One hand stroked up and down my back in slow passes that grounded me. His other hand cupped the back of my head while he continued to whisper soothing words against my hair.
Gradually my lungs found air and my heart rate slowed until I felt as close to normal as I could after that disturbing nightmare. “Pike,” I whispered and clung to him even more fiercely.
“Bad dream,” he asked, his voice soft and gentle but slightly gravelly from sleep. His words were heavy with concern.
It was such an absurd question, considering the way I’d just practically tried to tear the walls down screaming, that I laughed. I didn’t mean to, there wasn’t anything funny about this situation. But the laughter just spilled out, half-crazed and too loud in the dark.
But then the laughter caught in my throat and hitched. The laughter instantly turned to tears.
Somanytears. Hot, ugly, humiliating tears.
I could only see his outline in the dark but as I buried my face in his chest once again, I realized he wasn’t wearing a shirt. My tears ran down his chest and I cried harder than I’d ever cried in my life. I didn’t cry this way when my parents died or when Gemma was born. I didn’t even cry like this, so hard and visceral, after the first time Marcus beat me. Not even when I learned Ashley was dead because of me.
The tears came from a place so deep inside me, a place so black and raw and bleak, that I was powerless to hide it. And for the first time in my life, I didn’t want to hide it.
This was me, real and messy. Completely unvarnished.
He said nothing, he just held me tighter as if there was a link between how tight he held me and how quickly my pain would vanish.
I held him back just as tight, like I was afraid he might disappear if I let him go. “I’m sorry,” I whispered on a sob.
“Don’t apologize,” he insisted and pressed a kiss to my head.
I shook my head, but I couldn’t find the words. That nightmare was all me. It was my fault, my deepest fears and worries had bubbled up to the surface of my subconscious and made themselves known. It had shown me the worst parts of him, but I knew those parts didn’t exist in the man that soothed me right now. They couldn’t. He’d put distance between us today and my own insecurities had twisted that into the darkest,ugliest version of him imaginable. He’d been distant and scowly all day and that’s what my mind had conjured up, punishment.
For me.
Because Marcus had trained me, brutally, into submission. That not-so-little voice in the back of my head telling me that I deserved it. That his silence meant that he hated me, that I’d done something wrong to earn those scowls and grunted answers. That his anger meant violence was just around the corner.
And with that came a much subtler reminder, that if I cared again, if I dared to let myself care for a man, I would be punished for it. Logically, in the cold light of day, I knew it was bullshit. But an exhausted brain paired with trauma, anxiety, and fear was a disaster waiting to happen.
Tonight the disaster culminated in a wicked nightmare that probably scared the hell out of my daughter.
“Gemma.”
“She’s fine, still asleep,” he assured me, still gently rubbing my back. “I checked before I came down to you.”
“Thank you,” I whispered and reminded myself that this was Pike. That the quiet grumpy man from earlier was dealing with something totally unrelated to me. “Thanks,” I said again and tried to extract myself from his hold, but it tightened.
“Just stay,” he growled.
I shook my head. I couldn’t accept his comfort, not when he didn’t want to give but felt compelled to. “It’s okay. Thank you for waking me up and calming me down, but you don’t have to.”
“Chloe.”
I shook my head again, refusing to look up because I didn’t want to see pity in his eyes. I knew the reason he’d spent most of the day outside the cabin and when he was inside, he focused on Gemma and ignored me, like the other night had been a mistake. LikeIwas the mistake.
“Look at me, Chloe.”
“I can’t,” I said.
I couldn’t bear it, so I held him tighter, refusing to let him go.
He laughed. “You don’t want my comfort. Why?”
“I do want it,” I admitted, ignoring the way my voice quivered. “But I don’t want you to feel obligated to comfort me. You’re already putting your life on hold to help us, and you don’t need… more.”
“Ash always told me that women hated it when a man told them what they needed. Now I get it.”
