Dipendenza

4.

Dipendenza

Italian. Translation in English: Addiction.

Adrienne wore a smile on her face when she woke up the next morning. Justin left her apartment early. When she woke up, he was gone. She lay naked in her bed. On her bedside table, a cup of Starbucks coffee sat, with a note:

“You’re a fox!”

She smiled again. And because she knew she was completely alone, she couldn’t resist putting a pillow on her face and then finally… she fan-girl screamed.

She didn’t know what had started happening to her. She was shagging the City’s most notorious rake. Well… she shagged the City’s most notorious rake, that is. For two consecutive nights. She didn’t know when she would see him again… if he would even remember her name. Still, she didn’t care. That morning when she woke up, she felt beautiful. She felt adored from head to toe.

How many times did he tell her that she was foxy? How many times did he tell her that she was smart and gorgeous? How many times did he kiss her and touch her in places that made her feel all-woman…even a divine woman?

She stretched out in her bed, still drunk with the passion of his lovemaking. Then she got up and took the cup of Starbucks coffee he left for her. It was still hot, which meant that he left a few minutes before she woke up.

She had a smile on her face all day. When she met with Jill and Yuan that night, she was dressed in a silver halter top, a black skirt and a high-heeled sandal.

“Way to go, Adrienne!” Jill cheered when she saw her.

“Va-va-voom!” Yuan agreed.

“I see, someone got drunk before going to the party, huh!” Jill teased.

“I’m perfectly sober!” Adrienne protested. “I just felt like dressing up.”

“Is this the way you dressed up when you went to Gypsys?”

Adrienne shrugged and looked away from her friends. She knew she had begun blushing. She remembered the night that Justin Adams introduced himself to her and took her virginity away with him before the night was over.

“Well, shall we go in?” Adrienne asked them, changing the subject.

“Come on.”

The minute she stepped into Gypsys, the memories of that shocking night flashed back to her mind. The hot, sultry dance she had with Justin that led to two nights of passion and mind-numbing lovemaking.

If he was the devil…I wouldn’t mind burning in hell for the rest of my damned life.

She knew if she had to do it all over again, she wouldn’t change a thing. She couldn’t resist sleeping with him over and over again.

To hell with Troy. To hell with her mother. To hell with proprieties!

For the first time in the years that they have been the best of friends, Yuan and Jill saw Adrienne order beer. Normally, she would order iced tea.

“I am loving you tonight, dear!” Yuan said. “If I was a man…I mean, if I were straight, I would go out of my way to hit on you.”

Adrienne laughed. “Then you have to be thankful that you are gay. Because I’m not gonna be someone’s prey tonight.”

The minute that went out of her mouth, she caught a glimpse of jet-black hair falling over a pair of lightly-tinted shades.

She had to blink twice to make sure that she wasn’t seeing things. But when she saw the curve on his lips, she knew in that instant that he had been watching her before he went to the bar with his friends.

“Oh my God!” Jill breathed. “Justin Adams is here!”

Yuan looked in the same direction that Jill was looking at. “Right! Manhattan’s rakes are here!”

“And what a handsome crowd they make! Look at them. Three guys, all drop-dead gorgeous,” Jill began. “But add the two guys multiply them by ten, they still would not equal one Justin Adams.”

“You guys talk as if they are a bunch of God’s gift to women!” Adrienne rolled her eyes.

“They could well be,” Yuan countered. “Look! Half of the girls in this bar are practically ogling them.”

“Can’t he take his shades off for a second?” Jill complained about Justin’s eyewear. “It’s dark in here for Christ’s sake!”  Adrienne raised a brow at her. “Does he have to wear those shades all the time?”

Adrienne noticed that Justin wasn’t wearing his usual heavily tinted shades. The ones he has on now are light-tinted, showing a shadow of his eyes, but still refused to give away his true eye color. They looked more like tinted prescription glasses than shades. She actually thought he looked cool.

“Well, you gotta admit, he could pull it off, sweetheart,” Yuan said. “It’s a part of his style, his outfit. And he looks sexy with it.”

“I hope he’s not cross-eyed!” Jill stated. Adrienne had to laugh at that.

“Nah! I think Yuan’s right. It could be just his fashion statement. He wears it, simply because he can!”

“Yeah,” Jill agreed. “He can’t be cross-eyed! I think he’s physically perfect.”

Adrienne nodded at her. But she wasn’t just thinking that Justin Adams was physically perfect. She knew that he was. Even without clothes.

Justin looked solely at the bartender in front of him and then his friends. He didn’t seem like he was checking out the girls around him. Even though many girls tried to catch his attention, he remained oblivious of the stares directed towards him.

A couple of girls even dared to approach their table with probably a very lame excuse to talk to them, or a very daring line out of desperation. Justin just shrugged when a girl said something to him, and then he stood up and patted his friend on the back and left the bar.

Adrienne smiled. All the more did she feel proud of herself. He pursued her. He approached her at the bar and introduced himself to her. She did play hard-to-get, albeit, her efforts proved to be futile, but she liked the idea that she didn’t even have to look his way for him to notice her, and more importantly, flirt with her.

In the sinful game of flirting, she felt she had accomplished a lot more than these girls, in spite of her lack of experience.

“Sweetie, I think your phone is ringing,” Jill shouted at her over the music.

“You heard that?” she shouted back, fishing her phone from her purse.

An unregistered number appeared.

She sighed. This could be Jada’s doing again. She had the habit of giving her number to people who tried to get a feature with Blush.

“Hello!” she shouted over the phone, while covering her other ear.

“Come outside!” a male’s voice told her.

“What? Who…” And somehow her instincts told her something which excited her every nerve.

She stood up.

“Guys, I have to take this call outside.” She said to her friends.

When she got to the reception area where the music wasn’t too loud, she put the phone back to her ear.

“Hello.”

“Come out,” the guy said again.

“Who is this?” she asked.

“I’m hurt. You forgot? Or perhaps I’ve just kissed you senseless last night?” he suggested smugly.

Her heart skipped two beats instead of one, if that was possible at all.

“How did you get this number?” she asked.

“I was a boy scout,” he answered. “Now, get your cute butt outside because I’m waiting for you in my car.”

“Why would I do that?”

“I don’t know. But when you do maybe you’ll find out why.”

Smug!

But she knew what he was trying to say. She would die for a taste of him again. She wanted to look at him straight in the eyes once more and convince herself that she didn’t dream him.

She hung up and sighed. She started to count one to ten to see if the feeling would still be there after ten seconds.

“… seven, eight...”

“Damn!” She found herself walking out of the bar.

Justin’s Ferrari was parked at the front. He opened the door from the inside without getting out, much to her relief. Although, she accepted that she had begun fooling around with him, she still didn’t want to be associated publicly with him.

She quickly got inside his car.

“What do you want?” she demanded.

He smiled mischievously and drove off.

“What? Where are you taking me?” she asked. “I can’t leave…my friends are inside! They will look for me!”

He smiled at her. “Relax, okay?”

He went to the parking lot and parked in a secluded area. Then he stopped the engine and turned to her.

“I just want to kiss you,” he said.

Her breath caught in her throat as she watched him lean over to her and kiss her. Her own arms came to life and wrapped them around his neck. It was a deep and passionate kiss. When he pulled away, her world began spinning once more.

“You look wonderful, by the way,” he told her. “I wanted to say hi, but then I remembered, you don’t want anything to do with me, so I figured your friends don’t know either. I didn’t take the risk.”

“Good. Because I don’t know what lies I would have to spin if they were to ask how I met you.”

He raised a brow. “You could tell them we met at Blush.”

She shook her head. “Jill works at Blush, too. She will ask exactly how, and I wouldn’t know what to say.”

“So you’re telling me you’re not a liar?” he asked seriously, but it seemed she could see laughter in his eyes.

She shook her head. “I’m saying I’m not a good liar.”

His eyes twinkled and then he leaned forward again. “Well, let’s make it more challenging then,” he teased. He kissed her deeply.

She leaned her forehead against his after the kiss. She took in a deep breath, and tried to compose herself. “Justin…the longer I stay here with you, the more difficult it is going to be for me when I get back.”

He chuckled. “You’ve only been gone a few minutes. You could always say Jada asked some people to call you up and arrange for some interviews, and you couldn’t agree on the date and place and they really have to finalize it now.”

“And they would be calling me at midnight?” she asked.

            “It’s a bar. It’s only open at nights,” he replied.

            “And what bar would that be?” she asked.

He laughed. Then he pulled her close to him and kissed her forehead.

“You know what, Miss Prim and Proper, you think too much.” He smiled as he spoke. “As much as I want to make out more, I don’t want to spoil your night out with your friends and make you invent the story of the year to convince them why you have been gone for approximately…twenty minutes.”

He gave her one final kiss on the lips and then he drove back to the front of the bar to drop her off.

Before she got out of his car, he said, “You’re a fox.”

She stared at him and then she quickly got out of his car and headed straight to the ladies’ room. She locked herself inside a cubicle, where she combed her hair and retouched her make-up.

She composed her lines and herself before she went out and headed for her friends.

“My God!” Yuan complained. “You took forever with that phone call!”

“We thought you’d gone home!” Jill said. “Who was it anyway?”

Adrienne shrugged and looked away. If she will lie, she will not look at her friends straight in the eye.

“It’s…Troy,” she said. “He…I don’t know. Nothing that will interest you anyway.”

“Sweetie, if you want to talk about it…”

She shook her head. “Negative. Let’s talk about… men… other men.”

Jill’s and Yuan’s eyes immediately went to the table where Justin and his friends sat.

Justin had just returned to his seat.

“I actually heard he came here for the opening and he picked up a girl.”

“I wonder where she is now.”

“Well, you know Justin Adams,” Yuan began. “He never stays with one girl exclusively. He beds them and then moves on.”

“Well, one night with him is worth a lifetime shag.” Jill chimed in breathlessly. “I haven’t heard of anyone complaining. Except for, maybe those who believed they could become the first lady of Adams Industries. But he’s not the marrying type. That table over there, is full of guys who will take girlfriends for life. I doubt they would want to share their wealth with a woman, anyway…I doubt they would risk splitting their worth.”

“Oh well, haven’t you heard of pre-nuptial agreement?” Adrienne pointed out.

Yuan shrugged. “Oh yeah. You’ll be worth a million dollars after the divorce… nothing more. That’s all you’re going to get, and a thousand heartbreaks for learning that they only married you to get a legal heir.”

“I wonder if Justin Adams grew up away from his parents…if his father had mistresses in every country, and his mother apparently cared for nothing but salon appointments, limitless shopping, and tea room chit-chats with her other rich friends,” Adrienne thought out loud.

“Probably,” Jill assented. “It’s a good explanation as to why he does not commit.”

After getting tired of Justin Adams talk, they all went to the dance floor. Adrienne decided she would have the time of her life. She danced and laughed with her friends. She didn’t spare a single look towards Justin. She didn’t want to see if he spent any time flirting with another woman. She didn’t want the memory of kissing him secretly in his car tainted with the memory of seeing him flirt with another girl the same way that he flirted with her when they first met.

They decided to call it a night by two in the morning. Adrienne felt tipsy and exhausted. But she felt wonderful… beautiful.

Justin and his friends were still at the bar when they left.

“I can’t believe I didn’t see some action.” Yuan said.

“What action?”

“You know…I was hoping to see him flirt with some girl so I could know what his type is,” Yuan said. “Does he like brunettes, or redheads or blondes?”

“With Justin’s history…all of the above.” Jill laughed.

When they hailed a cab, Adrienne’s phone beeped.

She recognized the number as Justin’s. She read the message nervously.

Are you going straight home?

She replied: Yes.

After a minute, she received another response: Don’t lock your door. ;-)

Her heart thumped nervously in her chest.

When she got home, she hopped into the shower quickly.

What is wrong with me?

She barely said goodbye to Yuan and Jill when they dropped her off in front of her building. She ran to the elevator and almost slipped on her front door.

Her heart was beating faster than ever. After she showered, she put on a spaghetti-strapped silk top, and matching silk shorts. She towel-dried her hair, and finally went out to the front door to make sure that she hadn’t locked it.

She knew it was a dangerous thing to do. But then again, she considered the tough security as one of the advantages of having an expensive A-list apartment.

She lay on her bed, hugged her body pillow and closed her eyes. But she knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep. She essentially waited for him—and the fulfillment of his promise.

Her heart skipped another beat when she heard her front door open and close. She turned to her bedroom door and found Justin standing there, wearing a white shirt and a pair of jeans. He still had his shades up on his head. He must have gone straight to her flat when he got to their floor.

He smiled at her wickedly. And then he walked towards the bed and got into it next to her. Without a word, he leaned over, kissed her passionately and started a wild ride of passion that Adrienne wished would never end.

She woke up the next day by the sound of her answering machine. She still liked some old technology, so she still kept a landline and an old answering machine.

“Wake up! Wake up! Hangover or not we are coming up!” She heard Yuan’s voice on the phone.

She panicked. She stood up immediately from the bed and got hold of her bathrobe. She saw that Justin had gotten up already and began to dress quickly.