Chapter Twenty-Nine
Maya
I’m the last to leave the ICU, pulling off the disposable PPE gear and stuffing it in the designated bin.
My head is pounding. The past few days have been so intense, and I’ve been distracted between the masked man and my constant thoughts of Ryan.
I haven’t been over to my parents as much as normal.
Dad doesn’t look after himself enough, and Mom gets so stressed when his numbers are off that she doesn’t know what to do.
And then this happens. He could have died.
I should have been there.
“Maya,” Ryan says as I join the group in the hallway. His brows are pinched, and his lips are set in a hard line as he observes me, taking in everything that others don’t. “Pippa and Maddie are going to stay with your mom tonight. I’m bringing you home.”
There’s nothing else we can do here tonight.
The hospital staff have made it clear they will call us if anything changes, but we aren’t welcome to stay.
Pippa and Mom give me hugs before heading away with Maddie.
My face burns when Pippa whispers in my ear, “If you don’t climb that man like a tree, I’m going to disown you. ”
I wait for them to leave before turning to Ryan, hoping he hasn’t heard Pippa. “You don’t need to take me home. I can drop you back at your car.”
“You’re in no state to drive right now. You’ve had a nasty fright, and you need to be looked after.”
“I can call a friend.”
“I’m sure you can, but will you?” he asks, and my mouth drops at how accurately he is reading me.
“Ryan, you’re my patient,” I say firmly. “It’s not your job to look after me.”
The way his face pinches at the word patient has my stomach churning with regret. Which makes no sense. He is my patient. I’ve already gone too far beyond professional boundaries. The last thing I need to do right now is let him take me home.
“Right,” he says, looking at the ground. “I’m your patient. I can’t be the one to look after you.” Pain radiates so fiercely that I can practically smell it rolling off him.
“I’m sorry, Ryan. I crossed a line in letting you drive me here.”
“I offered.”
“And that was very kind of you,” I tell him as we walk toward the main door of the hospital. “But I’m the professional; I shouldn’t have accepted. One of us needs to maintain the boundaries of our relationship.”
Ryan lets out a huff of breath. “Stop acting like you’re taking advantage of me or something. I want to look after you. I initiated this. I pursued you. This is all on me. I’m not asking you to start a relationship with me; I’m just asking you to let me feed you and make sure you get home safe.”
I want to fight him on this. I should fight him.
But it’s so hard. I’m so tired and overwhelmed, and everything he is saying is exactly what I need in this moment.
That voice begs me to let him care for us.
Begs me to accept the bond, whatever the hell that means.
But what about the masked man? The man I promised to be exclusive with.
I’m pissed at him right now, but I can’t just go on a date with someone else.
The guilt and shame war for prime position in my swirling emotions.
I can’t do this. Even if I could get past the ethics and was willing to risk losing my career—which I’m not—I can’t do this to him.
“I’m seeing someone,” I admit, “and I don’t think he would be very happy about me going for dinner with a man who has made advances toward me.”
“Why isn’t he here?” Ryan asks, an edge to his voice I’ve never heard.
I don’t know how to respond. How do I explain I can’t call this other man because he hasn’t given me his phone number? And why would I answer? It’s none of his business.
Ryan grabs my hand and pulls me back to face him. “Wouldn’t he want you safe? Wouldn’t he want you looked after?” he asks, and I don’t know how to answer that either.
“It’s just a meal,” he continues, his face softening. “It doesn't need to be complicated.” I gaze up at him, and I swear his eyes sparkle as my resolve slips. “Dinner and a lift home. Somewhere not remotely romantic.”
“Fine,” I sigh, my shoulders slumping. I should be better than this.
I’ve never breached my ethical obligations as a therapist before.
I’ve wanted to. When patients had disappeared and I wanted to know what had happened to them.
Or when I’ve wanted to tell patients what to do because they keep making the same mistakes.
Even when I’ve had patients I wish I could have been friends with because I enjoyed their company so much.
But I never have. No matter how much I wanted to.
And when I look back up, even knowing it’s a terrible decision, the smile on Ryan’s handsome face is so goddamn genuine that I can’t bring myself to regret it.
He doesn’t take me anywhere I would imagine for a date. There’s no ambience, no candles, nor sultry music. Just the delicious smell of homely food mixed with the amber of beer and the varied scents of too many people.
Ryan holds the door open, then places his warm hand on my lower back as he steers us toward the bar. “I figured we would go somewhere friendly,” he says, as if he is able to read my mind. “Don’t want to get you in trouble.”
The wink he shoots me sends an involuntary shiver through me. He doesn’t know. He can’t know.
“Good idea,” I say when the use of my tongue returns.
He pulls out a chair at the bar. Bottles of spirits line the counter across from us on staggered glass shelving in front of a mirror, giving the illusion of never-ending alcohol. I wish I could get drunk.
“What can I get you?” the bartender, a stocky man with a mustache, asks us while wiping the bar clean and placing a couple of coasters down.
Once we have perused the menus and placed our orders, he leaves us alone. I don’t know what to say. I don’t want to turn it into a therapy session, but I don’t want to share more of myself either.
“No need to look so scared,” Ryan says, breaking the silence.
“I’m not scared. I’m…”
“Sure, you are,” he says, raising an eyebrow as he stares at me. “I don’t blame you. Can’t be easy spending time with someone who makes you wet when you’re trying to pretend you only see him as a patient.”
“What?” I say with a scoff.
“You’re hiding behind being a therapist,” he says confidently, as if there’s no chance I wouldn’t be interested in him and all of his cocky attitude.
“It’s like wearing a mask. But you’re not just a therapist. You’re a sister, a daughter, an aunt, and you’re you.
Whoever and whatever that is. Don’t boil it all down to your job, even if it is an important and valuable job. ”
I bristle at the word ‘whatever.’ I’m sure he meant it to be whatever my interests are, but it felt like something else. It feels like he knows what I am. But he couldn’t. There’s no way.
“When did you start analyzing me?”
“Somewhere around the time I started to realize that you were the one for me.”
I stare down at my hands resting on my lap, unsure how the conversation went from a simple meal to him professing his feelings for me. Again. I should never have agreed to this.
“You can’t say that.”
“Fine. I’ll stop saying it,” he tells me while brushing a strand of hair behind my ear. Tingles erupt in the wake of his touch that I can’t ignore. “On one condition: you start considering it.”
“Do you think I haven’t considered it?” I retort without thinking. My mouth snaps shut, and my heart pounds at the admission—at the crack in my professional armor. Thankfully, our food comes out, saving us from further conversation. Further admissions of guilt.
We eat silently. But all I feel is his presence next to me. I want to lean into him. I want to let him be here for me. That voice softly encouraging me at all times. It’s gotten so much harder to ignore.
“You feel it, don’t you?” he asks when we finish, and I can’t help the whimper that escapes me. I can’t deny it, so I stay silent. “It’s not all in my head, is it? I’m not losing my mind, am I?”
“Is that what it feels like?” I ask, turning his question back to him rather than answering. Of course I feel it. And the longer it goes on, the harder it is to deny or chalk it up to transference.
“It feels like you were made for me, as I was for you. I’m sick of the games, Maya. I need you to see me. I need you to see past the masks I wear. You have to stop acting like you don’t feel every bit as drawn to me as I am to you.”
My breath hitches as his eyes bore into me. That’s the second time he has said ‘masks.’ Anxiety pools in my stomach and churns inside me. He steps down from his stool and spins my chair around before caging me against the bar with his arms.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I whisper. Even though it’s becoming harder and harder to ignore the voice that equates the two. The masked man with the golden eyes and my patient who opens up to me.
I shouldn’t be so drawn to Ryan. I shouldn’t want him so much. But I do. And I can’t explain it. How did I go twenty-nine years of life without ever really wanting someone to now craving two different men? Two men who give me different things and different parts of themselves.
Then the thought that I’ve been refusing to let myself consider pushes into my consciousness. The voice I’ve been shoving down becomes louder, more insistent, impossible to ignore.
What if they aren’t two different men? What if you could have it all?
Bile travels up my throat as everything I’ve been ignoring slots together.
The things he knows that he shouldn’t, the way my body reacts to him, his scent.
I’ve been fucking my patient. And how did he end up at Sanctum Obscura?
Did he follow me? Oh my God, how am I even questioning this? Of course he followed me.
My head spins, and the voice inside me pushes against my control.
I haven’t been sticking to my routines lately. I’ve let my control go. I gave it to him. And he’s been lying to me all this time.
“Stop lying to yourself,” Ryan says, his voice a low murmur that washes over me. “Stop telling yourself you don’t know.”
“I can’t do this,” I say, more to myself than to him. I push his chest. He’s an immovable wall of muscle, but he steps back anyway. I grab my keys and race away from him. Even though every fiber of my being is pulling me back. Even though that voice feels like it’s clawing its way out of me.
I wrench open the car door, but he’s already behind me and slams it shut again.
“Let me go,” I protest weakly as he leans forward, pushing his hard body against me. The familiarity of his touch presses in on me, and it’s all too much to ignore.
“You know. Maybe not logically or intellectually because you don’t want to admit it to yourself. But don’t pretend you don’t recognize my scent.”
“I thought you were wearing the same cologne. That it was a coincidence.”
“And what about how your body is screaming for me? What about the tingles that erupt everywhere I touch you? Did you think that was a coincidence too?” His voice is barely above a whisper, and his breath is hot on my neck.
My nipples are hard peaks, straining in my bra, and my panties are soaked.
My breathing is labored, and I can’t help the whimper that leaves me when he pushes his hard cock against my ass.
He brushes my hair to the side and kisses behind my ear. I should stop this, but when he grazes his teeth over that spot on my neck, I know I can’t.
“You’re so fucking wet for me right now,” he murmurs. It’s not a question but a statement of fact. And I can’t even deny it because it’s true. “Your body knows the truth.”
“What truth?” I ask, spinning to face him.
“That I’m yours. Body and soul. I belong to you. Don’t turn me away.” He presses a kiss against my lips that I’m too shocked to return at first. But then I melt into him, and I know he’s right. Every part of me craves his touch.
But he lied to me.
He followed me.
He plugged my pussy and ass with remote-controlled toys and sent me to work so that he could mess with my head and watch me while I fought tooth and nail to stop from coming.
This is not the behavior of a reasonable man. It’s love bombing, controlling, and deception. All of those conversations about consent are skewed now. It wasn’t consent when I didn’t know who I was consenting to.
The new context has me remembering everything differently. Did he even have a mental health crisis? Was he stalking me from the very beginning?
My stomach churns with fear and outrage, and even disgust. Nevertheless, the arousal remains. I still want him, even knowing everything. Or maybe not everything. Maybe there are still secrets he’s holding back. He’s not the only one with secrets.
Ryan slowly takes the keys from my hand and guides me to the passenger seat. He leans in and engages my seatbelt like he did earlier today. There’s a slight crease on his forehead, and his eyes tell me he’s worried there won’t be a way to come back from this.
He’s not the only one. I’m worried too. I’m worried that even after everything, I still want to come back.
I shouldn’t want to. But even though he has been lying to me. He’s still the closest I’ve ever been to feeling like I met someone I could be happy with. The only person I’ve ever felt I could belong to.