His hands gripped me tighter at the exact moment that my body tightened, and my orgasm burst through me, splintering through every piece of me in glorious surges of pleasure. My name was a whisper on his lips. A promise that in this moment we were whole and infinite.
Liam wrapped his arms around my waist and drew me to the bed without leaving me. We lay in near-silence, the only noise our quick shallow breath. Although I was sure the rapid beat of my heart vibrated in the air around us.
The stillness of the dark left room for thoughts of tomorrow and the months ahead. I tried to push them away, to ignore the burning ache that consumed me at the thought of the end of next semester. There would be no celebrating for me then, but, I argued to myself, that was months away. I was sure to fuck things up before then.
“What’s wrong, chicken?” Liam asked in a whisper. I realized then that my entire body was tense, rigid with self-doubt and fear.
“I was thinking about next semester,” I said in a quiet voice.
“You were thinking about me leaving?” he guessed. He brought his hand to rest over my heart, and I thought it might collapse under the weight of our uncertain future. I would always love Liam, but I couldn’t bring myself to believe the old platitude that it was better to have loved and lost. Still, I would never ask for a do-over. He was a a permanent piece of my life, etched irrevocably into my heart. From now on, there would be a Before Liam and someday there might be an After Liam, but I realized then that I hoped there wouldn’t be.
“How do you feel about Scotland?” he asked me.
I laughed joylessly at the suggestion. “I barely convinced Tara to let me stay at Olympic State. It might kill her if I cross the Atlantic Ocean.”
“I think you would like Scotland,” he continued, ignoring my response. “We have months left before we have to make a decision.”
My breath hitched at his last statement. “Before we have to make a decision?”
“We. As in you and I. Together. I know you want this to work as much as I do, and the only way it will is if we discuss things. My student visa says I’m going back to Scotland in May, but that’s a piece of paper, chicken.” His arms tightened around my waist as he spoke, as though he was waiting for someone to try to rip us apart.
“The U.S. government might think differently,” I said, but even though I knew there were complicated decisions ahead of us, I felt safe and reassured in his embrace.
“People have fallen in love on different continents before,” he said in a soft voice. “That’s how we became a global community.”
“But —”
“We have time to figure things out, and I promise we will. You aren’t getting rid of me so easily, Jillian Nichols,” he promised and I relaxed into his arms. “Not when I finally caught you.”
It was silly to be worrying about this now when we were together, so I rolled over to face him. Minutes—maybe hours—passed as we looked into each other’s eyes. We didn’t need to speak to understand how far we’d come over the last few months. The “we” he spoke of was a fixed point in time that would define us both for as far ahead as I could see. And while part of me wanted to reject that and spare myself the chance of future heartache, I knew I was as much a part of him as he was of me.
Liam’s brought his lips to mine to seal the unspoken vow flickering between us. Our limbs tangling together, our breathing slowed until we were dependent on each other for the air we needed to survive. No matter what happened in the coming months, it was worth it for this one moment. His kiss ravaged me, rendering me incapable of any thought, except one.
He had finally caught me indeed.
Acknowledgements
A number of people offered encouragement, advice and enthusiasm while I was working on this project. I am especially grateful to Laurelin Paige, Tamara Mataya, Lucy Stark and Melanie Harlow, who are absolute naturals at this writing gig. Thank you to Bethany Taylor, copy editor extraordinaire, for being a fan of Liam from the start.
To J. Lynn, Chelsea Cameron, Lyla Payne and Alessandra Thomas for words of wisdom in this new endeavor. I’ve learned so much from all of you!
Thanks to the fabulous Giselle, who is the best publicist a girl could ask for. And a huge thank you to Mollie Glick, my always patient agent. Thanks for going out on a limb with me.
And, of course, I would have never written a word if it weren’t for my husband, Mr. Hot Stuff himself. Thank you for putting up with me through the craziness that was this book. I can’t promise not to put you through it again, but I’ll try to be gentler in the future.
Lastly, thank you for reading this book, for taking a chance. You make writing through the long hours worth the stress and weight gain and craziness. I can’t wait to share more stories with you. Our adventures are only beginning.
About the author
Gennifer Albin writes about life and love and all the sexiness in between. In real life, she’s likely catching a plane, chasing kids, or cuddling with the love of her life—all 6 ft 3 inches of hotness that he is. Life is pretty good.
Thank you for reading Catching Liam! I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please help other readers find this book:
1. Help other people find this book by writing a review.
2. Sign up for my new releases e-mail by contacting me at genniferalbin.com, so you can find out about the next book as soon as it’s available.
3. Connect with me on Facebook and Twitter (@GenniferAlbin).
4. Join the Kilt Checkers fan club and request swag to show your Scottish boy love.
ADDICTED TO YOU
by
Colina Brennan
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either productions of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
ADDICTED TO YOU
Copyright © 2013 by Colina Brennan Books
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any methods, photocopying, scanning, electronic or otherwise, except as permitted by notation in the volume or under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without the prior written permission of the author.
ISBN 978-0988585935
Contact the author via
colinabrennan.blogspot.com
Cover design by Colina Brennan
“This was an edge-of-your seat romance that left me
desperate to know not whether the two would get together,
but when, why, and HOW. The thing about ADDICTED
TO YOU was that it used very few of the typical romancenovel
tropes - almost nothing about this romance was
predictable.”
−Alessandra Thomas, author of the Picturing Perfect series
Chapter One
Leah hated Thursdays. Specifically, she hated what she was forced to do on Thursdays—a program called ‘Heal the Heart, Save the Body,’ which was a convoluted way of saying ‘therapy for sex addicts.’
Despite her roommate’s insistence, Leah did not have a ‘sex problem.’ So she liked the occasional one night stand. So what? She was twenty-one and single. There was nothing wrong with wanting to make the most of it.
Yet here she was, preparing for another session where she’d have to listen to some old guy attempt to teach a room full of so-called sexual deviants the skills to function in a civilized world.
Because left to their own devices, they wouldn’t be able to resist the primal urge to hump everything that moved. Obviously.
Who decided sex was an addiction anyway? Or that someone should need therapy to “fix” it? Sex was good for you. It was a de-stresser. If it wasn’t, then you were doing it wrong.
She made a face at the platter of cookies set on an uneven seat a few feet away. She had tried one of them a few meetings ago, and it had nearly broken her tooth. They were sturdy enough to survive a nuclear apocalypse. They were
cockroach cookies.
Maybe that was the key to these therapy sessions—to knock everyone out with stale confections so they were incapable of having sex.
She sighed and sank lower into her chair. It was like the chairs from high school, the ones with that infuriating lip at the base that made it impossible to find a comfortable position.
But she was used to it by now as she crossed her arms and watched the other members arrived. For some reason, they always showed up in the same order.
First came that middle-aged guy with his dirty green and yellow Packers cap and shoes crusted with dirt. He was probably either a manual laborer or a gardener. Maybe that was where he had his excessive amounts of sex.
Ew.
Packers Cap shuffled across the spotted linoleum tiles and took a seat opposite Leah. He gave her a nod and a toothy smile that made even her toenails cringe. Close behind him was an older lady with a frayed, wide-brimmed straw sun hat tilted forward to cover the majority of her face. Leah had yet to glimpse more than a pointy chin, thin lips, and the flash of a long nose even though she had been attending these meetings for months.
The old lady stumbled into the chair with the cookies. Before she could pitch over, Leah’s hands shot out to steady her. The chair skidded a few inches but stopped before the cookies could make a dive for the floor. Bumping into stationary objects seemed to be a habit of the old lady’s. Leah figured it was either because her vision was going or because she really couldn’t see beneath that ridiculous hat.
“Thanks,” Old Lady mumbled. She shuffled past Leah to the next open chair. Leah kept her hands outstretched, prepared to catch her again in case she missed the seat when she sat. The first time that happened, the old lady had sighed awkwardly from where she lay sprawled on the ground while the creeper in the Packers cap stared. Then Leah had scowled at him and helped the lady back to her feet.
There was only one other member, always the last to arrive aside from the counselor, and she appeared shortly after the old lady made it safely into her chair. She breezed into the room, her stilettos clacking loudly as she nearly coasted past her chair. With the orange skin tone of someone who should be banned from a tanning bed and breasts that could beat out the cookies for nuclear-apocalypse-resistant, she was the only one who looked like she belonged in this meeting.
Leah sighed again. Including today’s session, she only had two more before she fulfilled her end of the bargain and never had to come back. The only reason she was even here was because Helena, her roommate, had demanded it.
“Twenty sessions.” Helena had fixed her with a fierce look and kept it there until Leah folded.
“Fine,” Leah had snapped. “But it’s pointless. There’s nothing wrong with me.”
Helena’s mouth tightened and an ominous shadow fell over her eyes. “Right, just like how there’s nothing wrong with our empty apartment.”
Leah had stopped complaining at that point. Mainly because she didn’t want to be homeless. She didn’t have the money to live on her own, and Helena was the only person she could stand.
And yes, okay, Helena was also the only person who could stand Leah. There weren’t many people who could forgive a friend after said friend got them burglarized by a stranger who should have been nothing more than a quickly forgotten one night stand.
The counselor finally arrived in the third most awful sweater in America and settled himself, and his beard, into a chair. The rectangle of fluorescent light just above him began to flicker, giving his already disheveled hair a sort of manic look. Leah glanced around the circle and resisted the urge to pull up her collar and bury her face in her shirt. For a while now, she’d had a strong feeling that she was the only person here who hadn’t been sent via court order.
Just one more session after this one, she reminded herself.
“Good evening, everyone,” the counselor began in that incessantly kind, well-meaning ‘I love the world and all its sinners and all its fluffy kittens, would you like a cockroach cookie?’ voice. “Let’s begin by discussing what sort of temptations you faced this week, and how you dealt with them.”
Everyone shifted in their chairs with the sort of agitation that suggested either guilt or gassiness.
The counselor gave an encouraging nod at Packers Cap to begin.
It was a trick question. The counselor had instructed them since the beginning to stay away from places that were triggers for their sexual impulses. As sex addicts, Leah wondered if that included just about everywhere.
Packers Cap adjusted his shirt and hunched his shoulders so that the lip of his cap hid the upper half of his face. He scratched at the side of his jeans where a long tear exposed the bottom edge of rocket-patterned boxers and declared, “The redhead cashier at Woody’s Grocer. Hot. But I went through a different aisle.”
“Hey, I know the one!” Stilettos said, leaning forward so that the bust of her striped corset was severely compromised. Was she even wearing a bra? Judging by the way Packers Cap leaned eagerly forward as well, probably not. “She likes it when you bite her—”
The counselor gave a harsh and sudden cough. Stilettos snickered.
“Um,” the counselor said, flapping his hand at the old lady. Old Lady didn’t register a reaction. Maybe she’d fallen asleep.
Leah dropped her head back and stared up at the block of fluorescent light overhead. She had homework to do tonight. Her poetry professor wanted a two-page explanation of a three-paragraph poem. She ran the first stanza through her head as the others dealt with the conundrum of certain fruits and vegetables, which some cultures believed to be aphrodisiacs. Stilettos helpfully added that she’d be glad to stick to a ‘meat only’ diet.
Leah could practically hear the air quotes on that one.
She was zoning out again. It was probably just as well that there was no one here who was remotely attractive.
But then, because the Universe hated Leah, there was a brief tap at the door before in walked the hottest thing on two legs in all of North America. She nearly fell off her chair (and she doubted anyone would help her back up).
For long seconds, she did nothing but stare, taking in the sight of him. The stunning blue eyes framed in thick, dark blond lashes. The playful tilt to his gorgeously sculpted mouth. The straight nose and a jaw that could have been cut from granite. Topped off with the perfect body in perfectly fitted jeans and a blaze of golden hair just long enough to fall across his brow. He had the sort of straight-backed, confident stride that always drew her attention. She surreptitiously checked her chin for drool as she watched him approach the circle.
“Welcome!” the counselor said to Blue Eyes, who responded with a smile so charming that the Inquisition would have burned him on sight as the devil’s work. “New companions are always welcome on our journey toward self-discovery.”
I’d like to discover him, she thought, almost violently. I’d like to discover the inside of his jeans. Her gaze followed the line of tanned, nicely muscled forearms up to where the rest of his arms disappeared beneath the rolled-up sleeves of a simple gray tee. Gray, which she usually associated with the color of dust, had never looked so sexy.
She cast a quick glance around the room and realized that every one of the sexual deviants present was also watching Blue Eyes like a pride of starving lions closing in on a lonely zebra. She saw herself reflected in them, and she didn’t like it. Self-disgust traced a path up her throat, and she had to swallow it down.
Maybe for once she should pay attention to the counselor.
Chapter Two
The counselor didn’t ask for Blue Eyes’ name, since the program emphasized anonymity, but he did ask him to explain why he’d chosen to attend the meeting.
Leah could probably answer that one. Just look at him. The guy probably couldn’t walk a block without having panties thrown at his head.
“Hi,” Blue Eyes said, looking around the room with that gorgeous smile. It faltered, only briefly, probably due to the hungry loo
ks he was getting from everyone else. “I’m here because I, uh, love sex.”
Dear God, he was Scottish.
Her fingers tightened around the edge of her seat. Not only did he look like he’d just stepped out of a magazine, but his voice was like the auditory lovechild of Ewan McGregor and James McAvoy.
“Probably too much,” Blue Eyes continued, oblivious to the visions of shirtless Scotsmen running around in Leah’s head. “I’m not selective about with whom. Or where. Or when.”
It occurred to her then that Blue Eyes sounded weirdly cheerful about what was sounding more like a confession than an introduction.
“I’ve made my rounds through the internet chat rooms, the ones that allow you virtual one-offs with strangers,” he said, in that accent that needed to be bottled and sold to desperate girls everywhere. “My weekends are usually spent with multiple strangers. Also, I have two closets full of porn at home, organized by hardcore level and/or fetish, and I go through three tubes of lubricant a week. I think I might have a problem.”
Silence.
Everyone was staring at him with looks that ranged from awe (Packers Cap) to horror (the counselor) to outright lust (Stilettos) to confusion (Leah). Old Lady was the only one whose expression Leah couldn’t read on account of the fact that she still couldn’t see her face.
To date, newcomers had never introduced themselves with quite that level of … delight for their addiction. There had been shame, denial, resentment, and even some pride. But from what Leah could tell, Blue Eyes was simply and cheerfully matter-of-fact.
At the way everyone stared, Blue Eyes rubbed the back of his neck and gave them a sheepish smile that she refused to call adorable. That kind of smile looked out of place here. Leers and smirks, Leah was used to, but this was different. Weird if only because it was so normal compared to the rest of them.
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