“No shot. I’m on lockdown.” Ori glanced to the left and tipped her head in that direction. “McCray caught us flirting in the hallway this morning so we’re on her radar. Have to lie low for a while.”
Marin took a bite of her salad and followed where Ori’s gaze had gone. The cafe was humming at this time. Doctors, nurses, and therapists milled around, chatting with each other and choosing from the gourmet options in The Grove’s mini food court. Skylights gave the whole place a bright, airy vibe, making it almost feel like an open-air cafe even though it was inside. But one blonde was sitting in a place where the light didn’t shine. McCray was flying solo in a far corner, her laptop out and her food untouched, her whole demeanor conveying a don’t-bother-me vibe. A bitter taste crossed Marin’s tongue. She took a long sip of her iced tea. “It’s got to be a nightmare working for her. She seems . . .”
“Scary?”
“Not the word I was thinking but fits.”
Ori shrugged. “She is scary. Made me cry my first week here when I made a mistake with a client’s chart. But I’ve gotten used to her and have learned how to stay on her good side for the most part. Plus, I’ve learned a lot from her. She’s kind of a badass when you get to see her work. But for my first few weeks here, I thought of her as the Bitch like everyone else.”
Marin held up a finger. “There’s the word I was thinking.”
Ori peered over at McCray again. “Yeah, she comes across that way. She cultivates that image. But one night a few months after I first started, we were both working the graveyard shift, and I had this client . . .” Ori frowned. “The girl was barely nineteen but had lived a fast life. Her parents were famous musicians who were never home, so she’d spent her teen years getting high and getting in trouble with boys. She’d been admitted to rehab when her mom found out that she’d started doing porn. The girl was strung out and beat down and had the self-esteem of a garden pea when she came in.
“A day after we got her through detox, she tried to kill herself with a ballpoint pen she’d gotten ahold of. We found her in time. But after Dr. McCray got the girl’s wounds taken care of and the necessities out of the way, she gave this girl a you-are-better-than-this, tough-love talk that I wish I could’ve recorded. It was like the most kickass, empowering speech I’d ever heard about not letting men use you and about finding your inner strength and worth and . . . God, I wanted to climb on top of the desk and burn my bra or raise the mockingjay sign or something. It was brilliant. It showed me how much McCray cares about her patients. She wasn’t giving lip service. She meant every word she said. And it worked. That girl got cleaned up and is doing well now.” Ori took a bite and shrugged. “So I’ve got mad respect for McCray now—even though she can be a nightmare sometimes.”
Marin frowned, not wanting to hear anything good about the woman. It made it harder to hate her. “I had a quick chat with her last week when she needed something from our floor. She doesn’t like me much.”
Ori looked up and made a meh face. “Don’t take it personally. She kind of hates the X-wing in general. She and West do not get along.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. She’s a stickler about everything—procedures, paperwork, blah blah blah. And Dr. West is . . . well, Dr. West. He does things his way and on his own schedule. Plus, McCray thinks dedicating the resources of a whole floor to sex therapy is a waste. When West came on board, there was only couples therapy. He launched the sex therapy program and wanted his own dedicated floor. That floor had been set aside for an expansion of the rehab unit and then got pulled out from under McCray. She blames him.”
“So they hate each other?”
“Pretty much.”
Of course they did. It shouldn’t surprise her. Donovan stacked the deck to mak
e sure his relationships were doomed from the start. He’d told her as much. But this made her realize that his offer to her meant that he saw her as a safe bet in that regard, too. Maybe not in the same way as McCray, but safe nonetheless.
That annoyed the hell out of her. She wasn’t looking for a relationship right now either, especially not one with a co-worker. But being seen as a no-risk prospect for him didn’t sit well either. You can sleep with me but not get to me. That was the message. Or maybe he just saw her as so wildly inexperienced that she was no real threat for the great Orgasm Whisperer. She was just the sweet, naive therapist who couldn’t get through a session without blushing like a schoolgirl. He would be her emotionally detached mentor. Her sexual surrogate.
She shoved her salad aside and grabbed her cupcake, taking a violent chomp out of it.
Yes, she wanted to learn, experience things. And the thought of him being the one to show her turned her on more than it should. She’d been tempted by the offer hourly since he’d made it. But she also didn’t want to be someone’s pity project. And she’d be damned if she let herself become another McCray to him. Screw that.
She’d left the offer there on the table this long because she hadn’t quite been able to close that door. But thinking about it from his point of view, thinking about how he’d gone about things with McCray, about how he must see all this, pissed her the hell off.
Donovan West thought she was safe.
Safe. Ugh.
“So what’s on your agenda for the afternoon?” Ori asked, oblivious to the storm building in Marin.
Marin swallowed the bite of cake. “Fixing a mistake.”
“Already got to that stage today, huh?”
“Nope, I made this one a long time ago.”
18
Marin headed back to her building, resolve in her step. This thing with Donovan needed to be staked and turned to dust. She couldn’t focus on her job if this thing was hovering over her, whispering temptation in her ear, draining her of her good sense. Sure, she needed to learn some things. Her blushing problem was an ongoing issue, for one. But beyond that, she just really, really needed to get laid. It was time to step into the adult world and break out of this purgatory state she’d been in for all these years.
But she didn’t need to do that with Donovan as a training exercise. She wanted someone to want her simply because he was attracted to her, not because she was safe or there was some task list to check off. She didn’t need a relationship right now, but she craved something real, something raw. Untempered chemistry. Something like she’d had that first time when it was all desire and attraction and desperation. She didn’t want to be someone’s student. She wanted to be someone’s indulgence. She wanted to be that girl in Donovan’s recordings, the woman someone hungered for.
So she would talk to Donovan after the sex addiction group this afternoon and put the whole offer to rest. Cut and dried. Uncomplicated. Smart.