Reaching forward, I click off the bedside lamp.

“Enough exploring for tonight.” I turn too quickly for Holly to react, wrapping my arms around her and gripping her wrists to her chest, so her adventurous hands can’t continue with their torture. Pressed together, I slide us into the position I want, us spooning with her back against my front.

“No fair. I was just getting started.” I can hear her smiling.

She squirms in my hold, pretending to get comfortable when, really, she’s just pushing her tight butt into my very lonely groin.

I groan and bite her neck, just a playful nip. She gasps in response.

“Holly.” Denied lust makes my warning sound more serious than I meant, but she just gives a big gust of a sigh in response.

“Okay. I’ll be good.”

I wait a moment and then release her hands. She keeps ahold of one, interlacing her fingers with mine, and plants a kiss in the center of my palm like earlier. It’s such a sweet thing to do, and my chest tightens with some intense feelings I’m not sure I’m ready to explore.

“Night, Ben.”

After brushing my lips over her shoulder, I whisper back, “Good night, Holly.”

Whenever I’ve spent the night with a girl, I’ve always found a way to separate myself from them after sex, wanting my own space. Maybe I can blame the chill of the night, but here, in this bed, the idea of releasing Holly seems so ridiculous that I actually chuckle to myself.

“What’re you laughing about?” Her whisper slurs with sleepiness, and I regret disturbing her.

“Nothing important. Go to sleep.” I breathe in deep, getting drowsy, surrounded by the smell of her honeysuckle shampoo.

“You go to sleep,” she mutters the command.

My lips curl at the edges, and for the first time in years, I fall asleep in Grandpa Ben’s cabin with a smile on my face.

HOLLY

The door looms tall before me.

I reach up, turn the knob, and push. The hinges squeak as it swings wide, revealing the dark room beyond. My feet move forward on their own.

I’m in Grams’s room. She should be asleep in the large bed I’m walking toward.

Someone is under the covers, but when I pull the sheet back, it’s not my grandmother.

It’s Ben.

He lies still, eyes closed, like he’s sleeping, but his chest doesn’t rise. I put my hand on his shoulder and find him ice-cold.

The darkness around me shifts and moves, closing in on us. Ben begins to sink into the bed, as if the mattress were quicksand. He’s disappearing from my sight, and he doesn’t respond when I scream his name.

There’s a pressure at my back, pushing me toward the sinkhole in the bed where Ben has vanished. Terror crashes over me in waves.

I turn away, searching for the door. It stands there, closed again.

With fear clawing its way down my spine, I run. The darkness slows my legs, pulling me back, but I push my way through. My fingers clasp the doorknob, wrenching with a mighty tug.