by Ivy Jordan
She offered me a cup of tea, which I turned down—I wasn’t a fan of tea and preferred coffee, but I hadn’t had coffee in some time. She sat down in her chair, and I noticed she wasn’t wearing her glasses today. Part of me wanted to believe that she’d dressed this way to get attention from me. It would at least make me feel better about noticing it. But I had no way of asking her, and she had no way of bringing it up, and so we began the session as though I weren’t moments away from absolutely losing my mind.
“Are you doing alright today?” She asked.
I nodded and thought about the night before. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m okay.”
“You seem like something’s bothering you.”
Something was bothering me, but it wasn’t something that I could tell her. I didn’t want to lie and say that I was fine—that would be an obvious lie. So instead, I decided to tell her something that wasn’t untrue. “I’ve been having some trouble sleeping,” I said.
“Oh? Nightmares?”
“Sort of.” I ran a hand through my hair. “I mean, I think they are. I wake up, and I’m all panicked. But I never remember what any of it was about. I just know that I’m freaking out, you know?”
Quinn clicked her pen. “Do you get a cold sweat, hard time breathing, pounding heart?”
“Yeah.”
“And you don’t remember what they are when you wake up?”
“Right. It’s weird. It takes me a few seconds to orient myself, and then I’m just… awake.” I shook my head. “And it’s hard for me to fall asleep after.”
She took a few notes. “That’s probably night terrors. People who get those often say that they don’t know what happened in the dream, but it’s kind of like an unconscious panic attack.”
“Huh.” I shrugged. “They’re a pain, in any case.”
“They usually happen due to some kind of disturbance,” she explained further. She tilted her head slightly. “They’re common in victims of PTSD, for example.”
I stared at her for a moment, and I frowned. I didn’t want to tell her that she was wrong, but at the same time, she couldn’t be right. “I don’t know if that’s really enough to determine that I have PTSD.”
“No, it’s not,” she agreed. “I haven’t been seeing you long enough to make any kind of diagnosis. But it is enough to tell me that there might be something that happened overseas after all. Or, hell, maybe something that happened before you went overseas.”
She was onto me, then. It seemed there wasn’t a secret I could keep from her. There weren’t any secrets that I wanted to keep from her, either, except the ones that might make her look at me with disgust. Because, in the back of my mind, I still wanted her to like me. It was stupid and absurd, but it was true.
“I…” I frowned and furrowed my brow. “I, um, I’m still bothered some by some of what happened. Some of the things I saw, anyway, some of the things I, um…” I shook my head, surprised at my own inability to talk about it.
Quinn didn’t say anything. She watched me without pity, without that awful look people got where they wanted, in some sense, to hear a horrible war story. I saw it often in civilians. They yearned for stories about bodies being blown apart. They ached for blood because they had no idea what it was really like.
There was none of that in the way she watched me. She was merely waiting, waiting to see if I’d finish my story, if I’d leave off. It was the most patient look I’d gotten since I came home, without demand or neediness.
I wanted her to look at me with neediness, but a different sort. The thoughts began to bubble to mind again, and I pushed them down, opting to continue talking instead of thinking about my name on her lips as…
“I don’t think I can talk about the specifics,” I said. I cleared my throat. “I, um, I don’t think I can talk about exactly… Can’t tell the stories.”
Quinn nodded, finally having her answer, and she jotted it down. How could she sit there and not sense the tension in the room? I must be imagining it. I was confusing this entire relationship with my horrible, horrible case of blue balls. It was shameful. I wanted to be ashamed but couldn’t manage it.
“That’s perfectly fine,” Quinn said. “Honestly, just that you admitted you had something happen is a big step. You’re acknowledging the problem.”
I hadn’t acknowledged my biggest and most current problem. But, Quinn didn’t need to know that right at this moment. I nodded, offering a terse smile.
“And of course, you know that this is all confidential,” Quinn reminded me.
“I know,” I said. Of course. Because she was my doctor, and I was her patient, and this was all perfectly fucking professional.
We spoke mainly about my childhood for the rest of the session, not really making any breakthroughs or discussing anything important. I didn’t want to disclose anything further but did want to talk about something to distract from my inability to get my mind off of her in the worst way possible.
When the session was through, I stood up. “Thank you,” I said, and started to dart out the door.
“Wait, Sawyer.”
When I turned around, she had her bottom lip in her teeth. If I could have taken her right there, I would have done it. I took a breath to steady myself.
“I was thinking…” Quinn shook her head. “Look, I was thinking that maybe you should see someone else.”
Shit. I’d done something. I’d given myself away. I knew for a fact I didn’t have a boner, and I hadn’t made any lewd comments, so I wasn’t sure what I’d done, but I’d done something to betray my intentions. “What?”
“Not that there’s any problem,” Quinn said. “I was just thinking you should see someone else because I… I’d like to get to know you better. Outside of here. I want to go to dinner with you.”
I stared at her, unsure of what exactly to say. All of a sudden I wasn’t sure that I’d ever known how to speak. “I don’t want to see someone else.”
“But I…”
A sense of dread filled my stomach. I wouldn’t be able to talk this easily to anyone else. No one else listened this well. I walked forward and, despite the muscles in my body that screamed at me not to do it, took her hand in mine.
“You might be the only one who can help me,” I said carefully.
She stared at me, eyes wide. I could see the red coming to the surface of her cheeks, and her mouth parted slightly. I’d gone too far, and yet not far enough. She didn’t move away. The silence hung in the air like an impenetrable cloud.
She leaned forward, and I claimed her mouth in a kiss.
Chapter Fourteen
QUINN
We stood so near one another, and it felt alien, this closeness. When he took my hand, I nearly jerked back because I knew that we shouldn’t be touching like that. We shouldn’t have been touching at all. I should have been ordering him out of my office.
Instead, I leaned forward, and he leaned down, and he kissed me. I could have cried with happiness just to finally feel his lips on mine, the gentle scratch of his stubble against my cheek when he pulled away slightly.
Before he could say anything, I pressed my mouth back against his. There was something hungry about this. I wanted nothing more than to feel his body against mine, and I could tell that he wanted much of the same. We didn’t need to beat around the bush, then. I paused for a moment to make sure the blinds were drawn—I didn’t want any strangers walking into this.
He pulled me closer by the waist, mouth against my cheek, against my neck. I stumbled backward and the backs of my legs hit the couch. How badly I’d wanted this, how desperately I’d felt for this, it nearly made me ashamed. I pressed myself against him.
His hands moved down to my ass, and he fit his leg neatly between the both of mine and squeezed, grinding against me in the process. I groaned into his mouth, almost too drunk on sheer desire to press my tongue against his. There was no way to get close enough.
One of his hands found its way under my shirt, and I fe
lt a sure, confident squeeze on my breast. I moaned my consent and broke away to toss the garment off over my head, and Sawyer made surprisingly quick work of my bra before taking his own shirt off.
I had never noticed his tattoos before. How had I not noticed? It occurred to me that every time I’d seen him, he’d worn a long-sleeve shirt, and this must be why. I had little time to take him in, though. He moved us, pressing me against a wall.
“Is it too late to be professional, Dr. Rodgers?” he asked, my name a low growl on his lips. I’d never wanted someone more, never felt such a lust in my blood.
“Terribly too late, I’m afraid,” I confirmed, rolling my hips up against him.
He cursed and twisted my nipple almost harshly between his fingers. I yelped, and he chuckled, kissing my neck again. He trailed his kisses lower until his mouth, like a firebrand, was against my chest. Teeth, tongue, heat against my breasts, but he always knew just when to back off, and he didn’t linger too long.
“I’ve been wanting this,” he admitted, speaking against my stomach. “I’ve been sitting on that couch…” he shook his head.
He’d started to talk dirty, and I needed to hear the rest of it. “What were you thinking?” I asked, nearly panting. His fingers moved in small motions up my thigh, up my skirt. He pulled my legs farther apart, sitting on his knees.
“I was thinking about what you looked like,” he said, pressing another kiss, this one on my hip. His hand moved further up my thigh, brushing the sensitive skin up higher. “About how you left your hair down. Like you were daring me to take you in your office.”
His hand rested against my underwear, moving lazily, like he had all the time in the world. My mouth opened, and no words could come out. My underwear came off, and I felt it hit my ankles.
“Is that what you want to do?” I asked, as though we weren’t halfway through the process already. “Take me in my office?”
He said nothing, only pressed his fingers to the folds of my sex. He found my clit and circled it. I buried my fingers in his hair and drove my hips up, trying to force him to bear down, and he evaded me.
“Is that what you wanted?” he asked. “After all the effort we’ve gone to for keeping things professional?” As he said ‘professional,’ he dragged his thumb, and I closed my eyes.
“Yes. Yes, yes.”
“You wanted me to take you in your office?” He pressed two fingers inside me, meeting little resistance, and curled them towards him.
I could hardly answer. His thumb continued to grind against me, fingers pumping steadily in and out of me. I could feel that I was going to come.
He stopped. “Is that a yes, Quinn?”
“Fuck, yes. Yes, please. Please.” I stared at him, entirely helpless, subject to his will.
He stood up and turned me over, moved me like I weighed less than nothing. Instead of bending me over the desk, which might have been painful, he merely turned me towards it, and I pressed my hands to the surface. I pushed my ass towards him, still with that skirt on, inviting him closer.
I was completely out of my mind. I was completely out of my mind, and he was completely out of his, and I didn’t want to go back.
“Fucking hell,” he muttered behind me. It thrilled me to know he liked what he saw.
One of his strong hands found my waist, and he pulled me up slightly. I took a deep breath in and felt the hot length of him pressing against me. He eased himself into me oddly carefully for the aggressive encounter we’d had so far. He filled me slowly, almost agonizingly slowly, inch by inch until he was seated inside me.
I could hear his breathing, ragged and hard, as he began to move in and out. He found a rhythm easily, and I could hear myself moaning, almost crying. I sat up slightly, and he reached around to grab one of my breasts, pulling down on the nipple. I cried out, and at that moment, he moved his hand between my legs and worked my clit with an expertise that made me burst.
I lost myself then, hopelessly jutting back against him, crying out in his arms. When I began to come down, he let out a small shout behind me and pulled away suddenly.
When I turned around, the sight of him, naked in front me with his expression dazed, made me smile. I pulled him down against me to kiss him again.
He finally pulled away and pressed a kiss to my cheek. “Are you on birth control?” he asked me.
It was an odd question to ask, but, to be fair, one we should have considered beforehand. “Yeah,” I answered. “Have been since I was a teenager.”
We hadn’t used a condom. Still, I didn’t have any STD’s, and I doubted that he did. Some part of me started to panic and remember all the statistics—there was no way to be sure without a condom, after all, and he could lie about having an STD. I could go to the doctor the next day, at least. But then, I might have to explain that to the doctor.
I’d had sex with a patient. I pulled my skirt back on and watched as Sawyer pulled his jeans back on. Then my bra, cup by cup, and my blouse on haphazardly. I’d had sex with a patient that I had serious concerns about. This person had told me earlier that very day that he was still troubled by what he saw overseas, and expressed disdain at seeing another therapist.
I could have genuinely destroyed his chances at a recovery. I began to rack my brain for some kind of excuse for myself. There had been sexual tension from the get-go—I should have told him to see someone else much sooner. I had certainly consented to this, and so had he, but one of us should have stopped.
We’d been making progress, and now we’d set that progress back. I couldn’t expect him to see me as a professional after this. I couldn’t expect to see him as only a patient. I didn’t want to see him as only a patient. A wave of dread hit me, leaving me almost nauseated. I felt like shit, and yet still some part of me wanted him to bend me back over that desk, to see how much further he could take me, as if we hadn’t done enough to damage this relationship.
What had happened? I could barely wrap my mind around this. Everything spiraled out of control so quickly, and now I couldn’t regain that control. I pulled my hair up in a ponytail, and he pulled his shirt back on—I’d forgotten to take stock of his tattoos. Would I get the chance again?
I couldn’t see him again, surely. This was all entirely unprofessional. Watching him buckle his belt, I didn’t want to see him walk out and never return. It would hurt too much to see him simply vanish into the night.
As if reading my mind, Sawyer looked at me. We stayed quiet for a few seconds—it seemed that neither of us was sure what had come over us. In a moment of exhilaration, we’d simply lost control, and now we didn’t know where to go from here.
“I’ll see you on Monday, yeah?” Sawyer smiled at me, and there was something reassuring about it. Like he knew that I was worried that we had blown everything here.
“Yeah, you have an appointment,” I said. I wanted to clarify that he was coming in for an appointment and not offering to take me out to dinner again. Although, what we’d just done did a lot more to suggest intent than a dinner date would.
He nodded to me, and I felt the need to clarify further.
“You’re coming in, right?” I asked.
He smiled. “Wouldn’t miss it,” he said.
He left, and I ran my hands through my hair, trying not to berate myself. Was he going to come back expecting more sex? It wouldn’t be ridiculous for him to assume that now that was the agreement. Have some flirting in the form of a therapy session and then have mildly raunchy sex three times a week? That sounded like something out of a porn. Hell, this entire thing was something out of a porn. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.
I still had a handle on this. We couldn’t recover a doctor-patient relationship after he’d bent me over my own desk, no, but we could still work with him. I thought about what Babs said about having a bigger impact on him from a romantic standpoint. Even if I exerted that romantic standpoint from the office, maybe it could still work out.
I stared at the door
and started up a pot of tea. I hoped, dearly, that this wouldn’t change things too much.
Chapter Fifteen
SAWYER
The day after my meeting-turned-encounter with Quinn, I was still reeling a bit. I’d done my best to work until I was too tired to think about it, but when Saturday morning rolled around, I still felt disoriented. The whole thing should have left me feeling relaxed, confident, satisfied: the things I was used to associating with sex. Instead, I felt confused.
I was more than eager to get dressed and go to Pete’s to get more work in. He’d started to trust me with more of his equipment, and now I could maintain his personal vegetable garden while he ran some of the machinery around the fields. I pulled into the driveway and made my way to the garden, grabbing a hoe and some gloves on the way.
Pete was already out there, knees in the dirt. He gave me a grin when I walked up to him.
“Hey, there!” Pete wiped his forehead, leaving a thin layer of dirt in the wake of his glove. “I thought I’d join you out here today. We’re gonna get off early and go down to George’s for some drinks.”
I smiled at the proposition. I hadn’t gone out with Pete in some time, and he’d suggested we go get a drink the day I got back.
“Sounds good,” I said, and I knelt down next to him to start potting some tomato plants that needed to be put in the ground.
“You don’t have an appointment today, do you?” Pete asked.
“No,” I said. “Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.” The mention of the therapist nearly made me blush. I felt like I’d broken some kind of law—except in my lifetime, I’d already broken the law, and I hadn’t felt nearly this bad about it.
“Shit, that’s a lot,” Pete shook his head. “They giving you medicine?”
“Nope. Not yet.”
“How’s the therapist? Quinn better be one hell of a doctor if you’re seeing her three times a week.”
I patted the dirt around the newly planted tomato plant. “She’s, uh, she’s good.”
“Good? You still having trouble with her? Your emotions and all?” Pete seemed to remember the conversation we’d had when I’d admitted I liked her. Hell, he’d been the one to point her out to me in the first place. Part of me wanted to blame the whole situation on Pete and claim total innocence.
