Free Edge of Recovery (Love on the Edge) by Molly Lee Page B

dick throbbed with her so close, with her strawberry scent in my air, her soft body touching mine, but I didn’t move. Couldn’t move.
    “Tell me I’m not just some ex-junkie with a crush on her Sponsee. Tell me I’m not crazy. That you feel this too.” She held her position, so close to my lips I could feel her breath on my skin.
    “I feel it,” I said, wanting to say more but the words died on my tongue. This was a tease from God, a trick placing a piece of perfection like Charlie in front of me, only to have her be off limits. Clearly, she didn’t care about the rules—not only losing the opportunity to be a sponsor in the future but quite possibly losing access to this clinic, which acted as a lifeline to her—but that was right now…what would she do later? After she learned who I really was? After I inevitably hurt her? Because there was no other way this would end. I hurt people. It’s what I did.
    “Prove it,” she said. “Show me something real. Something so I know you’re willing to try. That you want to get better. Because that’s the key, Justin. You have to want it, or I can’t even begin to help you.”
    She had already helped me in more ways than she knew. She’d awoken a piece of my heart that I thought was long dead—the ability to care hadn’t happened since Blake, about myself, about anyone—but I did care about her. What she thought and how she looked at me. And it wasn’t that I wanted to change for her because I felt like I had already set those goals before she came around. I wanted to become who I was around her. I wanted to be the guy I felt like in her presence. The one who cracked jokes with her like rapid fire, the one who pushed her when she pushed back. The one who wasn’t a raging drunk. The one who was just simply…Justin. Charlie’s version of Justin. He was okay to be around. He was almost pleasant.
    I didn’t have a clue how to show her badly I wanted to be him.
    “How do I dig out of a hole so deep and so dark I can’t tell which is the bottom and which is the top?” I asked, pushing some of her hair away from her face.
    “Easy,” she said, leaning into my palm. “You ask me for a shovel.”
    I closed my eyes and exhaled. This girl. She always had the right words. I took my hand away from her cheek and slipped it into my pocket. Pulling out the baggie of a half-dozen pills, I showed them to her. She tilted her head, her eyes slits as she saw one small white pill in particular. I quickly tipped the bag upside down over the toilet and flushed away what would have been over four grand.
    Her eyes widened, the specks of gold catching in the light that flickered above us. She smiled. “It’s real then?”
    “Yeah,” I huffed. “As crazy as it sounds, it is. I want to get better, Charlie. I just don’t have a fucking clue how.”
    Reaching up on her tiptoes, she gripped my face between her hands. “I’m going to show you.”
    I moved my head slightly, her lips only a breath away from mine. The closeness of her ignited my core and my mouth watered, craving more.
    Her sigh hit my skin as she urged me closer.
    Knock! Knock! Two loud bangs jolted us out of our embrace.
    “You about done in there? I have to take a piss!” a man shouted from the other side of the closed door.
    “Coming!” Charlie said and smoothed her hands over her hair, winking at me.
    She went out first, me following right behind her. The guy gave us a sideways glance but quickly shrugged. I stopped him, my hand darting out to block his path to the bathroom.
    “You know,” I said, “there are hundreds of bathrooms on the massive property. Including one right outside in the hallway.”
    The guy swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as he nodded quickly. “Didn’t realize you had company.” He raised his hands, and I smacked his shoulder.
    “No worries,” I said, walking to where Charlie waited for me in the entryway.
    Funny. I actually meant that. Two years ago the