Her soft hand was against my cheek then, caressing me. My jaw jumped under her palm as she leaned down, an easy smile stretching her pink lips. “Let go with me, Hayes,” she whispered, kissing me gently.
Cherry. Tart and addicting. Like her.
My hands shot up, gripping her hair as I crushed her mouth to mine. As my tongue stroked her lips, she whimpered, opening for me. I was overwhelmed with her taste, her body on top of mine. I pulled my hands from her silky hair, banding them around her waist as I sat up, taking her with me. Her hand shifted, going into my hair, gripping it as her hips began to move, grinding against me in a heated frenzy.
“Yes,” she hissed as I yanked her head to the side, dragging my tongue up the column of her neck.
“Taste like beauty, Temper.”
“Get lost with me,” she rasped, her nails at the back of my neck now.
Our bodies moved together as if we were made for one another, and that’s when I knew this was all a dream. She was too perfect for me, too good. Eventually, my body covered hers, desperate to be in control, our breaths colliding with each thrust of my hips, her thighs shaking at my sides.
“Hayes! God, yes!”
I looked down at her, my hands on either side of her head on the pillow. She was drowning in moonlight, the butterfly tattoo on her neck stretching as her neck arched, her body giving in to me. I said nothing, lost in her, just like she wanted. My hips picked up speed, moving faster—harder. Her iron headboard started to rock, and I was surrounded by everything her.
I was ready to drown in this place, never to come up for air again.
It was just her and me.
As it should be.
Another explosion sounded from all around me.
I dropped, shielding her, my movements ceasing.
“Hayes?”
Gunshots fired off all around us.
More yelling.
More pleas for mercy.
More blood.
Heat.
All I felt was heat.
I lifted my head and twisted my neck, looking back. My eyes widened.
We were no longer in her room.
We were on the ground, and my plane was burning in the distance, engulfed in flames, black smoke rising into the sky, signaling death.
“Hayes! Hayes, help me!”
I looked down, and she was gone, ripped away from me. I rose, frantically looking around, smoke burning my lungs. My hands shot into my hair as I shouted her name, the war zone—the devastation around me—closing in. I cried out for her again. Then I heard it, the fear in her voice shooting through the air like a bullet.
She was in the flames.
I watched her figure fall to the ground, the fire consuming her as she tried to call for me, the plane I’d crashed behind her.
She’d been on the plane.
I’d failed her.