But somehow, saying it felt like giving something up. Something precious and fragile and private.

“Carrie,” she whispered. “Carrie Alyssa Collins. That’s what I’d name her.”

Shane shuddered hard, as if she’d punched him someplace vulnerable. “But it won’t happen,” he said. His voice sounded so raw now. “That’s what hurts. I don’t get the things I want. I never have. That’s why they showed it to me, because it’s not true.”

“You have to trust me. You have to believe in yourself. In me. In us.” She raised her head and looked at him, kissing-close, but their lips didn’t touch. Seeing him like this, broken open … it didn’t happen often, and it scared her. Shane was the strong one, the one with the quips and the ferocious delight in the fight. She’d thought she understood what had happened to him, that he’d been through nightmares, but this … this was terrifying.

The draug had taken away his reality, twisted it, made him afraid to believe in anything.

They’d taken away his hopes and dreams and made them something punishing.

And she hated them for that.

“You said it was perfect,” she said. He nodded. “I was perfect, too?” Another nod. “But I’m not. We’re not. Remember the first time we—remember how scared we were? How it all felt crazy and awkward and honest and real? That’s us. You. Me. Together.”

He was watching her now, and actually seeing her. The Shane she knew was in there, struggling. Fighting to get to her.

“Real life isn’t perfect,” she said. “Perfect is boring.” They’d taken away perfect, made it death and dreams and the draug. He had to understand that. He had to reject that.

“Watch my lips,” she said. “I love you. And you’re not perfect.”

He laughed. It still sounded raw, and painful, but more him, somehow. Then he kissed her, but this time it wasn’t a fast and furious kind of thing …. If anything, he seemed tentative in the way he touched her, as if she might vanish if he pushed too fast, too hard. She stretched out next to him and let the kisses carry them away into that thoughtless, warm, golden place where nothing else mattered, nothing beyond the need to touch and be touched.

He didn’t say it back to her, not yet, but she felt it with every kiss, every slow and gentle caress. He was holding himself back, and it was some sort of test, a goal he’d set himself. Mostly, she thought he just needed to … feel. To get real sensations in his head again.

To know the difference.

“You know what?” she said after a long, sweet few moments. “You seriously stink, Shane.”

This time, she got a real laugh from him, and the look in his eyes was utterly surprised, and totally in the moment with her. “You really know how to turn a guy on, Claire.”

“Not perfect, is it?”

His smile faded, and what was left in his face, his eyes, the tension in his body—it was very different. She knew that look. That hunger. “Not perfect at all,” he said. “Then help me out here. No showers. What am I supposed to do about this problem?”