I never knew true addiction until her. I never truly understood what it is to crave—mind, body, and soul—until nothing matters but fulfilling that craving. Until the only thing that matters is easing the hollow ache inside.
It’s there whenever we’re apart. Like a dark hole, it lingers, intensifying until my mind is full of blonde hair and blue-green eyes. Until my mind is full of easy curves, bare before me. Until my desires reflect her bending at the waist, her pert, little arse in the air, colored red by my palm, the outline of my fingers visible against her pale skin.
Every day, it’s something new, something different, something I never allowed myself to think of. It’s more than against the wall, more than her hands bound, more than a blindfold across her eyes. Now, I can think freely, imagine all the ways and all the places I can have her.
Because she trusts me.
And she’s fucking mine.
My Liv. My bitch. My beautiful, flighty bitch.
Now, she’s sitting in front of me with her eyes wide and her hands covering her mouth. She’s deathly still. And quiet. So fucking quiet that every second that passes cuts deeper than anything she could ever say would.
But she hasn’t moved away from me either. She’s still sitting in my arms, her legs hooked over mine, staring at me like it’s the last thing she ever expected me to say.
I run my eyes across her face, taking advantage of her silence to look at her. Her hair is messy, her blue-green eyes shining, her cheeks flushed. She looks freshly fucked, and she is, but more than that, she looks shocked.
“Liv?” I prompt. “Are you going to say anything?”
She drops her hands and slowly licks her lips. My gaze instantly drops to her mouth.
“I, um… I don’t know what to say to that,” she says slowly.
“Well, the last time I had to tell someone I fucked a student, I nearly got punched.” It’s one of the only times I’ve ever seen Aaron lose his shit.
She knocks her fist into my chest lamely. “There. Does that make you feel better?”
I stare at her. Why the hell isn’t she running? Why isn’t she looking at me with disgust? Why the fuck is she still here?
“Er, thanks?” I frown.
She sighs softly. “I think I know what you’re expecting, but you’re not going to get it. I’m not going to get up and demand you leave, okay?”
“You should.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right. But I shouldn’t have slept with you a second time. Or agreed to do it on a regular basis. Or gone on a date with you. So I’m a fucking expert at doing things I’m not supposed to.” She shrugs. “It’s in the past, right? Just like you didn’t push me away when I told you mine, I’m not going to do it to you.”
“I still don’t understand.”
“You’re really dumb sometimes.” She taps me on the nose, her pink lips curving into a small smile. She cups the side of my head and runs her thumb across my cheek. “We said we’d try and work past all our bullshit. That’s part of it. We have to accept each other’s pasts and move forward. You can’t change mine and I can’t change yours, so there’s not much point in getting all panty-twisted about it, is there?”
I cover her hand with mine and wrap my other around her neck. I pull her into me, so close that our lips touch, and hum low. I love the way she tastes. I can’t put my finger on it, but it’s incredible.
“You’re right, baby girl,” I murmur against her mouth.
“Of course I am.” She rests her other hand at my waist. “I’m a woman. Sooner or later, you’ll learn that I’m right even when I’m wrong.”
I already know that. She was wrong to go along with anything more than just one night with me, yet nothing has ever felt more right.
“Do you think I should have asked him to leave?”
I rest my head against the back of the sofa and look across my apartment at my best friend. She pulls the wine bottle from the fridge and pauses, her fingers wrapped tightly around the neck of the bottle.
“You could have asked him why.”
Yeah, probably. “I don’t know, Day. I was shocked, y’know? I wasn’t expecting him to say that. And now, I’m wondering if letting him stay was the right choice.”
“Well, it’s tough. You had just agreed to make it work no matter what, but what he did was kind of wrong.”
I know that. I know, in my rational mind, that Tyler shouldn’t have fucked a student. It should bother me. It’s taboo. Frowned upon. Damn, it’s more than frowned upon. It’s fucking illegal.
I should have gotten up, asked him to go, then thought it through.
If only I were even a fraction rational around Tyler, the ‘should haves’ would have been ‘did haves.’
“Very wrong,” I correct her, taking a glass of wine with a sigh. “I don’t know. It’s kind of fucked up, isn’t it? I mean, it’s something out of a damn novel. He mocks my so-called porn on a page, but he’s a living fucking book boyfriend.”
Day’s lips twitch. “I’ve never been that kind of ‘forbidden romance’ kind of girl. I guess it’s because your dad is a teacher. Every time I tried one, I pictured him with his stripy ties as the main character.”
Well, that’s a visual I wasn’t prepared for. Much less needed.
“Thank you for that.” I sit up straight and take a long drink from my glass. “Moving on from that strange twist…”
“Yes, let’s.” She wrinkles her face up. “So did he just, like, come out with it? Or was there a preemptive warning?”
“There was a half-assed story but no warning. He just kind of…said it. Like, bam. Surprise!” I rest the glass against my chin. “I wasn’t expecting it. Tyler is the oddest mixture of bad guy and good guy, but I never thought he’d have done that.”
Day purses her lips, looking into her glass. “I don’t know if you should be bothered or not. Is that bad?”
No. Because I don’t think I am. I’m more pissed about the fact that I’m not bothered. Or that my ever-growing addiction to him makes it that way. Somehow, it takes the wrongness and reality of what he’s done and twists it into something that isn’t that bad at all.
That’s what really bothers me. That I can disregard something so critical. Something that’s made him who he is today.