Sext Addict: A Sexy Romantic Comedy Reverse Harem Read online

  I liked the way she buzzed with electricity as if her hair was going to stand up straight from her head at any moment with static. I liked the way she railed at me, holding nothing back, letting me see her fire and fury. And I especially liked how unguarded and piercing her eyes were. She was showing me something fucking beautiful, honest, raw.

  I couldn’t stop staring at her. I hadn’t thought the meek little mouse had a lion in her, but fuck me if that wasn’t a goddamn roar.

  And then—holy hell, she’d put her hands on me while taunting me with how much she wanted and needed me. She was pissed, but I also saw the genuine desire in her eyes. I’d tried warning her to back off, and when she didn’t, I’d kissed her. I melded my mouth with hers, tasted her, licked her, feeling her chest racing, her heart beating. I’d caught her by surprise, but by the time my cymbal came to a crashing halt on the floor, I felt her tongue twist around mine.

  Well, who the fuck would have thought? The quiet, respectable girl next door had some spunk.

  I grabbed her ass and lifted her up, taking two big steps until her back hit the opposite wall. She was grinding against me and I was getting hard and the kiss was turning into a precursor to sex, but then the elevator door clanged and our apartment manager Henry had to ruin everything.

  I'd always disliked the guy. Now I fucking hated him.

  Tessa had shoved me away, cheeks flushed and breath heavy. She’d been embarrassed by Henry catching us, but I caught her touching her lips where the ghost of my lips certainly lingered. I hoped it lingered all night. I hoped she slipped one hand down beneath the sheets while she kept the other on her lips and touched herself while she remembered me.

  I should have gone back inside. Left her and Henry to talk, but I’d been feeling protective, and possessive. She’d looked at Henry with something akin to dread, so I figured I’d wait and see what the guy wanted. Then Henry dropped the bomb on Tessa.

  I’d been evicted enough times to know how fucked up it is when you hear you’re about to lose your home. I watched every single emotion play crystal clear across Tessa’s face as she realized what was happening. She was an open book for me in that moment. She’d forgotten to put back on her polite smile, her ‘everything is just fine’ smile, her ‘just smile, just keep on smiling’ smile.

  I liked her better without it. I liked the real her. I liked the real her a lot.

  I was determined to see that real her again.

  And I was determined to do something about her getting kicked out of her apartment. I mean, her studio was a shit place to live—I’d told Henry when I moved in that I needed a place away from other residents because I had to practice at all hours, so I’d had the fifth floor to myself until Henry let Tessa rent the room at half-price, with the understanding that I’d be pounding away on my Ludwig drums and clashing my Zildjian cymbals twenty-four/seven. Maybe I could convince Henry to give her another chance if I made her rent current. Granted, it wasn’t like I was rich, but I had a pretty good savings considering all I did in life nowadays was eat, fuck, and play my music. If my neighbor needed a loan to cover a month, I’d figure out a way to make it work.

  But as I saw her eyes dim and her expression crumble and embarrassment at her public humiliation started to come over her, I knew it was time for me to go. I didn’t want to make her feel even more shitty about her life, so I headed into my apartment. I’d offer her the money later.

  God, who would have thought. I didn’t just want to bang my neighbor.

  I liked her. Fucking hell—me, the Irish lout, liked the girl next door. How fucking suburban of me.

  Throwing the cymbal back onto the table, I sat down naked at my drum set. Then I composed a song.

  A song for her.

  A song for Tessa.

  Chapter 3

  Tessa

  Twenty minutes later, listening to Jamie pounding away on his drums, I stared into the bottom of my ramen cup, squinting at the leftover bits of noodle and two peas and wondering if they could tell the future.

  Maybe the peas were the balls and the noodle was the shaft and I was supposed to go cut Jamie’s irritatingly impressive dick off. Or maybe it meant that this was the closest I was going to get to getting laid for a long time. I swallowed the balls and sucked up the limp dick noodles and sighed.

  That was just about as enjoyable as any of my sexual encounters thus far in life: over quickly and a lot unsatisfying. No wonder I spent all my time fantasizing about sex with guys I had no chance with. It was safer than being disappointed with the real thing, at least.

  Of course, that kiss with Jamie earlier had been anything but a disappointment. It had felt right. Like finally, I was with a man I was supposed to be with, feeling that rush of passion that was just going to get better and better, and how fucked up was that?

  With a sigh, I set my ramen cup aside, and picked up my phone and stared at it, telling myself not to, absolutely not to read Ellis’s sexts, but it only took a minute before I caved. I was already miserable, about to be evicted from my apartment miserable, just kissed my neighbor before I was publicly humiliated in front of him and he walked into his apartment with out a backward glance because he didn’t give a shit kind of miserable.

  Even though reading Ellis’s sexts to another person would probably make me more miserable in the end since they weren’t to me, I was clearly a glutton for punishment.

  I opened the text thread and read text after dirty text, but to my surprise, this time they did nothing for me. It was like my mind and body had finally shut down to the point that nothing could ever make me feel again, so I simply read the texts with clinical objectivity.

  Hard cock.

  Heaving breasts and pierced nipples.

  Lots of licking and sucking and the occasional bite here or there.

  Yada yada yada.

  I wasn’t even done reading and was about to close the window, that’s how out of it I was, when two words caught my eye.

  ELLIS: ...sex study…

  That jolted me out of my malaise.

  Sex study? What the hell was a sex study?

  Ellis had posted a link so I clicked on it.

  It led me to a page advertising a study through a nearby university. I skimmed for the most relevant information.

  The study involved sex between one girl and three guys. Three guys at the same time. The scientists wanted a foursome to identify and articulate the innate societal constraints and comprehensions of blah blah blah.

  The words that really caught my attention were: $32,000, which meant $8,000 per participant.

  Eight thousand dollars? To be studied while having sex?

  Could I do it?

  Obviously I’m not doing well financially given I’d been kicked out of my gym and just got served with an eviction notice. I had loans from UCLA, too, and a maxed-out credit card. Temping did not pay the bills the way I’d once hoped, especially after my long term job ended so abruptly, but part of me still hoped to become an actress one day, and temping gave me the most flexibility when it came to auditions (even if I hadn't actually gone to one in a while).

  Needless to say, I could definitely use 8K.

  Ellis would lend me the money to get another apartment if I needed it, but while I’d borrowed money here and there from him, I'd hated doing it. I certainly wasn’t going to borrow the kind of cash I'd need to get into a new place. No, the best thing to do would be to move back in with my parents. But that meant leaving L.A. Giving up my acting dream completely.

  And I wasn’t quite ready to do that.

  The sex study could get me the cash I needed.

  But almost as soon as I considered the possibility of participating in the study, I dismissed it.

  Yeah right. Me, in a sex study?

  I couldn’t even go to my acting audition earlier. The one I was supposed to have gone to instead of the gym.

  So yeah, I definitely wasn’t the kind of girl who could have sex with three guys. Perform naked with t
hree penises? Hell, I wanted to be an actress and I couldn’t even perform in front of a casting director.

  I set my phone down in disgust.

  I considered spending the next few hours searching for more auditions to spend hours preparing for, to then spend hours traveling on five different buses to get to, before finally deciding I’m not going to go inside. Again. But I easily convinced myself against it with the excuse that I’d never be able to concentrate with the racket of my neighbor’s drumming.

  I leaned back in my chair and listened and actually found myself enjoying whatever new song he was playing. I closed my eyes and remembered Jamie’s kiss, despite how hard I was trying to forget it. In my memory, his steps as he pushed me to the wall matched the thud, thud, thud of his drum. The snare mimicked the buzz that had coursed through my body when his lips pressed against mine. The cymbals entered the song and it was as surprising as how my own hand moved to the back of Jamie’s head to caress his hair, to pull him closer, to taste more of him.

  As Jamie played, I wondered what would have happened if Henry had answered one more call in the office before coming up the elevator to find me. How far would I have gone?

  I shook the thought from my mind. No, Jamie O’Connell was an asshole, a prickly, irritating, button-pushing asshole. If we hadn’t been interrupted, I would have grabbed his dick, no matter how big, and yanked it off.

  Just then, my cell phone rang. Picking it up, I saw Ellis’s name on the screen.

  Oh God. Here goes. He probably realized he’d mistakenly sexted me and was going to apologize. He was probably freaking out, worried that he’d offended me. I imagined him dragging his hand through his perfect hair and it falling back into place even more perfectly in defiance of the laws of nature.

  Better to get it over with now and let him off the hook.

  I picked up Ellis’s call and braced myself to hear his apologies for including me in that sexting conversation. “Hey Ellis, I was just about to—”

  “I’m going after my brother’s wife,” he said.

  “Huh?”

  “On the soap,” Ellis explained, voice easy, casual, totally oblivious to my emotional turmoil. “That’s my storyline this week. I’ve fallen in love with my brother’s wife, who’s always been like a sister to me. But I’ve realized out of the blue that I love her. Like, out of nowhere, I just figure this out. I mean, my character figures it out. How stupid is that plotline?” When I didn’t answer right away, he added, “Tess? You agree?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I said, trying to pull myself together. “It’s so stupid.”

  Ellis laughed. “Oh well, I’m thankful for the work. Gotta keep reminding myself of that. It’s just I’d love to sink my teeth into a really great piece of writing. But I’m paying my dues, I guess... Speaking of which...”

  Great. I knew exactly what question was coming. Why didn’t liquor stores have loyalty cards? I could use one with all the little wine bottles punched out so I could get a free drink. Or three.

  “How’d the audition go?” Ellis asked, just as I knew he would.

  I hesitated.

  “Tessa Juliet Stewart.”

  I groaned and let my head flop back. Okay, so he hadn’t figured out he’d accidentally sexted me, but in truth, I’d almost rather have had that conversation than this one.

  “Tess!”

  “I know, I know.”

  Ellis sighed and I hated that I’d disappointed him. Again.

  “You were so ready for it, Tess,” he said. “You were going to nail it. I don’t see how they could have picked anyone else for the part.”

  I clenched my eyes shut.

  “Why didn’t you go?”

  I shrugged even though he couldn’t see me. We’d had this exact same discussion in person a thousand times before. He knew I was shrugging.

  “I just couldn’t,” I said lamely. “I was there, outside the room for the audition, and, well, I just couldn’t.”

  Ellis was silent so long I almost checked to make sure my cell phone provider hadn’t shut off my service. Given how the day had proceeded, I wouldn’t have been surprised in the slightest. Actually, I was more surprised that it was still working.

  “Next time,” Ellis finally said.

  It was always what he said. Next time, next time, next time. Ellis was an eternal optimist. It was just one of the things I loved about him. And I think he actually meant it when he said, ‘Next time’. He seriously believed the next time he helped me land an audition, helped me practice the lines, helped me get there by paying for an Uber, that I would actually go inside, that I would actually deliver my lines for the casting staff, that I would actually land an acting job.

  Miraculously, I didn’t think those were wasted words for Ellis or a casual platitude or fake sympathies to get me off the line. Ellis really believed in me.

  And I didn’t know why.

  Honestly, I just don’t think I’m the kind of girl that big things happen to. I’m not the kind of girl to get the big part or the hot guy or the delicious bowl of free pasta. I’m the kind of girl life passed by.

  And I just watch it come and go.

  Always watching. Always waiting. Watching, waiting. Watching…waiting…waiting…waiting…

  And just like that, with Ellis on the phone supporting me, and the beat of Jamie’s drumming still in the background, I felt something inside me snap.

  I was tired of waiting for life to come to me.

  I was tired of fantasizing about hot sex.

  I was tired of wimping out on my dream to be an actress. Tired of expecting some casting manager to open the door and offer me the job.

  Why couldn’t I open the door myself? Why was I always waiting for someone else to make the move?

  Because that isn’t how life works. Life doesn’t just come to you. And for so long I’ve been afraid of going after what I truly want in life. And I was sick and tired of watching life go by me as I waited and waited and waited.

  “Tess, hey, you still there?” Ellis’s voice finally came back into focus. “Yo, Tess? Earth to Tess. C’mon, sweetie, you need to answer me because I’m getting worried, and—”

  “I’m going to do that sex study.”

  I blurted it out before I had time to convince myself otherwise. Because if I kept it inside of me I would find any excuse possible not to do the study. If I didn’t say it aloud I would do what I always did: hide, cover up, keep quiet and still and unmoving. I would go back to waiting… waiting… waiting…

  And I was done with waiting.

  “What?!”

  “The one you sexted your friend about.”

  “What the fuck? How do you…oh shit. Oh God. I accidentally added you to… Tess, I’m so sorry.”

  I forced casualness into my tone. “Oh no worries. I admit, I was a little surprised at first—and a whole lot impressed, you’ve got it going on, Ellis—but what really caught my attention was that link to the sex study you shared.”

  Ellis was silent for a minute, and I could hear in that silence how uncomfortable and worried and yes, doubtful, he was. But even so, excitement buzzed in my belly.

  I was going to do it.

  I was going to find a new me. I was done being Most Likely to Stay Vanilla. Done being the Girl Next Door. Done with the whole wallflower thing. I was going to go after life, chase after it, maybe even grope it just a tiny bit. I wanted to move. I wanted to run and dance and fuck and sing under the stars.

  “Yeah,” I said, gaining confidence in my decision. “Yeah, I’m going to do it. The sex study, I mean. I, Tessa Juliet Stewart, am going to do that sex study.”

  “Tessa…” Ellis’s laugh was more the kind of nervous laugh you laugh before someone does something really stupid. “Come on, now. Did you even read the requirements?”

  “Lots of sex. Videotaping. One girl, three guys.”

  “Exactly.”

  I nodded. “Exactly.”

  Ellis sputtered. “What are you talking abo
ut? You, the same Tessa who only shops at grocery stores with self-checkouts, is going to have monitored sex with three dudes? Who are you and what did you do with my best friend?”

  Doubt was already starting to enter my thoughts. I had to quash it. “I’m doing it, Ellis.”

  I heard him groan as he smacked his phone against his forehead. When he was back his voice was almost three octaves higher. “What about the three guys? The study said all four need to come in as a group. I know for a fact you don’t have a foursome lined up.”

  True. I couldn’t even get one date. But although Old Tessa would have sat around for eons waiting for some guy to notice her, new Tessa was about to take the bull by the horns. Or the boys by the dicks, so to speak. “I’ll have to find them, I guess.”

  Okay, so maybe I hadn’t worked out all of the logistical details quite yet. The old Tessa would let that hang her up. But not New Tessa. And I was liking New Tessa.

  “Where? Where are you going to find three guys willing to do this? The sex study surplus store?”

  There definitely weren’t sex study surplus stores, right? But I knew guys. Or at least, I was attracted to several guys. Hell, I'd fantasized about three guys doing me all at once, even before I'd learned about the sex study. Ellis, Cade, and Jamie.

  Ellis, I couldn't ask. He thought the idea of me wanting to do the study was ridiculous.

  And Jamie, even though I loved that kiss we'd shared, wanted more kisses from him, he was an ass and would probably never stop mocking me for asking him, so no.

  But Cade... He was a guy I was attracted to who, if he was at all true to his yoga zen demeanor, seemed safe to ask. He was used to female attention, for one. Lots of it. And even if he said no in the end, he'd probably say it politely. He would be a good starting point.

  “Tess? Where are you going to find three guys?”

  “I don’t know, Ellis,” I said, throwing a hand up in the air. “I’ll have to work on that part. But I’m still doing it.”

  “Tess,” Ellis was practically begging my sanity to return at this point, “Tessa, listen, please listen to me. Don’t do this. It’s crazy! And it’s in no way you!”