The past three weeks of searching for a house have been completely ridiculous.

This isn’t big enough. That isn’t in the right neighborhood. It’s too far from Day’s place. You call that a kitchen? That bathroom tiling is awful. That’s not big enough for a nursery! Are you kidding? We’re supposed to share that as an office? I wouldn’t pee in that tiny room.

And it’s all me. Because when your boyfriend gives you a ridiculous amount of money to spend on a house, it has to be downright perfect.

Perfection or bust.

“How did your appointment go?” I ask without looking up from the laptop.

“It was delightful, same as the last few. But if she asks me to dissect my sexual urges one more time, I’m going to take my handcuffs and attach her to the fucking Space Needle.” Tyler walks into the apartment and dumps his bag.

“But it’s helping, right?”

“Helping me get a bloody hard-on! Do you know how hard it is to explain to these people that my addiction isn’t because my parents abandoned me as a child or didn’t love me enough?” He raises his eyebrows. “I just like sex. A lot. A lot of the time. Why don’t they get that?”

“Because they like to fuck with you.” I smile sweetly. “What did they talk about today?”

His face darkens. “When I slept with my student.”

My curiosity piques. I’ve never actually asked about it—why he did it. No matter how much I wanted to, it never seemed like the right time. Besides, it’s not dinner conversation, is it?

“And?” I ask, trying not to show my interest.

I fail, because he smirks and joins me at the table. “Liv, if you want to know, just ask me. It’s fresh in my mind, funnily enough.”

“Uhh. Okay. Why did you do it?” I look at him now.

“Honestly, it was a mistake. I’d met her sister a couple of times, and there was only a couple of years between them. They looked very alike. I arranged to meet her sister for a few drinks one night, but it was actually my student who turned up. I didn’t realize at the time.” He rubs his hand through his hair. “It’s the worst excuse, I know, but it’s the truth. I didn’t know until she admitted it to me the next morning.”

Well, shit.

“Ouch,” I wince. “What did you do?”

“Handed in my resignation with immediate effect.”

“Really?”

He nods. “I wasn’t in the job to abuse the power I had. She was my student, and although, in the end, it turns out she took advantage of my attraction to her sister, I couldn’t stay there any longer. It was a year or so after that I took more and more jobs out here.”

“So…that…incident…is fairly recent?”

“Three years, maybe?” He shrugs. “I don’t know, baby girl. I don’t like to think of it much because of my own stupidity. The last time I thought about it was when I told you. Then not again until today.”

“Really? Not at all?”

“You kind of took up most of my thinking capacity.” He smiles. “Not much else mattered other than you. It’s in the past and I can’t change it. But you’re right, I guess. Talking through our past is the only way we’re going to get through this.”

I smile because he finally gets it. And despite his protestations about going to therapy, he agreed because it’s what I wanted.

“Did you see March today?”

I exhale slowly. “Yeah. He came over. Something about avoiding coffee. I can’t imagine why.” I roll my eyes to the sound of Ty’s laugh. “We talked over how I came to be addicted to Warren then applied it to our relationship. He thinks I was able to stagger how quickly I became addicted to you because I was aware of it. Like a slow trickle or something.” I shrug. “He said he’s waiting until my hormones calm down before we dive into the whole suicide thing. But he thinks we can be done by the time the baby arrives, and that’s what’s important, right?”

“Absolutely. We’ll get there. Just like I told you.” Tyler nudges my foot under the table and taps the laptop. “Any luck today?”

I shake my head. “No. I found one that was really good, but the kitchen was shitty.”

“We can rip it out for a new one, you know.”

“But that defies the point of spending a dumb amount of money on a house.”

“So spend less and we’ll remodel.”

“It’s not a freaking Lego house, honey. You can’t just waltz in and change shit up.”

He grins and closes the laptop. “I’m a Stone. Of course I can.”

I roll my eyes when he leans forward over the table. “You can’t just go throwing your name around. That’s absolutely doing an Aaron.”

“Except I do it with finesse and stunning British charm, so I beat Aaron hands down.”

I eye him curiously. “British charm. That’s what you call it.”

“Are you doubting my charm, Olivia?”

“Doubting, questioning, disbelieving…”

He walks around the table and rests one hand on the back of my chair. My stomach flutters with excitement when he leans over me, his face hovering inches above mine.

“Do you need reminding?”

I run my thumb down his jaw. “Charm is for pussies. I prefer the alpha thing you had going on before.”

“Before?” His eyebrows shoot up and he leans down a little farther.

“Yes. Before you went all whipped on me.”

No sooner are the words out of my mouth than he has me against the wall, my hands pinned above my head and his hips holding mine.

“What was that?” he murmurs huskily.

“Smooth.” I laugh, staring into his dark eyes. “Looks like you’ve still got it in you somewhere.”

His lips twitch on one side. “Are you asking to be reminded, baby girl?”

“Asking… Begging… Is there a difference?”

He lowers his mouth to mine, his kiss testing and gentle, similar to the way it was when he kissed me for the first time. “How are you feeling?” he whispers against me.

I flex my hips against him in answer and he growls low. He kisses me again, this time more forceful and intense, his tongue forcing its way into my mouth.

I melt against him, submitting to the way he takes control instantly. He grips my wrists in one hand and slides the other up beneath my shirt. His fingers travel up my back, hot and rough, and circle around to my front.

He cups my braless breast and flicks my nipple with his thumb. I gasp into his mouth, my back arching into him. He does the same to the other and another sound leaves my mouth, one slightly pained, and he pauses.

“You won’t break me,” I say, kissing him. “Besides…”

“You like it,” he whispers huskily. “I know. C’mere.”

He drops my hands and cups my ass roughly. He lifts me and I wrap my legs around his waist, my fingers in his hair. Then I kiss him as he carries me into our room.

He literally drops me on the bed and leans over me. His dark eyes swirl, heated and needing. My chest heaves as he stares down at me this way.

He tugs at my shirt. “Off. Now. Let me see those gorgeous tits.”

I whip the shirt over my head and throw it to the floor.

He opens the drawer and pulls out the handcuffs. He dangles them in front of my face and smirks. “It’s been too long.”

I draw in a long breath when he cuffs my hands together. He kneels on the bed and slowly kisses my neck, the hot, openmouthed kisses trailing across my skin. My pulse thrums beneath my skin when he travels down, taking my nipples in his mouth one by one.

His tongue swirls and skims across my body, tasting every inch of my skin. Each lick is like a blazing swipe of fire, searing into me, branding me to him.

As Tyler travels down across my stomach, he hooks his fingers in the sides of my shorts and pulls. “No knickers. Good girl,” he hums against my hips.

“Surprise.” My voice hitches as he presses his lips to the top of my thigh.

He smiles against my skin and removes my shorts completely. After discarding his own shirt, he bends down and bends my legs up. My chest rises and falls frantically, my breathing harsh. His fingers tease the inside of my closed thighs, working their way between them.

But more than that, his breath on my pussy. Oh, god. I close my eyes as he parts my legs fully and blows on me. I clench everywhere, anticipation trembling in my legs.

“This,” he murmurs, kissing my clit. “I love this. You, ready and wet, waiting for me. I’m addicted to this sight.”

He rolls his tongue along me slowly, tasting me deeply, and I shudder.

“I’m addicted to this taste. You on my tongue.”

He rubs my clit with his thumb and slips his tongue inside me. The feeling of both is intense and pushes me close to the edge, my body trembling.

“I’m addicted to this feeling. You clenching around me.” He dives his tongue back inside me and pinches my clit and I let it go.

I let the orgasm shudder through me, and Tyler climbs up my body. He discards his pants and underwear and lifts my legs, sinking into me slowly.

I sigh, still high from my quick orgasm, and hook my handcuffed wrists around the back of his neck. He taps my butt lightly and slips his hands up my back to my shoulders. One goes farther, cupping the back of my head, and he rocks his hips against me.

He fucks me deep and slow, hard and easy. He fucks me with passion and love mixed into both his thrusts and his kiss. He fucks me until there isn’t a part of me not crying out for the release, until there isn’t a part of my skin that doesn’t want to be against his.

Until we’re slicked with sweat. Until our breaths mingle so closely that they become one. Until my cries drown out his own low groans.

My pussy tightens around his cock and he changes his pace, going from slow to fast in seconds. The relentless final pounds are all it takes, and I come apart, his name a sobbed cry on my lips.

Because it’s too much.

The force of his love washes over me with more of a hit than the orgasm. I feel it wholly, and I feel mine. I feel it over addiction, over cravings, over everything else I feared at the start.

But I feared the wrong thing. I feared addiction when I should have feared love, because it won’t be addiction that breaks me.

It wasn’t addiction that hurt when we were apart. It wasn’t a craving for his touch or his skin that scarred me.

It was love.

It was my heart that was broken, my soul that needed healing.

My love for him runs deeper than my addiction. Addiction can be cured. It can be eased. It can even be erased entirely. You can’t do that with love. It’s incurable. Nothing but the power of another love can rid your heart of it.

And that’s the be-all, end-all.

I’m addicted to Tyler, yes. I’m addicted to the way his voice sounds and the way my skin buzzes when he touches me. But I’m in love with his smile and the way he looks at me. I’m in love with the way he forgets to put the toilet seat down and the way he thinks I won’t notice his dirty socks stuffed behind the laundry hamper.

I’m in love with him, completely and utterly, entirely and wholly.