Page 47 of Inexplicable

Her eyes were clear and bright, nothing like the unfocused gaze I’d seen during the night.

“Why are we in bed together like this?” she asked in a cautious voice. “Did I forget something important?”

I smirked at her and answered, “Sweetheart, if something had happened in this bed, I guarantee it would be memorable. You didn’t tell me that you’re a sleepwalker. If you had, I would have taken precautions.”

My morning wood wasn’t subsiding, and it was damn uncomfortable. Having Jenna’s beautiful body pressed against mine was torture, but now definitely wasn’t the time to think with my cock.

Her eyes widened as she groaned. “Crap! Did I actually sleepwalk into your bedroom?”

I didn’t tell her that I was always going to be happy to have her as a late-night visitor. “Yep.”

“Shit!” she said unhappily. “That hasn’t happened to me since I was a teenager. I didn’t tell you about it because it hasn’t happened to me in years. I thought I outgrew it.”

“Maybe you’ve done it and didn’t know?” I suggested.

She shook her head. “I’d know. I never ended up back in my bed when I used to sleepwalk. I’d go from one place to another. The floor. A chair. The sofa. My foster mother used to punish me when she’d find me in strange places in the morning.”

A muscle in my jaw twitched, and I really wanted to hurt her foster parents even though they were already dead.

They’d caused that stress in Jenna and then hurt her even more because she sleepwalked?

I was glad those two weren’t breathing anymore.

I stroked my hand over her hair. “Seth started to sleepwalk after a really bad mission. The operation that left him scarred. He hadn’t had an episode since childhood, either. The trauma caused it. I think stress might have caused your episode, too. Do you want to talk about it? It might help.”

“No,” she answered in what sounded like an instinctive reaction, and I was deflated because she wasn’t going to talk to me. She was quiet for a minute before she added, “I’m sorry. You’re right. I’ve been having some irrational fears about Rico coming after me. I know it’s crazy. He’s back in South America. My escape was probably nothing but an inconvenience to him, but I’m really jumpy. I see shadows that aren’t really there. I feel safer when I’m here with you. I thought that anxiety was a normal reaction that would disappear in a few days, but it hasn’t. Maybe it was my anxiety that brought on a sleepwalking episode after all these years.”

I took a deep breath. “Why in the hell didn’t you tell me? Your fears aren’t irrational, Jenna. They’re fucking normal. You were kidnapped, beaten, and starved. You were a day away from being raped and mistreated. Do you really think it’s unreasonable to be afraid of that happening again? Maybe it is unlikely that the cartel is going to pursue you, but the fear of it happening again in the future is reasonable. I want you to talk to a specialist, a counselor that’s been working with Last Hope for years now. You can do it remotely. I know you’ve been through a lot of counseling, but she’s not going to make you go through a lot of your past issues. She’ll focus on helping you get through the trauma of the kidnapping.”

“I don’t want to,” she warned me. “But I’ll do it. I’m tired of jumping at shadows. I don’t want to be afraid anymore. It’s not normal for me and I hate it. I’m usually practical, but I can’t seem to get these thoughts out of my head.”

“Don’t hide anything from me anymore, Jenna,” I said in a raspy tone. “I get that you don’t trust most people, but I’m not most people. I can’t help you if I don’t know how you’re feeling. You can talk to me.”

Hell, it pissed me off that she’d been so damn good at hiding her fears and the side effects of her kidnapping.

I knew that she was used to being alone, but she wasn’t alone anymore.

She had me.

“Rationally, I know that,” she said in a sad tone. “Keeping myself safe by not talking is a habit that’s been ingrained in me for years now, Brock. It’s not that easy to shake it off. But I’ll try. No more secrets. You are the man who saved my life. If I can’t trust you, then I have a major problem.”

Hell, I knew I was asking a lot from her. Maybe too much, too soon. But it made me crazy when she constantly held herself in check to keep herself safe.

Somehow, I was going to make her realize that it was my job to make sure that nobody ever hurt her again.

No more secrets…

I needed to tell her a big one of my own, but I wasn’t quite sure how to do it without making her skittish again.

It was probably best to just say it and get it over with.

“Speaking of secrets, I need to tell you something,” I said cautiously.

“You can tell me anything,” Jenna said in a husky whisper that made my damn cock twitch.

Just tell her, Miller!

“I knew about your past before you told me yourself,” I confessed. “I know almost every detail of your history, Jenna. Or everything that’s a fact about your past. It’s fucked up and intrusive, but Marshall makes it a point to provide all of us with an extensive bio and photos of the people we’re going to rescue. It’s mostly for our safety and to help the rescue go smoother. We need to know about personality weaknesses and issues we might come across during a mission.”