Emee
God, please believe me, I’m trying to keep this professional.
King has his head in my lap as we lie side by side on the bed.
If I’m wearing my therapist hat, there’s no reason for the tingling between my legs at the proximity of my pussy to this man’s face, the way my fingers long to curl into his hair and pull him down onto me.
Or the way my breath hitches as his fingers trail along the inside of my thigh, inching closer to the hem of my skirt.
I don’t wear skirts for meeting clients. Never. It goes entirely against my code.
“Are you wet, little firecracker?” he rumbles, his deep voice connecting with all those dark parts of me that he’s been waking up. “Wet just for me… makes my mouth water. Want a lick?”
“N—no,” I stutter. “I’m your therapist right now.”
“And I’m your King.”
I ignore him. Or try to, as my mind gets all flustered and I struggle to think clearly. “Tell me about your time at school,” I say clumsily, silently berating myself for being so blunt.
The tiny increase in pressure of his fingers on the inside of my leg tells me I’m getting close to the truth of King Hertzof. But instead of answering, he asks a question of his own. “What do you dream of, firecracker? If you had a magic wand, what would you wish for?”
“That’s not what we’re here for.”
“Humor me.”
I let out an exasperated sigh.
As his therapist, I should be keeping things professional. But that ship has already sailed… “Well, it’s pie in the sky…stupid, really.”
“No.” He runs his hand up and down my leg, making me shiver. “Never say that. Nothing about you is stupid, baby. If it’s your dream, then I want to hear it.”
“There’s this farm,” I say, then shake my head.
“Well, it’s not the farm. The farm was a mixture of Green Gables and a painting my parents had hanging in what passed for our living room.
Not the best painting, but when things would get really bad, I dreamed of living on the farm in that frame.
I used to wish I could take Benjamin’s hand, wish hard enough, and jump into that painting. ”
“It sounds perfect, baby,” King says, but there’s a hint of something in his voice. Something I can’t place. Interest, not just in me but in the idea, I guess.
“It would be, and I had a place I was looking at, but… Something came up, and the people selling the farm took another offer. I don’t blame them, but that’s what I’d want. That farm.”
“I want to know everything. Every thought, dream, victory, heartbreak, joke…” he says, turning his face on my lap, just enough to watch me out of the corner of his eye, the angle of his crooked nose reminding me of how tough this man is but how soft his eyes are when they look at me.
I laugh at the look on his face. “What?”
“Nothing… There’s—”
A buzzing interrupts my answer.
”That’s me,” he says as his hand leaves my skin, and he drags his phone out of his pocket.
I tut in irritation. “Mr. Hertzof, I’ve told you before to turn all electronic devices off when you attend our sessions. Do I need to—”
His hand darts out so fast I barely see it. I have no time to react with anything except a gasp as his fingers shoot under my skirt, and his fingers dig in, taking a handful of my mound.
“Firecracker, I’ve told you to call me King. Do I need to teach this soaked little cunt what happens when you don’t follow the rules?”
I shake my head. “Please, this is hard for me. I feel like I still need to be your therapist.”
His knuckle drags down my slit, making me moan. “You want to know me? The parts no one knows?”
“Yes… I want that.”
He grins and pulls away, smoothing down my skirt and taking my hand in his to pull me to my feet. “That’s not going to happen locked up in this hotel room. I’ve got somewhere to show you.”
***
“King books?” I ask, as he helps me down out of the truck.
“You wanted to know the real me, it’s here in this bookstore.” He laughs at my expression. “You think I can’t read?”
“No!” I laugh. I remember him telling me he reads, and me telling him about my copy of Anne of Green Gables. “I—”
“It wasn’t so much the reading, firecracker,” he says with a smile, pulling me into his arms.
He leads me down the sidewalk in front of the five-story old brick warehouse. This place is a Detroit icon and landmark, but I haven’t been here since I was a kid.
As we step through the doors of the bookstore, I immediately get the same sense of wonder I felt the first time I came here, my grandfather treating me and Benjamin to the outing in a way my parents never would have.
I remember the slight musty smell of old books.
The dim light as my grandfather let us browse for hours, with the promise that I could pick any book I wanted, and it would be mine.
Not for an hour, not for a day, but to keep.
Forever.
Except… the one book I loved more than any of the others, I didn’t get to keep. Because it was a rare first edition of Anne Of Green Gables, and a year later, after I had read it cover to cover at least a dozen times, my parents pawned it for the money they owed their drug dealer.
I blink away the burning in my eyes, trying to focus on what I’m here for: to find out about King. To help him, not muddle through my own messy memories.
“Why a bookstore?” I ask, ignoring the clenching in my chest.
“Before I was adopted, I was bounced around foster families. Nobody wanted to keep me, even though clearly I was a cute little kid.” He licks his lips, cracking a smile.
“They certainly didn’t want to try when I became an obnoxious one.
I got into fights, I got in trouble.” He kisses the side of my head, as if he can sense my effort to focus on him.
“You sure you want to hear all this? We can talk about you—”
“No, please, I… I can’t talk about me…” I blush at the irony in that statement, that I’m frightened to open up this can of worms when I’m expecting him to be honest with me.
“Okay, firecracker,” he says, landing another kiss to my forehead this time.
“As a foster kid, you don’t have much. Maybe a garbage bag to take when you change houses with whatever ratty clothes or shoes you’ve got.
But one thing I made sure I took with me was this pillow case full of books.
It was heavy as hell, especially when I was little, and over time the books changed, but they were the one thing I wouldn’t give up.
I fought and ran and lied and did everything I could to make sure, I always at least had that pillowcase. ”
“They were your anchor,” I realize. “They gave you something to hold onto when your world was so chaotic.”
He nods, turning and stopping, taking both my hands in his. “Pick one,” he says.
“What?”
“Pick a book. Anything you like. I’ll buy it for you.”
The tears threaten again, and this time they win. We’re so different, but we have this one deeply rooted thing in common.
I try to turn away before he can see me crying, but he catches me up in his arms, pulling me in close and the tears wet the front of his shirt. “Hey, I’m sorry,” he says. “Baby, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” I shake my head. “No, it’s… You took me by surprise, that’s all. You don’t have to do this for me.”
“Baby, the things we’ve done together already, I don’t think me buying you a book is going to make much difference, do you?”
I choke on a laugh, shaking my head.
He’s right. And as I glance around, I realize where we are in the store. Children’s fiction. M.
Montgomery.
It takes me a moment to find the book on the shelves, and if I didn’t know it was impossible, I’d think it was the same copy I had all those years ago. I pull Anne Of Green Gables from the shelf, my fingers trembling, then look up into King’s eyes.
“Did you remember I told you about this book? This can’t be coincidence.”
He shakes his head, smiling. “It isn’t coincidence, baby. You told me how that book changed your life, and I called and he said he had a first edition. It’s fate baby.”
“This is crazy. It looks like the exact same book.”
“Open it up.” He grins, and I do as he says, turning to the title page.
And see my own childlike handwriting, where I wrote my name in pencil. Faded now, but clearly visible. Along with a brand-new inscription.
I’m gonna make all your dreams come true, Firecracker. – Love, King
***
“You make me feel like a king, baby. Like I’ve never taken a breath before you.”
We’re back in the hotel room, doing what we seem to do best. Fire and ice.
He pulls my head down to his, his cock still stuffed inside my battered opening, until our foreheads meet.
“I still think I’m going to wake up in the hospital after some horrible accident and realize all this was a dream.”
“All I know, I need to be touching you. I need to be inside you. Not just your body, but your head, too.” He breathes in as I exhale.
“I’m impulsive and a wild card, but I also know what I feel.
I fucking love you. I’ve never said that, and maybe now is not the time, but I can’t hold it in anymore, baby. ”
I let out a little hiccup, then a whimper. Love.
His hands fall to my hips, rocking me slowly up and back, his still-stiff length moving inside me, wetness and his sticky release making sexy sounds between us.
As if to punctuate this moment as only this crazy man can, he slips his hand around the round flesh of my rear and pushes a finger against my tight back opening, making me hiss and purr.
“You have anything to say to me?” he growls, applying more pressure. “I want you to always remember the first time you said you loved me. And what says happy memory more than getting a finger in your ass?”
Laughter burst from my lips. “You are crazy.”
“Crazy in love.” More pressure, more finger moving inside of me, making it hard to think. “Stop thinking so much. Just feel. I’m inside you, aren’t I? Dick, finger, heart, head, just admit it, baby. It’s okay to be crazy sometimes.”
There is a newness shining in his eyes. The edge he had that first day has softened, and I hope to God what’s happening between us doesn’t hurt his game, but I can’t deny what he is saying.