It took a long time for her to warm up enough to fall asleep. She drifted, listening to his warm voice, until finally she slept.
She didn’t know what time it was when the nightmare woke her up; it was dark. She thrashed, still caught in the haze of the dream, and hit the floor hard. Her heart pounded, and she wished she could scream.
Derek made sure she was asleep before he headed to bed. It had been a long day and he planned to pass out the moment his head hit the pillows on his bed. He hadn’t been asleep long when he heard the thump on the floor, the beating of her heart flooding his ears. “What’s wrong?” he asked, slight panic in his voice. “What is it?”
In the thick of her fear, the first angry thought was, ‘how the hell am I supposed to answer you?!’ She fought the blanket off, pushing herself up against the couch. Wrapping her arms around her knees, she shivered, eyes wide in the dark. In a strange place, in the dark, afraid, she couldn’t move, couldn’t go to his voice.