by Nancy Warren
“I have to tell you something too.” He glanced at her. Always the gentleman, he said, “You go first.”
She licked her lips. “I am so horny I think I’m going to explode.”
The car jerked as though his foot had spasmed on the accelerator. “I beg your pardon?”
She felt smug and female. “You heard me.” Of course, two therapists couldn’t even get horny without some sort of analysis, so she said, “I think it’s all the emotion racing around in my body. It needs an outlet.” Just talking about her needs made them more immediate. She shifted her body, feeling the heavy pull of desire.
“What do you want me to do about this little problem?” He might be surprised at her behavior—almost as surprised as she was herself—but he seemed quite happy about her admission.
“I’m not going to be ladylike,” she said, easing her legs apart.
“You’re not?”
“No.”
He slid a hand up her thigh and her skin was so sensitive there she almost moaned. When he touched her, she actually did moan. Then she pushed herself against his hand in the most obvious display of need she’d ever shown in her life.
“I need to tell you something else,” she said.
“What?” His voice was as husky as a growl.
“I won’t make it home. You need to pull over somewhere.”
“Where? There’s nothing around here but a convenience store, a beer parlor, and the No-tell Motel.”
“Perfect,” she said.
“Are you kidding?”
“No. The motel. Hurry.”
The atmosphere in the car was electric. Her skin was so sensitive she could feel the leather of the seats against her arms and the backs of her legs. She heard the traffic all around them as a low-level hum, like a sexual purr. At this time of day, businesspeople were off to meetings, parents ferried kids around, workers headed off to fix furnaces and install carpets. But inside Jordan’s gray Volvo, it was all about sex.
He had to take his hand away from her in order to turn the steering wheel, and the loss of his hand only emphasized her need.
They turned into a bumpy asphalt parking lot that the motel shared with a convenience store offering great prices on a six-pack of Bud.
She thought he might ask her if she was sure about this, but he didn’t. “Wait here,” he said and she knew then that he was as desperate as she was. He was in and out of the office in no time, hopped back into the car, and drove them to their unit.
As they walked in, she yanked together enough sanity to check that there was a basic level of cleanliness, which, based on the smell of industrial cleansers, there was. A quick glance into the bathroom showed shiny white, if chipped, fixtures, and under the polyester flowered spread, the sheets were clean.
It was all she needed to know. There was something so thrilling about being in a place like this, a place she’d never normally go, for sex. Because she and her lover were too hot for each other to make it all the way home.
While she was checking for hygiene, Jordan went to the window and pulled the drapes shut. The clattering sound of the curtains being drawn sent a shiver through her. With the drapes shut, the light in the room was muted. He snapped on the light on the closest imitation wood bedside table.
He came up behind her and ran his hand all the way down the front of her body, from her neck, over her tingling breasts, her belly, just brushing her crotch, so she wanted to moan, and then he was tugging at the skirt of her dress, pulling it up and over her hips. Oh, yes.
He reached around her, yanked the bedspread and top sheet down, so that she was looking at the bare white sheet on top of the mattress.
He slipped her panties down and she stepped out of them. She could hear harsh breathing and knew it was hers. So much for restrained behavior.
“Get on the bed on your hands and knees,” he said into her ear. He never ordered her around, but he seemed to understand that she wanted something raw and frank. No manners required.
“What about my dress?”
“Leave it.” Heat was pulsing through her, pooling as excitement built. He was ordering her around. And she was loving it. Maybe after all these years of fierce control, it was good to let the lid off for a while. She’d been like the tectonic plates, holding up the earth from under the sea, but pressure was building, building, and one day those plates had to shift and blow. With seismic results.
A step closer to the bed, she said, “Shoes?”
“Leave them.”
She climbed up on to the bed, fully dressed but for her panties, facing away from him.
“Now, pull your skirt up. All the way up, and flip it over your back. Let me see what you’ve got for me.”
She made a funny noise in the back of her throat. Part cry, part moan. Her hands were shaking as she grasped the hem of her skirt. She found that in order for it to stay up and over her hips, she had to thrust her hips up in the air and lower her front half until she was resting on her forearms.
She heard rustling and the metallic sound of his belt being unfastened. Oh, hurry, drummed over and over in her head. Her most private parts, and only those, were on display for him. She knew he was looking at her there, felt his gaze like a spotlight, warming her, revealing her.
His fingers touched her sex, slippery with excitement, rubbing lightly. “Is this for me?” he asked from behind her.
“Yes.” She’d never felt more sexual. Never.
He climbed up behind her and the bed rocked, then he rubbed his cock against her, back and forth, until she pushed back against him, begging to be filled. He pushed inside hard, with no warning at all. Jordan, who was usually so careful with foreplay, always asking if she was ready before penetrating her.
The sudden shock of him filling her was fantastic. “Oh,” she cried.
Then, taking a firm hold of her hips, he began to thrust into her in a completely fierce, unrestrained rhythm. She caught fire, combusted, pushing back, meeting his thrusts with frenzied passion.
Outside she could hear the muted rumble of traffic. A car door slammed in the parking lot. And in this cheap and tawdry room, she heard mingled signs and moans, and the soft slap of his flesh against hers.
She was climbing, climbing. He reached around and touched that needy, aching place, rubbing lightly. It was too much and with a loud cry, she slipped over the top, pulling him along with her.
He slumped on top of her, still inside her body, and kissed the back of her neck. For the oddest moment she felt emotion prick her eyelids. She knew there was a great deal they had to say, to talk about and resolve, but for once in her life she didn’t want to talk about feelings. She wanted to shut up and experience them. She reached for his hand and they stayed like that for a while, deeply connected and at rest.
Her heart was banging, her breath uneven, and she didn’t even want to think about what shape her dress was in. She chuckled.
“What’s so funny? And please tell me it’s not my technique.”
She turned her head, found his mouth, and gave him a quick kiss. “Your technique was outstanding. I’m laughing because my headache disappeared.”
“Sometimes, good sex helps heal a lot of things,” he said reflectively, and she suspected he was talking about more than her aching head.
He kissed her fully, taking his time, and her undersexed body roared back to life. This time, he undressed her, kissing and toying with every part of her he uncovered. She took off his tie, unbuttoned his shirt, and eased it off. He pulled off his pants and she toed off her sandals so that they fell to the floor with twin thuds. He kissed her breasts, teasing her nipples in the way he knew she liked. They played with each other, arousing and reconnecting, until they were once again panting with need. She opened for him and he filled her. When he entered her, it was a moment she’d never forget. His eyes were so serious as they stared into hers, his body so familiar and precious to her. They moved slowly, tenderly.
“I love you,” he said to her.
It had been such a long time since they’d been this intimate that she’d almost forgotten how wonderful it could be. “I love you too,” she whispered. Then they started to move, creating heat and friction and finally a shared cry.
Afterward, they lay wrapped around each other with her head on his chest. She could hear the thud of his heart. “I’ve missed this,” she said.
“I’ve missed you.”
And so, in that cheesy motel with the noise of the highway in their ears and the faint smell of disinfectant in the air, they finally talked about things she realized they should have been talking about months ago.
“We’re like the cobbler’s children who have no shoes,” she said with a chuckle when she realized how badly they had grown apart. “I’m so glad we’re back on track.”
He rolled off her and padded to the bathroom. She smiled, realizing he was still wearing his socks. How had she let herself get so distracted that she hadn’t given her own relationship the time and attention it deserved?
She jumped out of bed feeling energized. “You know what I can’t figure out?”
“What?” he said from the bathroom.
“I can’t figure out why that woman who calls herself The Breakup Artist sent somebody to me. I thought at first she was some awful person who got off on destroying people’s lives, but she actually seemed pretty decent when we got to talking.”
There was silence from inside the bathroom. Jordan came out and she took her turn. When she emerged, thinking another round was in order, she found him fully dressed, sitting on the bed. He looked funny. Confused. Guilty.
Without realizing she did it, she put a hand to her heart. “Jordan? What is it?”
“There’s something I have to tell you.”
“Okay.” She went to sit beside him on the bed. For some reason, she felt she needed to get dressed, probably since he was. She dragged her clothes back on and then settled beside him.
“This isn’t easy.” He was looking down at his clasped hands.
“Okay,” she said. Remaining quiet until he was ready, trying not to let her heart rate get out of control. Touching him gently on the arm, she waited. Usually he was so verbal, so well expressed that to see him like this, tongue-tied and unsure where to begin, gave her a very bad feeling in her belly.
When she couldn’t stand the silence another second, she cried, “Jordan, please. You’re scaring me.”
He let out a great sigh. “I hired Chloe Flynt to break up our relationship.”
She’d been trained. For twelve years she’d studied human behavior patterns, interactive communication, and therapy of all sorts. There were a variety of models she could call on for her response. What she did was in no behavior model, textbook, or counselor’s manual. It came right out of her childhood.
She screamed, “You did what?”
“I’m sorry. I realize what I did was wrong—”
“But I don’t understand. Why would you go to her?”
“I didn’t want to hurt you. I didn’t want to upset our working relationship.”
She waved her hand as though batting away a fly. “No, not that. I mean, why did you want to break up?”
Silence.
“Jordan, we’re therapists. Counseling people through rough patches in their relationships is what we do.” He looked down at his hands and suddenly the obvious slapped her. “Oh, God. No. There’s someone else?”
“I’m so sorry,” he said.
She fell back against the hideous polyester bedspread. She stared up at the ceiling. There was a squished mosquito in the center like a tiny Rorschach test. “I’m a cliché. A joke. I wrote a book about perfect communication, perfect love and meanwhile my supposedly perfect partner screws around behind my back.”
“I didn’t, in point of fact, screw her,” he said in his scholarly way. “But I admit I was drawn to another woman. Seriously attracted.”
“Who? Who is she?”
“An artist. A grad student at the university.”
“One of your students?” He taught a class in the psych department. She wasn’t the only cliché around here. Next to fancying themselves in love with their therapists, young women seemed to love falling for their teachers.
“No. I met her at a faculty function. One you were too busy to attend.” She didn’t miss the hint of bitterness behind his words. She wanted to hit him.
“Don’t you dare try to pin that on me. You sniveling coward. Couldn’t you have come to me? Talked to me? You hired a perfect stranger to break up with me?” She leapt to her feet. “I can’t believe I just had sex with you.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ll drive you home.”
She wanted to snap at him and tell him to go. Just go. But she didn’t think she had the energy left even to call a cab to this nasty motel.
They didn’t speak at all on the way back to her house. Jordan tried a couple of times, but she shushed him. She was too angry to utter a word she wouldn’t regret. Besides, she was obsessed with the fact that her entire life’s work was a failure. A joke.
She was a joke.
Chapter 21
Stephanie threw her purse to the floor of her office in Chloe’s house. Chloe was out and she had the place to herself so she opened the metal filing cabinet and slammed the drawer shut. The noise was satisfyingly violent. Then, because that had felt so good, she opened the drawer and slammed it again.
“My, someone’s in a temper,” that cool English voice said.
Stephanie jumped. “Oh, sorry. I thought you were out.”
A flicker of amusement crossed that aristocratic face. “Is that what you do when I’m out? Slam the filing drawers? I shall have to stay home in future.”
“Not usually. But then I don’t usually want to kill someone.”
She nodded. “Rafe. He looked pretty grim when he arrived.”
“That arrogant, moronic…” Beneath her anger, little prickles of humiliation began to poke through. Was that all it was for him? The need to be a hero? To rescue the damsel in distress? Frankly, she was getting sick of being that damsel. “Can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
“Do you think people can ever really change?”
“Darling girl, people change every day. Look at you. Two months ago you were working at that dreary job at the bank, engaged to that awful prig. Now you’ve got a fabulous job, with the best boss this side of London, and you are deciding what you want in life.” Chloe smiled at her.
“Rafe says he needs to stay away from me because wounded doves are his weakness and he’s determined to break that bad pattern.”
Chloe’s eyes got that very deep twinkly look they took on when she was thinking deeply. “Maybe he has already broken his pattern.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re strong, you’re vibrant, you’ve learned your own worth. Perhaps you frighten him.”
“He said—”
“Oh, I know what he said. Darling, if men knew themselves, the world would be a far simpler place. Though far less interesting, don’t you think?”
She had turned to walk out when Stephanie stopped her. “Wait. Did Deborah Beaumont come here?”
“Yes. She stopped by.”
Stephanie took a big breath. “I see her. Professionally. That’s why I need a longer lunch hour every two weeks. I should have told you, but—”
“No reason at all to tell me. It’s your private business.”
“But I knew Rafe was going there, obviously.”
“Of course, you’ll have memorized all the files by now.”
“I didn’t know he had an appointment today.”
“No. Nor did I. Well, he didn’t have to tell me, obviously, since he’s doing me a favor and not getting paid.”
“But—why did you tell him to ask her out? After only a couple of weeks? It doesn’t make sense.”
“I didn’t suggest anything of the kind. All Rafe was supposed to do was show up
and be scruffy and disorganized and a gorgeous hot mess. I had a theory that I think was deeply flawed, as it turned out. Anyway, I think Rafe is trying to make sense of a few things in his life right now, don’t you? If I had to guess—and why not, it’s a free country—I’d say he asked her out hoping she’d say no, so he could give up the sessions and yet still feel he’d fulfilled his commitment to me.”
“But—”
“Is Deborah any good?”
“As a therapist? Yeah. She’s great. I mean, if you’d seen me when she first started working with me, believe me, you wouldn’t have offered me a job. I was so screwed up.” She made a wry face. “Worse than I am now.”
Chloe nodded. “I was so certain she’d be rubbish. I suspect I gave Rafe that impression too. I wonder if she’s got Rafael facing his demons, whether he wants to or not.”
“All I know is he says he can’t see me because he doesn’t do wounded doves anymore.” She gritted her teeth and gripped her hands together.
Chloe looked at her for a moment, her purple-blue eyes full of understanding. “Stephanie, you have my full permission to slam all the file drawers. Go around and break some things too, if it makes you feel better.” Then she walked with her model’s walk out of the room.
Stephanie gave her time to get all the way out before opening the file drawers one at a time and slamming them until it sounded like her office was throwing a temper tantrum.
Rafe pulled into Deborah’s driveway. She lived in a brick townhouse in a nice area near the university. Lots of trees and decent older homes. Hers wasn’t grand, but it was solid. There were lights on inside.
He knocked at the front door. Stood there for a bit. The porch light went on and then Deborah opened the door.
He had a moment of shock when he wondered if he’d misread the address. He’d seen messed-up street women who looked better than the woman at the door. Her dress was crumpled, her hair was all over the place, and her eyes were red from crying. All that crying had left her skin blotchy and none of her makeup was where she’d originally intended it. Her mascara had run and the stuff on her eyelids had seeped to her temples, her lipstick was nothing but a blurry line around the outside of her mouth, and her skin looked chapped and raw.