Page 57 of Wicked Temptations

Three hundred likes already. Comments flooding in about chemistry and tension and how we should just fuck already.

If they only knew.

I locked my phone and threw it onto the couch.

The apartment suddenly felt too small . Too quiet. The walls pressed in.

I wanted to hit something. Break something. Scream until my voice gave out.

But that wouldn’t fix this.

Nothing would fix this except time and distance and letting Ash hate me enough to move on.

I slumped onto the couch, head in my hands.

You’re too chickenshit to admit it.

Maybe he was right.

Maybe I was exactly the coward he’d accused me of being.

Because the truth was, I did feel something for Ash. Something big and terrifying that I didn’t have a name for. Something that made me want to smooth his hair and ask about his day and wake up next to him in the morning.

And that was the problem.

Because wanting those things meant risking everything.

It meant giving him the power to leave. To decide one day that I was too much work, too damaged, too fundamentally broken to be worth the effort.

And I couldn’t survive that.

Not again.

Not with him.

I’d barely survived Dylan walking away and Jimmy had left scars that still ached sometimes, and those relationships had been surface level compared to what Ash was offering.

Ash wanted all of me.

So yeah. Maybe I was a coward.

But cowardice had kept me alive this long.

Chapter 14

Ash

Isatinmycar for twenty minutes before I could trust myself to drive.

The steering wheel was cold under my hands. Rain drummed on the roof, steady and relentless. Each drop weighed me down and added to my sour mood.

What did you expect?

I’d pushed. Of course I’d pushed. I always pushed when I should’ve left well enough alone. And now I’d ruined the one good thing I had going for me.

Good? Was that what I was calling it? Fucking in storage closets and bathrooms. Being told I was nothing more than an impulse Jude couldn’t control.

Yeah, that was so good and healthy.