down to that chair, naked in that god-awful hovel in Colombia. He tensed waiting for the blinding heat and pain he knew was coming next. Not again. Please not again.
Instead he awoke, tangled in his sheets, drenched in sweat and gasping for air.
Fuck.
He sat up and looked over at the clock while he rubbed his left knee.
3:48 AM.
He’d gotten more sleep than normal. This time he slept for a solid 2 ½ hours before the nightmares woke him.
He ran his hands through his hair and propped his elbows on his knees as he looked down at his flaccid cock. The dreams always seemed so real, both the ecstasy and the agony of them. Unfortunately, agony always followed the ecstasy so he never knew if the phantom pleasure was real or not. From all the physical signs, he really wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer to that.
But focusing on his damaged cock wasn’t going to change anything. He got up and threw on some running shorts and an old ragged t-shirt. He’d come off the crutches a couple of weeks before and was working his damnedest to get back in shape for Mad Rob, the government contracting flight company and jump school he started with his brother, Colton, and their friend, Jake. He still felt the lingering repercussions of the months of torture on his body, but he was getting better. Every day he was physically stronger.
After one too many sleepless nights, he learned that it helped to exorcise his nightly demons by exercising. He was tying his shoes when he heard the whisper of Cassie’s movement down the hall.
As his twin, she always knew when the nightmares hit him. He knew she’d seen visions of him while he’d been imprisoned. He only hoped that she was just getting impressions of his nightmares now and not actually sharing the full reality of them. Honestly, he’d been too afraid to ask, not sure if he really wanted to know the truth of how much she was seeing into his completely fucked-up psyche.
She just looked at him as they met quietly at the front door. He could see the concern in her eyes, but he didn’t want to talk about it. She joined him as he took off jogging down the sidewalk. Cassie ran an average of eight to ten miles every day, but he wasn’t up for that kind of pace yet. As it was, he could already feel the tendrils of pain ricocheting up and down his leg. She loped in beside him, simply giving him company and the comfort of her presence as he decompressed from the images in his nightmares.
As they ran, he grimaced at the sound of his lungs already sucking in wind. It was going to take forever for him to get to his pre-captivity level of health. Back then, it would take five miles before his heart rate even started to rise.
He looked over at Cassie in the glow of the streetlights. They hadn’t said a word to one another yet and she still looked half asleep.
“Jake is going to be happy when I move out so you’ll stay in bed until a decent hour again,” he gasped out. Jake was her fiancé and his best friend. Their wedding was in two weeks.
Cassie, damn her, wasn’t even breathing hard as she laughed. “Jake likes it when I leave early. You should see him roll over and immediately cover the whole bed. It’s enough to make a girl feel really unwelcome.”
He smiled at the thought. “I don’t think you have an issue there. I can’t imagine Jake ever not wanting you in his bed. You have the guy completely wrapped around your little finger.”
She smiled softly. “That goes both ways.”
His heart wrenched. He was happy for them. He really was. How many guys were lucky enough to have their best friend marry their sister, but it left him feeling like a third wheel.
And it looked less and less likely that he’d ever find the same thing. A part of him mourned the loss of his own future family he’d once dreamed about…but that was before being held captive by a madman for six months. He’d just have to be the best uncle ever to both his siblings’ future kids.
Cassie interrupted his depressing mental reverie. “Are you sure you want to move out? You won’t have a running partner anymore starting tomorrow.”
“You mean I can’t come over and drag you out of bed at oh-dark-thirty again