No. He’d be just as murderous as Lynch if he was privy to the details of what happened in my room last night. If he had a window into my thoughts about what I’ve imagined doing to her, he’d kill me on the spot and smile when the cops arrived to arrest him. He’d do his prison time with a smile on his face.
Knowing that is why I refuse to engage with him. He hasn’t said anything to Lynch, but I know it’ll happen eventually. There’s no turning back after hearing her soft moans as she came apart under me last night. I thought about it the entire ride down here. I mulled over every reason to stay away.
“Am I not worth dying for?”
Her words bounced around in my head for the better part of the day, and the only answer I could admit to is, yeah you are, baby girl. The only thing that makes me pause to consider a different outcome is leaving her alone, dying and risking her feeling like it was her fault. The guilt should rest solely on my shoulders. She shouldn’t be tainted with it.
I regret not opening my eyes, not watching her mouth when she told me she loved me. I regret not saying it back, because I’m an idiot not to admit it to myself. Denial is something I’ve been clinging to for weeks, but it’s another thing I refuse to continue. Keeping her safe is my only concern, but doubt of my own restraint is a huge factor in doing anything further.
My phone buzzes in my pocket, but I walk a couple more blocks before pulling it out to check the message.
Lynch: You’re with me. Room 134.
“Fucking perfect,” I mutter.
My feet keep moving, carrying me further and further away. I opt to stay gone for hours instead of ending up in the room with him while he’s still awake. Before Zoe arrived, he’d be up at all hours of the night, never able to get a real night’s sleep, but since she showed up and rocked his world, he sleeps like a fucking baby. He’s admitted it to me more than once. I’m gambling on that when I don’t go back to the hotel for another couple of hours.
I’m exhausted. I can feel the wear and tear of the ride clear to my bone marrow, but it’s late by the time I get back to our hotel.
Noticing my bike is the only one on the north side, I crank it and park it on the other side of the hotel. When Smalls makes room reservations for us, he knows we always need the ground floor with outside entry. Grumbling to myself when I enter the hotel, I nearly lose my shit at the pimple-faced idiot at the desk who refuses to give me a key card. I can’t blame the asshole. If I didn’t know Lynch, I wouldn’t hand over a card on the off chance that my president wouldn’t be happy about it, either.
“I’m the VP,” I hiss, pointing to the patch on my damn cut.
“And you could be fighting with him.” He takes a step back when I growl. “How do I know you don’t want to go in there and hurt him?”
“You.” I point at him, but standing here arguing won’t make a damn difference. I just didn’t want to have to knock on the damn door. Waking Lynch up with the door opening isn’t as bad as making him get out of the damn bed. If I wasn’t on his shit list before tonight, I will be by morning. “You watch too much fucking TV.”
He’s grumbling something about Juice betraying Jax when I walk away. I just hold both of my middle fingers in the air as I walk away.
“He was the intelligence officer. Never the damn VP,” I mumble as I close the distance between my cautious feet and the door to room 134. “I don’t think Jax would’ve hurt the man his sister loved.”
“Jax didn’t have a sister.” I nearly shoot TJ for sneaking up on me. “Where have you been? You missed dinner.”
“Walking,” I say as I pull my hand from the steel in my waistband, still not one hundred percent sure that I won’t need to use it. “Why are you creeping around the hall?”
“Getting ice.” He holds up the bucket before slamming his knuckles on the door marked 134 and disappearing into the room across the hall.
“Motherfucker.” My head snaps up when Lynch pulls open the door with a scowl on his face.
“You don’t have to pound on the door like the fucking police.”
I catch the door just before it clicks closed again. Shifting the weight of my bag on my shoulder, I walk in behind him.
“I’m back, baby,” he says after picking up his phone off the bedside table. His eyes find mine as he walks toward the bathroom. “You showering tonight?”