He doesn’t move. “I love you, Rachel,” he says, his voice husky. “Only you, tell me you know that.”
I nod. “I do.”
He drops my leg and lowers his body to rest on his elbows so his face is hovering over mine. “You have to learn to trust me.”
I bite back a moan. “I trust you,” I whisper.
He moves, once, pulling out of me and thrusting back in with a sweet, sure stroke, so deep, I let out a weak groan.
“Only you.” His voice is a husky murmur. He rises back up to his knees, pulls my hips toward him, and really starts to move, stroking his hard length in and out of me with ferocious intensity. Everything about him is arousing, the raw hunger on his face, the sheen of sweat on his skin, the hard bunching of his chest muscles, the flat tightness of his stomach as he moves his hips, flexing, thrusting so deep inside me, that I feel as if I’m melded to him.
“Landon,” I moan, about to unravel. “Landon.” My voice is tight with desperation.
In response, he picks up his pace, his increased thrusts sending me over the edge. I cry out as my body tightens, spasming with the force of my orgasm, and he’s right there with me. He thrusts deep, shuddering as he spills himself inside me, my name a soft whisper on his beautiful lips.
Later, when I’m wrapped in his arms, recovering from the haze of pleasure, I hear his soft whisper in my ear. “I never want to be without you. I’ve felt what that’s like, and I never want to return to that dark, lonely winter. It’s okay if you don’t want to move in, as long as it’s not because you think I’d hurt or disappoint you. I won’t. I’d die before I hurt you, Rachel, trust me.”
“I do… I’m just… I’m afraid,” I admit softly. “I’m scared of changing anything about us. Everything feels so perfect. I’m just so afraid of doing something to ruin it.”
“I won’t let anything ruin this,” he promises. “Do you believe me?”
I breathe in the scent of his skin, the slight hint of sweat. “I do.”
I feel his chest rise, and his arm comes around me to pull me closer, holding me like that until I drift off to sleep.
IT’S the thrashing that wakes me up, and the sound of my name, like a garbled plea on Landon’s lips.
“Please,” he’s saying, his voice muffled yet somehow desperate. “Please. Oh God! Rachel.”
I put on the bedside lamp, my heart breaking to see the tears on his cheeks. “Please,” he moans, his body tight with the struggle in his nightmare. “Please.”
I hold on to one of his thrashing arms, trying to keep him still. “Landon.”
He wakes up immediately, rising from the pillows, his eyes fixing on the arm I’m holding in my two hands. I release it and he raises it to dig the fingers into his hair in a sad gesture of frustration.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t… I was planning to get up.
I sigh. “You’re not supposed to get up at night, Landon. I hate it that you can’t sleep through the night.”
He is quiet.
“Are they getting worse?” It’s a hard question for me to ask. I’d hoped that being with me would make his past easier to bear, that I would make him better, not worse.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he mutters. “They’re just dreams.”
“You were saying my name.” I frown, unwilling to let him dismiss it. Not again. “Was it like that night in San Francisco? Was it me again, in the accident?”
“It was just a dream,” he says, getting up from the bed and reaching for his robe.
“No.” I protest. “Don’t you think it matters if you’re still dreaming of trying to save me and being unable to? If you’re still afraid of hurting me? How can I…”
“How can you trust me, when even in my subconscious I’m struggling with the certainty that I’m somehow going to cause you pain?” Landon shakes his head in a silent gesture of denial and frustration then shrugs the robe on over his naked body. “Look, Rachel, I think we’d both be better off if you didn’t try to analyze me. My dreams have nothing to do with you. I’ve dealt with them almost all my life.”
“And you’re still dealing with them,” I point out. “And I’m dealing with them too.”
His eyes close, but he stays silent.