"There's a bedroom at the end of the hall," I say, my voice rougher than I mean it to be. "You can sleep there."
"Where will you sleep?"
"Couch."
She nods. Doesn't move. Just stands there in my t-shirt, looking at me like she's trying to solve a puzzle.
"What?" I ask.
"I'm trying to figure out if I should trust you."
"You shouldn't."
"I know." She crosses her arms. "But I think I do anyway. At least a little."
"That's a mistake."
"Probably." She moves toward the bedroom. Pauses at the doorway. "William?"
"Yeah?"
"Don't use tonight. Please."
The request hits harder than it should.
She closes the door behind her. Leaves me alone with my phone and my guilt and the cocaine waiting in the other room.
I sit in the darkness.
Think about Frank's demands and Viktor's attack and the mole we still haven't found.
Think about Aoife's mouth on mine and the way she fit against me and how wrong the timing was.
Think about everything except the cocaine.
It doesn't work.
But I don't get up either.
I just sit there. One breath. Then another.
Like Aoife in the SUV.
Like someone trying to survive.
And maybe, just maybe, that's enough for tonight.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Aoife
SLEEP WON'T COME.
I've been lying in this bed for two hours, staring at the ceiling of a room that smells like clean linen and old wood and something underneath that's distinctly masculine. The mattress is decent, the sheets are soft, and the pillows are the kind someone actually chose rather than grabbed off a shelf. William clearly spends time here. Enough time to make it comfortable. Enough time to make it feel like his.
Yet I still can't sleep.
Every time I close my eyes, the world explodes.
