“Stop!”His voice boomed as he wrapped his fingers around both of her wrists. At the same time, he crawled up onto the bed and straddled her much like he did the very first time they met.
The sleep-driven fog in her widened gaze finally began to clear. It was quickly replaced by a blinking look of confusion as she lay still beneath his gentle yet firm hold.
“Digger?”
A sense of déjà vu struck hard as he stared down at her beautiful, frowning face. “You were having a bad dream.”
While I was busy having one of the best of my existence.
His dick—which was still half-hard from his own imagined scenario—twitched behind his boxer briefs. Thanks to the moon-lit slit shining down on her through the bedroom’s curtains, the tiny flash of awareness in her eyes was plain to see.
“I’m sorry I woke you,” Shadow offered softly, her voice rougher than normal from sleep.
But he shook his head, keeping his eyes locked onto hers. “Nothing to apologize for, princess.”
She smiled even as a single tear fell from the corner of one eye. “I haven’t had one that bad for almost a week.” Her voice cracked and her chin quivered. “I thought maybe they’d stopped, but apparently not.”
It was obvious the amazing woman was doing everything in her power to not completely break down. Her show of strength made him like her even more than he already did, but it also pissed him the hell off.
“It’s okay to cry, you know?” He purposely kept his tone gentle. “You don’t always have to put on a brave face or do the whole tough-girl routine. Not with me.”
Never with me.
Her watery gaze searched deep within his, and a moment later…she began to crumble.
Shadow’s hiccupping sobs ripped his heart in two in a way nothing else ever had before. Without giving it a second thought, he slid his body from her trembling form. Then he pulled her back against his front in a comforting embrace.
“I’m s-sorry,” she offered between hiccupping breaths. “I don’t really know w-what that w-was.”
“That was you letting go,” Slade spoke softly near her ear. “Something tells me it’s been a while.”
Her lungs hitched with their effort to restore her breathing to a more normal pace, and for a moment he didn’t think she was going to respond. But then, as the movement of her rising shoulders evened out, he heard her sweet voice once more.
“I haven’t cried like that since I was a child.”
“Then I’d say you were long overdue.”
“Says a man who’s probably never cried an adult day in his life.”
Strawberries and cream filled his nostrils as he relished in the scent of her hair. Drawing in a deep breath, he released it slowly before giving her a tiny piece of his soul.
“I cried the day my mom overdosed, and again when she went to prison. There were a few times in a couple of the worst foster homes I was to, but I always waited until I was in the shower so no one would ever know.”
“Slade…”
“It was years after that before I ever cried again,” he told her truthfully. “The first time I lost a fellow serviceman during an overseas op.”
A stretch of silence passed for so long, he started to think maybe she’d fallen asleep. But then she moved, turning her body around so that she faced him, her eyes red and slightly puffy as they lifted slowly to meet his.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered an apology, not because of her crying jag, but rather the loss that he had suffered.
“It was a long time ago.” He did his best to brush the painful memory away.
“Time doesn’t heal all wounds, like people claim, Slade.”
Ah, sweetheart.
Reaching up, he gently tucked a few wayward strands of hair behind her ear. Slade let his hand linger there a bit longer as the pad of his thumb feathered back and forth against her cheek.
