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She sighed. “I know. I should be better… I should be better for him. Lend him my strength like I did down there. But I can’t even look him in the eyes.”

“Did he do something?” I didn’t know him well, but he had seemed innocent enough from our brief interactions. If he had done something that added to her pain… I wouldn’t be able to cope.

She shook her head. “No. He… he just knows everything that happened. It’s hard to face.”

“What did happen, Goldie?” I asked softly. “What are your nightmares about? What makes it so you can’t turn off the lights?”

“What if I’m not ready to talk about them? To face them?”

“Then you don’t. But whenever you are ready, I’m here for you. I need you to know that,” I explained softly, cupping her cheek in my hand and brushing away a stray tear.

“How do I move on?” Her tone was laced with sincerity, and her eyes searched mine as though I had all the answers in the world, and oh, how badly I wished that were the case. “He took so much from me,” she continued, emotion clogging her throat. “Some days it feels like my soul is draped in those shadows, just an echo in the dark. I just want it back. I want me. I want to be free again, Lex. But I’m stuck down there, reliving every nightmare, the sound of Silas’s screams. I don’t know how to get out. I don’t even know who I am.”

I cupped her jaw with my hands, forcing her eyes to meet mine. “Your name is Goldie. Marigold Taylor. You are a fucking fighter—a survivor. Your favorite color is yellow because it reminds you of the sun. You ingest more caffeine than should be legally allowed. You're scared of ladybugs—not spiders, but ladybugs. You are the only person on this planet who has managed to put me in my place… and see my worth. You, Marigold, are a once-in-a-lifetime storm that can knock down houses and level cities. That man may have made you stumble, he may have stolen your safety, your soul, but he cannot stop the force you are. Do you hear me?”

She sniffled and nodded. “I can’t believe my name is Marigold. No one calls me that, do they?”

I shook my head. “Imagine my surprise when I learned that for the first time after you went missing,” I explained. “Add that to the list. You are full of secrets I want to learn and mysteries I want to solve.”

She took a deep breath, her tears slowing. She glanced between my eyes, searching for something… I didn’t know what, but I waited.

“I remember one thing.” Her voice was barely above a whisper. “I’ve always remembered one thing. Even in the darkness.”

“What?”

“Your eyes,” she explained, looking directly into them. “The jade-green eyes that make me feel safe.”

I shouldn’t have done it. Not after everything she had told me, but I couldn’t stop myself. To know the one thing she remembered was me—the one thing that had survived in her mind was my eyes—it would have brought me to my knees if I were standing. I took a deep breath and pressed my mouth to hers. She yelped in surprise, but didn’t push me away.

I kissed her slowly, waiting for any sign that she didn’t want this… that she didn’t want me. Her hands looped around my back, pulling me flush against her body. My fingers tangled in her hair, my knee pushing between her legs. She opened her mouth to mine, and I deepened the kiss, wanting to taste her again—my favorite taste in the world.

I felt her leftover tears near her hairline and vowed that I would do everything in my power to stop them—to replace every nightmare and demon-fueled dream with light, with laughter.

I rolled her onto her back, hovering above her. Her nails scratched against my back, and I fucking prayed she would leave marks. I wasn’t going to force anything, and the second she told me to stop, I would. I moved from her lips, kissing along her jawline and onto her neck. Her legs parted for me, and I settled my hips into hers. I was rock-hard against her core, and it took all my willpower not to rock against her until I came in my pants.

“Lex,” she moaned.

I pushed up, looking down at her—her flushed cheeks, her nipples hard through her thin tank top. My breath came heavy and heady.

“Why is this familiar?” she asked curiously, her voice breathy, her hips subtly grinding into mine, unconsciously searching for release.

My mind short-circuited because I didn’t know how to explain it, but something in my heart fluttered knowing that even if her mind couldn’t remember me, her body did.

“Daddy?” River’s tired voice came from the doorway.

I looked over so quickly I almost gave myself whiplash. “Hey, little man, what’s going on?” I muttered, my voice tight with restraint as I tried to reign in my body now that my son needed me.

Goldie giggled—actually giggled underneath me—and I shot her a surprised look mixed with a bit of sarcasm, because my cock did not find this timing funny.

“Why are you on Goldie Girl?” River asked, looking between the two of us in the dark room.

I glanced down at Goldie, mouthed a "sorry," and rolled off her, lying on back on the side of the bed. “She was having a nightmare,” I explained, reaching a hand out to him. Half-asleep, he wandered forward and took my hand. I pulled him up onto the bed with us. “You know when you have bad dreams and you want to sleep in my bed?”

I was scrambling for an excuse as to why I was in her bed, because I really didn’t want to leave. River nodded and rubbed his tired eyes—those tired green eyes that matched my own. The eyes that Goldie had never forgotten. He sat cross-legged on the bed and looked at her.

“Sometimes I dream that the tooth fairy is going to steal all my teeth. Did you dream about the tooth fairy?” he asked with the innocence only a four-year-old could have.

She smiled sweetly and pulled the blankets up to her chest. “Something like that.”