Addicted (45 page)

He stormed over to the door and rattled the handle. “Call him.”

Anais strode to the door and reached his hand. “No, Lindsay.”

“I said, call Vallery,” he shouted.

“Come away, Lindsay.”

“I said call Vallery, Anais, or…or I will…”

“You will not hurt me,” she murmured, taking his hand and easing it from the doorknob.

“I want out of this fucking room!”

“I know,” she said, taking him into her arms.

“Oh, God, it hurts,” he cried, holding on to her as he let his head drop against her shoulder. “You have no idea how much, Anais.”

If it was anything like watching him go through it, Anais thought, it was more pain than the devil himself could inflict.

Suddenly, she felt hot tears against her collarbone. “I can’t do this.”

“Yes, you can, Lindsay.”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “It hurts too much. My head…it screams for it. I…I could have hurt you, Anais. I wanted to, just for a chance to get my hands on the opium.”

“You would never hurt me, Lindsay, I know that.”

“I already have, though, haven’t I?”

“Shh,” she whispered as he held him tight. “This storm will pass.”

“I cannot endure another.”

“Yes, you will, you can. I have never seen you stronger, Lindsay. You can beat this.
You will beat this.
”

He shuddered against her, pressing his body into hers. “Don’t leave me, Anais.”

“Never. When you open your eyes, Lindsay, I will be there.”

His fingers, trembling uncontrollably, caressed her mouth. “Promise, angel?”

She kissed his fingers. “Promise.”

“Come into the bath with me, Anais,” he asked. He took her by the hand and walked them over to the spring bath. She watched as he removed his trousers. Then he reached for her and pulled her chemise up and over her head.

“Maybe the water will take away the pain in my body. And your arms, Anais,” he said, lifting her up and carrying her into the bath, “will take away the pain in my soul.”

Together they slipped into the warm water. Anais held him, locking her arms and legs around him so that she could caress him and whisper into his ear.

“You are very strong, Lindsay. You will do this. I believe that.”

He looked up at her, caught her gaze through the moonlight that had crept in through the windows. He captured her lips with his. “Take me away from all this,” he begged. “Make me forget everything but you.”

Her mouth, gentle, caressed his jaw where it was stubbled with growth. Her lips sought his neck, his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard—she kissed it, and he felt himself go boneless against her, the water lapping around them as he held tightly on to her waist. Her hands smoothed down his shoul
ders and arms, which he knew still trembled, before wrapping around to the muscles of his chest, soothing him, loving him.

She knew what he needed, and she gave it to him so easily, so perfectly. Without question or reservation.

Christ, he needed this, he thought as he closed his eyes and allowed her to touch him. He needed her caresses, to feel her strength so he could absorb it, could steal it from her to shore up his own faltering resolve. He needed to be part of her, to know that he still held some piece of her, a piece that was his alone.

He knew she did not do this out of pity. She did it out of love, out of the passion they had for one another. And he was weak enough to allow her—no, he would beg her for it if she stopped her touches, and the trail of her lips on his throat. He was not beneath begging Anais. But she didn’t make him plead. She knew that at this time, what he needed, almost as much as he needed the opium, was her touch to take away the pain in his body and the ache in his heart.

He wanted to show her pleasure, to bury his mouth in her sex and taste her, to feel her fingers pulling at his hair as she came, but he was weak, and he was selfish. He wanted, for just this once, to have Anais show him her physical love. To take his body into her own hands and show him what he meant to her.

Her lips were gliding down his throat, her fingers playing with his nipples, which were hard and tingling. His body was ready, greedy to take everything she was offering him. Restless, he moved his hips against hers, nudging his cock between the apex of her thights. The need to be buried in her was primal,
almost overpowering, and he nudged harder, seeking entrance into her cunt, which was tight and warm and waiting to accept him.

“Let me give you this,” she whispered against his cheek as she reached for his bollocks and cupped them in her hand. He moaned, the feeling at once so perfect, yet not enough. She played with him, teased him, made him burn, then reached for his cock and stroked him up and down in a lazy fashion that had him gritting his teeth, trying to reach for something that was harder, faster, that would have him spilling into her palm. Yet he didn’t want to demand or dictate. He wanted her to explore him, to love him just as she desired.

“Let me try to take the pain away,” she murmured as she passed her fingertip over the head of his cock, which was already leaking with anticipation.

“You are, angel,” he said on a sigh as she suckled his nipple. “I feel nothing but you now. I want nothing but you and the pleasure you give me.”

Christ, she made the ache in his body leave as she laved his nipples and stroked his cock with firmer strokes that had him growing thicker. His cock lay between their bodies, he felt her quim, wet with desire, brush against his thigh, and he shoved it between her silky thighs, letting her ride him as his hands made sweeping motions down her back, to her lush bottom, which he softly grazed with his fingetips. The water was warm, but despite that, he felt goose bumps rise on her flesh as she rode aginst him, pleasuring herself while pleasuring him.

She gave him everything. Her whispered words of love, her curved body as she pressed into him. She brought him up until
he thought he would spill into her hand, then brought him back down, only to bring him to the brink of orgasm once again.

It was slow and beautiful. The first time she had ever taken him on her own. She knew how to touch him, how to make him moan, but did she know how much he needed her now? How he needed to be inside her to fill the empty spot in his soul—the one she had left when they had parted ways. Did she know he needed her to join with him to keep the heavenly demon from screaming in his head?

“I need you, angel,” he pleaded next to her ear. “Keep me safe, won’t you?”

He begged her as he felt her fingers swirl against the swollen head, spreading the seed that had seeped out. He begged again as her sex slipped over his thigh, rubbing in time to her stroking hand.

Christ, his voice was weak, full of pain and eagerness. He thought he might have been weeping, knew he was when she kissed the corner of his eye, taking the droplet away on her lips.

She knew what he needed, knew what that one broken word—
please—
meant.

She opened to him and guided his cock into her quim, slowly giving herself to him to hold, to fill.

He buried his face into her hair and allowed her to love him as he so desperately needed.

There were no words, just shaky breaths and clutching hands and mouths hungrily seeking each other. She was riding him slowly, the pace intentionally slow so he could feel every quiver, every shudder of her body as she held him safe. And then he was spilling into her, his body trembling, his voice crying out—
but not in need for opium. She had made him forget about that. Now, all he could see was her. All he wanted in his life was the woman who clutched him to her and allowed him to silently weep against her. He felt no shame at his tears, just relief knowing his secret was out, that the demon who held him was slowly being exorcised out of him, but made more bearable by Anais, a woman who owed him nothing. A woman who loved him despite his flaws. There had been other passionate couplings between them, but never one as beautiful and humbling as this one. As he clutched her in his shaking hands and wept against her, he whispered into her ear, the words that made him believe.

“Love bears all things. Endures all things,” he said. “Ours has, hasn’t it?” She nodded and held him tighter. “But can it endure this, Anais? This demon who holds me so mercilessly in its claws?”

She touched his face and kissed him. “My love can and will, Lindsay. I will be here when you open your eyes. I will give you whatever you need to make it more bearable.”

29

Two days later, the withdrawal from the opium overtook Lindsay. He was constantly trembling and shaking. He couldn’t keep fluids or food down, and even when his stomach was empty he still purged into the chamber pot. Anais was always there, rubbing his back, wiping his brow with cool cloths. There had not been any further scenes like the one where he had demanded she let him out of the room. But there were still moments when she thought Lindsay would go mad with longing for the opium. Other times he separated himself from her. She couldn’t reach him then, could only pray that he would emerge from the darkness that gripped him. There were other times when he would break down and cry, in pain, the physical and emotional kind. It was these moments that Anais knew he got lost inside himself and the pain of the past few weeks. She feared he might never come back, but he did—and always to her.

He spat into the bowl, coughing up the last of the bile. Anais wiped his mouth and covered his brow with a clean cloth. He was sweating profusely. But she didn’t care. She took him into
her arms and held him to her. He fell peacefully back to sleep in her embrace.

He slept most of the day, only waking to be sick. Sometimes he moaned in his sleep and thrashed around. Anais knew then that his body ached. So she would either rub his limbs, or, if he was steady enough, she would help him into the spring bath, which seemed to help him the most.

She had even shaved him in the bath. “Angel of mercy,” he said, with the first smile she had seen in weeks from him. Shaving him had been an intimate act, bringing them closer than they ever had been. Afterward, they had relaxed in the water, touching and whispering and taking support from one another. That hour in the water had sapped Lindsay of his energy, and she’d helped him back to bed where he slept peacefully beneath a sheet.

There were no more secrets, nothing to hide behind. They loved one another, despite what they had done to each other. They had asked for forgiveness from each other in the quiet of the dark.

The future, while fraught with uncertainty, held a glimmer of light, a light that had not been present four days ago.

“My love?” Lindsay asked, as he swallowed, his throat dry. The room was quiet and he raised his head, looking for Anais. He found her, asleep in a chair. Dark circles were beneath her eyes and she looked as though she had lost weight. He frowned at that thought. He liked her plump and luscious. She had seen to his needs to the cost of her own. It was now time he repaid the favor.

Rising from the divan, his body still hurt, but his head felt better. The craving for opium was now only a little whisper, not the roar that it had been. He was hungry, he realized as his belly grumbled loudly for the first time in months.

He walked the short distance to Anais, and picked her up. She didn’t move, didn’t even flutter her lashes. She was exhausted, his angel. As she should be. She had been the one, the only one, to see him through the hell of these past days and nights. She had never left his side. True to her words, she had always been there whenever he opened his eyes. There were times when he hated to see her, times when he wished that she were replaced by an opium pipe. Yet there had been other times when Anais’s arms and body had been the only thing keeping him sane.

The words they had repeated while holding each other in the baths, their mantra that had given them both the strength to see this through came to his lips.

He kissed her brow. “My love for you will never die, Anais. Never.”

He had at last made peace with himself. It was a good start.

“You wanted to speak with me?”

Lindsay looked over his shoulder to see Broughton standing in the doorway of the study. With a nod, he ushered his friend in and waved to an empty chair by the hearth.

“I…” Lindsay swallowed hard and gazed out the window, gathering the courage to speak. “I must beg your forgiveness, Garrett,” he said, using his friend’s Christian name for the first time ever. “The way I charged into your house, the way I spoke to you—the accusations,” he said, turning at last to look at his friend. “I was wrong. So wrong to treat you like I did. I know, and knew then, that you had only tried to do what was right. It was just…”

“The opium ruled then.”

Lindsay nodded. “In part, but I cannot always blame my behavior on the opium. As much as I want opium to take the fall for this, I cannot. It was me. I am responsible for the way I treated you. I was angry, disillusioned, hurt,” he said. “I had a child. A child I wanted, and couldn’t have. A child I lost through my own faults. I was lashing out, trying to hurt everyone around me. I saw everyone’s culpability except my own. I didn’t want to see it or acknowledge that I had been partly responsible. I know now that I must accept that blame. What I said to you was inexcusable.”

Broughton nodded and rose from the chair. Lindsay extended his hand. “Thank you, Garrett, for protecting my daughter and Anais when I should have. My gratitude knows no bounds. You are the very best of friends. A better friend to me, than I have been to you.”

Broughton grasped his hand and tugged him into a hug. “Good God, you’ve done it,” he said, “you’ve licked this addiction and come back to us.”

Lindsay clapped Broughton’s back. “Not fully back yet, but soon, I hope. I will not lie, I’ve thought of opium twice since I began speaking to you.”

“You’ll fight this,” Broughton grumbled. “And you’ll win, too. Bloody hell, Raeburn, I never wanted to hurt you.”

“I know that now. It just took time and a harsh look within to realize it.”

Broughton shook his hand, pumping it up and down with exuberance. “Let us speak no more against each other.”