“Nah. Three’s good for now.”
Wyatt dropped some bills on the table and the dealer shrugged. “Whatever you want.”
Seconds later, he passed the small bag of smack to him under the table. Wyatt palmed it then slipped it into the pocket of his j
eans. And it was done. Just like that he was back to being the weak-ass junkie he’d been for so long.
He was so proud.
“Pleasure doing business with you,” Rollo said, reaching for the glass of tequila still in Wyatt’s other hand. He drained in it one gulp, then placed the empty glass on the table between them.
“What?” he asked, when Wyatt lifted a brow at him. “You’ve been staring at it for as long as I’ve been here. I figured that meant you weren’t going to drink it. Call me when you run out.”
He shot Wyatt a quick grin and a mock salute then disappeared as quickly and silently as he’d appeared. And Wyatt was left alone with three grams of pure smack and his very guilty conscience.
It wasn’t a good combination.
…
Two and a half nerve-wracking hours after Quinn left—after promising to let her know when and if they found Wyatt—Poppy’s intercom buzzed again. Expecting it to be one of the other guys, she refused to get her hopes up. At least until the doorman told her that Wyatt Jennings was there to see her.
“Send him up!” she all but shouted into the phone. And, after quickly texting Quinn to let him know Wyatt had surfaced, she ran to the door and opened it. No playing it cool this time—she wanted Wyatt to see her when he got off the elevator. Wanted him to know someone was waiting for him.
Quinn hadn’t given her details, but by the time he’d left, she’d figured out enough to know that having someone waiting for him who wasn’t a member of Shaken Dirty would be a novel experience.
Sure enough, when the elevator dinged, Wyatt got off with his shoulders slumped and his head down. Like it hadn’t even occurred to him that she would be watching for him.
“Wyatt.” She called his name, a million questions dancing on the tip of her tongue.
Are you okay?
Are you high?
Where does it hurt?
Can I help?
They were all right there—especially the last one—but when he looked up at her with tormented but clear eyes, she bit every single one of them back. Instead, she just held her arms open to him.
He stopped dead a few feet from her door, like he didn’t know what to do with what she was offering him. With another man, she might have taken offense. With Wyatt, it just made her heart ache more, and before he could say anything—before he could do anything—she launched herself at him.
He caught her—of course he did. No matter what Wyatt thought of himself, no matter what he’d done in the past, she knew he was a stand-up guy. It was in his eyes, in his face, in the gentle way he touched her.
And then she was wrapping herself around him, arms and legs and body twining with his as she pressed kisses to his jaw, his throat, his too-prominent collarbone.
I was worried about you. Again, the words were on the tip of her tongue, and again she bit them back. The last thing he needed was to know that neither she nor his bandmates had expected to find him sober tonight. That wasn’t a comment on him, but the situation. Her father’s epic douchery had driven her to drink more than once in her life. How could she expect Wyatt to be any different?
“I’m glad you’re here,” she told him instead, in between kisses. “I missed you.”
It was no more than the truth.
He groaned in response, the deep, heartfelt sound of a man finding redemption—or maybe just escaping from hell. And then his mouth was slamming down on hers, lips and teeth and tongue tasting her, taking her, demanding everything she had to give him.
She gave it all willingly, took all of him in return as she poured herself into the kiss. Poured herself into him.
Licking her way along the seam of his lips, she nuzzled at the corners of his mouth before sucking his lower lip between her teeth and biting down softly.
He cursed then, a low, reverent sound that had heat skating down her spine and sparks of electricity sweeping along her every nerve ending. Relishing the feeling—reveling in it—she took instant advantage of his parted lips, skimming, stroking, sliding her tongue along his as heat continued to build white-hot between them.