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Authors: Colina Brennan

Tags: #Romance, #romance sex, #Young Adult, #sex addiction, #Contemporary, #sex, #new adult, #contemporary romance

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BOOK: Addicted to You
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He’d made a few connections at the party,
and as far as he could tell, James had been impressed. Or at least,
that was how he had chosen to interpret his boss lifting his brows
and giving him a vague nod. It really could have been either a sign
of approval or just daydreaming. Will had even struck up a
conversation with the head editor of a premier medical magazine who
expressed interest in reading some of his essays.

All that aside though, he’d mainly wandered
around the large room feeling uncomfortable and out of place. His
relief at spying a familiar face had been immense, especially since
that face had belonged to Leah.

“Are you here to keep your promise?” Elijah
asked, suddenly looking at him with huge, eager eyes.

“I will absolutely keep my promise,” he
said, “but there’s something important I need to talk to your
sister about first.”

Of course, he still didn’t
know what he would say once he saw her again. There were a number
of things he’d
like
to say, but he wasn’t sure she would want to hear any of it.
Either way, he supposed he’d just have to say his piece and then
hope she reacted well. If not, he might have to resort to Finn’s
suggestion, which was to break out into song and dance in order to
convey his feelings.

But he would leave that as Plan Z.

He followed Elijah through an obscenely
fancy kitchen and into what he supposed was the living room,
although it was nearly the size of his entire apartment.

“Leah’s not here,” Elijah said, dropping
onto a plush sofa piled high with cushions. A couple comic books
lay scattered across the floor, and a wireless game controller had
been tossed on top of the sofa cushions. On the TV, he had paused
his shooter game to answer the door for Will.

“When will she be back?” Will asked, sitting
next to him. He set the gift bag and Leah’s purse on the floor.

“Tomorrow.” Elijah’s eyes fell on the purse,
and his expression took on a wary slant that was remarkably similar
to his sister’s. “Why do you have her purse?”

“I thought it was pretty,” Will said, and
then grinned when the wary look on Elijah's face turned to
confusion. “I’m joking. She just forgot it, and I came to return
it.”

Elijah regarded him with the same uncertain,
scrutinizing look Leah had during that first meeting after he’d
given his introduction speech. But unlike his sister, he seemed to
come to a decision about Will fairly quickly.

With a shrug, he went back to his game and
said, “Okay.” He leaned over the controller, eyes squinting at the
screen as his thumb jabbed the buttons. “She got her apartment
robbed a few months ago. It would be bad if she lost anything
else.”

“I agree,” Will said.
“Which is why … wait, what?” His thoughts ground to a halt.
“Her
apartment
?
She doesn’t live here?”

Elijah gave him a funny look. “No. She moved
out a few years ago.” He dug through the cushions until he
unearthed a second controller and held it out to Will. “Want to
play against me?”

With a quiet laugh, Will accepted the
controller and then slumped over his knees, scratching the back of
his head. She must not have updated the address on her license.
Once again, he was an idiot. He recalled now that she had mentioned
a flat once. And that it had been robbed by someone she slept
with.

An unpleasant feeling rose in his stomach at
the thought of her with anyone else, never mind the fact the arse
had robbed her. Getting her to trust him would only be that much
more difficult with guys like that in her past.

He shook his head. Ever since meeting her,
he’d been playing host to a whole new range of feelings, and they
still caught him by surprise sometimes.

“Well,” he said, reaching for the gift bag.
“This is for you then. I hope you like to read.”

Elijah’s face lit up, and he took the gift
bag with far more care than any other nine-year-old Will had ever
met. Peering inside, he poked at the green tissue paper before
pushing it aside and reaching in to remove a book.

It was one of Will’s favorites. He wasn’t
sure how Leah felt about fantasy, but with her being a writing
major, he had figured she would appreciate a book, whatever the
genre.

“What’s it about?” Elijah asked. He admired
the cover and then turned it over so he could read the back.

“Dragons and war and mad princes. Think you
might like it?”

“It doesn’t have kissing, does it?” he
asked, setting the book on top of his comics. “Leah gets me books
like that sometimes.”

Will laughed. “You probably won’t mind in a
few years, but no. No kissing. Promise.”

Elijah looked mollified. He reached again
for his controller and then nodded to the other one in Will’s hand.
“Do you know this game?”

“I’ll figure it out,” he said.

Elijah grinned and set the game to
two-player mode.

“Are you home by yourself? Who else lives
here?” Will asked as he scrolled through the menu options to check
what the game commands were.

“Leah says I shouldn’t answer questions like
that, especially if it’s from strangers.”

“But you’ve already let me into your house,”
Will pointed out with a small laugh.

Elijah went still. “Oh. Oops. Well, I guess
you don’t count.”

“I appreciate that.”

“It’s just me and my parents.”

“Three people in this huge house?”

“Most of the estate is closed off. No one’s
been beyond this section of the mansion since before I was
born.”

Will’s lips quirked. “That’s not at all
creepy.” Just the rooms he’d seen so far had appeared spacious
enough for more than three people. Then again, Americans did have a
strange sense of space. They thought three-bedroom houses were
‘small.’ “Where are your parents?”

“I don’t know. Out. They’re gone a lot.”

He said it off-handedly, but Will could read
beneath his words. He cast him a sidelong glance. He was still just
a wean. Not nearly ready to be alone all the time. And Elijah knew
it too. The loneliness, the resentment, the hurt—they were there,
hidden beneath the mask he had no doubt copied from his sister.
Will could spot it only because of the familiarity.

“I’m kind of impressed. So much time to
yourself and keeping out of trouble? Your parents are lucky. When I
was your age, I was terrorizing my neighbors and vandalizing public
property.”

Elijah smiled and rustled about through the
sofa cushions. A moment later, he pulled out a bag of gummy bears.
“I don’t have any neighbors.”

“That’s true,” Will said. “But with so much
wooded land, I would have found ways to create mischief. Like
building myself a fort and going camping on my own for a few days.
Or digging holes. Chasing rabbits. Building a bonfire. Lots of
bonfires. All at once.” He gave Elijah a look. “Don’t get any ideas
now.”

Elijah laughed loudly. “Leah would kill me.
She doesn’t like me leaving the house by myself except for when I
get picked up by the school bus.”

She sounded quite protective of her brother.
It was endearing. “Does she visit often?”

“Every day,” he said. The way his expression
changed when he thought about her—the soft smile, his eyes
shining—made it obvious he loved his sister a lot. “Usually in the
evenings to make me dinner and help me with my homework, but some
weekends, she comes earlier. She was here this morning. She brought
me brownies, and I was supposed to share them with my class
tomorrow, but then we ate them all so we made cupcakes instead. She
says I’m going to move in with her soon.”

“That’d be great.”

Just from their interaction at the party,
he’d been able to tell that Elijah and Leah were close, despite the
large age gap between them. She hadn’t mentioned a brother when
they’d spoken about their childhoods, but Will was just glad (and a
wee bit surprised) that she’d been honest instead of feeding him a
made-up past like Will had considered doing.

“Want a cupcake? I’ve got extras. Wait
here.” Without waiting for Will’s answer, Elijah paused the game
and hopped off the sofa. He dashed into the kitchen.

The sound of banging cupboards rang out.
Just as Will was rising to see if he needed help, Elijah returned
with two saucers. A cupcake with blue frosting and a napkin sat on
each saucer.

“Thanks,” Will said, accepting one.

“It’s a surprise cupcake,” Elijah said. He
took a huge bite before he’d even settled back into the sofa
cushions. Frosting stained his upper lip, and he licked it
away.

“What kind of surprise?” he asked as he
peeled away the wrap from the sides. Elijah was too busy devouring
his cupcake to respond so Will smiled and took a bite. “Cookie
dough. That’s excellent.”

“Isn’t it?” Elijah asked around a mouthful.
“Leah’s really good at baking.”

“I didn’t know that.” The thought of her
baking didn’t quite match her grumpy exterior, but he supposed that
was what he liked about her. She was never what she seemed.

It would probably be wrong of him to find
out more about her through her brother.

“Yeah, she’s pretty much my mom, so I can’t
wait to go live with her.”

Cupcake break over with, they resumed their
game. Will shouted and then laughed when Elijah’s character spotted
Will’s from across a stack of crates and killed him. As he waited
to resurrect, he said, “Think it’d be okay if I dropped by again
sometime? We could hang out, and I’ll teach you some defense like I
promised.”

The smile on Elijah’s face was answer
enough.

 

Chapter
Twenty-Nine

“Ta-da!”

Leah leaned back so her eyes wouldn’t cross
looking at the book Helena had shoved into her face. “What is
this?” she asked, accepting it from her roommate, who was looking
much too pleased with herself.

“A new journal,” Helena said. She tossed her
hair over her shoulder and returned to her spot at the dining room
table where all her books were spread out. She was studying for an
exam. “You haven’t written anything for yourself since your journal
was taken so I figured you needed a new one. You’re welcome.”

A smile tugged at Leah’s mouth as she ran
her fingers over the cover. It was more Helena’s style than
Leah’s—lots of color and sparkle and texture—but she loved it
anyway.

“Thank you.” Already, the urge to fill the
pages made her fingers itch. It had been much too long. She set it
in her lap and then turned down the volume on the documentary that
playing on the TV about the reproductive cycle of sharks. “Toss me
a pen.”

Helena dug around in her backpack before
removing a blue ballpoint. Then she launched it at Leah’s head.
Leah ducked sideways and managed to catch it before it sailed past
her. Helena smirked.

“I said ‘toss,’ not ‘launch an attack.’”
Leah made a face at her before uncapping the pen and opening the
journal. The first page had that typical blank line with the words
‘This journal belongs to’ above it. Feeling strangely giddy, she
wrote her name on the line.

“You should have been more specific,” Helena
said.

Because she knew it would fluster Helena,
she said in retaliation, “So how was your study session with
Jay?”

She glanced over her shoulder to find Helena
turning pink beneath the dining room lights. She grinned.

“We were just studying for our exam next
week. It’s worth a really big percentage of our grade,” she said
primly.

“He’s a nice guy, Helena. Just make the
first move.”

“He’s a friend,” she said, leaning over her
textbook so that she looked extremely busy. “I’m not going to mess
that up.” She made a shooing gesture at Leah. “Just write in your
journal. I know you’re dying to.”

Couldn’t argue there. Leah shook her head
with a small smile and flipped the cream-colored pages to the first
blank page.

As with most of her short stories, she began
without knowing what it would be about. She described a dusty
dollhouse. Creaking floorboards. Bare feet beneath a night shift.
An empty house.

The TV became white noise as she wrote. She
thought she heard Helena say something, but since Helena hadn’t
repeated herself, she didn’t stop writing to ask. Twenty pages
later, as she finished a scene about a daughter succumbing to the
madness that had taken her mother, she was struck by the memory of
her mom’s face reflected in the bathroom mirror at the party.

She often thought they looked alike. And
when her mom closed herself off from everyone, especially her
children, Leah had wondered more than once if she looked that way
as well.

Instead of staying, of acknowledging Leah’s
attempt to bridge their relationship, she had chosen to shut her
out. To run. To reject the reality of their brokenness.

The same thing Leah had done to Will.

Leah’s hand stilled over the page. The
realization left her cold. Dropping the pen, she shoved to her
feet. Her new journal slid to the floor with a quiet thud.

“Leah?”

She turned to look at Helena. Her expression
must have given away the rush of panic surging in her chest,
because Helena immediately rose from the table and hurried
over.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” she asked. She
clutched Leah’s hands.

Leah could hardly speak. There was a dull
roar in her ears, like rushing waves, crashing in time to the thud
of her pulse.

Running away or shutting
down was the way her mom had always dealt with anything that even
remotely mattered. And when Leah had run from Will, from the
terrifying newness of what he made her feel, from the possibility
that something
real
might be happening between them, she had been doing the exact
thing she had always resented, hated even, her mother for. How
could she not have realized?

BOOK: Addicted to You
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