Addicted to You (Addicted #1)(32)

Framed comics line the wall directly in front of me, hanging above his desk. All Marvel: Avengers, Spider-Man, X-Men, Cable and Thor. The bottom corners are signed from our numerous trips to Comic-Con in San Diego.

Last year, we stopped attending the comic book convention when I slept with Chewbacca, or at least a fan dressed as the Star Wars character—one of my more embarrassing conquests. Lo didn’t have a splendid time either. He drank something Captain America gave him. Turns out the Cap imposter wasn’t too noble, having spiked his booze with roofies. Nerds can be vicious too.

“You remember when you slept with Chewbacca?” Lo must have followed my gaze to the same poster. He heads to his desk to make another glass.

I shoot him a look. “At least I didn’t accept drinks from every masked superhero that approached me.”

“Yeah? Well at least I’m not into bestiality.”

My eyes narrow and I grab a pillow off the bed, chucking it at him with all my might. I would never be into something like that. Gross, gross, gross.

Lo dodges the pillow but it collides with a bottle of bourbon, knocking it over like a bowling pin and toppling it to the floor. Lo’s face darkens in contempt. “Watch it, Lily.” He picks up the bottle, unbroken, and reacts as though I hit his child.

I don’t say I’m sorry. It’s just alcohol. And he has plenty more. When my eyes plant on a shelf by his head, my heart nearly drops. “How long has that photo been there?” I spring from the bed. He should have burned it!

He carefully returns his bottles to a safe location and cranes his neck to see what I’m fussing over. I’m so embarrassed by the photo that I shove him from the desk and spread my arms out, failing at blocking his view since the picture sits above me and he far surpasses my height.

He laughs at my lame attempt and plucks the frame off the shelf with ease. I try to reach for it, but he hoists it high above, teasing me further.

“Toss it out,” I demand, my hands flying to my hips, just so he knows I mean it.

“It goes with the posters,” he muses, his eyes twinkling at the memory that’s encapsulated within the frame.

“Lo,” I whine. He’s right that the photo fits in with the others. Also at Comic-Con, Lo and I stand beside cutouts of Cyclops and Professor X. I adorn nothing more than a pair of latex pants, a shiny black bra, and long plastic blades from my knuckles. I look more confident than I let on, mostly because Lo begged me to stop hiding behind his back. It was his fault I was scantily-clad in the first place. He insisted I join him as his favorite X-Men’s love interest. So he dressed up as Hellion—the young new mutant with telekinesis—in a spandex, red and black suit, and like a good friend, I played the part of X-23 for the day, the female clone of Wolverine.

I hate that the photo is in a room with dozens of empty memories. A few frames over, we’re holding hands underneath the Eiffel Tower during a family trip to France. Fake. Another, he kisses me in a gazebo. Fake. I sit on his lap during a boating trip in Greece. Faker. Why do we have to tarnish the real memories in our friendship by placing them with phony ones from our pretend relationship?

“Please,” I beg.

“Where am I going to get better proof that we’re a couple?” he protests, inching towards me just to make this even more awkward. My back hits his desk, and I hope to God we’re not reenacting the earlier kitchen scene. But then I kinda do.

“Technically…” I say, eyes on his chest. “…this is my room too.”

“Yeah?” He sets the photo back on the shelf above me, and before I can turn and snatch it, he clasps my wrists in a tight hold. He stretches my arms behind my back. Oh my God.

“Lo,” I warn.

“If this is your room, then make me believe it.”

“Shut up,” I say instantly. I don’t even know why.

“That’s not very convincing.”

Is he being serious? “This is my room,” I say adamantly, wondering if that’s enough.

“It is?” he plays along, edging closer. “You don’t seem so sure.”

I try to reclaim my hands, but his grip tightens and he widens his stance so his feet trap me against the desk. Yes, this is just like the kitchen, only worse (or better) because I am not in control without my arms. Not one bit.

“Step back,” I try to sound forceful, but it comes off too raspy and too wanting.

“Why do you think this is your room?” he asks. “You don’t sleep here. You don’t fuck here. You don’t eat or drink here. What makes this yours as much as it is mine?”

“You know why,” I breathe. We’re pretending, aren’t we? I’m so confused. What is he to me right now? Friend, boyfriend, something else entirely?

“Once you stepped through that threshold,” Lo says, “you entered my place.” His hot, bourbon-scented breath hits my neck. “Everything in here belongs to me.”

My head lulls dizzily. I hate that I haven’t had sex today. I hate that my body wants Loren Hale. And maybe even my mind too.

I try to concentrate. I have to. “Take it down,” I say again.

“No, I like that photo and it’s staying there.”

Why does he care so much about that stupid picture?!

Before I ask, he spins me around and leans my stomach against his desk but keeps my wrists in his hands, pinning my arms to my back. I try to wiggle out of the hold, but he presses his body to mine, in a position that I’ve fantasized so many times. Just like this (maybe not the submissive part), but with him behind me, his pelvis grinding into my backside. I gape, internally dying. Luckily he can’t see my open-mouthed expression.