“I’m sorry, Nick. I guess I didn’t wake up quickly enough that time,” she said.

“This has happened before?” he questioned. Her cheeks flushed even more.

“How would I know? I am asleep when it happens,” she told him, tugging against his hold.

He finally released her arms, but he didn’t move from where he sat on her thighs. The feeling of being trapped was beginning to make her panic again. She had to get away from him, and quickly. She didn’t want to tell him anything.

“Quit struggling,” he snapped and she stopped moving. “You are constantly trying to run as soon as there is light in the sky. This time you’re going to talk to me.”

His commanding voice made her automatically want to obey him, and that instinct infuriated her. She was no longer that helpless child, and she wouldn’t ever be controlled like that again. Ironically, there was a part of her brain that mocked her because she was only with Nick because her father had placed her there.

She was still obeying, and she hated herself a bit for it. The difference between her father and Nick was that she trusted Nick. That was a humbling and terrifying thought. If she trusted him, then he had the power to hurt her. She couldn’t afford to be injured any more than she already had been.

Their wrestling match had shifted the blankets, and now that Chloe was calming down she realized they were both naked. Her eyes drifted down his chest to his torso before she blushed and looked back up. She reached for the blankets in a tangle next to them and tried covering herself.

At this, Nick glared at her and yanked the blankets from her hands. Naked once more, he traced the curves of her body and then looked back up to hold her gaze in a defiant way.

“There’s nothing showing I haven’t already seen many times,” he pointed out. She glared back at him.

They’d been on the couch earlier that night. She remembered falling asleep after another incredible sexual experience. He’d bent her over the couch and been so deep inside her she hadn’t known where he ended and she began. Her cheeks flushed as she thought about it.

“How did we get up here?” she questioned. She tried to take her mind off the sex that she couldn’t seem to stop having with him.

“We both passed out after our workout,” he said with a smile. “When I woke up, you were shivering, so I carried you to my room.”

“You could have injured your leg doing that,” she chastised him. He raised his brow.

“You’re the one who said I’m so much better that I really don’t even need therapy anymore, so what are you worried about?”

“Just because you don’t need me babysitting you daily doesn’t mean you should act foolish and cause yourself to backtrack on your progress,” she told him.

“Are you worried about me, Chloe?” he asked cockily.

“No!” she snapped. “Now let me up right now.”

“Even if you say it in that forceful tone, it doesn’t make me want to change my mind,” he said with a chuckle. She wanted to smack him. He was making her far more violent than she ever had been in the past.

“Quit acting like an ass and let me go,” she said, her tone calming.

“So you can run away?” he questioned.

He was right. She blushed again. They were getting nowhere with this conversation.

“Look, we’ve been sleeping together for the past few nights, but that doesn’t change the fact that this is completely inappropriate,” she told him.

“Maybe I want to be inappropriate,” he told her.

“My feelings matter, Nick!” she snapped.

“Of course they do, but I don’t think you have any idea what you want. You keep going hot and cold, dammit. Now tell me about your dream.”

“We’re back to that again?” she huffed.

“We never were off it. You just thought you could distract me, and I’d forget about it. I have the war wounds to prove it happened,” he said.

“You’re sitting on my bladder and I have to use the bathroom,” she told him, embarrassed. She was horrified saying it. He chuckled, but finally released her as he turned over. She threw the blanket across him as she jumped from the bed, fleeing the room, but not before turning back to glare at him. The look of satisfaction in his eyes as they traced her naked body was unmistakable.

“I’ll be waiting when you’re done,” he called out after her.

Chloe shut the bathroom door with satisfying force before she sagged against it and took in several deep breaths, trying to get her bearings. She was entirely unnerved. The nightmare had wrecked her. The conversation after had made it even worse.

The shaking in her body returned as her mind flashed through the images of only one scene of her father’s abuse. Living with the man had been a nightmare, and it seemed she couldn’t even get away from it in her dreams. Maybe it had been the stress she was under that had brought it all up again. She didn’t know. All she knew for sure was that she wanted to get away, go somewhere, and curl up into a ball for a while.

Whenever she’d been young and frightened, she’d rolled her blankets tightly around her and rocked back and forth. She’d had her brother, but he’d been on the receiving end of their father’s fists more often than she had been. She often wondered if Patrick blamed her for that. She’d always been too afraid to ask him, and now she’d never be able to.

Taking her time in the bathroom, she climbed into the shower and let the hot water relax her tense muscles. She didn’t want to leave the safety of the closed room. She had no doubt Nick would be right outside waiting with more questions. What was she going to say to him?