Page 118 of Make Me Dream of You

I know when her breath starts to catch, the tempo of it. I know as her thighs tighten and she twists her hands in the pillowcase. She’s there.

She bears down on my cock and grits between her teeth, “No—oh, oh fuck.”

“There you go. Let go.”

She comes hard around me, shattering and crying out beneath me. Breaking beautifully.

It feels too damn good. She brings me to the brink too fucking fast. She makes me lose control and I hate it. And I love it. And I love her.

I love her.

“I love you,” I breathe, no power left in my lungs, plunging into her, looking into her eyes.

She doesn’t say anything. She’s still shaking, panting and coming down from her climax, glassy-eyed. After a moment she focuses back on me, the slightest curve to her lips.

I don’t think she heard me.

It’s for the better. It was dumb of me to say it while I’m inside her.

But I do. I love her.

She smiles and my heart lurches. I kiss her, hard. She wraps her arms around me, and I don’t care that she forgot about keeping them over her head. I need her. I need her around me and to bury myself so deep I can’t ever escape her.

My release comes, and she kisses me hard and doesn’t let go, even after my body is done wracking.

She holds me until I’m quiet while I bury my face into the crook of her neck. I kiss her there, taste her sweat, while she trails her fingertips up and down my back.

It’s here I am the most at peace, the most safe and loved I’ve ever felt.

It’s also where I am the most terrified. Scared shitless that it’s going to go away. That she’ll go away. That I’ll lose her.

I roll over and close my eyes. It’s with her that I can sleep. Finally.

But the dreams haven’t stopped.

Tonight, the water overtakes me. It surrounds me, closing in from every side. I can’t breathe and I am sucked down deeper. Cold, dark, alone. Helpless.

Cameron reaches for me in the darkness, calling my name, saying help, help me, Noah. But then it’s not him, it’s Livvy in the water. She’s blue and limp and sinking, farther and farther away until she disappears.

I try to get to her. I can’t reach her.

I call her name but water fills my lungs.

I’m alone. Drowning. Panicking. Desperately clawing to get back up to the surface.

I wake up in a cold sweat, heart racing, gasping for air.

Dreaming about water and drowning—not new.

Dreams about not being able to save Cameron—I don’t think they’ll ever stop.

But dreaming about losing Livvy—it’s a new torture that I don’t want. A torture I don’t know if I can endure, because every time I wake up and see her there, peaceful, the sinking feeling doesn’t leave. Knowing that this nightmare can still come true is like a slow wrenching of my insides.

Livvy is in the shower and I’m watching Wood sing “The Sign” by Ace of Base while making himself an omelet.

“So, what are you and Livvy doing on your day off, today?” he asks.

“She’s going to go look at apartments with Bex and Macy.”

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