment, I was leaning over him, and the next, I was on my back with him looking down at me. This was Jude the warrior. The face he wore now was not one many saw, and if they did, they didn’t live to tell the tale.
But he didn’t do anything but pin me down. I reached out again, touching his face. “Jude, it’s me.”
All at once, he came awake. I saw the difference and watched him take in where he was and what he was doing. “Oh fuck.” He scrambled away from me, the bedside lamp coming on before he dropped his face into his hands.
“Jude—”
“Did I hurt you?” He was back with me in a second, checking me, running his hands over me to see if I was hurt. “This is exactly what I didn’t want to happen.”
“You didn’t hurt me. You barely even touched me.”
“Are you sure?”
He was still bleary with sleep and the adrenaline of the nightmare, and I recognized panic was still flowing under his skin. “I’m very sure. I’m fine.”
“Good,” he said. “That’s good.”
Moving away from me again, he sat on the edge of the bed and shuddered. I reached out and touched his back, but he shrugged off the touch. Even with him facing away from me, I felt him collapsing and pulling away. This was something he’d hoped no one would see, and now I had.
“I’ll go sleep on the couch.”
“What?”
He just stood and started to move.
“Jude, look at me. Right now.” It felt strange to give him orders, especially in his bedroom, but this couldn’t happen. Slowly, he turned and looked at me, his eyes bleak with shame and grief. “You are not going to sleep on the couch like you did something wrong or shameful. You are going to come back here and talk to me. I’m not afraid of you, you didn’t hurt me, and I don’t want you anywhere else but here.”
It was easy to see he didn’t believe me.
“Don’t make me get out of bed and pull you back here. I might not be strong enough to actually move you, but bet your ass, I will try.” A flicker of a smile, there and gone.
Jude sat on the edge of the bed, far enough away so he could leave quickly if he needed to. That wasn’t going to work for me. I wasn’t going to let him think he was broken or like he needed to feel dangerous. I scooted over to him and climbed into his lap, straddling him and forcing him to hold on to me so I wouldn’t slide off the bed.
His hands were too gentle where he held me. “You shouldn’t be so close, Lena.”
“Why?” The way his shoulders drooped broke my heart. I wrapped myself entirely around him, until he stopped resisting and his arms finally came around me in the hug I wanted and he needed.
“I understand this,” I whispered. “I get it. It doesn’t scare me. I told you I have my own nightmares, but we’ve never gotten around to talking about that. I dream about Nathan and what he did to Evelyn and me. It’s why I had a panic attack in the car the night I kissed you. It’s why I called you, Jude. Because you make me feel safer than anyone else in my life. Ever.”
“Why?” It was like he reflected my previous question back at me.
“Because you found me. They told me you wouldn’t let anyone touch me until you got to the hospital. That you were…almost feral until you knew I was okay.”
He bumped his forehead against mine. “I needed you to be okay.”
“I am okay,” I said. “Because you saved my life. Because you showed up that night when I called. You pulled me out of my own head on Thanksgiving and showed me everything would work out, and you didn’t make me feel like an idiot for feeling like I did. If there’s anything I know about you, Jude, it’s that you would never hurt me. Not by choice.”
I didn’t bother mentioning the painful week when I thought I’d lost him. Even then, he’d been doing it because he’d thought I’d be better off without him. He didn’t need to be reminded of it.
