Page 53 of Addiction

“Yeah.” His focus flitted to the large window at the back of the room. The blue blinds had been drawn, but the sunshine still skipped between the slats.

Somehow, he didn’t think the guys with the guns had been working for Bennett. They might have been with him, but Tucker knew Bennett’s financial situation well enough to know he had nothing to leverage with mercenaries like that. No, someone else was definitely pulling the strings. Someone with a grudge against him.

“I’d better get you to bed, little girl.”

Every fiber of his being protested, instructing that he throw her onto the covers and devour her again, but his head knew better. She needed to sleep, they both did, and it was down to him to make sure they got what they needed.

“We can talk more when we wake.” He steered her around to face the bed.

“And fuck.” She peered over her shoulder with a wicked grin as her dark blonde tousled hair fell around her face. Beautiful and engaging, Ella was the very definition of temptation, and his dick demanded he rethink his plan for rest.

“Yes, Ella.” His cock swelled further at her tantalizing provocation, and as his gaze traveled to the bedside dresser, he realized that he’d finally be able to get his hands on some condoms. “And fuck.”

Chapter Twenty-One

Splintered Slumber

Ella

Sprawled out on the lushest green grass she could ever remember, she turned her face to the warmth of the sunshine with a lazy smile.

This is the life.

And it was.

She couldn’t remember where she was or why she was so content, but she decided it didn’t matter.

I’m happy.

The ‘why’ or the ‘how’ were rarely important. What mattered was that she was so satisfied, spread out in the sun.

I am satisfied. Her lips stretched wider as her fingers played with the soft blue blanket she was lying on. I can’t remember feeling this way before.

“Ella.”

She might have leapt at the sound of his voice, for she was certain that only a moment before she’d been there alone. But, as was often true in dreams, she acknowledged little surprise as she rolled onto her side to find Tucker sitting beside her.

Tucker.

She practiced saying his name in her head. Tucker was the remedy to a poison she hadn’t even known she’d consumed. Tucker was terrifyingly close to becoming everything.

“Sir.”

She reached for him instinctively, tracing a line over his jeans as she snuggled closer and breathed in his familiar sandalwood scent. One of his arms slipped behind her back, holding her close, and she was grateful for his proximity. The sun, which had been so intense only seconds before, must have been hidden behind a cloud because suddenly, the air was cold. Glancing up to the sky, she was alarmed to find that dusk had fallen, and a dark canopy of the night sky had settled in to replace it.

“When did that happen?” she murmured, tugging the ends of the blanket around her. Tucker was abruptly missing from the place he’d been holding her, and Ella was left there alone. “I was sunbathing, and then—” Her sentence was ended by a jarring noise from the star-laden sky, her attention drawn back to its twinkling vista. “What was that?”

She saw nothing out of the ordinary, but her breaths came faster as she searched for an explanation. Something was wrong. She didn’t know what, and she didn’t know how she knew, but somehow, she did know. Something was terribly wrong.

To her horror, the bizarre sound only grew louder. Rolling onto her back, she gripped the blanket she’d been sprawled on and tried to decide what was happening.

Is it an earthquake?

The ground around her seemed to be trembling at the jolting chime of the alien sound, the disconcerting tremors making it impossible to think about anything else but the panic knotting inside her.

“Tucker!” She searched around for him in the dark, certain he must still be close by, but in the morphing landscape of her dream, it was impossible to say. Nothing was as it seemed. “Tucker, help!”

Lurching forward in the covers, Ella threw her body bolt upright. By the time her eyes opened, her heart was racing, and there was a glistening layer of sweat on her brow.

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