Her Reluctant Wife: A Lesbian Age Gap Romance

like that could save her. Something wasn’t right. The wetness

was dripping down her face. The band of pain slammed across

her ribs was the seatbelt. She fumbled for it, but it wouldn’t

give. It was wrenching her so tight to her seat, but her head

hung limply. It was so heavy she almost couldn’t pick it up.

But then she did.

The car was on its side. She was suspended in midair, but

still attached. Everything hurt. The pain was blinding. It made

her want to pass out. Blood dripped from her hairline into her

eyes, ran down her temples and pooled in little red lakes below

her. On the twisted, mangled crush of metal and the body

caught there.

“Fuck!” Giana slammed upright, the covers flying away

from her. Her heart was a tortured, racing beast. Her cheeks

were wet. She raised fearful, shaking hands, scared that they’d

come away bloody, but it wasn’t blood she found. Just tears.

“Just a dream,” she hissed. “Just a dream.”

It wasn’t just a dream. A nightmare, maybe, but it felt more

like a memory. Something she’d lost. Something she’d

forgotten. Banished and didn’t want to remember.

Her eyes searched the dark, orienting herself. Her heart gave

a small hiccup of surprise when they caught on the figure

curled up in bed next to her. No, not next to her. Coralyn was

hovering near the edge, and in a king-size bed, that left lots of

distance between them.

When they’d arrived home, Giana had insisted on helping

Coralyn shower. She was doing better than she’d expected, but

she hadn’t cried. Maybe she’d already spent all her tears at the

hospital. She couldn’t ask and Coralyn wasn’t volunteering to

tell her. Giana didn’t know how it happened. She couldn’t