Void (9 page)

“Nicola?”

I stopped in my tracks, my hand poised on the door knob, but I didn’t turn around to look at him.

“In here, I am Dr. Andris Gunn.”

I spun around and looked at him as I clutched the journal to my chest, like I was trying to hide behind it.

“And you are Nicola Forbes. That doesn’t change. But out there?” He said, pointing to the window of his office and my gaze followed to where the sun was shining brightly outside.

“Out there, I am Sinclaire and you are Jericho.”

I didn’t say anything. Instead, I turned around and walked out of his office. I made my way all the way out of the lobby and onto the sidewalk where I hailed a cab. It was moments after I had climbed into the back seat that the realization hit me. I reflected back on the few times I could remember my mother and father fighting. I vividly remembered my mother clenching her chest after my father had said something to her and she lashed back out at him.

What I had just felt up in Andris’s office…was
anger
.

FUCK.

I gripped the sides of my hair hard enough to feel a small, piercing pain in my scalp before letting it go. I was in deep, deep trouble. The pangs of jealousy that swept through me when Nicola described how
he
made her feel as
he
touched and caressed her were surprising. The instant rise in my arousal as I watched her body flush with desire from her memories alone, had me close to wanting to throw her on the floor and give her everything she wanted and needed. But I was her doctor. How fucked up was it that she was my patient? Staying involved with her outside of treatment would be a disaster, but the pull I felt towards her was so strong I didn’t think I could break the ties.

I was jealous of her client. Jealous that he could bring out emotions and desires in her that I wanted to do. I had only met her last night by chance. Kiki was our regular escort. She was always available to us whenever we needed her, but now having met Nicola, I knew there was no going back for either of us.

I sat in my chair for several moments, my fingers tapping against her folder, fighting between ethics and desire. My mind was telling me one thing, while my body told me another. I could still smell the faint honeysuckle scent of her skin lingering in my office long after she had left.

Pleasure. She feels pleasure.

That was something that patients with her condition typically felt. Not so much pleasure, but the ability to experience the emotions that they are void to, through physical contact.

The internal battle within me raged in full force, and I was half a heartbeat away from turning her case over to one of the other doctors when I had an epiphany.

I could use our sessions on a client level with our sessions on a therapy level to provoke her. When she spoke about last night, I felt every thought through her words and her actions…and she
felt
them too.

Yes.

I smiled to myself. It was fucked up and morally wrong, but I was willing to risk my license and my life that this would work. I could use sex to throw a wrench in her ability to know her own self-experiences, as well as what others think and feel. It was a risky experiment, on that I had no control to use to go with it, but it was now a thought that wouldn’t leave my mind.

I picked up the phone, dialing the familiar number.

“Alexandra, we need to talk.”

“HE WHAT?” I exclaimed as I sat across from Lexie in her office that afternoon.

“He upped the ante. Twelve and a half grand per session.”

I sat back in my chair. How the hell could I turn that down? Especially after my therapy session with Andris. Did he call the client and tell him about me? Is that why he upped the price?

“Why is this guy so dead set on having me? I thought Kiki was his usual reservation. I only filled in one night, and all of a sudden he wants me for twelve weeks?

“I don’t know, Jer, but you would seriously be an idiot if you turned it down. That’s more money than you make in five months. That’s…”

“A hundred and fifty thousand dollars,” I said, interrupting her. The shock of just how much money that was had me in disbelief.

“That is in addition to what he is paying me to contract you out. I don’t know what you did to this man, but whatever it was, keep doing it.”

“What did Kiki say about it when you talked to her?” Lexie waved her hand through the air as she took a long drag from her electronic cigarette.

“She was a little pissed at first, but I gave her some of your regular clients, including old man Patterson, since the contract requires to be with no other clients for the duration of the twelve weeks.”

Why did this man have a desire to keep me to himself? The thought though, made me shiver as the familiar electric pulses invaded me, like it did every time I thought about him. I wished I knew his name. I wished I could see his face. He was probably some old ogre who would have me running in the other direction.

Who the fuck was I kidding? The man was probably gorgeous beyond all knowledge. One of those reclusive CEO men, who hid their insecurities behind walls of mansions and millions of dollars. I found myself going over the possibilities, each scenario playing like a silent movie before me, but each one resulting in me coming undone beneath him as Sinclaire guided and watched.

“So?” Lexie asked, interrupting my thoughts.

“So…”

“Are you going to take the job?” She slid the stack of papers over to me. I didn’t have to ask her what they were. I already knew.

I picked them up and the pen that Lexie handed me. I glanced over it briefly before I scrolled down to the bottom of the last page and noticed a signature at the bottom, but it was too messy to make out an actual name.

“He already signed it?”

“Yeah,” Lexie replied as she slipped her electric cigarette back into the top drawer of her desk. She pulled out an envelope and handed it over to me. I took it, and looked at her with curiosity.

“This is the first session’s payment.
In advance.
He said as soon as you sign, it’s yours.”

I clicked the top of the pen, and without a second thought I signed my name to the bottom of the contract and placed the pen down on top of the stack of papers. Lexie handed me the envelope where I expected to open it and find a check. Instead, it was cash.

“Have you talked to him?”

“The client?” She asked and I nodded. “No. He has his assistant, Sinclaire, call me and negotiate everything.”

Sinclaire
. Or Andris. I couldn’t let Lexie know that he was my new psychiatrist. She would be tearing that contract up in less than two heartbeats. If it was one thing that Lexie was very strict on, it was my therapy. She, like my doctors, believed that I would be cured of my lack of certain emotions. After nearly twenty-five years in therapy, I hated to tell her that it probably wasn’t going to happen. I needed this money. It would finish paying off my condo as well as have enough left over for me to start real savings. When you are left with absolutely nothing, you remember every struggle that you faced trying to survive. I remembered being fourteen years old and sleeping on the streets of New York. I remember looking for food in restaurant dumpsters or having to go to the Salvation Army to get a warm meal. No one cared about the poor Senator’s daughter and the fact that she was homeless and hungry after her parents died.

“He told me the conditions are just like last night. Sinclaire will be there with you and the client. You know what to do if you ever feel like the situation is unsafe, correct?”

Lexie required us to have her number pre-programed in our phones as speed dial one. That way all we had to do was press “one” and send. She knew we would need her, if, or when she answered and all she heard was background noise. Our clients were required to provide her with the address and location of where our session would be held. There was also a time limit so that the client couldn’t keep us over a certain amount of time. We also had Vinny, Lexie’s scarily huge husband, who had won national bodybuilding competitions, ready to kick the asses of some clients who decided they wanted to break the rules.

“Yes. I have a feeling that everything will be okay.”

“Okay, then. I’ll have your schedule cleared for the next twelve weeks. What are you going to do with all your free time?”

Good question. I was usually always sleeping during the day, unless I was attending therapy, because the majority of my clients required their sessions at night. There were a few that would make arrangements for a daytime meeting, but the majority of them were after normal working hours.

I opened the envelope once more, letting my thumb glide through the stacks of hundred dollar bills.

“First things first. I’m going shopping.”