Until You (The Redemption, #1)(62)

“What are you doing to me, Tennyson?” he whispers as we sway to the music.

I don’t know, but I don’t want it to end.





CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE


Tennyson




Something wakes me.

I don’t know what it is, but the hair stands up on the back of my neck as I slowly sit up in bed. Shadows from the branches outside dance across my walls and only add to that twisting in my gut.

Was it a dream? A nightmare? Or is there something more there?

Fear. Welcome back, old friend.

A strangled cry pierces through the silence. I’m up and off my bed in seconds.

Crew.

The girls.

Kaleo doesn’t care about collateral damage when he has an endgame in mind.

He’s found me.

I’ve brought this on them.

I fling open my door to hear another shout. Another choked cry of agony.

Crew.

It’s coming from Crew’s room.

I fling open the door, expecting to see the worst—Crew hurt and bleeding like the men on the yacht—only to find him wrestling with unknown demons in his sleep.

“Crew.” I say his name. One time. Two times. A shove to his shoulders. His name again. “Wake up. It’s just a nightmare.”

He fights against me, but I know the minute awareness hits him because his body jolts and a slew of profanity falls from his lips. He shoves up out of his bed almost as if he has to move so his mind registers that the nightmare is over and that he’s in his bedroom.

I watch him as he paces, his hair a mess, his body misted in sweat, his face pale as pale can be. He walks past the bedroom door, and for the first time, I notice Addy and Paige peeking their head in the doorway.

“Girls,” I say softly as I move toward the door. “It was just a bad dream. He’s okay.”

“I’m okay,” Crew says weakly behind me, but I’ve already ushered the girls out of the room.

My hands are on both of their shoulders as I steer them down the hallway towards their rooms. “He’s okay,” I reiterate, trying to think how scared they must be seeing and hearing the man they think as invincible, struggling. “It was just a nightmare.”

“About that night?” Addy asks softly as she rubs her eyes.

I hope he’s okay.

“Probably.” My smile is fake, but I try to sell it. “But now he knows it wasn’t real.” I press a kiss to each of their heads, their concerned eyes breaking my heart. “Do you guys want me to tuck you back into bed?”

Nods are their answers, but instead of each sleeping in their own beds, they opt to climb into Paige’s bed together. I press kisses to their foreheads and leave the hall light on per their request before making my way back to Crew.

He’s standing at the bathroom sink, splashing water on his face, before bracing one hand on the counter as he wipes the water away with the other. He turns to look at me with bloodshot eyes and a still pale complexion.

I sit down on his bed, my back against the pillows and headboard, and wait patiently for him to take whatever time he needs. Seconds stretch to a few minutes before he walks back into the room and stands at the foot of the bed. His eyes search mine, but there is still a hollowness to them that I’d do anything to erase.

“It was about that night.” He runs a hand over the scar on his abdomen. “This night.”

“What about it, if you want to tell me?”

He starts to run a hand through his hair, hesitates for a second, as if making up his mind.

“You can trust me, you know.” I murmur something similar to his own words back to him.

“A man doesn’t like to admit he’s weak, Tennyson.” He smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “We’re vain like that.”

“Almost dying isn’t weak. Surviving seems quite the opposite actually.”

“Aren’t we the glass half full kind of girl.”

“We are.” I pat the spot on the bed beside me.

He stares at my hand, then at me, before crawling up the bed. He grabs a pillow, places it on my lap, and rests his head there. My hands go to his head automatically, my fingers threading through his hair as he loses himself to his thought.

He’s trusting me. He just let me see the vulnerable side of him, and he’s still choosing to trust me.

How can he think that’s weak? Opening up to someone after they’ve seen you at your lowest is the definition of strength in my book.

“Justin, my best friend and partner of eight years, and I went on a call. It was an apartment complex like a million others we’d been to. We were checking out a complaint that one of their neighbors had tried to lure their ten-year-old daughter into his apartment.” He blows out a long, steadying breath. “The guy opened the door and invited us in like he had nothing to hide. After a few minutes of us asking questions, a baby cried in one of the bedrooms.”

I lean over and press a kiss to his temple. A little show of support as he opens up to me.

“He went to check on his baby? The baby? Hell if we knew at the time. But he was taking too fucking long, and we started to realize there wasn’t a single baby thing in the place. No baby monitor. No bottles near the sink. No toys or blankets. Nothing.”

“Oh God,” I murmur, imagining how he might have felt when the realization hit.