by Julie Kriss
I cleared my throat and said, “Hi. I’m Tara. I’m, er, John’s replacement.”
“They told me.” He shook my hand. He wore three silver rings, one on his fourth finger, one on his middle, and a thin silver circlet on his thumb. I felt them brush my skin before he pulled away,
He sat in the chair across from me, slouched back just a little the way big guys do. I looked at the line of his thigh, the line of his shoulders in the jacket. I looked at his mouth, framed by the short beard. Holy hell. I was having a visceral reaction to this man, and it had to stop now.
“I think you know,” I said, resisting the urge to fidget with the papers and pens on my desk, “that this is a court-mandated follow-up visit. To discuss how you’ve been doing since your release.”
“Yeah,” Jace Riggs said. “I know.”
“We can talk about your life since you left the halfway house,” I said. “How has it been, Jace? How do you feel you’re adjusting?”
He looked at me for a long moment. I wondered what he saw. A nice enough looking woman, I supposed. I was twenty-seven, and I’d twisted my brown hair at the back of my neck. I dressed carefully for this job—too formal, and my clients saw me as unfriendly, too casual and they didn’t take me seriously. I compromised today with dark jeans, ankle boots, and a silk shell top with a casual blazer over it. The silk shell was feminine and would be revealing on most women, but my breasts were so small I could wear it without them spilling out.
So that was my look: competent counselor with small boobs. Some of the men I worked with tried to check them out, as if they could inflate them by staring. Jace Riggs didn’t seem to notice.
I couldn’t read his expression, but he tilted his head, just a tiny fraction, as if he was waiting for me to say something.
I was quiet. One of the first rules of counseling is that you can let quiet happen. The counselor should never talk just to fill the void. Filling the void is the client’s role, not yours.
Still, Jace looked almost expectant. Then he said, “I’m adjusting fine, I guess.”
“Are you employed?” I asked.
He frowned, a graceful turn of his mouth as he watched me. “Isn’t that in your file?”
“No. Nothing since your last parole officer report, in the halfway house in Detroit, is here in your file.” I tried giving him a friendly smile. “That’s why we’re here to talk.”
“Hmm.” He lifted a hand and rubbed his index finger along his lower lip. He had remarkable hands, large and full of masculine grace, the fingers long and capable. His rings were very male and not showy, silver bands stamped with patterns, the narrow circle on his thumb. The skin at the base of his thumb had a smear of black on it—motor oil.
“Is something wrong?” I asked him, to cover the fact that I was slowly getting turned on by looking at his hand.
He stopped rubbing his lip. “To be honest, I’m trying to figure out what you want me to say.”
That surprised me, and I raised my gaze to his face. “I want you to say the truth.”
Amusement rippled across his eyes. They were like a calm ocean, those eyes, gray and beautiful yet deeply alive. And his lashes were ridiculous. Good god, I needed to get a grip.
He waited another moment—this was one client who was fine with letting the quiet happen—as if he thought I might say something more, and then he said, “I’m working at my family’s auto body shop.”
The one his father had run, that had stolen cars moving through it. “I see,” I said.
“You think I’m still dealing in stolen cars,” Jace said, reading my mind. “I’m not. My brother Luke and I have taken over the shop with Dad in prison. We reopened it and we’re running it our own way. The legal way. Where we make money by actually fixing cars.”
“Do you get along with your brother?” I asked.
Jace laughed softly, and I stilled in fascination at the sound. The sons are all trouble, John had said. “Luke and I haven’t killed each other,” he said. “I suppose you can call that getting along.”
“So you fight?”
“We bloodied each other’s noses plenty as kids,” Jace said. “We keep it more civil now.”
“I see. There’s some tension, then.”
He tilted his chin again, that tiny movement I only saw because I was watching him so closely. “You’re asking because you think I have family issues that affect my patterns and my behavior.”
I was doing that. Exactly that. So of course I said, “I’m not doing anything. I’m only asking how you’re doing.”
“Do you get along with your siblings?” he asked me.
I opened my mouth, and so help me God, the words almost came out: I’m an only child, and I haven’t seen my parents in months. That was how easily he could trap me. I backtracked and gave the right answer instead. “We aren’t here to discuss me. However, in your case it’s quite possible that your father instilled behavior in you from an early age that makes you—”
“I think you’re an only child,” he said.
Jesus, was he psychic or just uncannily observant? How could he even know? I ran my fingers along the edges of the file on my desk. “Mr. Riggs—”
“I’m Mr. Riggs now.” Amused.
“Jace.” I emphasized the word to show I wasn’t afraid of him. “What you’re doing may seem clever to you, but in fact it’s a very common tactic. I’ve seen it many times before.”
“What tactic?” he said. “I find you interesting.”
Another hit. It was like he was shooting arrows from the other side of my desk, sending them straight through my armor. Because people found me nice. They found me competent. A few of them even found me attractive. But the fact was, no one found me interesting. No one except Jace Riggs. If he was telling the truth, that was.
“The tactic,” I said clearly, “is deflection. Sending the questions back in my direction. It’s a defense mechanism, Jace. Because you don’t want to talk about yourself. Because it’s too painful.”
“It isn’t painful to talk about me,” he said, annoyance flaring in his voice and his expression. I’d scored my own hit. “It’s fucking boring to talk about me. I fix cars, I come to bullshit appointments like this, I do whatever my PO tells me to do. That’s all I do. I don’t drink, I don’t fuck, I don’t snort coke up my nose, and I don’t have father issues. Whatever little boxes you need to check in that file, you can’t check a single one.”
I glared at him. I was torn between annoyance—John and I had almost literally talked about which boxes to check in the file before Jace came to this appointment—and a sort of weird fascination, mixed with lurid curiosity at the words I don’t fuck. What did that mean? He was celibate for some reason? Heartbreak, or sexual dysfunction, or something else? Was he into men? Please, God, let him not be into men. Though that would be admittedly hot. But still.
“Okay then,” I said, because I’m a terrible person and the curiosity about his sex life won. It totally fucking won. “Let’s backtrack. You mentioned your personal life. Where are you living now that you’re in Westlake?”
Jace rolled his eyes. “I’m living in the guest house at the family place while my brother and his girlfriend live in the main house. Still not interesting, doc.”
“I’m not a doctor,” I corrected him. “I’m licensed to practice, but I don’t have a medical license. I can’t prescribe.”
“I told you, I’m not doing drugs. I’m not here looking for Lorazepam or Oxy.”
How had this conversation gone so far off the rails? “It sounds like you have a stable living situation,” I said, trying to act like the counselor I was supposed to be. “How about your social situation? You’ve lived in Westlake all your life. Do you have a circle of friends for support?”
His gray eyes went a little hard at that. “I don’t have friends,” he said. “My brothers and I have never had friends. Everyone in Westlake has always thought we’re scum, and they still think it.”
“Surely tha
t’s an exaggeration,” I said, thinking of John saying the sons are all trouble, like he knew perfectly well. “People aren’t as judgmental as you think.”
“Yes, they are,” Jace countered. “Though we never gave anyone very many reasons to befriend us. Dex beat up half the boys in Westlake, Luke beat up the other half, and Ryan screwed all the girls.”
I didn’t know what to make of that, but we weren’t talking about his brothers. “And you?” I asked him. “What did you do?”
“You mean, did I do the beating or the screwing?” Jace shrugged. “It didn’t matter what I did. I got the consequences anyway. I’m a Riggs. The truth isn’t interesting to anyone when you’re a Riggs.”
“The truth interests me,” I said. “I told you that.”
“Fine. What truth do you want? Tell me so I can give it to you and we can get this over with.”
I put my hands palm-down on the desk. “I am trying,” I said slowly so I wouldn’t scream, “to do my job here. It would help if you were even a little bit cooperative.”
He just looked at me, with those ocean-gray eyes. Not promising a yes. Not promising a no. Just waiting for me to come at him.
“Okay,” I said, fighting for control of the conversation, like it seemed I had since he walked in the room. “You’re not close with your brothers. Your father is obviously not a source of support. You don’t have friends. What about romantic relationships? Is there someone in your life?”
It took him a second. His eyes stayed flat and hard at first, and then the penny dropped. His chin tilted up. “Oh, I get it,” he said. “That’s what you’re really asking. You want to know if I’m single.”
That was when I did the most unprofessional thing of my career. I jerked my chair back, stood up, and grabbed his file, slamming it on the cabinet behind me.
“That’s it,” I said. “This session is over.”
Four
Jace
“You don’t have to do this,” I said to my brother. “You know that, right?”
We were standing in the paved yard behind Riggs Auto, a big space bordered by a ratty chain link fence. There were cars here—cars we were working on, cars that didn’t run, cars we’d poached for spare parts. There were piles of parts and, like the rest of the place, it stunk of motor oil and tires, spiced with the chemical tang of body paint. I hoped to God that when I died, I did it with that godawful smell in my nose.
My brother Luke shrugged. “I didn’t do much. A guy came in and said he inherited this car when his dad died. He didn’t want it. I gave him five hundred bucks. It’s yours.”
I stared at the car between us. It was a Ford Thunderbird, and since my brothers and I knew cars by kindergarten, I knew its distinctive shape: boxy nose, body low to the ground, aluminum wheels, metal trim. It had late 80’s written all over it. “The ‘89 model?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Luke said. He was wearing his garage coveralls, like me, though he’d unzipped the top and let it hang, showing his black tee. He was a good-looking piece of shit, my brother Luke. Black hair and dark eyes and muscles and all that stuff. He’d never cleaned up like our brother Ryan—Luke was a bit more reserved with women. Or so we all thought. It turned out that he’d secretly had a relationship with Emily Parker, the cop’s daughter, when they were eighteen, and he’d never gotten over her in the years since.
Luke had left town for a while, and so had Emily. Now they were both back, and they’d decided they didn’t give a shit what people thought of them being together anymore. Emily lived in the main house with Luke, and had for months now. They were nuts about each other. They tried to be nice about it in public, but it still managed to be annoying as hell.
“Does it run?” I asked Luke as he tossed me the keys over the hood.
“It does,” Luke said, “and there’s a V6 in there. But it needs a lot of work first. You have your work cut out for you.”
Work, I could do. It wasn’t a very attractive car—it looked dated—and it was an ugly old-school gray, but I squeezed the keys hard in my hand and tried to look cool about it. I had a car—my own car. I hadn’t had one since I’d sold my last one to pay my lawyer’s bill when I went to prison because no one needs a car in prison.
“Thanks, man,” I said to Luke, trying not to sound like I was emotional or anything.
He shrugged. “It bothered me, seeing you without a car. A Riggs without a car is like a Riggs without a dick.”
“I have a dick.”
“You do now.” He gave me half a grin. “I’m going home to Emily, and if I’m lucky I’ll get to use mine. See you later.”
I watched him go. He’d get lucky, of course. Now that they were back together, he and Emily were barely able to stay off each other. I never went to the main house, especially unannounced, in case I saw something I couldn’t unsee.
My brothers and I weren’t close growing up, even though we lived in the same house. That was Dad’s fault. He didn’t so much raise us as let us through the door every once in a while when it was cold out, like dogs. It was every man for himself in the Riggs house, and Dex, Ryan, Luke, and I grew up mostly fending for ourselves. Dex had been a cop for a while before he burned out of the job. Ryan had been a baseball player on his way up until his bad shoulder and shitty attitude put a stop to his career. They were both in Detroit, as pissed off as ever.
But Luke had changed. After his years away, driving around the country from place to place, he was back in Westlake for good. He was fixing up the house and rebuilding Riggs Auto with me. It had to do with Emily, and it wasn’t just about the fact that Luke was getting laid. It was about the fact that he’d found the person who made him want to do all that shit. The woman he was building a life for. The woman who was doing the same for him.
And that made me think of the crazy, disastrous counseling session I’d had three days ago. I’d fucked that up. The first attractive, sober woman I’d talked to since getting out, and I’d made a complete mess of it.
Tara Montgomery. That was the name on the nameplate on her desk. She’d riled me up, she’d made me mad, and she’d made me very fucking horny. She’d done it just by sitting behind a desk and asking me a few questions—a quietly beautiful woman with long brown hair tied at the back of her neck, deep brown eyes under arched brows, an expressive mouth, a slender build, no wedding ring. I should have seen her as just another faceless professional, but something about her said sex to me. It had been all I could do not to lean over the desk and explore that mouth myself, see if it tasted as good as it looked.
Sure, I could make jokes about it. I had just got out of prison, my balls were neon blue, and just about anything that breathed would look good to me. That was the joke, right? But it wasn’t that. It was her. I’d walked away from the women at Patrick’s party without a second thought, but Tara Montgomery—with her bullshit questions and her steely vulnerability and her ridiculous desire to help me—made me want to lick the skin of her elegant neck and listen to her moan.
I’d felt like an animal. So of course I’d acted like an asshole.
I felt bad about it now. She really had been trying to help, though I was sure she was also digging for details about my sex life. I’m a jerk, but I’m not stupid. Her interest in me wasn’t entirely professional—which had only added gasoline to the flames of that crazy session.
The truth interests me, she’d said. But she didn’t know the truth about me. That much, I was sure of.
I scrubbed a hand over my face. I should go back for another session, try again. Act like a rational man this time. Apologize. Hell, maybe even get some help. I had to get her stamp of approval to get the system off my back, anyway—I had to convince her I was adjusting to civilian life. I hadn’t done a very good job of that by pissing her off and practically coming on her.
I’d see her one more time, and then it would be over. I’d never see her again, and that was for the best. Because even if she felt the same way I did, a woman like that would never have the t
ime of day for a man like me. Not in real life.
I went into the shop to get my tools. In the meantime, I had a car to work on.
Five
Tara
The day Jace Riggs had his second appointment—because, against all odds, the office told me he was coming to see me again—I woke up close to orgasm.
In my half-awake brain, Jace Riggs was naked in my bed. He was solid muscle, powerful and hard. He was on top of me, his wrists pinning me, his mouth on mine, his tongue in my mouth. I couldn’t move, could feel nothing but him, could taste nothing but him. I squirmed my hips, my knees apart, and felt only him.
In my fever dream, he broke the kiss and whispered in my ear: I’m going to fuck you so deep. I’m going to take your sweet cunt. Tell me you want me to.
“Yes,” I said. “Yes.”
He pushed inside me, fucking me, and I knew I was awake now but I didn’t care. I pushed my fingers into my panties and came hard in three quick strokes, my hips bucking off the mattress.
In the shower fifteen minutes later, I tried to rationalize it. It wasn’t all that uncommon, according to the research, to have sexual thoughts about a client. Therapy could be intense, and it could be raw and emotional. Sexual urges were normal human urges that sometimes came out when things were raw and emotional. In fact, there was a term for it: transference, in which one transfers one’s intense emotions onto one’s therapist, or in this case onto one’s client.
No, even though it had never happened to me before, having these urges wasn’t wrong. What mattered was whether one acted on those urges—and I had no intention of doing that. Crossing the line to having sex with a client—even if he was agreeable, which I was pretty sure he wasn’t—was unthinkable for a counselor, a complete disgrace to the profession and an easy end to one’s career.
So everything was fine. Just fine. What I was experiencing was a fully calm, fully rational, fully scientifically documented experience that would not affect my performance as a professional.
