“Zane, it’s me. Dakota.”
I blink. She’s crouching in front of me, back in my borrowed T-shirt, her hair brushing her shoulders, falling in her large eyes.
Dakota.
Her hand lifts, then hovers between us without touching me. “Are you okay?”
I’m not fucking okay, but I nod anyway. I wince when she reaches over and closes the toilet lid, then flushes. The noise is like a hammer bouncing inside my head.
“Come here,” she whispers, and I look at her, uncomprehending, as she reaches for me.
Emma, opening her arms, calling my name. A faceless woman from child services. ‘What are you scared of?’
Fuck.
“Zane.” Dakota, it’s Dakota in front of me. In my bathroom. “Take my hand.”
I wrap my fingers around her smaller hand, and when she tugs on it, I steady myself on the toilet seat and make it to my feet. The room spins a little as she drags me out of the bathroom and back to my bedroom. The sheets are wet with my sweat. They smell of fear.
Dakota stares at the bed for a long moment, then pulls me out and into her bedroom. Pushes me onto the bed, then crawls next to me. I’m shivering now, and she pulls the covers over us, then curls by my side.
I lift my arm, so she can press her body to mine and rest her head on my shoulder. Fuck, I’m exhausted, but I feel calmer with her there. I feel warmer.
“Why aren’t you scared of me?” I mutter, my eyes closing. I don’t get it. Erin almost never saw me like this. I bet she’d have run away if she had.
“Why should I be? You never hurt me, not even when you flash back to bad things in your past. I think, deep inside, you know you can trust me.”
Do I? Maybe I do. “This happens a lot,” I warn her.
“You barfing in the toilet?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Nightmares?”
“Yeah.”
“Flashbacks?”
“Too.”
“Okay then,” she says, pushes up just enough to kiss my cheek and lies back down. “I can live with that, as long as you let me hold you afterward.”
It takes me a long, long time to fall asleep after that, her words playing over and over in my mind, and when I do, I’m still grinning like an idiot.
Chapter Twelve
Dakota
Zane is standing at the kitchen counter, dressed only in draw-string pants, making coffee. As for myself, I’m sitting at the kitchen table, getting an eyeful of his long, strong legs, his muscled ass, and his bare, inked back.
The sight never gets old.
I savor it, even as the images of last night replay before my eyes, and I shiver. Zane’s strangled shouts from the other bedroom. The sound of the bathroom door slamming open and him retching. The way he crawled away from me, as if he didn’t recognize me. As if he was seeing someone else.
He has to talk to someone about this, I think, as he turns and places two mugs of coffee on the table. What he revealed about his memories is horrifying. He should see a specialist, someone who can help him.
Because I don’t know how. Don’t know if I can. All I can do is hold him and tell him he’ll be okay. I have a feeling he doesn’t believe it, and it’s important he does.