Addicted (Tempting Book 4)

by Alex Lucian

  He leaned forward, his lips coming inches from mine where I leaned across the table. “That—that’s why I’m asking this of you. Because you’re whip-smart, and controlled. I need someone who can do what you just did with my buddy, who can hold themselves well when introduced to a stranger. Because I know what your body is capable of. And, after I’ve fucked you, I’d like to listen to you talk some more.”

  The way “fucked” rolled out of his mouth made me want to indulge in the shiver that slid up my spine. But he was right; I was controlled. So I kept my feelings in check, only nodding briefly as I measured the idea in my mind. “It’s fifteen,” I said quietly, feeling a little out of my element publicly discussing something as gauche as the price of my companionship.

  He nodded, didn’t seem the least bit surprised by the amount. “That’s fine. Do you have a passport?”

  I thought of the passport in my drawer at home, something I’d purchased years earlier when I’d entertained the idea of traveling to Thailand during my winter break, but had never had the courage to actually do. “Yes.”

  “Where do you live?”

  It was the first question I didn’t immediately answer, and instead I cocked my head to the side. “I don’t give that information out,” I told him.

  “I don’t need your exact address, Ruby.” He leveled me with his gaze and I realized I liked the way he said my name, the way it made his bottom lip pout a little bit. “Just, what area.”

  “Greenwich,” I said.

  “Good.” He nodded.

  I sipped the rest of my drink and carefully placed it on the embossed napkin. “I have to say, I’m incredibly flattered by your offer. Normally, I wouldn’t say yes to something like this,” I told him. “My schedule is quite packed, as you can probably imagine. But,” I ran my tongue over my lips, “I’m about to have an open summer, so this is good timing. Once I’ve finished my finals, that is.”

  “Understood.” Elias lifted a hand for the check, but didn’t move his eyes off of me. “How does tomorrow work for you?”

  “Tomorrow is great.”

  “I’ll message you,” he told me as he slid a black credit card into the check presenter and handed it back to the waiter.

  “Great,” I told him, smiling as I stood. He took my hand in his and ran his thumb over the peaks of my knuckles. “Goodbye, Elias.”

  “Goodbye, Ruby.”

  I took a cab home from the restaurant, which was more of a splurge than I normally partook in. But in my five-inch heels and white dress, there was no way I could let the subway grime touch me.

  My apartment was a relatively roomy studio near the top of a brick-studded walkup. It was a quiet building, home to retirees and single cat-ladies. I laughed to myself about that as I trotted up the steps to my studio, but when I opened the door to my tiny apartment, the first thing that greeted me was my fluffy white ball of a cat, Fletcher.

  “Hey, baby,” I said, scooping him up into my arms. He meowed as I scratched behind his ears before I set him down.

  Fletcher flopped to his back and I thumbed through the mail I had on my counter, kicking off my heels and rubbing my foot over his belly. He was my one companion, the only sensible one I could have with my studies and my escort responsibilities. He was a two-year-old stray that I’d adopted from a local shelter a few days before Christmas last year.

  All my mail was bills, which was the story of my life. I made enough from escorting to pay everything my student loan couldn’t float, with some extras for cocktail dresses from time to time. I’d need a few new ones for Elias’ offer, I realized, and winced at the balance on my credit card statement before I tucked it away to deal with after finals.

  Sighing, I stepped behind the bookcase that concealed my sleeping area from the rest of the apartment and unzipped my dress, taking in my very neat bedroom, all my books lined up over the headboard on three white shelves. After changing into lounge pants and a sweatshirt, I picked Fletcher up and grabbed a textbook off the room separator bookshelf and collapsed onto my small sectional. The sounds of taxis and hollers outside rapped against the window, but my apartment was like a cocoon. A space that was all my own, almost completely white except for the splashes of colors that I used sparingly, from the coral-colored Dutch oven that lived on my stove due to the lack of storage, to the simple watercolors that dotted the one long wall.

  My phone dinged and I picked it up. The number was unknown, so I swiped up on the screen to read it.

  It’s Nicholas. Let’s get together, I’ve been thinking about you.

  I gagged. Nicholas, my ex-boyfriend. The remnant of the one serious relationship I’d had. He’d become too manipulating—to a point that I’d changed my phone number and moved after the end of us. There was no way I was going to reply to his message. I deleted it quickly, not wanting his phone number to sear itself in my brain. Minutes later, my phone dinged again and I grinded my teeth. “I don’t know how the fuck you found my number, Nicholas, but leave me alone,” I muttered as I picked it up. But, thankfully, this text was from Lenore.

  Lenore: Should I mark you off for the next month?

  I thought of Elias, his dark features and his intense gaze, and felt a strange quiver, one I didn’t usually get after seeing a client. I’d have to be careful to keep him at an arm’s length. This was new territory—not just a repeat client but someone I’d be spending considerable time with. I just had to get through finals before I could get steadily under Elias.

  My fingers didn’t shake in the slightest as I typed out a response.

  Yes.

  Chapter Six

  The last of my meager boxes were unpacked, and I tossed the final flattened cardboard into the pile near the stainless steel fridge which held three takeout boxes, a six pack of beer, and bottle of ketchup.

  Pathetic, I thought, looking around my sixth floor apartment. There was furniture, a brown leather couch so new that it still squeaked under my ass when I sat on it. That was fucking weird, so I still chose the battered recliner that I’d had since college and had taken with me to every place that I’d laid my head for the last ten years.

  Absently, it made me wonder what kind of place Ruby lived in. I’d met working women who could pull in high six-figures a year, if they found the right long term clients. Ruby had said she lived in Greenwich, which gave me visions that escorts in NYC could probably make a killing, especially her; with the body meant for Maxim and the eyes that screwed you without her needing to move a single muscle.

  She was good, all right. So good that I’d willingly agreed to hand over fifteen thousand dollars for one month. What a fucking idiot I was. Good pussy could be found all over, if you knew where to look for it. Wild pussy was something else, and unfortunately, that’s exactly what I craved. The spark of fire in her eyes, the steel backbone that appeared at the slightest hint of challenge from a strong man. That was the kind of woman that brought me to my knees. Every single goddamn time.

  I pulled a beer from the fridge, cracking the top off and taking a long pull. The last woman like that that I’d pursued, who’d genuinely piqued my interest, had left me standing in the cold to go back to my former brother-in-law, Nathan.

  Literally, in a cold parking lot in the middle of winter in Boston.

  My sister Diana had been married to Nathan Easton for a few years before she died in a car crash, courtesy of a drunk driver who blew a stop sign. Knowing Nathan had suffered through her loss was one of the only comforts I’d had since Diana’s death. When I showed up one day out of the blue and Adele, his girlfriend, had answered the door, I’d actually felt the breath sucked from my lungs.

  Oh, she was wild. It was radiating from her. She’d cussed me out, followed me around their house while I looked for something of my sister’s, looking completely out of place in the perfectly appointed house that Diana had decorated. But she was Nathan’s—not mine.

  There hadn’t been a single woman to catch my eye since Adele. Until Ruby.

&
nbsp; More than likely, it was a sad commentary on me when I was relieved to be thinking about a paid escort and not a woman that had barely been a blip on the radar of my life.

  But Ruby had that same feel to her. Like a live wire laid somewhere underneath her skin, and if I could only dig deep enough, she’d electrify us both. The next thirty days with her would be the longest I’d stayed in NYC for years. The bustle of travel and taking as many jobs as I could to keep me busy had been the best coping mechanism I could find for ignoring the realities of my life.

  Reality #1- My best friend for my entire life died in the middle of the night when her car wrapped around a tree.

  Reality #2- My parents hadn’t figured out how to function in the years since her death, making their home into a veritable shrine for Diana.

  Reality #3- Staying in one place for too long made me feel like I needed to make plans for my life. Make a future. Future implied hope, and hope was a fucking lie.

  I’d drained my beer in only a few swallows and tossed the empty bottle into the trash bin with a loud clang. The hazard of me having no work to do and no plans was that it was too easy for me to want to drink my boredom away.

  Boredom was dangerous for a man like me. It made my mind slip into dark places that I didn’t ever want to descend to. The last time I’d gone there, I’d ended up in a fist fight with Nathan, goading him into hitting me by talking about Adele’s tits. The moment he’d made contact, ramming me into the wall, I’d actually felt relief.

  And in all honesty, Adele’s tits were amazing. But somehow now, months removed from that whole situation, I couldn’t remember them exactly. All I could see in my head was how Ruby’s sat heavy above her slender rib cage. How perfectly they filled my hands, which were big.

  I pressed the heel of my hand against my eye socket, knowing damn well it wouldn’t do me any good to think about her. Not only would it not do me any good, but I felt vaguely pitiful, sitting at home on a Saturday and pining over a glorified prostitute whose cunt had felt like tight heaven around me.

  The buzzer of my speaker rang through the room, and I lifted myself up out of the chair with a sigh, poking the button with a gruff greeting.

  “It’s Jack, let me up.”

  I did without a response, smiling a little at how he didn’t actually ask if it was a good time. Jack and I had been friends for a few years. He was a reporter for one of the news magazines that I’d shot some pieces for, and I just couldn’t get rid of him. I’d tried.

  But like a leech or a fungus, he wouldn’t go away.

  When I heard his whistling out in the hallway, I unlocked the deadbolt and swung the door open.

  “Deadbolt, huh?” he asked, punching me in the stomach as he passed. Jack was almost as tall as me and worked out just as much, so it actually made me grunt when he made contact. “Afraid of the big bad wolf, are ya?”

  I rolled my eyes, but couldn’t help but grin a little at the memory of Ruby that it stirred up. Her staring up at me while I had her up against the door, telling me that that’s what she’d thought of me when she saw me smile for the first time.

  “He smiles,” Jack said in an awed tone. “Must have found a girl.”

  There was only one person in the world who knew my proclivity for escorts, and it was Jack, so I nodded and grabbed him a beer from the fridge. I handed it to him while he sat on the couch. He froze when the leather creaked obnoxiously under him. “What the fuck?”

  “It’s new,” I said on a sigh, falling back into the recliner. Jack held himself perfectly still on the couch, staring over at the other cushions like he was afraid to move.

  “Didn’t you try it out in the store? I feel like I’m sitting on that plastic shit that my Nonna used to put on all her furniture.”

  “Ordered it online. I don’t have the patience for the sales people in stores like that. Every time they circle me, I feel like punching something.”

  “You know,” he said thoughtfully, “that says a lot about you. It shouldn’t surprise me.”

  “I don’t know why I let you in.”

  “Because no one else can put up with your brooding silence and death glares at anything that radiates happiness.”

  Ruby put up with me, I thought, but took a drink of the fresh beer in my hand instead of saying it out loud. Against my better judgement, I gave him a dry look. “So what does it say about me?”

  “Your history with women has always fascinated me.”

  “You need a hobby, man,” I interjected, turning on the TV and scrolling through until I found the Yankees game.

  “Hear me out. I feel really smart right now.” He set his beer down on the end table in between the couch and my chair. “You buy your furniture online because you hate the dance. Haggling on price or delivery options with someone who just wants the commission off your purchase. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “And the way you look at women is the exact same thing. You go online and flip through pictures, only reaching out when one catches your eye. You know she’s safe and professional, will keep her mouth shut about you and not want anything from you that you’re not willing to give because going to bars, trying to ferret out what the woman drinking the margarita on the rocks might want from you the next morning is way too exhausting.”

  My beer was suspended in front of my mouth when I turned to stare at him. “You actually sound really smart right now.”

  “I know.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “Did you say ferret?”

  Jack shrugged, turning his attention to the game. “They’re on my mind because Grace has it in her head that she wants one, so I’ve been doing my research. Did you know that if a female ferret goes without sex for a year, she could die?”

  “I think I can sympathize,” I muttered.

  Jack laughed. “That’s the beauty of paying for it, my friend. You’ll never have to know.”

  “You should try it sometime. It’s pretty fucking spectacular.” I could say it to him because I knew Jack didn’t judge my choices.

  “More power to you for finding what works for you, seriously.” He shook his head. “I just couldn’t do it. I need to know she’s looking at me and seeing me, not a paycheck.”

  We fell into easy silence after that, and his words settled into my head. Ruby hadn’t looked at me like I was a paycheck, even though we both knew that’s what I was. And I knew why Jack felt like that. His wife had died shortly after Grace turned two, so his attempts at relationships were few and far between, and only if he saw it being something long term. Combined with his easy sense of humor, Jack was pretty much my opposite in every single way.

  “This one felt different,” I said after a few minutes. “Probably makes me sound stupid to say that, but she did.”

  “Not stupid if it was true for you. You’re allowed to feel like it was.”

  “I wish I didn’t. I just gave up a hefty chunk of change to have her to myself for the next month.”

  He choked on his beer. “Come again?”

  I sighed.

  “Seriously, you’re kidding, right?” Jack gaped at me. “Why not just try out a new one? Or sleep with her one more time and make sure you’re not losing your mind over some quality pussy?”

  “You know how many bullshit events I have to go to over the next month with the book. She’s fucking smart, Jack. Smarter than me, that’s for damn sure. And then I get that quality pussy every night during the month, if I want it. Trust me, if I decide you’re not too much of a jackass to meet her, you’ll see what I’m talking about.”

  Jack shook his head at me, a disbelieving look all over his stupid, smiling face. “Oh, I’ll meet her. No way I’d miss the chance to see the woman who finally spun your head around.”

  “Shut the fuck up and watch the game,” I said and glared at him. Next week. Next week, I’d try to get rid of him again.

  Chapter Seven

  I was rarely late. I was the person who set five alarms whenever I had to
be anywhere, typically eight minutes apart. But thoughts of Nicholas’ text had kept me up through the night, and more than once Fletcher had crawled up to nibble on my earlobe. So when I’d woken up on the third Saturday of that month, a few days after agreeing to Elias’ offer, I peered at my alarm clock with confusion. Surely, I hadn’t slept all the way to ten in the morning, right?

  But after checking my phone and the stove clock as I started a cup of coffee, I realized I had, indeed, overslept.

  Most Saturdays I was up at six and on my way to the gym thirty minutes later. I wasn’t blessed with a svelte figure; I had to work very hard to keep myself sliding into my size four cocktail gowns. Because I loved food, I was a slave to exercise. I loathed the elliptical, and if I indulged in deep thought over that hatred, I might surmise that my disdain for the elliptical had to do with the fact that it simulated climbing, but in reality I never went anywhere. It was a metaphor for my life, a student for eight years who still hadn’t decided on a career path that wasn’t defined simply by being an eternal student. Yes, I had a master’s, almost two of them. But those two pieces of paper racked up serious debt that I’d never have a chance of paying off without my job.

  Normally oversleeping wouldn’t be a problem, especially since I didn’t have a client that evening. But the first and third Saturday of every month was reserved for lunch with Lenore and the other girls. And as I downed my coffee, I realized I had less than an hour to be ready before I had to make the trek to the Upper East Side.

  Lunches with Lenore served two purposes: one, so that we could discuss what would be happening over the next two weeks—getting an idea of what our schedules were like—and two, so she could, in her words, make sure we were “taking care of the product.” It sounded insulting, but she was first and foremost a business owner. She couldn’t afford to sell something—or, rather, someone—who was letting themselves go. If one girl let themselves go and a client noticed, Lenore would get less business. She certainly wasn’t the only glorified pimp in Manhattan. Escorts relied on word-of-mouth marketing, so we had to be top in everything to get repeat or referral clients.