by Selena Kitt
He smiled, checking the machine she was attached to. “No lightning bolts, I promise.”
“So I’m just supposed to sleep with all this stuff on?” She shrugged helplessly, trying to move with all the wires attached—to her chest, her belly, her thighs, her temples. “How is that possible?”
“I’ve actually got one more to attach,” he said, looking sheepish.
She groaned. “Where? I’m hooked up all over.”
He cleared his throat. “Inside.”
She looked at him blankly.
“Inside your…pussy.”
She gaped at him. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“I’m afraid not.” He gave her an apologetic smile. “Can you lay back?”
She sighed but did as he asked.
“Let your knees fall open,” he said. She felt his gloved hand on her thigh, and even through the latex it felt hot. “That’s good. It will only take a second.”
“What if I have to pee?” She felt him probing between her legs and flushed, remembering her dream. This was somehow very different from the first exam he’d done. Things had changed between them, had definitely become more…intimate.
“That’s why we restricted your fluids,” he reminded her. “Okay, all done.” He snapped off his gloves and helped her sit.
“Why are we doing this again?”
He busied himself gathering the wires trailing out from under her gown into one bundle. “These leads go to machines that will give us important information about your body.”
“Information like…what?” she inquired, watching as he used adhesive bandage tape to secure the leads together.
“Heart rate, breathing, brain waves.” His hand brushed her knee and she shivered. “We’ll even be able to tell when you’re dreaming.”
“You will?” The thought of her dream the day before made her face flush with heat.
He seemed to anticipate her concern. “Don’t worry, we can’t tell what you’re dreaming about… not exactly.”
“What does that mean?” She looked at the machine across from her, dubious.
Matt cleared his throat as he stood fully. “Well, we can tell if you’re experiencing arousal.”
“Oh.”
“And of course, we’ll know if you have an orgasm in your sleep,” he added.
Rose shook her head. “No pressure.”
“Well that’s kind of the point.” Matt smiled, gathering the blankets and quilt from the end of the bed. They’d made it as cozy as they could, with a real bed, not a hospital one, and thick blankets and quilts and plenty of pillows. “You’re completely vulnerable when you’re sleeping.”
“Right.” Somehow that didn’t make her feel any better. “And you’ll be watching.” She nodded toward the mirrored wall across the way. She knew two-way glass when she saw it.
“Yes,” he admitted, helping her get under the covers. It was almost like he was tucking her in, which was both sweet and a little strange. She hadn’t been tucked into bed since she was little. “I’ll be monitoring the machines all night.”
She reclined on the bed, still too aware of all the wires trailing under the covers. “That’s not creepy or anything.”
“Well, I can give you something to help you sleep, if you want it. It’s just better for our results if we record a natural sleep cycle.”
“No, no.” She waved his offer away. “I’ll give it the old college try first.”
“Are you tired?”
She rolled her eyes, which were already heavy with sleep now that she was warmly tucked into bed. “I’ve been up for the past eighteen hours—what do you think?”
Matt grinned. “Sometimes patients can’t make it.”
“You can thank Angry Birds for that.” She nodded toward her bag, where Matt’s iPad was stored. He’d loaned it to her at dinner, suggesting it might help keep her awake all night.
He laughed. “I hoped that might do it.”
“That damned game is far too addictive.”
“Isn’t it?” Matt adjusted the lights, turning off the overheads and dimming the ones over the sink. “I’ve got an intern who wants to do a study on why it’s so addictive.”
Rose felt her eyes closing already. She was so tired. Flinging fat little video game birds all night was exhausting. “He can use me as a test subject.”
“Well let’s see if we can get to the bottom of this problem first, shall we?” Matt’s hand moved over the covers, literally tucking her in now, adjusting the wires.
“Sounds like a plan,” she murmured, feeling his hand moving through her hair, stroking gently. She held her breath, his fingertips brushing her cheek, and when she opened her eyes he was looking down at her, gaze soft and a little dreamy. It made her stomach do flips. She whispered her question, as if it might break the mood. “Will there be anyone else out there or just you?”
“It’ll just be me,” he assured her, his eyes meeting hers. They were so warm and dark and there was something there, an emotion she hadn’t seen before, but maybe she was just imagining things, hallucinating from lack of sleep. That’s what she told herself.
That was, until Matt leaned down at kissed her forehead, his mouth soft, breath warm. “Goodnight, Rose. Sweet dreams.”
She was so surprised she couldn’t reply, and then he was gone. She couldn’t help the small smile playing on her lips as her heavy eyelids closed and she finally whispered, “’Night, Matt,” knowing he was there, just on the other side of the glass. It made her feel safe enough to sleep.
She was floating in a golden haze, sweet honey on her lips, between her thighs. There were hands touching her but she could see no faces. She drifted on a cloud, the darkness giving her no reason to protest, no shame, no fear, just pure pleasure and sensation.
And then she was in an alleyway, pressed against a wall, a man between her thighs, hard cock seeking entrance to her heat. She was afraid but excited, eager, even greedy, but she thrashed in his arms, saying, “No! No!”
There was no one to hear.
“Open your legs for me.” Alone on a table, the voice somewhere far above. She did as she was told, whimpering, crying, begging. “Touch your pussy. Yes. Like that. Rub your swollen cunt.”
She flushed in shame, but the wet heat between her legs begged for more and she rubbed and rubbed her swollen flesh. A mouth on her breast, licking her nipples. A cock in her mouth, thick and thrusting deep into her throat. She gagged and choked on the length, but she never stopped touching herself.
Naked, following a white thread in a black maze. How could she possibly find her way? What if the thread broke? Then what? She kept her fingers on that thin line to freedom, feeling her way in the darkness. Someone calling her name. A familiar voice.
“Rose!”
There was no door, no entrance, just a sudden shift and she was in his arms, covered with kisses, his cock pressed against her hip like a brand.
“I want you.” It wasn’t a question or even a demand. It just was. He sank to his knees and buried his face between her thighs, the sensation almost more than she could bear. She cried out in pleasure, curling her fingers in his hair.
“Fuck me!” she begged. “Please!”
And he covered her with himself, like a blanket, like fire, sweaty, hot, thrusting deep and hard, making her teeth rattle, her pelvis creak in protest, and still it wasn’t enough.
“Harder! Faster!”
He grunted and thrust, biting at her neck and shoulder, tongue lashing her nipples. She grabbed his hips and fucked him back, rocking and rolling like a carnival ride. There was no stopping now.
“Come for me,” he panted. “Oh fuck, Rosie, come! Come for me! Come for you!”
And in the darkness she knew it was him. She screamed his name as she came.
* * * *
It was the closest thing they’d ever come to an argument during a session.
“But I thought Sam was the one,” Rose protested. “He was my everything.”
“And he left you.” Matt leaned forward in his chair, his eyes dark as he said those devastating words. Rose tried not to show a response, but she couldn’t help her sarcastic reply.
“Yeah. Thanks for the reminder.”
“I’m just wondering what kind of man would do that?” Matt pressed on. “I’ll be honest with you, Rose, if you had been my fiancé, I wouldn’t have left.”
“But I lied to him,” she said, feeling the weight of that fact in her chest.
“There are lies…and then there are lies,” Matt said, dismissing her excuse. “I’m not saying lying is good or right, but the fact is that everyone lies. You have to decide how hurtful a lie is before you start making judgments. The lie you told hurt his ego, nothing more.” He gave her plenty to think about, but he always did. He was very good at his job, and sometimes she hated that. His next words startled her out of her thoughts. “But I can understand why he left.”
“You can?” She met his eyes in a slant of sunlight coming across his desk from the open window. It was a gorgeous day and she could even heard the waves crashing on the beach.
Matt smiled grimly. “At worst, he had a very small, easily bruised ego. At best, your confession forced him to face up to the fact that, for two years, you weren’t able to fully trust him.”
Rose gaped. “But it wasn’t his fault.”
“No, but Rose, we all pick partners for a reason.” Matt sighed, leaning back in his chair. “We just usually don’t understand what that reason really is until much later in the relationship—if we ever discover it at all.”
She chewed on his words, using the window as a distraction. She could see the water from here, a beautiful expanse of blue. “My mother told me Sam reminded her of my father.”
“How so?”
“I don’t know.” But she did know and Matt gave her that look, the one that said he knew she wasn’t giving him everything. Sighing, Rose went on. “I guess I can see it a little. He was kind of larger than life, like my father. He wasn’t a bad guy. All he ever wanted to do was take care of me. Sam liked to fix things. I think that’s one of the reasons I never told him—because every problem I ever had, he tried to fix. And I knew he couldn’t fix this one.”
“And your father is like that?”
“In some ways.” Rose shrugged. “Like when he found out about my…problem…he sent me to the best medical specialists in the world.”
“Right. How did he find out again? Did you tell him?”
“Let’s just say my aunt Poppy has a big mouth.” She rolled her eyes. “I was only twenty-two. I honestly didn’t even know what I was missing until I got drunk with a girlfriend in college and we ended up playing around with her vibrator…”
Matt’s eyebrows raised and he leaned forward onto his elbows on the desk. “What happened?”
Rose gave him a long, steady look and then laughed. “What is it with men and lesbian scenarios?”
“I didn’t ask for the purpose of arousal,” Matt assured her.
“But the thought arouses you, doesn’t it?” she countered.
He smiled. “I could tell you the answer to that, but then I’d have to pay you instead of the other way around.”
She couldn’t help laughing. “Well my father’s footing the bill for this place, so however that impacts the metaphor, it’s probably just creepy…”
“So how did you figure out what you were missing?” Matt pressed.
“I watched her have an orgasm,” Rose admitted. Sometimes she felt like she could tell Matt anything, especially given how many compromising positions he’d seen her in and how much information he already had about every fabric of her being. “I’d never seen anything like it before. I mean, I’d seen porn orgasms, and I knew there were supposed to be lights and fireworks and stuff at the end of sex. And it did feel good for me. I just never got to that ‘oh my god’ point all the porn actresses were screaming about. I thought it was fake, honestly.”
Matt nodded. “But when you saw your friend…?”
“I knew it was real then,” she confessed, remembering her college roommate and their experimentation. Lesley had been an athletic girl who played soccer and field hockey and was loud both on and off the field. She’d been very up front about her sexuality and it both shocked and thrilled Rose. “The way she moved, the sounds she made, that look on her face. It was really that look of…of…pure pleasure. She clearly had one final, blissful moment of release that convinced me.” Glancing over, she saw Matt was hanging on her every word. “It was nothing like the movies. And it was definitely real. That’s what made me want to know what it felt like.”
Matt didn’t say anything. He did that sometimes, waiting for her to go on, but this time it was different. The air was thick with her words, heavy, as if a spark might ignite them.
Rose felt her mouth curling into a half-smile. “Would it turn you on to know that she tried, I can’t count how many times, to give me an orgasm?”
He cleared his throat. “Perhaps.”
“She was very persistent,” Rose assured him, wondering if he really was turned on by the thought of her with another woman. The realization that his cock might be hard under his desk, that the hand she couldn’t see might be pressing it to ease the ache through his trousers, made her wild with lust. “She was very athletic, and she had these long, tanned thighs that could clamp around me like a vice…”
Matt sat up, interrupting her. “You didn’t disclose in your entry interview that you’re bisexual.”
“I’m not.” Rose grinned. “It was college—we were experimenting. And I was desperate.”
“So you finally went and told your aunt?” He was clearly trying to change the subject.
“No—my nosy aunt read my journal while I was staying at her house for the summer.” She remembered it with the same burning humiliation and betrayal she’d first experienced when she discovered the fact. “My father was away that year setting up factories in China and my mother was gone to Brazil.”
“Then what happened?”
“We’ve been over this.” She shrugged. “Besides, it’s all in that pack of paperwork you guys made me fill out to get in here.”
“I’m just wondering how your father fit into the picture.”
“I wasn’t abused, Matt.” She waved his concern away, just as she always did. “No one ever touched me inappropriately. I was a virgin until college, just like I said. I’ve had a total of five sexual partners in my life. Six if you count my college roommate.” She smiled at the way he shifted in his chair when she said that. “My father never beat me or touched me in any way that he shouldn’t have touched his daughter.”
Matt nodded, but he didn’t give up. “Most of our psychological wounds don’t have physical causes.”
“He didn’t emotionally abuse me either,” she assured him. “ In fact, it was more the opposite. He tried to shelter me as much as possible from the bad things. I was his only child, his only daughter—his little princess.”
“Is that what he called you?”
She smiled, remembering. “Yes.”
“What about your mother?”
“She didn’t abuse me either.” She rolled her eyes. “I’m telling you, Matt, my life has been pretty void of trauma.”
“Aside from your parent’s divorce,” he reminded her.
She snorted. “Over half the people in this country have parents who get divorced. I bet most of them can still have orgasms.”
Matt just looked her. He always knew when she was deflecting, being defensive. Of course, it was his job to know—but sometimes it was disarming.
Then he changed tactics. “You were having a dream the other night…”
She froze in her chair. “Do we have to talk about this?” She had been worried about it and of course, it had actually happened—she’d dreamed about him, had even called his name.
But Matt was going in a different direction. “You mentioned a woman’s name. Cathy. Who’s C
athy?”
She stiffened, her breath gone. “I have no idea.”
“Are you sure?” That look again. Damn, he was good.
“Did I say anything else?” she asked, discovering she preferred talking about her salacious dream starring Dr. Matt to telling him about Cathy.
He smiled. “Did you know you talk in your sleep?”
“Yeah.” She knew, and she hated it. “Sam mentioned it a couple of times. He thought it was funny. I’d wake up and tell him he needed to remember his breathing apparatus for work in the morning. Only I wasn’t awake at all. I don’t remember any of it.”
“Can I show you something?” Matt opened the laptop on his desk, signing in. Rose didn’t say anything, she just watched as he turned the screen toward her and she saw a grainy image of her in the bed where she spent the night a week ago, hooked up to wires and machines. She was definitely sleeping, hand curled up by her cheek, mouth hanging open.
“This is it?” She raised an eyebrow at him. “Me, pillow-drooling?”
“Keep watching.”
Suddenly she was thrashing on the bed, calling out. Oh god. She thought nothing could be worse than hearing herself call Matt’s name.
“Daddy! No!”
Her eyes were silver in the darkness on the video as she sat up, staring into space at nothing, yet seeing something in her mind. And then a scream tore from her throat, so loud even through the laptop speakers that Rose covered her ears as she watched herself screaming hoarsely over and over, the words finally making sense.
“It’s not Cathy’s fault! It’s not her fault!”
Matt hit a button on the laptop and the image disappeared. He closed the lid, looking at her, gauging her reaction.
“So…who’s Cathy?” he asked again.
She shrugged, not meeting his gaze. “Obviously someone in my dream.”
“Remember what I said to you about no lies?”
Damn him. He knew just what to say. It felt so manipulative—but she knew his motivations were pure. He really did just want to help her.