Chapter 9
Stewart
I walked with Rita to an Italian restaurant not too far from where I had found her. When I first saw her there I thought I was hallucinating. I’d been dreaming about her for days. It was the only thing that made sense.
There was every chance this could be a huge mistake, but at this point I didn’t care. I couldn’t stop thinking about her. That had to mean something. It just had to.
I held the door for her when we got there and pulled out her seat when we reached our table instead of letting the server do it.
Was I being a possessive asshole? Absolutely.
She wasn’t mine, but damn if it didn’t feel like she should be.
Like there was something besides wounded pride and a touch of obsession that was pulling me toward her.
I sat across from her and just took her in. She was really beautiful. She had her bottom lip between her teeth, and I wanted to kick myself for not kissing her when I’d been so close to doing it when I had her in my arms and her face pressed to mine.
Her eyes darted around the room, looking everywhere but at me.
Was she worried someone would see us? During one of the nights when I couldn’t sleep, I’d searched to see if there was a rule against therapist dating a former patient.
I wanted to know if it was the same as every other doctor.
There was some nuisance there, but like she said, I was barely her patient.
I had a hard time seeing her getting in trouble.
“We’re safe.” I started to reach over and touch her hand again, but I didn’t. I still wanted to know who the guy was in the hospital. He might not be her husband or boyfriend, but that didn’t mean she was available.
Did I want her to be available? Her eyes came back to mine. Without a doubt.
“Excuse me?” She asked.
“No one is going to notice us here.” Fuck it. I placed my hand on hers. “Even if they did, it’s unlikely it would be someone from the base. Even less likely they would know our history.”
“You don’t know that.” She pulled her hand away and picked up the menu.
I followed her lead and grabbed mine. “What looks good?” It was way too easy to pretend we were on a date.
“I’ve never been here before.”
“Me either.” I kinda liked that we were experiencing something new together. “Do you like Italian?” Pasta was one of the few things I could cook really well.
“It’s one of my favorites.” I filed that away in my mind. I’d have to make her dinner one night.
The waiter came over and took our drink orders. Rita simply asked for water, while I got a soda. I waited to see if she was ready to order her meal, but she didn’t say anything else. I asked for some mozzarella sticks as an appetizer and then put my menu down after the guy left.
“Nice to see you have an appetite.” She put her menu down too. “Or is this making up for breakfast?”
“Don’t do that.” I reached over and took her hand again.
“Don’t do that.” She pulled away.
“Fine.” I leaned back in my chair. “I won’t act like we are on a date if you don’t act like you’re my therapist.” I raised my eyebrow in her direction.
“That isn’t how I’m acting.” She crossed her arms. “And I’m not your therapist.”
“Oh, I know.” Her voicemail still bugged me. “Did you have to break up with me with a message? Would it really have been so hard to tell me in person? Did I do something wrong?”
She let out a long breath. Her eyes half closed before she shook her head. “No, you didn’t do anything wrong. I did.” She leaned forward and let her arms rest on the table.
The server came back with our drinks and to take our meal orders. I went with spaghetti and meatballs because it was an easy ask. Rita picked her menu back up and searched for a moment before going with the eggplant lasagna.
“Are you a vegetarian?” I asked when he left.
“No, I just like eggplant.” Another thing to file away.
“My mother would adore you.” I figured it might be better to start with safe topics.
“Because I like eggplant?” She looked confused.
I laughed. “No. She’d love your name.” Her head tilted to the side. “Rita Hayworth.” I explained. “She has a thing for old movie star names.”
“Really?” A slow smile spread over her face.
“Stewart Martin Harris.” I pointed to myself. “My younger brother is Rex Holden, and my baby sister is Stella Marilyn.”
“Is Stella an old movie star name?”
“It’s a push, but it’s from A Streetcar Named Desire.” I shared. “It’s from when the guy yells out Stella.” We both started laughing.
“Dare I ask what her name is?” Rita relaxed and put her hands back on the table.
“Jennifer.” I shrugged. “She swears it’s the most common name in the book.”
“But there are a lot of famous Jennifers.”
I shook my head. “To her, it doesn’t matter. She wants to be unique.” Rita chuckled. “Why do you think you did something wrong?” I asked quietly.
Her face went serious. “You know.” She looked around again. “There are certain lines we aren’t supposed to cross. Getting that close to you was a big red flag. I had to walk away.”
“Because it happened or because you wanted me as much as I wanted you in that moment?” I needed an answer.
She stayed silent so long that I wondered if she was going to say anything at all. I cracked my knuckles as I held my breath. I was on the verge of repeating the question when she closed her eyes and answered.
“Both.” Her voice was almost a whisper. “That’s why I had to refer you to someone else.”
I opened my mouth to reply, but that was when our appetizer showed up. Maybe lunch wasn’t such a good idea. Not when we kept getting interrupted.
“Why didn’t you say something before you left?” I asked as soon as we were alone again. “Or wait until our next session to talk to me? Hell, even calling back would have been better than leaving a voicemail.”
Rita picked up a mozzarella stick and put it on her plate but didn’t eat it.
“It’s complicated.” She tapped the stick against the plate but still didn’t take a bite.
“Complicated how?” I picked up a stick and dipped it in the marinara sauce.
“She blew out a breath and dropped the food back on the plate. “Because I wanted you to kiss me. I still want you to kiss me, and I shouldn’t.”
“So you transferred me without talking to me because of what you feel for me?” I liked that idea way better than her giving me up because she didn’t want anything to do with me.
She picked up the mozzarella stick and took a bite. I finished off mine as I waited for her answer.
“It doesn’t matter what I felt or feel.” She shook her head. “This can’t happen.”
I was done fucking around. I moved my chair beside her. I tunneled my hand under her hair so that I could touch her face again.
“I wanted to kiss you.” I told her. “I wanted to kiss you while we were hanging out with the puppies. I wanted to kiss you earlier today, and I want to kiss you now.”
“We can’t.” She didn’t look at me. “I knew this was a mistake.”
I put my hand on the other side of her face and turned her toward me. “No, it wasn’t.” I leaned forward so my lips brushed hers.
“Stewart.” She breathed into me.
Finally, she used my name.
“Yes, baby?” I touched our lips together.
“I’ll stop if you want me to, but please don’t want me to.
” I let my mouth hover over hers. As much as I wanted to devour her, I wouldn’t do it until she gave in.
I needed her to want me with the same desperation that was filling my body, because right now I felt like I would scream if I didn’t kiss her.
Her tongue came out to lick her lips and got mine along the way. Both of us groaned.
“Fuck it.” She grabbed hold of the back of my head and pulled me to her.
I wanted to shout out my relief. I slid my tongue between her lips and tasted her for the first time.
If I thought that would satisfy the lust building inside me, I had to be out of my mind.
All that did was make me want to lift her onto this table and dive my face right into her core.
If I didn’t stop I was going to do it, but I wasn’t sure I had the willpower to back away.
Rita held onto my hair so tight it was bordering on painful, but I didn’t give a shit. I couldn’t wait to feel her hands in my hair as I glided into her. I was so fucking hard. I was going to come any second.
The sound of a throat clearing forced us apart. The server stood there holding both our meals. “Sorry,” he said, putting the plates down in front of us. “Would you like some grated Parmesan?” What I wanted was for him to disappear.
“Yes, please.” Rita let go of my hair and backed away.
“Sure.” I sat back in my chair. I dropped my hand so that it was resting on her thigh. I moved it up and down, being sure to stay away from the heat coming from her center. If I touched her, I wouldn’t stop until she fell apart.
He added some cheese to her plate and then to mine. “Will that be all?”
“Yeah.” I nodded. He did the same before leaving us to our meal.
As much as I didn’t want to, I had to remove my hand from her leg if I wanted to eat. I’d never wished I was left-handed so bad in my life.
“I think we can make an argument that I was never really a patient.” I cut into my meatball.
“What?” Rita looked at me.
“Well, we never got into anything really deep.” I started.
“And as you pointed out, we barely know each other.” Although that was going to change if I had my way.
“We never met at your office. At least not really, and a lot of people would consider playing basketball and visiting puppies not really therapy. As far as I know you never signed any of my paperwork, so there isn’t any sort of paper trail. ”
“What’s your point?”
“My point is that this isn’t some sort of transference.
There’s no power dynamics at play. If there were, it might be on my side considering I helped you more when we played basketball than you helped me.
” I shrugged with a smile. “The way I see it, we are just two consenting adults who find each other attractive.”
She snorted out a laugh. “Yeah, I’m sure the review board will see it the exact same way right before they take away my license.”
I didn’t think it would get that far even if someone found out about us.
“I’m willing to keep things secret for now.” I offered. I was moving fast, and I never moved fast. Being military I normally took my time. I knew this life wasn’t easy. It was part of why I didn’t date.
“I don’t know.” Both of us had mostly been pushing our food around our plates.
I put my fork down and put my hand back on her thigh. “I like you, Rita. I don’t normally do things like this. Rules are my guide post, but I’m not sure I can just walk away without knowing what we could be. Can you?”
Her shoulders dropped. She brought her hand up and rubbed against her temple. “I don’t think so.” I let out a breath.
“Then let’s see where this goes.” I picked up her other hand and pressed a kiss to the back of it.
She looked into my eyes. “Okay.” She agreed. “Let’s see.”
I smiled and placed her hand on my thigh this time. “Let’s finish lunch and then maybe you can help me find a present for my mom.”
“Sure.” She took her hand away and went back to eating. I did the same.