The Therapist (6) (Chase Walker) Read online

  On eight, she moved, and he knew the exact moment she’d lost the robe by the stretch she made toward the hooks.

  She returned to the shower door, and another six seconds passed, her body statuesque.

  “Do you … do you think you could, maybe, turn around. Just until …”

  “Sure.” He did as she’d asked. Turned to face the rear corner of the stall. Putting his back on show. His ass the first thing she’d probably notice as soon as she stepped inside.

  What would she even think of his ass?

  Why did he even care?

  Because he did. And there was no damned way around the fact, because he cared a whole fucking lot what Abi O’Shay thought of his body.

  Standing there, it felt like someone danced a flaming torch across every one of his nerve endings. Every inch of his body seemed aware of the water skating over it, every muscle in his body seemed tensed and ready for her arrival.

  His stupid cock was ready, too. Sticking up and out and hard, like it sought her before she’d even stepped through the door.

  At the quiet click of the panel opening, his head twitched to the side. At the second click of the door, a heavy throb kicked in along his shaft.

  Because she was there. Right there behind him. Naked and so fucking close to his own nakedness. A light tickle danced the length of his spine, like all the hairs there reached out to accept her, shouting their welcomes and invites to come closer.

  “Okay?” He spoke low. Didn’t turn. Didn’t so much as glance back toward her.

  The breath she let out shook—the kind of breath that could clog a person’s throat. “I’m okay.” She didn’t sound so sure, though. “I have your sponge.”

  He allowed himself to turn to her then. Told himself he’d just reach for the sponge, that’d be it, he’d go back about his business.

  Except, as soon as his gaze fell on Abi, it got stuck. Like real stuck. On her everything and everywhere. Hell, he didn’t even want to look away.

  The wideness of her eyes expressed their paleness even more than usual as she stared up at him, but he couldn’t help but catch the flutter of her tits just below. Really fucking beautiful tits. More beautiful, even, than he’d pictured them to be. And more perfect than her slipping robe the week before had allowed him to see. All milky and full, and perky as hell. Tiny rosebud nipples that softened the longer she stood there, like the warmth of the water trailing over them soothed their distress.

  His stupid, stupid, disobedient eyes dropped lower. Toward where she stood with her thighs pinned together, one knee slightly overlapping the other, like she subconsciously protected herself against his heavy scrutiny. And his scrutiny weighed a fucking tonne. Especially when he acknowledged the lack of hairs coating her pubis, the missing curls that usually licked at her cunt.

  She’d shaved. She’d totally fucking gone and shaved. And hell, if that didn’t go and make his dick all the bloody harder.

  She held out her hand as if reaching to pet an animal whose temperament she couldn’t judge. “Here’s your sponge.”

  Forcing his gaze northward, he took the sponge from her. For a moment, he got caught on those bloody eyes of hers again, the way the pupils expanded into the translucency. “Thank you,” he said, ordering himself to turn away. “There’s soap up on your dish, if you need it.” He lathered his own bar against his sponge. “Feel free to do whatever feels natural to you.”

  He sensed more than saw the gentle reach of her arm beside him. Sensed more than saw every movement she made. From the way she rolled that soap bar between her hands, to the jig of her breasts caused by the gesture.

  Trying his damnedest not to go back to his staring malarkey, he swept the sponge over his chest, his shoulder, under his armpit like that’d remind him he wasn’t performing a show to turn the girl on, but going through the motions to put her at ease.

  A few minutes passed, only the beat of the water creating sound, only hands sliding over bodies, before he asked, “So, how does it feel, Abi, being in the same space as a naked man?” The question seemed a whole lot deeper than it merely being the standard style of question he asked every client after every practical session. How did it feel to you?

  She didn’t answer right away. Chase knew she’d have heard him. She probably needed to consider her answer—something he noticed she did often.

  Eventually, she replied with a simple, “Aware.”

  His hand paused the sponge over his abdomen, but he didn’t turn as he asked, “Aware, how?”

  She gave a loud exhale, more a release of nerves than a sigh. “Aware of everything.”

  Chase thought for a moment she’d given as much as she intended, but after a short pause, she continued.

  “When I first saw the shower, it looked huge. Now it feels inadequate. Like … like us being in here, together, like … this is so much larger than that. Does that make sense?”

  It did make sense. The air within the cubicle felt charged with more than steam and water, and whatever it was had his body wanting to respond to every damned word and nuance she shared. “Yes,” he said quietly and continued his sweep across his body, guided the sponge over his hip.

  It wasn’t enough, though. He wanted more. Wanted everything.

  Or maybe he just needed to know he wasn’t the only one suffering from a throbbing urge to fuck with the barrier of professionalism and a made promise in the way.

  “Why?” he asked. “What is it exactly that makes you feel aware? What are you aware of?”

  “You,” she said, and his hand stilled again. “Of how close you are. Of how … undressed you are. I’m aware of every movement you make and how you make it.”

  So was Chase. Everywhere he touched himself felt like torture, because where he most wanted to touch himself would likely set her running for the door and compromise it all. Fuck, he wanted to fist himself and relieve the ever-loving crap out of his cock, though.

  “And I’m aware of myself.” The quieted water on her side of the stall told him she stilled, too. He just caught the outward flick of her hand—something she did when trying to explain herself, to compose her thoughts into a sentence. “It feels like my senses are heightened. It feels … it feels like, when I touch myself—wash myself, it feels like more. I feel it more.”

  “Where, Abi?” His voice had roughened, but he didn’t care. “Where do you feel it more?”

  “Everywhere.”

  She seemed to breathe the word, and Chase turned to her then.

  Her hands had dropped to her sides and she stood there, exposed and dripping wet, chest high and trembling. Tiny soap suds still clung to her skin, ones Chase just knew would offer the perfect glide for exploring hands, as she stared up at him, lips slightly parted as if awaiting a response.

  Her eyes got him the most, though. Pupils fully dilated, they shone like onyx with what he could only identify as desire—and Chase had his hand in her hair before he could second guess himself. Had his other hand cupped beneath her ass.

  As he slammed her back against the glass, lifting her feet from the floor, she let out a soft grunt that held little objection. When he hooked her thigh over his hip, she still uttered no denial, but lifted her other leg, slipped it around until she hugged him with limbs far stronger and firmer than his appraisals had shown them to be.

  “Mr Walker.” Her voice was a mere whisper, but it did everything to him.

  Everything.

  Between her thighs, his cock basked in the heat pumping from her core—a core wet from a lot more than just the water coating her body. Burying his face into the crook of her neck, he allowed himself a moment. Nuzzled at the soft flesh there. Inhaled the light feminine aroma that seemed unique to her.

  Her fingers dug into his skin as she clutched at his shoulders and gave a soft moan, as she whispered another, “Mr Walker.” And he nodded to himself.

  Nodded to himself because he knew he wouldn’t be denying himself anymore.

  He’d enter her body so
deep, she’d scream out his name, and he’d thrust into her over and over until she’d never utter any other words during her moments of pleasure, except those he wanted, needed, to hear.

  Mr Walker.

  “Mr Walker.”

  He frowned at the lack of passion in her voice.

  “Mr Walker, are you okay?”

  Chase blinked. Hard. He almost took a step backward as he registered his position: exactly where he’d been standing just seconds before. As he registered Abi still standing right in the same spot, still staring up at him with questions in her eyes—except her desire had dimmed beneath the frown claiming her brow.

  He swallowed down the urges that raged through his body and focused on her moving lips, the slight tilt of her head. “Sorry, did you say something?”

  “I asked if …” Her gaze flickered south, but only for an instant before she lifted back to him, a light blush covering her cheeks. “I wanted to know if all men look like that?”

  His own attention dropped to where hers had gone. To where his cock hummed like a fucking lighthouse warning unsuspecting victims away from danger. “Only when aroused,” he said, his voice scratching at his throat.

  Lifting his gaze again, he just caught the intake of breath, the small flutter of her hand toward her chest.

  “Are you aroused?” The question seemed bold coming from Abi, and as if in agreement, the colour darkened across her cheeks.

  He wanted to lean in to her, take her face in the palms of his hands, but he resisted the urge as he responded, “Abi, I’m in a shower, naked, with possibly the most beautiful and intriguing woman I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting. If I wasn’t aroused by that, I’d be a client here, not the bloody therapist.”

  Her lips rounded as if in a silent oh, and she twisted back toward the spray of water, her gaze dipping slightly as she did so, though not before sending another glance toward his rampant hard-on.

  “You should understand, though—that not all men look the same,” he said, like that’d get her attention back on him. Because he needed it there. On him. Penetrating through to his very soul, like only she could see him. “Not all men are the same size.”

  His mind drifted to Jones, a really bad fucking example of what an average cock might look like. It just as fast flitted to her husband-to-be. The man she’d be marrying.

  The bastard who didn’t deserve her—in Chase’s world, anyway.

  Chase bet the fucker’s cock’d be nowhere near as formed as his own.

  Would Abi be disappointed when she saw it?

  And thinking about Abi in the vicinity of that dick wearing nothing but a stiffy had his own solid shaft taking its first step toward limping out.

  He barely registered the fisting of his hand against the tiles as he braced himself into the spray. He didn’t even realise he’d curled his lip, until water squeezed through and into his mouth.

  Discreetly spitting it down to the basin below, he glanced toward where Abi still focused away, her slender fingers lazily dabbing the sponge over her body like her thoughts were everywhere but on the task at hand.

  In that moment, he allowed himself to admit what he’d so far refused to entertain. That he didn’t want Abi to get married. He barely knew her, outside of his office. He’d spent his whole life moving in a circle so enclosed by stockades, and it was a circle the likes of Abi would never be a member of.

  She was his polar opposite. On a whole other level of decent than he’d ever be—or been.

  And once she left his services, he’d likely never see her again.

  Yet … he didn’t want her to get married.

  Especially not to the dickhead he’d never met but hated.

  As those thoughts roiled around inside his head, Chase felt suddenly exhausted.

  Even his cock had deflated some beneath the weight of his miserable ponderings and merely jigged beneath each tap of the water, instead of its usual performance of dancing like a drugged-out teen at a rave.

  He pushed away from the wall, but only partially twisted toward Abi. “I think this will be enough for today’s session. I’m going to step out and redress. You’re welcome to stay in here for a little while longer—you can refresh in here rather than switching to the client bathroom.” The way she frowned up at him had him swallowing, but not from dry throat. “Okay?” he asked.

  She didn’t speak, just nodded, almost as if she sensed his shift in mood.

  Stepping toward the door, he couldn’t help but reach out and fold his fingers around her arm, but only gently, more a caress than a grip. Almost like he needed at least some contact. At least once. Waiting until she met his eyes, because he somehow knew she would, he told her, “Just knock on the door once you’ve finished in here. Sam will bring you through to my office.”

  Again, she nodded in response, and releasing his hold on her, he pulled open the door and stepped from the stall. Away from the warmth. Away from Abi.

  For the first time since she’d been coming to his practice, Chase wouldn’t be running off to relieve himself. For the first time after one of her sessions, he didn’t have a roaring hard-on.

  And that was no one’s damned fault but his own.

  ***

  While waiting for Abi, he grabbed a coffee from the staff quarters. A strong one—because he needed something to give a boost to his weary head. With his butt sank into a padded chair in the corner, he stared down at where his arms draped over his knees, the nursed cup hovering central.

  He felt done. Defeated and deflated—for no fucking good reason.

  It’d been a long time since he’d let himself sink that way.

  According to his ma, he’d always been an obsessive child. Even Jones had ribbed him, growing up, about how he couldn’t let something go until he’d got a solid outcome, or resolution.

  Hell, he couldn’t even watch a film that ended with a non-ending, not without feeling pissed off. Those bloody things could drive him nuts for days.

  He didn’t even notice Rae’s approach, until her feet crept into his sight line and stopped a foot short of him. Bare feet. Like catching him unawares had been her goal.

  “You did okay today,” she said.

  He didn’t glance up at her as he asked, “Did I?”

  “Well … up until the point where you looked like you wanted to pin her against the tiles and fuck the virginity out of her.”

  The skin tightened around his eyes as he winced. The cameras set around the session bathroom had been specially designed with heated lenses, to keep them clear of steam. He should’ve known at least one of the girls would’ve been keeping an eye on his behaviour.

  “But you pulled it back pretty quick,” she said above his head. “And, for that, I’m proud of you.”

  Her feet padded away. He thought she’d leave, but a quiet screech across the floor told him she had other ideas, and he lifted his gaze as she settled into a chair. Placing them level with one another.

  “I’m worried about you, babe.”

  He nodded, like he agreed with her, and let his gaze lower to his mug again. A mug almost full, the coffee barely touched. “I know.”

  “I really think you should get someone else in for the O’Shay girl.”

  He sucked in a heavy breath, then slowly eased it back out. “Since when did we start doing what’s best for the team here, instead of what’s best for the clients, Rae?”

  “Today,” she said, assertion in her tone.

  He shook his head, but it was a half-assed effort. “I can’t do that.”

  “Get Ade in.”

  “He’s busy.”

  “He’ll find time,” she argued.

  “He’s busy with Nicolette.”

  She quieted, like he’d thrown her. So, she hadn’t known about Ade working with Nic? One thing she would know, though, was how much time Nic demanded of whomever she booked. “Get someone else in, then,” she said, but his head was already shaking at the idea. “You have to,” she almost barked.
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br />   “Listen, Rae. Abi has maybe a few sessions left before she’ll be where she’ll needs to be—hell, she might not even need that many.” He dared glance up at her again then, where resignation and concern and disagreement all warred for space in her eyes. “I’m not pulling out on her so far into her plan. I can’t do that to her.”

  “No matter what it does to you—how it will leave you?”

  “Yeah,” he said, releasing a sigh. “No matter what.”

  With his mug plonked down on the floor at his feet, he pushed up and strode for his office. Argument over. Because it didn’t matter what. He never gave up on a client he could help. He always saw it through—that was what kept them filing through his damned doors.

  ***

  Abi already sat waiting when Chase stepped into his office. The slow-built confidence had vanished from her posture as he approached from behind, and in its place was the hunched shoulders of uncertainty.

  Clearing his throat to warn of his presence, he rounded behind his desk. He contemplated sitting there, putting into practice the distance he’d need to start creating, but something within him once again overruled reason, and he continued right on past to the seat opposite the chaise.

  Abi glanced up as he sank down in front of her. Worry lined the questions in her eyes, eyes that he met and held as he shifted forward and leaned in.

  “Are you okay?” he asked quietly.

  She gave a barely-there nod.

  “You seem upset.” She did, too, he realised, as he studied her expression deeper. Not only concern mudded the usual clarity of her eyes, but something that looked a lot like hurt.

  “I’m okay.” She glanced away, toward the window.

  Chase should probably have pushed on with the after-chat, but he got the sense she had more to say, confirmed when she turned back to him.

  “Did I do something wrong today, Mr Walker?”

  It became Chase’s turn to frown. “Why would you think that?”

  “Because you seemed … disappointed. Annoyed … or something.” She shrugged, despite his headshake. “And you left … it felt like you cut the session short—like you hated it. I don’t—”