Despite knowing better, I give in and ask him another question. “Do you enjoy your work, Mr. Citrione?”
He smirks, as if he’s willing to play along with this charade, for now. Why do I feel like he’s the one in control? Like I’m the one lying on the couch while he dissects my mind piece by piece.
“I’m good at what I do.”
“That doesn’t answer my question. Do you enjoy it?”
He purses his lips in thought. “I enjoy being the best.”
“And what is it that you do, exactly?”
There’s laughter in his eyes as he answers. “I guess I’m a jack-of-all-trades, but you could call me a debt collector.”
“A debt collector?” I ask dryly.
He smirks. “Yeah.”
“How exactly does one excel at debt collecting?”
He leans back, planting his feet wide, looking perfectly at home. A tattooed finger taps on his knee as he raises an eyebrow. “By knowing how to read people.”
I shift uncomfortably. “Let’s talk about that. Do you ever feel you spend so much energy focused on reading others that you ignore your own feelings?”
“You could say that. For example, when I’m fucking a woman, I focus mostly on what they are feeling and on how I can get them to cum hardest.”
I swallow, feeling like my mouth is full of sawdust. I’ve never spoken to someone as intense as him. I trained extensively in interpreting body language and sub-verbal cues, but the only thing I’m getting from him is pure confidence and desire, as if he wants to fuck me and he knows with bone-chilling certainty that he will. Every word feels like a flirtation, every gesture and sentence a seduction.
Be a fucking professional, Julia. Take control.
“If you used these powers of perception on yourself, what would you find?”
His air of confidence falters for a few seconds while he answers. His eyes trail down and his brows furrow slightly, as if he has never considered it. “I’d say I’m a man who lives in the darkness.” He pauses, eyes still distant. “And it gets darker every day.”
His words chill me. “Where does this darkness come from?”
The momentary vulnerability passes as quickly as it came, and his cocky smirk is back. “Why don’t you turn off the lights and I’ll tell you about it?”
“Mr. Citrione, if this is going to work, you’re going to have to stop making a mockery of our session.”
“No. If this is going to work, you’re going to have to let me relieve some of that sexual tension you’re carrying. I can practically hear your heart racing from here. Why don’t you be honest with yourself for a second? You want to fuck me. You want it so bad it hurts.”
Hot rage billows up inside me. I’m pissed at being turned into a stammering fool just because he’s gorgeous. I’m pissed that he knows exactly what he’s doing to me. And most of all, I’m pissed that my dream job has turned into a nightmare because my boss is a prick and every extra penny I make is going to my mom’s cancer treatment. I stand abruptly, moving to the couch, sitting down, kicking off my heels, and putting my feet up. He wants to play games? That’s perfectly fine with me. I don’t need to waste my time and energy trying to make progress with him. I grab a magazine from the end table by the couch and start to angrily flip through the pages. I don’t know if it looks like I’m reading or not, but I don’t really care.
He half-turns in his chair, resting his elbow on the backrest and smirks at me.
I slap the magazine down to my thighs and glare at him. “Stop staring at me.”
“If you knew how fucking gorgeous you were, you wouldn’t ever ask me to stop looking at you.”
I blush again. Dammit. Who talks like that? What kind of person just…I lift the magazine again, bending my neck down a little until I can’t see his perfect face still pointed directly toward me.
I hear him stand and move toward me. He sits beside me on the couch, so close that his legs are against mine. I never thought such an innocent contact with another person could feel so sensual. My body practically explodes. Every nerve ending screaming for more, begging me for friction, for his skin against my skin and the heat of his body. I take a deep breath and begin to stand, but his arm flies out, grabbing me by the wrist and keeping me from leaving.
“No,” he says.
“Excuse me? Let me go.”
His face is bathed in arrogance as he looks up at me from the couch, perfectly at ease. “Under one condition.”
I want to tell him to go fuck himself, but the truth is I’m curious. What condition?
“Look me in the eye and tell me you don’t want to fuck me. Right now. Right here on this couch. Tell me you don’t want to wrap your hands around my cock and feel me inside you.”
It feels like I just ran a mile at a full sprint. My mouth is dry, my heart is pounding so hard I feel it in my temples, and I can barely breathe. I look at his hand on my wrist and then back to his smoldering eyes. My eyebrows draw together in confusion as I try to piece together what he just said, making sure I heard him right.
I’m not this kind of girl. I’m no prude, by any means, but I don’t just sleep with men I barely know. Even kissing a patient could mean losing my license to practice and wasting years of schooling. Hell, even if he wasn’t a patient, I don’t sleep with convicts either. I’ve never even dated a guy with a criminal record for Christ’s sake. So why the hell can’t I say it? Why are the words dying in my throat? No, I don’t want that. Why can’t I say it?
30
Leo
I watch as she bites her full lips, large eyes taking me in hungrily. She wants to fuck me so bad it hurts her, I can see it as clear as day. From the moment I saw her tits pressing against the silk blouse and the way her hips swelled out from her waist in that cotton skirt, I knew it. Fuck. I knew I needed to have her. I’d normally give a girl a day or two to come around, but this isn’t just any girl. I don’t know what it is, but she has me floored. I will have her.
“I don’t want to...fuck you right now,” she says. Her words come out dry, passionless. “I could lose my job.”
A predatory smirk crosses my face. “And if I wasn’t your patient?” My hand is still on her wrist, the callouses of my palm feeling rough against her soft, milky skin.
“That’s irrelevant, because you are my patient. Besides, it’s still unethical for me to be with anyone who has ever been a patient of mine.”
“So you’re considering it?”
She averts her eyes. “I was just informing you…”
I let her go but she doesn’t move. I glance at my watch. “In fifteen minutes, I won’t be your patient anymore.”
“You have sessions booked for six months. And like I said, the ethics board would—”
“Cancel them. I don’t feel I’m making progress here. I want to try another office.”
Her eyebrows draw together. I can see how heavily she’s breathing. Her chest rises and falls like she’s out of breath. The vein in her neck pulses visibly, showing me how rapid her heart rate is. I lick my lips when I think about how wet she must be already. I bet I could sit her on that desk and slide my cock in right now.