Wild Addiction (Wild #2)(25)
Author: Emma Hart

He releases me and heads for my door.

Panic constricts my lungs. I can’t breathe. He’s going. Why? Why is he going? He can’t go.

“Where are you going?” I almost shout, pressing my fists into my stomach.

“Somewhere other than here so you can think about what you and I really are.”

Going? No. No—he’s not walking away when I’ve finally told him that there’s more than just sex. It was a totally roundabout way, but I told him. And I don’t need to think.

I know what we are. We’re crazy and painful and consuming. We’re the rainbow through the storm and the rain on a hot summer’s day. We’re the light and dark, everything bad and everything good.

“Don’t go.” The words tumble from me. Desperately, my voice cracks and I beg. “Ty. Don’t. Please.”

He stops in the doorway and turns. I can only just see his eyes meet mine. My eyes are blurred from the tears filling them.

He can’t go. Shit. This is fucked because I make it so. Every time. Me. Always me.

“Please,” I whisper, looking down. “Please.”

“Fuck.” He kicks the door shut with a resounding bang and pulls me into his arms. “I’m not going anywhere.”

I grab his shirt and collapse into him. “Don’t. Don’t go.”

“I’m not.” His words are shuddery, and he soothingly runs a hand through my hair. He holds me tighter.

“Good,” I whisper, fisting his shirt tighter. “I’m sorry. I just…” I squeeze my eyes shut.

“What, Liv? You just what?”

“I’m so afraid of loving you.”

“Don’t fear that, baby girl. Anything but that.” He drags me toward my room and onto my bed. My head rests against his chest. His heart is pounding beneath my ear, his fingers gripping me tight, his breath hard and fast against the top of my head.

“I am. Do you know how close I am? Do you know why I fight you? Why I fight us?” I pull up and pinch my finger and thumb, leaving a tiny space between them. “This close, Ty. This fucking close. And it scares the ever-loving shit out of me.”

He grabs my face and makes me look at him. He physically forces my eyes to look into his.

“Don’t fear it. Let it happen. I don’t give a shit how long it takes or how uncontrollable it is. I need you to love me.”

“I need you to love me.” “Need you.” “Love me.” “I need you.” “To love me.”

“I need you to love me.”

“What?” When he doesn’t reply, I push his hands away and grab his face through my tears. “What?”

“I need you to feel the way I do.” He pulls me into him. “I need you to know that. Think whatever the hell you want about our relationship as long as you know that, below the addiction, there’s a whole bunch of fucking emotion, all right?”

I inhale sharply, holding the breath until it fucking burns me.

“No.”

“Yes,” he says sharply. “Yes. I won’t say it because you can’t deal with it right now, but it’s there. Ever since you told me never to touch you and threw my money back at me. It’s been there. Growing.”

“No,” I repeat, feeling smaller and smaller.

“Come here.” Tyler pulls me down and wraps me into his body so hard that I can’t escape.

I’m trapped. I’m tied in yet another way by this man, unable to free myself from his unrelenting binds.

“Don’t say it,” I beg, pushing my face into him. “Please. Just…don’t say it.”

A shudder racks his whole body. “I promise I won’t. Not until you want me to.”

You get me, I think. I don’t know how it’s possible, but he fucking gets me. Gets that I need to know it but not hear it.

I need to know that he feels the way I do.

In this second, it doesn’t matter that the length of us is undefined. It doesn’t matter about the demons we fight or the bumps ahead.

It just matters that, in the space of seconds—mere, seemingly inconsequential seconds—I’ve both admitted to myself and accepted that Tyler and I are falling in love.

Very, very quickly.

I open my eyes and stare straight at a mug of coffee with a backdrop of abs. Well, that’s one way to start a day.

I stare longingly, undecided if it’s the abs or the coffee making me sigh happily, and drag my gaze upward to smirking lips. My eyes find the dark-brown ones of my dirty British boy, and this time, my sigh is definitely for him.

“Good morning.” Amusement filters through his words.

“Morning.” I smile lazily and sit up. “Is that for me?”

“The abs or the coffee?”

“Hilarious.” I reach out and grab the mug.

He laughs and perches on the edge of the bed. “What are you doing today?”

“I’m meeting Day at the new bar. We’re coming up with the final cocktail menu so I can order everything from the supplier this afternoon.” I sip my coffee. “The fridges and stuff were installed yesterday, and since it opens in, like, two weeks, we really need to get moving.”

“You could have told Aaron he’s expecting too much, you realize?”

I stop my lips from twitching. “One of the builders tried that. It didn’t go well.”

“Good point.” Tyler leans back and gazes up at me. “Interviewing any hot cocktail-shaker guys yet?”

“Not yet,” I say nonchalantly into my mug. “I was going to set up interviews this weekend. Do you know I required pictures with the applications?”

“Liv,” he says firmly but through hidden laughter. “Hiring someone on looks is shallow.”

I put the mug down and give him my best unimpressed face. “I’m sorry. Remind me what it is you do for a living again?”

He laughs and pulls me over with him. “I take photos of children in pretty dresses, sunsets over Elliott Bay, and loved-up couples who put a ring on it.”

“And half-dressed women.” I tap his nose and look down at him.

“But the only half-dressed woman I particularly like taking photos of is you.” He grins and bats my hair from his face. “In fact, I more than like it. I bloody love it.”

“I was about to be offended, but I think you saved yourself.” I drop a kiss onto his lips and get up. “I need to get ready. If I’m late, I’m likely to get a Louboutin up my ass.”