Authors: Jessica Gadziala
I
closed my eyes, not wanting to share. Wanting to keep this memory
pure, unexamined. But that was why we were there. To examine. To
figure out what was wrong with me. To work on fixing it.
“I
think it went really well,” I agreed, not wanting to go into
any more detail than that.
I
could feel his eyes on me for a while before he spoke again.
“Thursday, same time,” he said, slowly getting onto his
feet.
I
followed, watching him. “Okay,” I agreed. That gave me a
day and a half to recover. And prepare. He led me out through to his
main office, then the waiting room in silence. When we got to the
front door, he paused, and I knew I had to ask or the suspense would
kill me.
“Dr.
Hud...”
“Chase,”
he corrected, his voice firm.
“Chase,”
I agreed, trying to meet his eyes. “What, exactly, is the next
session? I know you mentioned we would be...” I couldn't even
say it, dropping my eyes.
“We
are each going to take our clothes off,” he supplied, noting my
discomfort and ignoring it. “We will kiss. You will touch me. I
will touch you. But no sexual contact.”
Naked.
I would be naked. He would be naked. And then he expected me to touch
his naked body. And to touch mine. Shit. I really didn't think that
was going to go well and...
“Ava.
In the moment, okay? If you're worried about it while it goes on, we
will address it then. Until then, just don't think about it.”
He reached for the lock, turning it, and opened the door.
I
stepped outside, surprised when he followed me... and locked the
door.
“Okay,”
I agreed, knowing damn well there was no way I wasn't going to stress
about it, but not wanting to tell him that either. “Well, I'll
see you Thursday,” I said, starting away, but he fell into step
with me. “What are you doing?”
“Walking
you to your car,” he supplied like it was obvious. “It's
nighttime, sweetheart. This is a good neighborhood, but even if it
was god damn Utopian, you shouldn't be walking around alone at night
looking like you do.”
I
looked down at my clothes, simple, chaste even. My body decent but
not all that impressive beneath the material. “If you say so.”
“We
need to work on that,” he said as we walked down the empty
street.
“Work
on what?” I asked, shivering slightly against the cool.
“On
your confidence. Because it's fucking ridiculous that you can't see
what everyone else does.”
What
he
does. What
he
sees when
he
looks at
me
.
Oh,
my god.
I
walked into the parking garage, big hulking Chase beside me, his
hands tucked into his pockets, and I felt his eyes on me. When I
walked ahead of him, on my ass. When I walked beside him, on my face
mostly, my breasts, my legs.
“This
is me,” I said, waving a hand to my little blue not
too
old tiny hatchback.
He
nodded, and I fetched my keys, unlocking my door before turning back
to face him, feeling like I needed to offer some kind of goodbye.
“Thanks
for... walking me,” I said, giving him a small smile.
He
nodded stiffly for a second, looking like he was thinking really hard
about something. Then his eyes moved up and caught mine. “We're
outside the office,” he said, oddly, making my brows draw
together, “I'm not supposed to do this,” he said,
bringing a hand up to run through his hair, like he was struggling
with something. “Fuck it,” he said.
His
hand went behind my neck as his lips crashed down onto mine. Crashed.
Not landed. Not pressed. Crashed. Hard. Bruising. Sending a shocked
surge through my body, my arms going to his shoulders instinctively.
He made a low growling sound against my lips, slamming my back up
against my car as his teeth bit into my lower lip, drawing a groan
out of me.
Then
jut as suddenly as it started, he shoved away from me, rubbing a hand
over his brow. “Fuck,” he muttered to himself as I tried
to come to grips with what the hell had just happened. My body felt
electric and suddenly, with his absence, so freaking cold. “Sorry,”
he said, looking at me finally, moving closer. His hand reached out,
running his thumb across my chin and lips, the skin feeling a bit
sensitive thanks to his rough stubble. “That wasn't exactly
professional of me, huh?”
“It's
okay,” I said, swallowing hard.
He
nodded, looking down at my lips for a long second, before moving back
up to my eyes. “You touched me,” he said.
“What?”
I asked, confused.
“You
touched me. When I kissed you. Without being told or asked to. You
just did it.” Holy shit. He was right. I did. That was big.
“Baby steps, but that's really good, Ava,” he said,
smiling slightly. Then he reached beside me, grabbing the handle of
my car door and pulling it open. “I'll see you Thursday,”
he said as I slipped into the car. As he closed the door, I could
swear I heard him say, “I'm looking forward to it.”
Jesus.
After
the Session
The
door had barely clicked closed (quietly, I might add), when Jake came
walking out of his room, this time in a pair of black exercise shorts
and nothing else.
“How
did it go? Did you fuck him? Did you actually come?”
“Oh
my god,” I said, heat rising up in my cheeks for no good
reason, “it doesn't work like that, Jake.”
“That's
disappointing,” he said, shrugging. “You have beard
burn,” he informed me.
“What?”
I asked, moving toward the kitchen, just to have something to do.
“Beard
burn,” he said again, following me, watching as I filled the
kettle and put tea water on the stove, “like when a guy you're
making out with has a beard and it rubs against your skin, love.
Beard burn.”
Well,
shit. I was caught. I brought a hand up to my face, feeling the
sensitive, almost inflamed skin. Beard burn. What an appropriate
term. It felt exactly like rug burn did, a sensation too hard to put
into words.
“So
you kissed him.”
“More
accurately, he kissed me,” I said, turning to the fridge to
look for something to eat. I had been way too nervous to eat anything
substantial before I would see him.
“But
you let him.”
“Yeah,”
I said, dragging out the jelly, accepting that it was going to have
to be a pb&j night, seeing as I hadn't gotten around to food
shopping.
“Well,
this deserves a little celebration,” he said, grabbing the
jelly and putting it back in the fridge. “We're going out.”
“Jake,”
I said, my tone sounding so much like a mom it was almost scary, “it
is a Tuesday night.”
“So
the fuck what?” he asked, grabbing the knob on the stove and
turning off.
“Seriously...
you know I'm not an... out and about kinda person.”
“Well,
until tonight, you weren't a getting kissed kinda person either.
Things change. Come on,” he said, his tone more serious. “I'll
buy you some food. A couple drinks. What harm can be done?”
I
sighed. He was right. And I was hungry. And, really, I could use a
drink or two. “Okay.” I agreed, and he smiled, then
bounded off to his room to change into actual clothes, though I swear
he would go out shirtless if he could get into a bar like that.
Thirty
minutes later, we were in a bar. Black tables and chairs, deep
reddish orange walls. There was a fair amount of people around,
eating, drinking. Being normal. Jake had situated us at the bar,
ordered me food and a martini, got himself a beer. Then as soon as
his beer arrived, he ditched me to go flirt with a table full of
young, pretty tourists.
Honestly,
I should have seen it coming. I was really to blame for thinking he
was genuine about celebrating my little success. Jake was all about
Jake. And that was never going to change.
I
sat there, picking at my appetizer sampler complete with mozzarella
sticks, queso dip and chips, onion rings, and chicken strips.
“What
did I say about being alone at night?”
I
felt myself jump, visibly jump.
Because...
what the actual fuck?
My
head turned as he slid into the seat beside mine, inclining his head
toward the bartender who nodded and moved to make a drink.
“What
are you doing here?” I blurted out, a chip half the way to my
mouth before I realized and put it back down on the plate.
He
gave me a small smile, accepting his drink, something amber in a
rocks glass, from the bartender. “I live across the street,”
he said simply.
I
glanced out the window, despite myself. We were in a nice area. Leaps
and bounds nicer than mine, and mine was decent. Dr. Chase Hudson had
some serious cash. “Oh,” I breathed the word out, looking
down at my food.
“What
are you doing here?” he asked, swirling his drink, but not
actually drinking it.
“See
the tall blonde guy at the table of women behind me?” I asked.
Chase
glanced over his shoulder, then back at me. “Yeah.”
“That's
my roommate. He was supposed to be taking me out for dinner and
drinks.”
Chase
chuckled, shaking his head. “You were right,” he said,
sipping his drink, “he is an asshole.”
“I
really should have known better,” I smiled, rolling my eyes.
“He
really should be treating you better,” he said, looking down at
me. “That's the way you should be thinking,” he told me.
I
shrugged. “He's just a roommate.”
“He
gets the privilege of spending dinner with you and then throws it
away,” Chase insisted.
“I
think you greatly overestimate my dinner conversation abilities,”
I said, attempting levity. He was so god damn intense. It was
disconcerting. Sexy as hell. But it put me on edge.
“Who
needs talk?” he asked. “He could just look at you.”
Wow.
Okay. Alright. So, he just said that.
“He
gets to look at me all the time. It's a small apartment.”
“Lucky
guy,” he mumbled under his breath, but I made it out anyway,
and felt a flutter accompanying it. “So, Ava,” he said,
his tone lighter, conversational, “what do you do for a
living?”
“Oh,”
I said, my brows drawing together. Were we actually going to do the
talking thing? If there was one thing, other than the sex thing, that
I sucked at, it was the talking thing. “Um... I work in an
office.”
His
lips twitched, like he knew what the problem was. And maybe, I don't
know... found it charming. “What kind of office, babe?”
“Oh,
I work at a small non-profit. We try to help get homeless vets up on
their feet, reconnect them with worried relatives. That kind of
thing.”
“Just
a job or something you're passionate about?”
“My
uncle was a vet,” I said, realizing it was the first time I
told the story outside of my office. “He had PTSD and ran off
on his wife and baby... lived on the streets for years before one of
his former platoon buddies happened upon him one day and brought him
back, made sure he got help.”
“How
old were you?”
“Professional
curiosity?” I asked, smirking.
“No,”
he said, shaking his head, looking down for a moment. “Can we
just pretend I'm not... who I am right now? We're just two people at
a bar.”
“If
we were just two people at the bar,” I said, smiling, “we
wouldn't be talking at all.”
He
let out a short, dry laugh. “Tell me.”
“I
was fifteen. He had been missing for two years.”
“So
you knew it was something you wanted to be involved in?”
“Yeah,
I guess. My school counselor pushed me toward a career in social
work. After I graduated, I tried my hand at a few different jobs.
Child services, which was just... too heartbreaking. Then I worked in
a drug rehab place which was... too frustrating. Then I came across
this job. And it was just... a perfect fit.”