Then I drag my hands back over my face and through my hair, gripping the back of my neck.
My injuries didn’t kill me, but denying the way I want Aspen might.
I’m not a good enough guy to resist, and at this moment I’m too tired to fight.
What’s left of my resolve is in pieces, and I force myself toward the bathroom, hoping hot water will wash away everything I shouldn’t want.
Instead, the universe decides I haven’t suffered nearly enough because, front and center, a charging cord hangs from the wall. A small, magnetic, unmistakable one.
I close my eyes, and somehow, that’s worse.
Because my mind fills in the rest anyway.
The brush of the soft pick silicone against my hand, as real as the lace in my pocket.
I’m hard as a rock and faced with impossible temptation. Any hope of being noble has been blown to smithereens.
How long has it been? Weeks for sure. Maybe a month.
Fuck it. I’ve got nothing left to lose.
I remove the bandage from my shoulder, gritting my teeth through the pain. I don’t care that I’ll have to redo it. I don’t care about anything other than the need coursing through me.
I’m already going to hell; my fate has been sealed for years. If I’m going down, I’m going down in flames.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-ONE
ASPEN
The pale, hollowed-eyed face staring back at me in my rearview mirror is barely recognizable. I look from my reflection back to my house and nearly laugh.
It’s so far away.
Farther than I want to move for sure.
If only I had more of that coffee Emmett brought me this morning. Hell, I’d need another gallon of it, but at the very least it might give me enough energy to drag myself out of the driver’s seat.
I blink hard against the sting behind my eyes.
God, I’m tired.
Not just physically.
Mentally, I’m hanging on by a thread.
And emotionally . . . whew.
Hard pass on unpacking that disaster tonight—no, this morning. It’s barely ten.
My forehead falls to the steering wheel and I wrap my arms around it.
“You won’t judge if I just take a little nap. Will you?”
The tan leather groans in response as I shift, trying, and failing, to get comfortable. The stitching is stamping its ugly pattern into my forehead.
My bed and three to four business days of rest is the bare minimum of what I need.
