Deep Consuming Addiction

Chapter 24

✨The Distraction That Failed.✨

Ari Darven

The elevator doors slid shut with a quiet hiss.

Ari stood alone inside the mirrored box, the reflection of his rigid posture staring back at him from every angle. His jaw tightened as the numbers slowly descended.

Leave me alone.

The words returned again, sharp and unwelcome.

His hand flexed at his side.

No one spoke to him that way. No one dismissed him like that and walked away untouched.

Yet she had.

Elena hadn’t looked afraid. She hadn’t looked impressed either.

She had simply pushed him away.

The glass doors of the office building slid open behind him with a quiet mechanical hum, but Ari barely noticed.

The night air was cooler than he expected, brushing against the heat still simmering under his skin. His jaw tightened as he descended the steps, the echo of her voice replaying in his head like a taunt he could not silence.

The words repeated, sharp and stubborn.

Ari scoffed under his breath as he reached his car. He was not the kind of man people dismissed. He certainly was not the kind who simply walked away because someone told him to.

Yet there he was… walking out into the night alone.

He slid into the driver’s seat, the door shutting with a heavy thud. The city lights reflected across the windshield while he loosened the knot of his tie slightly, his mind still burning with the image of her.

Elena.

Her soft mouth set in defiance.

Those fierce eyes staring at him like he was something she refused to bow to.

It irritated him more than it should have.

His phone was already in his hand before he fully thought it through. He dialed without hesitation.

“Come to my house now.”

He ended the call before the woman on the other end could answer.

Ari tossed the phone onto the passenger seat and started the engine. The low purr of the car filled the quiet street as he pulled away from the curb.

He didn’t ask if she was free.

He never did.

Women who involved themselves with Ari understood the arrangement from the beginning. They enjoyed the luxury, the gifts, the attention — and in return they made themselves available when he called.

It had always been simple.

Clean.

Temporary.

Exactly how he preferred it.

Tonight, however, his mind was anything but clean.

His grip tightened on the steering wheel as he drove through the city streets.

He needed a distraction.

Needed silence in his head.

Needed something to drown out the memory of Elena’s voice.

By the time he arrived at the apartment he kept in the city, the anger had settled deeper in his chest — heavy and restless.

This place was separate from his penthouse.

Separate from his real life.

No one came here unless he wanted them to.

The elevator ride up was quiet. When the doors opened, the apartment lights were already on.

Of course she was there.

Ari stepped inside, closing the door behind him slowly.

She stood near the large window overlooking the city, waiting.

The woman had clearly prepared for him.

Faux leather clung to her body — a structured bra with thin straps and shining hardware, matching pieces hugging her hips, gold chains catching the light when she moved. A harness framed her waist and shoulders, leading down to a garter belt that rested against her thighs.

Everything about the outfit was meant to tempt.

She turned toward him with a soft smile that quickly shifted into something more seductive.

“There you are,” she purred.

Her hips swayed slowly as she approached him, fingers gliding over the straps of her lingerie. One by one she began loosening them, letting the pieces fall away in a slow, practiced performance.

She knew exactly what men liked.

She knew exactly what Ari liked.

Usually.

But Ari barely noticed.

She stepped closer, her fingers gliding slowly down the gold chain resting against her waist.

“Rough day?” she asked softly.

Ari didn’t answer.

He watched her move, watched the practiced way she shifted her hips, the slow teasing smile she offered him.

Any other night he would have pulled her close already.

Tonight the sight felt distant.

Artificial.

Like watching a performance he had seen too many times.

His mind wasn’t in the room.

It was somewhere else entirely.

Another woman.

Another pair of eyes.

Another body.

Not dressed in chains and leather.

Elena.

The fierce internal investigator who challenged him with every word, every look, every stubborn refusal to bend.

The woman who had told him to leave her alone.

The dancer in front of him stepped closer, clearly sensing something was wrong. Still determined, she lowered herself to her knees before him.

Ari leaned back into the couch, exhaling slowly as he loosened his tie.

His head tipped against the backrest, eyes half-closed.

She crawled toward him, graceful and deliberate.

Her hands moved to his belt, her fingers working at the zipper of his trousers like she had done many times before.

She knew the routine.

Except tonight something in him recoiled.

The moment her hand brushed him, Ari’s hand closed around her wrist.

Firm.

Not violent.

But final.

She looked up at him in surprise.

“You should leave,” he said quietly.

For a moment she simply stared at him, clearly stunned.

No one left Ari’s apartment early.

No one was dismissed like this.

She shifted slightly, clearly about to try again, leaning closer as if she could remind him what he had called her here for.

Ari’s expression hardened.

Cold.

Immovable.

“Leave,” he said, the finality in his voice leaving no room for argument.

She froze for a moment where she stood beside him, her hand still resting lightly against his belt. Slowly, she lifted her eyes to his face, searching for the usual spark of hunger she was used to seeing there.

But tonight there was nothing.

Just that hard, distant look.

Her shoulders sank a little as she realized he meant it.

Without another word, she stood. She gathered her coat from the chair nearby, pulling it over herself as the seductive confidence she arrived with faded into mild irritation.

“Call me when you’re in a better mood,” Nyx muttered.

She lingered near the door for a moment after pulling on her coat.

Her eyes drifted back to Ari where he sat on the couch, his head tilted slightly back, his tie loosened, his expression distant. For a few seconds she simply watched him.

She knew the man well enough.

Ari was a passionate and skilled lover when he chose to be. Dominant. Controlled. The kind of man who took what he wanted without hesitation. Most nights women left this apartment flushed and satisfied, grateful even for the attention he gave them.

But tonight he had looked through her as if she weren’t there at all.

She shifted the strap of her bag over her shoulder, studying the hard line of his jaw.

She also knew something else about him.

Ari was not a man anyone wanted to see angry. He is the kind of man who commanded a room without even raising his voice. Women usually left his company breathless and eager to return.

But she also knew something else.

She would never want to meet an angry Ari.

He had demanded her presence without question earlier, and like always she had come. Yet now he had dismissed her just as easily, like a thought he no longer needed.

It stung more than she cared to admit.

Still, she wasn’t foolish enough to challenge him.

The door clicked shut behind her.

“Call me when you're in a better mood,” she had said before leaving.

Now, standing in the quiet hallway outside the apartment, she exhaled slowly.

Something had unsettled him tonight.

And whoever had managed to occupy Ari’s mind enough to make him turn her away…

That woman must be something dangerous.

Then she turned and walked away, the soft click of the door leaving Ari alone with whatever thoughts had made him send her away.

Silence filled the apartment.

Ari remained on the couch for a long moment, staring at nothing.

Then slowly, he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.

The silence pressed in around him, but his mind refused to settle.

Without warning, the memory returned.

Clear. Sharp.

He could see Elena exactly as she had been standing earlier that day.

Her back straight. Her chin lifted just slightly in that stubborn way of hers. Those dark eyes fixed on him without a hint of hesitation.

His hand moved unconsciously, brushing against his own thigh as his mind drifted again.

Not to the woman who had just left.

But to Elena Vale.

He could almost feel it again.

The brief moment that night in her apartment.

His hand had rested against her thigh then, firm but deliberate, testing the boundary between them. He had kissed them.

For a moment she had frozen.

He remembered the quick breath she drew, the tension that ran through her body beneath his palm.

The warmth of her skin under his palm.

Her sharp intake of breath.

And the way she had pushed him away.

Ari exhaled slowly, rubbing a hand over his face.

For the first time in years, distraction had failed him.

And the woman responsible for that failure wasn’t even in the room.

Then he stood and crossed the room slowly, pouring himself a drink from the crystal decanter on the bar.

The whiskey burned down his throat, but it did nothing to quiet his mind.

He moved toward the window, the city lights stretching endlessly below him.

His fingers brushed unconsciously over his palm.

He could still remember the warmth of her thigh beneath his hand.

The quick breath she drew.

And the way she shoved him away.

Her expression had hardened, but there was fire in her eyes when she looked at him.

Ari stared out into the night, his expression darkening.

Leave me alone.

“That,” he muttered quietly,

“is not going to happen.”

His phone sat on the table beside him.

For a moment, Ari actually picked it up.

Elena’s number stared back at him from the screen.

His thumb hovered over the call button.

After a few seconds, he tossed the phone back down.

Not tonight.

“Leave me alone,” she had said.

Not softly.

Not nervously.

Like a command.

Ari exhaled slowly, staring at the empty room.

Most women softened under his attention.

Elena had done the opposite.

And for reasons he couldn’t quite explain, that only made her linger in his mind even more.