Addicted to You

by Colina Brennan

  Then again, she still thought he was a real sex addict.

  Never let it be said that Will wasn’t up for a challenge. He had no intention of letting her make him a one night stand. Whether she felt the same or not, Will would show her that he was an addiction worth keeping.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Leah rested her back against the wall and waited in the darkness beneath the stairs for Will to join her. A moment later, he did. She released the breath she’d been holding in a shuddering sigh as his body surrounded her, warm and hard.

  Pressing against him, she planted light little kisses on his jaw. Her head was spinning, and her cheeks felt flushed. Her heart pounded so loudly, it almost drowned out the sound of voices and music only a room away.

  He put his hands against the wall on either side of her head and whispered her name again and again, punctuating each with a long kiss and ending with a slow lick along her lower lip. Her hands clutched his shoulders as she slid her thigh up over his hip and ground down against the hardness beneath his jeans.

  “Let me,” he whispered, before drawing back and sinking to his knees.

  Leah’s mouth went dry. She wished she could see him, but it was too dark. She could feel him just fine though as his deft fingers trailed up her thighs, sending delicious little shivers through her and making her ache. He pushed up her skirt, and she swallowed thickly, panting now, as his hands slid up over her hips and gently tugged down her panties.

  Without a word, she felt her panties drop and he nudged her legs apart. She could do nothing but obey, wet and aching and ready. She let her legs fall open, and a moment later, felt his warm breath between her thighs.

  When his mouth touched her, she gasped. Her fingers tangled in his hair, and she tried not to moan too loudly. Wet pleasure cascaded through her body, spinning hungrily at her center as she arched into his mouth.

  The want inside her was terrifying. This just wasn’t enough. She wanted not only his mouth, but all of him. The horrible truth of it was that she’d pulled him in here as a test. Not for him, but for how she would feel about him afterward.

  The things he’d said to her at the party had stayed with her all week, keeping her up at night and distracting her from her classes. He had seen right through her.

  So she had decided on one more meeting. This would be the last because she had arrived with every intention of seducing him. The counselor had been unwittingly helpful because this was exactly how she wanted it. Hot, quick, and now. This was how it had been with previous guys, and she had no idea how she wanted to feel about it once it was over. She was terrified she would still want him, and yet a part of her hoped for it. But that hope, that fragile sense of something more—that was even more terrifying.

  Her hips jerked and she whimpered, all her senses narrowed in on the feel of Will’s mouth, of his tongue, of the way he groaned as if he was enjoying it. She gasped with bliss and began to stroke and tug on the golden hair. He sucked gently, and she almost bit right through her lip in an attempt not to scream.

  Just as she was coming, a sad little thought flashed through her mind.

  I’ve been kidding myself. I did want more than this. But it’s too late now.

  She slumped back against the wall, panting. Her thighs trembled and her legs felt like jelly. Will wrapped a strong arm around her waist and held her steady as he stood. For a moment, the light from beyond their little nook fell across his face, and she tried not to fall in love with his swollen lips and the way he smiled at her.

  “Come home with me,” he said, pressing against Leah again so that she could feel … everything.

  There’s no point, she thought grimly. I’ve screwed it all up. I’ve done what I always do, and now I’ll get bored with you.

  When she felt his lips searching for hers in the dark, she turned her face away.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, his voice painfully sweet. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

  Her chest tightened. The walls were closing in. She had to get out. The guy had a way about him that made her want to tell him the truth.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked. He tugged gently on her arms until she followed him just far enough out of their hiding place that he could see her face. “You feel tense. I might not be an expert, but I’m pretty sure ‘tense’ is the wrong way to feel after an orgasm.”

  “I’m fine,” she snapped, fighting simultaneous urges to go home with Will and to leave and never see him again.

  “Come home with me then,” he insisted, smiling his almost illegally charming smile. “You can’t leave me this turned on. That would be sadistic.”

  “How do you know I’m not a complete bitch who gets off and then fucks off?” she demanded, trying to make him understand that it would be better if they parted ways.

  But hoping that they wouldn’t.

  He looked thoughtful for a moment. “Because I think I know what’s been going through your mind ever since we met.”

  “Oh really?” She tried to glare, but instead couldn’t think beyond the way her knees still wobbled and how Will’s hair smelled of mint. Before she realized what she was doing, she’d reached out to stroke a golden strand. She dropped her hand almost immediately. Will moved closer at the contact.

  “You’ve spent every night imagining what it would be like to have me undress you,” he murmured, “to move against you, in you. To feel my weight pressing you into the bed.”

  She caught her breath, battling a resurgence of lust. His mouth was so close. It would be so easy just to kiss it and suggest a real date instead.

  But it would be better to do this properly. Leah had, as usual, managed to turn this beautiful thing into a tawdry one night stand and now she had better get fucked and run for it. Will’s mouth came down on the sensitive skin between shoulder and neck and bit. She cried out and arched her hips into his.

  “Yes,” she said.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Will’s apartment was full of psychology textbooks. Maybe he’d been trying some self-diagnosis before resorting to the support group. Or maybe he was a psychology student, which could probably make it an incidence of ‘physician, heal thyself.’ Leah watched him remove his coat and then lean over to pet the large black cat that had darted across the living room to greet him. She hadn’t expected him to have a cat, but she liked learning things about him. Every new detail clarified him in her mind and left her wanting. Constantly wanting.

  Speaking of which, the air was full of expectation. It nipped at her skin like a mosquito she couldn’t swat.

  A sick, sad feeling blossomed in her stomach. She often felt like this during her past encounters. Despite the pleasure and the ease of it, it never felt like enough.

  Leah wanted to talk, to know everything she could about him, even the mundane things like what the name of his cat was. But she had learned to channel her emotions through sex at eighteen, and now she didn’t know how to stop.

  Will switched on a dim lamp before approaching her, his smile painfully sweet. He leaned in and kissed her neck. Heat flooded between them. Leah closed her eyes and let the hunger take over, to make everything simple.

  “You’re beautiful,” he whispered against her throat, running a hand slowly down her back.

  Her eyes sprang open. Yes, they’d been stumbling toward this night since that first kiss, but one night stands still shouldn’t say things like that.

  “Don’t be so sentimental,” she said, expecting an angry reaction. But Will merely laughed.

  “It’s just an observation,” he said. “I’ve wanted you since the minute I saw you.”

  “Of course you did. We always do. We see, we want, we fuck,” she muttered.

  His hands paused in their journey up the back of her shirt. Blue eyes looked at her with concern. “Are you all right? I was only kidding when I said it would be sadistic. You don’t have to do this.”

  She ran a hand down his body and cupped the hot erection through his jeans. He tensed
.

  “Yes, I do.” Her pulse fluttered rapidly beneath her skin as she watched desire move through his face, a face she had yet to tire of looking at. “That’s the problem.”

  Before he could say anything else so dangerously kind, she unzipped his jeans and pushed eager fingers inside. He was hot, heavy against her palm. Leah closed her eyes again. Screw introspection and self-doubt and loneliness. This was going to be good.

  They stumbled into an untidy bedroom, peeling off clothes as they went and dropping them on the floor to join the books and stray clothing scattered across his floor. The back of her knees hit the bed, and she fell into the mattress with a quiet oomph. He leaned over her, his warm fingers leaving a trail of fire from her collarbones down her chest where his thumb flicked over her left nipple. She arched her back, gasping quietly.

  His mouth followed, those gorgeous lips closing over her breast. Wet and heat and desire streaked through her as she dragged her nails over the hard line of his shoulders. She wanted to explore every inch of him, every stretch of smooth skin, every taut muscle. She wanted to feel him against her tongue, to know the taste of him.

  He pulled away, but the loss of connection was brief. In the next moment, his hot body was on top of her and their hips were moving together and fire was breaking out. His firm, gentle hands touching her, the panting desperation, the agony of waiting. She could hear herself moaning, kept telling herself to stop. She sobbed with pleasure when his mouth followed the curve of her neck, her breasts, her waist and hips, and started to lick her intimately, sweetly, with even more agonizing attention than he’d shown her at the pub. Her fingers scrabbled and dug into sheets that smelled blissfully of her lover. The world was shattering apart.

  It was too much.

  It was wrong.

  “Will,” she gasped. “Stop.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Will immediately sat back. She looked panicked, and her long fingers balled into fists against the sheets. Something was obviously wrong. Guilt surged through him, pushing need aside. He should have known she wasn’t ready for this, especially after last weekend, but he had ignored his better judgment. He had arrogantly thought he could show her how he felt with his body.

  And he still hadn’t told her the truth.

  I’m the worst kind of idiot.

  “It’s okay,” he said, backing off her and the mattress completely. Since he was naked, he reached down to grab the first pair of jeans he could find. “We can order pizza and watch TV or you can go to sleep.”

  She gave him an uncomprehending look. “What sort of sex addict are you?” she demanded, pulling up the blanket to cover herself.

  He winced. He had brought this on himself, and now he had no one else to blame.

  “I’m … not,” he admitted, buttoning up his jeans. “I mean, I love sex as much as the next guy and I’ve probably had more of it than I should, but I’m not really entitled to be in the group.”

  Her lips thinned ominously.

  Will rushed on. Now that the truth was out, there was nothing to do but run with it and then find a way to convince her to forgive him. “I’m a psychology major, and I work for one of my professors as a research assistant. He’s writing a book about unregulated addiction treatment programs, particularly surrounding obscure addictions, and how they tend to do more harm than good. I was researching your counselor’s methods.”

  Silence ensued. Every muscle in her face tightened, and her brows crashed together. Her fists clenched so tightly around the sheets that her knuckles turned white. She looked mutinous.

  “You lied,” she whispered. Beneath her fury, he could hear the hurt, and it cut through him. “You lied to me. To everyone.”

  He drew a slow breath. He could offer no excuses. “Aye.”

  “You invaded our privacy.” She sounded unnervingly even.

  “Aye.” He couldn’t meet the disgusted look in her hazel eyes. There was no point telling her that their stories wouldn’t have been included in James’s book without permission or that James’s methods had always been a bit dodgy. There was no point admitting that he had planned to soon confess everything anyway. The fact remained that he had lied to vulnerable people and treated them like test subjects.

  “And you and me? Is that part of your research? Am I here, naked, as proof that the therapy is a joke?” Leah asked, her voice deadly soft and full of ice.

  He frowned and took a step forward, looking her in the eyes. “No. This thing between us has nothing to do with any of that. You’ve intrigued me since that first meeting. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you, and everything I’ve said to you since has been the truth. When I realized how I felt, I quit the project.”

  “And I suppose you think that makes everything okay,” she said, scooting off the bed and dragging the blanket with her to shield her nakedness. He watched as she brushed past him and began snatching up her clothes from where they’d flung them earlier. “I can’t believe I put up with that godawful therapy for a lying son of a bitch. I’ve had enough of this. I’m going home.”

  “Please don’t.” He quickly located his own shirt and tugged it on over his head.

  “I just wanted sex. Not a chat, not deception, just sex. I certainly didn’t want to be a lab rat.” She adjusted her skirt over her hips, smoothed down her shirt, dropped the blanket on the floor, and stalked out into the hallway in search of her shoes.

  Will hurried after her.

  “If you’re only after sex then why did you say stop?” he demanded, thinking rapidly of a way, any way, to steer the conversation to a place where he could plead for a real date. A second chance. But that would require a miracle judging by the anger radiating from her body.

  She didn’t answer as she braced one hand on the wall and shoved her foot into her boot.

  “You want more, don’t you?” He cut in front of her, blocking the exit as she pulled on her other boot. “You don’t just want sex anymore.”

  “Don’t tell me what I want,” she spat, jabbing a finger into his chest. Her hair fell in wild disarray over her face, and Will knew he was hopelessly entangled when just the sight of her—even flushed with fury—left him feeling breathless. “You think you know me so well. What the hell did you think I would do when you told me the truth?”

  He grimaced. “I expected you to hate me.”

  She snorted, but he barreled on.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, injecting as much sincerity into the words as he could. He knew he didn’t deserve a second chance, but he had to ask because he’d regret it for the rest of his life if he didn’t. She affected him in ways no girl ever had, and even though he’d completely fucked himself over, he couldn’t just let her walk out of his life without putting up a fight. “I know I screwed up, but I—” Every time he’d had the chance to confess, he had stalled. He couldn’t stand the thought of watching the fragile thing that had been growing between them wither into distrust and bitterness. He had selfishly wanted to delay the inevitable. “I didn’t want to lose you. Is there any way we could start over? Proper introductions this time. And a real date.”

  “Ha!” She jabbed him with her elbow. “Move.”

  “Leah, just don’t say no yet. All I’m asking is for you to think about it. Please.”

  “I said move,” she said through clenched teeth.

  He considered refusing, but she was already shaking with outrage. He’d pissed her off enough. Reluctantly, he stepped aside.

  She yanked the door open.

  “Leah—”

  The door slammed shut in his face.

  “Fuck.” He dropped his forehead against the wood and closed his eyes.

  He had lost her.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Leah’s heartbeat pounded in her ears as she walked. She had stopped it. For the first time, she had listened to the voice telling her she could have so much more than cheap sex and, perversely, it seemed that it was Will who had made that possible. Someone with les
s integrity would have seduced her back into bed, demanding their erotic due. Will had asked for a date instead.

  What a weirdo.

  Or maybe it had been more an act of guilt than integrity.

  Right from the start, she had known something about his story had been off. She should have realized he wasn’t a real sex addict. Everything about him, from the obnoxiously considerate way he’d eased her into talking about her childhood to the bashful way he smiled when he was embarrassed, should have made it obvious. And yet she hadn’t questioned it for more than a passing second because who in their right mind would attend therapy for sex addicts for no reason?

  And yet, the reality of never seeing him again gnawed at her. She had needed a reason to get out of that apartment, away from any chance of a real risk, and he’d given her a perfect one. She had latched onto the anger, letting it fuel her desperation to escape.

  He was right. She just kept running away. Even her intent to seduce him, which had completely backfired, had been an attempt to get away from how she felt.

  Still, the fact remained that he had lied to her. Leaving had been for the best.

  Since she’d left her car back at the church parking lot, she hailed a cab. As she climbed in, the driver—a middle-aged woman with a crazy perm—said something about how young women shouldn’t be walking around late at night. Leah spared her a weary smile and collapsed into the seat.

  What were the chances she’d run into Will on campus? Who knew how many times their paths had crossed in the three years they’d been students and they just hadn’t realized it? What would she do if they did meet again? Ignoring him was about as easy as pretending the sun didn’t shine.

  Even now, with her anger at him still fresh, with the truth still leaden in her stomach, she thought about the regret in his voice as he pleaded for her to hear him out, to give him a second chance. It had been so tempting. She wanted to believe … to hope … for the best in him.