Addicted

  Addicted is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  A Loveswept eBook Original

  Copyright © 2014 by Tracy Deebs-Elkenaney

  Excerpt from Have Mercy by Shelley Ann Clark copyright © 2014 by Shelley Ann Clark

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States of America by Loveswept, an imprint of Random House, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.

  LOVESWEPT is a registered trademark and the LOVESWEPT colophon is a trademark of Random House LLC.

  eBook ISBN: 978-0-553-39438-2

  Cover design: Lynn Andreozzi

  Cover photograph: Claudio Marinesco

  Author photograph: © Kevin Gourley

  This book contains an excerpt from the forthcoming book Have Mercy by Shelley Ann Clark. This excerpt has been set for this edition only and may not reflect the final content of the forthcoming edition.

  www.readloveswept.com

  v3.1

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Epilogue

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Other Books by This Author

  About the Author

  The Editor’s Corner

  Excerpt from Have Mercy

  Prologue

  “Wake up, sleepyhead.” Ethan rolls over on top of me and kisses my cheeks and lips and forehead.

  I smile sleepily, stretch a little. “You’re the one who talked me into playing hooky today. I don’t have to wake up.”

  “No. I called Maryanne and told her I needed you for a very important project in the CEO’s office today,” he corrects me as he slips inside me.

  I arch against him, moaning softly at how good he feels. “Is that what you call this? An important project?”

  “The most important.”

  Our lovemaking this morning is as tender as last night’s was wild, as lazy as last night’s was frantic. And I love every second of it. Then again, I love everything Ethan does to me. I always have. I always will.

  And while a part of me feels guilty for ditching work today, I know that Ethan and I need this time. After everything that happened yesterday, I’m not ready to be separated from him. I can tell by the look in his eyes and the possessive way he touches me that he feels the same way.

  He moves slowly, gliding in and out of me in an easy rhythm that nonetheless stokes the fire that is always burning between us. Sweat breaks out on our bodies, tension builds, and it isn’t long before we’re falling over the edge of the world together. Just like it’s meant to be.

  Ethan cuddles me for long minutes, his body curved protectively around mine as he plays with my out-of-control curls and presses soft kisses to my shoulder and back. At first I’m a little nervous about this position—my back to his front—but after everything that happened last night in just this position, it seems crazy to worry about it now.

  So I do my best to let the fear and the panic go. Oh, I know I’ll never be normal, know that there will always be a part of me that Brandon has a hold on no matter how much I wish it weren’t so. But for now, for today, I want to concentrate on Ethan and everything that’s going right in my life—in our lives—for once.

  Eventually his stomach growls, though, and he rolls out of bed with a laugh. “Shower, then breakfast?” he asks, reaching a hand down to help me up.

  But I’m feeling lazy and sated and I don’t want to move. Not quite yet. The smell of him and me is on the sheets and I want to linger here for a few more minutes and just immerse myself in what we are together.

  “You go first,” I tell him. “I’m not ready to get up.”

  He smiles indulgently. “All right, then. I’ll shower, then make you breakfast in bed. How does that sound?”

  “Are you going to be in the bed with me?”

  He arches one of his brows in that way he has that makes me crazy. “That can be arranged.”

  “Then I say it sounds very good.”

  He bends down and gives me a quick kiss that becomes a not-so-quick kiss. But then my stomach wrecks it by grumbling, too. Ethan pulls away instantly. “I’ll take a quick shower and then feed you. While I’m in there, decide what you want me to make.”

  But he’s only been in the shower a few minutes before my plans for a lazy morning in bed get derailed. The doorbell rings, and while at first I ignore it—this isn’t my house—whoever is outside is determined to get some response. And once it registers that whoever it is obviously has the code to Ethan’s gate, I reach for his robe and wrap it around me. Maybe his cleaning lady forgot her key or something.

  But when I finally get to the front door and open it, terror slams through me, weakens my knees to the point that I have to reach out and grab on to the door frame to keep myself upright.

  “Hey, Chlo. Long time no see.”

  My world shatters. Because it’s not Magdalena on the porch waiting to be let in. Instead it’s my worst nightmare, Brandon Jacobs, who’s staring back at me … out of a face that’s a million times more battered and bruised than Ethan’s is.

  He steps forward and instinct takes over. I slam the door in his face, lock it, then turn and press my back against it like I need another barrier to keep him out.

  As I do, I look up—straight into Ethan’s dark and tormented eyes. And I know that whatever secrets he’s keeping are going to tear me apart.

  Chapter One

  “Chloe.”

  Ethan reaches for me, his fingers wrapping gently around my arms.

  I don’t feel them.

  I don’t feel anything but the ice creeping slowly through me, skating along my skin, slicing through my veins, my blood, my soul. Freezing me, turning everything soft—everything real—into the sharp, jagged edges of puzzle pieces that can’t quite fit together.

  “What—” My voice breaks, the one word I’m able to get out falling uselessly into the abyss that suddenly yawns, black and endless, between us.

  Ethan doesn’t answer. He just looks at me, his beautiful face battered and his blue eyes fevered.

  The doorbell rings again. And again. And again. A never-ending cacophony that is only adding to the sense of unreality and confusion pressing in on me from every side.

  Except it isn’t unreality, is it? Because it’s happening. It’s real.

  I don’t understand.

  No, that’s not true. It’s that I don’t want to understand.

  I take a deep breath, try to think. Nothing comes.

  There’s a part of me that wants to go back to bed, that wants to start the day all over again in an effort to wake myself from this nightmare I’ve suddenly found myself in. But reality doesn’t work like that. This isn’t a dream and I can’t wish it away, can’t run away from it, can’t hide, no matter how much I want to.

  And still, even knowing that—understanding it—I’m determined to try.

 
; Pushing past Ethan, I bolt for the stairs.

  For his bedroom at the other end of the house.

  For the chance to go back to how things were ten minutes ago, when life almost made sense.

  As I run, there’s an urgency inside me. A voice screaming for answers, screaming for the truth, and I know it won’t be denied forever. But right now, for just this one, ice-drenched moment, I want to pretend I can’t hear it.

  I want to block it out like I blocked out Brandon and the rape all those years ago.

  Like I blocked my parents out.

  Like I’m blocking that goddamn doorbell out even now.

  But when I get to Ethan’s room, it’s not the sanctuary I want it to be. Not with the bed looking like a war zone. Not with our clothes crumpled on the floor. And definitely not with the memories—our memories—crowding in on me from every corner.

  “Chloe,” Ethan says from right behind me, his voice hoarse and aching and ruined. “Chloe, I’m sorry.”

  My heart—frozen, fragile, fractured—shatters in my chest, the shards of what remains slicing through me until I am bleeding and broken all over again.

  “Ethan.” His name is torn from me, for all that it’s little more than a whisper.

  “I can …” His voice trails off.

  “What? Explain?” I force the words out of my burning throat and through my aching lips even as I struggle to breathe.

  But my lungs are too tight. They hurt.

  Everything hurts. Every single piece of me. Every inch. Every cell.

  But I’m on the train now, the memories barreling at me like a bullet from a gun. They’re coming too fast. I can’t run, can’t duck, can’t do anything but stand here and absorb the impact.

  “Please. Explain to me what the man who raped me is doing on your doorstep looking even more beat up than you do.”

  Ethan looks away, thrusts a hand through his hair, doesn’t answer though I’m dying for an explanation. Something—anything—that proves to me this isn’t what it looks like.

  I want to scream at him to tell me—he’s the one who followed me, who insisted on this conversation—but in the end, all I do is stand there. Waiting. Sometimes I think it’s all I’ve ever done.

  “Brandon is my half-brother. My mother remarried after she and my dad divorced.”

  He drops the words into the void between us and for long seconds they don’t register. When they do—when they finally sink in—the meaning behind them hits me with the force of a tsunami and it’s all I can do to stand my ground.

  All I can do not to sink to the floor and wail. My knees are wobbly, my breath coming way too fast and my heart—what’s left of my heart—feels like it’s going to explode out of my chest at any second.

  And yet … my body may be completely fucked up but my brain is still working fine. Still putting the pieces together and I can’t stand the answers I’m coming up with. The realizations that are slamming through my brain and tying my stomach into ever tighter knots.

  “You knew.”

  “Chloe.” Again, he reaches for me and again, I shove him away.

  “You knew all along and you made l—” My voice breaks. “You had sex with me anyway. You let me tell you everything that happened—do you know how hard that was—and you already knew. You already … Oh, God.”

  “No, baby.” This time he evades my hands and pulls me against his chest, his strong arms cradling me even as they imprison me. “I didn’t know until a couple days ago, when I was home. There was a picture of us in a magazine—from that day at the zoo—and my mother recognized you. She told me who you were and—” His voice grows even more hoarse. “I didn’t know, Chloe. I swear I didn’t know.”

  I shove against his chest, desperate to be free. His arms tighten around me and for long seconds I’m afraid he’s not going to let me go. That I’m going to have to fight to get away.

  He is Brandon’s brother after all. That shit probably runs in families.

  But in the end, I don’t have to do anything but ask. “Please,” I whisper. “Let me go.”

  Ethan’s arms fall away instantly and he steps back, out of reach.

  It’s what I want, what I need, and still I feel bereft. Lost. I should be furious, and maybe I will be when the shock wears off, but right now all there is is grief. Overwhelming, all-encompassing, total.

  I want to scream until I have no more voice, to rage until I have no more hurt. To just drown in the confusion and horror that has once more ripped through my life.

  But fragments of last night are working their way around in my head, and I’m putting them together even when it’s the last thing I want to do.

  Ethan, breaking up with me.

  Ethan, looking like his whole world was ending.

  Ethan, chasing after me and fucking me up against the wall like we were the last two people on earth.

  For a moment, just a moment, my body responds to the memory of being in his arms. Of having him inside me. Maybe he really didn’t know about Brandon when this thing between us started. Maybe he’s telling the truth. He’s never lied to me before.

  This time when my knees tremble it’s from desire as much as it is from pain.

  From addiction as much as it is from sorrow.

  My eyes lock with his storm-tossed blue ones, as I try to decide what the truth is.

  Try to decide what matters, and what doesn’t.

  But the truth is, everything matters now—and the past most of all. Trying to pretend otherwise will only make it worse. Because being here with Ethan, knowing what I know, brings everything that happened before rushing back in stark clarity. I can’t run from it, can’t hide. It’s all right here, in my head. In my heart. In my soul.

  The rape.

  My parents’ betrayal and subsequent sellout.

  Brandon’s delight in winning and the obnoxiousness that went along with it.

  The months and years of being hassled, of being groped in the stairwell at school by his oh-so-privileged friends, of being called a slut and a whore and a million other names I’ve tried so hard to forget.

  Of never feeling safe anywhere.

  “You knew last night.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you didn’t tell me.”

  He opens his mouth, starts to say something, closes it again. He looks as sick as I feel. “No.”

  He doesn’t say anything else, but then there really isn’t anything else to say, is there? His brother raped me. Ethan’s brother raped me.

  My stomach churns and for a second I’m afraid I’m going to be sick.

  But I’m not that girl anymore, not the weak, scared little freshman who used to run to the bathroom and throw up because she couldn’t handle the bullying or the fear. I’m not the girl who was so desperate for her parents’ approval that she let them browbeat her into hiding the truth, into selling out.

  No, I walked away from her forever when I left home and came here for college. When I started building my own life on my own terms.

  I will be damned if I end up right back inside of her, trapped and terrified, just because Ethan lied to me. Just because Brandon has made a sudden and unwelcome reappearance in my life.

  “I need to go.”

  “Chloe, please.” He reaches for me again.

  “Don’t touch me!” The words come out half sob, half shriek and Ethan freezes mid-reach. It’s the first time I’ve raised my voice since this nightmare began. “I need you to leave me alone. I need—”

  My voice breaks and I turn away, start picking my clothes up off the floor. I begin to pull them on, but then realize I’ll have to take my robe off for that and the last thing I want to be right now is naked in front of Ethan Frost. Especially when I’ve already laid myself bare in front of him every way that I can.

  I turn and walk toward the bathroom with jerky, uncoordinated steps. I keep expecting him to stop me, keep expecting to feel his hand on my shoulder or his arm around my waist. But he doesn’t follow me,
doesn’t so much as move a muscle in my direction. Hell, I’m not sure he could, even if he wanted to. He looks as frozen as I feel, like he isn’t even breathing.

  I know I’m not. Not properly. Not the way I should be.

  But it’s hard to take a breath when you feel the weight of your whole life—past, present, future—pressing on your chest, slowly crushing down on you.

  It’s even harder to breathe when you realize that nothing is as it seems—and that it may never be again.

  Chapter Two

  The bathroom door closes behind me and I sag against it, its support the only thing keeping me upright at the moment.

  There’s a part of me that wants to scream. To cry and rage and throw things. To shatter everything in this too big, too luxurious bathroom until it looks as broken as I feel.

  But there’s another part of me that just wants out of here. Away from Ethan. Away from the lies and the confusion and the pain. Away from Brandon and the new carnage he’s brought into my life.

  Tears roll slowly down my face and I dash them away impatiently. I’m not going to cry. Not here, not now, when Brandon is still lurking around. He broke me once. I’ll be damned if I give him the satisfaction of cracking me open all over again. I won’t be Humpty Dumpty, not for him. Not for anyone. Not after how far I’ve already come.

  For long seconds, I concentrate on my too-erratic breathing. On forcing oxygen into my too-tight lungs. It isn’t easy, and more than once I have to fight back a sob, but eventually I can take a deep breath. Eventually, I have my emotions under control. Or at least a semblance of them.

  Dropping my robe on the cold tile, I dress quickly, not bothering to look in the mirror. I tell myself it’s because right now my appearance is the last thing on my mind, but the truth is so much more complicated than that. And so much more basic.

  I’m afraid of what I’ll see if I look in that goddamned mirror. Afraid that between last night and this morning, the new fractures will be all too evident. And I can’t have that, sure as hell can’t see it. Not if I’m going to walk out of this bathroom, down the stairs and out to my car. Not if I’m going to hold my head up and look right past Ethan, right through Brandon.