I keep my voice neutral. "I'm not letting you walk around the city sleep deprived, overstimulated, and with compromised judgment, in the dark."
Her breath catches, caught between thrill and exhaustion. The manic glimmer softens briefly into vulnerability. "You'd do that for me?"
I nod. "Of course."
She doesn't speak for several seconds. Then she whispers, "Okay." She takes my hand.
I pull her onto her feet.
She eliminates the space between us and presses her palm against my chest. Her floral scent flares, adding more fuel to my overheated state. She slowly meets my gaze. "I want to be your fantasy, Dr. Mercer."
My cock twitches.
She glances down, then smirks at me. "Hmm."
I step back, asserting, "You'll feel different after sleep."
"No. I won't. Everything you think you can't do with a woman, I want to do with you."
I catch myself before my groan turns audible.
Knock it off.
This is wrong.
Time to go.
I shut off the lights, lock my office, and guide her through the building. When we reach her street, her steps wobble, and I steady her elbow.
She looks up at me like I hung the damn moon. "Red, you won't leave me tonight, right?"
My chest tightens painfully. "I'm here right now."
She nods, as if I agreed to what she wanted.
But I can't. What she thinks she wants is wrong. And the things she claims she wants to do prove she's wrong. She just can't see it because of her manic state.
There's nothing exciting about me. I'm a forty-year-old man who's way too old for her and way too boring. In her fantasy, she wants excitement and taboo.
As we walk through the city, I tell myself that's not me, but the closer we get to her apartment, I realize I'm a liar. I can't push things I've never allowed myself to think about out of my head. And in all of them, she's with me, moaning my name and begging me with flushed cheeks.
By the time I get to her apartment, I'm no cooler than when I left my office. So I promise myself that I'll find her another therapist. She needs help and right now, the way I can't stop thinking about indulging in her fantasies, I'm not the right person to help her.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Blue
Red walks besides me, steering me through the city, and I can hardly contain my excitement. He keeps telling me I need to eat and sleep, but I can't think about either. Sometimes, he puts his hand on the small of my back, and euphoria will hit me so hard, I shudder. He'll pull me closer to steady me, and his clean soap, softened by warm cedar and something quietly masculine scent, hums through me, making me feel giddier.
Every time I glance at him, the streetlights catch on the sharp line of his jaw and the tension coiling in his shoulders. The glow electrifies his eyes, tracking my pace like he's afraid I'll collapse.
Best of all, Ifeelhis devotion. It's like he's finally letting his real intentions slip through the cracks he keeps trying to seal.
He wants to take care of me.
It has to mean he cares about me.
Red keeps asking the same question every few minutes.
