Author's Note: Yes, another short story and no, I still don't have another chapter for Tears of Blood ready even though I promised that I would try to write one on my winter break. Instead, I worked almost all of my break and spent the rest of the time with my friends and family. So I apologize again for Tears of Blood and I will have one eventually. This story however, I've had for a while on my computer and thought maybe I should put it up. I was obsessed with two songs at the time which I wrote this story and they were titled "Your like a Drug" and "On Fire" both of which you will be able to see in this story. Thank you all who reviewed any of my stories and I love you all for life. So read, review and enjoy!

Addicted

She woke up with a desperate gasp. Her white cotton nightgown was drenched with sweat. The covers on the bed were twisted, twined around her waist like a manacle keeping her in the bed, trapping her in the bed. She took a deep breath, no, all her breaths were deep. She needed air. Air to think, bring some semblance of sense back in her head. Her thoughts were scattered by her need. She kicked the covers free and paced in her dark bedroom.

She wasn't sure that she was glad that she was awake or not. In her dreams, all she thought was feeding her need, another fix to get her through her day. In her dreams, she would drown in satisfaction. There she could give into her every want, desire, wish. She was no longer haunted. In her dreams, she was alive, awake and satiated.

Awake, she ached. Her thoughts centered on her obsession. The one she desperately wanted and just as desperately fought to run away from. No one realized the torment she went through. During the day, she remained calm, serene and lived under a façade of the ordinary woman. During the night, she went to the gym to workout, she did laps in the pool her apartment complex offered to all its tenants, she cooked complex meals she couldn't taste, read, took long baths, and anything else that would exhaust her and put her to sleep. And when she'd slept, she would dream.

No one knew her torment, but people close to her had begun to realize something was wrong with her. They had noticed she had begun to bite her nails. They had noticed her lack of interest in anything. They had noticed her working late into the night at the office and then coming early the next morning. They had noticed she hardly ate or tasted what she did eat. They had noticed she would jump at the briefest of touches and they would notice her lost in her thoughts, her absentmindedness.

Six weeks without what she craved and yearned for every second of the day and she had been going crazy. She was losing it. Her boss thought perhaps she needed time off. Her family were worried about her. Her friends got that look in their eyes when she came around, which was rarely ever because she was always at home fighting her personal battle. She'd thrown out her phone so she wouldn't be tempted to call and surrender herself.

She sat down in front of the ceiling-to-floor windows in her rocking chair and wrapped herself in a blanket. She rocked back and forth in hopes the motion would help her, comfort her, but it wouldn't. Only one thing could comfort her now and it was the same thing she was running from. But she had fought this… this addiction. She didn't need it anymore, really she didn't.

She was finally getting her life back together. Her family looked at her with visible relief in their eyes. Her boss no longer thought she was on the brink of some personal disaster, which she was. Her friends, well, she still never hung out with them. She'd crawl back to her own, dark, personal abyss to wallow from the affects of being… on withdrawal from her addiction. She rocked faster.

She could pull through this. She couldn't ask for help. There wasn't help for her kind problem. She couldn't surrender to it, no matter how much she wanted to. It would destroy her. It had already nearly destroyed her. But none of that mattered now. She could fight it now. She could get through this, past it. She'd get her life back on track and she'd go back to being her normal self. She was almost completely back to being her normal self.

If only it weren't for nights like these where she could cry for hours with despair and loss. But she felt better now. She was facing her demons and overcoming them. She slowed her chair and eventually stood up. She shed the blanket and then the nightgown that was still a bit damp from earlier. She picked the blanket back up and wrapped it around her like a sarong.

Taking a last deep, calming breath, she went to the kitchen for a glass of water. She was actually quite proud of herself. She faced down her cravings tonight. They occurred less and less now. This week she only woke up like she had tonight, twice. Maybe next week she wouldn't wake up at all. With optimistic hopes, she went back to face the bedroom. She changed her sheets and put fresh ones on the bed.

She went to her stereo and let it softly play classical music; quiet, tranquil music to soothe the last of her erratic nerves. She lay on her back as the last bit of the tension flowed out of her body and she relaxed. She yawned and her eyes drifted close. The last thing she saw was the time. 1:37AM. Before this problem had begun; she rarely went to bed before two in the morning, especially on a Saturday.

It felt as if her eyes had just closed when something stirred her awake. However when her eyes opened, they were greeted with green digits telling her it was now 3:24AM. Yawning, she lay still wondering what it was that woke her up and then she heard it again. Heavy knocks on her apartment door. Her heart began racing and her palms grew damp. No one in their sane mind would come to her apartment at this hour. It could only be one person and they weren't in their sane mind. She considered not answering, but the pounding grew insistent.

She knew he just wouldn't go away.

She got up and hesitantly headed for the door as if the demons from Hell were on the other side. In a way, he was just that. In one foul sweep, he crashed into her life and blew everything she thought was normal into smithereens, but then he could say the same thing about her. She was about to open the door when a slight draft raised goose bumps on her naked skin. She jumped at the revelation.

She was naked!

She had been about to answer the door… naked. She rushed back to her bedroom for something to wear when his voice rang out in the hallway. "For God's sake, let me in!" The words themselves would seem arrogant and presumptuous, so sure of their welcome, but the underlying anguish in the words caused her to hurry. She grabbed the blanket, fashioned her sarong again and ran back to the door. She held her breath and flung open the door.

And there he was.

For the past weeks, he had been the bane of her existence, the crux of all her problems and the drug she just couldn't get out of her system. He was a notorious playboy, a jaded jetsetter. The kind of man her mama had warned her to stay away from. He was no good in all sense of that word. He would never commit. Hell, it was trying for him to stay monogamous for a week, not to mention a lifetime. It was a miracle he wasn't diseased.

Trying to appear nonchalant, she ignored the hollow look of his face or the dark circles under his eyes or the starving look in his eyes. From a man who dressed impeccably all the time, it was a surprise to see him in a ratty old sweat suit that would look more befitting on a homeless man sleeping underneath a bridge. He was dishevelled and for the first time since she had met him, he had stubble on his face as if he had forgotten to shave that morning. "What do you want?" she demanded in a hard voice.

It was pointless in asking. His eyes devoured her. She knew exactly what he wanted and her stomach quivered in response. He raised his hands to cup her face. He let out a harsh laugh. "What do I want?" he asked as if he was asking himself rather repeating her words. "Does it even matter? I need you."

His hands tightened on her face for a second before they relaxed and he pulled her toward her. Before she could protest his mouth crashed down on her. It was like a rush. It was like drowning someone who was still begging God for rain. His lips moved over hers with almost frantic need. She matched his need and parted her lips, begging for him to deepen the kiss. It was by no means a gentle kiss. It was hot, rough and incredibly sexy. Each plunge of his tongue was more urgent than the last.

He pulled away abruptly and she cried out in protest. He looked at her with anger burning in his dilated eyes. "What have you done to me?" he demanded in a stark whisper.

She glared at him. "You did this to me! You wove your magic over me to get in my pants. It's not my fault if you got caught up in your own web. It serves you right, but do you actually think I wanted this to happen to me?"

"Skirt," he growled back.

"What?" she asked completely baffled.

"The first time I saw you, you were wearing a skirt," he gritted out through his clenched teeth. With an exasperated sound, he pushed her back into the apartment and closed the door behind him. "Do you always greet strangers with nothing but a bed sheet on at odd hours in the night?"

"At least I had the bed sheet," she bit back. "Look we've gone through this before. It'll never work. So it's better if you just leave now."

"I can't."

"You can and you will. I don't need you anymore—"

"The hell you don't!" he raged. "I was there too, when you were kissing me right now. You want this just as badly as I do, maybe even more."

She shook her head and sidled back, away from him. "I'm getting everything back on track. I can and will live without you."

"And what if I can't live without you?" he demanded quietly as he advanced.

She shook her head blindly tears of frustration welling up in her eyes. "I can't. I just can't."

"You can," he insisted as he advanced every step she retreated.

"You'll leave. You'll find someone else, you always do," she scowled.

Her back bumped up against the glass window and he closed the distance until their bodies brushed one another and there was no way for her to escape. "Don't be daft, woman. It won't ever be like the way it is between us with someone else."

"Maybe it will fade in time," she offered desperately. He swayed every so slightly so the bodies rubbed against another. However slight the friction was, it was delicious. Her heartbeat began to beat against a wild tandem and her breath shortened. It was nothing, yet it was everything. It was how it always was and just from his proximity and the sexy little movement, she was very turned on.

"Yes, maybe in a hundred years from now, but until that time, I don't plan on giving you up," he announced. He was touching her now. His hands were firmly pressed against the glass on either side of her head, but his body moved closer, crowding her, pressing against her, imprinting himself on her. He was aroused too.

She was still incensed. "So I'm just to be your sex slave for life?"

"No, you are going to marry me and if you would answer your phone calls or quit avoiding me, I could have asked you properly, but now I'm not asking you. I'm just telling you how it is," he stated. He thrust his hips against her gently and her mouth turned to dust, her palms grew moist and she felt a heat wash over her body. She swallowed hard and licked her lips before she could talk again.

"And why the hell would I go along with this?"

Without a word, he grabbed a fistful of material and began pulling the hem of the sheet wrapped around her upwards. She stared at him in frozen anticipation. She couldn't stop him if her life depended on it. She let out a little gasp as she felt his strong, capable hand cup her sex. More hot moisture rushed out to welcome him. Without further ado, his finger slid into her and she found herself clutching his shoulder for support. He slid is finger out slowly and then returned. Shudders wracked her body and whimper escaped her lips as she clung to him. He repeated the action and all the tension and desire she had been trying to suppress explode in a fiery shower of rapture.

He picked her up and the sheet that had slithered down to her waist and hung completely open. He sat down on the rocking chair with her in his lap. He raised the sheet and tucked it in around her. He rocked them back and forth, clutching her against him as she recovered.

"Because I miss you. I miss seeing you. I miss arguing with you. I miss being with you. I miss being in you. Because I can't think about anything else but you. I can't dream about anything else but you. Because I'm a wreck without you. I can't eat without you. I'm starving. I can't sleep without you. I'm exhausted. I can't be with anyone but, you. My brother got sick of it and kicked me out of our apartment. So I'm homeless. All I think about is you and am such a bear without you, my boss fired me. I'm unemployed."

She laughed. "You never had a job."

"Well, if I had one, I would have lost it because of you."

She nestled against him. "You were a bear when you came in, not anymore."

"I'm with you," he reminded her. "It's all I want. It's what I need."

"This isn't healthy," she whispered.

He nuzzled her neck. "You're like a drug."

"Funny, I think I'm addicted to you. I was trying to quit."

"Don't bother."

She sighed and kissed him. "I know, I think I relapsed."

"We'll be happily addicted," he promised.

"Let's go to bed."

He raised his brows. "Again?"

"What can I say, I can't get enough."

Together they went to the bedroom. They shared a powerful connection. One where once they spiralled down too deep, it clung to them and they didn't exist without it. They got in deep and never wanted to resurface again. Some would call it lust, others would call it love, but what it was, was an addiction.

So that's it. Kind of leaves you hanging, doesn't it? But it was where I decided it was best to end it. That and I didn't really feel like writing more after I got to this point. Either way I like it and I hope you like it to. Please review and let me know what you think and thank you again for reading it. Flawless Storm :)