Wild Addiction (Wild #2)(15)
Author: Emma Hart

“I’m the only one on my floor. It’s…convenient.” His lips curl at the corners.

“Very much so.” Another sip. “And you have quite the uninterrupted view over Elliot Bay. Another convenience?”

“I enjoy waking up to nature on a morning. It’s very pleasurable.” The inflection on the last word reaches out and grabs hold of me.

“I’d imagine it is.”

I sit back while the waiter removes our plates and offers us the dessert menu. Tyler politely declines, instead requesting the bill.

“Tell me.” I lean onto the table. “What else do you find pleasurable?”

His jaw ticks, and he reaches out to cup mine. “Beautiful blond women who wear lacy, navy lingerie and do as they’re told.”

“How convenient,” I murmur, turning into his hand. I kiss him palm softly. “Your night seems to be full of conveniences and pleasures, Tyler Stone.”

“There’s nothing convenient about you, Liv Warren. Pleasurable, yes. Convenient? No. You are far more than a convenience.” He hands his card to the waiter without looking at the bill. “However, the way you’re about to follow me to my car and allow me to take you home to my balcony is very convenient indeed.”

He takes his card, slots it into his wallet, and stands. Then he nods to the waiter and holds out his hand. I lay mine in his and he tugs me up, releasing me immediately to rest his arm around my waist.

I let him lead me from the restaurant without another word. Then he stops, turns me into him, and rests his mouth against my earlobe.

“I despise being that polite to you,” he breathes.

“Is that so?”

He taps my ass. “You know it, babe. Fuck the conveniences. You know I’d much rather tell you how I’m going to tie your wrists to the railings on my balcony then bend you over and fuck you from behind.”

I swallow, my heart thudding, and run my hands down his stomach. My fingers ghost over his belt until they find his hard cock straining against the confines of his pants. I cup him, squeezing lightly.

“Is that a promise?”

“You bet it is.” His voice is tight, needing. “Now move yourself and your pretty little ass inside my car before I bend you over that instead.”

I give his erection another light squeeze and release him. He follows me to the car. His eyes are burning a hole in my back, and I can feel the heat in his stare. I can feel his promises in the way he slowly rounds the car and sits inside, in the way he takes my hand as he drives away.

I can feel everything he wants and needs tonight.

He wants to make me lose control, to take me into a blacked-out oblivion where nothing matters but us. He wants to work my body and make me lose myself the only way he knows how to.

But every time he does, I crave a little more. Of him. Of his touch. To the point where not touching him for an hour is driving me insane.

Not having his hand around mine or his lips at my neck is unsettling.

I’m already losing control. He doesn’t need to fuck me into next week to propel me into oblivion. The guy just needs to exist. Pure and fucking simple.

And I can feel it. Everything slipping away. Control over my addiction. The control I’ve exercised for so long is now truly disintegrating right beneath my fingers.

“What’s your favorite fruit?”

“What?” Tyler glances at me.

I ask again.

“Peaches.”

“Vegetable?”

“Uh, I’ve never thought about it, but I guess it’s a carrot?”

“Are you asking me or telling me?”

“Telling you.”

I nod once. “Okay. Good.”

He doesn’t say anything else as we drive, and neither do I. I didn’t mean to ask those two questions. They just slipped out. With the thoughts of loss of control come the actions to prove it.

When Tyler kills the engine, I take my hand from his. I get out of the car before he does and walk into the elevator. Then I press the button for his floor and stare at his confused face as the doors shut.

“Liv?”

I lean back against the elevator wall and close my eyes. Back and forth, back and forth, constantly. Never-ending indecision. Never-ending fighting. Never-ending fucking battling the little bitch inside my head who tells me that it’s all or nothing.

I wish I could be Tyler.

I wish I could accept and live with my addiction. He doesn’t fight at all. He embraces it wholeheartedly. He just gets the hell on with it in a way I can only dream of.

His addiction ignites mine. It sets mine alight with barely a flicker of a flame and stokes it until it’s a consuming roar, until every second is about fulfilling the tempting crave that flows through my veins.

Every word, every touch, every kiss. Every single thing he does is bad. But I’m addicted to the bad. I want the bad. I need the bad. I fucking crave the bad.

I fight. He doesn’t.

By not fighting, every time he touches me, he destroys me a little.

But I’m far too weak to walk away.

The elevator doors open and he’s standing there in front of me, his shirt half untucked, his eyes dark, his chest heaving. He reaches forward and grabs my wrist. He tugs me from the elevator, the sound of his labored breathing filling the lobby.

The buzz from his fingers wrapped at my wrist spreads up my arm. Goose bumps follow it, coating my skin as he pulls me into his apartment. Then he releases me, leaving me cold and alone in the hallway.

My eyes follow him as he walk into the kitchen. They follow him as he reaches into two cupboards and pulls out a glass and a bottle of whisky. I watch as he pours two fingers of the amber liquid into the glass and tips it back in one go.

I hide my flinch as the glass hits the countertop in a deafening crash.

“You drive me crazy. And not always in a good way.” Tyler’s voice carries through his apartment, echoing through the silence. “A relationship. We said we’d make it work. I’m trying, Liv. I’m trying so fucking hard, but you keep changing your mind. One minute, you’re hot. Then you’re cold.”

I draw in a deep breath because he’s right. It’s true. I’m all over him one minute then nowhere near him the next. But if he could see inside my head, remember what I do, fear what I do, then maybe it would make sense.

Maybe it would make sense if I could put my weaknesses into words.

“What is it, Liv? What the hell do you want? Because you better start making your fucking mind up before I make it for you.” He turns and his eyes bore into mine, the city lights seeping in through the windows, reflecting off the shadows of his gaze. “What do you want?”