“Maxx,” the voice cried out, sounding sad.
My body was on fire. My movements made me sick. I leaned over the side of my bed as more stomach acid surged up my throat and out of my mouth, dribbling down my chin.
“Please,” I sobbed between full heaves.
The voice didn’t say anything. But hands held me as I shook and trembled.
I pushed the hands away. “Please, just give them to me!” I begged, falling onto my side. I tried to bring my knees up to my chest, but I thought I would be snapped in half. I felt as if I were being flayed alive.
“Please!” I screamed. And the voice cooed something in my ear. And the hands rubbed my back. And all I could do was cry and cry and cry. I cried for the thing I needed but the voice wouldn’t give me.
And then everything went mercifully black again.
“You need to drink something.”
I stirred as the soft voice whispered into my ear. A strong hand gripped the back of my neck, pulling me up. My greedy lips touched the edge of a glass, and cool liquid reached my tongue.
At first my throat convulsed, and my stomach threatened to throw the liquid back up. The glass disappeared while I gasped for breath and tried to control my body’s painful revolt.
When I was able to keep from upchucking, the glass was placed at my lips again, and this time I drank more water. My mouth was painfully dry, and my tongue stuck to my lips.
“That’s enough for now,” the voice murmured as the glass was taken away from me. My mouth gaped like a fish’s, desperate for more.
Hands pushed me back down onto the bed, soft fingers caressing my face. I grabbed the hand and held it firmly, the small fingers crushed in my much larger ones.
“Stop it, you’re hurting me,” the voice gasped, and my eye flew open, still only the one, and I stared up in horror at the beautiful face that hovered over me with a pained expression.
I dropped Aubrey’s hand and tried to sit up but found that even that simple action was beyond me. I had zero energy. Moving my head was about all the effort I could expend at the moment. Hell, even blinking was enough to make me want to take a nap.
Everywhere ached and hurt like I had been run over by a Mack truck. My head beat with the constant throb of ten thousand tiny needles burrowing their way into my skull. My stomach felt as though someone had taken it apart, twisted it up, and shoved it back inside my body.
All in all, I felt like a dead man’s ass**le.
And the last person I wanted to see me like this was Aubrey Duncan.
“What the f**k are you doing here?” I asked harshly, not even attempting to be nice about it. I was way past niceties. The confident guy she was used to seeing was gone. That guy had died a swift and apparently very painful death.
I wasn’t sure why Aubrey was there. I sure as hell didn’t know how she’d found my apartment. I just knew that I wanted her to leave me to my misery.
If Aubrey was insulted by my less-than-stellar manners, she didn’t show it. She went about straightening my blankets and tucking them around me like I was some five-year-old who only needed a kiss and a cuddle to feel better.
“You should try to eat something,” she said, getting to her feet. I noticed that her clothes were creased and looked as though she had been wearing them for a while.
Crap, what the hell had happened?
My head was a fuzzy mess. I couldn’t remember anything.
Before Aubrey could move away from me, I grabbed her wrist, bringing her up short. “Why are you here?” I asked harshly, wishing I didn’t sound like such an ass.
“I couldn’t leave you the way you were,” she answered simply, giving me a bland look.
I shook my head and instantly regretted it as the needles pierced my head again. “What happened?” I asked, opting to try a different angle.
Aubrey sighed and tugged at her blond ponytail, which was half falling down around her shoulders. She looked tired. And sad? Could that be right?
But she looked f**king gorgeous. She always looked that way.
And she needed to leave.
“You need to get out of here,” I said, forcing my weak body to sit up. Aubrey looked as though she wanted to push me back down, but she didn’t move. She leveled me with an even look.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she said shortly.
For the first time, I looked around my room and was startled by the state of it. “What the hell happened in here?” I was asking that a lot.
Aubrey snorted. “You were what happened. You don’t remember, do you?” she asked softly, her face wearing an expression that I hated. Pity. And sympathy and every other f**king emotion that was totally and completely useless to me.
I didn’t need her pity, or her lectures.
“Seriously, Aubrey, get the f**k out. I don’t want you here,” I gritted out, swinging my legs around to rest on the floor. The cold air hit my bare legs, and I realized I was wearing only a pair of boxers.
Fuck me, did Aubrey undress me? Normally the thought of Aubrey taking my clothes off would be a full-on cock-hardening fantasy. Not now.
Right now, I was mortified.
“Get me my goddamned pants!” I barked, swaying with the effort to hold myself upright. And yes, I felt like shit for yelling at Aubrey like that. I didn’t miss the way she flinched. It was like a knife to the heart. This girl did something to me that made me feel things I wished I didn’t.
Guilt, shame, the desperate f**king need to be with her all the time.
But I realized there was good stuff too. She made me feel like a little kid on Christmas morning every time I knew I was going to see her. She filled me with anticipation and something else entirely—a desire to be something better.
And that made me both want to run as fast as I could in the other direction and to hold on to her with everything I had.
Aubrey slowly walked across my destroyed bedroom, leaned down, and picked up my jeans. Deliberately she closed the space between us. My chest felt tight. I was twitchy and weak. Watching her out of one eye was throwing me off-balance. I wanted to back away. I wanted to crouch in the corner and cower in shame. I hated her seeing me at my worst. I never wanted to be anything but my best around her.
But here we were. And there was no escaping the reality of what I knew she saw.
She gripped my pants in her hand and held them out for me to take, her eyes never leaving my face. Normally I would have met her bold stare head-on. I would have taken her challenge and enjoyed it.
This time I looked away, my gaze dropping to the floor to escape her.
I grabbed my jeans and put them on as quickly as my quivering body would allow.