Chapter 10 Scarlett
SCARLETT
I am living right on the edge over here in my bathtub on a Wednesday night.
Instead of watching Beetlejuice in bed with two dogs lying across my lower limbs, I’m surrounded by votive candles and covered with lavender-scented bubbles.
I’ve got Al Green singing at just high enough a volume to drown out the sound of any accidental gasps and moans from behind the shower curtain while also blocking out the whining Basset Hound outside the bathroom door.
I have never touched myself like this when Noah’s in the house with me before, but it’s almost midnight and he was fast asleep the last time I checked on him.
I’ve been so worked up about seeing Dylan tomorrow, my clitoris will detonate as soon as he walks into my office if I don’t do something to defuse it first. I can’t stop thinking about him.
I can’t stop picturing him—the way he looked up at me that first time we met, when he was tying my shoes.
The way he looked at me when he was in my office last week.
I can’t stop thinking about the tone of his voice when he said he wanted to take me to dinner.
Three years ago and six days ago. I keep surreptitiously rereading his emails on my phone, as if they’re love letters or sext messages.
They aren’t.
They’re barely even flirtatious, but they turn me on like nothing else has in years, simply because he wrote them—to me.
I did not allow myself to Google him, even when I was home alone on the weekend.
I googled myself silly, but I didn’t Google him.
I did not watch his thing on HBO or his thing on AMC.
I didn’t rent or buy any of his films from .
I didn’t even watch the wizard show in some foolish attempt to convince myself that he’s twelve.
It’s not my fault that beachy man perfume ad kept following me around the internet, but I didn’t click on it.
I just let the damn Caddyshack gopher thoughts tunnel through my brain, and now there’s nothing left up in there except this fantasy of Dylan Brodie getting into an elevator with me after a session.
He was my last appointment of the day, and when I pack everything up into my bag, lock the office doors, and walk down the empty hall to the elevator, he’s standing there.
Waiting for the elevator. Waiting for me.
In a wet leather trench coat—no wait, not that.
Black jeans and shirtless. No, not shirtless.
A tight black shirt. He’s always confident, but he’s had that intense nervous energy because he wants something that he can’t have and I haven’t allowed him to talk about it.
He respected the boundary I had set during the appointment—danced right up to the edge of it, of course—but he’s frustrated.
That frustration could have turned to anger at any second if I’d nudged it out of him.
I could have subdued him or triggered him or tantalized him.
I have the power to control his feelings.
As a therapist and as a woman.
I behaved myself during the session.
But now…
In my fantasy, I am unscrupulous. I don’t have to wear stilettos and a plunging neckline to convey my wanton mood now that it’s quittin’ time.
It’s in the way that I walk. It’s in the way that I toss my hair over my shoulder in slow motion.
I’ve applied a fresh coat of red lipstick, but I’ve changed into my red T-shirt dress and tennis shoes because I’m super casual, freshly shaven, and moisturized from head to toe. Just like when he first saw me.
He’s standing there facing the elevators, hands on his hips. He’s tense. Poor baby. I could help him with that. Not as a therapist. As a woman. He turns because he hears my heels clicking down the hall—wait, no—I’m wearing tennis shoes. He just senses my presence.
His eyelids flutter the tiniest bit. It’s such a subtle hint of the effect I have on him, but his jaw is still tight. His nostrils flare. His shoulders broaden, chest puffs out. But I know how vulnerable he is. I can see it.
He doesn’t say a thing.
He doesn’t have to.
He just stares at me. He says everything he wants to say to me with his electric-blue eyes. They roam freely from my mouth to my neck to the curve of my breasts and hips, down my legs to my shoes and back up again. There’s a spark in them when they meet mine. We grin at each other.
That’s right.
My shoelaces are untied.
Both of them.
The elevator dings, the doors open. It’s empty.
He holds one beautiful hand against the edge of the door and gestures for me to go ahead with the other.
I pass by him, holding his gaze in the reflection of the mirrored wall in front of me.
He steps inside the car, standing right behind me, and I don’t turn to face him until the doors have closed.
He doesn’t touch me, but I can feel his warm breath on the back of my neck.
In the fantasy, my building is a tower in the sky and my office is on the top floor.
Everyone else has gone home already, and it’s a long, long way down.
I drop my bag to the floor and lean back against the wall, resting my hands on the handrail.
Dylan lowers himself before me, on bended knees, and ties my shoelaces.
Slowly, carefully.
Double knots.
“It’s dangerous to walk around like this, Dr. Shepard.”
“With my shoelaces untied?”
“With bare legs. In this short dress. Wearing those deceptively innocent white cotton panties.”
“How do you know I’m wearing white cotton panties?”
“Am I wrong?”
“Care to make a bet?”
He places his hand behind my right knee, drags his fingers up the inside of my leg, from the ankle.
Slowly, carefully.
My hands grip the rail tighter.
He doesn’t look up at me, just stares at my leg. “What do I get if I win the bet?”
“You get to see my white cotton panties.”
“What do I get if I lose?”
“You get to see me in some other kind of panties.”
He taps at the back of my knee very gently, causing it to bend, and parts my legs just a little more.
“I’ll take that action,” he says calmly. There is nothing boyish or hesitant about the way he touches me. He’s the one in control now. He finally looks up at me and gives me a wink. “And I’ll take my time.”
He drags the fingertips of both hands up the sides of my legs now.
“Well, I don’t have all night.”
“Yeah, you do. This is your fantasy, Dr. Shepard. It’s all about what you want. And I know what you want.”
“Oh yeah? Tell me. What do I want?”
He grips my thighs, massaging the supple flesh, stroking my skin with his thumbs, and then kisses a trail up my inner thigh.
“You want me to kiss you here.” He slides his hands up under the skirt of my dress and grabs my ass.
“You want me to grab your ass like this, and you want me to give it a good squeeze.”
“Yes.”
“It feels good. You’ve got a great ass, Dr. Shepard.”
“I do Pilates at home.”
“I know. I can tell by the way you carry yourself. Like a lean, toned, naughty girl.”
“I’ve been doing a really intense squat routine too.”
“Fucking hell, it shows. Your ass feels so good in my hands, and you know what else feels good?”
“What?”
“Your cotton panties.”
“You don’t know what color they are yet.”
He glides one hand down from the curve of my ass to the upper thigh and around until I feel it up between my legs.
“So wet. Feels white to me.” He raises the bottom of my dress up until he can see that he is correct—I am wearing white cotton panties.
“I win.” He presses the tip of his thumb flat against my clit, over the fabric. “So do you.”
“God dammit,” I whisper, gripping the handrail so tightly I’m bruising the palms of my hands. “What do I win?”
“A little bit of this.” He rubs in slow circles, light pressure—so aggravating and hot.
“Oh shit.” My thighs are quivering. I squeeze them together as tight as I can.
He reaches behind me with one hand to grab my wrist, silently instructing me to hold the hem of my dress up.
“A little bit of this…” He yanks my panties down to my ankles and licks me there where I need it most. Once, with the tip of his tongue. Then he sucks on my clit, and I cry out.
“Oh God!” I thread my fingers through his hair.
The way his stubble scrapes against the skin of my inner thighs, it feels exactly as good as I thought it would.
He circles and swirls with his tongue, and then it’s inside me.
I tug on his hair, and he groans and lifts one of my legs so it hangs over his shoulder down his back.
He tilts me toward his face, presses his tongue deeper inside me, thrusting in and out, fucking me with it.
Squeezing my ass and moaning. I’m right on the edge.
Rocking my pelvis back and forth. There’s a surge of electricity through my center.
The spark of sexual energy that has flickered inside me ever since the first time Dylan Brodie dropped to his knee in that grocery store has become a torrent. I jolt and jerk a few times.
Suddenly, I realize I don’t feel his tongue anymore. He grabs my wrists and turns me around to face the wall. He slides his hands down along the side of me and around to the front. He slips the fingers of one hand inside me and unzips his pants with the other.
That’s when he presses himself against my back and growls into my ear—
“Mooooommmm!!! Why can’t I open the door! I have to poop!”
Fucking shit fuck fuck.
Noah bangs on the door. Arthur and Smurf are barking now. “Hurryyyyy!”
“Why can’t you use your bathroom?!” I force myself to stand up slowly so I don’t slip and fall or pass out.
“I did, but it didn’t flush right, so I don’t want to use it again! Why’s the door locked?”
Fucking fuck shit fuck.
I push open the shower curtain and grab a towel. “Hang on! Coming!”
I mean, not anymore I’m not.
Still—that was the best Wednesday night I’ve had in a long, long time.
But fuck.