Page 34 of Unleashed By Eden

“I’m sooorrrry . . .” He stretches out the word. “Everything . . . went . . . wrong.” His sentences keep falling apart on his tongue, losing pieces on the way out.

“What are you talking about?” I ask, steering him toward the bathroom, because that stench is something else. “What went wrong?”

“You . . . me . . . us . . .” He stares vaguely at my shoulder. “Wrong.”

I suck in a deep breath and try to control the raging bitch who always sits a little too close to the surface. A memory I keep locked away in a mental bunker flashes before my eyes. His expression that night. The words that finished me. The way he has never looked back. I don’t want to unpack that with him while he’s drunk enough to forget his own name. He’ll wake up tomorrow with a clean slate and no memory of what tore my heart apart.

I grit my teeth. “Not tonight, Carter. You don’t get to do this when you can’t even stand up.”

He squints at his T-shirt, then pinches the fabric between his fingers. “Wet.”

“That’s because you poured alcohol on yourself.” I bite back the rest. I’ve seen enough men drink themselves inside out to know when to pick my battles.

I get him into the bathroom. He stumbles once, shoulder clipping the doorframe, and I shove him upright until he manages to clamp both hands on the sink.

He starts tugging at his shirt, frowning in concentration, clearly heading for naked, so I turn away, giving him a sliver of privacy that lasts all of two seconds.

Fabric rustles behind me. Something hits tile.

His shirt lands on the floor near my bare toes. Then the soft thump of his jeans followed by the whisper of boxers joining the pile.

Against my better judgment, I look over my shoulder.

His chest and arms are fully exposed, every line of muscle and ink visible in the bright bathroom light. Old tattoos and new ones cover him, his story drawn on skin, healed smooth.

My gaze dips lower, and my breath catches before I can stop it. I’ve only ever seen the tip of his cock, that one awful, messy night that I don’t allow myself to replay, but now there is metal through the tip and all down the shaft, a ladder of silver glinting stark in the light. Even soft, his size is something most of Eden’s regulars would kill for.

I don’t feel guilty for looking. He wouldn’t, if our roles were reversed.

He’s a mess, but beautiful in a way that shouldn’t be legal.

I turn on the shower, adjust the temperature until the water runs warm, and guide him under the stream. The smell of bourbon starts to lift, swirling away with the steam.

He sways slightly under the spray, palms flattening against the tiles as he tips his head back.

“Vi,” he whimpers, my name broken at the edges.

He sounds small. And I’m not used to small from Carter.

“Come on,” I say quietly. “Let’s get you out before you pass out.”

I help him out of the shower, wrap him in a towel, and use another to rub water from his hair and shoulders. He lets me move him around, pliant in that way drunk bodies get when they finally stop fighting gravity. When he’s mostly dry, I guide him to the bed.

He slumps onto the mattress, all long limbs and damp skin, and lets his head find the pillow.

He stares into space, his eyelids dropping, his blinks getting longer.

“Scared shitless,” he mumbles.

I pause with my hand on the duvet. “Scared? Of what?”

His eyes slide closed again, lashes dark against his skin. “Dying,” he says softly, the word barely making it into the air.

It slips out of him, escaped in the gap between thoughts. By the time my brain scrambles for a response, he’s gone. Deadweight. Breathing deep and even, fully out.

I stand there, staring down at him.

He looks nothing like the man who stepped onto that stage tonight and made thousands of people scream themselves hoarse. Nothing like the rock star who the rest of the world loses its mind over.