Addicted to You (18 page)

She gave him an
uncomprehending look. “What sort of sex addict
are
you?” she demanded, pulling up
the blanket to cover herself.

He winced. He had brought this on himself,
and now he had no one else to blame.

“I’m … not,” he admitted, buttoning up his
jeans. “I mean, I love sex as much as the next guy and I’ve
probably had more of it than I should, but I’m not really entitled
to be in the group.”

Her lips thinned ominously.

Will rushed on. Now that the truth was out,
there was nothing to do but run with it and then find a way to
convince her to forgive him. “I’m a psychology major, and I work
for one of my professors as a research assistant. He’s writing a
book about unregulated addiction treatment programs, particularly
surrounding obscure addictions, and how they tend to do more harm
than good. I was researching your counselor’s methods.”

Silence ensued. Every muscle in her face
tightened, and her brows crashed together. Her fists clenched so
tightly around the sheets that her knuckles turned white. She
looked mutinous.

“You lied,” she whispered. Beneath her fury,
he could hear the hurt, and it cut through him. “You lied to me. To
everyone.”

He drew a slow breath. He could offer no
excuses. “Aye.”

“You
invaded our privacy
.” She sounded
unnervingly even.

“Aye.” He couldn’t meet the disgusted look
in her hazel eyes. There was no point telling her that their
stories wouldn’t have been included in James’s book without
permission or that James’s methods had always been a bit dodgy.
There was no point admitting that he had planned to soon confess
everything anyway. The fact remained that he had lied to vulnerable
people and treated them like test subjects.

“And you and me? Is that part of your
research? Am I here, naked, as proof that the therapy is a joke?”
Leah asked, her voice deadly soft and full of ice.

He frowned and took a step forward, looking
her in the eyes. “No. This thing between us has nothing to do with
any of that. You’ve intrigued me since that first meeting. I
haven’t been able to stop thinking about you, and everything I’ve
said to you since has been the truth. When I realized how I felt, I
quit the project.”

“And I suppose you think that makes
everything okay,” she said, scooting off the bed and dragging the
blanket with her to shield her nakedness. He watched as she brushed
past him and began snatching up her clothes from where they’d flung
them earlier. “I can’t believe I put up with that godawful therapy
for a lying son of a bitch. I’ve had enough of this. I’m going
home.”

“Please don’t.” He quickly located his own
shirt and tugged it on over his head.

“I just wanted sex. Not a chat, not
deception, just sex. I certainly didn’t want to be a lab rat.” She
adjusted her skirt over her hips, smoothed down her shirt, dropped
the blanket on the floor, and stalked out into the hallway in
search of her shoes.

Will hurried after her.

“If you’re only after sex then why did you
say stop?” he demanded, thinking rapidly of a way, any way, to
steer the conversation to a place where he could plead for a real
date. A second chance. But that would require a miracle judging by
the anger radiating from her body.

She didn’t answer as she braced one hand on
the wall and shoved her foot into her boot.

“You want more, don’t you?” He cut in front
of her, blocking the exit as she pulled on her other boot. “You
don’t just want sex anymore.”

“Don’t tell me what I want,” she spat,
jabbing a finger into his chest. Her hair fell in wild disarray
over her face, and Will knew he was hopelessly entangled when just
the sight of her—even flushed with fury—left him feeling
breathless. “You think you know me so well. What the hell did you
think I would do when you told me the truth?”

He grimaced. “I expected you to hate
me.”

She snorted, but he barreled on.

“I’m sorry,” he said, injecting as much
sincerity into the words as he could. He knew he didn’t deserve a
second chance, but he had to ask because he’d regret it for the
rest of his life if he didn’t. She affected him in ways no girl
ever had, and even though he’d completely fucked himself over, he
couldn’t just let her walk out of his life without putting up a
fight. “I know I screwed up, but I—” Every time he’d had the chance
to confess, he had stalled. He couldn’t stand the thought of
watching the fragile thing that had been growing between them
wither into distrust and bitterness. He had selfishly wanted to
delay the inevitable. “I didn’t want to lose you. Is there any way
we could start over? Proper introductions this time. And a real
date.”

“Ha!” She jabbed him with
her elbow. “
Move
.”

“Leah, just don’t say no yet. All I’m asking
is for you to think about it. Please.”

“I said
move
,” she said through
clenched teeth.

He considered refusing, but she was already
shaking with outrage. He’d pissed her off enough. Reluctantly, he
stepped aside.

She yanked the door open.

“Leah—”

The door slammed shut in his face.

“Fuck
.” He dropped his forehead against the wood and closed his
eyes.

He had lost her.

Leah’s heartbeat pounded in her ears as she
walked. She had stopped it. For the first time, she had listened to
the voice telling her she could have so much more than cheap sex
and, perversely, it seemed that it was Will who had made that
possible. Someone with less integrity would have seduced her back
into bed, demanding their erotic due. Will had asked for a date
instead.

What a weirdo.

Or maybe it had been more an act of guilt
than integrity.

Right from the start, she had known
something about his story had been off. She should have realized he
wasn’t a real sex addict. Everything about him, from the
obnoxiously considerate way he’d eased her into talking about her
childhood to the bashful way he smiled when he was embarrassed,
should have made it obvious. And yet she hadn’t questioned it for
more than a passing second because who in their right mind would
attend therapy for sex addicts for no reason?

And yet, the reality of never seeing him
again gnawed at her. She had needed a reason to get out of that
apartment, away from any chance of a real risk, and he’d given her
a perfect one. She had latched onto the anger, letting it fuel her
desperation to escape.

He was right. She just kept running away.
Even her intent to seduce him, which had completely backfired, had
been an attempt to get away from how she felt.

Still, the fact remained that he had lied to
her. Leaving had been for the best.

Since she’d left her car back at the church
parking lot, she hailed a cab. As she climbed in, the driver—a
middle-aged woman with a crazy perm—said something about how young
women shouldn’t be walking around late at night. Leah spared her a
weary smile and collapsed into the seat.

What were the chances she’d run into Will on
campus? Who knew how many times their paths had crossed in the
three years they’d been students and they just hadn’t realized it?
What would she do if they did meet again? Ignoring him was about as
easy as pretending the sun didn’t shine.

Even now, with her anger at him still fresh,
with the truth still leaden in her stomach, she thought about the
regret in his voice as he pleaded for her to hear him out, to give
him a second chance. It had been so tempting. She wanted to believe
… to hope … for the best in him.

She rubbed at tired eyes. It was useless.
The idea of Leah Carter in a relationship. She had been alone for
too long. It wasn’t going to happen.

For her own good—and Will’s—it was wisest to
simply do what she always did and back off, protect herself, not
take that chance. Will had already proven, after all, that he
couldn’t be trusted.

She ignored the doubt scratching at the back
of her mind, whispering that she hadn’t really given him the chance
to prove himself.

It was only when the cab arrived at her
apartment, and she reached for her purse to pay the fare that she
realized it wasn’t slung over her shoulder like usual. Her purse
wasn’t anywhere on her at all. Which meant that it was still at
Will’s apartment where she’d flung it in her haste to get into his
bedroom, and then forgotten it in her haste to leave.

Her purse with her cell phone and her ID and
all her personal information.

Including her address.

Finn looked better. And by ‘better,’ Will
meant he didn’t look like he was going to drown himself in a vat of
paint.

From what he could tell of Finn’s now
crowded apartment, Finn had taken out his frustration with himself
in a more stereotypical way. Stacks of canvases were crammed into
every corner of his living and dining rooms. Only a handful of them
were blank, some were still wet, and the rest were smeared in
places where Finn had tossed them carelessly aside before they
could fully dry. Paint spattered the once white walls (his landlord
would probably have something to say about that), and Finn himself
looked like a walking paint palette after all the colors on it had
been smeared together.

Will perched himself on the arm of the
sofa—the only available seating besides the stool Finn was sitting
on.

“You’ve been busy,” Will remarked.

Finn was still attending classes and going
out with him for lunch, so he hadn’t realized until now just how
badly his friend was taking what had happened with Kat. He felt
like an arse for not realizing sooner. Not that Finn would have
ever asked for help.

“Yup.” Finn shoved a slice of pizza into his
mouth and chewed it while mulling over his latest painting.

“Want to talk about it?” Will offered.

“What’s to talk about? Kat hates my guts and
will never forgive me.”

“Or,” Will said, “you could try talking to
her. You know, most relationships fail because there’s no
communication.”

“You mean like how you didn’t tell your sex
addict girl why you were really in therapy and now you’re
screwed?”

Ouch. He hadn’t worked out what he was going
to do about that yet.

After she left his
apartment, he had spent the night staring up at his ceiling and
wondering how the hell he was going to fix things. She had been
furious with him, rightly so, but he wouldn’t accept that as the
end. He had never gotten anywhere by giving up. Unfortunately, he
didn’t know where to go from here, and the compulsion to
do
something had begun
to fill him with restless energy.

Without letting the sting of Finn’s words
show, he said, “It was just a suggestion. You never know.”

Finn snorted. “Oh, I know. She’d stab me
with a dull knife if she could. Anyway, talking to her again would
just be weird. We were never together. Can’t fix something that
never existed.”

“That might make it easier to talk to her
actually,” Will said, as he stood to retrieve a slice of pizza. The
pizza box sat on top of a stack of still-drying canvases. He moved
the box to the floor just in case the drying paint ended up
adhering it to the canvas. “Not as awkward.”

“Her boyfriend kissed me. It’ll be awkward
whatever way you spin it.”

“Fair enough. Remind me why you like her,”
he said, returning to his seat on the sofa arm with his greasy
lunch.

Finn sighed and tapped his canvas with the
end of his paintbrush. “She’s not the mean bitch everyone thinks
she is.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” he said. It
was entirely possible Finn was right. After all, Leah was certainly
more than the apathetic grump she presented herself as. “But I was
there when she asked if you were insane just for inviting her to
eat with us.”

“Okay, fine, she’s kind of prickly. But
trust me. I’ve seen her other side.”

“When?
” Will asked. Finn had always made it sound as though Kat had
no idea he even existed.

“Doesn’t matter now. Anyway, what’s going on
with your sex addict problem? Has she gotten in touch yet?” Finn
asked. He wiped his greasy fingers on his smock and then swirled
his brush through some paint and brandished it against his
canvas.

“No. Even if she wanted to, which I doubt,
she wouldn’t know how to find me. She doesn’t know my last
name.”

Finn looked unimpressed.
“If she really wanted to find you, she would. She knows I’m playing
lead in
The Banker
. All she’d have to do is show up to one of our performances
and ask me for your number.”

He had a point. But it was a depressing
point.

Will shrugged because it was the only thing
he could do. “I was just going to return her purse and give her
some time. She’s got enough trust issues as it is without me making
it worse. She’s entitled to hate me. I’ll just have to persuade her
not to. Eventually.”

“Dude,” Finn said, fixing him again with a
look that suggested Will was daft. “You’ve got her purse. Just …
barter it for her time or something.”

Will’s eyebrows pinched. “Are you suggesting
I blackmail her into talking to me?”

Was this what it had come down to? He had
reached a whole new plateau of pathetic.

“No,” Finn said, sounding defensive but
still dodgy. “I’m just saying you should use your resources. And
right now, her purse is one of them.”

Will rubbed his face with the hand not
covered in grease. “That’s ridiculous.”