He stared at me a moment before leaning in to brush his mouth over mine. My lips tingled as they parted under the sweet kiss. When he pulled back, he cupped my face and brushed his thumb against my lower lip. “I can’t imagine my life without you in it.”

My breathing stuttered at the confession, and I felt that happiness swamp me again.

Just as quickly the panic set in.

Logan was filling my head and my heart and my body with him.

What happened if he walked away again?

Suddenly I was jerked toward him, my hands fluttering against his chest to catch myself. I stared, wide-eyed, into his face, which was now but inches from mine. “I’m not going anywhere,” he promised, his voice gruff. “I’m going to do whatever it takes to make you trust me so I never have to see that fear in your eyes ever again.”

I closed my eyes at his sweet promise and leaned my forehead against his jaw. “I’ll try too. It’s just going to take time.”

“I’ve got all the time in the world, Grace. All the time in the world for you.”

The sun felt wonderful on my skin. The waves were crashing to shore. I had no worries, no responsibilities, just never-ending white sands.

Life was perfectly, gloriously cliché in its utter heavenliness.

“Grace.”

I squeezed my eyes shut tighter against the sound of the masculine voice in my ear.

“Grace.” The voice became more insistent. “Grace, wake up.”

Suddenly my sun lounger was flipped on its side and I awoke with a jolt. Breathing hard, I blinked against the darkness of my bedroom, and as my eyes adjusted to the light, my heart only started to hammer harder against my chest. Logan was sitting on my bed.

“What?” I whispered in worry, leaning over to switch my bedside light on. Logan was sitting on my bed wearing nothing but a pair of faded old jeans. I forced my gaze to his face. “What’s wrong? Has something happened?”

His violet eyes were hot on me, his silent presence potent.

My breath caught.

My lower stomach clenched against the burst of tingles between my legs.

“Logan?”

He placed a hand slowly on either side of my hips and leaned forward until his face was so close to mine our lips were almost touching. A fierce hunger flashed across his face, and I gasped, feeling arousal shoot through my body.

He wanted me.

Suddenly he grasped me by the nape of the neck and hauled me against him. His mouth captured mine. I instantly melted into him and wrapped my arms around him, my fingers pressing into the muscle beneath his hot skin.

His kiss was hard, demanding, almost punishing, and I reveled in it. Logan groaned, the reverberations causing my nipples to tighten in reaction, and I shuddered. My reaction ignited something inside of him, and he shoved me roughly onto my back before hauling the covers off me. I stared up at him in aroused astonishment as he tugged on my pajama shorts. He slid them deftly down my legs along with my underwear and then he was braced over me, nudging my thighs apart as he stared down into my eyes. Logan’s hands encircled my wrists and he pinned my arms above my head as he pressed his jeans-covered erection between my legs. “Grace,” he whispered hoarsely, the word filled with need.

“Logan,” I pleaded.

His right hand left my wrist to draw down his zipper. He shoved his jeans low enough to release his erection and then returned his hand to my wrist to pin me to the bed.

Suddenly I wasn’t underneath him. I was across the room, watching him glide his body into a woman. Was it me? Was I having an out-of-body experience?

The headboard rattled against the wall as Logan fucked me toward climax.

“Logan, oh God!” a woman I recognized cried out, and I tensed.

It wasn’t me he was with.

I felt sick. Terrified.

No!

“No!” I cried out, my head jerking up from my pillow.

My eyes adjusted to the dark.

It was a nightmare.

Just a nightmare.

“Grace.” The mattress shifted beneath me, and light suddenly poured into the room. A second later Logan was braced over me, his concerned gaze on my face.

I immediately burst into tears.

“Jesus,” he muttered as he pulled me up into a sitting position so he could wrap his arms around me. “What’s this?” he asked, tucking my head under his chin.

I shook my head, trying to control the tears. I didn’t want to tell him. The whole nightmare screamed of my insecurities, and I still wasn’t sure enough of our relationship to know that it wouldn’t send him running for the door.

“Hey,” he said, his voice low and soothing but also firm. “I talked to you about my nightmare. I trusted you. Trust me, Grace. Please. I can’t stand to see you cry.” His arms tightened around me, and he whispered hoarsely, “I don’t want to lose you.”

I turned my face from where it was pressed against his chest so I could speak. “It will freak you out.”

“You didn’t run from me, and what I had to say wasn’t easy.”

When he put it like that, there was actually really no comparison between what bothered us in our dreams. Mine was a distasteful, hurtful family drama. His had been death and guilt.

I suddenly felt very small and foolish. “Now you’re really going to think I’m an idiot.”

“Just tell me.”

I sucked in a huge breath, my stomach fluttering with butterflies. “I had this dream about you before anything happened between us. Before we were even friends.”

“Okay.”

My cheeks flushed. “It was a sex dream.”