Addicted (Tempting Book 4)

by Alex Lucian

  So with her here, opening a part of herself to me that I hadn’t been able to indulge in, the weak, selfish side of me refused to say no.

  With a greedy mouth, I started with a long, slow lick up her wet slit and then stopped to draw a tight circle with the tip of my tongue around her clit. Her breathing increased, but she didn’t make a sound. Anger and frustration welled, fighting for dominance with my raging lust at the taste of her on my tongue.

  I kissed her lips, slipping my tongue inside of her pussy with lewd motions, and her hips arched up. Determined to see her crack, I wrapped my hands around the tops of her thighs and tightened my fingers into her skin. Ruby rolled her lips in over her teeth and pinched her eyes shut.

  I ate at her pussy and she whimpered quietly in her throat. When I sucked her clit into my mouth and lightly bit on it, she did it again. The same two fingers that I used before slipped into her while I worked at her clit. In and out, hooking up at the end, hard lick, soft bite, again and again until she started clenching around my fingers. When I bit the last time, I growled and pressed in with fingers at the spot that most men wouldn’t know how to find with a fucking GPS screaming at them.

  And speaking of screaming, when I pressed on her G-spot, Ruby screamed, one hand clamped over her mouth to try and muffle it. But she pulsed around my fingers in a long wave, and I prolonged it with another slow lick to her clit.

  I dropped light kisses to her hip bones, feeling a sharp tug of disappointment that she didn’t grip my hair with her fingers, and ride my face with slow rolls of her hips. I’d gotten a glimpse of the Ruby I wanted, but only a glimpse.

  This was the Ruby from the first night. Experiencing pleasure, unabashed in the fact that she was really coming, but about as engaged with the fucking bed as she was with me. It made me want to rage, that I’d lost the woman who was mine for all those nights in between that first one and tonight. This was a robotic version of Ruby, and I wanted to rip her open to be able to get the real one back.

  She sat up with a polite smile on her face. “That felt good.”

  “Good?” I laughed incredulously.

  But Ruby only nodded, standing up so that I had no choice but to back up and give her room. Holding my eyes, she shed her dress, leaving her naked. Flawless stretches of olive skin, only broken up by the curves of her bones, the dark pink circles of her nipples and the tiny indent of her belly button. And her eyes … her fucking eyes were blank.

  “Would you like me on my hands and knees?” she asked, sliding her hands up so that I had no choice but to pull my shirt off. “Your body is so incredible.”

  “Stop it,” I ground out.

  “Stop what?”

  “Quit acting like I’m some stranger.”

  She tilted her head like I was crazy. Then her hand came up to cup my face, my beard. Her fingers were spread, so she touched my lips and my mouth opened. The edge of her thumb traced the inside line of my lips, and I caught it with my teeth, soothing it with my tongue. “I know you’re not a stranger, Elias.”

  Her voice was throatier with her thumb trapped in my mouth, so I held her wrist to keep it there. With the back of my fingers, I lightly touched her hardened nipples and watched her chest heave with a deep, even breath. When I pulled her finger from my mouth, but kept a hold of her wrist, she flicked her gaze down to our hands.

  “I don’t want you on your hands on knees,” I said absently. Keeping a firm hold of her, I laid her hand over my heart, watched helplessly as panic flared in her dark gaze. “I want to see your face when I’m inside of you.”

  Not when we fuck. But not when we make love either. If I’d said that, I’d lose her forever. As the days went past with no word from her, I knew it was no coincidence that the day I hinted at the depth of my feelings, she shut down on me. So I’d have to show her. I’d love her body, let her love mine, and she’d have no choice but to see how good we were for each other.

  There was no way, in my mind, that Ruby could put her hands on me, feel how deep I was inside of her, and be able to ignore the inferno that was in between us. I’d felt flickering matches before. Slight pulses of heat that made my skin warm. Being with Ruby was like someone covered me in gasoline and shoved me into an open flame.

  For a moment after I spoke, she watched me, and I waited for her eyes to heat, for her smile to grow. But it didn’t. She simply laid back on the bed and opened her legs for me. Even though she raised a hand to beckon me onto her, I had to take a beat and control the crashing waves of righteous pissed-off-ness.

  It was the only way to describe how she was making me feel. So fucking pissed off. Because this was no passive choice. Ruby had made a decision to act like this. Fine. She wanted to play a role, then so would I.

  After shucking my pants off and rolling on the condom she’d had laid out on the nightstand, I crawled over her, stopping to cup one tit and suck it into my mouth. Her back arched when I did, but that was it. Her hands laid limply on my back, not stroking, not scratching her nails into my skin. With a growl, I sat up onto my knees and gripped both of her wrists in one hand, pinning them to the bed above our heads. There was a flash of heat in her eyes and I dipped down to catch her mouth.

  At the last second, she angled her head away so that her neck was my only option. I was breathing heavily into her skin while I reconciled the fact that she’d just fucking avoided kissing me. My hands tightened over her wrists, and for a brief moment, I thought about stopping. Pulling away from her and leaving the room.

  But I couldn’t. No part of me wanted to admit it, but if this was my last night with Ruby, I’d take it. I’d take the moment she was allowing me. I rolled my hips so that the head of my dick pushed against her clit. Her nostrils flared and her eyelids fluttered, but she didn’t give in. So I teased. With small ins and outs, one inch forward before I’d pull back, I fed my cock to her in torturous increments. Sweat coated my chest by the time I surged forward all the way.

  Ruby bit down on her lip when I did. I pulled back, leaving only the tip inside of her and then snapped my hips forward so that our skin slapped against each other. Suddenly, playing wasn’t fun for me. I covered her fully with my body, so that every inch of her was plastered against every inch of me. She pulled her knees up so that she was hugging my waist with her legs, and it changed the angle.

  We both sucked in a breath when I thrust in again. Unable to keep my hands off of her, I released her wrists and wrapped my arms around her while I pushed and pulled, came in and out of her, the low slow drag out raising every hair on the back of my neck. The sharp push in making my heart thunder in my chest.

  I tried to kiss her again and she turned her chin in the other direction.

  “Fucking hell, Ruby. Kiss me.” I dropped my forehead into her neck when I pushed inside of her again. One hand cupped the back of my neck, playing with the hair on the back of my head and I picked up the pace, even though there was barely enough room for me to move with how close we were. My sweat slicked with hers, and her tits slippery against the skin of my chest.

  But she didn’t kiss me. She arched her chin up, turned to the other side when I hammered into her. And in the end, I didn’t even have to touch her clit for her to come. I bit down on her shoulder on a particularly vicious thrust and she fisted around me.

  No dirty words in between us. No whispered pleas for more. Silently, I came, with my arms still tight around her back. We lay like that for a few minutes, and more than anything, I wanted to stay there. Because without seeing her face, I knew she’d be empty.

  And sure enough, when I pulled out and walked to the bathroom to take care of the condom, she’d already started dressing. By the time I flicked off the light, she was pulling her dress up over her shoulders and slipping her shoes on her feet. The black of her dress suddenly felt like an omen I’d missed. But that was because I was so blinded by her. Blinded by what I felt for her, and blinded by the excitement I’d felt at being able to see her again, breathe the same air as her again
.

  No way would I make this easy for her though. I stood, naked as a fucking jay bird and watched her collect herself. When she met my eyes, I could see her search for words. What she said though almost knocked me sideways.

  “This is our last night together, Elias.”

  “Excuse me? We have over a week left in our agreement.”

  “Can you please put some clothes on?” Her eyes were trained on the wall. I narrowed my eyes at her but yanked on my boxers. But that was it.

  “Explain,” I said tersely, struggling for calm. “Because we had an agreement.”

  Her chin lifted. “I’ll refund you the appropriate amount of money.”

  “This isn’t about fucking money, Ruby,” I yelled. “I don’t care about the money; I care about you. You know that.”

  “Do I?” And then she fucking tilted her head again. I wanted to break something. But there was no way I’d do anything that might remind her of that fucking psycho.

  “Yes. Yes, you fucking do.” I walked closer, using gentle hands to cup her shoulders. “I don’t want our time to end because of how fucking amazing we are together. You feel it, I know you do.”

  Her eyes were maddeningly, impossibly blank when she answered. “I don’t know what you mean. You’re my client, and you’ve been a good one, Elias. But that’s all it is.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Excuse me, I’d like to leave,” she said in a steady voice. I didn’t stop her when she brushed past me. But before she opened the door, I said her name.

  “I’m not him.”

  She turned slowly. “What?”

  “I’m not Nicholas.”

  Ruby blinked rapidly, clearly thrown by my change of topic and quiet approach. Yeah, join the fucking club. Normally, I’d yell and rage, grab her and kiss her, show her how explosive it is between us. But now I knew. I knew what she’d been through and how little trust she had. With good reason too.

  “I … I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Yes,” I said slowly, walking up to her with my hands raised. “Yes, you do. I would never treat you like he did. I’d never manipulate you or make you feel like you weren’t as amazing as you are, because Ruby, you are the most fucking incredible woman I’ve ever met in my life.”

  Her eyes shone, but she didn’t move. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Yes it does. It matters because I’m not stupid, and I know you feel what I feel.” On impulse, I grabbed her hand and pressed it on my heart. “This is fucking beating your name every time I breathe, and I don’t know how it happened, but it did.”

  “Elias, stop,” she begged quietly.

  “We can do this. We can be together.”

  For a brief moment, her fingers curled into my skin, like she was holding me, not pushing me away. Then she tugged her arm back and she lifted her chin. “The fact that you think that just means I did my job.”

  “Don’t,” I said, shaking my head.

  “I sell a fantasy, Elias. Your fantasy, not mine.” She hitched her bag over her shoulder and gave me such a sad smile that I wanted to tear my eyes out just so that I would never have had to see it. “And apparently I did a good job.”

  “You’re a fucking liar.”

  Ruby pressed her lips together and held my eyes. There was a flash, a moment, a second where I thought I saw hurt. Saw pain. But then it was gone. “I know.”

  Even when the door shut behind her, and she didn’t come back in to throw herself into my arms and tell me she was kidding, I stood there staring at the block of wood that separated me from the rest of the world. Then I sank onto the edge of the bed and hung my head in my hands.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  The days since I’d walked out on Elias had dissolved into weeks. Two weeks without him. It felt like forever, but it also felt like no time at all had passed since I’d broken my heart in my own hands.

  If things were different—if my life were different—I could have run back to Elias. Dropped a grenade on my life and watched it burn while in his arms. But the reality was that there was no way I could be in love, dating someone like Elias, and continue escorting. And escorting was the only thing paying the bills and paying down my massive student loans at the moment.

  I’d sold my soul to the devil, and my debt was far from being paid off.

  In my time since walking out on Elias, Lenore had told me to take care of myself. And to her, that didn’t mean fixing my broken heart. To her, taking care of myself meant getting waxed, exfoliated, and having my roots touched up. Maintenance on the product she was selling, so that when I was ready to make some money again, I would be up to her standards.

  Which was why I spent the first week on the couch, binge-watching every show I could find on Netflix and going through pints of ice cream like they were my only source of nutrition.

  “Jesus,” Stella said one day when she’d come over and had kicked away an empty container of cookie dough. “Please don’t tell me you’ve spent all week on the couch.” She’d looked me over with clear disgust in her eyes. I knew her disgust wasn’t mean-spirited, but bred from concern for her friend. Either way, I hadn’t cared.

  “Not all week,” I told her, “I answered the door for the pizza guy yesterday.”

  “Uh huh, right. And then you plopped your ass back on the couch and watched Sons of Anarchy for the fifth time, didn’t you?”

  I didn’t have it in me to deny it. So I grunted and turned the volume up on the television.

  “Fuck that,” Stella said, her heels clacking across the wood floor as she marched up to the TV and ripped the plug from the wall. “You’re smoking crack if you think I’m going to watch this shit from the sidelines.”

  “I’ve never smoked crack,” I said absently as I picked up a tortilla chip from the bowl I’d had on my coffee table all week. I stared at its triangular shape for a moment before saying, “But I did smoke some weed in Amsterdam. With Elias.” Just saying his name was like opening the floodgates I’d locked up after leaving him.

  “So you fell in love with your client. What are you going to do about it?”

  I looked up at her with tired eyes. “Nothing. I can’t.”

  “Says who?” She stooped to pick up one of my ice cream cartons and stalked to the trash to throw it away.

  “Says these,” I said calmly, spreading the stack of bills across the coffee table. “I can’t afford this place and tuition and books on a barista salary.”

  “Then what choice are you left with?”

  “Technically,” I said, holding up a finger, “I don’t think it’s a choice if there’s no alternative.”

  “Don’t go using your philosophy on me, Rubes. If the only thing you can do is buck up and be an escort, then get your ass off the couch before it sucks you in. Brush your teeth and your hair and call up Lenore for another date.”

  I didn’t want another date. I just wanted to wallow inside my tiny apartment, with the help of every brand of cookie dough ice cream I could find at the corner store in the middle of the night.

  “Take it from a master like myself,” she said, hooking her thumbs back toward herself. “The best way to get over someone is to get poked by another dick.”

  “I don’t think that’s how the saying goes,” I told her, unamused.

  “Sure it is.” She pushed her hair off her shoulders and then lifted them up and down like she was pumping herself up for something. “Let’s get you a date. And maybe a shower.”

  So I’d done as Ruby had suggested, and met with Lenore requesting that she assign me to another client as soon as possible. What did I have to lose anyway?

  Lenore had hesitated at first, before telling me to visit a spray tanning salon so that I didn’t look so “sickly.” After I’d agreed, she set me up with Mr. James, a well-known favorite among Lenore’s girls. I’d never had him as a client before, but I knew he was gracious and—judging by the way Stella had thrown the book she was glancing through when I told her—he was a c
atch.

  Catches were hard to find as an escort. Most of them toed the line of “normal” or “creep” but every once in a while, we got lucky.

  Like Elias, I acknowledged, as I waited in my scalloped-edged strapless black dress, at a hotel bar that was new to me. I needed the unfamiliarity, so I wouldn’t see reminders of Elias in something as stupid as an elevator, or a mirrored wall. Nothing in my life felt safe from his influence, a thought that made me sigh as I set my martini onto the shiny bar top.

  Mr. James was my first client since I’d laid eyes on Elias, but if Stella was right the whole process should feel like getting back up on the bicycle.

  When he walked in and scoped his eyes over the crowd, I felt my first tingle of anxiety. His gaze fell upon me and he smiled, the curves dipping into his cheeks as he meandered through the bar to me. I held onto my smile as he stepped to me and placed a hand on my waist, leaning in for a kiss on the cheek.

  I waited to feel a spark, a trickle of chemistry. He was fucking hot—there was absolutely no doubt about that. From his perfectly sculpted undercut hair style to the very trim facial hair on his face, and the magnetic blue eyes that shined warmly as he sat beside me, I should have been bowled over. But, in fact, I was … underwhelmed. Not that it was through any fault of his own, but because I looked at him and saw through him, imagining what Elias might be doing on a night like tonight.

  “Mr. James, so nice to meet you,” I said in my smooth, cultured voice.

  “Thomas, please.” He patted my hand before raising it to signal the bartender. And I didn’t feel a single thing. Not a spark, not even a minor fizzle.

  I was sitting beside an incredibly attractive man, dressed in a fitted three-piece navy suit, and I felt nothing. “Did you find the place all right?” I asked.

  “Of course. You gave exceptional directions.” He ordered a beer and then angled himself in his seat so that he faced me. “Have you been waiting long?”