Especially because he seemed really put off at the idea of me having any level of attraction to him.
Ugh.
My poor, beaten ego didn’t need that.
But there was no denying it, either.
I needed to get my head on right. I had to lock away any growing feelings I might have toward him. Especially since they were so clearly one-sided.
The sadness set in too quickly even to try to fight it off, leaving annoyingly persistent tears to creep out from under my lashes, wetting my cheeks and pillows until I heard the water shut off, and knew that he would see if I didn’t pull it together.
Eventually, at some point, I must have passed out from sheer boredom.
And that was when the nightmares started.
I’d been getting them since I left Raúl’s compound, to varying degrees of awfulness. The themes were always the same. Either I was still back there, still getting abused by him, or I was free, but he found me and was punishing me for getting away in the first place.
While the themes may have been the same, the length of the dreams, the clarity, and the perspective of them changed. The nights where I was more of a fly on the wall of it all weren’t so bad. The nights where I felt like I was inside my body, where I was experiencing the abuse, those were the worst nights.
The dreams that didn’t feel like dreams dragged on and on. I felt like I was choking on the fear, like I was feeling every punch, kick, lash, like my actual bones were cracking when Raúl threw me against the wall. Like I could feel his fingertips as he started to rip off my clothes.
It never went beyond that point before.
But this dream kept going. Until my clothes were gone. Until his hands were on me. Until his body was coming over mine.
No.
No.
I was screaming it in my head. It was coming out of dream-me’s mouth.
But it must have been coming out of my mouth as well, too trapped in my own head to know.
Because the next thing I knew, hands were grabbing me for real.
I didn’t recognize them for what they were at first, though.
All I knew was that hands were on me and that I didn’t want anymore of the torment I was experiencing.
So I writhed, lashed out, hit, yelled.
“Hey, hey. It’s okay,” a voice called, thick and unrecognizable while still half inside my dream state. “Abigail, it’s me,” he continued. “It’s Cary, love. You’re dreaming. Nothing is happening to you,” he cooed, pulling me closer, pinning my arms between our bodies as he crushed me to his strong chest.
The warmth was what broke through first.
The warm feel of bare skin against the side of my face.
The scent was next. Like the body wash in the shower. The same body wash in the shower that I sniffed when I was in there, that I barely managed to resist using just so I could have that scent with me all day.
The body wash.
In the shower.
At the hotel.
That I was sharing with Cary.
Because I was free.
Because Raúl hadn’t found me.
Even as I seemed to start to wrap my head around the fact that it was okay, that I was safe, a sort of hysterical cry caught in my throat.
“Shh, it’s okay,” Cary murmured as his one arm held me more tightly. The other moved up, stroking through the hair that was losing more and more dye each time I washed it, letting streaks of my strawberry blonde start to peek through. I knew the darker color was meant to keep me safe, but there was no denying I felt a sort of relief at seeing more of myself come through each time I looked in the mirror.
I might have been able to pull myself together right then. If I had been alone. If I’d been able to process and tuck away the trauma myself.
But something about having someone there, having them be calm and sweet and understanding seemed to make it impossible to fight through the lingering feelings of fear and pain and despair.
So what did they do?
Bubble up and burst out.
All over Cary.
When I tried to pull away, intent on rushing off into the bathroom and getting a grip, he only pulled me closer, held me tighter, murmured more soft and sweet words about being okay, about him being there for me, about him making sure nothing ever happened to me again.
All that kindness, well, it just made the tears keep coming. Until my cheeks felt raw. Until my eyelids felt puffy. Until I was sniffling pathetically in an attempt not to leak all over him.
“You needed that, huh?” Cary murmured after I finally started to be able to pull myself together. “Lot of survival, not a lot of processing,” he went on. “Seems like we need to convince that subconscious of yours that you are safe now,” he added. “Then maybe you can kick those bad dreams once and for all.”
“Sometimes they’re not so bad,” I admitted. “Tonight was really bad,” I told him.
“I guessed so since you jolted like I’d jabbed you with a hot poker when I touched you. He’s not going to get a chance to do that again,” he told me, voice a solemn vow. “Not while I’m here,” he finished as he shifted me up on his lap, letting his arm loosen around my back just enough to lean me back so he could look down at me. “Okay?” he asked as his free hand lifted, wiping the lingering wetness from my cheeks.
“Okay.” I barely recognized the sound of my own voice even as it came out from between my lips. It sounded as breathless as I felt as I looked up into those dark blue eyes of his.
“He won’t touch you again so long as I’m around to make sure of it,” he went on as his finger moved over the apple of my cheek, down to my jaw, then over. The pad of his thumb traced across the outline of my lower lip.
It sounded crazy, but I swore electricity sparked from his barely-there touch.
I wasn’t even aware of lifting my hand. But I felt it as my palm grazed up the strong, corded muscles of his forearm, then his bicep. It didn’t stop there, though. No, it kept moving over his shoulder, up the side of his neck, then finally, moving behind, sinking in a little.
I realized my intention a moment too late.
I was trying to draw him down toward me, toward the lips his gaze was focused on.
There had to be some sort of other reason for him to be looking at them like that, though. Because he’d made it pretty clear that he had no interest in me that way.
Even so, though, there was no talking to my arm. It had a life of its own at that moment as my hand applied pressure to the back of his neck until I started to pull it down.
I was sure he was going to pull away, that he was going to toss me off of his lap and onto the mattress, then storm away from me while mumbling about how he was just helping me because of an old connection, not because he wanted a new one.
But then his deep gaze slipped from my lips to my eyes, making my breath catch in my throat. Because, while no one would consider me a professional on such matters, there seemed to be no mistaking the heat in his gaze, the intensity of his stare as he kept letting himself be drawn down closer to me.
At the last possible moment, some form of insecurity or self-preservation had my hand loosening the pressure on the back of his neck.
I’d brought him ninety.
And I sat there immobilized by both desire and the fear of rejection, as Cary took one long, slow breath.
Before closing the last ten.
His lips sealed over mine.
I guess I’d been expecting soft and sweet and careful, since that was the way Cary had handled me since I’d shown back up in his life. With kid gloves. Very aware of my trauma, and not wanting to trigger me in any way.