“There’s more?”

I knew he’d been holding back in the hospital.

Kane smirked, looking ravishingly sexy with the glow of his room shading his features in the pale bathroom light. A delightful shiver coursed through me at the sight of him.

I took him in, the tired slope of his shoulders and the circles under his eye. I avoided the white patch of bandage around his bicep and blew out a breath.

Kane was home. Healthy. Alive.

That was all that mattered.

I woke to a start and flung myself to sitting. Heart racing, I settled my palm at my chest and blinked to clear my mind, the dream—nightmare—from my mind. The room was dark, and it took me a second to recognize Kane’s bedroom. A pale glow from outside peeked through the curtains, and other than a dim light coming from the hallway beneath his door, the only sound in the house was the quiet sounds Kane made while he slept. He was on his back, injured arm draped over his stomach like he was protecting it, and fear laced through me.

Lincoln had done that. Hurt him. So much worse than he’d hurt me.

I shook my head and tried to erase the nightmare that had woken me up. Monsters and gnashing of teeth and blood and then a body was slumped in front of me, ripped open and….

“Shit.” My heart was still racing, and I couldn’t get the images out of my head. Blood and gore and bombs going off and devastation. A rocket scientist wasn’t necessary to decode the dream, but my entire body was still trembling as I tried to breathe in slowly, and exhale to calm myself back down.

“Hey. You okay?” Kane’s warm hand settled at my lower back and rubbed in a large circle. “Lay with me, Em. It’s all right.”

“I can’t. If I close my eyes, I’ll see it.”

He pushed himself to sitting and slid his hand from my back to my side, bringing me to him until I was straddling his lap.

“Your arm.”

“It’s fine.” He peppered me with slow, gentle kisses along my jaw, to my cheek, down the column of my throat. “I knew you wouldn’t sleep well tonight. Talk to me.”

“I don’t want to talk.”

I draped my hands over his shoulder and pressed my body against him. Kane’s flesh was warm, but it was his strength and gentleness that was my security blanket. I melted into him, and matched my breathing to the rhythmic, slow beat of his, until images from my nightmare didn’t appear. I blinked. “I’m sorry for waking you.”

“Stop apologizing. I have a week to sleep.”

He whispered the words against my jaw, and the heat of his breath sent a shiver of warmth to the tips of my fingers. My toes curled, and on instinct, my hips rolled against him.

“Fuck,” he groaned. “Again.”

His hands drifted down my lower back until each of his palms cupped my ass. He pressed me against him and his length hardened beneath me. Both of us moaned softly and then his mouth found mine. He slipped his tongue inside, continued working my body against his own, and soon we were panting, breathless. A needy pulse thrummed in my core, and I leaned back enough to tear off the T-shirt he’d given me to sleep in.