Chapter 11 #2
As the final smudges of daylight were wiped off the sky, Penny sorted through her new clothing, pleased to discover Rhys had even bought her pyjamas. He, on the other hand, disappeared into the shower, turning the glass opaque, and re-emerged in a plain white t-shirt and patterned pyjama bottoms.
“I’m still not used to seeing you in normal clothes,” she remarked, her eyes lingering on his damp hair.
His eyebrow quirked. “Normal clothes?”
“Instead of the same soulless business wear that everyone wears in Canary Wharf.” As he approached the bed, she squinted. “Are you wearing Hot Wheels pyjama trousers?!”
Rhys glanced down as he reclined on the bed, his hands resting behind his head. “My brother-in-law bought them for me for Christmas. Do you like them?”
She bit down on her lip to try to stop her smile from breaking loose, but it escaped her clutches. “Is the rest of your family not as into cars as you, then?”
Rhys shook his head. “The only ones into anything motor-related are my brother and brother-in-law, but their love is motorbikes.” He gave a mock shudder.
“You had a couple of motorbikes in your garage, didn’t you?” She was sure she’d seen them.
“The bikes belong to them, not me. My brother lives in California, so the bikes are for their use when they’re back in the country.”
A gentle smile spread across her face. “You’re close with your family, then?”
“Can’t get rid of the bastards.” He smirked. “You?”
Penny took a beat too long to respond. “Not…not massively.” She glanced around for a change in conversation, landing on the mattress they rested on. “So, the sleeping arrangements…”
“I can take the couch.”
She sized up the bed. “You don’t have to.” They’d shared a bed last night, hadn’t they? “It’s big enough for both of us, and we’re both adults.”
Rhys’s eyes shifted between hers before he gave her a single nod. “Despite what my pyjama bottoms suggest.”
It didn’t take Penny long to get ready for bed, but by the time she exited the bathroom, she realised she’d made a mistake. Rhys had closed the curtains and turned almost all of the lights off, leaving only the bedside lamps lit.
Her heart began to pound in her chest. It was a problem she’d dodged yesterday; she’d fallen asleep in the daylight, waking again just before sunrise.
Penny swallowed as she slid beneath the covers, her brain rattling through half-baked ideas of how to keep a light on without admitting the humiliating truth—something she’d never admitted to another person.
Rhys turned off his bedside lamp, and she felt a deadline looming for her to do the same. “Good night, Pen.”
Pen. That word was a little spark of bliss in the darkness. No one called her Pen—only Rhys, and something in her loved it.
“Night, Rhys.” Penny swallowed, and, clutching her courage, she turned off her bedside lamp.
Instantly, the room plunged her into darkness.
She closed her eyes, purposefully taking deep, calm breaths. She remembered sinking into the massage chair earlier, the massage therapists each taking one of her hands and rendering her a puddle of relaxation.
Penny tried to bask in the memory, ignoring the quickening of the traitorous heart beneath her breast. Go away, go away, go away, she urged it, as if it had ever listened to her in the past. She’d been alone in the past, though; she’d never done this with an audience, especially not Rhys.
The calm breaths she’d been inhaling became shorter, like the air itself was evaporating, and she couldn’t draw it in fast enough.
Her fingers clutched at the bedcovers as the familiar sensation of dropping threatened to drown her, as though her soul was in danger of falling through the bed and out of reality altogether.
The bed shifted on Rhys’s side. “Penny?”
“I’m okay,” she managed to gasp out, perhaps more to herself than him. “I’m okay.”
Light burst across her vision as Rhys turned on his bedside lamp.
His eyes widened as they saw her. “Hey, hey, hey.” He took her hand, his expression bewildered as he stretched out beside her.
She clawed at him with a trembling hand, half surprised to discover that her body was still connected to her soul. “What’s wrong?”
Penny couldn’t catch a breath, trying to gulp in air and failing.
Her chest heaved as she grasped at him like her life depended on it—because her life depended on it.
She could feel it lurking beneath her, an eternity of her worst nightmares, locked inside the pitch-black cellar for hours, days, lifetimes.
“Don’t let me go,” she hyperventilated, the words choking her. “Please. Don’t lock me in.”
Rhys’s arms tightened around her; it was the only comfort she could find. “I’m not locking you anywhere, Pen.”
She couldn’t stop the tears, the panic, the fear.
The terror was overwhelming as she pressed her face against Rhys’s chest, the fabric of his shirt wet with her tears.
“Please,” she begged, clinging to him with everything she had, knowing that one wrong move would doom her to an eternity of suffering.
Please, please, please.