“Beatrix,” he said, starting to breathe faster just to reassure himself that he could get the oxygen he needed, “what’s wrong? What is it?”
She looked up, and this time her eyes were wide with panic. She scrabbled at the back of her dress. Trying to loosen it, trying and failing.
He dashed around the table and got the buttons undone somehow, his fingers shaking as he did it. “The corset too?”
“Yes,” she gasped.
So he kept going, untying it enough to loosen it a good deal. She slumped against him, sucking air into her lungs in shaky gasps. He held her, catching his own breath, until his anxiety for her began to fade into the recognition that she was in his arms while partially unclothed.
“Sit,” he urged, leading her to a chair. He escaped to the kitchen, filling a glass of water for her while grasping for composure.
“How did you know I couldn’t catch my breath?” she asked, voice raw, when he returned. “Could you feel it?”
“Yes.” He shuddered, the moment he nearly died rushing back at him.
She put a hand on his arm, the touch there and gone. “I’m sorry. It must have been a terrible reminder.”
“Beatrix—that was a panic attack, wasn’t it. Like the one in the dream.”
“Yes.”
“Is this your first one dayside?”
She sighed. “No, they started about two weeks ago.”
“What? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“There’s nothing to be done about them.” She shook her head as he made a protesting noise. “No, it’s true. I checked your Brown’s Lexicon, and there’s no remedy.”
“Nothing magical, perhaps, but what about a therapist?”
She shot him a speaking look. “‘Why am I having panic attacks, doctor? Well, you see, the government tried to assassinate my sister, and I’m afraid they’re going to eventually succeed.’ I’d be institutionalized.”
He frowned, but he couldn’t think of an argument to counter that.
She got to her feet, holding the bodice of her dress to keep it from sagging. Blood zipped through his body, singing past his ears, as if he hadn’t seen every inch of her in their twined dreams. But that wasn’t real. This was.
She bit her lip. “Could you … ?”
He retied her corset, trying not to think about her skin, separated from him by just a thin slip. He worked on the buttons of her dress, swallowing the irrational urge to reverse course and pull her clothes off.
Had he ever, dayside, been this close to her? He could feel the rise and fall of her chest under his hands. An electric jolt shot through him as he brushed strands of hair from her neck to keep them from getting caught in her buttons, followed by another jolt as he heard her breath catch.
“Peter,” she said, a strangled quality to her voice, “you must let me finish this brew on my own.”
“What?” He faltered, then slipped the final button into place. “I can’t leave you like this.”
She turned. “I don’t …” She stopped, lips parted, eyes dilating. They looked at each other, his heart kicking up to a truly alarming rate. He had never wanted her more, and the one dizzying thought he could manage was that half this overpowering feeling was hers.
“Oh, God,” he said, not sure he could pull himself back from the cliff edge he was on.
“Please,” she whispered, exactly like that dreamside moment when he first took her to bed, and over the edge he went.
For a few glorious seconds, he kissed her and she kissed him back, and nothing crossed his mind besidesyesandmoreandnow. Then he suddenly remembered that the lust spilling over to him from her wasn’t hers at all. And her “please”—to the extent that she hadn’t already lost her mindwhen she said it—was undoubtedly her attempt to get him to do what she’d just asked of him.
Leave.
He leapt back, gasping, dismay and thwarted desire making him shake. “Fuck,” he said, unable to keep the word from bursting out. “Beatrix, I—I’m?—”
