Chapter Nineteen
Dani
“DON’T YOU FUCKING STOP, MICAH,” I CRY OUT, ON THE verge of ecstasy and hoping this time he’ll let me grab it.
My hips jerk with need when his fingers brush against my clit for the millionth time.
“You telling me what to do now, Storm?” He changes his pace, slowing his strokes so that I can get a taste of glory without giving me enough to reach it.
“Oh, fuck. Please, Micah, please.”
“Which is it, Storm? Are you begging me or demanding me?”
This is the game we’ve been playing this morning. Him bringing me to the brink but never letting me fall off the edge. It’s been tortuous and intoxicating at the same time.
“I’m begging you.” I think. I can’t even think straight anymore. My vision is hazy, but I can see him clearly. He looks like my judge, jury, and executioner, here to dole out punishment after mind-blowing punishment.
His hands roam my body, confusing my senses even more. I try to lift my ankles off his shoulders, but he grabs them to keep me in place.
“You sure about that? The right answer might make me let you come. Don’t you wanna come, Dani?”
More than fucking anything. “Yes. God, yes,” I pant.
“Final answer, then,” he says as he pumps into me once more. “Begging or telling?”
Shit. I don’t know what the right answer is, so I let my instincts take over. “I’m telling you. Make me fucking come. Now.”
He wraps his arms around my thighs and fucks me into oblivion. When I fall over the edge, I can hear all the colors in the room. I clench the sheets beneath me into my fists as I scream his name.
He kisses my ankles as I come down from the high, shifting so that my legs lie in his lap after they start to shake.
“You okay?” he asks, leaning forward for a quick kiss while massaging my thighs and calves.
“I’m amazing.” I let out a deep exhale. “So, ‘telling’ was the right answer, then?”
“Oh, the right answer was whatever you said. I just wanted to see which one you’d choose.”
“Ass,” I hiss halfheartedly.
He hums contentedly as his hands make their way to my sides to knead the skin there. “Roll your neck for me,” he instructs, demonstrating the stretch he wants me to do.
I follow his directions, coming back into my body little by little.
Once I fully come down, he disposes of the condom in my bathroom, then grabs me some water and my bag of TruFru.
This has been the last couple of weeks for us. Nights of passion that bleed into the morning.
Silently, he holds his hand out for me, knowing I’ll take it because we’ve done this so many times before.
He knows where my shower cap is, the exact setting I like my shower, the temperature I like my towel warmer, and the playlist I like to project through the bathroom speakers.
He knows because this is our routine. He fucks me like I’m his greatest enemy and then cares for me like a priceless piece of art.
He turns me so my back is to him and then grabs my African exfoliating net and starts scrubbing my body.
“How are you feeling about today?”
I’d been so engrossed in my pleasure, I forgot the reason the torture started this morning was to ease my nerves about my first therapy session today.
I’m definitely calmer than I was when I woke up, but I’m still scared.
I’m scared of who I’ll be without these walls to keep me safe, but I’m even more afraid that if I don’t get help, these memories and emotions of everything I’ve suppressed over the years will crush me beneath their weight. Something has to change.
“I feel fine.”
His hands stop, hovering just above my shoulders. “Actually fine? Or the ‘fine’ you tell people when you don’t wanna talk about it?”
I hate when he clocks my tea. “The fine I tell people,” I sigh.
He turns me around, running the net across my chest, staring straight into my soul. “Okay. At least you can admit that. It’s going to work out, and if it doesn’t, that’s okay too.”
I breathe in his words, letting them wash over me like cool rain as I watch him wash his own body.
He does his best to ignore the water streaming down my naked form, resolved to do nothing more than take care of me, but his hardened dick pressed against my stomach reminds us how well our bodies communicate. One more distraction wouldn’t hurt, right?
“Storm …” he starts when I run the tip of my nail down his length.
“Yesss?” I sing.
Instead of answering, he reaches behind his back to switch the water off.
He steps out first, grabbing my body oil spray from under the sink to coat my body in it.
He kisses my wrists as he rubs the oil up my arms, my chest as he massages it over my breasts, and my stomach when he sinks to his knees to give my legs the same treatment.
When he stands to drape my towel over me, he gives me one final kiss on my forehead. “Let’s get you ready.”
I’ve never felt more turned on by a rejection in my life.
I get to Dr. Aria Goode’s office fifteen minutes early, but I don’t go inside until two minutes before my appointment.
The first thing that comes to mind when I step into her office is that it’s bright. The walls are colored a bright and soft blue, the lights are blinding, and the furniture is a mixture of pastels and wooden accents.
I hate it.
The whole aesthetic feels like it was ripped straight out of a how-to guide for getting your clients to spill their guts.
Dr. Goode is dressed in a green sleeveless jumpsuit over a white dress shirt. Her megawatt smile sets off alarm bells in my head. Too friendly.
She motions for me to take a seat, and I dig my nails into my palm as I do.
“So, Danielle.”
“Dani. It’s just Dani,” I correct.
She smiles. “Dani. How are you today?”
“I’m fine.” One day, I hope to abolish that word from my vocabulary.
“That’s great,” she says.
“What’s Goode with you, doc?” I outwardly cringe at the play on her name I’m sure she’s heard a thousand times before.
To her credit, it doesn’t faze her. “I’m good today. Thanks for asking.”
I acknowledge her words with a nod and then the silence sets in. The silence goes on so long, I start to fidget in my seat, my sweater clinging to my neck with sweat.
“So, how does this work?” I ask. Do I start or does she?
“How do you want it to work?” she asks.
I inwardly sigh. Great, she’s going to be one of those “How does that make you feel?” doctors. I’ll be back to searching for a new therapist tonight.
“Aren’t you supposed to tell me that?”
She crosses one leg over the other. “I’m not into cookie-cutter bullshit.”
The nonchalance of her statement throws me for a loop. “I’m sorry, what?”
“I’m not here to tell you how your therapy should go.
It’s your session, so we take it at your pace.
If you wanna sit here and stare at each other for an hour, we can do that.
If you wanna talk, you can do that. If you want me to ask you some questions, I can do that.
But I won’t tell you which one you’re supposed to choose. There’s no right answer.”
I might like her after all. “And what if I wanna sit here and stare at the wall for every session. That’s okay?” I call her bluff.
“Again, it’s your decision.”
She seems so unbothered, the stubbornness in me can’t help but test the theory. I plunge us into silence for fifteen minutes. And for fifteen minutes, she sits perfectly comfortable in her chair, not giving a fuck.
“I don’t know where to start,” I admit.
She sits up higher. “Well, why don’t you tell me what you hope to get out of coming here?”
“So, start at the end and work my way backward?”
She smiles. “Something like that.”
It all sounds so simple. I really hope it is.
In the end, we don’t talk about the past at all. We talk mostly about where I want to go. What I’m hoping therapy can do for me. She doesn’t make any false promises, which I appreciate. She doesn’t even pressure me to book a second session, but I do the moment I leave.
I feel a bit lighter now that the first session is out of the way. I’m optimistic about Dr. Goode.
I force myself to call my mom and tell her about it, when really the person I want to call is Micah.
That terrifies me. This is only supposed to be sex and friendship, but it feels dangerously close to the last time we were together.
Maybe I should stop ignoring Omari’s texts and meet up with him.
I’ve only been seeing Micah and perhaps the unspoken exclusivity of that is fucking with my head.
Yes, I should link up with Omari and let him fuck those thoughts right out of me.
When I pull up to my place, I pick up the phone to do just that, but reality stops me. No matter how much dick Omari throws me, my mind will be on Micah. He’s wormed his way in there so deeply, it would take the jaws of life to get him out. I am fucked, and not in the way I prefer to be.
I have only a couple of hours to myself before everyone is due to come over and discuss their auction items for Tanya’s gala, and I spend most of that time trying and failing to figure out how I’m going to take a step back from Micah.
He, of course, is the first to arrive. I’ve greeted him at my door plenty of times, but this time when he leans down to kiss my cheek, I turn away.
“Did you just curve me?” he asks around a laugh.
It was meant to be a step for self-preservation, but I hated myself the second I did it. It’s so ridiculous, but I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing when it comes to this man. I shrug. “Well, I don’t know, that greeting was giving relationship, no?” More bullshit.
He hides it well, but there’s a layer of hurt beneath the surface of his nonchalant facade.
I don’t want to hurt him, but I don’t know how else to keep myself safe. If I could speed up this therapy healing process, that would be fantastic.
“I’m well aware we’re not in a relationship, Dani,” he says, voice low and firm.
“I know you know, but—” I reach for his arms, falling short when he steps back. “No. Not ‘but.’ I overreacted. I’m sorry.”
He studies me for a moment, eyes zeroing in on my hands plastered to my sides.