David was done.
He shouted something, but it sounded more like a roar than actual words as fire raced up his legs and down his cock. Reese didn’t let up, drawing David’s orgasm out until he was shaking, his vision graying at the edges.
He cried out when Reese dragged his fingers free, grateful that Reese caught him and kept him from faceplanting onto Mati. He sagged in Reese’s arms, utterly wiped out.
Reese helped him lie down on the bed, and he pulled Mati to his chest, dimly aware of Reese’s departure, only making sense of it when a warm washcloth pressed between his cheeks.
That’s my job, he thought blearily.
David groaned, startled out of his daze when Reese cajoled him out of bed. Mati led him to the armchair in the corner, which had a towel draped over it.
He hadn’t done that. Reese must have.
Mati pressed him into the seat and curled up in his lap. He burrowed into her warmth.
He nodded off while Reese changed the sheets. He remembered muttering something about waterproof mattress pads and Reese kissing him sweetly and promising he’d figured it out.
Then David was back in bed, his softest flannel sheets against his skin, Mati in his arms, and Reese behind him—a tight, tangled clutch.
David smiled vaguely when Reese’s lips brushed the nape of his neck, his nose tucked there as David sank, blissfully, into a deep sleep.
Chapter Twenty-One
Each dream started differently. Some snuck up on him, so that one minute he was happily recalling something ridiculous he and Chance had done as kids, and the next he was back on that fucking roof, looking through the scope of his rifle.
He often thought he should be able to wake up long before he heard the call through his earpiece telling him to take the shot. Pretty much any dream that involved his old job and coworkers ended up at that moment, and he wished he could tell his brain to shut that shit off before it went any further.
But no matter where it started, or how long it took, or how surreal or realistic his dreamscape was, it always ended the same way—with the echo of a single gunshot ringing in his ears.
Over and over and over.
Some nights, he woke up instantly. He always hoped for that. Tried to convince himself it would be that way. The best of bad options.
Most nights, he’d cycle back into another dream, maybe more than one, each progressively more disturbing, his anxiety climbing as some reasonable part of his brain tried to make him stop, tried to make his heart beat so hard hehadto wake up. There were nights he thought he’d relived every single SWAT call-out he’d ever gone on. The good, the bad—they all ended up the same way in his fucked-up head while he was sleeping.
Ugly.
And then he’d be back on that roof.
Tonight, he heard that gunshot a few times. Watched the body drop. Heard the screams.
Those, more than that gunshot, were what haunted him when he was awake. The screams. He was back on the roof, everything in his body telling him to run, to get away. But he was trapped, his legs heavy, muscles frozen.
When someone put a hand on his shoulder, his instinct was to fight that, too. He couldn’t let anyone keep him here. He couldn’t be held down.
The hand shook him, calling his name, and he thrashed to get away from it. He tried to beg for mercy, but no sound came out. Or maybe it did. Maybe another voice was screaming, this one closer. The panic, hovering beneath the surface for what felt like hours, burst to life and he hurled himself from his bed, shoving and fighting any obstacle in his path.
His legs got caught in the covers and he went down in a heap on the floor. His brain registered a cry of alarm, and a deeper voice barking his name. It sounded like David’s supervisor, and fear spiked again because maybe he was still in the dream. Maybe he was so fucking broken, he could dream while he was awake.
The light snapped on and he blinked, trying to clear his eyes, his brain, of the fog of sleep and buzz of adrenaline. Eventually, he realized Reese was sprawled across the floor beside the bed, watching him with wide, frightened eyes.
“Oh, god, what did I do?”
Reese appeared incapable of answering, his mouth hanging open as he stared at David.
Something bright and new that had been growing in David’s chest curled up and died.
Mati tumbled from the bed to the floor between them. David tried not to flinch when she touched his face, his cheeks burning when she wiped trails of moisture away with her fingers.
