For Love of Valor: A Bad Boy Military Romance

by Samantha Westlake

  "And I suppose that sleeping with patients is off the table, right?" Callie asked without much hope. "I mean, maybe some of their self-esteem issues could be cured by a couple sessions on their back, rather than on that couch!"

  "One more crack like that, and I'm going to walk out on this meal and stick you with the entire bill," I warned her, as my cheeks flamed in embarrassment.

  Callie's eyes widened and her eyebrows rose. "But I'm just a poor elementary school teacher!" she exclaimed, rolling her eyes piteously. "You know that I can't afford a hefty bill like this! We're not all doctors like you!"

  Medical degree or not, I suspected that, at least right now, Callie was probably earning considerably more money than me. I quickly pulled away from that particular sad thought.

  "Work first," I stated firmly. "You can go date the sexy waiter-"

  "Carlton-"

  "-but I'm not on the market right now," I finished. "I'm working on my business, and I'm only looking at men to evaluate whether they're potential clients. Not if they're sexy." Even if they do keep trying to rattle me by checking me out. "And that's final."

  "Well, I can see that I'm not going to change your mind today," Callie sighed. "So what do you say? One more mimosa before we head off to face the rest of our Sunday?"

  Chapter Seven

  RICHARD

  *

  "...and that was how I finished up my second tour of duty," I said, leaning back and resting the back of my head against the soft leather of the chair in Linda's office. My feet were propped up on the ottoman that she'd brought in after our second session, after she saw that I insisted on putting my feet up on her coffee table. I still held that I deserved to be comfortable, but I appreciated her making the effort to keep my dirty boots off of her coffee table that stood between us.

  I looked over at Linda to see if she had any insights on my most recent story. She sat in the other chair in the office, her hands nestled on her lap as she listened to me, but she rarely interrupted.

  To be honest, I had expected these therapy sessions to go differently. When I'd pictured therapy, I'd always imagined that I'd be lying on a couch, staring up at the ceiling as someone asked me in patronizing tones how every single little event in my life made me feel, whether it hurt my oh-so-fragile psyche.

  Bullshit, in other words.

  Linda, on the other hand, didn't treat me like that. She would invite me in each morning, offer me some sort of herbal tea that I always refused, and then sit down in the seat opposite me and just listen. That was really most of what she did; there weren't a lot of questions, just attention and interest in whatever I had to say.

  At first, I'd felt pretty damn stupid about the whole thing. "What am I supposed to talk about?" I asked her at the start of our second session, my first time going back after announcing at the monthly brunch with my brothers that I'd decided to give therapy a try. "Aren't you supposed to ask me questions about who touched me in naughty spots when I was a kid?"

  "Did somebody do that?" Linda fired back, remarkably straight-faced.

  "Well, no. But maybe I'm repressing the memory, and you need to dig it out of me." I looked over at her, seeing how she looked cool and composed, one slim leg crossed over the other. No water stains on her slacks, this time, I noted as my eyes followed them up. Long legs, although the slacks were a little baggy on her.

  "That's not how I work," Linda answered me easily, one hand rising up to tuck an errant curl of her golden hair back behind an ear. "In the past, some therapists believed in ferreting out the answers to what bothered their clients, but it's now believed that this interrogative approach caused even more damage. Do you understand?"

  "I guess," I said, trying to find a parallel. "Like bombing an entire village, just to kill one possible target."

  "A good comparison," she nodded, and to my own shame, I felt a little surge of appreciation at the compliment. Hastily, I squashed the feeling. I was just here to convince her to give me a longer prescription for my meds, so that I wouldn't need to keep dragging myself down to this dingy office and spill out my past to some stranger, I reminded myself.

  "So what do I do now, then?"

  "Just talk," she suggested, rather unhelpfully. She must have seen the irritation bloom on my face, as she elaborated. "Tell me about anything that's on your mind. I promise not to judge you for what you say, and everything you share in our conversations will remain strictly between the two of us."

  I considered this for a minute. "No judgment, huh?" I repeated, still a little uncomfortable with the idea of just telling this stranger all about my day to day life.

  "No judgment," she assured me, a little smile dancing around her lips. "And you can ask me questions, as well. But," she added quickly as she saw interest bloom on my face, "I'm only going to answer them after you tell me something about yourself. A trade, if you will."

  Well, fine. I could already think of a couple questions that might get under this woman's skin, convince her that I was too difficult of a patient and that it would be better to just give me my prescription and send me on my way, get me out of her hair. "First question," I began, but Linda held up a finger to stop me.

  "You need to share something about yourself, first," she reminded me.

  "Fine." My wolfish grin didn't fade away. "I've got a solid eight inches hiding in my pants, and I've had more than one girl faint at the sight of it."

  I was watching Linda's face for a reaction, but I saw only a momentary widening of her eyes before she recovered, much more rapidly than I'd expected. "Not exactly the sort of sharing I had in mind," she said dryly.

  "You want to see it, instead?" I started to stand up, pretending to reach for the button at the top of my jeans.

  Even still, Linda remained where she was. "Keep in mind," she said mildly, "that I've dissected cadavers for medical school."

  "So?"

  "So when I see a penis," she continued, "I tend to think mainly about the best places for me to cut it, so as to best expose the veins and identify any medically relevant anomalies."

  Cutting. Not what I wanted to imagine, especially where my dick was concerned. "Fine," I gave in, backing down from that particular battle. "So what sort of story do you want to hear, then?"

  Linda tapped her lips with one slim finger. I noticed that, unlike most of the girls I met at clubs, she didn't have any sort of polish on her nails. There was something different about that, a little refreshing, as if she didn't need to concern herself with how others perceived her. "Why don't you tell me about some of your time in the military," she suggested.

  "Yeah? Should I tell you about the first time I showered at Basic, how I stripped down and washed all the dirt and sweat off of my grimy body, ran water over all my newly bulging muscles that I built up from training?" I grinned as, once again, I caught that brief little widening of Linda's eyes before her iron will snapped down and cut off any signs of her inner thoughts.

  To tell the truth, I wasn't sure exactly why I kept on needling Linda with flirty, inappropriate comments. She definitely wasn't my type; for one thing, she actually had finished college, which put her several notches above most of the cute, innocent bimbos that made such easy prey at the clubs. She also clearly didn't understand how to properly dress for her body; I could tell that she had a nice, slender figure, but she seemed to insist on hiding it under baggy and rather shapeless clothes.

  It was fun, however, to say these wildly inappropriate things to a woman and know that she couldn't storm off in a huff, couldn't throw her cup of gross-smelling tea in my face. I found myself getting a little rush out of provoking one of those momentary reactions, the slight little widening of her eyes. One time, when I described how I convinced a female military superior to join me in my wilderness survival tent for a night of keeping warm in the same sleeping bag together, I even heard her let out a little gasp – although when I looked over at her, her face remained as serene as always.

  I kept coming back to her office
, three times a week, and bit by bit, it became less of a chore and more of a genuinely enjoyable activity. Instead of seeing Linda as an antagonist keeping me from getting on with my life, I began to actually look forward to talking with her, to sharing some of the stories that I'd never had a chance to share with anyone else.

  The real shift came, however, when I sat bolt upright in bed one morning, the last moments of my dream still playing vividly in my head.

  I'd dreamed about Linda. And not about sitting in her office and telling her about my military past, either – I'd dreamed about ripping off those ill-fitting professional clothes that she always wore, revealing the slender and elegant body beneath, and then making her finally lose her composure as I drilled her with my cock! The dream had been especially graphic, and I felt a rock-hard erection inside my boxer briefs when I woke, hard almost to the point of becoming painful.

  "What the fuck!" I gasped out, fighting my way out of the blur of lingering, arousing mental images. "No! Bad dick!"

  Despite the scolding, that erection stuck around for an annoyingly long time, persisting almost all the way to Linda's office. I finally thought that I had a handle on it – up until I entered her office, caught sight of her, and it sprang up to full attention once again inside of my jeans.

  "You seem distracted," Linda commented after I had blathered through a half-baked story about the last patrol before the end of my second tour of duty. I knew that I'd done an especially poor job of telling the tale, going back multiple times to try and correct earlier mistakes and mentioning characters that were never properly introduced. "What else is bothering you today?"

  I looked over at her, and of course immediately remembered how, in my dream, I'd pulled open the neck of her loose, flowing blouse to reveal fine shoulder blades, which I kissed even as her fingers raked across my own back. "Nothing," I stammered, thankful that my crossed legs hid the significant bulge in my jeans. "Listen, doc, is there a reason why you don't wear jewelry?"

  Wordlessly, Linda raised a finger to lightly brush against the earring attached to one lobe, a small and unremarkable diamond stud. I felt my face flush with heat, and hastily rephrased the question. "Wedding ring," I clarified, nodding down at her bare fingers.

  "Oh, that's easy. I'm not married." Linda looked back at me. Once I'd started sharing my stories, she didn't hesitate to answer my questions back at her, giving me that open exchange of information that she had promised – except, of course, when I asked something more interesting, like her bra size or the last time that she'd gotten laid.

  "Oh." Dammit, why was I feeling nervous? I'd fucked dozens of women, most of them younger and more noticeably attractive than this doctor. "Well then, uh, you want to maybe go grab a drink after this session?"

  Her eyebrows rose fractionally. "At eleven in the morning?"

  "It's five o'clock somewhere," I cracked weakly. "How about this evening, then? Let me take you out, buy you a drink as a way to say thank you for these sessions."

  She smiled at me, but I recognized the expression with a sinking feeling in my stomach. It was a professional smile, one of those smiles that didn't quite reach her eyes. A smile which, although perfectly nice on the surface, told me that there were other, less agreeable thoughts swimming beneath the surface.

  "That's probably not a good idea," she said. Her words were gentle but firm; a textbook rejection, I thought miserably to myself. "Given that we have a privileged relationship as client and counselor, it's probably not a good idea to mix any personal emotions into our interactions."

  Such a nice speech, but it didn't seem to have any effect on my cock, which remained throbbing and painfully hard for most of the rest of the session. I did my best to keep from showing Linda that anything was wrong, but I suspected that, thanks to all our previous talks, she still figured it out. At least she had the grace not to say anything about it.

  Cursing my psyche for deciding that I needed to fuck the one woman in my life who wasn't interested in hopping into the sack with me, I finished up our appointment and headed out of Linda's office. Normally, I felt hopeful and renewed with optimism after one of our sessions ended, but today I felt instead like a black cloud was hanging over me, threatening to open up and soak me with cold rain at any second.

  I needed to get my mind off of this, distract myself from being rejected. Linda might have turned me down for a drink, I thought miserably to myself, but that didn't mean that I couldn't go grab one nonetheless.

  And since Linda wasn't going to come along, hell, I'd enjoy her drink, as well.

  I left Linda's little office and headed off towards The Local, my favorite bar, where I hadn't enjoyed a drink in far too long.

  Chapter Eight

  RICHARD

  *

  This was, I realized three drinks later, the first time that I'd been drunk in more than a week.

  The realization came a little too late for me to consider stopping, and I was already starting to feel that warm fuzziness on the edges of my thoughts, the warmth that only came after I'd downed a few shots to take the edge off my cynicism.

  Setting the glass back down, I leaned back carefully on the stool at The Local, glancing around. I'd arrived right at lunchtime, so the bar wasn't very full. Most of the other people seemed to be eating, rather than drinking, so I half-heartedly ordered a basket of French fries to accompany my tumbler of whiskey.

  Now, the basket still sat three-quarters full in front of me, although the whiskey glass was receiving its third refill as I looked around. I blinked a couple of times as I looked at the other patrons of the bar, trying to see if any of them would prove to be a distraction from lingering thoughts of my recent rejection.

  Why did I care, anyway? Blearily, I considered this question. Linda was attractive, in an older, more professional sort of way, but even the ill-fitted clothes didn't disguise her flat chest, the faint lines that I sometimes noticed around her eyes. I'd fucked hotter women, didn't see anything special about her.

  Hell, I had a phone full of numbers from young, attractive, and easily impressionable college girls, almost all of whom had left my house feeling immensely satisfied, if sometimes unable to walk straight. I could text any of them, probably get them to drop whatever they were doing and come meet me for some fun.

  In fact, that sounded like a great idea. I tugged my phone out of my pocket and composed a message, blinking a few times as I held the screen up close to my face to make sure that autocorrect hadn't altered my message. I hit "Send" and sat back, smiling at my own ingenuity as I waited for the responses to roll in.

  There weren't as many as I'd expected, but my phone started buzzing by the time that I'd made it most of the way to the bottom of my next glass of whiskey. As I waited, I found my brain once again replaying the dream from last night, unable to just put it all behind me.

  Admittedly, dreaming about fucking Linda had been better than the usual nightmares. At least, when I was ripping off Linda's clothes, I didn't hear the screams of the other soldiers in my unit, didn't smell the horrible burning odor of metal, plastic, and flesh. I might have woken up gasping and shaking, but, annoying as that dream had been, it still beat out my usual nightmares.

  But the booze helped with the nightmares – and hopefully, the girls who responded to my texts would help me get past this most recent development of wanting to fuck my therapist.

  Finally, after a few more texts back and forth, I'd convinced both Sally, a busty brunette whose tits practically popped out of her top at the mention of handcuffs, and Leann, a petite Asian beauty with a waist so small that I could almost wrap my hands all the way around it, to come out and join me that afternoon. They wouldn't be able to make it to the bar for a couple more hours, but I saw no problem in passing the time waiting for them.

  After all, I wasn't alone; I had a couple good buddies, Jack Daniels and Johnny Walker, to keep me company.

  Thankfully, both girls recognized me and headed over towards me with sultry, seductive
grins when they arrived at The Local. By this point, I'd reached my seventh – eighth? – glass of hard liquor, and I kept having to tighten my grip on the bar for fear of falling off and landing on my ass on the floor. I didn't even realize that the girls had gotten there until Sally sidled up to me, pressing twin mounts of soft and yielding flesh into my arm.

  "Hey there, sexy soldier," she purred into my ear, her breath warm against the lobe and making goosebumps pop up on my arms. "There's a naughty girl here who could use a big of good, old-fashioned American justice from you." And just in case I missed the double entendre, her hand slipped over my thigh to reach into my lap and wrap itself around my dick, stroking it through the denim fabric of my jeans.

  I turned and grinned back at her, although my reply came out more than slightly slurred. "Just the two I've been waiting for!" I exclaimed, although as my eyes dipped down to take in the dangerously low neckline on her blouse, I wasn't totally sure if I was talking about Sally and Leann, or just about her tits.

  Fortunately, it didn't seem to matter much. I managed, after a couple of false starts, to introduce Sally and Leann to each other. The girls didn't seem especially pleased to meet each other, but I failed to pay much attention in my drunken stupor. "Now, why don't we get back to my house, where we can relax a bit, and don't need to pay for the drinks?" I asked, earning a much more positive reaction from both girls.

  One drunken, fondling-filled cab ride later, we arrived back at the Stone family mansion. Managing to tear my eyes away from Sally's chest for a minute as the cab pulled into the driveway, I spotted that Sebastian's car, a ridiculously impractical sports car that he'd paid an ungodly amount to cover in chrome, wasn't parked in its normal spot in front of the driveway.

  Good. No Sebastian around meant that I didn't have to fear anyone walking in on me and the girls. I opened the door and, with the help of the two girls for support, struggled out of the cab and made it up the stairs to the front door of my house.