Connor's eyes shot open and he flipped then over, snarling. She could tell from the look on his face that he didn't recognize her, the transition from nightmare to reality too quick for him to realize his surroundings. "Connor!" she said loudly, hoping to break through to him. "It's me, baby. It's Anne."
He froze, sitting up beside her. His shoulders slumped and he glanced over at her, his expression apologetic.
"It's all right," Anne said, reaching out and taking his hand. "You didn't hurt me." She guided him back down next to her, turning on her side to face him. Their hands remained interlocked between them, and Anne brought them to her lips, kissing his fingers softly. Connor repeated the gesture in turn, meeting her eyes as he did.
Anne pushed his hair away from his eyes with her free hand. "I wish you could talk to me," she said. "I want to know what happened to you, how long you've been gone, how you feel now. Am I giving you everything you need? I don't really know what to do here. You've probably been through so much, and I want to help you, but I don't know how and…" Anne stopped, tears springing to her eyes.
Connor frowned when she began to cry. He wiped at her tears with his thumb, shaking his head. Anne tried to stop crying, but she couldn't, the turmoil of the past few days pushing her past the breaking point. Her tears turned into sobs and her body shook. Connor pulled her into his arms, holding on to her tightly. He made soft, murmuring sounds, wordless coos of comfort. Anne gripped his back, accepting the strength of his embrace.
After a long while, she pulled back, sniffling. "Look at me. You're the one who was trapped in a hell dimension, and I'm the one crying like a baby."
Connor tucked her hair behind her ear before leaning in and kissing her forehead. Anne nestled back into his embrace, telling herself over and over again that he was there, in her arms, and he was safe.
*** *** ***
Several hours later, Anne woke to the feel of Connor's hands on her, stroking her breasts and thighs. She opened her eyes and looked at him, her body warming from the desire she saw clearly written on his face.
Anne leaned in and kissed him, letting herself pretend for a moment that they were simply a normal couple, waking in each other's arms to make love. No words were needed for this, bodies all they required to say what they felt.
She rolled Connor over on to his back, straddling his waist as she licked and bit his collarbone. After a moment, she pulled up, her hands grazing over the bandage around his chest. She leaned in and kissed the gauze tenderly, Connor sighing softly as she did.
When she pulled up again, Connor touched her stomach, pressing his hand against the almost-faded marks there from the demon attack days earlier. He met her eyes before raking his nails gently over the spot.
"You remember I got hurt there," Anne said. "You remember the demon that clawed me."
Connor looked at her questioningly, stroking her abdomen again before touching his own wound. "I'm okay," Anne told him. "It doesn't hurt anymore." She placed her hand against the healed wound and smiled.
Connor smiled back, his silent question answered. Anne was surprised that he remembered, and wondered if he'd kept it in his mind all this time or if seeing her had just brought it back.
Or maybe he didn't remember at all. Maybe he had seen the last remaining traces of her injury and been able to figure out she'd recently been hurt, too.
Again, she was pulled back to reality, keenly aware that they were anything but a normal couple. She wanted to know how much he remembered, if he knew her still from the brief time they'd spent together or if he merely recognized whatever it was between them that bound them as mates.
Connor took hold of her hips, guiding her to take him inside of her, his eyes pleading with her. Anne sank down on his length, shivering with the pleasure of him filling her. She knew Connor needed this, needed the pleasure when he'd been denied anything good for so long.
Anne didn't hold back, didn't tease. She rode him hard and fast as Connor held on to her, his fingers digging into her hips hard enough to bruise.
Suddenly, he flipped them over, snarling as he began to pound into her hard, the bed shaking violently, hitting the wall with enough force to dent it. Anne grabbed his arms, drawing blood with her nails as she held on. Connor used her body for release, wanting to replace all the pain, despair, and frustration he'd felt over the years he'd lived in hell with the pleasure only his mate could give him. She writhed and moaned beneath him, saying a word over and over again that Connor could only vaguely recognize as his own name.
It had been so long since he'd been with a woman, but Connor knew Anne's cries were not ones of pain. He could hardly remembered when he'd done anything to another being besides hurt it, and he reveled in Anne's pleasure, pushing into her harder until she let out a long, keening wail, her internal muscles clamping tightly around him. Connor cried out with her, erupting inside of her body.
He didn't collapse on top of her this time, rolling over to the side and lying on his back instead. Anne moved with him, propping herself up on her elbow and looking down at him. Connor smiled at her, panting as he struggled to regulate his breathing again. She was beautiful, his mate, just like Connor had seen her every time he'd closed his eyes. He didn't understand so much anymore, although he knew he once had, that knowledge now just out of reach, buried beneath years of living just to survive.
But he knew her. She was his mate, the woman he'd been desperate to return to, even when everything else was lost to him. So many lonely nights had been spent dreaming of her, longing for her. He didn't know how he'd gotten back to her, but he was grateful, happy just to be with her.
Still, she was sad. He could see it in her eyes, though he didn't understand why. She'd wept twice now, and they hadn't been the tears of relief he'd shed when he'd first seen her again. Why wasn't she happy they were together again? She seemed as if she was when they touched, but then she'd look sad again, making sounds he didn't understand anymore, though part of him knew he once had.
Something had taken them away from each other, that much Connor was sure of. He'd held on to that knowledge, even when so much else had slipped away. He'd been taken from his mate, and he'd had to stay strong until he could get back to her. That had been the driving force that kept him alive, kept him fighting.
He must be upsetting her somehow. Maybe she was angry at him for being gone, mad that he had left her. He didn't think it had been his choice, but he didn't remember the reason clearly anymore. Had he left his mate's side on purpose?
No, that couldn't be it. It felt wrong to him, something he knew he never would've done. So what was wrong? Maybe it was because he didn't understand things. He couldn't remember so much, even people whose faces were still familiar, like the man who had been standing beside her when he'd arrived here. Did she think he didn't remember her, that their separation had made him forget?
Connor touched her face, turning it towards him. He cleared his throat, drawing on long-unused memories, pushing out a single sound from his lips. "A…Anne," he managed, his own voice sounding foreign to his ears.
Anne sucked in a deep breath before a smile broke across her face. "You remember my name. You…you remember me."
She hugged Connor tightly, and he smiled as well, glad that he'd made her happy. "Anne," he said again, stroking her hair.
Anne pulled up and kissed him. "We'll bring your other memories back, too. They're in there somewhere, I know. We just have to find them."
Connor didn't understand, but she was still happy, so he was content. Anne rested her head against his chest and he wrapped his arms around her, glad to be holding his mate again.
*** *** ***
Laura could hear them, and it disgusted her. Her husband was right down the hall, making no attempt to hide the fact that he was in the arms of another woman. They sounded more like wild animals than people, and Laura wondered what sort of woman this Anne was to behave like that. Laura had never allowed Connor to treat her in such a way. It wasn't the way people who cared about each other made love. She'd thought she'd gotten Connor to understand that, but apparently, he was easily swayed by a woman like that.
This whole thing seemed insane to Laura. How could they say Connor had been gone for years when he'd left only days before? Besides, he certainly didn't look like an old man, and while she had noticed her husband seemed to be aging rather slowly, that slowly was just impossible.
No one in this place seemed to have a decent head on their shoulders. It had always been bad enough to have to deal with Angel and Cordelia, but these new people who were here now were just too much. They were just as in to all that demon stuff as her in-laws and clearly did not want the best for Connor. They were willing to let him go off with that girl instead of getting him the medical attention that he needed—and from his behavior the night before, psychological attention as well. She'd always feared that her husband would lose his mind someday, and it appeared that now he had.
Laura heard the other woman scream her husband's name and she winced, bile rising to her throat. All these people wanted to do was pull him back into their sick little world, make him a monster again. Laura had worked too hard to make Connor a man for that to happen.
They couldn't force Connor to stay there. She was his wife, and she knew what was best for him. She didn't care what Angel said—why should she listen to some thing that wasn't even human? No one in their right mind would say it was better to leave someone with a vampire than with his normal, human wife. She could get Connor out of here, get him the help he needed, and they could go back to their life together. Maybe after all of this she could convince him to shut Angel out of his life once and for all, make him see what a bad influence his father was.
He'd forget all about that little girl in time, too. Laura understood that sometimes men thought with something other than their brains and were tempted by something young and fresh that knew how to sway her hips. She was just a temporary thing, a side effect of this mid-life crisis Connor was apparently going through. Once she had him thinking right again, he'd forget all about her and remember that he'd much rather be a part of a stable marriage, looking forward to a secure future, than rolling around the sheets with some barely-legal hussy that would probably leave him for someone closer to her own age soon enough anyway.
The screams got louder, and Laura couldn't take it anymore. She got out of bed, changing out of her nightclothes. She was going to get her husband and bring him home, and there was nothing anyone could do about it.
*** *** ***