Bound to You

Chapter 24

I'd never slept with anyone before. Boys, they had always been good for sex, but I could never even imagine what came after: cuddling, spooning, holding.

That night, I fell asleep in your arms. After I'd screamed out my orgasm and collapsed on the bed, you'd helped me undress. I lay before you, completely naked, and you looked at me, my entire body, before kissing me once on the stomach and then giving me your own shirt to sleep in.

And then you wrapped yourself around me.

The only problem was the nightmares.

Sometime in the gray, foggy hours of the morning, you gripped me tight against you and whimpered. I knew what was happening immediately. I remembered that night when I woke up to your screams, and I couldn't bear to hear you make those sounds again.

I pulled away from you, and you let me go easily, making a choking noise in your throat that made me want to cry.

"John."

I took your face in my hands, said your name again and again, but you kept your eyes squeezed shut and started to buck against me.

"No!" you shouted, and I wrapped myself around you as tight as I could.

"Wake up," I said into your ear. "John, wake up, please."

I held onto you as you shouted, held you as tight as I could until you jerked awake, a gasp on your lips and tears in your eyes. I could feel them run down the side of your face and then down mine, where my skin was pressed to yours.

"Lena?" you said, halfway a question.

"Are you okay?" I asked. I couldn't bring myself to let go of you. I wanted to hold you until all the demons disappeared. Would that ever happen?

You stroked my back, and then without a word, you pushed me away. I sat on my bed and watched as you put your feet on the ground, rubbed your eyes, and stood.

"I should go," you said, like it was perfectly normal.

"It's the middle of the night." It wasn't entirely true. I could see the sun starting to rise outside my sheer curtains but I'd hoped you would stay with me all day, hold me, make love to me, go to breakfast with me.

But you were already putting on your pants, looking for your shirt only to remember that I was wearing it.

"No, keep it," you said when I started to unbutton it, but you didn't have anything else so I unbuttoned it anyway. And when I slipped it down my shoulders, your eyes went straight to my bare chest. It was different now than it was last night, in the darkness. The morning light turned my skin almost luminous. Your eyes scanned my body and then you looked away from me, putting on the shirt I'd discarded.

"I'll call you," you said, and then you were gone, and I felt empty without you here, felt like I'd done something wrong.