Addicted After All (Addicted #3)(29)

“You’re f*cking stronger than that!” he yells back. I don’t feel it. Not today. I think Ryke just wishes I was at his level. If all of us didn’t give a shit, then he’d never have to watch us crumble.

I feel tears crest my eyes. I wish, so badly, that I could be more like him. Doesn’t he understand how much we’d all replace parts of ourselves just to have a little of what he possesses?

“Hey,” Lo cuts in, his tone not as sharp. “Leave her alone, man.”

My heart skips, and even though Lo sticks up for me, I still can’t read him. It frightens me. We’re out of sync, and I can’t remember the last time where this happened. Maybe in college, when we went without talking for a whole week and our addictions overtook our lives.

Ryke breathes heavily. “I don’t want the f*cking tabloids ruining my friendship with her.”

Rose pipes in, “That’s what they’re hoping, for all of us to break apart. Little *s…” she stares off like she’s plotting someone’s demise.

“We’re still friends,” I tell Ryke.

“Then why can’t you f*cking look at me?”

I’m scared of you. It’s an awful truth. Really, I’m scared of me, but the weight on my chest lessens when I place the guilt somewhere else.

I raise my head, but I only meet Loren Hale’s gaze. He stares straight through me, like he is reaching right into my soul and piecing apart all of my intricate fears. What frightens me most: not knowing what my best friend feels.

I’m about to approach him in the middle of the kitchen and collide with his hard, rigid body. But I don’t have to lift a foot.

He walks to me. And he pulls my small frame to him, embracing me with two strong arms, a warm cocoon where my heart begins to slow. I rest my cheek on his chest, his body pressed along mine, and I shut my eyes.

His hand lowers to the small of my back, and he dips his head. His lips to my ear, he whispers, “I’m not going anywhere.” He pauses, an extended one that stops my pulse. “Lil…how aroused are you?” He would’ve checked without asking if we were alone.

I flush and tilt my chin up. I whisper quickly, “I’m only aroused by you.”

His face sharpens and he says, “Shhh.”

Why is he shushing me? “It’s true.” My voice shakes.

He kisses the outside of my lips, really tenderly. Where is his head at?

“Lil,” he warns, like I did something wrong. I concentrate and realize I’m pushing my pelvis right up against him, his bulge edging towards my wetness as I hike my leg around him.

I drop my foot, my whole body flaming with embarrassment. I cover my face with both my hands. This is one of those days I wish I could erase. Dr. Banning, my therapist, says that everyone has them, but I always play my bad days on loop, tormenting me for eternity.

“It’s okay, Lil,” he breathes. “Look at me.” He grips my wrists, tearing them away from my face. Still I tighten my eyes closed, too ashamed…I’d like to vanish again.

Invisibility, kick in. Please.

“I love you,” he says so empathetically that it tears open my heart. “I understand you. Please hold onto that, Lil.”

He should be angry at me. He should hate how disgusting I am—what my body is craving. It’s not right.

“Lily,” he forces, cupping my face in both his hands. “Breathe, love.”

I take a deep one, and then I sense a tall masculine body a couple feet behind me. Most likely Connor. He’s not too close, but the longer he stands there, the more my body reacts in ways I dislike. Lo studies all of my muscle tics and spasms. Diagnosing me. I cross my ankles and shut my eyes again, snuffing out every perverted image that I should not have in public or at all.

Why? Why do I have to like things that I shouldn’t?

The heat of two bodies stimulates parts of me that my brain has abandoned. The sensual parts that cares little about names, relations and faces. Just the high of a climax.

Not Connor. I can’t grow wet from him.

This is so wrong.

I cling to Lo, shaking, afraid of myself. I haven’t felt this gross in a while.

His lips fall to my ear at the right moment while he rubs my back. “Shh, Lil.” He pulls me even closer to his body. No space between us. “I’m going to take care of you, love.”

With sex? I wonder. The guilt sinks to a low, hollow place.

“Not with sex,” he says, as though he can read my mind.

“I’msorry,” I mumble together, burying my face in his arm and refusing to acknowledge Rose, Ryke or Connor.

Today is a not-so-good day.

I could have reined myself in, but I slipped off the diving board and belly-flopped in the deep end. I know addictions are up-and-down kind of things, but the downs really, really hurt. At least Lo was wading in the water, there to keep me from drowning this time.

He hasn’t given up on us.

It’s silly to think that’s a possibility anyway. It’s an irrational fear that I should never let cling to me. He is my soul. I am his. The moment we give up on each other is the moment that neither of us exists.

Lo lifts me in a front-piggyback, and he carries me towards the staircase while I clutch him like a koala bear to a tree.

As we leave, I hear Daisy enter the kitchen. “Mom has already planned my birthday.” A long pause before she adds, “We’re taking the yacht out, and everyone’s invited.”