He’d promised her that.
The ball was firmly in her court, spinning around and taunting her. She was supposed to tell him today that this wasn’t going to happen. She needed to tell him. Losing her self-control like this was proof positive how dangerous this kind of arrangement would be. This man made her go stupid. Despite her best intentions, she’d almost begged Donovan to touch her right here in the office with clients down the hall and a group session about to start. Meanwhile, he could remain calm and detached—barely affected at all.
She needed to end this dance.
She would tell him. Later.
She walked past him, hoping he didn’t see the way she wobbled on her feet. This was going to be the longest group ever.
19
This was the longest group ever. Donovan wondered if The Grove still stocked straitjackets because he was losing his fucking mind—slowly and painfully. Group had been going on for half an hour, and he’d barely registered a word of what anyone was saying. Marin was sitting across from him, legs crossed, posture attentive and professional, but all Donovan could think of was how close they’d come to screwing all this up in one ill-advised moment.
They were hitting a breaking point. He’d thought he was the only one. But the way Marin had looked at him. She’d begged for his touch with everything but words. And he’d known with every male instinct he possessed that if he’d put his hands on her, she would’ve been warm and wet and willing. Her desire had been a palpable thing rolling off her. She’d needed relief. She wanted it from him. And goddamn, did he want to give that to her.
When he’d caught her watching Eli and Laura, he’d only gotten a glimpse of her reaction. Her lips had been parted, her skin rosy, and her breath held. But it’d hit him like a swift punch to the gut. Dr. Marin Rush had been in a trance seeing Eli fuck Laura fast and hard. And then Donovan had watched her face while the couple found their release. She’d held Donovan’s gaze through the ecstatic cries and erotic sounds—a coil of electricity sparking between the two of them. And it’d taken everything he had not to get hard right there. He’d caught clients fooling around before. It didn’t hit his sexual radar. It usually just pissed him off because it meant the treatment wasn’t working. But being in the same room with Marin with the sounds and fog of sex around them—that had been almost too much to take.
He’d tried to play it off, to make light of the situation. But when Marin had stood in front of him, looking like she could go off at the barest touch, he’d wanted to shove her up against the door, slide his hand up her skirt, and alleviate that problem for her right that moment. He wanted his name on her lips.
It’d taken every damn ounce of his self-control to not say, Fuck it all, and give them both exactly what they’d wanted in that moment. But neither of them had been thinking straight and clients had been down the hall. If he touched her, regret would be hot on their heels. Regret and serious consequences. But he was starting to realize how right Ysa had been. This wasn’t going to go away simply because they decided it should. They were trying, and it was only getting worse. It was making them reckless.
Something neither of them could afford to be.
He’d promised Marin that he wouldn’t push her, and until today, she hadn’t shown any sign of accepting the offer he’d made last week. At first he’d been relieved. He’d gotten a get-out-of-jail-free card after the lust-induced, ill-advised suggestion. But now—God, now he’d wished she’d said yes. He could deal with it fine if she wasn’t into him. But how was he supposed to handle it when she looked at him like she was fucking starved for him, like he’d landed the starring role in every one of her filthy fantasies?
He’d never obsessed about women like this. A woman was either interested in what he had to offer or not, no big deal. But working with Marin and keeping things professional had become slow, sweet torture. Last night, he’d barely made it into the house before he was hard with thoughts of her and climbing into the shower to stroke his cock. It was like when he’d had to pen the fantasies for the study. The dirtiest, lewdest things badgered his mind, demanding he play out the scenarios in detail. Marin writhing beneath him. Marin spread across his desk. Marin shoved up against a wall, taking his cock, begging for release.
“What would you say is an unhealthy level of masturbation, Dr. West?”
Jane Swenson’s question yanked him out of his spiraling thoughts, and he adjusted in his seat, his body becoming way too aware of the road his brain had been cruising down. “Um, I’d say that depends.”
That depends was always a good answer when you hadn’t been paying attention, though he felt like an asshole for letting his mind drift so much. He prided himself on giving his clients his undivided attention. He’d been an utter failure at that this week.
Jane frowned. “I feel like I’ve made a lot of progress. I haven’t hooked up with anyone in two months, but I’m worried that I’m relying on self-help a little too much. I’ve been using my vibrator every night, sometimes in the morning, too.”
Marin shot a look his way, like she somehow knew he hadn’t been paying attention, and then focused on Jane. “Masturbation can be part of the sex addiction, but Dr. West is right. It depends on the level. You need to ask yourself if it’s interfering in your daily life—getting in the way of obligations, putting anything at risk, if you’re fixating on it.”
Jane shrugged. “I don’t think so. I mean, I don’t think about it while I’m at work or anything. It’s not like when I was cruising bars every night. The high for me was always the game of picking up a guy, not so much the orgasm. I liked feeling desirable, powerful. Masturbation doesn’t give me that.”
“I jerk off every day. Always have.” Dave, another group member, chimed in. “I don’t think that’s weird. I mean, yeah, if you’re rubbing yourself raw and blowing your salary on porn or something, probably not good. But otherwise? Meh.” He shrugged. “Plus, isn’t it like using a patch when you try to give up smoking? You’ve dropped the random hookups. Going cold turkey with no other outlet could set you up for failure, so maybe it’s a bridge for you?”
“That’s a great analogy,” Donovan said, back up to speed with the conversation. “It can be a great tool if you’re doing it in a healthy way. If you weren’t relieving that tension, it could put you in a more stressed state, one where you’d be more likely to relapse and seek a hookup.”
“Sex brain,” Laura said, not looking up from picking at her fingernail polish.
“Sex brain?” Marin asked.
Laura’s attention drifted briefly to Eli, who hadn’t said a word since group had started. “Yeah, when you get so horny all you can think about is screwing the nearest guy. It’s like starving yourself for days and then expecting to resist a buffet. You set yourself up for a fall and make crappy decisions. Then you do something stupid, and when you come down off that high, you realize you’ve messed everything up again. Giving your vibrator a workout has got to be better than that.”
The words were clearly directed at Eli, but he just leaned back in his chair, knees wide and expression bored. His lip curled in derision. “A toy or your hand can’t substitute for good sex. It’s like drinking diet soda when you want the real thing. I say, just drink the sugar.”
“And you do that enough, you get diabetes and die,” Laura said darkly.
Eli snorted.
“My vibrator is way better than a lot of sex I’ve had,” Karina, another group member, offered in an offhanded tone. “Hate to break it to you, boys, but you are very much replaceable.”
“Okay,” Donovan said, trying to refocus a conversation that was quickly getting off track. “Let’s explore this in a different way. We’re focusing a lot today on the physical pleasure of sex—which is an important component. But what hookups and masturbation lack is the intimacy you can find in a healthy relationship. The reason many of you are here is because you’ve leaned too far in the direction of the physical high of it. So how about we discuss some ways to start connecting with others without the physical component at the forefront?”