by Trisha Wolfe
“He’s not obsessed with me.” My nails dig at the wood as his fingers slip under the edge of my underwear, finding the erogenous spot that makes my voice quaver. “He’s obsessed with you.”
He nips my flesh before he takes the elastic trim between his teeth, tugging my panties away from my body and slowly dragging them down. This time, he doesn’t stop until they’re snuggly around my ankles.
“One and the same,” Grayson says, getting to his feet. He flattens his palm over my pelvis, his other hand clears a space on my desk. “We’re a package deal.” Then, with sure, swift movements, he turns me around and hoists me onto the desk.
I plant my hands behind my back, bracing for balance, as Grayson hovers above. A predator looming over his prey. My gaze sweeps the diagonal scars on his sculpted chest. The tattoo sleeves reaching up his defined arms. I had fantasies that consisted of a scenario much like this during our sessions…and the realization that I’m here, in my office with Grayson, sends a thrill racing through me.
“You like pinning me to desks,” I say, a taunt in my voice.
That slight dimple carves his cheek, his rare, devilish smile making an appearance. “I love pinning you. Period.” He palms my face delicately and tilts my head back as he kisses my lips, savoring me. The coarseness of the starchy uniform slacks rubs against my clit, increasing the throbbing ache between my legs to a sharp pain.
I latch on to his neck to bring him closer, craving all of him at once.
My needy response steals over him with a hard shiver of restraint, then he’s grabbing my ass, fusing our bodies together. He lifts me off the desk with hardly any effort, only breaking the kiss to say, “I want you in that fucking chair.”
The guttural rasp of his voice grates along my skin like his brusque touch, his Irish accent bleeding through. I wrap my legs around his waist, locked to him the way his inked puzzle pieces link together. Uninhibited. Shameless. I grind against the hardness trapped in coarse pants that ignites my senses. Loving the feel of his strained muscles as he carries me to the therapy room to make good on his claim.
He collapses in the patient chair with me on top of him. This is a sacrilege to my profession. I’m spitting in the face of my practice.
And it feels cathartic.
I clutch the headrest, my hair an unruly veil shielding us, as Grayson works my bra off to bare my breasts. He’s not gentle, nearly shredding the flimsy material with unfettered need. The pressure isn’t enough, we’re too far apart still, and he grips the fleshy curves of my hips and forces me harder against his erection. Like starved and depraved savages, we tear at each other. Never enough.
We communicate without words. On a carnal level. Whether we’re fighting or connecting. Challenging each other or submitting to our weaknesses. Conversing or fucking. None of it matters on a topical level—we delve deeper, exploring the cavernous abyss of our psyche, what some might call the soul.
For people with limited emotional range, this is a frenzy.
In a fit of emotive overload, Grayson could profess his love or kill me with an equal measure of indifference. Both would satisfy his overstimulated state, and return him to his comfort zone.
I could fear what I know he’s capable of, but I don’t. His intelligence dictates that he’d never chance a risk like he did today, by coming here. He went against the grain of his nature in doing so. He’s here to reconnect, to feed the hunger that drives both of us toward an unknown destination.
It’s thrilling.
Frightening.
And neither one of us are capable of derailing this course now.
Once I jumped the tracks, I belonged to him, the same way exposing his innermost thoughts makes him mine. It’s more than trust—it’s dependence. We can no longer survive without each other.
Even in the face of discovery. Even with the threat of death.
Lydia would never survive this.
He’d devour her just as he’s devouring me now.
As Grayson ravishes my body, exposing his primal male nature, craving my flesh—I feel powerful. He’s reduced the smartest people to idiots with his mind, and the feel of him losing control beneath me nearly makes me orgasm.
His fingers drive into my hair, gripping at the roots to bare my neck so he can taste me. His stomach muscles flex under my touch as I feel my way down to the closure of his slacks. A sharp hiss lets me know that he’s just as wild with need as I am.
My heart thunders as I pull the clasp apart and yank his pants open. His unguarded thrusts work him free of his boxers, and I wrap my hand around his hard length, loving the way that one action twists his expression. Creased in a mix of pleasure and pain, his eyes flare with a silent challenge.
Lifting up, I slide my sex over his shaft…all the way up to the tip, slicking the smooth skin with my wetness. His dark groan encases us, the agony unbearable as my muscles clench to offset the achy need to feel him inside me.
He bears the torturously slow tease only a few seconds more before he meets the roll of my hips with an eager slam of his, stealing my breath and carving a blistering path right up the middle of my body.
A pleasurable shiver skitters down my back, replacing the spike of pain, and I’m lost—giving in completely as he guides my body to his brutal rhythm.
“God, fuck…” He’s streaming unintelligible profanities, breaking off only to thrust deeper, grip me harder to him, become one.
When the need becomes too much, Grayson kisses me passionately, and his arms anchor around my lower back. He hoists us off the chair and moves to the floor, spreading me out so he can drive inside me once more, eliciting a throaty moan.
My nails sink into his shoulders as he hooks an arm beneath my knee, positioning me where he can fuck me as hard and as deep as he wants with no obstruction. Every time he pulls out, my body rebels, a fiery spasm rolling through my muscles, my veins liquefying with the pulse of adrenaline pumping through my heart.
“Don’t stop,” I say, my breaths ragged around my shaky voice.
The impending climax grips me, the pain all-consuming until he fills me again. Every single thrust sends me spiraling. I arch off the floor, my body tensing, and the feel of him hard against my flesh, following in my wake, detonates a resounding orgasm.
All sounds mute as the tightness pulls everywhere, then the rush. My skin prickles, and still he drives in, one last time, rock-hard and throbbing against my walls. So fucking hot—I wrap myself around him as he groans into my neck.
Our breaths are heavy, merging together in the sudden stillness. The cool air is a relief to my flushed skin. The weight of his body resting on top of mine feels solid. Comforting. Then I feel the wetness trickle from the corners of my eyes. Shock snatches the air from my lungs.
I dab my temple, coming away with a trace of tears.
Grayson pushes onto his elbows, his gaze fierce.
“Adrenaline,” I say in explanation.
But the deep groove between his brows reveals his disbelief. He feathers my dampened hair away from my eyes, his finger tracing the tear track. I hold his gaze, trying to glimpse his thoughts. He says nothing as he presses his lips tenderly to my temple.
The action is so vulnerable, baring his wonder at my emotional state, that I’m awed by his perception. I desperately try to bank my introspective anxieties and place my palm to his cheek, questioning whether this sudden insight is true connection, or curated sentiment.
“What do you feel?” I ask.
His glacier blue eyes flick over my face. “Fascinated.”
It’s an honest answer. Most men would either downplay the moment, terrified, or overblow it, seeped in insecurities. Grayson cannot experience the emotional pull, but he’s aware of it—he knows it exists between us.
I let my hand drift to his back, run my fingers over the tattooed keyhole between his shoulder blades, outlining the patterns and numbers. I’m fascinated by him, too. I was the first moment I saw him.
I skim my nails throu
gh his hair, feeling the scars that are now hidden. “How did it happen?” The question slips out, thoughtless.
And just as quickly, Grayson’s open expression shutters. I read the pain behind his eyes before he shifts his gaze to the wall clock. “That’s another session, doc.”
Then his comforting weight is gone. He grabs the T-shirt off the floor and offers it to me. I use it to drape myself as I head to the office bathroom, snatching my blouse along the way. When I reemerge, Grayson is again dressed in the security uniform and standing in front of the filing cabinet.
A thought flickers through my mind; a question of whether this is the first time Grayson sneaked into my office.
Doubt is a terrible affliction.
“Is there something you need?” I ask as I gather my skirt and underwear from their discarded location. I finish dressing, forcefully pushing doubts aside.
“Yes. I need you inside Nelson’s head,” he says, turning to face me. “You’re already close to him. I can handle Foster.”
“Fine. But I should go.” I check my phone. “If agents are watching, anything longer than two hours is questionable.”
Grayson inclines his head, watching me closely. He stalks toward me, the darkened office concealing his features until he’s right before me. “Stay close to him, but if he gives you any proof that he’s the copycat and that he’s becoming unhinged, leave. Get far away.”
“I can handle myself.”
“I know you can.” He takes the phone from me and sets it aside on the desk. “I’m not worried about your actions. I’m worried about what I’ll do.”
I squint up at him. I hadn’t considered Grayson’s reaction to a threat against me personally. He’s never before had to confront an emotional overload. If Nelson hurt me…what would Grayson be capable of? What would that do to him?
“I understand,” I say.
He grasps my neck, his thumb searching out the pulse of my heartbeat. “Sometimes the past is just the past, London. It doesn’t have any bearing on us now.”
This is in response to my question earlier, and my distant behavior now. Grayson may only be able to impersonate feelings, to blend into society, but that intense study into it makes him a master at deciphering others’ emotions.
I’ve invested countless hours into the study, also. I know that what I glimpsed in the therapy room signifies importance—some tie to his past that he’s desperate to sever.
For now, I nod against his hand, then move into his arms, savoring the last seconds I have with him.
We all have secrets, and I can’t judge too harshly. I’m keeping certain truths from him. Some variations on our trap, and my research into his past. I’ve made a decision that could crumble our already unstable foundation. As his significant other, my actions are considered a betrayal. As his psychologist, that betrayal is far more offensive. This could do irrevocable damage not only to him—but also to us.
But if he won’t give me the answers, I now know where I need to go to find them.
To his homeland. To the one woman who gave Grayson this dark life.
His mother.
13
Russian Roulette
Grayson
To avoid suspicion, I use the facilities at a nearby park to change into my regular street clothes. Then I discard the stolen uniform into a trash bin. I’ve missed the scheduled bus to Portland by less than fifteen minutes. It’s a greater risk, but instead of waiting half an hour in the city where my face is best known for the next bus, I hail a cab.
The clear partition between the driver and me feels foreboding. Reminiscent of the day the police stormed my apartment with a search warrant and hauled me into a squad car. Good times.
Out of habit, I pick up on little details of the driver’s life that’s sporadically placed around the taxi.
His ID states he’s twenty-three. He has a picture of a young woman in the visor. His cell lights up with an image of the same girl. He’s missed three calls from Skylar already, and he promptly sends her to voicemail. I glance in the rearview mirror and note the dark circles under his eyes. He’s too young to carry so much stress.
On closer inspection, I catch a glimpse of an appointment card as he tucks it into the console. The emblazoned letters on the card read: OB-GYN.
The driver is about to embark on a new beginning in his life, and like most of us, he’s fighting the change.
As stolen children, London and I never knew our beginning. It was ripped away by monsters in the night. Thieves of innocence. Our precious first moments in this world tainted, erased.
Unlike London, I have a select number of memories of my life before. I suppose that makes me different in some way—not unique, but rather, conditioned. Less born to this world and more like I’ve adapted.
We were not born the day we took our first breath. We were born the moment we stole it.
I said these words to London, and the truth of that statement still haunts me as much as her darkly golden eyes.
London has been digging into my past.
In the same way that I’m prone to gather details of the driver’s life, London’s office harbors clues to her furtive dealings. Message logs to a forensics’ lab. Searches on her computer on my hometown. A genealogy report.
I could argue that, as a psychologist, London needs to examine and understand my beginning in a professional sense, but she’s mostly just curious. The scars on my body read like a roadmap to her—and she needs to follow those roads to my start. Discover the inciting incident that created the monster.
We were both casualties in a sense. The loss we suffered not mortal but a death of self. Our identities traumatized. Forced to rebuild our psyche with chipped and flawed fragments.
But we were gifted something else in the process.
Insight.
Have you ever received a present only to be disappointed once the shiny wrapping paper was torn away to reveal the contents? What if you never had to feel that disappointment again. Always having an understanding of the inner nature of how things work, of what to expect from others.
Sounds alluring. There’s a tradeoff, though. With this perception comes not just the prospect to never again be disappointed, but to never be surprised, either. That brief moment of astonishment when you get the unexpected.
People live for that shit.
My whole life, London has been my only surprise.
I tore off the wrapping paper and dove in with only a veiled idea of the contents…and she was so much more than I expected.
She’s the glossy present I never dreamed I’d receive.
I desperately want not to break her.
London needs to stop digging.
Muscles tense, I stare into the head beams reflected in the taxi’s side-view mirror. The same blue sedan has been tailing the cab since we left downtown.
“Let me out here,” I tell the driver.
He sends me a confused look in the mirror. “I can’t stop here.”
“Pull onto the median,” I say, growing impatient. I slide fifty dollars through the slat in the divider.
“All right, man. You got it.”
Parked on the side of the highway, I watch the blue sedan pass us. I get out of the cab and motion for the driver to roll the window down. “Marry the girl and get a better job. The choice between being a father and a cab driver should be a no-brainer.”
His eyes widen in alarm, but I pat the taxi’s rooftop and walk off before he finds the words to confront me. What can I say? Deep down, I’m a rather nice guy.
Eastbound, I head across the next highway over. I stop and wait along the side of the median. When I spot the sedan taking the exit up ahead, I curse.
I could run, evade the mystery man—but I’m curious. There’s no line of flashing blue and red lights barreling down the highway. If I’d been reported by someone, the cops would have shown up by now.
The mystery man doesn’t keep me waiting long. The sedan heads this way, coming right
at me. I step into the brush along the highway to conceal myself, but I make sure he spots me first. The car slows to a crawl as it pulls onto the shoulder.
Cars rush past on the highway, and I use the distraction of a blaring horn to dip farther into the buffer of trees. If this guy has been on my tail since Bangor, he’s not giving up now.
He wants me badly. And he wants me to himself.
I clear the trees and enter the back parking lot of a large supercenter. This space is too open, too public. I do a quick scan from the incline and notice a church steeple in the near distance.
I smile. Perfect. Destination decided, I round the lot toward the side of the building. I don’t move too quickly, so as not to lose him. This guy isn’t stealthy, despite what he probably thinks. I can hear his heavy footfalls on the gravel as I ease alongside the building.
The town is a one-shot stop. It’s main purpose to serve travelers passing through. Which means the road is practically vacant once I cut across Main Street. One street lamp sits in front of the otherwise darkened church.
Behind the small brick structure is a graveyard. It’s a little cliché, giving chase in a cemetery, but open gravesites make great conversational pieces.
His footsteps near, and I locate a decent-sized headstone to dip behind. From here, I can make out his wide profile. He’s winded and bends over to catch his breath. Then, as he rights himself, he cups his hand over his mouth and sparks a lighter. A hazy orange flare blooms against the night. Smoke wafts up, a thin tendril slithering toward the streetlight.
He starts in the opposite direction, so I toe up a rock and kick it. The stone smacks a headstone. The man jerks to a stop, then pulls a gun from his holster as he heads into the cemetery. The adrenaline of the hunt surges through my veins like molten lava. It’s intoxicating. Nearly my favorite drug.
