“When I finally escaped him, my sister and I got that little apartment, and I still kept up with my reading since I was in hiding. And with my sister working at the sex shop, she got an amazing discount, and I got myself a little vibrator, the one I now keep in a makeup bag in my nightstand drawer.
“But no matter what I did, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t. Get. Off. And if I finally did reach that highest peak, there was nothing pleasurable about it. There was no great relief the heroines in my stories always describe. There was no life-altering moment in time where my soul floated above my body as I shuddered and convulsed in ecstasy. There was only a quick tightening of my muscles that made me oversensitive to where I could no longer stand anything touching me down there. That’s it,” I tell him, frustration clear in my tone.
“And when we got home from the gym today, I was so aroused, more aroused than my romance novels ever made me, than I’d been in my whole life. I thought for sure, for sure, if I was going to finally give myself that amazing orgasm everyone talks about, now would be that time. But no matter what I did, no matter the images that filled my head, no matter how hard or soft or in which direction I stroked myself with the bullet. I just. Couldn’t. Come.” My hand grips his bicep, clutching him closer.
“And then there you were. Filling my doorway. Seeing that secret part of me that only one other man had ever seen. Saw me at my most vulnerable. And somehow, I wasn’t mortified. I wasn’t scared of you because you’d caught me with a vibrator, caught me trying to find pleasure.” His arms tighten around me, and he finally does speak then.
“You should never be afraid of me, goddess. For doing anything. You never have to fear me, ever. I’ll never hurt you,” he swears, and I can hear in his voice he’s speaking the God’s honest truth.
“You gave me everything I wanted and more, and you replaced all the bad memories of what he did to my mouth…” My voice catches, because this is all leading up to me asking for something else I want, something else I need more than anything else to help me heal. “And I… I just want…”
“What do you want, goddess? Whatever it is, I will raze hell and earth to give it to you,” he urges, his words an oath.
“I… I want, more than anything, for you to be the one to erase all the things he did to me, to be the one who replaces all the bad with your good,” I finally get out, and his big body that’s completely surrounding me shudders.
And then I’m on my back and he’s looming over me, his hips cradled between my legs. I feel the heavy weight of his erection at the juncture of my thighs, and I close my eyes, ready to accept him into my body.
But he doesn’t move, and I open my eyes back up to look into his.
“I know you heard what I said before, goddess,” he says low, his voice deep between us, and my heart picks up speed. “I know you heard me when I said you are the woman I love.”
I can only nod, unable to speak. He’s just too beautiful, his eyes a swirling blue, his face soft yet serious.
“And being the man who is unashamedly, unequivocally in love with you, I will do everything in my power to give you exactly what you want and need in order to erase all those bad memories,” he tells me, and I swallow at the promise in his eyes and words.
“Okay,” I breathe.
I blink up at him, the tension high surrounding us, as I wonder if he’s going to make love to me, wanting him to make love to me.
“But I’m also Dr. Neil Walker, professional psychologist in all things dealing with cases like yours. So my counter-wager is, as long as you’re willing to let me help you outside of the bedroom as well, then I want to teach you to heal all of yourself, so you can finally feel whole,” he adds, and I search his handsome face. He might’ve posed it as a bet, naming his stakes, a proposition, but I know in my heart that he wouldn’t just give in to only helping me with the sexual part of my healing. He’d still find ways to subtly work his shrink powers on me like he’s been doing for the past year I’ve lived with him.
But I give in, because I am that girl who has always been in love with the idea of being in love. That’s just who I always was as a person. It was what made me, me. And I’ve been lost inside myself ever since I made that promise to never fall in love again. So if Neil can make me feel like me again, then I have nothing to lose and my whole self to regain.