17. Pretty Good Service
Chapter Seventeen
Pretty Good Service
Grant
The next time Neve steps into Lab C for a simulated therapy session, the air around both of us feels altered. I suppose it’s no wonder, considering the last time we spoke, I sent her a dick pic, then came all over myself on live video for her.
My skin crawls just thinking about it—until I remember the way she looked at me. She was watching me, but I was watching her watch me, and there was nothing in her eyes but pure, unadulterated hunger. She wanted me. She wants me.
It’s such a foreign feeling.
I hated admitting to her that nobody had ever called me beautiful before her. I didn’t even mean to say it at all; it just slipped out.
God, I felt pathetic. Until she said what she said—that I’m beautiful, that I haunt her waking hours, that she dreams of me—and I felt ten feet tall. She makes me feel ten feet tall.
It feels insane to the highest degree that I’m already developing real feelings for this impossible woman.
This woman, who is far too young for me, who is a huge conflict of interest, who is my student, and the sister of a colleague.
A colleague I lied to about whether there was anything going on between us when directly asked.
But it feels inevitable. I’m drawn to Neve Hart like gravity. Trying to resist would be futile.
The light in Lab C is always a little too bright, but today it’s a migraine. The overhead fluorescents strobe off the fake leather chairs and the gleaming, glass-topped side table. I thumb through the session notes, getting my script in order, but all I can think about is her.
Her hair is down today, even more vivid than usual, and she’s wearing a yellow top that matches her eyes and fits her curves so perfectly it’s like she went to a tailor and said, “Make me a weapon.” She crosses one leg over the other, chin up, totally undeterred.
She’s burning with it. Determination. I don’t know how anyone ever told her she could be too much, but if they did, I hope she told them to fuck off.
I try to keep my face neutral and professional, but I bet it doesn’t work. My skin’s tight, heart pounding. All I can think of is her voice in my ear.
Worse, I hear my own.
Is that it? You want to be Daddy’s baby girl?
I’ve never been into that before, but hell, if I didn’t almost come on the spot.
I glance up at her through my lashes. She’s pretending to take me seriously, but her lips are fighting a smirk. I want to drag the chair closer and see if she can keep a straight face when I have my hands on her. I want—
I shift; she clocks it.
The smile that curls her mouth is all edges, like she’s already figured out the move I haven’t made yet. I watch her watching me, and if there’s a single cell in my body not strung up with want, I can’t find it.
Her knee bounces. “You ready to start, Doctor King?”
“Ready when you are,” I force out.
She snorts, and the sound cuts straight through me. “Patient’s presenting concern today,” she reads, “is difficulty in the sexual component of his relationship. Specifically, partner has stopped initiating intimacy and, quote, ‘never seems turned on by me anymore.’”
Her eyes flick up, challenge in the golden amber. She wants me to blush. She wants me off-balance, but I’m not letting her have it. I have to keep some of my control.
I lean back in the chair, stretch my legs out a little. She watches. “I guess I want to know if it’s me,” I say, doing my best to play the part. “Like, am I doing something wrong? Or is he just… not attracted to me anymore?”
She hums, making a note. I wish I could read what it says. “A lot of people think it’s a personal failing when their partner loses interest. But there can be a million reasons. Stress, communication breakdown, mismatched desire. It’s almost always just about being honest with what you want.”
Her voice is cool, measured, but her knuckles are white around the notebook. She wants me to push her.
I drag a hand through my hair, letting the silence stretch just a beat too long. “What if I think about it all the time?” I flick my gaze up to her, pinning her with it. “That I can’t stop wanting him, even when it’d be easier to just forget about it?”
Neve’s expression flashes.
“That’s… pretty normal,” she manages, voice warbling at the edge. “Wanting someone, even when you know you shouldn’t, or when it feels one-sided. It can actually make you obsess more. Like, the forbidden element makes it hotter.”
My mouth tastes like copper. “Have you ever wanted something you can’t have?”
Her eyes go bright and hungry. “Yes.”
God, I almost can’t bring myself to ask, but I have to. “Yeah? What?”
She shakes her head, huffing a breathless laugh, like all of this is hilarious, and I’m the oblivious one. “You really are completely blind to it, aren’t you?”
My mouth is bone dry. I’m sure if I opened it, dust would puff out. I can only quirk a brow in question.
“Honestly, I don’t know how anyone expects us to concentrate at all in these sessions. Half the women in my class spend more time talking about you than the actual assignments.”
I freeze. “What?”
She grins. “Don’t pretend you don’t know. They all think you’re hot, Grant.”
“I…” The words are marbles in my mouth; I can’t spit them out.
Neve grins. “You heard me. It’s like, you walk in, and suddenly nobody cares about therapy or their fake patient scenario because all anybody can talk about is how you’re straight-up sin in a dress shirt.
It’s a problem. For me, specifically.” She tosses her hair, and it’s like watching fire in motion.
My face goes hot. I want to laugh it off, but all my nerves are shot. “Pretty sure they say the same about Cade. Or about Fia. I’ve heard the rumors. The Fia-Fucker Fan Club.” I shudder even as I say it. It’s gross.
She rolls her eyes. “I’m sure they do—and it’s wrong—but it doesn’t bother me the way it bothers me when they say it about you.
” She bites her lip. “It drives me insane. Like, I get this feeling in my chest, and I want to throw something, or… I don’t know.
Bite you. Mark you.” She laughs, bright and brutal.
“It makes me so fucking jealous, no matter how crazy that is.”
I stare, and the world narrows down to just her, all color and hunger and wild, impossible want.
“You want to bite me?” My voice is rougher than I mean. I’m not sure why that’s the specific comment I’m focused on. Maybe because I want it as bad as she seems to.
I want to give in.
Instead, I try for a joke. “I’m not sure if I should be flattered or terrified.”
“You should be both.” She swallows hard. “I want you all to myself.”
My heart’s gone wild, a trapped animal in my ribs. I want to say something calm, something intellectual, but all that comes out is, “Come here.”
Neve freezes, eyes wide, lips parted. For once, she’s caught off guard. I watch her flounder, pink blooming along her cheekbones as she blinks at me. “What?”
“Get over here,” I growl, sharper, no room for argument. “Now.”
She stands slowly, like she’s not sure if this is a bit or an actual command. Those gold eyes flick up to mine, searching, but I don’t break. I’m done fucking around. I want her here.
Now.
Neve pads closer, still limping ever so slightly on her recovering ankle—moon boot and all—and I open my legs, patting my thigh. “Sit.”
She hesitates. She’s always the one in control, always pushing, but not this time.
“Grant,” she whispers, cheeks blazing.
I just stare her down until she finally obliges, swinging a leg over my thigh and settling down. Her core presses flush to the muscle, body tense and wanting even as she pretends she’s not dying for it.
I curl a hand around her hip and drag her closer, grinding her against me. The heat of her is immediate. A tremor goes through her, and her nails dig into my shoulders as she steadies herself.
“You think I let anyone else do this?” I rasp against her ear. I grind her down again, slow and hard, so she feels every ridge of my thigh through her jeans. “You think anyone else gets to see me like this?”
Her breath hitches. She clutches at my shoulders, knuckles white. I’m fucking drunk on it—the power, the need, the way she melts against me when I take the reins.
“No,” she whispers. “I’m glad they don’t.”
I groan. “Look at me, Neve.” My voice is rough, unrecognizable. “You drive me insane. Nobody else gets me like this. Nobody else makes me feel like I’m going to lose my mind if I don’t get my hands on them.”
She moans, hips rocking on instinct, all pretense gone. My leg is soaked from her heat. I want to rip her jeans open and fuck her right here.
“You like this?” I taunt, fingers digging into her ass as she rides my thigh. “You like knowing you’re the only one who makes me feel insane like this?”
She nods, eyes wild.
“Say it,” I demand, rolling her hard enough that her head falls back. “Tell me who you belong to, baby girl.”
“You,” she gasps, clinging to me. “I belong to you, Daddy.”
I almost lose it.
My cock is steel in my jeans, leaking and desperate, but it’s nothing compared to the way she writhes against me, grinding down on my thigh like she’ll die if I stop. Her nails dig through my shirt so hard they might find naked flesh, her hips jerking with every drag of her clit against my leg.
She whimpers. The sound is raw, feral, need poured into syllables that don’t mean anything except more. I want to eat it, swallow that sound down, and keep it, let it stain me.
That’s when her hand slips between us, fingers greedy, palming my cock through the denim. I choke, thoughts gone, all the rules and boundaries and professionalism incinerated in a single, blinding flash of want.
I catch her wrist, holding her in place. “Don’t.” I bare my teeth, squeeze, trying to reassert control I barely had in the first place. “Neve, stop.”
She yanks her wrist free, squeezing again. My body jerks. My restraint is paper-thin and on fire.
“I said stop,” I grit, but it’s a threat and a plea, and she hears all of it.