Key to Redemption

by Talia Gryphon

  She was too surprised to speak at first so he continued, taking her by the shoulders and shaking her abruptly. “Answer me, because I will not do that. Is that what you want? Is that what women need? Or just what you need?”

  Gray green eyes searched her face, confusion and pain etched on the classic features imploringly as he released her shoulders and cupped her face in his hands. “Why, Gillian, why?”

  Centering herself, she opened her empathy to him, bracing for the overwhelming onslaught that was almost visibly whirling in the room. It hit her like a slap in the face. Perrin was furious, probably for the first time in ages, but beneath that was fear and worry for her. He had watched Daed “manhandle” her, as he put it, saw her put up a fight, then watched as they seemingly made up.

  Holy Mother of Earth, he thought she and Daed were lovers. He’d never seen a man and a woman who were friends or lovers in real life. Perrin’s only socialization and points of reference came from the elegance and formality of the stage and the opera, where people didn’t act like that.

  If a man put his hands on a woman’s backside, either to caress or strike, it meant she had a relationship of some kind with him: father, brother, lover, husband. Then the man definitely didn’t just let it go and walk off, nor did the woman just let it go with no tears, no arguments. Especially a woman like Gillian. It was all very confusing.

  Gently she covered his hands with her own. “Perrin, please let me explain what you saw.”

  “He struck you, Gillian.”

  “Yeah, he did. But it didn’t hurt and he didn’t mean it to hurt. He was teasing me, that’s all. Just friendly banter, nothing more than that.”

  The other side of his face seemed to freeze into a twin of the masked one and he stiffened, dropping his hands away from her. Understanding filtered into the marvelous eyes. Regrettably it was the wrong conclusion. “That man is someone important in your life, yet he allows you to be here, with me?”

  It was actually more of a statement than a question, but Gill knew she’d better head all this off before Perrin became totally disillusioned and crawled back into his safe little shell. If that happened, she’d have to kill Daed for undoing her progress so far, and they really needed a psychiatrist of his caliber and expertise at the Institute.

  “Perrin, sit down.” She didn’t mean to bark it like an order, but her patience was now officially shot so her voice was harsher than she had intended. His eyes widened, then narrowed, but he didn’t move and remained standing, looking down at her. Hmmmm, maybe a little alpha there after all. Mexican standoff. Shit.

  Power struggles with patients were always a bad idea. “Fine, stand if you want to. I’m sitting.” She plopped onto the oversize couch, bounced once, then put her feet up, crossing her legs and arms and glaring at Perrin. “You want to yell at me, yell. Tell me you’re disappointed in me, say whatever it is you have to say, then shut up and let me tell you what just happened.”

  She leaned forward a little for emphasis. “Because, Perrin, I am not giving up on you. I am not walking away from you, and we are going to resolve this, now. Tonight.” She leaned back and rubbed her forehead against the headache she was getting.

  Silence. She peered out at him between her fingers. He hadn’t moved. “Perhaps tonight is a bad time, Dr. Key. Your lover is home; your friends are here. Why do you not go join them and we can pursue this conversation at a later date. I am certain they are missing you.” Damn, he gave good voice, even when he was telling her to go to hell.

  “Perrin, Daed Aristophenes is not my lover. What he used to be was my boss in the Marine Corps. Now he’s just an asshole, but he’s a psychiatrically proficient asshole and we need him. He’s here to work with us at the Institute. We don’t get along, quite frankly, so he goes out of his way to piss me off because I will not fucking go out with him nor will I be his lover.”

  The former theatre ghost didn’t know whether to be more shocked by her language or by the content of what she was saying. “I will hear you out, then.”

  He sat down on the edge of the sofa and turned toward her for a change; elegant, handsome; clothes, hair, nails and boots spotless and perfect. He cut quite a noble and dynamic picture. She doubted if he knew it.

  “Okay, listen until I get through, understand?” He nodded his agreement, his eyes never leaving her face.

  It took about an hour, but she finally got it across to Perrin that Daed really was a phenomenally good psychiatrist as well as a devious, instigating shit, and that what he saw translated into play between friends and former service buddies. She also made it clear that neither Daed nor Kimber knew Perrin was in this house, so none of it had been a display for his viewing benefit. He visibly relaxed as she talked, giving her hope that this wasn’t totally blown out of the water.

  “I need to tell you, though,” she went on, unbuckling her sword and laying it and the gauntlets aside, “that if you’re unhappy with me, upset about this situation, want a new therapist, any of it, I’ll get Helmut down here and you can make a formal complaint to him. We’ll get you a new therapist, let you stay here, whatever you want.” Reaching out, she meant to take his hand, but he jerked back. Now what?

  “Why would you think I want a new therapist? Do you want to be rid of me?” He was genuinely surprised.

  “No, of course not, Perrin, I love working with you. I just want you to be happy. If I make you uncomfortable after all this time, then I want you to know you have the option to reject me. I am certainly not rejecting you. Okay?” Her admiration for his courage, his nature, his beauty, his talent, all went into the intense look she gave him.

  “You truly are not sorry you have taken me as a patient? No second thoughts? No disgust about my touching you?”

  Now she was puzzled. “Perrin, why would you think that? I have never given you any indication that I was uncomfortable or that I dreaded us being together sexually.”

  A real smile graced his face, and she could feel the shift in him again. Then his eyes dropped and he said softly in a voice whose very pitch brought unrealized low heat to her, “I would like to be your friend and your lover, Gillian. I have never known the casual familiarity with anyone that you have with your friends. I have never had a friend.”

  The mask turned away. He wasn’t feeling sorry for himself, just stating a fact. Gill’s heart went out to him, but she kept it professional. He was too vulnerable right now for anything but the truth.

  “I would like to be your friend too, Perrin, and your lover. I will tell you something that I have never told another patient.” She shifted on the couch and pulled her legs up under her, her posture totally open to him. “If I had met you outside of this situation, at the theatre or at a coffeehouse, just a man and a woman, meeting one night, I would have been attracted to you and I would not have hesitated to show you that interest.”

  “Oh, Gillian, you do not know what lies beneath this mask or you would not speak so.” Perrin rose and turned away from her. “If you are afraid that I do not understand this is a professional relationship, I do. I know you cannot care for me in the manner you speak of. I know that you are here to help a man who is hanging on to his sanity by a thread feel like a man and not like an outcast creature.”

  The mask. He’d brought it up so she went with it. “I’m glad you understand the nature of this relationship now, Perrin. I can’t be friends or lovers or have any contact with you for a year after we terminate our professional relationship. After that time, I hope that you will have found your way in life and feel like a whole man, as you should.” Now she got up and went to him, moving around in front of him so that he had to look at her.

  “But understand that I wish that for you because I hope I am skilled enough to help you make it to that point. It has nothing to do with your face. I have to let you go at the end of therapy because it is my job to let you go.” Slowly she reached up and lightly drew her fingers down the mask. It was leather and molded to his face. To his credit, Perrin barely f
linched.

  “If this comes off, it will be you who does the removing, Perrin. I won’t do it. I want you to trust me enough that you will remove it without fear of my reaction. Because you will know for certain that whatever is beneath this covering can’t take away from the whole man that I see standing in front of me.”

  Pain, gratitude, fear, disbelief, all flashed through his eyes and he moved to take her in his arms. Gillian allowed it, standing passive again but knowing she needed to move this along.

  “Perrin, I am going to put my arms around you the way I want to hold you and because I want to hold you. I also want you to kiss me again, but I want to kiss you back this time. Is that all right with you?”

  Wordlessly he nodded and she slid her arms around his waist. He wasn’t as tall as Aleksei, but he was tall enough and she couldn’t reach much farther without pulling his head down to her.

  Perrin pressed her closer to his chest. For some reason he wanted her to hear his heart beat. An elegant hand stroked down her hair the way he had wanted to then dipped down to cup her face. When he looked down, he watched her smile, felt her arms tighten a little more around him. Small, but he could feel the strength in those arms. Their lips met and he felt a moment of surreal disbelief as her hand moved up his chest, then his neck, to twine small fingers in his wavy black hair.

  Unexpectedly, she opened her mouth for him and he froze, unsure what to do. Gillian felt his hesitation and took over, sliding her small warm tongue into his mouth and slowly exploring it. Perrin was a quick study and mimicked her action. Gill let him take over the kiss, letting his tongue, a warm, quick wetness, explore her mouth. She molded her body closer to him, pressing against his perfect form, letting him feel every curve, every rise and fall of her breasts against his chest.

  He moaned softly, his hand sliding from her shoulders to her waist to bring her against him more fully. Pliant in his hands, Gillian again let him lead. Perrin felt a bit dizzy as his blood supply diverted from its path to his groin. The erectile tissues filled in seconds, pressing against the confining pants he wore and against Gillian’s hip as she leaned into him. He would have drawn away, embarrassed by his lack of control, but she shocked him again by sliding her arm down to his buttocks and keeping him pressed to her.

  Since she didn’t seem to mind having his aching sex pulsing against her body, he became encouraged and deepened the kiss, tangling his fingers in her hair and cupping her head, tilting her face a little more to fasten tighter to his own mouth.

  Gillian was enjoying all of it but keeping her clinical perspective firmly in place. He needed to learn to be a little less passive and she hoped she was conveying that. She pulled back a little, breaking the kiss, and said a little breathlessly, “Now take me to the couch.”

  He froze and she cursed silently. “Why?”

  “Because I want to kiss you from a better angle, and if we keep standing like this, you’re going to have a stiff neck later,” she said mischievously, grinning.

  They were soon on the couch, Perrin a little taken aback when she slid onto his lap from the front, straddling him. But Gillian kissed him again, taking his face in her hands, which quelled any comment he might have made. To his delight, he discovered that her smaller size meant that she fit him perfectly; upper body molded against him, lower body . . . He felt a surge of heat and blood to his groin, swelling him to greater dimensions. She was astride him, as though he were a horse, and was pressing against . . .

  If he could have gotten up, he would have, but she had him pinned with arms and thighs. So he suddenly pushed her back from him. “Gillian, we must stop. Please.”

  It was a plea from his heart. The ecstasy of release was looming before him. A feeling that he had never allowed himself, believing in the purity of high love, that it was wrong to masturbate or to erupt outside a female body. At the rate they were going, it would only be moments before he would reach his own fulfillment fully clothed without ever touching her as a man. And Perrin definitely and most urgently wanted to touch her as a man.

  CHAPTER 8

  GILLIAN wasn’t at the top of her class for nothing; she knew what was the matter and got off him immediately. Settling herself into the curve of his arm, she rested against his shoulder, hip to hip, thigh to thigh. Perrin’s pants were very tight, giving her a very defined view of his erection pressed halfway down his thigh by the material. Damn, that had to be almost painful. Damn, that was really, really large.

  A brief thought of Aleksei in the same state skidded into her brain unbidden, reminding her that it had been a while since she’d had great sex, and she booted it out. Not. Now. Therapy. Professional. I. Am. A. Professional. A professional on a couch currently restraining herself from having wild monkey sex with a half-Gargoyle, quarter-Fey male whose special, potent brand of glamour was beating at both of them and testing their control.

  “Perrin, I want you to listen to me again. We have done a lot tonight. Gone pretty far and gotten you to where you are all right with a woman feeling you becoming erect, even enjoying it.”

  Perrin blushed and turned his face away, leaving her looking at the mask as he cupped his hand over his hardened cock. She reached up and turned his face back, lifted his hand away. “No, don’t do that. Erection, penis, vagina, masturbation, orgasm are all perfectly acceptable, clinical words. None of it is dirty or wrong, understand?”

  He was mortified, but he tried to rally and listen to her. Trusting her this far had turned out well, but he couldn’t quite get past his embarrassment. Gillian thought of what she believed was a brilliant idea. “I am going to show you something that I think you will like. Don’t move, please.”

  Getting up from the couch was tricky—they were sunk in pretty far and he had her tucked under his arm—but she struggled up, having to put her hand on his thigh to push up. He gasped as she brushed his sensitized inner thigh with her fingers, but stayed put while she hurried off to the bathroom. There was a box of flavored condoms tucked away there that she had left before Perrin ever arrived, in anticipation of her client’s needs. Finding what she sought, she grabbed several and went back to the living room. Perrin was as she had left him: hard, aching, thick and big.

  When she showed him the foil square, he didn’t understand what she held. Then she knelt between his legs on the floor and tore the package open, bringing out the latex ring. His eyebrows rose as she took it and deftly rolled it down over three of her fingers, then nodded toward his lap.

  “You want to put that over . . . my . . . uh . . . me, then make love to me?” He actually stammered as he realized what she was demonstrating and sweat beaded on his forehead.

  “Not exactly. I thought for the first time I would put this on you and show you how a woman can please you with her mouth. Later I will show you how you can pleasure a woman with your mouth . . .”

  Practically leaping over her, Perrin was across the room in a heartbeat. “You cannot be serious! In your mouth?! I know I am ignorant, Gillian, but I never believed . . .” He ran out of words as he gestured abruptly toward his heavy sex, his vision gathering spots for a moment as the blood surged thick and hot into his already straining organ.

  The thought of her lovely mouth wrapped around his body . . . dear gods above, if he moved—moved, hell, if the slightest brush of air touched him now, it would kill him. The thundering in his ears was his heart beating frantically in time with the pulsing in his groin.

  Exasperated, Gillian sighed, rolling the condom up and sliding it back inside its wrapper. She tossed it on the lamp table. “You do bathe, don’t you?”

  Had he heard her right? “What? Of course I bathe. I bathe daily. What kind of question is that?”

  “Your penis isn’t dirty, Perrin. You haven’t been with another female of any species. You are perfectly clean. It’s a sexual organ. Not just something you urinate through. I bathe daily too and I can assure you that you would find both aspects very pleasurable.”

  Perrin’s face and mask disa
ppeared behind his palms as he blushed even deeper. Apparently she had hit another Victorian nerve. Whoops.

  “You speak so openly about things which are private.” His voice was strangled but still held the roughness and the musical quality that she found so endearing.

  “Gillian, I do not know if I can go through with all of this. I want to learn what it is like to make love, to feel the touch of another’s hand upon me. To hold a woman in my arms and experience pleasure. I do not know if I can contemplate what you are talking about.”

  He moved gingerly to the fireplace, prepared to shatter at every step, and stood, one arm on the mantel for a moment, then sunk down to sit on an ottoman by the fire and prayed she wouldn’t say anything else remotely enticing.

  After another half hour of “Our Bodies, Ourselves,” Gillian had gotten him not to blush when talking about sexual terminology. He actually smiled and looked more relaxed with her sitting in front of him.

  “I do want you to learn to be a little more dominant, Perrin. Not forceful, not brutal, but confident, assured. Make sense? Don’t be so afraid to experiment. It will all be good, I promise you. Do you understand better now?”

  “Yes. I believe I do now.”

  Rising enough to put her hands against his legs, she pushed herself up. “I think that’s enough for tonight. I don’t want to overwhelm you more than you already are. I apologize for leaving you in an aroused state, but I just don’t think it’s a good idea after your reaction to carry this out tonight.”

  There. That was her clinical opinion. Good. She was keeping things in perspective. All right, so her body was screaming at her to fuck perspective and fuck him now, but her mind and will won the argument.

  When he reached up for her, she leaned down for his kiss. Perrin instead braced her against his shoulder, kissed her, swatted her butt, then pushed her up to stand in front of him.

  Gillian was annoyed. “Just what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “Practicing being more dominant?” Perrin was making an attempt at his humor skills again. Oh joy. She was going to have a long talk with him about his timing.