She gave him an enigmatic smile. “Look, I don’t know you. Or her. But I’m not blind. I can see what’s going on between you, and all I’m saying is …” She shrugged one shoulder. “Don’t fuck it up.”
“Why do you care?” Leah asked, finally lifting her head. She was wearing her typical ‘the world is my enemy’ expression.
“I don’t,” the busty woman said with a smile that was more her usual behavior. “Just figured you might.”
Leah didn’t reply, and Will could only wonder if maybe she should be the one running this program instead of the counselor.
The busty woman turned back around with a satisfied chest shimmy and picked up her pace to walk alongside the old lady, who was surprisingly spry now that she’d stopped pretending to be clumsy or blind. He supposed she’d have to be somewhat energetic if she was a sex addict at her age.
There was a bar just around the corner, and it wasn’t long before the counselor was pulling open the front door of O’Malley’s Pub and beaming at their small group like a proud mother hen.
Will felt bad for him—he was about to be horribly disappointed.
It was hot inside with the eight o’clock rush crammed into the moderately-sized pub. The clamor of voices nearly drowned out the strains of some pop song blasting from the numerous corner speakers. The crowd looked to be made up primarily of college students, although there were a few groups of people around the creeper’s age. The counselor began weaving his way through the crowd toward a booth in the back. Will watched with a sense of inevitable disaster as the others dispersed into a sea of impatient drinkers. Exclamations of ‘Excuse me!’ were drowned out by shrieking students, the clack of billiard balls at the nearby pool tables, and the blare of a pinball machine in the corner.
Even Leah wandered off toward a quieter section of the pub, and Will followed after her. He glanced back just in time to see the counselor give his sudden one-man party a bewildered look before he, too, was swallowed up by the swarm of bodies. Will supposed he’d just have to thank the counselor another time, when the guy wasn’t freaking out about his entire group failing his test.
Ahead of him, Leah slid onto a stool someone had just abandoned in front of a round table. She nodded her head at the empty space across from her. That was the first time she had invited his company. Will wasn’t about to refuse.
“Do you want to order anything?” she shouted. Even though the table was only a foot and a half in diameter, they still had to shout to be heard.
He shook his head. Across the pub was a tiny dance floor sectioned off with a metal railing where a bunch of people moved awkwardly to music he couldn’t hear over the distance and the noise. The fact this place even had a dance floor was entirely the result of Finn convincing the owner of the pub to allow him a karaoke corner during their freshman year. It had been such a hit that the owner kept it. But the karaoke machine had broken some six months ago, and the owner had yet to replace it.
Leah twisted to see where he was looking and then turned back with a wicked smile. “Want to dance?”
There was a challenge in the gleam of her eyes. He was glad to see it after the way they’d parted last weekend. A part of him had worried she wouldn’t come back today. Smiling, he stood and offered her his hand. She accepted it, hopping to her feet. His fingers closed around hers, and she didn’t pull away as she took the lead toward the dance floor. Unless it was his imagination, she swung her hips more than necessary as she wended her way through the crowd. He couldn’t help but appreciate the view.
She peeked over her shoulder at him, her expression still playful but with a definite intensity in her eyes. Not his imagination then.
Like the rest of the pub, the dance floor was standing room only. But Leah’s grip tightened around his hand, and she led him through the throng until they were hidden amidst the moving bodies. When she seemed to be satisfied, she turned and released his hand only to step in close and rest both her palms against his chest.
He lowered his head. Her hair brushed his cheek. Even though they were surrounded by the heat of too many bodies and the pub reeked of stale beer and sweat, he closed his eyes and skimmed his lips over her temple. For a moment, all he could smell was the lavender in her hair. The dance floor had weak strobe lights—not surprising considering they were in a bar, not a night club—but it was enough to cast colorful lights over them and outline the dips and planes of her face as she began to move. His hands rested against her swaying hips. She moved in closer until they were pressed chest to chest, bodies aligned. She rolled her hips against him, and he had no doubt she could feel exactly what she was doing to him.
He touched his forehead to hers. Her breaths were warm against his mouth. The sliver of air between their parted lips grew thin as his heartbeat thudded against his ribs. He smoothed his palms up her waist, gathering the material of her blouse in his hands.
Her mouth shifted to his left, skimming along his jaw until she spoke directly into his ear, “I lied. I don’t want to dance. I’m just trying to seduce you.”
Will smiled and turned his face into her neck. “You don’t need to try.”
She reached down and once again took his hand in hers. Then she pulled away, tugging him after her as they weaved back out through the dancers and off the dance floor.
Drawing him away from the din of the main bar area, they entered a smaller room off the back, across from the restrooms. Will had only been back here a couple times. A staircase stood in a dimly lit corner, leading up to an employee-only area. A couple sofas were scattered around the wee space, but only one of them was occupied. Compared to the noisy front of the pub, this was an oasis of calm.
Leah crossed the room toward the dark recess beneath the stairs. Then she turned and released his hand. Walking backward, she crooked her finger at him to follow as she sank into the darkness beneath the staircase.
Will hesitated. This wasn’t exactly what he wanted. He wanted her, but not like this. Maybe he’d interpreted her wrong, maybe she didn’t believe that this thing between them was worth more than a quick tumble in a dark corner.
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.
&
nbsp; 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.”
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