Rita picked up a mozzarella stick and put it on her plate but didn’t eat it.
“It’s complicated.” She tapped the stick against the plate but still didn’t take a bite.
“Complicated how?” I picked up a stick and dipped it in the marinara sauce.
“She blew out a breath and dropped the food back on the plate. “Because I wanted you to kiss me. I still want you to kiss me, and I shouldn’t.”
“So you transferred me without talking to me because of what you feel for me?” I liked that idea way better than her giving me up because she didn’t want anything to do with me.
She picked up the mozzarella stick and took a bite. I finished off mine as I waited for her answer.
“It doesn’t matter what I felt or feel.” She shook her head. “This can’t happen.”
I was done fucking around. I moved my chair beside her. I tunneled my hand under her hair so that I could touch her face again.
“I wanted to kiss you.” I told her. “I wanted to kiss you while we were hanging out with the puppies. I wanted to kiss you earlier today, and I want to kiss you now.”
“We can’t.” She didn’t look at me. “I knew this was a mistake.”
I put my hand on the other side of her face and turned her toward me. “No, it wasn’t.” I leaned forward so my lips brushed hers.
“Stewart.” She breathed into me.
Finally, she used my name.
“Yes, baby?” I touched our lips together. “I’ll stop if you want me to, but please don’t want me to.” I let my mouth hover over hers. As much as I wanted to devour her, I wouldn’t do it until she gave in. I needed her to want me with the same desperation that was filling my body, because right now I felt like I would scream if I didn’t kiss her. Her tongue came out to lick her lips and got mine along the way. Both of us groaned.
“Fuck it.” She grabbed hold of the back of my head and pulled me to her.
I wanted to shout out my relief. I slid my tongue between her lips and tasted her for the first time. If I thought that would satisfy the lust building inside me, I had to be out of my mind. All that did was make me want to lift her onto this table and dive my face right into her core. If I didn’t stop I was going to do it, but I wasn’t sure I had the willpower to back away.
Rita held onto my hair so tight it was bordering on painful, but I didn’t give a shit. I couldn’t wait to feel her hands in my hair as I glided into her. I was so fucking hard. I was going to come any second.
The sound of a throat clearing forced us apart. The server stood there holding both our meals. “Sorry,” he said, putting the plates down in front of us. “Would you like some grated Parmesan?” What I wanted was for him to disappear.
“Yes, please.” Rita let go of my hair and backed away.
“Sure.” I sat back in my chair. I dropped my hand so that it was resting on her thigh. I moved it up and down, being sure to stay away from the heat coming from her center. If I touched her, I wouldn’t stop until she fell apart.
He added some cheese to her plate and then to mine. “Will that be all?”
“Yeah.” I nodded. He did the same before leaving us to our meal.
As much as I didn’t want to, I had to remove my hand from her leg if I wanted to eat. I’d never wished I was left-handed so bad in my life.
“I think we can make an argument that I was never really a patient.” I cut into my meatball.
“What?” Rita looked at me.
“Well, we never got into anything really deep.” I started. “And as you pointed out, we barely know each other.” Although that was going to change if I had my way. “We never met at your office. At least not really, and a lot of people would consider playing basketball and visiting puppies not really therapy. As far as I know you never signed any of my paperwork, so there isn’t any sort of paper trail.”
“What’s your point?”
“My point is that this isn’t some sort of transference. There’s no power dynamics at play. If there were, it might be on my sideconsidering I helped you more when we played basketball than you helped me.” I shrugged with a smile. “The way I see it, we are just two consenting adults who find each other attractive.”
She snorted out a laugh. “Yeah, I’m sure the review board will see it the exact same way right before they take away my license.”
I didn’t think it would get that far even if someone found out about us.
