Page 55 of Hero's Prize

He’d thought she had been out for a while now. “It’s okay. You don’t need to stay awake.”

“Okay, but you know you’re going to have to talk about what’s going on with you with somebody. Like you said, I don’t actually know you very well, so it doesn’t need to be me. But…someone.”

“I had a panic attack earlier tonight. That’s how I showed up at your shop.”

“Are the attacks bad?”

“Sometimes. Tonight was bad mostly because the last few days had been so good. I thought I was turning some sort of a corner, maybe. I had actually gone to sleep, and this one woke me up.”

“The ones that wake you up are worse?”

“Yeah. The ones that come on during the day are frustrating as hell because I can’t seem to stop them, but at least they give some sort of warning—shaking hands, muffled hearing, tunnel vision. I can’t necessarily do anything about them, but they at least aren’t on me so suddenly.” He honestly hadn’t planned to talk about this, but now that he’d started, he found that he couldn’t stop. “But the ones at night are on top of me when I wake up and…”

He didn’t really have the words to explain it. It was like waking up underwater, drowning. Unable to breathe and with no way of knowing which way it was to the surface.

“When you wake up in that state, you’re trapped in it,” she said softly.

“Yes. Trapped like I’m underwater or…”Shit. “Or like I’m caught under that avalanche.”

And it was like that every single time—the panic, the inability to breathe…

“The helplessness,” he said. “That’s the worst thing about the panic attacks, and it was the worst thing about being in that avalanche. The helplessness. There doesn’t seem to be anything I can do to stop what’s happening, just like I couldn’t at the time either.”

“You know that developing PTSD is natural for someone whowent through what you did. If it were anybody else, you would have nothing but sympathy and patience for them.”

He stared up at the ceiling. “Yeah, probably. But I’m frustrated because it’s not like I’m scared. I was telling the truth when I said earlier that I’m still able to do stunts, even ones involving snow. I am.”

“And so, because you faced your physical fears, you expect that everything should be okay and that your brain should treat this as if nothing happened.”

“No. Not necessarily.” But the more he thought about it, the more he knew she was right. “I don’t know. Maybe. All I know is that there were a shit-ton of people watching me those first couple weeks after the accident. Everyone was wondering if I was going to get back up on the horse. They all wanted to know if I could still do stunts or if I was going to retire.”

And he would never forget the look of relief on face after face as he completed each stunt. The knowledge that Colton Harrison was back, that jobs were secure, that the adventure would live on.

“Did you want to retire?”

“I didn’t want to let that avalanche beat me.”

“And you haven’t.”

“It doesn’t feel that way sometimes. It feels like I’m no longer in control of my body.”

“Some of that may pass with time.”

He rolled over and scooted her under him. She’s said some things he needed to think about, but for right now, he just wanted tofeel. And since they were both awake anyway…

“I’d rather it pass by me spending time with—andin—you.”

She smiled up at him. “That works too.”

Ella woke up just before her alarm went off, a fairly common practice even when she was burning the candle at both ends.

What wasn’t fairly common practice? Colton Harrison sleeping in the bed next to her.

She switched off her alarm and then shifted onto her side so she could look at him. She didn’t want to wake him up; he needed the rest, especially after all the energy they’d expended last night. But also, she needed to get over to Fancy Pants to make sure everything was ready there.

She wished she could take the whole day off and just stay in bed with him, but that couldn’t happen today. Too many private orders, plus the shop itself was always packed on mornings as the week went on.

But a smile crept up over her face. She was lying in bed with Colton after having the most wonderful night of lovemaking. She could definitely say now that she’d misread the situation last time. He’d gone out of his way to prove that she was not any sort of pity fuck.

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