About a minute later, his legs did the same thing a little more forcefully.
My elbows sank into the couch as I perked myself up, eyebrows stringing together as I cast a glance down over his shoulder. His face was still, mouth set straight and eyelashes fanned against his cheeks.
“James?” I whispered.
Nothing.
I kept waiting, watching his sleeping face just in case he—
A sudden groan vibrated through his back into the couch, moving and changing in pitch.My heartbeat altered rhythms with it, hiking higher as I rolled up on my side on the couch.
“Hey, are you awake?”
My gaze traced over the side of his scrunching face as I waited for him to tell me he was awake. Just fidgeting and uncomfortable from being on the floor.
Then my entire fucking heart shattered when he shouted instead.
“No! No!”
I was off the couch and on his lap in seconds.
My heart smacked behind my ribs as I straddled his hips, grabbing his anguished face in my hands just like last time.
“Hey, hey, you’re okay. It’s just a dream.”
Torment sliced every angle of his handsome face, his breathing running off faster and louder.
“God, please. Please don’t,” he huffed, eyes shifting behind his lids as he pleaded. “Not her. Not her…”
“James, wake up.” Desperation gripped my throat as I laid my forehead to his, soothing my thumbs in circles against his shadowed cheeks. “It’s not real. It’s not real…”
Just like in the woods, I was able to taste every bitter ounce of his terrible pain coming off of his lips, and it was awful. Miserable.
But unlike in the woods, I didn’t just taste his pain.
I felt it.
I felt it like I felt the presence of him running in my veins these last few days when I forgot to be a walking tragedy. But this pain was more than tragic, ripping my chest apart with talons so sharp I should have checked to see if I was actually bleeding out. It jackknifed a scalding blade up my throat, each inhale blinding, every exhale excruciating.
Oh my god his pain—I gasped, a scream edging up my throat it was so bad. Tears welled on the brim of my eyes that were open only to watch him as I begged for whatever was hurting him to let him go.
“Please.” My lips pressed to the smooth skin under his eyes, and then to his bristled cheeks, kissing and pleading. “I need you to wake up for me, James. For me. Please, please.”
“I’ll do anything,” he bargained with his own nightmare, slamming his fists into the ground. “Anything.”
“It’s not real, James. I’m real. I’m here.”
He gasped out a broken sob, dark brows slashing together. “Scarlett.”
“Yes,” I encouraged, pretending it didn’t feel like glass shoved right through my chest cavity hearing him cry my name. “Yes, I’m here. I’m here. Just wake up for me. Let me see your eyes, please. Come on, I need to see your eyes, James. I fucking love your eyes so much. Please.”
Pressing one more kiss on the corner of his mouth, I whispered, “Come back to me.”
A sharp breath straightened up his spine, two giant weights clasping the sides of my waist.
I froze, flinching back to see James with his eyes stretched open and searching my face. Confusion scrambled his features as he collected every single inch of the reality I provided him, his lungs still panicked and moving fast.
Suddenly, relief clicked in his stare, and his head slumped forward against mine.