I pulled my knees into my chest. I was still rattled from the dream. It had been vivid. So tangible I could still feel the pain. There was a thin layer of perspiration across my skin.
“What scared you like that?” he asked.
I shook my head. I didn’t want to tell him. I didn’t want to admit a dream had affected me like that. “I can’t remember. It’s foggy.”
“Do you think you can fall back asleep?”
He pulled me against his chest, sliding us under the covers so that his arm enveloped my waist in a tight hold. I didn’t mind how warm he was.
I nodded, glad he couldn’t see my face. My eyes would give it away. He would be able to see the fear coursing through me.
“Get some sleep.”
It wasn’t long before his chest rose with the natural rhythm of his breathing. It was easy for him to fall asleep. I couldn’t close my eyes.
I carefully lifted his arm, peeling it away from my hip as I rolled to the side and put my feet on the floor. I closed the door to the bedroom and sat by the window overlooking the city.
It was our first night in Paris. My first time ever in the city.
Tomorrow Vaughn would get his assignment.
The bubble we had created would be gone. Vaughn couldn’t create a sphere strong enough to keep his job from invading our life. I was worried. I was paranoid. I was distracted beyond reason.
How did I move forward, knowing he was stealing? That he was plotting and scheming to take something that didn’t belong to Blackwing.
I buried my head in my hands.
How could I tell him that doubts had surfaced? How could I admit to him that as soon as we’d left the Bahamas there was a pit in my stomach that had done nothing but grow until I could barely breathe? How could I tell him about the dream?
I wasn’t a psychic. I didn’t believe in that crap. But the dream had seemed like a prediction of our future. I knew it was my fears playing out in my subconscious. That didn’t make it feel any less terrifying though.
What if it haunted me every day? What if this is what our nights were going be like? Sex that shattered me to my soul. A nightmare that claimed it.
I tucked my feet under me, sitting as curled as a cat. My eyes scanned the lights in front of me, still in disbelief that just this morning I had been looking at the ocean and now I was only miles away from Montmarte.
“Babe, what are you doing?”
I jumped when I heard Vaughn’s voice over my shoulder.
I spun to face him. “I thought you were asleep.”
“I was.”
“It’s the time change. I can’t sleep,” I couldn’t believe I lied again.
He strolled toward me. His chiseled chest cased in shadows from the hotel suite.
The sight of his body brought everything back. I was drawn to him. Bound to him. He moved me in a way that defied logic and love. This man consumed me. He kneeled in front of the chair. The lights from the window splintered across his face.
“Why can’t you sleep? The truth this time.”
My resistance faltered. I didn’t know if I was weak for wanting him to take away the fear. Or if I was tired from trying to sort through everything myself.
“I can’t sleep because of the dream I had,” I admitted. “It was horrible.”
“Was I in it?” he asked.
I nodded. “Yes.”