Wild Addiction (Wild #2)(54)
Author: Emma Hart

I raise my eyebrow. “Yes, because there’s a book for that shit. Didn’t you know? I saw a Barnes and Noble down the road—why don’t you ask them if they have a copy?”

Another fry comes my way. This time, I grab it from the sand and throw it back. He catches it in his mouth before he realizes that it’s covered in sand. He splutters, putting his box of fish and chips down. I laugh at the way he scrapes his tongue with his fingers.

He launches himself at me and I roll away.

“Liv! You bitch!”

“Living up to my pet name!” I giggle, kicking my legs when he jumps on top of me and grabs my wrists.

He pins them above my head and drops his face. His eyes search mine. His lips, quirked to the side, show his dimple. I yearn to reach up and dip my finger in that soft dent in his cheek, to feel the smoothness of his skin beneath my skin.

I yearn to feel his skin against mine, at my own will, more than anything.

Like he can sense how I feel, he moves his thumbs. They rub across my palms, loosening his grip on me ever so slightly. Still, he gazes down at me.

And there’s wonder in his eyes. A glint that wraps around me with warmth and safety. One that gives me everything I never imagined myself having. Happiness. Stability. Love.

I bend my fingers so the tips of my nails brush his hands. He slowly lowers his mouth to mine , every inch a torturous bit of space I’m desperate to fill.

Because I crave him. Even when he’s straddling me, his hands securing mine, I crave him. Even when his skin is searing into mine, I crave his touch, because I know nothing else.

When he touches me, nothing else exists.

“I love you,” he whispers, his voice thick with emotion. “I love you so bloody much.”

I wrestle my hands from his grip and slide them into his hair. “I love you, too.” I reach up and brush my lips across his. “And as much as I hate to ruin the moment, I really, really have to pee.”

He stops and his eyes meet mine for a brief second. “For fuck sake, Liv.” He drops off me and sighs dramatically. “How can you romance a woman when all she wants to do is pee?”

I smack his chest as I climb up. “You don’t put a bun in their oven. That’s how!”

His laughter follows me across the street as I duck into the nearest restaurant to use their restrooms. I push open the door and step into the cubicle, my bladder screaming at me.

I swear to shit, I almost ‘ahh’ as I pee.

It feels that damn good.

I finish my business and wash my hands. When I walk back out into the bar area of the restaurant, I hear his name—on the lips of another girl.

Everything in me tells me to keep walking.

Almost everything.

There’s that one percent, that tiny niggle in the back of my mind, that tells me to stop. That one percent is made up purely of addiction, of pure need.

I take a seat at the bar and ask for a glass of still water. Bottled so I don’t look like a total dick. Who asks for tap water, really?

I sip and listen in on their conversation. Like the complete fucking loser I am.

Because his name is my drug. I hear it and I have to have it. I have to know. Every little thing. It doesn’t matter if it hurts. I need to know.

So I listen, blocking out all other sounds. I listen to them say how ridiculously hot he is. “Have you seen his pictures? Amazing. Wow. Have you seen him through that camera? What a babe. Did you see his modeling pics?”

Wait. What? Modeling?

“Have you seen that chick he’s with?” I listen to them describing me as his latest weekend fling. Someone he’ll throw to the side when he’s done. “Because have you seen that model he’s shooting tomorrow?”

“Holy shit. It’s only Carmen Dallas, the hottest thing this side of America.”

My stomach twists because I know her name. Who doesn’t? Who remotely connected to the modeling world doesn’t know her name? Long, perfectly black hair that curves at her waist. Big baby blues that captivate every man within in a ten-mile radius. Curves that could make a mafia boss cry.

I swallow. The heavy lump in my throat is too much—way too much. If he’d told me if it was her, Carmen Dallas, I would have refused this trip. But would that have made it better? No.

No. It would have made it worse. But can I go to the shoot tomorrow knowing that it’s her? Knowing that he’s staring at America’s sexiest woman for a number of hours through his lens?

No. I can’t be here, but I can’t not be here.

I feel sick. For once, it’s not a baby sick. It’s a nervous, heart-wrenching kind of sick. And I need to run somewhere, anywhere. To breathe.

I push my empty glass across the bar and push out of the restaurant. I run across the road to the beach and feel the sand through my bare feet, soft and hot, spilling between my toes. And I keep running. I run until the sand turns wet and hard and cold water crawls over my feet.

I stop at the water’s edge, far enough into the sea that my feet are always covered but farther away enough that it can only reach my ankles with a wave. I wrap my arms around my waist and breathe in the salty sea air, taking solace in the silence.

Taking the peace of the beach as insanity reigns inside.

Tyler’s hands slide down my arms to rest over mine at my waist. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” I lie. “It was just hot in there. I needed air.”

He runs his fingers along my forearms, wrapping his arms around me from behind. “Okay.”

He doesn’t believe me. I can hear it in his voice. But of course he wouldn’t believe me—if I can’t convince myself of a lie, I can’t expect anyone else to be convinced either.

“When is your shoot tomorrow?” I swallow, hoping he can’t hear the gulp.

“Ten a.m. Are you coming?”

I hesitate just long enough.

“You can come later,” he says softly. “Or I’ll meet you after.”

I nod and look down. The white foam capping the waves swirls around my ankles with each push of the water. Each one is certain yet unsteady, their force known but their direction wavering.

I feel like the waves. In this moment, I am a wave, crashing repeatedly. I’m powerful and strong, but I don’t know where I’m going. My path is so uncertain with so many choices.

My fingers twitch under Tyler’s.

We are the waves. Our love is the force, the crash, and our relationship the slow crawl up the sand, the one with no direction.

Because we have no direction.