Bittersweet Addiction

by Q. B. Tyler

  “You won’t.”

  You don’t even know what I’m referring to, baby.

  “I’ll love you forever, Charlotte,” I whisper, as the rest of the energy leaves my body letting me fall into a deep and troubled sleep before I can hear her reply.

  Will has been asleep for the better part of the day making me wonder just how much of that bottle he did put away. I’ve checked in on him a few times, but he’s out cold. I sit on his deck at the rear of his townhome, feeling as the warm wind whips around me. I look up and notice the trees are starting to turn from the green to yellow and red and brown as the last of the Indian summer fades away. The wind rustles through the leaves giving me a sense of calm that I haven’t felt in twenty-four hours. My mind makes a mental note of all the things that have occurred in the past day.

  Things I know:

  Matt is petty. I mean really, sending Will our sex tape was beyond childish. What was he even thinking?

  He’s hurt and he wanted to hurt Will, and by extension—you, I argue with myself.

  I cross my arms as I pull the cup of chamomile tea to my lips, hoping that the herbs are strong enough to keep my nerves at bay. Last night was the first time Will had expressed any apprehension with proceeding with our relationship, and it did nothing for the nagging thought in the back of my brain that when it was all said and done, Will would leave.

  I would be alone.

  Was this the first step of Matt making good on his promise? Making Will doubt me and us?

  Will apologized, Charlotte.

  Yeah, apologized for being an irrational drunk. Who knows how long it’ll take for him to get over the images of me having an orgasm at the hands—and cock—of my ex-husband.

  I wrack my brain, trying to remember just what he could have seen on that tape, but it escapes me, like most of the good times that took place early on in my relationship. Good times that sadly got overwhelmed and eventually erased by the bad that came in the later years.

  My thoughts are interrupted by Will’s voice. “There you are.”

  I look up and I’m amazed at what just his presence does to me. My heart races. It seems he’s showered and changed and now looks like a human again. My human. I give him a shy smile, trying not to give away how much he turns me into a puddle of need, especially when things are still a bit tense between us. His hair is freshly washed; the tips of his hair are wetting his gray t-shirt with water droplets. His shirt isn’t tight anywhere except around his biceps, which are usually hidden under well-tailored suits and sweaters. My eyes scan down his body to a pair of sweatpants and I resist the urge to stare too long in search of his dick. If that wasn’t enough, I try to ignore the fact that he has his glasses on, which do nothing but amplify the intensity of the gaze he’s giving me. I swallow, doing my best to wet my dry mouth.

  “Are you trying to seduce me?” I say as he sits in the chair next to me. He lets out a laugh, and as if he knows just what to do to make my clit pulse, he adjusts his glasses.

  Bastard.

  Before he’s even fully seated I’m on my feet ready to take my place in his lap. He welcomes me instantly, wrapping his arms around me and leaning his head back against the chair. I’m straddling him at this point, our pelvises perfectly aligned and I begin to move back and forth on the appendage I feel growing with each passing second underneath me.

  “Are you trying to seduce me?” He throws my words back at me and I giggle.

  “You started it, what do you need these for?” I tap his glasses and raise an eyebrow at him as I wait for his explanation that he came out here to read something. He gives me a guilty smile and I lift my chin. “Exactly.”

  He narrows his eyes slightly. “You’re mad at me, and I was hoping you’d let me give you an orgasm or two to fix it. And yeah—I know you like the glasses.”

  “I’m not mad at you,” I reassure him, and I watch as the relief spreads across his face. It’s in that moment I suddenly realize, all this time I haven’t been dealing with my level-headed marriage counselor, but my possessive boyfriend. Usually there’s a balance between the two, but for the past day and a half, Dr. Montgomery has been nowhere in sight.

  “Oh, well, my need to give you an orgasm still stands.” His words have a direct line to my sex, my body fiending for the release that is imminent.

  “Well, who am I to deny you?” I smile and as if I weigh nothing more than a feather, he stands with me in his arms and carries me back inside, pressing me against the wall immediately, his cock pressing up and into my sex as I’m still just in a t-shirt and a pair of panties. I groan and dig my nails into his shoulders. “Fuck, Will.” My clit feels as if it’s on fire, desperate for any friction to lessen the ache between my thighs. My heartbeat thumps in my sex, almost pounding against the inside of my panties and I would do anything for him to drop to his knees and quiet the noise with his mouth.

  His mouth is on mine, his tongue snaking between my lips and making love to my mouth as he grinds his hips upwards, grinding his cock against me harder in perfect rhythm with the strokes of his tongue. “You are mine,” he growls when he pulls away, staring straight into my eyes. His tongue darts out and I watch fascinated as he runs it across his bottom lip. “You’ll never know just how much I need you, Charley.”

  “I think I do know because I need you just as desperately.” I close my eyes, the orgasm that I felt building merely by the ridges of his cock rubbing against me still sends tingles through every part of my body.

  He carries me through his house, his hands firmly under my butt, cupping the cheeks hard, as his teeth nip at the flesh of my neck.

  Within seconds, I’m flat on my back reaching for the hem of my shirt, yanking it over my head as I watch him do the same. He’s on me instantly, his shirt gone, allowing me to rub my hands along his broad chest, my fingers moving through the smattering of chest hair. “I am going to fuck you so hard you won’t know your own name.” He tells me as he rips my panties from me in one quick motion.

  I let out a breath as he moves up my body, skimming his lips up my heated skin and finding my mouth again. He still has his underwear on, and every time I feel the cotton of his briefs between the lips of my sex I groan, feeling the fabric graze my clit. “Will…ooo-ff,” I stammer, as all coherent thoughts leave my brain. I can’t focus on anything except getting some part of his body inside of me.

  Cock. Fingers. Mouth. SOMETHING.

  He obliges my request, and lines himself up at my opening. “So, fucking beautiful.” His lips are on my nipple, suckling the skin, dragging the peak between his teeth and biting gently. His hand palms the other one, rolling the nipple between his fingertips as the blunt tip of his cock continues to rub through my folds. It feels as if we’re moving in slow motion, to the lyrics of a song that can’t be heard, it’s a melody our bodies only know. His cock slides inside, pushing harder, deeper, slower than he has ever gone. He pulls back slowly, his hands finding my hips as he holds me down—as if he needs to keep me still. His gaze is transfixed on where we’re connected, his attention captivated at him burying himself to the hilt over and over.

  “Will,” I whimper.

  “I need you so much,” he chokes out as his pace picks up slightly, his cock going deeper with each thrust. “Fuck, baby.” The tips of his fingers dig into the flesh of my ass and I find myself straddling the line between pleasure and pain.

  “Will!” I moan as my eyes squeeze shut.

  “Look at me, baby,” he tells me, and my eyes pop open feeling my climax building inside of me.

  “I’m never letting you go.”

  “Never let me go,” I tell him just as I feel my orgasm begin to rip through me. “Will! Fuuuuck!” I groan as the orgasm shoots through me, flexing my feet forward and making me claw at the sheets underneath me. I’m vaguely aware of him telling me how beautiful I am when I come and then I feel him moving faster and a warm feeling in my sex—an expanding and releasing that spreads straight to my heart.

&n
bsp; He’s on me instantly, his lips attacking mine as he rolls us so I’m on top, refusing to break the powerful connection I’ve never had with anyone else. His hands wind in my hair, pulling at the root and I clench around him in response.

  “Oh God,” I moan as I pull off of his dick, letting his cock—that’s not completely flaccid—fall out of me. I sit on his pelvis, just above his cock as our orgasms begin to flow out of me and I catch his gaze watching the stream.

  “I want you off the pill,” he says as he watches his cum coat his torso. His face is serious yet I can sense his nervousness of dropping this bomb on me.

  “Now?” I ask. He’s made comments about having me knocked up by spring, about dying to see my stomach round with his child, but they were always in the heat of the moment while he was trying to assert his dominance and lay his claim over me.

  “Can we talk about this while we aren’t in this sex haze?” I moan, desperate not to have this heavy conversation now when I’m dying to get his cock back inside of me.

  “No,” he growls. “I’ve never had this primal urge to mate. But I need this Charlotte, I need you off the pill so I can fuck you and breed you. I need every part of you to belong to me.”

  Fuck, that’s hot.

  And probably a direct response to Matt’s little stunt. Think about this, Charlotte!

  Think about what? I want a baby, he wants a baby. What am I thinking about?

  Um, how about his motives? He wants to knock you up because he’s afraid of losing you.

  Or because he wants a baby…

  I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to quiet the voices and I nod, knowing that nothing has to be decided now when I’m just trying to get his dick into my pussy for round two. “Really?”

  I resign myself to the fact that round two may not be happening as soon as I’d hoped. “I think we should talk about this when we’re both thinking rationally and not when I’m naked, sitting on top of you, feeling your cock harden underneath me.”

  “My feelings won’t change…will yours?”

  “No. God, when did you become such a buzzkill?” I move off him and close my legs as I attempt to calm my heated body and racing heart.

  “I’m not. I just don’t want you to agree to something you don’t want.”

  “No, that’s really more your speed, right? Saying things you don’t mean?” I rub a hand over my eyes. “I already told you I wanted a family with you. I’m sorry I’m not ready to make a decision right this second just because you’re feeling insecure.”

  “I’m not insecure, Charlotte.” His voice is low and cold and I know without a doubt I struck a nerve.

  “I just wanted to talk about this when we’d cooled down and not when we’re…” I point to our naked bodies. “Since when did I become the rational one? I did not sign up for that role,” I snap, sarcasm evident in my tone.

  “Don’t be a smartass, Charlotte.” He sits up and gets off the bed. My eyes find the appendage between his legs that is still pointing directly at me. “Stop looking at it.”

  “Where else would you like me to look? It’s staring at me!”

  “Look. You want a baby. That was what brought you to me—wanting a baby, and being with someone who couldn’t give you one.”

  “I’m not with you because you said you would. You’re not my sperm donor or my personal baby maker. I want a baby, but I also want time alone with you without stolen moments or racing against the clock. Without an ex-husband who’s trying to break us up. I think we need time alone to be a couple. Just you and me.” I move towards him on my knees and look up at him. “You can’t knock me up to ensure I won’t go back to him or leave you. My word that I love you and I want to be with you for the rest of my life should be enough. Don’t you trust me?” I voice my concerns and his eyes, which have been following his hand as he draws circles into my clavicle, move to mine in a flash.

  “Of course, I do.”

  “Do you trust I’m not going to leave you?” His eyes trace my face but they are almost vacant, as if he’s gone somewhere else, and I narrow my gaze wondering why it feels as if he’s looking through me and not at me. He nods once and I frown. What is that about? “Say the words, Will.”

  “I believe you don’t want to leave.” He backs up from me, rubbing a hand over his jaw as I hear the qualifier in his statement.

  “What—” I go to ask him what that even means when he shakes his head and pulls his briefs up his legs. “Will?”

  “I have to tell you something.”

  My heart beats wildly in my chest hearing his ominous words. My mind, filled with the most ridiculous things I can muster, is not prepared for the words that fall from those perfect lips.

  * * *

  BABY, I HAVE A PROBLEM. And I think it’s about to get worse.

  The words stall, not wanting to leave my lips.

  I’m fine.

  Everything is fine.

  I clear my throat wondering what I’m going to tell her instead.

  They say the first step is admitting that you have a problem. Reaching into your soul and allowing yourself to force the words out, purging yourself of the guilt and shame associated with the problem. I was powerless in defeating the problem and thus my life has become unmanageable.

  The next step is realizing that a greater power could restore your sanity.

  The love I have for Charlotte is that higher power. She is the incentive I needed to stop things from escalating any further.

  She’ll leave you if she knows. She’ll be terrified that you share any common characteristics with her stepfather.

  She’ll run.

  Suddenly, it hits me—and that’s the thing about this problem: it hits you in waves and at the worst times. Sometimes, it’s easier to manage, easier to avoid the voice in the back of your head that tells you you’re dying to have a drink. But other times, times like now when I’m thinking of a life without Charlotte it is… unmanageable.

  Suddenly, the need to have a drink overwhelms me.

  Just one to take the edge off. Just to get back in control. To clear your mind.

  Knowing I need to tell her something, I blurt out, “I need to tell my patients their privacy has been violated. I’m going to email my supervisor to set up a meeting with our ethics board.”

  I know she wasn’t expecting me to say that because I watch as her eyebrows shoot to her hairline. “I get that you feel you need to do that, but…now?”

  “The longer I let this go on, the worse it will be. My patient’s trust me and their privacy was violated. They deserve to know. But the board needs to know first, I’m not sure how they’ll want to handle it. I’m sure our lawyers will need to get involved.”

  “But you’ll get in trouble, right? They’ll wonder why he planted the device, they’ll start asking questions and it will lead them back to me. To you and me.” The look in her eyes guts me, hearing her speak about us that way.

  “I don’t regret it for a second. Any of it. We are meant to be together, Charley. Maybe in another life things would have been easier, but there’s only this life. Here. Now. And we’re together and that’s the only thing that matters.”

  “Them disbarring you or taking you to jail or…”

  “I won’t go to jail.”

  “It’s possible. A doctor having sex with a patient isn’t just a slap on the wrist.”

  “It can be. These things are handled on a case by case basis.”

  “And you want to risk it?”

  “What other choice do I have?”

  “Not to say anything?”

  “I took an oath, Charlotte.” I can feel myself getting irritated that she’s not understanding my need to do the right thing.

  Because you’ve been so concerned with that lately?

  “I know, and I get it, but maybe you should talk to your dad?” she asks weakly. I can’t even contain the fire burning inside of me which shoots out of my eyes towards her. I need to calm the roaring fires before I explode, a
nd I know just the extinguisher I need.

  My thumb and index finger rub together as I think about turning that familiar lid.

  I put the amber liquid out of my mind for the time being. “Oh, you think that’s the answer?” I shake my head. “J.R. cannot fix this.”

  “I wasn’t saying that,” she whispers, and I wonder if it’s time I tell her a little bit more about my childhood and the man that for all intents and purposes is my father. “But he’s your lawyer, perhaps he can advise you—.”

  “My father can’t advise me on anything except how to take what you want. How to lie and deceive and still come out on top. How to cheat on you and get away with it,” I snap at her. “He can teach me that.” I step back from her, my eyes leaving her as I know there’s pain behind them hearing my words. When I finally look at her, she has her gaze cast downward and I feel like shit for speaking those words aloud. I’m on my knees in front of her in an instant. “I would never cheat on you,” I tell her as I lift her chin. “I love you more than anything.”

  “I didn’t think I would cheat on Matt either.” Her lips tremble and I can see she’s trying to keep the emotion out of her voice, but failing miserably.

  “We’ve been over this.”

  “I know. I just… you don’t get along with your dad?”

  I chuckle, contemplating how complex that statement really is and how I couldn’t even begin to unpack it. I’d spent years going back and forth with Tuck about it and I still feel like I haven’t had the breakthrough. I still hold onto too much anger and resentment. It makes it impossible to have any true realizations about myself or my parents. I have enough self-awareness, and experience as a therapist to understand that. “My father is just…not the man I want to be.”

  “He…he’s cheated on your mom?” She furrows her brows together and I can see the wheels turning.

  “I would never do that, I’m sorry I said that.” I sigh, wishing I hadn’t put the thoughts in her head. “But yes, often. I don’t know if he still does in his older years; my guess is yes, because he hires women that absolutely reek of daddy issues but I don’t know for sure.”