“Hayden! Hayden! Honey what’s wrong? Wake up, Beauty. Wake up!” I tell Hayden over and over, still half asleep. I awoke to Hayden screaming out my name. Her eyes are closed and big, fat tears are streaming down her face. She’s crying so hard, I’m afraid she’s going to be sick. She’s literally gasping for breath. I pull her into my body, gathering her up in my lap. I grasp her face with both of my hands and pull her up towards me. “Beauty, it’s okay. Come back to me,” I tell her, treating her as I did when she was suffering from panic attacks. This doesn’t feel like a panic attack though. This feels completely different. “Beauty look at me,” I order, overriding my fear and making my voice stern. I hold her face tightly, not allowing her to look away from me. Slowly her eyes open wide and she stares at me. At first I don’t think she recognizes me. I don’t see recognition on her face at all. Then all at once, she takes in a deep breath, so deep it’s like her first breath in months. Her body goes completely still, and then jerks up as she wraps her arms around my neck. I let her, putting mine around her in return. I hold her tight, pulling her body into mine, because that seems to be what she needs the most.

“Michael!” she cries. “You’re alive!” I have no idea what she means by that so I continue to hold her and stroke her hair.

“I’m here, Hayden. I’m not going anywhere,” I assure her.

“You were dead and Blade was…Oh God, Michael, you were dead!” she cries again, holding onto me.

It’s clear she had a bad dream and not just a normal one. It’s the kind I used to have after the accident. The kind that makes you relive your hell to the point that you’re sure it’s real, and even after you wake up, you expect to be drawn back into it. I still have them occasionally, but not often—mostly because I rarely sleep for more than a few hours at a time. Finally, she calms down, and I hold her while she tells me about the dream. Blade needs to die. I need to make his death slow and fucking painful.

“It was just a dream, Beauty. That’s all. It wasn’t real. You probably just overdid it yesterday. Plus, you’re worried about balancing working at the shop and being here for Connor. You just need to learn to breathe and let it go. You’re not superwoman.”

“It seemed so real, Michael,” she sighs, curling the side of her face against my chest. She’s calmer and slowly the tears are beginning to dry. I move us back down on the bed, laying down. Hayden curls around until she’s looking at me. She lays her head back down on my chest, but when she immediately seeks out my hand, threading our fingers together, I smile. Her thumb moves across the scar on my hand. I think it calms her. I like that it does. It feels as if I give her something she needs, just by that simple gesture.

“I know, sweetheart. I get them from time to time. They get easier, I promise.”

“You get them?”

“Night terrors? Yeah.”

“Night terrors…that’s what it felt like. I couldn’t handle it if something happened to you, Michael—especially if it was my fault,” she says and her gray eyes are so full of emotion. Before Hayden, I’ve never had that. That look, this emotion…all of it. The surety of knowing that if something happened to me, someone’s world would be less. Until this moment, I have never had someone who made me feel like they couldn’t live just as well without me. Even with Annabelle, she loved me, I was her Dad, but if something happened to me, I always knew my club would make sure she wanted for nothing. She would be happy. Right now…I’m pretty sure the words Hayden is giving me are gospel in her eyes.

“Hayden—”

“I know. I know. You don’t like hearing it, but I love you Michael. If something happened to you, it would destroy me. I know I have Connor, but…may God forgive me, if you died because of me, I wouldn’t want to live.”

“You’re talking crazy. You will always fight to live, Hayden. I demand it. Connor needs you. He needs to know that his mother would fight for him, bleed for him and he needs to always see beauty in this world, so he can appreciate it.”

“I like that you say I give you beauty,” she whispers and she raises her head slightly to bring her lips close to mine. “Will you stick around for another hundred years to keep reminding me that I do that for you?” she asks, her tongue darting out to moisten her lips.

“I’m not going anywhere, Hayden. That I can promise you. Those two months without you were all I could handle. The thing about having beauty in your life…Once you have something that precious and hold it in your hands, you can’t let it go.”

“God, I love you,” she whispers. I feel those words all the way through me. She does. I see it in her eyes, I feel it in her touch. Hell, I can even hear it in her laugh.

She surprises me by getting up and moving to her knees. She pulls the cover back and swings one of her legs over my body. She’s wearing a pale teal, silk night shirt. I’d rather have her naked but she still wears her bra because of the baby’s milk. Still, I’d be a fool not to recognize how incredibly sexy she looks right now, arched over me her breasts barely contained by the silk bra, the lace sparkling in the early morning sunlight. My hand latches onto her ass, my fingers biting into the skin as I bring her sweet pussy against the hard edge of my cock and want to weep that she’s wearing that damn piece of lace that keeps her soft, warm cunt from me.

“Fuck, Hayden, you’re killing me here.”

“I want you inside of me, Michael, she whimpers. I want you to fuck me,” she adds, her tongue moving along my neck. I can’t stand when people touch my scars. Yet when Hayden does it, it brings peace. When she runs her tongue along flesh that should be deadened and feel nothing, I swear to God, I want to throw her down and ram so fucking far inside of her she can taste me.

“Motherfucker,” I groan, as my cock slips in just the right spot and she starts riding back and forth on me, stroking my cock with her body, so that the lace fabric—instead of a barrier, becomes a slick glove holding my cock softly and bathing me in heat. “Beauty we can’t. You’ve not been cleared for sex,” I remind her, just like I’ve reminded myself every fucking night since she had the baby. My poor balls are blue from waiting.

“But I’m hungry, Michael,” she says, looking down at me.

I let my free hand grab her hair and I pull her mouth to mine. Our lips nip and taste each other, soft and slow at first, then picking up intensity as our hunger strengthens. Her tongue thrusts against mine as I swallow her moan of need. I grab her ass, about to forget all my self-control and plow into her when we hear it. Crying. We both freeze, neither speaking or moving, as if that very act will somehow put Connor back to sleep. A few seconds later the crying starts again and Hayden goes lax in my arms, her forehead pushes against mine.

“Connor’s awake,” I laugh.

“That kid has bad timing,” Hayden mutters, flopping over on her back.

“It’s dinner time. I’d be anxious too if my dinner looked that fucking good,” I tell her, kissing her lips and getting off the bed.

“I’ll go—”

“You lay still. I’ll get him and bring him to you,” I tell her reaching to the floor and putting my sweats on. Hayden’s eyes are glued to me.

“It should be illegal to cover all that sexy up,” she sighs.

“You’re the only woman in the world who could look at the mangled scars on my body and find them sexy,” I answer, shaking my head and pushing my hair out of my eyes.

“I love your scars you know that, but I must confess, I was mostly talking about your dick right now,” she says playfully with a big grin.

“We’re not having sex for two more weeks, Hayden Graham. Not until the doctor says it’s okay.”

“Whatever you say, Michael. I’ll wear you down,” she calls out while I’m walking down the hallway.

This is just another thing Hayden gives me. I wake up in the morning to beauty. I’m smiling when at one time in my life I never thought I’d smile again. Fuck, I’m laughing. When I bring Connor back to her and she fixes her bra and adjusts his mouth to her breast and I see that, I see even more beauty. When I pull her so she rests against my stomach and chest, with our baby on her breast, there’s even more beauty. It’s so fucking bright and large it overtakes me. This is life. This is everything. I hold them in my arms and close my eyes and enjoy the feeling of…peace.

In that moment the smell of strawberries hits the air and my heart tumbles in my chest. Annabelle is here with me too. I hope she has the same feeling of joy that I have. When the scent increases, I think maybe she does.