“You scared me.” He followed me, nipping at my heels.
“I’m sorry.” I sat on the bed, my hands gripping the comforter, my body trembling.
“I will set up a therapist tomorrow.” He cupped my face again. “Anything you need. The best of the best.”
I need space. Air.
“Can we talk about this tomorrow?” I tugged his fingers away, my lungs quivering with anxiety. There would be a lot to discuss tomorrow. “I just want to sleep.”
“Sure.” Theo nodded, moving to go around to the other side of the bed.
“Alone.” It came out before I even realized what I said.
“What?” His brows scrunched together.
“I’m sorry. I simply feel…” I stared down at my toenails on the rug. Blood red against the cream. “I need to be alone. Is that okay?”
His temper flashed over his face, looking so much like his father, his expression scowling. “Why?”
“Theo…” Tears batted at the back of my lids, closing my throat, a panic attack crawling up my spine. “I just need a little while to myself tonight. Can’t you understand that?”
“And I just wanted to hold my girlfriend… like most girls would want. Can’t you understand that? I almost lost you. And I wake up to you freaking out and calling for another man. So, I’m sorry if I’m being the arsehole…that I’m such a wanker for wanting to hold you and be the one you call for.”
I stared at him, not knowing how to respond.
He shook his head, heading for the door. “Goodnight, Spencer.” He slammed the door, rushing liquid to my eyes.
A sob shuddered in my chest, feeling even worse than before. Guilty. Because he was right, most girls would want their boyfriends lying by their side.
My body shook, the trauma of the last day heaving bile like a tornado in my stomach. I curled on my side, only wanting to sleep, to ease the memories and grief.
Drifting for a moment, shrill screams from my nightmare bolted my lids back open, terror racing up my vertebrae, chilling my skin with the echo of their death in my head.
I didn’t think. Didn’t care if it was wrong or right. I needed the one person who understood. Who experienced it with me.
It was survival. Desperate and primal. The bomb inside me was ticking, about to explode into a million pieces, and all I knew was he would keep me together when it did.
Rolling out of bed, my bare feet padded out of my room and across the hall.
What if Hazel was with him? What if he turned me away? The thought hit me with a panicked assault as I opened his door, stepping into the shadowy room.
My shoulders relaxed seeing his body rolled out across his bed. Alone.
He sat up the moment I stepped in, his guard up, ready to act. Respond to a threat.
“Spencer?” Confused, his husky voice lapped at my skin, his hand rubbing at his bare chest. “What are you doing? Are you okay?”
I dragged myself to his bed, my face twisted with grief, words lost in my throat.
His head tilted, his gaze going to me, plucking the questions and answers from my expression. Without a word, he tugged the blankets down. I crawled in next to him, my back facing him, curling on my side as he tucked me into him. His arm wrapped around my waist, engulfing me in his heat and protection. Where Theo made me feel smothered, Lennox made me feel safe, like I could breathe, and he was ready to fight the horror waiting at the edges to attack the moment I closed my eyes.
He held me as tears fell, the bloody faces and desperate cries from my dream leaked out. When they slowed, and my bones no longer quaked with fear and trauma, I finally spoke.
“I keep hearing their screams…seeing faces…” I choked. “I try to save them, but I can’t move. Even dead, they keep coming at me, clawing at me, wondering why I lived, why I didn’t save them.”
“Survivor’s guilt,” he muttered. “I know it well.”
“Do the screams go away?”
He was quiet, telling me my answer.
“You learn how to deal with it over time. I’ve realized living in guilt is no better than a cage and is an insult to the lives lost. Selfish because you make it about you, instead of living the life they didn’t get to.”
Nodding, I twined my fingers through his. Gentle on my wounds, he pressed me firmer into him like I was his anchor as much as he was mine, making me highly aware of his barely clothed ripped physique curving into mine. His erection pushed against my arse, our skin and heat skimming down our forms, enflaming every nerve.
Coming here hadn’t been about sex, though I couldn’t deny my body wanted it. After seeing so much death, it wanted to lose itself in bliss, the highest feeling of being utterly alive.
With him.
The truth about my feelings only twisted deeper into my chest with certainty. The sensation of Lennox against my body, the fire that had been building up was ready to burst from me like a backdraft. It had been forming for a long time, growing the more I ignored it.
Another awareness hit me, freezing me in place. Until now, I had never felt like this before.
Addicted. Obsessed.
Desire driving me past reason and what was appropriate or honorable.
With Theo, everything was sweet and precise. I felt adoration and friendship, but he didn’t consume my thoughts, get my blood boiling in either anger or passion. I never craved Theo like this.
Emotion built in my throat, overwhelming and gutting, knowing the consequences of admitting this. I wasn’t someone who could live with a lie. Theo deserved better than that.
As if he could sense my thoughts, he whispered against my neck. “It’s all right. Just sleep. I’m here. You’re safe.”
Exhaling, I curled farther into him, gobbling up the feel of him, the tension in my chest unwinding as I let go. I felt him relax into me after a few moments, calming my heartbeat, shielding me from the memories.
My lids closed, and I gave in to the exhaustion, falling into a deep sleep.
I was thrust from sleep to awareness, my body hot and tight, my breathing irregular. Not from fear, but desire. It took me a moment to understand what was happening and where I was.
Lennox’s room.
His physique, pinned against mine, blasted with heat. One hand was up my tank, cupping my breast, the other slipped into my shorts, his fingers gliding over me. Even in sleep, I had arched into him, demanding more.
Oh god.
Every nerve lit up, the urge to open my hips to pursue what my body wanted more than anything locked me in place.
He slipped in deeper, forcing a moan to pour from my lips, my hips slowly rocking against him.
I could tell the moment he fully woke up, his chest clinching in with a hiss as he stilled, though neither of us pulled away. No doubt he could tell how wet I was, my nerves craving him so badly they trembled under my skin.
“Spencer,” he mumbled in my ear with shock, but I could hear the inquiry in it. The question we both knew the answer to, but neither wanted to say it out loud.
His fingers pulled from me, backing away. The loss of his touch had me reacting, my hand wrapped around his, drawing it back to me. He sucked in as I flattened it back against my sternum under my tank. He hesitated for a moment before his thumb swept the spot between my breasts, then curving around my nipple, igniting my veins like a match.