Addicted After All (Addicted #3)(69)

I make a noise of distress and rest my forehead on the sink counter, all hunched over. Daisy rubs my back.

“Hey.” Ryke tries to soften his voice. “It’s okay. I’ll be there in a second, Lily.”

Daisy holds the phone near her mouth. “Can you speed?”

“Sure,” he says without hesitation. “I always break this f*cking law for you, sweetheart.” It is so cute that I almost swoon instead of roast, but this humiliation is just too strong today.

My invisibility powers have let me down, once again.





{ 24 }

LILY CALLOWAY



In the span of five minutes, Irene has checked on us once, and we told her that someone is stopping by to bring me a change of clothes. She actually turned her scowl into a pity smile for me. That’s how bad this is.

“He’s coming up the elevator,” Daisy says, checking her texts.

I crack the bathroom door and peek at the fourteen board members, who all take the extra time to chat with each other.

“No one has bailed on us yet,” Daisy whispers to me. She peeks through the top portion of the crack while I crouch below her. She’s right. They’re still eating and drinking and smiling, which is good.

The elevator dings, and all of the board members quiet, rotating to face the sliding metal doors. Ryke emerges, wearing a leather bike jacket, zipped to the collar, and a black backpack with buckles across the chest. A green water bottle dangles off the lower strap with a carabineer.

No one approaches him. They’re the ones stunned in silence now, not expecting him to be here today.

He’s essentially crashing this lunch party, and he acts like he couldn’t give a flying shit. He looks around the place and spots the bathroom where we hide. Then he begins his trek this way, without introducing himself or even shaking a single hand.

Though he decides to snatch a couple mini-sandwiches on the way here, eating them in one bite.

“Is he self-sabotaging?” I whisper to Daisy. The board members murmur, gossiping about him, and Ryke ignores all of it.

“I don’t think so.” Daisy backs away from the door as he nears, and I do the same.

Ryke slips inside and shuts the door behind him.

I cover my face with my hands, refusing to meet his brooding gaze for multiple reasons. The first being: I just peed myself. And he can see the stains.

“So they said you’re having lunch and they bring in bite-sized f*cking sandwiches?” he curses. I hear him unzip his backpack on the sink counter, grateful he’s not advertising my soiled pants yet.

“You’ll have to eat before you come here tomorrow,” Daisy tells him. I peer through my fingers and watch her hop up on the sink.

“It’s a multi-billion dollar company; they could’ve ordered subs.”

Daisy wears a devious smile. “Ladies don’t put foot-longs in their mouths.”

Oh my God. I am alone with Ryke and Daisy. Flirty Raisy. I need help. SOS. Someone save me. I drop my hands and reach for my phone in my pocket.

His eyebrows rise at her, his backpack right there. Accio, my clothes! They do not magically land in my hands. Harry Potter fail. I’m truly not a wizard.

“Calloway,” Ryke says, “you’ve never been a lady, and it has nothing to do with taking twelve-inches in your mouth.”

Oh shit.

“Say that again,” she smiles so big.

“No!” I interject with frantic eyes. They both look at me, and I use one hand to shield my gaze. “I don’t want to know how many inches his…thing is.” He cannot be twelve-inches. That’s just too big.

“I’m not twelve f*cking inches,” he tells me. Thank God. “Lily, you can look at me?”

“I can’t,” I say. I am trying to keep my “perverted thoughts” under the surface. I cannot be aroused. Nope. I will not let my body feel embarrassment, guilt, shame and pleasure all at once. It’s the most toxic, gross mixture.

I sense Ryke nearing, and I scuttle backwards, my shoulders hitting a stall door.

“Lily. It’s just me.” There’s pain in his voice.

I swallow a lump and slowly drop my hand. He is holding my pants out to me, really nicely. Daisy watches from the sink and she gives me a thumbs-up. Something tells me that she’d planned for us to make up right now—and maybe that’s why she called him out of everyone.

How can I say this out loud without seeming strange and weird?

“Maybe if you talk about it, we can clear the f*cking air,” Ryke says with hard brows. He’s not even sure what he did. I’ve just been dodging him. “Here, take this.” He pushes the pants to me, and I hold onto my clean clothes like a life vest.

And then I say, “I’m a pervert.”

His face falls. “You’re not a f*cking pervert.”

“You always say—”

“I’m an *,” he suddenly tells me, licking his lips. “I say exactly what’s on my mind, and sometimes it doesn’t come across how I intend it to. Do you think perverted things? Yes. But so do I. It doesn’t make either of us perverts.” He takes a tense breath. “I don’t want you to believe that you’re one because of things I’ve said. It’d…honestly, it would break my heart.”