Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 81281 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 325(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81281 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 406(@200wpm)___ 325(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
“Then why didn’t you invite me up?”
“You didn’t ask.”
“I’m asking now.”
“That’s not—” She stops and recalibrates. “You didn’t push for more for yourself. Why?”
I look at her briefly. The honest answer? I don’t fully know yet. What happened in that car was already more than I’d planned and a part of me needed to stop before I couldn’t. She’s becoming someone I don’t have a category for and that’s the most dangerous thing that’s happened to me in years.
I don’t say any of that.
“I want you begging for it,” I say instead.
Her eyes round but not in shock because she doesn’t shock easily, I’ve learned. She tilts her head slightly.
“Maybe,” she says, her eyes glinting with challenge, “you’re the one who ends up begging.”
That’s a risk I’m not willing to take. I look at her before rising from the chair.
“Same time next week,” I say, smirking down at her. “By my calculations, that will be my last session and then I’m done with you.”
She looks up at me, completely composed, pen still in hand, notepad on her knee. Like we just had a completely normal professional session. Like she didn’t just tell me she liked it too much when I made her orgasm.
“I’ll send you a calendar invite,” she says smoothly.
I walk out.
The door closes behind me and I stand in the corridor with my jaw tight and my dick semi-hard.
Jesus, she’s dangerous, and I don’t know if I’m smart enough to stay away from her.
I walk toward the ice.
I have practice in twenty minutes and I intend to hit someone very hard.
Chapter 18
Livia
The Los Angeles skyline twinkles brightly, and I watch it without any real appreciation as we take the team bus back to the hotel.
There’s a lot of exuberant chatter among the players after the stomping we just handed the Demons. I should be celebrating with them because I feel like I’m as much a part of this team as anyone and I’ve been welcomed as such.
But I’ve been distracted the last few days by how I left things with Locke. Or rather, how he left things before walking out of my office. The man has so far managed to kiss me into submission multiple times and then banged out a fast orgasm in his car that had me seeing stars.
And then he had the audacity to tell me that I’d be begging him for it at some point.
As if.
I’m feeling pressure, for sure.
Locke agreed to three sessions with me, and I’ve burned two of them already. The Thanksgiving dinner at my parents’ house gave me a start just by being able to observe him. The second session pulled back the curtain a little more. The Beacon Hill brownstone, the father who never came to a game, the mother who was simply absent and by all accounts, self-absorbed, the billet families he kept at a distance because he’d already learned the math of temporary attachments.
Two sessions, only one left, and I don’t know anything really.
And now Locke Donovan has gone silent on me.
I’ve sent him two emails and a text with a scheduling link to my calendar. He’s not responded, even though I can tell from the read-receipts he’s received them. He’s avoided me in the halls, in the locker room and the team plane, and I’m going to have to call him out on it.
I know what he’s doing.
I understood it as soon as I watched him walk out of my office with that stubborn set to his shoulders, the tight jawline, and the cold exit that told me he’s recalibrating while putting distance between what happened in those chairs.
What he said before he left doesn’t help.
I want you begging for it.
Is he simply trying to scare me off?
From a personal connection?
I don’t know.
The professional problem is straightforward. I have one session left to get what the team actually needs from him, which is not the childhood history I’ve accumulated, as useful as that is, but the real thing. The team trust issue. The reason Locke Donovan plays like a lone wolf. I’ve been circling around the outside of it for weeks and I know the shape of it, but I have so much to uncover in only one more session.
The personal problem is less straightforward.
The personal problem is that I sat in that chair two feet away from him and watched him give me things he doesn’t give anyone and felt a shift in me that remains resolutely stuck and unwilling to move. The man has managed to tear my entire nervous system apart with a few dirty words and hot touches, and I don’t think I’ve ever wanted someone as much as I want him.
Physically, and yes… I’m craving more of an emotional connection.
I look back out the window.
The bus takes a left and the hotel comes into view at the end of the block—a glass tower of vertical lines and ambient lighting. The bus slows.