Hurt blistered through her expression.
My chest squeezed.
Shit.
I had no goddamn clue how to handle this. How to treat her. How to even look at her without coming unglued.
I came to a quick stop in front of the doorway and jumped out before I apologized.
This was the girl who’d fucking wrecked me. Destroyed the good thing I was trying to build. She didn’t get my sympathy or worry.
I stormed around to her side and ripped open her door. “Let’s go.”
She fumbled out, and I could feel her trying to keep up as I strode directly to the lobby clerk. I grabbed a room while Aster wavered behind, unsure of what the hell was going on.
Join the fucking club, baby.
I didn’t know what had possessed me to make that proposition. Nothing but how good it’d feel to see the shame written on Jarek’s face.
I had his wife, and now I didn’t know what the fuck to do with her.
Keep her.
There my head went, deep diving into dangerous things.
“Here you are, Sir.” The clerk handed me the key to a room at one of the nicest hotels in Redemption Hills. It was situated on the farthest end of downtown, about a mile from my apartment.
It would be a safe place for her to stay until I figured out a plan because I sure as shit wasn’t delivering her back into the hands of that prick. Maybe I should have ended him rather than standing down when Oz had fired the warning shot.
But I knew what putting a man like Jarek Urso into the ground would incite.
A war.
It would endanger my family. My brothers. Their wives. Their kids. I couldn’t go there.
No doubt, my actions from tonight already had me neck deep.
“I have a room.” I pressed my hand to the small of Aster’s back.
She shivered.
I rejected the way it wanted to seep into me and take over.
The way her spirit washed and swam, different but familiar.
I had to stop myself from leaning in and inhaling her warmth.
I guided her to the elevator, pushed the button for the third floor, and swiped the card at the door. It opened to the lapping shadows.
We stepped inside the bated silence.
I could feel every violent beat of her heart. Could taste every ragged breath. Could smell her aura coming off her in waves.
Hyacinth and magnolia leaves.
This decadent, exotic scent that sparked the type of memories I couldn’t bear.
They drilled a hole through the middle of me.