Hell Without You by Ranae Rose

I never really could – not for long. And even when I did, I’d get up, load my gun, walk around – shit like that. Ended up having to set up trip lines so I’d bust my ass before I made it anywhere.”
    “That sounds terrible.” Her heart contracted, growing small and hard beneath the pressure of trying to imagine what he was describing. Donovan, stumbling around in the desert, throwing himself even farther into harm’s way than war necessitated without realizing it. God, she would’ve crumbled into pieces if she’d known at the time. Even now, her throat felt too tight. “How long has it been since you’ve walked in your sleep – before last night, I mean?”
    He shrugged. “Two years? Did some therapy. Drugs just made it worse, but I learned some … rituals … that help. It’s all about calming down before you go to sleep.”
    “So you haven’t been calm these past two nights?” The words tumbled out before she could stop them, and the obvious hit her like a ton of bricks. “Is it because I’m here?”
    Stupid question. What else would it be? He’d been fine until she’d shown up, apparently. “My being here is stressing you out, isn’t it?”
    “Clementine—”
    “I’ll leave tomorrow. Even if my tires aren’t in yet, you can give me a ride to a motel, right?”
    “No.”
    “Why not?”
    “I don’t want you staying in some sleazy motel. And after your penny-pinching speech, don’t tell me it won’t be sleazy. Your only cheap options are the Willow Heights Rest Inn and that place with the take-out restaurant on the first floor. I’ll be damned before I drop you off at either of those dumps.”
    “Don’t be ridiculous. I’ll survive a week in a cheap motel. It’s a hell of a lot safer than you wandering around with a knife in your sleep.”
    “Take the knife.” His voice was harder, insistent. “Hide it. For fuck’s sake, I’m not leaving you at a place that should charge by the hour.”
    His chest had expanded, and there was a hint of a flush beneath his suntanned skin. The hand he didn’t have on the counter was clenched in a fist.
    He was awake, but everything wasn’t all right. “Just calm down. We’ll talk about it in the morning. For now, I’m not going anywhere.”
    That seemed to placate him. Breathing a sigh, he closed the coffee maker’s open lid. “Want a cup?”
    “It’s going to be strong.” He’d shoveled half a dozen heaping tablespoons of grounds into the machine before she’d thrown water at him.
    “I’m not going to go back to sleep anyway.”
    Her heart thumped against her ribs. If he was going to stay up… She didn’t like the idea of leaving him alone any more than he liked the idea of abandoning her at the Willow Heights Rest Inn. Besides, it wasn’t like she was going to be able to drift off into dreamland with images of him wielding a knife burnt into the backs of her eyelids. “Me neither. Bring on the caffeine.”
    Ten minutes later, she was sipping a cup of something so strong it nearly activated her gag reflex. “Have any creamer?” she asked Donovan, who was gulping his coffee like it was water. He might like it black, but they’d always been polar opposites when it came to java. “I don’t think I can handle your special sleepwalking brew without a little something to help it go down.”
    “Half and half.” He shuffled to the fridge. “Bought it earlier today. For you.”
    “I’m sorry,” she said, stifling a snort as he presented her with a carton, “but you’ve either got to put on a pair of pants or go back to playing the role of a nudist. That looks ridiculous.”
    “What, you don’t like my loincloth?” He glanced down at the checkered kitchen towel he’d slung around his hips. It covered the manliest bits of his anatomy and most of the dark hair at his groin, but flapped pathetically around his muscular butt cheeks. “I thought it was Tarzan-esque.”
    “I’m serious. Pants or nothing.”
    “Well, if