After ten minutes in his arms, my breathing has almost returned back to normal and my body has stopped shaking. Brax looks over at me as we lie in each other’s arms, lying side by side now.
“Hon, you have to tell me what is going on? You haven’t ever had a nightmare when I’ve been here. What has got you so scared?” he asks, pulling his eyebrows together in pain.
“I think it was just all the drama with that guy yesterday. He seriously creeped me out when he was looking at me—he just kept staring. It must have stirred them up again,” I say, my voice breaking. He moves both of his hands up to cup to face, making sure to look me straight in the eyes with those stunning baby blues of his that I can’t get enough of.
“I’m going to deal with it, okay? You can go to class today and not worry about it. Shay and I are going take care of it. I want you to feel safe, baby. I want you to feel safe with me,” he tells me, never once looking away.
“I’ll try not to,” I say, burying myself back down into his chest. I can’t help this horrible feeling in the bottom of my stomach.
It’s telling me that something bad is going to happen, all over again.
Elle freaked the hell out of me this morning.
I’ve never been with her when she has had one of her nightmares. I remember how scared she was when she had one shortly after I’d first met her and she called me over at 2 a.m. to stay with her. But the one this morning was worse. She was thrashing around the bed, writhing like she was in pain and kept yelling out my name, telling me to stay where I was. I tried waking her up to snap her out of it, but nothing worked. In the end I had to yell her name to wake her up. When she did, she just kept staring at me, her green eyes wide with fear.
My heart constricted, I couldn’t deal with her being so scared and having no control over it. I can’t stop nightmares. I thought my presence was enough to keep them at bay, but something has made them come back. We lie in bed holding each other, both of us focusing on slowing down our breathing. I can tell she is replaying the dream in her head and I can’t help but worry about what my life would be like without Elle in it.
As soon as Elle leaves for school, I ring Shay and ask him to come over. I told Elle I wasn’t going to class today because I needed to catch up on sleep and thankfully she didn’t call me out on it. Shay arrives twenty minutes later bearing coffee.
“No sign of the car this morning,” he tells me, taking a seat in one-seater chair. I breathe a sigh of relief, maybe she did frighten him by confronting him. I stand up and start pacing.
“Shay, we need to put pressure on Evans. He needs to know we won’t take his shit.”
“Dude, you think it’s a good idea poking the snake? He’s got a rather nasty bite if you remember,” he says, making me wince. I remember exactly how bad he can get.
“Yeah, I remember. I was the one with a dislocated shoulder and broken ribs remember” I remind him. He nods in agreement with me.
“I want to call him out. If that black car is connected to him, we can make him stop. Elle had a horrible nightmare this morning. She was so terrified, man. It shocked the hell out of me,” I explain to him. He knows I don’t deal with emotions like that very well. I went through the same thing when Roger was dying.
“Yeah, I can imagine. I know how bad it was when your dad was sick. Hey, totally off topic, but I’m having a party tomorrow night at Stages Bar for my birthday. You and Elle going to come?” he asks. Shit. I totally forgot about his birthday tomorrow.
“For sure, man. Wouldn’t want to miss you getting another year older than me now, would I?” I answer, grinning at my smart ass retort.
“Shut up. You’re only slightly younger and you look older than me anyway,” he ribs, laughing back at me.
“Whatever you say, old man.”
Elle comes home around lunch time and I’m relieved to see that she’s back to her happy, smiley self. The cloud of sadness caused by her nightmare seems to have lifted for now. Her smile gets bigger when she sees me in the kitchen and, without any warning, she runs towards me and jumps up into my arms, wrapping her legs around my waist in one smooth movement as I move quickly to catch her.
“Whoa!” I say as I manage to hold on to her as she plunges her tongue into my mouth. These are the kind of attacks I can handle, gladly. After devouring each other, she pulls her head back and just stares at me with a huge grin on her face.
“Baby, I’m not complaining, but what was that for?” I ask, trying to catch my breath.
“Just because,” she replies with a shoulder shrug and a huge smile.
“Just because, huh?” I say, slowly moving my mouth back towards her lips.
“Because you’re sexy as hell and I can’t keep my hands off you…” she says seductively as I touch her lips with the tip of my tongue and trace the edge of them, forcing a moan to escape from her throat.
“Mmm, hmm……” she murmurs as I ever so slowly inch my tongue into her mouth to seek out hers. I pull her bottom lip into my mouth, gently grazing it with my teeth. Argh, now I’m teasing both of us. I set her down, slowly rubbing her body down mine, smirking at her when she moans in frustration.
“I think we’ll have to pick this up again later,” I say as I look at her ‘come to bed’ eyes.
“I have to pop out after lunch and I need to be on my game, not all sexed up and distracted by your sexy ass,” I reply, slowly moving my hand from her waist and around to her rear, “or your gorgeous br**sts I enjoy tasting so much,” I continue, gently caressing her hips and stomach and inching up to her br**sts, cupping each of them and gently rubbing my thumbs over her no doubt tingling ni**les. “And most of all, I can’t be thinking about how good it feels to deep inside you when you scream my name.” I lean forward, whispering in her ear as I move my hips close and purposefully grind into her, making sure she feels every solid inch of how much I want her. I hear her groan into my chest, unable to control the frustration I’ve just fueled. She’s not the only one finding this hard.
I’m trying to resist the urge to grab her and take her right here on the kitchen floor. Pushing away from her, I go stand at the other end of the kitchen.
“I think it’s a lot safer if I stand over here, you little minx,” I say with a laugh.
“I think you might be right. I might just have to take care of myself while you’re gone,” she adds with a wink. Damn, this girl is going to be the death of me.