Page 92 of Ex Somnis

“I…”

“I spent five years being dragged into nightmares by This Man because I wouldn’t stop trying to help Tessa. Night after night, I dreamed about killing the love of my life, only to wake up paralyzed.” His jaw tightens. “I lost my best friend because of it. I gave up relationships. I gave up sleep. I gave up any reasonable expectation of peace.” The hurt in his eyes sharpens. “And somehow you concluded that I did all of that because I was secretly waiting for Tessa to wake up, but I could replace her with the first blonde who moved into Vernonia because I was bored?”

“That’s not…”

“Because if that were my plan, Lennon, it was an exceptionally stupid one.”

I make a strangled noise.

His eyes close briefly, and when they open again, the hurt is still there.

“You think you’re convenient?”

“I—”

“You do.”

“Paul!”

He moves fast, both hands close around my thighs before he pulls me over his lap in one smooth motion, making me gasp. “I dreamed about you for five years. I painted my house the color of your eyes before I ever met you. I know, with every fiber of my being, that you’re the love of my life.”

My breath catches when his hand slides into my hair possessively, almost angrily. “And after everything, after all of that, after every single thing I have tried to show you…”

He lets his tongue glide over my bottom lip.

Fuck.

“You think I want Tessa?”

I open my mouth, but nothing comes out.

“Darling.” His forehead comes to rest against mine. “I spent five years dreaming about a pair of blue eyes. Not Tessa’s. Yours. Do you understand how absurd that is?”

I shake my head, and a sad smile touches his mouth when he pulls back.

“I wanted you, and only you. Even before I knew you existed.” He’s looking at me like I’m something inevitable, and he reached the end of a long journey and found exactly what he was looking for.

It should scare me, and maybe it does a little.

But mostly it feels familiar.

Maybe I’ve completely lost my mind.

He gives me his downward smile, then kisses me, and I kiss him back, but echoes of doubt and the suspicion that I’m going mad hold me back. He senses it, of course, and when he pulls away, I can only describe his expression as the face of a man who has been a great deal more patient than I deserve.

“With Tessa, I always noticed when something changed. A finger that moved. A breath. I was always watching for evidence that she was still in there.”

His thumb traces the base of my skull. “But with you, I forget to watch. I look because I can’t believe my fucking luck. I dreamed about losing you before I even got to meet you for five years, Lennon. I woke up every morning convinced that somewhere in the world there was a woman I was destined to kill.”

The car.

The headlights.

The rain.

Shit.

He said he should have killed me, didn’t he?