“Me, too. It was a lot of work, but everyone seemed to have a good time.”
He studied her face. Although she had channeled her energies into hosting the party, he’d had the nagging sense that she was distracted by something. A couple of times during the event, he’d noticed her off to herself, not speaking to anyone, her gaze clouded, as if she were deeply immersed in thought.
Now, however, her eyes only looked tired.
“Are you feeling okay?” he asked.
She nodded.
“Just wrung out.”
“Too bad tomorrow’s Monday. I’d love to sleep in.”
“Oh, you’re funny. You can sleep in, Mr. I Work from Home. I have to get up at the ass crack of dawn and open a salon.”
“I meant I’d love to sleep in together.” He touched her leg.
“Oh?” Mischief sparkled in her eyes.
“I’d like one of those long, lazy mornings. Hugging, cuddling.”
“Hugging, cuddling, and other bedroom activities.”
“Something like that.”
“I can tell Tanisha I’ll be in late and have someone cover my appointments.” She set Coco on the floor. Then she placed her hand on his groin, and slowly began to massage.
“But why wait until tomorrow morning to get started?” she asked.
“You’re not too tired?”
“Are you?” She squeezed him.
He groaned.
“Let’s go upstairs.”
“Let’s not.”
She began to pull her sweater over her head.
Although he thought he had a healthy sex drive, she was often insatiable. He knew she had been with men before him—though he didn’t know how many and didn’t care to ask—but he often got the sense that with him, she felt free to express herself in ways that she never had before. As if with him, she was free for the first time in her life.
Weird, but that was the impression he had.
At some point, they made their way upstairs to the master bedroom. Exhausted, they fell asleep, lying against each other like spoons in a drawer.
Later that night, he awoke to Rachel screaming.
2
“No…no!”
Snatched to alertness by her cries, Joshua bolted upright in bed. He’d never heard Rachel scream like that, and he was half-convinced that he was dreaming. He quickly realized that he wasn’t—his heart was knocking too hard.
He grabbed his glasses from the nightstand, fumbled them on.
The dark bedroom came into sharp focus. They were alone. Rachel was having a bad dream.
Bed covers pulled up to her chin, face concealed in darkness, Rachel whipped her head back and forth, bed springs creaking as she screeched at her dream assailant.
“No, please…”
He’d never seen Rachel suffer a nightmare; she normally slept as soundly as the dead. But she was in such a state of turmoil that he was afraid to touch her, worried that any physical contact might drive her into an uncontrollable frenzy.
Maybe he was dreaming.
Rachel shrieked again. “You bastard!”
He flinched at the fury in her voice. Who was she fighting? She rarely swore like that, and he’d never heard her address anyone with such rage and terror.
But it had to be a man. A woman would call only a man a bastard.
Although part of him wanted to wake her and put an end to her torment, another part of him was curious, and out of that curiosity, didn’t want to intervene. He wanted to wait and see if she would say something else that would clue him in on her relationship with this guy who, whoever he was, frightened her terribly.
She’d never mentioned a prior relationship with an abusive man. Actually, she never said much at all about her previous relationships. “What’s in the past is over and done with,” she would say with a shrug. “All that matters is that today, we’re together.” And with that, she would change the subject.
He never pushed her for more details. Was the past really that important? He hated talking about old flames, too, because it was embarrassing to remember how women had used to treat him like a human doormat.
Rachel flung away the covers. She flailed her arms and kicked, as though trying to keep someone from climbing on top of her.
“Get off me, damn it!”
Beside the bed, Coco let loose a high-pitched bark. At night, the dog slumbered in a pet kennel atop the nightstand on Rachel’s side of the bed. Like most Chihuahuas, Coco was protective of the person she regarded as her master. She scratched at the bars of her cage, big eyes flashing in the darkness, four pounds of righteous fury.
The little dog shamed him into action. He clicked on the bedside lamp.
Rachel’s face was contorted with her efforts to fight off her attacker, her dark, curly hair disheveled, hands clenched as she shoved at an invisible body.
He touched her shoulder. Her skin was clammy, but she didn’t respond to him.
“Rachel, wake up.” He shook her gently. “It’s only a dream.”
But she was oblivious to him. She gagged, as if being choked, and her hands went to her neck, trying to pry away an imaginary stranglehold.
A cold finger tapped his spine. This had gone far enough.
Choking, Rachel kicked wildly, hands grasping at her neck. A thick vein pulsed in stark relief on her throat.
Coco was barking as if she were one of the hounds of hell.
He grabbed Rachel’s wrists and pulled them away from her neck. It wasn’t easy—she had the desperate strength of someone fighting for her life.
“Rachel, wake up.”
“Get off!” Spittle sprayed his face. She thrashed like an angry snake.
He pressed her hands down to her sides. He braced his knee across her legs, to keep her from kicking him.
“Rachel, listen to me! It’s only a dream. Wake up!”
She turned to his voice, and finally, her eyes opened.
She had the most beautiful eyes he had ever seen, a light shade of brown flecked with gold that reminded him of autumn days, but at that moment, her eyes glistened with fear and confusion.
“It’s me, Josh. Everything’s okay. You were having a bad dream.”
She blinked, comprehension sinking into her face. She stopped her struggle, and sucked in sharp breaths. Perspiration shone on her brow.
“Only a bad dream,” he said.
“A dream?” Her voice, normally musical and confident, was as soft as a frightened child’s.
“Only a dream.”
A sob burst out of her. She came into his arms. “Hold me.”
He held her and whispered words of comfort. She squeezed against him, fingernails dug into his back.
Soon, her sobs subsided. Her breaths grew deeper, and within a few minutes, she had drifted back to sleep. Coco, too, settled down to slumber again.
He laid Rachel on the bed, pulled the covers up