Addicted (Tempting Book 4)

by Alex Lucian

  I shook my head and gave him a long-practiced smile. And then I fucking blanked. Just … lost all thought. Not a single thing could come to my mind to say. It was as if I’d exhausted all my topics of conversation in just two sentences.

  “So, tell me about yourself, Ruby,” Thomas said, looking genuinely interested.

  And all I could think about was Elias.

  Shit.

  “I study theology right now,” I told him, to which he gave me a polite smile.

  “How is that?”

  This was all wrong. All fucking wrong. I kept waiting for Elias to walk through the door and drag me out of the bar. Briefly, I closed my eyes, willing all thoughts of Elias to get the fuck out of my head so I could give this an honest shot.

  “It’s exhausting,” I admitted to Thomas. “I probably spend more hours inside of the school library than I do my apartment.”

  “I understand. I studied industrial and organizational psychology, which was,” he said on a laugh, “intense, to say the least.”

  I didn’t know a single fucking thing about industrial and organizational psychology. And moreover, I didn’t care. But I nodded like a parrot and said, “Is that what you do?”

  “Well, no. I actually work for an organization that provides clean, safe drinking water for African communities.”

  It should have piqued my interest, after all the research I’d done myself regarding African tribes. But I couldn’t focus enough to engage him, because all I could think about was the fact that he was drinking beer and I missed the smell of bourbon.

  “That sounds very demanding,” I offered, which felt like a pithy answer.

  “Well, it is. But it’s ultimately very rewarding.” He took a pull of his beer and then set it down, his long fingers running over the condensation circle his beer bottle had created. “We’re changing the future of entire generations of Africans, by providing them something as simple and essential as water.”

  It was admirable work. I knew that. But it was as if I’d had a moment of adult ADD, because I couldn’t focus on anything he was saying long enough to ask him more about it.

  Suddenly, his hand caressed the back of mine and I yanked my hand back as my vision cleared.

  “Are you all right?” he asked. “You looked a little lost there for a minute.”

  I must have spaced out, I realized. Under the bar top, I rubbed the top of my hand over the spot where he’d touched me. It had felt like a brand; another man touching my skin simply didn’t feel right. In fact, it’d felt—strangely—like I was cheating on Elias. Elias, my client.

  I sputtered an apology as I looked at Thomas.

  I couldn’t stay here. I most definitely couldn’t allow him to join me in a room for the evening. If I couldn’t stand to have him touch my hand, I certainly couldn’t accept him touching me in the places my clothing covered.

  Abruptly I stood and dug into my clutch for a twenty. “I’m sorry,” I told him, but it felt weak. “I need to go.” Lenore was going to chew my fucking ear off.

  He sighed, resigned, but didn’t seem the least bit surprised. He opened his own wallet and tossed a bill onto the bar. “It’s fine,” he said after a moment. “Lenore said this would probably happen.”

  I stared at him blankly. “She did?”

  He nodded and offered me a sad smile. “She did. So don’t worry or anything.”

  After an awkward goodbye kiss on the cheek, I bolted the hell out of the bar and hailed a cab. Once I slid in and buckled my seat belt, my biggest regret was actually dressing up for the night in the first place.

  Lenore had known? That baffled me the most. She’d known that throwing me in the deep end would have left me drowning? I closed my eyes as the lights of the city passed over the cab, and tried to figure out what the hell was next for me.

  I let myself into my darkened apartment and made a beeline for the bed while Fletcher danced around my feet. After collapsing face-first into the duvet, I pressed my mouth against my pillow and screamed. What the fuck was I going to do? If I couldn’t let someone as handsome and interesting as Thomas touch me, I couldn’t let anyone touch me.

  I groaned in my pillow, feeling like the entire world was bearing down on me in that moment. I had no one to talk this out with, no one who would understand.

  Fucking Elias, I thought. He’d ruined me. Which meant he’d ruined my job, because if I couldn’t be an escort without feeling like I was somehow cheating on Elias, I’d never be able to go to that safe place in my head, where I’d stayed whenever I’d met with a client. That cool, detached place, that allowed no one too close.

  Except Elias.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  “Thank you for meeting with me on such short notice,” I told Lenore from across the table. I didn’t even attempt to hide my open perusal of her. What I expected in a woman who managed a professional escort service, I wasn’t sure. But it wasn’t Lenore. She looked strict and dignified. Nothing flashy or sexy about her. You’d be as likely to find her heading up accounting at a major money firm as coordinating a business where men paid large sums of money to spend time with her girls.

  “It’s my pleasure,” she said smoothly, taking a long sip of her tea and watching me over the rim. Her black hair was severe and short against her pale skin. She’d photograph beautifully, probably for the rest of her life, but I doubt she’d ever loosen up enough to let someone put her in front of a camera. “What can I help you with?”

  “You already know. I’d like to know how to get in touch with Ruby.”

  The restaurant she’d picked to meet me at was quiet, tucked into an alley with small bistro tables and blooming pots of flowers. The wait staff was discreet, never lingering at the tables for too long. It made me wonder how often she met … clients here. The word rankled, it always would to me, especially after Ruby lobbed it at me like a grenade twenty-two days earlier.

  The longest twenty-two days of my life. She ignored texts, calls and emails. Which probably meant she’d blocked me. And the only reason she would have blocked me was because I’d terrified her in a way that she’d never experienced. Because I was right. Ruby would have been able to face me again if she felt nothing. I was sure it would surprise her that the longer she went ignoring me, the firmer I became in my decision, in my resolve to lay every single fucking card on the table before she decided to walk away from me forever.

  Lenore set her white tea cup down without making a sound against the table. “Ruby made the decision to terminate your agreement, despite how I felt about it. That tells me she had her reasons. Why would I help you find her if she doesn’t want to be found?”

  I leaned forward and laid my clasped hands on the table. “Because you know it was more than an arrangement. I’m in love with her.”

  Her eyes never wavered, but they did narrow. “Many men have fancied themselves in love with my girls over the years. Then the next pretty face comes along and they forget. Why should I assume you’re any different?”

  “Because I’ve never experienced anything as terrifying as falling in love with her. I have every reason in the world to move on, to pretend like it didn’t happen, because she has the power to crush me. She does, and I’m handing her that power with my eyes wide open.” I took a deep breath and fought the desire to squirm under the weight of her hard stare. “It’s been three weeks since she told me that the only reason I felt so strongly was because she did her job in selling my fantasy. Why would I ever want to subject myself to that if I wasn’t really in love with her? I’m not a glutton for punishment, Lenore. In fact, I’ve often made cowardly decisions in my life, but this is not one of them.”

  Lenore broke our stare-down first and glanced over my shoulder at the table behind us. “What do you think?”

  “Me?” I asked, confused.

  “She’s talking to me, big spender.” A stunning woman around Ruby’s age with deep reddish brown hair and wide green eyes said as she pulled up a chair in between me and Leno
re. Then she held out a hand. “I’m Stella.”

  Recognition made me nod, and I shook her hand. “Ruby’s friend.”

  She grinned and propped her elbows on the table. “That’s me. Which is why your fate ultimately rests in my very talented hands.” Then she tilted her head to look at my lap underneath the table. “Sorry. Just checking to see if Rubes was exaggerating.”

  “For god’s sake, Stella,” Lenore said under her breath.

  I laughed. “It’s fine. And no, she wasn’t.”

  “Lucky bitch,” Stella said and fell back in her chair. “If I didn’t love her so much, I’d fucking hate her right now.”

  “Please watch your language while we’re in public,” Lenore admonished.

  Stella continued as if Lenore hadn’t said a word. “Because she’s getting the dream right here. Even though we all have our different reasons for doing this, we’d retire our vaginas in a fucking heartbeat if someone like you said the right words. And from where I’m sitting, they’re right. More than that, I think you actually mean them.”

  Hope exploded in my chest like a bomb and I fought the urge to shake Stella until she gave me Ruby’s address. “I do mean them. All I want is a chance to speak to her. I didn’t tell her everything I should have the last time I saw her, and even if she chooses to never speak to me again, I’d be doing both of us a disservice if I didn’t have the chance to be honest.”

  Stella laid a hand on her chest and shook her head. “Goddamn, I’m having a Sex and the City moment right now. You’re Big, and Ruby’s Carrie. But she’s not in Paris. Thank god.”

  “I don’t know what that means,” I told Lenore.

  Lenore was giving Stella a look that should have turned her into stone, it was so cold. “Get to the point, Stella.”

  With a Cheshire cat grin, Stella leaned toward me. “Tell her she owes me when you talk to her.”

  I expelled a heavy breath. “You’ll give me her address?”

  “Yeah,” Stella said slowly. “What the hell did you think I meant?”

  In one movement, I stood and swept Stella up in a bear hug. She laughed, patting me on the back. Even Lenore had a small smile on her face. But as soon as Stella stepped back from me, it was gone.

  “Thank you,” I said to both of them while Stella scrawled the address on a napkin. Lenore nodded and opened up her laptop, effectively dismissing me. I winked at Stella and walked out of the restaurant. I’d barely made it ten feet when she called my name.

  “Hey, I wasn’t sure I should tell you, but Ruby quit a couple days ago.”

  “What?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Why do you keep asking me questions when my meaning is pretty fucking crystal clear? She quit. Came in and told Lenore that her pussy was officially off the market.”

  My heart raced and all the blood rushed down to my feet. I didn’t know what it meant other than that I fucking knew it. When Ruby had said I know after I called her a liar, it didn’t immediately click. But with every unanswered call, every text that got ignored, I knew exactly what she had meant. That whole exchange in the hotel room during our last night, she was lying to me. The blank, empty look in her eyes was one giant lie.

  And this was the proof. I tipped my head back and started laughing. The fact that she quit, didn’t tell me, and was still being so stubbornly quiet only made me fall even further.

  “Thank you,” I told Stella again. “I’m glad I know.”

  “But you would have gone to her even if she hadn’t, right?”

  “Yeah.” I shook my head. “Maybe that makes me crazy, but yeah, I would’ve.”

  Surprisingly, Stella’s eyes filled with tears. She blinked them away before speaking. “You are worthy of her, Elias. And that makes me happy.”

  “Yeah,” I said with a smile. “Me too.”

  Four hours later, I stood in front of a humble walk-up on a quiet street. Stella promised she’d send Ruby a text saying she would stop over, so that my chances of getting buzzed in were better than a zero. Because if she knew it was me, there was still a chance she’d freeze me out. The nerves swarming inside of me were completely foreign, but I’d also never had the stakes be this high.

  I smoothed my hair back and ran a hand down my newly trimmed beard. Then for the fortieth time since I left my apartment, I patted the front pocket of my white button down shirt to make sure the folded up piece of paper was still there. When it was, I shook my head for stupidity and hit the small white button.

  “Come on up,” Ruby’s voice crackled through the speaker and just the sound of it almost brought me to my fucking knees after three weeks without it. I pulled open the security door and walked up the flight of stairs to the third floor. Her door cracked open and she had a smile on her face. Until she saw me.

  “Elias,” she breathed, with a hand to her chest. There was no fear in her eyes, thank god, but there was a fuck-ton of surprise. “How … how did you get my address?”

  I tucked my hands into the front pockets of my jeans, so I didn’t grab her and clutch her to me. “Stella.”

  Her eyes shut and she let out a heavy breath. “Of course.”

  While she wasn’t looking at me, I drank her in. She was casually dressed, in a simple white T-shirt and light grey linen pants that hung off her hips and showed a small sliver of flat stomach.

  “Wait,” she said and gave me a suspicious look. “How did you get in touch with Stella?”

  “I met with Lenore. I didn’t know Stella was going to be there.” I smiled at her. “She took her job as your gatekeeper very seriously.”

  Ruby laughed. “Yeah, I bet.”

  “Can I come in?”

  Her eyes were unguarded and clear, but she still paused before nodding and opening the door. A fluffy white cat wrapped around her legs when she stepped back to let me in and she picked it up with an indulgent smile on her face. “This is my guard cat, Fletcher.”

  With a grin, I reach out and scratched underneath his jaw. When he purred and pressed into my hand, I lifted an eyebrow at Ruby. “Seems vicious.”

  Standing in front of me, cuddling with her cat that I didn’t know about, in her simple, clean apartment, I was seeing a different Ruby. And I liked it. A fucking lot. Her home was organized, full of books and bright splashes of color. It was small, but not cramped. I could tell she cooked by the items I could see on the open shelves in her tiny kitchen area, and suddenly, the thought of sitting on her couch and watching her prepare a meal sounded like the most appealing vision I could conjure.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked, drawing my attention back to her perfect face.

  “Can we sit?” My obvious deflection didn’t go unnoticed, but she nodded and sat on the far edge of her couch. I took the other end, and then stared at the open newspaper on her coffee table. The classifieds. I swallowed against the rush of emotion and met her eyes. “I’ve had a lot of time to think the last few weeks. About you and me, and us. Mostly about you though. About how much you fascinated me, from the very first night.”

  Ruby looked down at her lap, at her folded hands and kept listening. The shiny strands of dark hair fell over her shoulders and curtained her face from me. But she was listening. It was all that mattered.

  “I won’t lie and say that your looks, the way we fit so well together wasn’t part of it at first. It was. But that’s only a fraction of it, Ruby.” I took a deep breath and pulled the paper from my shirt pocket and handed it to her. She looked up in surprise and took it.

  “What’s this?” she asked quietly, staring at the folded paper.

  “Open it.”

  The muscle on her jaw popped when she clenched her teeth together, but she did. Her eyebrows creased as she read, then she covered her mouth with one hand.

  “Elias,” she whispered. “I can’t accept this.”

  “Yes, you can.” The ticket voucher was for a round trip flight to Lyon, France so she could see the chapel on top of the volcano. If I hadn’t needed to go ho
me to purchase it for her, I would’ve come straight to her apartment after meeting with Lenore. “I want you to go see it.”

  “Why?” Her voice was thick with tears. When she lifted her eyes, they shone, and it made my heart crack around the edges.

  I shifted closer and laid a hand over one of hers. She let me keep it there. “You talked before about how powerful it was, seeing these places that people risked their lives to build. To bring each brick and stone up in order to have a place to worship.” I smiled at her. “It’s selfish, actually. Why I want you to go.”

  She shook her head, clearly confused. One tear spilled down her cheek, and as gently as I could, I reached out to wipe it away with my thumb. “I want you to see this testament to unwavering faith. Because that’s what I have in you. Have in us. And when you come back, I hope it’s because you know, without one single doubt, that you can believe in me. Believe in us. Can you do that for me?”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  “Jesus,” I said, pressing a hand to my stomach to quiet the butterflies that tickled my belly.

  “Actually, you can call me Elias.”

  I was so overcome with emotion that I laughed, and pressed the back of my hand to my forehead. It was easily the most romantic moment of my life, and all I could do was laugh.

  “I’ll be honest here, Ruby. I’m not sure how to take your laughing.”

  I went from confusion to understanding to humor and to the deepest form of love I’d ever felt in my entire life, before oscillating back around.

  I couldn’t not touch him, so I cupped my hand over his, as he cupped my face. “I’m sorry,” I told him earnestly. “But you’re making me laugh, when I’m already experiencing such a serious synthesis of emotion.”

  He shook his head and his fingers cupping my face tightened imperceptibly. “And that’s one of the many things I love about you—that giant head of yours and how you speak in tongue twisters.”

  Love. Elias loved me. The awe of knowing—of hearing—that he loved me made my eyes fill again.