Panic slithered up her spine and coiled in her gut. “No. No, no.” A fierce longing shook her to the core. “You can’t be serious.” He wanted to leave her. “Why?”
“Because I can’t keep pretending that this is platonic when it’s anything but. My mind files away all these details about you. The way you move, your smile, the smell of you, that defiant way you hike your chin, the sexy hollow of your throat, the curve at the small of your back, creating a sick map of you. One that I see and want to touch that leads me back to you when I’m with someone else.” Naked emotion passed over his carved features and he withered in front of her.
She stared at him, sad desperation flooding her veins.
“As long as I continue to be your person,” he said, “I’ll never be able to move on from you. It’d be impossible to fall in love with anyone else. I want to get married, have a family, children.”
A sinkhole opened inside her, rattling her to the very foundation of her soul. Children. Something she’d never be able to give him or anyone else.
“I need all those things. I wanted them with you.” He shook his head. “But I can see now that’s never going to happen.”
It was too much and not enough. “Aiden...”
He waited, the hope in his eyes glaring.
Tension swelled in the room around them. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out. She didn’t know what to say to keep from losing him. The weight of that inevitability settled in her chest.
“Get some sleep,” he snapped. “We’ve got a long day ahead of us.” He stormed into the bathroom and shut the door.
Her heart hammered, her brain reeling.
The dread inside her shot to a higher pitch and her muscles turned to gelatin. Charlie sank down on the bed, trying to piece together what had started it all, how everything had spun out of her control. Her only answer—the kiss they’d shared earlier.
They’d opened Pandora’s box back in the car when their lips had locked, and they’d tasted the passion burning between them.
A sudden realization struck her with such blunt force that it stole her breath. She was in love with Aiden. Not as a sister loved a brother, but as a woman loved a man.
And he was in love with her.
She’d been kidding herself all along that she could control this. What a fool she’d been.
Maybe she should tell him the truth. Why they couldn’t be together. The real reason they’d never work.
A hurricane of conflicting emotions rioted inside her, making her eyes sting.
He’d stirred up a longing for something she couldn’t have, to be someone that she couldn’t—a mother...to be his in every sense of the word.
Her eyes watered, tears burning. She burned...ached for him. For the impossible.
Aiden threw open the bathroom door. He was dressed as he stomped out, not casting a single glance at her. “I need some air. I can’t breathe.”
Before she could utter a word, he was gone.
Chapter Twelve
His hands in fists at his sides, Aiden stormed out of the hotel as desire pounded through him. His straining erection was painful, and his head was a mess.
He was a complete wreck and Charlie was what he needed to fix it. She was like a drug, a habit he couldn’t kick no matter the side effects or warnings or devastation.
Sleeping with her would’ve only made the addiction worse.
Aiden knew this and still he wanted her. Needed her. He was a lost man.
His lungs heaved with a foreign anger. Stalking down the street, he was furious. At himself. Not at her. It wasn’t her fault any more than it was heroin’s or meth’s for a person needing that fix, again and again.
He never should’ve put her in that position back in the hotel room. Never should’ve thrown the job offer in her face that way.
It wasn’t like him to be cruel. Even if she had been cruel first.
You’re my brother. Maybe you should think of me as a sister.
A stab speared through his chest as he recalled her words. Her lies. It made him sick to his stomach.
He punched the air and swore under his breath, his mind, his body, every inch of him humming with the memory of kissing her, stroking her hot wetness between her thighs. How good she’d felt, how receptive she’d been, turned on by him so quickly. How much he’d wanted to slip inside her and bury himself in her heart.
Madness whirled around in his head, a firestorm of pent-up sexual frustration consuming him. He was disgusted with himself for how he’d spoken to her. Touched her. A part of him felt as if he’d violated their friendship. The other part felt like he hadn’t gone far enough.
What was wrong with him?
Aiden scrubbed his hand over his face. The musky scent of Charlie filled his nostrils, inflamed his blood. Stoked the madness swelling in his skull.
He should’ve washed his stupid hands, but he’d been fired up and in such a rush to get out of the hotel room that it was a miracle he’d taken the time to get dressed.
Desperate to shake himself free of this misery, he needed to focus on the trouble they were in, on finding a solution out of it. On anything except the always present chemistry between them. Chemistry that’d sparked the day they met.
A fresh clutch of pain tightened in his chest.
Stopping, he found himself standing in front of another hotel. He went inside and used the bathroom off the lobby, soaping up his hands twice and scrubbing them clean.
He threw away the paper towels and rubbed the outline of the flash drive in his pocket. They had no clue exactly what was on it. Finding out might give him some idea what their next step should be.
This situation wasn’t going to fix itself, and dwelling on Charlie wasn’t helping.
He walked up to the concierge desk as if he was a guest staying there. “Hi. Where’s the business center?”
The clerk directed him to a comfy lounge with living room furniture, computers and printers. The lounge flowed into a twenty-four-hour coffee shop. Since it was communal space, the Wi-Fi was free, and he wasn’t even asked for a room number to access the internet.
After he bought coffee and a premade packaged sandwich from the coffee bar, he settled in at one of the computers for a long haul. It’d take time to carefully sift through the drive. If they had any hope of winning this, they needed to know who they were going up against.
He had to concentrate on their current problem. Clearing their names, which also meant finding Edgar, alive.
Then he’d take the job as an instructor. Go to Camp Beauregard. Rehab. The only way to get over Charlie... Killinger. That was how he’d think of her from now on.