He’s had this big accident, pushed Rylee away earlier in the night, and yet he wakes up and here she still is. She’s scared and he’s scarred and yet she’s still fighting.

It was fun and challenging writing this chapter from a male perspective. I had the constant fear I was making him sound too soft, too hard (no pun intended here, ladies … I’m talking about emotion—emotion here—get your minds out of the gutter), too crass, or not crass enough. I think I nailed it (ha, couldn’t resist), hope you think so too.

… dragons live forever, but not so little boys …

The lyrics filter into my head, my own dragons—and not the playful, puffy kinds—are front and fucking center, but that’s not the problem. The problem is I’m not a little boy and yet I’m still living with this shit.

I slowly ease awake and can’t believe how nice it feels with her arms wrapped around me instead of that soul-jarring, mind-fucked moment when you wake up alone with only your demons lurking in the dark corners to keep you company.

I close my eyes for a second, accepting that she’s still here after everything I’ve put her through.

“My dad used to sing that to me when I had nightmares.”

Her body jolts at the sound of my voice as I put my arm around her and pull her closer, skin to skin. My own personal balm to coat the inked reminders on my torso that reflect the stains on my soul.

“I know,” she whispers, “and you were.”

I press a kiss to the top of her head and leave my mouth there, breathing her in. Trying to wash the dream from my mind. Needing to.

I think of how I’d much rather dream about the crash than him. How almost dying, going headfirst into a wall, is ten times easier to cope with than the smell of the musty mattress, the feel of his hands on me, the taste of anticipatory fear.

I need to talk, to scavenge some of the thoughts from within and release them so I can start to breathe again. I pick the one she knows the most about, the one that won’t make her look at me and think I’m weak for succumbing to its clutches.

“I was scared. I remember the vague sense of being scared those last few seconds in the car as I was flipping through the air.” I don’t know why that’s so hard to admit to her.

She runs her hand over my chest. “I was too.”

“I know,” I say evenly but hate myself for putting her in that position. Loathe that she fears anything because of me. I reach down, my hand sliding beneath the band of her panties to cup the curve of her ass and pull her up so she can look into my eyes. I hate rehashing shit, but I owe her this ten times over and then some. “I’m sorry you had to go through that again.”

Her eyes glisten with tears and now I hate that I’ve made her cry bringing it up, but when she leans forward and brushes her lips against mine, all thoughts are lost but one.

Take.

And hell if it’s the emotion of the day, needing to erase my dreams, or simply being so fucking relieved to be alive, but I do just that.

I squeeze her ass in my hands so her tits rub up against me, and every part of my body begs, craves, and is starved for more of her. I need to hear that sigh she makes, need her taste on my tongue, and I don’t hesitate. I slip my tongue between her lips and don’t even realize the groan is coming from me.

Thank fuck I survived the crash because I need this little slice of Heaven right now, and I sure as shit know this was going to be one of the first things I’d miss if I’d died and landed in Hell.

I bring my free hand to her face and slide my other one from her ass up her back and put them in my favorite place tangled in her curls so she has no other option but to open up to me. And when I pull her head back, I see just that in her eyes: vulnerability, need, and desire all balled into one dick hardening look.

Hell, I was hard before that, but shit, there’s no turning back now.

“Ry, I …” My mind fires, fleeting flashes of stolen thoughts but none stick against the wall. Things I want to say flicker and fade just as quick as they come, but the feeling within me remains burning bright. I clear my throat, trying to buy time for them to come out but nothing does so I say the only thing I can. “Thank you for staying.”

Fuck this. That’s not what I want to say. Man the fuck up, Donavan. You told her if you can’t say it, you’ll show her any way you can. So fucking show her.

“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be,” she says, snapping me from my conflicting thoughts. I meet her eyes, a man on a mission now. Wanting to take and needing to prove.

My hand pisses me the fuck off because I want to lift her up and onto me so I can keep my head still and not trigger another goddamn headache and ruin this, but it’s not working. And fuck do I need it to work more than ever right now. But Ry anticipates what I want, so she straddles my hips and looks down at me.

I take her all in, lips parted, nipples hard beneath her tank, and the fucking heat of her pussy on my very desperate cock. Desire ignites between us and within moments our lips are on one another’s, hands touching, bodies aching for so much more than this.