I sit idle in the judge’s chambers while he looks at the court calendar to reschedule a hearing for one of Cheryl’s clients. I’ve been assisting her with various cases lately, of which several are being overseen by this particular judge.
He suggests a date, and Cheryl looks at me while I check her calendar on the iPad.
“Yeah, we can do that.”
“Well then, that’s settled,” Judge Watson says as he types the hearing into the court schedule. “By the way, have you been able to settle the McDeary versus Clark case you were here on last week?”
“Not yet, Your Honor, but I think we are close to a resolution.”
“How far apart are the two parties?”
Cheryl stuffs a file into her briefcase, answering, “Not too far off. Like I said, I’m hoping we can settle in the next two weeks.”
The judge then dismisses the two of us, and as we exit the courthouse, I pull out my cell to find another missed call from Adaline.
“You want to go grab some dinner?” Cheryl asks as I shove the phone back into my suit pants.
She’s been trying to play it casual with me all day, but I know how close she and Adaline are, so I have no doubt she knows what happened between me and her daughter the other night.
“I’m not hungry.”
It was just yesterday, only a few hours after I dropped her off at her mother’s house, that she texted me to let me know she was flying back to Miami. I never responded, and I haven’t taken any of her calls since. What’s the point? I get it, she feels guilty, but I don’t need to hear whatever apology she has for me. I knew better than to open myself up to her again. To let myself think I even stood a chance against Micah.
That girl is my fucking Eden. She always has been. So, it isn’t surprising that I couldn’t resist her. But the last thing I need is the knife being dug in deeper while I listen to her apologize for something I feel absolutely no regrets for. Maybe that makes me an asshole, to feel as if I’m entitled to her when she belongs to someone else, but I never claimed to be a man of virtue.
Cheryl grabs my arm and stops me when we get to her car. “Kason, we’ve been in court all day. Are you really not hungry or do you just want to be alone?”
She calls me on my shit every time. “Both.”
I can tell she wants to say something, but she refrains, instead, clicking her key fob and unlocking the doors. She drives us back to the office, and when she pulls into the spot next to my SUV, she asks, “Have you talked to her since she left?”
“What’s there to talk about?”
I grab my work bag and open the door.
“Kason—”
“We should probably go back to not talking about her,” I say before closing the door. I drive off before she does, feeling too restricted in this suit. I speed back to my place, change clothes, jerk off, and go for a run.
I’ve been living in isolation for so long, but for a brief moment, with Adaline back, it felt as if I was among the living again. And now, in a matter of a day, I’m dead again. It’s crazy to think how much power that girl possesses in her tiny body. How, without having to do a thing, she was able to bring me back to life.
I run along the water and pass the Tampa Riverwalk as the sun begins to set. I then head over to David Island before making the loop back to my place. An hour later, I’m winded, sweaty, and in need of a shower. I stand under the spray as my mind drifts to the night before last. Visions of having Adaline back in my bed play so vividly behind my closed lids, and before I know it, I’m getting myself off, not just once, but twice.
I step out of the shower, and she’s naked, sitting on the sink top. I walk into my bedroom, and she’s in my bed, moaning my name. I quickly toss on a pair of shorts and head out into the living room to find her there on my couch. She’s everywhere I turn and all over my loft.
Fuck, I miss her.
Grabbing a beer from the fridge, I down the bottle, toss it, and get another. I take it to the living room and click on the television, desperate to get her out of my head. But it’s a wasted effort. She lives in my blood that’s constantly being recycled through my heart. It aches with every pump of life it courses through me, reminding me of what I don’t have as she kisses my veins from the inside.
I shut the television off and toss the remote. The sky is black, and my skin tingles in corrosion. Stress always amplifies my cravings, but nothing will ever compare to the high I get every time I’m with Adaline. She’s a goddamn paradigm of transcendence, and I know I’ll be forced to go through life in constant search for the next best fix, knowing everything will always fall short to her.
After finishing the last of my beer, I crawl into my bed without getting under the sheets that still smell like her and grab my dick. I close my eyes and go back to the other night when she spread herself over my lap and fucked me so slow I nearly splintered from the pleasure. Her small hands pressed down on my chest as she rode me.
“Fuck.” My voice strangles as I come on my stomach, my body jerking a few times as my muscles constrict around the fleeting high that dies a quick death, leaving me needier than before. It’s a vicious cycle that holds me captive in its cage of euphoria and shame.
Walking into the bathroom, I clean myself off and throw my shorts back on while feeling like the biggest piece of shit—devaluing Adaline as my private personal porn. My gut coils, but my hard-on screams to go again, and like the weak bastard I am, I give in before giving up on the night and going to bed.
Sleep doesn’t find me as I toss and turn. My body is on fire, keeping me restless as urgency spits its kerosene through my bloodstream. I go to battle with myself, so desperate for sex but terrified it’ll erase what’s left of Adaline’s touch on my skin. The very skin that’s being licked by acid, but I need to extinguish the burn.
Ripping the sheets off me, I sit on the edge of the bed in so much pain because I refuse to touch myself in hopes my body will settle, even though I know it won’t. I throw my fist into my thigh and grit my teeth with a guttural hiss of frustration. I bear down for as long as I can before I throw in the towel and admit defeat to my addiction that wins every time. It screams for my love, giving me no other choice but to embrace it, because it’s too excruciating to deny it. After it satisfies me, it turns on me, spitting in my face and reminding me what a low piece of shit I am.
No matter how low it drops me, no matter how fucked up it is, it’s the one relationship that remains.
It’s me and my addiction.
Picking up my cell phone, I scroll through my contacts before landing on Amber, a curvy red-head with self-esteem that sits just low enough that she’s willing to sleep with a decrepit like me. My finger hovers above the call button, and as soon as I tap it, there’s a frantic knock on my door.
I ignore it and wait for the call to connect.
“Hello?”
“Hey, it’s Kason.”
Another knock distracts me, and I wish whoever it is would just leave, but they don’t.
“Hold on, some asshole is banging on my door,” I tell her.
Standing, I run my hand over my dick that is already starting to soften, and when I go the door and open it, I swear my heart seizes.
Adaline stands in front of me with a splotchy face and red eyes, looking beyond broken.
“What are you doing here?”
She exhales deeply through the exhaustion clearly weighing her down and says the words that catapult my heart back into rhythm. “I left him.”
Without missing a beat, I toss the phone aside and gather her into my arms. Her body slacks against mine, and she begins weeping quietly. Pulling her into the room, I kick the door shut as she clings to me. I hold her just as tightly, terrified to ever let go of her again.
“I love you, Kason. I’ve always loved you.”
Her words knock the wind out of my lungs, and I would think this were a dream if it weren’t for her hot tears dripping down my abs. I drop my cheek to the top of her head and breathe her in so deeply that, when I finally exhale, I can taste her on my tongue.
Taking the sides of her face in my hands, I pry her away just enough for me to look into her eyes, and it’s then that I see everything I’ve ever hoped for.
It’s fucking love.
“I tried calling you.”
“I’m sorry,” I breathe in regret now that I know the reason. “I just assumed you were calling to apologize for what happened between us. I couldn’t face another rejection from you.”
She reaches up and touches my jaw, saying, “You’ll never have to,” before pulling me to her lips.
I kiss her—open and binding. I’m an avalanche heart, falling into her without restraint, and she gives it right back to me. She’s breathless and unyielding as she throws her arms around my neck, and when I pick her up, I take her over to the couch and set her down.
Our lips finally part, but I refuse to let her out of my arms.
“I’m sorry, Kason,” she whispers. “I thought I needed space and time to think, but I didn’t. As soon as you sped away, I knew it was you that I couldn’t live without. I had to go home, though. I had to end things with Micah the right way.”
“So it’s over?”
“I should’ve never walked away from you in the first place. But I promise you, I’m going to give you all of my love. I don’t ever want you to feel alone or that you aren’t loved. I’ll never shut you out again.” She kisses me softly before adding, “I need you to be patient with me, though. Leaving Micah wasn’t easy on me, and I’m going to need time to heal.”
As much as I hate that her heart is aching from the loss of another man, I will give her exactly what she’s asking for. I’m the one she’s handing that heart over to. Once again, she trusts me to take care of it, and I will guard it with my damn life.
“I’ll give you whatever it is you need.”
She nods, and I lift her chin, kissing her gently as her hands tangle in my hair, pulling me closer to her. Lifting on my knees, I lay her back and settle myself between her warm thighs. Her heart thumps against my chest, and I’m comforted by the fact that, this time, after we make love, she won’t have to feel any guilt.
“I don’t want to know a life without you again,” I tell her as I drop kisses down her neck, licking the sweetness of her skin.
“You won’t ever have to.”
With that, we take our time peeling back all the layers between us until we’re skin on skin. My lips fall all over her body, and hers fall all over mine as we love each other the only way we know how—intimately and wholly.
Her ragged little gasps fill the room as I lose my mind between her legs. She grabs fistfuls of my hair and holds me close to her as her thighs tremble against my head. And when we can’t hold back anything longer, she pulls me up to her. I kiss her deeply, and she moans into my mouth, tasting what I taste. Her hand slips down between our bodies, and when she takes me in her palm, my dick pulses and leaps in her grip. Slowly, she guides me inside her, and I don’t dare rush as I sink into the purest love I’ve ever known.
We breathe our profound I love yous as I take her in long, deep strokes, and when her body falters, she grips her hands around my biceps. Like perfection, her eyes swim out of focus as she ruptures in a trembling orgasm.
She’s so fucking beautiful as her fingers bite into my muscles and her moans come out in fractured pieces. Her body writhes into mine, and with heat radiating through me, my muscles constrict and spasm, and I lose myself, spilling into her. It’s in this very moment that I make her the same promise I made to her when we were teenagers, panting, “I will love you until the sun dies.”
She wraps her body around mine, hooking her ankles and keeping me inside her as I collapse. We stay like this, kissing and saying things that distance prevented us from saying, and when I begin to harden again, I take her into my room where we spend the rest of the night making up for all the heartbreak we’ve had to endure to get to this point.
We find ourselves slipping in and out of sleep, only waking when our bodies crave the connection we’ve been missing for so long. Then we fall back into satiated dreams.
Sun blinds me when I eventually wake up. I take a glance at my watch to find it’s already ten in the morning. Looking over, I see a peaceful Adaline still sound asleep and curled against me. I shift in the bed, and her body subconsciously reaches for me. I smile, and wrap her up in my arms. The morning light spills over her naked skin, and I’m in disbelief that I have her back. That she actually came back to me when I thought I had lost her forever.
There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for her, but the fear that I’ll fuck this up somehow is still very relevant. Knowing that she chose me despite this sick addiction of mine. That she made this decision without any promise on my end that I would get help shows me just how amazing she is. That she would sacrifice a life with Micah—a life I would assume would be much easier than a life with me—tells me everything. She came back for me, knowing very well how badly I’m still suffering, choosing to love me in all the good, bad, and ugly that consumes me. There was no, “If I come back, you need to get help.” She simply came back, asking for nothing in return but my love.
There’s no way I’m fucking this up.
There’s no way I’m going to risk losing her.
I didn’t have a motivator before. There was never a desire to seek help until this very moment. I owe this girl the world, and I’ll do whatever I can to give it to her.
Planting my lips on her forehead, I give her a still kiss before easing myself out of the bed, careful not to wake her. When I step out of the room, I close the door behind me and pull on the pair of shorts that are on the floor from last night. I retrieve my phone and take a seat at the kitchen bar top where my laptop is. A wave of nausea comes over me, but I fight past it because Adaline is worth everything I’m terrified to face.
I then open the lid to the computer and type “sex addiction treatment” into the search bar.