by Jewel E. Ann
“Whoa, first, I’m not your patient anymore. I’ve done the financial risk assessment and based on our progress, I should have ended treatment weeks ago. Second, this is nothing.” Jessica gestured her hand between the two of them. “So don’t get your over-starched flannel boxers bound in a wad up your tight ass thinking anything is happening.” Jessica glanced over her shoulder at two sets of eyes peering in at them. She smiled. “Now, weren’t you going to show me what all my money has bought you?”
Luke drummed his fingers on the counter in a steady beat of contemplation. “We’ll make it through the evening and after you leave I’ll tell Gabe you’re not my type.”
“Not your type?” she mumbled to herself, following him down the hall. Apparently his type was submissive giraffes with weak personalities. Jessica inherited her mother’s vertically challenged gene and her father’s strong but colorful personality which was often intimidating to men. It was possible the blood “fetish” played a minor part in her one-and-done dating streak.
“Bathroom … guest bedroom … office…” Luke droned with zero enthusiasm “…master bedroom …”
Jessica veered off the tour into his bedroom. The view of the bay was nearly as amazing as his office. The bedding on the king bed was a mix of white, grays, black, and a few pillow splashes of blue. Everything was a perfect geometric configuration of modern design and immaculate order.
“This is my bedroom.” Luke stood in the doorway.
“I know. That’s what you said.” She dusted her fingertips over his dresser then the foot of the bed, mesmerized by how turned on she felt being in his personal space. “You have OCD.”
“I don’t. I’m simply entertaining guests tonight.”
“In your bedroom?”
“It’s on the tour.”
Jessica continued to his large walk-in closet.
“That’s not on the tour.”
It didn’t matter to her. The light automatically came on when she opened the door. With the same delicate touch, she ran her hand down the sleeve of one out of maybe twenty flawlessly ironed dress shirts. From a dark wood cubby she pulled out a folded hoodie and brought it to her nose.
“You’re in my closet … smelling my clothes. I think you’re crossing a serious line, Jessica.”
She turned, hugging his sweatshirt. “I hate how good you smell all the time.”
Luke leaned against the door frame with his hands casually resting in the back pockets of his jeans, shoulders pulled back, shirt hugged to his defined chest.
“It’s been distracting me for the past three months.” She took calculated steps toward him.
Luke tracked her every move with spine-tingling intensity. There was a predator and its prey, but neither one showed signs of submitting to the lesser role.
“My apologies,” he whispered.
“Liar.” Jessica rested her hands on his chest.
He regarded her with undaunted control, not retreating an inch or relinquishing so much as the slightest flinch. “What do you want?”
Jessica circled the pad of her finger over the buttons of his shirt. “That’s simple—you.”
She slid her hands up his chest to the back of his neck and pulled him toward her as she lifted on to her toes. When their lips touched, it felt like someone poured gasoline onto a small ember deep inside her that Dr. Jones had been fanning for weeks with his eyes, his smell, his militant control.
A painful urgency to feel his hands on her body set off a familiar panic in her mind. Control—she was losing it. His hands remained static in his back pockets, but for some reason that felt more dominating than if they’d been tangled in her hair. Luke controlled her with just his presence. Jessica was drowning in his taste, the way his tongue manipulated hers, and his lips overruled the urgent pace hers were desperate to maintain. It was too fast and too slow, too much, yet not enough. It was in her head—he was in her head.
“Shit!” Luke pulled away, eyes wide for a split second before narrowing into small slits. He touched his middle two fingers to his bloodied lip.
Jessica rubbed her lips together as they curled into a smirk; blood red lipstick hid the evidence. She brushed past him. “Can’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Chapter Twelve
Knight
Jillian rubbed her lips together, still tasting the one kiss that would forever linger with equal parts pain and pleasure. She glanced up from the sofa where she was folding some clothes. Lilith smiled. She was always smiling, even when she slept. But each smile was unique. Jillian knew Lilith couldn’t hear her story, but the way her smiles changed throughout parts of it made Jillian wonder if she had a sixth sense for the emotions in the air.
“I’m going to work on the bathroom since you’re done with lunch.” Jillian stood.
Lilith squinted a bit, then nodded as she tried to get up from her chair.
“Do you need to use the bathroom first?” Jillian asked, helping Lilith to her feet.
Lilith shook her head.
“Do you want to nap in your bed today?”
Lilith hobbled down the hall as Jillian held her arm. When they reached the master bathroom, Lilith pointed to the floral upholstered vanity chair.
“Oh, you want to watch me install the bar?”
Lilith smiled again, and Jillian helped her sit on the chair. She had about an hour to get the handicap bar secured to the wall before Dodge would be home. Jillian had learned her handywoman skills from the most unlikely place, but that was a story for another day. She still hadn’t finished her blind date.
*
Day
Jessica left her wounded ex-shrink behind to think about his wrong doings. She felt no remorse. He needed to adjust his treatment plan to actually address the patient’s problem before any more innocent victims were affected. Even more than that, he needed to stop wearing that cologne or using that soap, or whatever it was that made her have such an insatiable craving for him. It could have been those sharp navy eyes too, or his thick black hair he always wore styled just so. In Jessica’s eyes it begged for her fingers to mess it up and yank it hard.
“Hey, Jess. So what’d you think? Isn’t this place amazing?” Kelly moved her feet from the opposing patio chair at the table so Jessica could sit down. Gabe grabbed Kelly’s foot, pulled off her heeled sandal, and began massaging her foot. Gabe was a keeper. It had to be in the stars for them. They both had curly blond hair, his just long enough to tease his ears and hers midway down her back. Their children would be ridiculously cute and sweet. Both Gabe and Kelly were nauseatingly lovey-dovey.
“Yeah, it’s pretty amazing.” Jessica sipped her wine.
“Dinner will be ready soon. Is everyone good with eating out here?” Luke asked, peeking his head outside.
“Oh my God! What happened to your lip?” Kelly gasped.
“Jessica bit me.”
Jessica whipped around, dragging her jaw along the ground.
“What? No, seriously what happened?” Gabe laughed. The idea of Jessica biting her blind date within twenty minutes of supposedly meeting him for the first time was beyond crazy.
Jessica stood, giving Kelly and Gabe a nervous smile. “Kudos, you two. This guy is a real jokester and I love a good sense of humor.” She motioned to the door with her thumb. “Just relax. I’ll help Luke finish up in the kitchen.” She turned on her heels and marched toward Luke without any more confusion as to who was the predator that day.
Luke walked back to the kitchen like he didn’t just toss her off the ten story balcony.
“What the hell was that? What happened to doctor-patient confidentiality?”
Luke grabbed the plates from behind the glass-doored cabinet then turned toward her. “I didn’t disclose anything about my patient, Jessica Day. I simply shared the incident that happened in my closet five minutes ago with my blind date, Hannibal Lecter.”
“I was just proving a point.” Jessica leaned over the island, teeth clenched.
Luke
leaned in from the opposite side until there were only a few inches between their faces. “So. Was. I.”
She huffed in exasperation while reclaiming her space. “I trusted you to help me.”
Luke’s brow creased. “I was helping you, but I didn’t get to remove anyone’s appendix on my first day of medical school. I had to study and master the human body first. It’s the same way with the mind. No two people are alike. I need to study and understand you before I can help you. There’s nothing textbook about thoughts and feelings.” He took a breath and closed his eyes for a brief moment, like that speech had been playing in his head for weeks, desperate to be heard.
Jessica’s shoulders slumped as defeat hijacked her voice. “I spent three hours getting ready for this date, shaving almost everything except my head—lotion, makeup, hair straightening, ten wardrobe changes—because I haven’t had sex in over six months. Six. Months!”
Luke gave her a sad smile. “You look truly stunning tonight.”
Jessica forced her gaze up to meet his. “If I wouldn’t have bit you would we have had sex tonight?”
He laughed, a real laugh. It was a foreign sound that Jessica had never heard him make. “Honestly I hadn’t thought that far.”
“Why not?”
He pulled the large dish from the oven. “Shit!” He sucked his finger just below the knuckle having burned it on the top of the oven. “Because…” he sucked it some more “…I was waiting for you to make me bleed.”
Jessica cocked her head to the side. “Why were you so sure I’d make you bleed?”
Luke ran his hand under cold water, looking over his shoulder at Jessica for a long second. “Because I’ve been studying you for the past three months.”
She fell into a brief, rare moment of speechlessness. Her eyes blinked in rapid succession. “You think I look stunning tonight?” she whispered.
“Painfully.” Luke’s gaze slipped as his hands commenced arranging the food on the plates.
They served dinner, enjoyed a mild sixty-five degree evening on the balcony with their friends, laughed at jokes, sipped fine wine and beer, and shared an occasional glance. But they never spoke directly to each other again until the evening came to an end.
“We’re going to head out so you two can have some time alone, exchange numbers, plan your wedding.” Kelly giggled as Gabe pulled her out the door with his hand over her mouth.
“She’s clearly had too much to drink. Thanks, Luke. Dinner was great.” Gabe gave a final wave before Luke closed the door, leaning back against it with his hands in his pockets.
She always remembered that image of Dr. Luke Jones as her favorite: casual and blindingly handsome. The evening had bestowed a few wrinkles to his clothes. The messy contrast to his perfectly parted, neatly combed hair gave him an unforgettable boyish appeal, and there was a soft surrender in his blue eyes.
“I-I’m at a loss for words.”
Jessica nodded. “What were the chances, right?” She shifted slightly from one foot to the other in an attempt to ease the murderous torture of her heels. “I think I’ll keep my appointment with you for next week after all.”
Luke squinted as he shook his head. “I can’t be your doctor anymore.”
“What? Why not?”
“Our friends set us up on a date tonight. We kissed. The grid of lines we’ve crossed is so far beyond ethical I can’t see straight. I’m not going to end my career over this. And you need help, but it can’t be me. I’ll refer you to someone else, but—”
“Someone else?” Jessica’s voice strained in disbelief against her wavering anger. “I’m not doing this shit again. I’ve spent the past three months with you. Opening up to you. Being studied by you. Now I’m just supposed to start over?”
“It wouldn’t be like that.” Luke pushed off the door.
Jessica retreated a step in response.
“I’d bring your new doctor up to speed on our progress—”
“Progress? Really? Have you looked in the mirror? Do you call that progress?”
“I can’t see you. Period.”
Jessica crossed her arms over her chest. “You can’t see me as my doctor or—”
“At all.” Luke’s words held a cold finality. “I’m not an ER doctor that stitched up your wound. I’m a psychiatrist and in my profession it’s not ethical to get personally involved with patients—not during treatment and not even after the professional relationship has been terminated.”
“But you kissed me back.”
He shook his head, squinting a bit. “I should not have.”
Jessica drew in a shaky breath and closed her eyes, willing what was happening to just stop. She needed him and she had to make him see that. “I’ll never forget how her body looked drained of its blood.”
“Jessica, don’t. I’m not your doctor anymore.” Luke opened the front door.
Memories of that crippling fear seized her body. She opened her eyes and stared at an imperfection in the dark wood floor next to a small steel-framed credenza. “He always wore combat fatigues with brown boots. I estimated his shoe size to be a ten from the blood-stamped boot prints on the floor.”
“Jessica! Stop. Now.”
“That’s what I said … every time he’d cut her. He was in control, total control. And when he’d start to lose it, he’d cut her again. Just the sight of it calmed him. I don’t remember when I stopped crying and started placing bets with myself as to where he would cut her next. Every time I guessed correctly I felt stronger as Claire became weaker. It was as if I was taking his control. If I could predict his next move I could save us, get us out of there.”
“I’m sorry. I can’t—I won’t do this with you. Call my office on Monday and Eve will give you a referral.” Luke grabbed her arm.
It took a moment for Jessica to register what he was doing and by the time she did, the door was closed and she was on the opposite side. She rested her cheek and flattened her hands against it. The magnetism to Luke was more than she could resist. He had something so vital to her survival that walking away would feel like a slow death.
“He was her boyfriend. Claire had met him online. They dated over the internet for almost a year before they decided to meet. He wanted to wait until she was eighteen so Claire asked me to drive down to San Diego with her on her birthday. It was the summer between our junior and senior year. I didn’t turn eighteen until that October.” A lone tear smeared down her cheek. “Luke?” she whispered, closing her eyes.
She sucked in a shaky breath. “Our parents thought we were going to LA for a concert. Jude was the only person who knew where we were going. Claire didn’t know I told him, but I did. Jude and I don’t keep secrets; we never have.” She opened her eyes and started sliding her fingernail along the grooves of the woodgrain door.
“It wasn’t the best neighborhood, but when I tried to warn Claire she berated me for being so judgmental. The houses were all small and rundown with cars parked on the streets and so much junk in the driveways it looked like everyone was having a rummage sale. Four lived in a green house with half the siding ripped off, an old brown stained sofa on the weathered gray porch, and the storm door with ripped screen that rattled on its loose hinges like an earthquake every time the wind gusted.”
Jessica chuckled, the trail of her lone tear washed away by an uncontrollable flood of many more. She missed Claire. Every. Single. Day. “You want to know what was so ironic? When the police told Claire’s parents, they visibly relaxed with relief that she hadn’t been raped. She bled out of her femoral artery in just under two minutes, yet her parents were relieved that she died a virgin. How fucked-up is that?” She sniffled. “I know what you’re thinking: not nearly as fucked-up as me.” Her voice cracked on the last word. Could he possibly know that she never let anyone see this vulnerability?
Without warning, the door disappeared. Jessica stumbled to the ground, quick hands saving her from a face-plant by less than an inch. Those same quick hands pul
led her to her feet.
Luke sighed and waited for her amber eyes to find his through her long wet lashes. “When I’m the most overeducated barista at Starbucks you’d better come in every day to remind me why I trashed my career. And since you’ll be the most psychologically stable actuary in the history of the profession, you’d better leave me one helluva tip.”
Jessica nodded while wiping her tears. Relief mingled between her laughter and sobs. “I’m sorry I bit you. It won’t happen again.”
“No, it won’t.” Luke framed her petite face in his strong hands. “Because if it does I’ll have you muzzled, put in a straitjacket, and committed to a mental institute. Are we clear?”
She swallowed with a slow nod. “Dr. Jo—”
“No.” He shook his head. “I’m not your doctor. You will see me here three times a week, no more no less. You will clean my apartment and tell me about your past. I will listen and offer friendly advice. There will never be an exchange of money. You will never come to my office again. You will never tell anyone. As far as Gabe and Kelly are concerned, we just didn’t have that much in common. Are. We. Clear?”
“Can I call you Jones … just Jones. I like it.”
“No.”
Jessica sighed. “You’re no fun.” She pulled from his grasp and opened the door.
“Jessica?”
“Yes?” She turned.
“That’s another thing this will not be.”
“Huh?”
“Fun.”
Chapter Thirteen
Knight
Jillian finished installing the handicap bar minutes after ending her story for the day.
“Hey, look at that!” Dodge stood in the doorway admiring Jillian’s handy work.
“I think she’ll be able to use the bathroom by herself now.”
“Thank God for that. There’s nothing worse than pulling her ass off the toilet after she’s shot out one of them toxic loads. I think them meds are messing with her plumbing. I sure as shit won’t miss breaking that seal.”