Chapter 6
CHAPTER 6
Ashley
What is happening to me?
I’m overcome by such a mixture of emotions. Gratitude and desperation.
Hope.
Need.
What do I need, though?
When I look at Caleb, when he speaks to me in that deep therapist voice, my blood seems to cook itself, every hair follicle on my body standing at attention. There are muscles and tendons south of my belly button I’ve never encountered and suddenly they are tighter than piano wire, stretching and making me crazy. I can’t think straight with this urgency plaguing my body. An urgency I don’t understand.
I want to focus on the session with Caleb. It represents progress—and I never expected to see emotional, tangible progress again in my life. I want to talk to him and untangle the web of trauma inside me, lay it at his feet, but until this heat ceases to inhabit my bones, I can barely remember my own name, let alone articulate the pain inside of me.
“Take off your panties, angel.” Across from me in his throne, the sudden and unexpected savior of my universe yanks on his collar, sweat beginning to glimmer at his hairline. “I’ll guide you through it.”
The fact that he isn’t advancing on me with bad intentions only amplifies the feeling of safety, and safety is breeding inhibition. He’s really going to stay over there. All because I said I wasn’t ready to be touched. He meant what he said.
He’s not a liar.
He’s authentic. And lord, he is the first man I’ve ever found gorgeous. The more I look at him, the more qualities I find to be fascinated with. His laugh lines. The thickness of his neck. His watchful eyes. The leashed intensity of it all.
Am I really going to take off my underwear in front of him?
For once, my body is urging me to do something other than hide. When will I ever get the chance to feel this way again?
With a deep breath, I hook my thumbs in the side waistband of my shorts and peel them down, along with my boy short underwear, over my hips and down my thighs, dropping the garments to the floor and toeing them to the side. His gaze blazes over my sex, darkening, and he makes a sound, his nostrils flaring, a closed fist pressing to his mouth. Positive reactions to what I’ve just revealed to him. Lustful, even, yes. But he’s in control of himself. He’s respecting me enough to keep his distance.
That’s what makes all the difference to me.
The warm leather feels strange against my bare bottom when I sit back down, but it’s not unpleasant. It’s…exciting. It’s exciting and reassuring to watch him wrestle with the bonds of self-control and win. Even if he barely claims victory.
“Okay, Ashley,” Caleb says, hoarse. “Start by petting your thighs with a light touch. Just the tips of your fingers, knee to hip. Inner and outer thighs. Close your eyes while you do it and acknowledge the sensation this creates throughout your body. Describe it to me.”
I do as he tells me, my breath catching when I trail my fingertips up the sensitive flesh of my inner thighs, stopping before I reach my apex. “It makes me shiver.”
“In a nice way?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” He fights to keep his breath steady. “Now. Lightly stroke the seam of your pussy. Just enough to part the flesh. Let it know you’re coming to play, then go back to touching your thighs.”
I’ve cleaned myself between my legs every shower I’ve taken in my life, but it has never tingled in the wake of my touch. I’ve never squirmed and gasped in response to a simple slip of finger through softness or felt a pooling of liquid follow behind, my toes stretching, knees trembling, breath stuttering in and out.
“I know you want to keep touching yourself there, but we’re going to bring you closer to the edge first.”
“The edge of what?”
“I’m going to show you, angel.” He loosens his tie with jerky movements and I can tell he’s trying not to openly stare at my sex, but he’s failing. “Dear God…” he mutters.
“What?” I ask, teasing my hips with circular strokes of my fingertips.
He shakes his head. “Nothing.”
“You can say it. I want you to say it.”
His chest lifts up and down heavily. “That’s a cunt fit for a fucking king,” he says in a voice rubbed raw. “And if I was a king, I’d sell my kingdom for one pump in that little thing.”
A gasp spears upward in my chest, an unknown part of me coiling tight, so tight, between my thighs. I twist to avoid the increasing ache, but I can’t. It’s in me, a part of me, it’s everywhere. Alive. And now I’m thinking about Caleb, this restrained man in his sophisticated suit, moaning himself hoarse while he moves on top of me, his sturdy hips rearing back and punching forward, buttocks sweaty, flexing.
I’ve never found any of this imagery appealing, but I do…when it comes to him.
My body absorbs the moving images in my imagination like a sponge soaks up water, my palms closing over my breasts and twisting. “Oh, my goodness,” I sob, because the golden wave that starts at my nipples and flows down into my lower body is sinful. Like melted butter gripping my most private places and stiffening, yanking slowly.
“Good girl, Ashley. Tease yourself.” His breathing is shallow. Harsh. “You’re too young to have babies. Those pretty little nipples are purely for pleasure right now. They’re for playing with, plain and simple.”
“Is…is that what you would do with them?” I ask, shocking myself, but not enough to stop what I’m doing. Slipping my tank top down, so I can touch my nipples bare. Skin to skin. I’m chewing my lip in despair over needing to know his answer. Some part of me is certain his voice, his words, his presence are the answer to my sensual pain.
“You want to know what I’d do with your tits, angel?” I hear the creak of his chair as he leans forward. “I’d eat you out until you’re nice and drowsy. Then I’d sit you on my lap and suck on your nipples while my middle finger jiggles your virgin asshole.”
I’m whipped by need so dense, it’s a jungle and I can’t see two feet in front of me.
My fingers fly down to my sex out of pure necessity, moans cracking in my throat as I slide eager digits through my drenched flesh, desperately searching for the source of my incredible misery.
“That’s it, Ashley. Find your clit, It’s the sensitive spot at the very top of your slit. Higher, higher…even high—there.” My whimper is high pitched and urgent. “There you go. Rub it quickly. When you feel a gathering of nerves and you sense a storm is about to break, circle your fingers faster. Press deeper and grind, if you need to. You deserve this.”
For some reason you deserve this makes me forget my surroundings. Forget what I’m doing and focus on the why . Release release release. I deserve it.
“I feel it,” I manage, my tone choppy, pleasure zeroing in beneath my touch, like I’ve found a secret target that has been waiting for my arrow. “I-I feel it.”
“Take it, angel. Be fucking selfish.”
I moan as the storm doesn’t simply break, it explodes, my intimate flesh drawing in so tight that my moan becomes a scream, tears leaking from my eyes and coursing down my temples, a ripple of appeased hunger eating me alive, wracking my entire body with pleasure so immense, I can’t see the edges of it.
I fly out the other side of it…renewed. A different person.
A force.
And there’s a waiting pair of arms that signal safety, acceptance. Not ownership, but a place to go and own myself. I throw myself into them, close my eyes and go limp, secure in my belief in another human being for the first time in my life.
The next time I wake up, I’m in my own bed, looking up at the shifting patterns on the ceiling, my body relaxed and satisfied.
There’s no sign of Caleb, apart from a business card on my nightstand.
Your next appointment: 10 am. Tomorrow.