Page 20 of Unhinged Cravings
“Let’s see if they’ve gotten to my other suppliers,” I said, getting in. It was bound to be a long day. Four more stops andmy mood had already soured. I needed a drink and a little of Ava’s smart mouth. That mouth was enough to make me want to strangle her, yet every time she opened it, she enthralled me more. I rubbed my eyes. Everything about her enthralled me, which was a dangerous thing. Maybe I should have just killed her.
“You good, boss?” Pack looked at me through the rearview mirror.
“Yeah, just trying to clear my mind.”
He returned to driving, but I could tell he wanted to question me, knowing me enough to spot my weakness for the spirited minx locked in my home. But we weren’t alone, and he knew better than to say anything.
Staring out the window at the passing streets, I thought about how good it had been to hold her. I hadn’t had a woman in my bed in too long and those had been one-night stands, nothing more than a night of release. Attachment wasn’t for me. My life was too dangerous and busy for a woman, but something about Ava had me craving more. Not just a fling or a heated fuck. More. And I had never wanted more.
Shit, the woman had been in my life for two days and I couldn’t get her off my mind. I didn’t want to think about what would happen after two weeks with her. Resting my head back, I tried not to think about it. She was my hostage. Nothing more. Collateral damage if my brother didn’t agree to my meeting. A bargaining chip if he did.
I needed to avoid her, to stop insisting she eat with me, to leave her locked in her room. Disassociate myself from her. But as the day went by, the meetings better than my first but still tiring, my mind was back on her.
Toweling my hair dry after a much-needed shower, I picked up my phone, seeing Tuck’s number. He was my go-to for medication when our supplies ran low. Pack was the closest we had to a doctor, with enough experience now to extract bulletsand stitch my men up. Tuck was who I went to for the supplies he needed to keep our makeshift operating room stocked.
“Tuck,” I answered, throwing my towel into the bathroom.
“I can get the meds, but it will take a few days. My contact is out of the province, but assures me he’ll have it in three days.”
Damn. “Three days? That’s too long.”
“The first drug is the problem. It’s difficult to get. What do you need it for, anyway? It’s some heart medication.”
I rubbed my neck. “No, that doesn’t make sense. It’s for nightmares.”
“Huh, that’s not what my contact said. Who’s having nightmares?”
“Nobody. Just get it for me.”
Disconnecting, I did a search for the medication, finding the same answer Tuck had given me until I added nightmares to my search. The result was not what I had expected. I brought the phone closer, questioning what I’d found. Not only did the drug help with heart issues, psychiatrists used it when working with PTSD patients who suffered from night terrors.
I read the article several times. PTSD? What had Ava gone through to give her that? And those nightmares I had assumed were because I had shot two men next to her and put a gun to her head, had nothing to do with me. Something had happened in her past that still haunted her in her nightmares.
Throwing my phone on the bed, I grabbed a T-shirt and pulled it over my head while I walked from my room. Breaker was off duty, but Vin stood guard in front of Ava’s room. He gave me a nod, and I opened Ava’s door.
“You people need to learn to knock,” she complained behind a book I assumed she must have convinced one of the guys to get her. “Seriously, I could be naked in—” She halted her words, her eyes peering over the edge of the book.
I noted the sweep of her eyes over my body and couldn’t stopmy smirk. This was the first time she had seen me out of my regular attire of dress shirts and slacks.
“You dress down nicely, Emerson.”
So, she was back to my name. Hearing her call me by my alias had been akin to a dagger piercing my skin, and I’d hated the sensation.
I had intended to come in and demand she tell me why she needed to take a medicine prescribed to patients with PTSD, but as she lowered the book, the words escaped me. She had freed her hair and blonde and pink curls hung loosely around her neck now. I had called her adorable, and she was right to question the term because she really was beautiful. With doe eyes that hid the viper below, a splash of freckles dusting her nose, and a mouth that screamed to be kissed.
“I can’t get the medicine for a few more days,” I stated, ignoring her comment and pushing away the thoughts of kissing that mouth.
Her expression fell so fast, I hated that I had wiped away her playful smile. “Oh.” A simple reply that told me enough.
“Do you have a heart condition, Ava?” I asked. My normal method of demanding answers had escaped me. The idea of making her tell me something that would bring that haunted look she’d had in her sleep back again killed me.
“No,” she replied with a laugh. “Unless I developed one with as many times as people have barged into my room unannounced.”
“My room,” I said, closing the door behind me and walking further into the room.
Her brow lifted. “Until you let me go, it’s mine. Now, if you have nothing better to say, then I have a hot date with this boring mystery.” She lifted the book back up.
“Then why are you taking a drug for patients with heart problems?”
