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She tried to remember what had happened last night, but—while attempting to remember sent feelings of breathless panic, desperate fear, and pulsating anxiety threading through her veins—the memory remained elusive.
She didn’t try too hard though, the negative feelings convincing her not to prod too much right now. It would come back soon enough.
“Are you okay?” Trystan asked into her hair… and did he just drop a kiss onto her head? “How do you feel?”
Iris didn’t think they’d had sex. She was certain she’d remember that. And her body would definitely know. But what other explanation could there be for this level of intimacy?
“I’m not sure,” she admitted. “Why am I here? And why are we in bed together?”
He laughed quietly, but the sound was almost despairing.
“I like how you always get straight to the point.”
He did? That was news to her. She’d always thought her bluntness annoyed him.
“What do you remember about last night?” he asked, somber now, all trace of laughter gone from his voice.
Iris searched her memory. They’d watched movies all afternoon, talked, joked, laughed and then he’d—he’d…
Her breathing came faster as remembered fear and panic flooded her brain. She began trembling, teeth chattering with the intense vibrations of her shaking.
“You locked me in again,” she said in a small, broken voice that would have embarrassed her if she hadn’t been so very distraught at the memory that brought her fear surging back as if she were locked in right now.
She was aware of him talking, his hold on her tighter, his voice urgent, but soothing.
“—open. Do you hear me, Iris? The door is unlocked. And open. You’re fine, you’re okay. You can leave anytime you want to.”
“W-what?”
“Look,” he instructed her, pointing toward the door, which looked wrong. It was crookedly hanging off the hinges. “It’s open. It’s unlocked. You’re fine.”
“It’s broken,” she pointed out nonsensically, and he chuckled, a rusty, relieved sound.
“Yeah, I had to get in here in a hurry and my hands weren’t free.”
“You kicked the door in,” she remembered. It was all a bit vague, but she did remember that. “You could have hurt yourself. Broken your foot, or sprained your ankle, or something. That was really reckless.”
“You scolding me right now, Hughes?” he asked, no heat in his voice at all.
“You should be more careful. Why did you do that?”
“At the time I was a little preoccupied with trying to get you warm.”
“Oh God,” she whispered in horror and humiliation as the events of last night finally came flooding back. “Oh my God, Trystan. I’m so sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“You weren’t thinking, sweet,” he said, his voice achingly gentle, no reprimand in those words. His chest heaved as he sighed again, and he turned her around with tender hands until she was facing him, her breasts brushing again his hard chest. His erection prodding against her thigh.
But he was ignoring that and so would she. Despite her screaming awareness of the impudent damned thing.
“I put us both in so much danger,” she moaned, covering her face with her hands. “All three of us. Luna was there too, wasn’t she?”
“She’s the one who found you.”
Iris sobbed, the sound despairing and broken. Another one followed.
“No, Iris, sweetheart, please don’t cry.”
But she couldn’t help it. The floodgates opened and she wept. Days of ever-increasing fear, followed by the illogical terror that had shut down the rational parts of her brain until all that was left was an overpowering need to escape, to flee…
