“Hadley.”

I pushed against the solid mass trying to squirm free. “No no.”

I fought as hard as I could to break free, I needed to get away or else I suffer the same fate. Death.

“Wake up.”

I opened my eyes to see Jack standing beside the bed shaking me. Disorientated I tried to pull free but he did not let me go. My breathing was heavy and sweat beaded my forehead. My bedroom light was on.

“You were having a nightmare.” He looked like he just woken up.

Then everything came back all at once. My lip trembled but I could not speak.

“Hadley,” Jack said. My name gentle on his lips.

A sob tore through me.

Jack lifted me up to sit down on my bed and settle me on his lap. “It’s okay.”

But it wasn’t. I had dreamed memories. Memories I had suppressed.

I closed my eyes and all I could see was blood. Alice’s blood. Then her face.

My sobbing intensified. All the grief and pain insurmountable in that moment.

“I got you.”

The words echoed from my dream, my memory. It made it all that much more real. I could remember.

I let Jack hold me and soothe me as I cried for everything I had lost that day. Eventually I quietened but Jack didn’t ease his hold on me. I breathed in deeply, all I do was smell him. It was a reminder of something free from pain and fear. Something we had shared, just the two of us.

Jack’s chin rested on my head. My had was against his bare chest. I could feel his heart beneath my open palm. His skin against mine. It was warm and soft. Each time a memory would come to the surface I closed my eyes and concentrated on my senses. The smell of him, the feel of his skin. I could feel his heart beating faster.

I shifted to look at him. His mouth above mine. Our gazes met. We could feel the pull of attraction like magnets. Maybe if I hadn’t been so emotional wrung out I would have had the strength to the do the right thing but I didn’t. I lifted my mouth to his.

His lips brushed against mine, softly at first like he was testing me. My lips clung to his. I shifted to straddle him, gliding my hands into his hair as I kissed him deeply. I wanted to shut out the pain in me with the only thing I knew would ease it. Even when I could remember every reason not to kiss him.

His hands cradled my face gently titling my chin up to him so he could kiss me deeper, thrusting his tongue between my lips. My stomach somersaulted, my skin burned under his touch.

I wanted to smother the pain with the so badly. I could feel his hardness grow as I rubbed myself against him. Needing the friction between my thighs where my heat ached for him. He groaned and I held on tighter, pulling his hair harder.

He moved his hands to wrap around me and then I was lying on my back and he lay between my thighs pressing our bodies against each other as his mouth covered mine.

My arms went around his neck pulling him closer, needing him inside me.

He lifted his mouth for mine. His breathing hard.

“Are you sure about this?”

I nodded, refusing to allow my conscience to stop what I wanted so badly.

He shifted off the bed and I had a moment of panic that he was about to put a stop to what we were doing but he stood beside my bed and held his hand out to me. I took it without hesitation and he led me out of my room down the passage to his.

Once inside his room, I was in his arms again. We discarded our clothing until we were both naked in each others arms kissing each other.

He picked me up and lay be down in his bed slowly. I lay down taking a breath as he covered my body with his. It was a sensation I would never tire of, his skin against mine.

He reached for a something in the side drawer. Protection. It was something that hadn’t even occurred to me. It only reinforced the idea that I was thinking emotional and not logically but right now I needed this more than anything.

I needed him.

He rolled on the protection. His eyes then went to mine. “You sure?”

I nodded. He lined our bodies up but before he could settle between my legs I stopped him with a hand to the chest.

“Are you?” I was giving him an out. I scared he would change his mind but I knew deep down it was the right thing to do. The last thing I wanted was to regret this if I didn’t give him the chance to stop what was happening.

His answer was to kiss me as his one hand lifted my hips up to thrust deep inside me, his other arm held his weight off me.

I gasped against his mouth and held onto him. It was incredible the way his body fit perfectly into mine, so deep I could feel him move inside of me. I wrapped my legs around his waist needing more of him. I closed off my mind and any thoughts, only concentrating on what I was feeling physically.

He began to withdraw and then sink into me again and again. His hand on my hip bruising.

I arched into quickening movements. His hands held my arms above my head as he joined us as close and two people could physically get. His hardness buried deep in me. He knew exactly how to angle his body body into mine to cause the friction in the most sensitive place. I groaned straining against him, needing more but unsure of how to reach it.

His fingers thread through mine holding my hands above my heId as I stared up to him wanting to remember every moment of this as if I could erase what I had remembered with this. His mouth slanted over mine as he stroked into me, faster and faster. His muscles straining with each movement, his features fierce.

I could feel a tingle and then I stiffened unsure of what was happening. I was sensitive all over, feeling touch soft or hard.

“Let it happen,” he whispered in my ear. His breath against my ear only heightened my senses.

I did just that. I closed my eyes and let go. The rush swept through me leaving me gasping.

He released my arms and I wrapped them around him holding him close, not wanting it to end. It felt like ripples of ecstasy through me. Again and again. I was breathless.

Our sweating bodies still joined as he hurried himself as deep as he could with each thrust. Until he shuddered, dropping his forehead against my neck.

I was tired and sated, breathing hard. He stayed there pressing my body into the mattress with his for a for moments, trying to catch his breath before he shifted off me and stood.

I was too tired to move. I lay staring up at the ceiling. It was dark. The dark usually frightened but not when I was with Jack.

He made me feel safe. He made me feel like a woman. I was pretty sure I was hopelessly in love with him even though I knew every reason why it wasn’t a good idea. He had warned me repeatedly that he didn’t do emotional entanglements. Falling in love with him was an emotional entanglement he didn’t want but I couldn’t help myself.

He returned from the bathroom and got back into bed.

In silence he pulled me into his arm and I let him. I didn’t have in me to resist, knowing the intimacy would not do me any good. In the morning I would face the consequences of what we had done and the memories I had remembered. But I was so tired and physically exhausted to do anything other than let him hold me as I lay on my side facing him, my head against his shoulder. I listened to his breath and I put my hand against his chest.

It wasn’t long before I drifted off to sleep.