I was trapped in that place between waking and sleeping. I wanted to wake up so badly. I was struggling, wrestling with someone I couldn't see. Someone I knew only too well. I heard a loud groan. It sounded so close. Too close. I opened my eyes abruptly, just in time to see Robert wince.

"Bloody hell! That fucking hurt!" he swore. His lip was bleeding. The tiny trickle of blood leaking across his bottom lip hypnotized me.

"I did that?"

"You cut me with your ring...when you punched me."

"I punched you?" I knew I sounded horrified. I was. I couldn't imagine hurting Robert. Not really. Not on purpose. "I didn't mean to."

"I know," Robert said, his voice growing unexpectedly soft. "You were dreaming about him, weren't you?"

"I...don't remember," I lied, lowering my eyes. Robert reached out and stroked the side of my face, his touch infinitely more gentle than he must have felt. I raised my eyes again, to stare directly into his. His blue-gray eyes looked troubled.

"You can tell me anything, baby. Just don't lie to me." It wasn't a command. It was almost a plea. Robert wasn't in the habit of begging any more than I was. It was my fault. I had pushed him into this position.

Tears flooded my eyes against my will, and I tried desperately to get away. But Robert's fingers held me fast. I blinked and a tear fell, splashing his hand. He lifted his hand to his mouth and I could just make out the tip of his tongue licking delicately at the spot where my tear had fallen.

I must have made a sound, a whimper, because Robert tilted his head and looked sadder than I'd ever seen him. "Don't you trust me?" he asked huskily.

"With my life," I whispered brokenly.

"I can help. I want to help. Please...let me."

"I don't know how to..."

"Neither do I," Robert cried out in exasperation. "But we can figure this out. Somehow."

"How?" I asked, my entire body trembling now. "I've spent practically my whole life trying to keep everyone out. How do I let you in?"

Robert flinched as though I'd struck him again.

"What? What is it?"

"I thought...you did let me in. When we made love. When you told me you loved me." Robert's hoarse whisper rasped across my raw senses like sandpaper.

"It's because I love you...that I don't want to see you hurt."

"I already am. Don't you see that? Every time you push me away, I bleed. Just like this," he said, swiping at his bloody lip with his finger.

"Why the hell aren't you afraid of me? Of what I can do? Could do to you?" I blurted out, pain seizing me by the throat.

"Cause I'm afraid of living without you more," Robert said quietly.

"Robert..." I breathed his name like it was oxygen.

"Bruno..." Robert inched closer, his thigh touching mine on the bed. It didn't matter that we were both fully clothed. I could feel the heat of him all the way down to my bare skin. "I want to kiss you. Can I kiss you?"

"You'd better."

His mouth tasted tangy where blood still oozed from the cut on his lip. He kissed me like it didn't matter, like nothing mattered but us.

And for the first time since all of this went down...I thought maybe he was right.

*****

I pulled him on top of me. His lips slid down the side of my neck, and I sighed, this time in frustration, because all of a sudden we were too far apart. "Mmmph..."

"Was that a comment on the way I make love?" Robert demanded, his eyes taking on that wicked glint they got when he was aroused.

"You're not doing anything yet..." I said, suddenly breathless from the heated look I was getting.

That's when his hand slipped between my legs. He stroked me gently, and my dick paid close attention, pressing impatiently against the zipper of my jeans, apparently in the hope that it would be released. "Ohhh...."

"Tell me what you want," he whispered, his teeth tugging at my earlobe.

"You. I want you."

He chuckled, and the vibration went right through me. "You'll have to be more specific."

In answer I pulled his shirt out of his jeans and over his head, exposing his bare chest. His hair stood out in funny little tufts all over his head, but I swear, he was so beautiful, it took my breath away. I studied him gravely, running the tips of my fingers over his flat brown nipples till they hardened into sharp peaks.

"Kiss me some more."

"Where?"

"Everywhere," I murmured. I wanted to feel him all over. I wanted him to cover me, take me, and hold onto me till I couldn't think about anything else but him. The way he smelled, the way he touched me, the way he kissed me.

In the back of my mind, I knew that I was trying to make new memories to replace the ones that hurt too much to remember. But I didn't care. I loved Robert. I wasn't using him, and he wasn't taking advantage of me. This was the first time that I'd ever been treated like an equal.

It fit uncomfortably on me, this relationship thing, partly because of the things that it wasn't. It wasn't fucking. It wasn't an affair. It was more like a marriage than anything else, and that scared the hell out of me.

Because I wanted this, whatever it was.

I pushed his hair back from his temple and kissed it. I don't know how, but all at once we were skin to skin. I was so cold, I needed him to warm me from the inside, and he did. He slid into me with very little preparation and settled there, giving me time to catch up. I sank my teeth into his shoulder, and he jumped, instinctively beginning to thrust. I started to close my eyes, but he whispered, "Look at me," and I had to obey.

Face to face, heart to heart, we moved in unison, borrowing each other's heat over and over till we were helplessly lost in the rhythm we made. When Robert came, he poured his warmth deep inside me, where it set me on fire. I came, too, and he swallowed my gasp with a voracious kiss. We lay there for several seconds, panting, our bodies still heaving.

With his sweat not yet dry on my skin, I whispered, "I love you." Brave words, even braver feelings, echoed in the shining eyes of my love.

"I love you, too, baby," he said, wrapping me in his arms. I felt him twitch where we were still joined, and I could tell he was smiling from the way his lips rubbed against my neck.

"Sleep," he insisted, the weight of his body reassuring and surrounding me.

He pulled the covers over both of us, and even though I thought I couldn't go back to sleep...that was exactly what I did. The demons that robbed me of my rest were chased away for the moment.

Cause Robert was guarding me. I'd gotten a fucking knight in shining armor when I wasn't looking.