Then he released it and I felt his lips brush the top of my hair.

“Good to know,” he muttered there.

I smiled at his shadowed skin again before I took a deep breath and, in my man’s arms, after a day of fun and relaxation, a night of good food and then great f**king, I slipped straight into sleep.

* * * * *

Daddy showed him the picture. Me, wearing heels, a dress Creed had never seen, my hair done up in a way I never did it, looking older, like the days he’d spent there were years. I had Dixon’s arm around my waist, my hand lay on his chest and my head was resting on his shoulder.

“I told you,” Daddy whispered, his voice ugly in his glee. “Right from your arms to Jason’s. Right to Jason.”

Creed tried to focus through the hunger, the pain, the discomfort, the smell. He couldn’t see my face. He could barely see my profile.

But he knew I’d never go to Dixon.

Never.

Daddy went on, “He’ll make her happy. I promise you. I promise you, Tucker. He’ll make her happy. I’ll see to it. She’ll be happy in a way you never could make her be.”

Creed closed his eyes.

Daddy lost patience, his fingers shoving in Creed’s hair, yanking his head back and the pain spiked along the slice in his scalp. “Look at it!”

He opened his eyes and there I was.

His Sylvie.

Even in another man’s arms, he drank me in.

“That’s where she’s meant to be,” Daddy told him.

Creed knew Daddy was wrong.

That wasn’t where I was meant to be.

Because we were meant to be.

“He’ll make her happy,” Daddy continued. “I promise you that. You promise to vanish from her life, I promise, I vow, Sylvie will be happy.”

Creed’s eyes moved from the photo to Daddy and he whispered, his voice hoarse and weak, “He’ll never make her happy.”

Daddy yanked again on his hair, arching his neck pack, more pain, this excruciating, tearing through his entire scalp, down his neck and spine.

But Creed didn’t even groan.

All he said was, “Never.”

* * * * *

I shot up to sitting, the dream still having a hold on me but I didn’t get the chance to dart out of bed and do anything crazy.

This was because Creed had me on my back with him on me, his hands moving soothingly over my skin and his lips whispering, “Just a dream. Just a dream, baby.”

I wrapped my arms around him and held on tight through the shakes that trembled through me.

He rolled us to our sides and silently held me through the shakes, one hand drifting up and down my back, one hand sifting through my hair until the shakes left me.

Only then did he speak.

“This shit has got to stop.”

I tipped my head back and whispered, “I’ll get through it, Creed.”

I saw his darkened chin dip down and he replied, “Yeah. You will. By talkin’ to somebody. I don’t care who it is as long as it’s a professional.”

I felt my body get tight. “I’m not gonna go see somebody.”

“Yeah you are.”

I pulled up so we were face to face. “I’ll be fine,” I told him. “I’ll get through it.”

He disagreed. “Not on your own, you won’t.”

“Creed, it’s just bad dreams.”

“Sylvie, you got the beginnings of PTSD.”

It was then I felt my body go still.

Then I returned firmly, “I do not. It’s not a big deal. It’s just dreams.”

“It’s not just dreams, baby.”

“It is. That shit didn’t happen to me,” I reminded him. “It happened to you.”

“You’re right. The shit you’re dreamin’ about, it happened to me. What that shit led to, what’s buried and what’s f**kin’ with your head even if it isn’t comin’ out, is what happened to you after that happened to me. You’re dealin’ with a new load of f**ked up shit on top of the old load you haven’t sorted through and your head is focusing on what you didn’t experience in order to avoid what you did.”

Oh God, now he was making sense.

“That’s whacked,” I scoffed to cover the fact he was freaking me out and Creed rolled into me and on me.

“It f**kin’ isn’t,” he growled. “Trust me that shit happened to me so I f**kin’ know. Years after that, Sylvie, years, that shit did a number on me. You think I didn’t have nightmares? You think I didn’t wake up in a cold sweat time and time a-fuckin’-gain? You think, to this day, I don’t always carry water with me in my f**kin’ car? I hear the sound of chains, my gut gets tight. To. This. Day. You were sold to an animal, an owned human being forced to do what he wanted you to do in ways no woman should have to perform and ended up killin’ him with a knife. You don’t do that shit and move to Denver and everything is cool. You process it. If you’re smart, you find the tools to deal with it because it’s always f**kin’ there. You just gotta learn to control it before it controls you.”

I hated that he went through that, all of it but also this new nuance he shared with me.

And I hated it when he made sense.

But I wasn’t ready to give in. “I can’t talk about this now. I need sleep then I need to get back to the hotel.”

“Yeah, you need to do both of those things but you can do them after you agree to see somebody.”

“Creed –”

”Sylvie.”

I fell silent.

He did, too.

We stared at each other in the dark.

God! I wished I was more patient.

“Fine,” I snapped.

I felt his body relax which sucked because I hadn’t noticed how tense he was. His tenseness communicated eloquently that my dreams were bothering him, maybe even more than they bothered me and that didn’t suck. That sucked huge.

“Good,” he muttered.

Whatever.

“Will you get off me so I can sleep?” I requested.

“Sure,” he agreed, his voice lighter, the smooth back in it. He tipped his head and touched his mouth to mine before he moved off me.

I was tucked close before I made my effort to save face after giving in.

“You know, you’re a pain in the ass.”

“Yeah, I know,” he informed me. “My kids tell me that shit all the time, though they use different words. And they say it when I make decisions based on the fact that I love them and I want them to live the best life they can even if that row is hard to hoe. Don’t give a shit when they gripe. Won’t give a shit when you do either.”