Chapter 3
Warmth
She awoke with a distinct fear, the aftertaste of nightmares. Her heart plummeted and lurched in her chest as her hand went down through the sheets, legs shifting apart over warm, wet cloth that screamed to her in the darkness. Aladdin moved beside her, slowly opening his eyes as he sensed her sudden alarm.
"Jas, what's wr--"
Her fists tightened on the sheets, knuckles paling, fingers coated in crimson. He saw them, saw her face, the shocked silence of her trembling lips. His arm went around her automatically, drawing her close even as his other hand went to pull back the sheets, quickened breaths held back in an effort to remain calm in the face of a waking nightmare. She wrenched away from him, clasping the blanket to her chest and wrapping it halfway around her body. She could not let him see, could not bear to look herself. The warmth in her belly was a scorching fire now, a fire of destruction and emptiness.
"No..."
He held her face in his hands, trying to speak to her, no longer trying to pry the sheets from her white-knuckled hands. He kissed her feverishly, embracing her as if she were made of glass, though he could have crushed her to him in the mounting storm of his own sorrow.
"No..." Her breath hitched and she could speak no more, leaning her head against his shoulder. His embrace had been full of warmth, but now it was merely full of hard edges and heat.
"It's all right," he was saying to her again and again. Lying. She stared blankly ahead into darkness, the wetness under her thighs already cooling even as it crept slowly across the sheets. She could not look; she could not look.
She noticed belatedly that he was weeping, tears trickling onto her skin from his cheek. Absently she circled her arms around his neck and breathed shallowly into his hair.
"I love you," his broken voice echoed. She closed her eyes.