SWNOVELS Chapter 55
I run as fast as I can, yet the warehouse never gets closer, forcing me to watch as the flames and thick, dark smoke spread. “Please,” I whisper, wishing I could escape from this lucid recurring nightmare. I try to get closer with all my might, Sierra’s screams ringing through the air as I shout her name desperately, over and over again.
The sky darkens with smoke, and slowly but surely, I begin to get a little closer, only for the ceiling to collapse the moment I make it into the warehouse, thick metal shards piercing my legs and arms. I don’t let it stop me and leave a trail of blood behind me as I forge ahead, toward my wife, who is still desperately screaming for help, for me.
“Sierra,” I call out, struggling to find her through the rubble and thick smoke, my lungs burning and my vision swimming.
“Xavier!” she shouts, and I can just about make out her red dress. When I reach her, she’s still bound to a chair that’s buried almost entirely in rubble, and she looks at me with pure hatred in her eyes. “You’re too late,” she says, blood running down her forehead. “How could you do this to me, Xavier?”
“I’m sorry,” I tell her, desperately trying to remove the pieces of rubble covering her, only for more to fall. “I’m going to save you, Sierra. Just hold on for me, okay, Kitten?”
It’s a hopeless task, and all the while, she stares at me without a single ounce of love in her cold eyes, resignation written all of her face. “You let them take me,” she says, her voice filled with blame. “This is all your fault, Xavier. You’re the reason I’m dying, and I will never forgive you for stealing the life I should’ve had.”
“You’re not dying,” I tell her, my words a desperate plea. “You’re fine, baby. You’re going to be fine.”
“You should’ve protected me,” she says as I’ve just about managed to remove enough rubble to carry her out, chair and all, only for a new batch to fall. “I trusted you, Xavier.”
“I’m sorry,” I repeat, over and over again. Sierra smiles humorlessly and looks me in the eye as a metal shard drops from the ceiling and pierces her heart, and I scream, my own heart breaking. She coughs up blood as the life drains out of her while I desperately shout her name, cutting my hands on the sharp metal in an attempt to take it out, to undo what happened. “You did this to me,” she says, coughing up more blood. “This is on you.”
“Xavier! Wake up!”
I gasp and sit up in bed, on the verge of a panic attack, until I see my wife kneeling next to me, wearing one of my black t-shirts instead of the red dress she was wearing in my dream. “You’re alive,” I whisper, reaching for her.
She instantly moves closer and straddles me. “I’m very much alive and well,” she says, cupping my face. “Look at me, Xavier.” I do as I’m told, unable to regulate my breathing, my nightmare still holding me in its clutches. “I’m alive, I’m unharmed, and I’m here with you.”
I nod and run my hands over her body, needing to determine for myself that she’s really here with me, and she isn’t bleeding. “You’re okay,” I say, my voice breaking.
She nods, her forehead dropping to mine. “I’m more than okay,” she repeats, her own breathing shallow. “Are you okay?”
“I don’t know,” I admit, scooting back to lean against our headboard. She moves with me, and I bury a hand in her hair, holding onto her tightly. “It felt so fucking real, baby. I watched you die.” I’ve had different variations of the same nightmare for over a week now, but most nights I don’t wake her up, my screams rarely leaving my dream world. Tonight was a particularly bad one, and I’m still struggling to distinguish what’s real and what isn’t. My memories of that day are becoming distorted, parts of it now replaced by the things that keep happening in my nightmares, and it’s fucking with me more than I care to admit.
“I’m right here,” Sierra says, pulling back a little to look at me. “You saved me, Xavier.”
I slide my hands under the t-shirt she’s wearing and grab her waist, the feel of her soft, warm skin reassuring. There are no scars on her, no blood, just endless concern she shouldn’t have to deal with. “I love you,” I whisper, the words leaving my lips like a compulsion, my need to say it unmanageable.
Sierra wraps her hand around the back of my neck, her eyes on mine. “I love you more,” she says, before leaning in and brushing her lips against mine.
My breath hitches, my eyes falling closed as I ball my fist in her hair and kiss her, needing her with a new kind of desperation. It’s never felt this way. I’ve never felt so desperate to feel alive. Sierra groans when I part her lips, my tongue caressing hers slowly, seductively, until she begins to move her hips, her hands running down my bare chest. “Xavier,” she breathes, pushing her hand into my hair as she tilts my neck and grazes my skin with her teeth.
I moan and let my head fall back against the headboard, my broken ribs protesting against my movements painfully. My wife sucks down on my skin, marking me, and my cock begins to throb. “I need you,” I admit, feeling oddly vulnerable in a way I never have before.
“You have me,” she says, reaching between us to free my cock. “You will always have me, Xavier. Forever and always.”
I groan when she roughly pushes her panties aside, not even bothering to take them off as she lines me up, her hips rocking back and forth gently, until the tip slips in. Her head falls back when I reach for her and begin to circle her clit, needing to touch her as much as I need to see her. She lowers her hips slowly, taking me inch by inch, until she drops her weight fully, and I bottom out inside her, a needy moan escaping my throat.
Sierra’s eyes never leave mine as she begins to ride me, one of her hands in my hair, the other on my chest, almost like she needs to feel my heartbeat. “I love you,” she says, and I lean in to kiss her, losing myself in her.
“I love you too,” I whisper against her lips as I reach for her hips and lift her nearly all the way off me, before lowering her hard, fast, taking control. She moans fucking beautifully, and I smile for the first time in days, before I do it all over again.