JR (18 page)

He’d made her vow to be open and honest. In this moment, she wanted nothing more than to participate in his passion.

Kurt snapped to attention the instant their skin touched. Eyes open and questioning on hers, he yanked off the headset. Before he could object, Rebecca offered him a hesitant smile then brushed his hand away and replaced it with hers. Resuming the pace he’d set, she stroked him.

“Let me, please.” She needed to give him release.

When his dick jumped in her hands at her request, she knew he wouldn’t deny her. Sliding closer, she pried his other hand from between his legs then licked a slow path up the center of his balls. The motion jostled the sensor still buried inside her. She moaned.

“Damn, sweetheart, I won’t last very long if you do that.” His voice was harsh but reverent.

A bold smile comprised her only answer. With her usual modesty burned away by the heat of her desire, she graced his tight, wrinkled sac with another long stroke of her tongue. She wrapped her fingers around his rigid flesh, straining to reach all the way around it. She continued laving the underside of his cock, tracing the vein, then circled the ridge of the head.

Kurt moaned. His hips bucked causing his damp member to slide across her cheek. Possessed by an impulse to shatter his control, she opened her mouth and took him deep inside. She recalled the places he seemed to enjoy her touch from the last time she had sucked him, pleasuring him with abundant enthusiasm if not skill.

Curious, she tried to adapt based on his reactions. Learning how to gratify him became her goal.

She was an excellent student.

When his hand fisted in her hair, she whimpered around his impressive girth. Guiding her, he encouraged her to take him in further on each pass. She swirled her tongue around the head of his cock. He tensed.

“If you…don’t want me…to come in your mouth…you’d better stop now.” His labored breathing broke up the harsh words.

Instead of stopping, she redoubled her efforts, moaning at the earthy scent of him. Once, twice more she bobbed over him before he held her impaled on his flesh. His bunched abdomen rippled in front of her before the first spurt of his come splashed on the back of her throat.

“Becca!”

She still attempted to lave him with gentle swipes when he tugged her into his lap. While he feasted on her lips, his softening erection rested hot and satiny against her thigh.

“Do you have any idea how good you make me feel?” Kurt whispered, their lips still touching.

Aroused, and ready to beg for relief, she rubbed herself against him. Her body burned for his touch. She was so turned on she forgot to be embarrassed about her wanton behavior.

It shocked her system like a speeding train slamming to a stop when he lifted her with a brusque jerk then set her aside.

He knelt in front of her to release the harness from around her waist. The glide of the sensor slipping from her pussy made her knees weak. Empty and hollow, her body mourned the loss. He wrapped his arm around her for support while he removed the other instruments from her breast and neck. Just when she expected him to come closer, he stepped away again. The lack of his presence, his warmth, disoriented her.

He turned her toward the bathroom then smacked her ass, startling her into motion.

“Go take your shower. Afterward, we need to get to work.”

This time Rebecca did take a cold shower.

Standing under the freezing spray, she let her head drop against the frosty tile. What had she been thinking?

Her traitorous hormones had gotten out of control. Again. She’d wanted Kurt until lust overrode her common sense. She hadn’t been able to hold herself distant from him.

Disappointed, she chastised herself for forgetting. The infamous Dr. Foster didn’t experience the same personal craving she did when they touched. But how could this longing be one-sided? How could her perception be so skewed? Frustration entwined with her growing confusion.

Was she imagining his sexual attraction to her?

No
, she thought with a wry grimace,
I didn’t imagine his raging hard-on in my mouth a few minutes ago.

So, it seemed he would let her relieve him but refused to fuck her. Full-fledged anger began to replace her uncertainty, a rare occurrence. Maybe he could sense her desire to give him more than her body. Kurt had already demonstrated greater insight into her than any other person. He must realize she would struggle to separate these intense physical sensations from the tenderness flaring to life inside her. A notorious bachelor like him would run for the hills before encouraging her affection.

Being near him made her want to discard all her boundaries and rely on him. The natural way he made her submit buoyed her yearning to grant him control. Every time he got near, her rationality, determination and promises to herself dissipated. She could only think about pleasing him. Worse, she abandoned her independence. To be honest, she’d acquired a taste for letting go of her focus on goals in exchange for riding the tsunami of passion he generated.

Rebecca craved the rush she got from yielding to Kurt. When he loomed above her, skillfully manipulating her senses, she wanted to surrender to her heart’s desire to submit, to lose herself in his attentions. She was terrified to see what would happen if she let go. Was this predisposition genetic? Is this how her mother had felt?

Had she chosen to go with the tide instead of swimming against the current of need?

Was Kurt worthy of her unequivocal trust?

She’d agreed to obey him but she didn’t have to relinquish control of her emotions or her soul. When he’d recognized her as his partner, he’d freed the professional part of her but put the woman behind the new doctor at risk. Still, she couldn’t stop wanting him.

Licking her lips, she caught the hint of his salty taste and moaned. She considered masturbating to relieve some of her tension but Kurt had threatened to come in after her if she dallied. She couldn’t stand to have him find her needy only to push her away again. It would shatter her newfound resolve and have her pleading for all the intimacies he avoided.

She pledged to enjoy the experiences she’d craved for so long. Savoring the warmth of his embraces, she would bank memories to take with her when their time together ended. If she could block off anything more than physical release maybe he would stop running. It would have to be enough.

Finishing her shower with brusque efficiency, she took care of the essentials then steeled herself to tackle the hardest phase of the experiment yet. Braced against his disorienting presence, Rebecca opened the bathroom door. Her stomach dropped. She was alone.

A note on the desk informed her to wait in his office for their first session.

***

“You’re late checking in.” Luke sounded annoyed but Kurt knew it was only because he worried. They’d been friends a long time.

“I know, sorry, I didn’t have a chance. Things have been going well. Really well.”

“So you have the proof we need for initial board approval?”

“Almost. I have the dream sequences on file, now I just need to prove she responds more to them then the baseline. She will.”

“Are you sure she’s ready for this? Can she handle it?”

“Yes. She can take anything I’d ask of her.” The confidence and pride he felt colored his declaration but he didn’t care. Kurt shared everything with Luke. They were closer than brothers.

“How are you holding up? You sound…different. Is there something you’re not telling me?”

“No. I’m just thinking about the session today. I won’t force her to remember, Luke.”

“Not even if it means throwing away several years of research?” his friend asked with quiet patience. Luke knew how much was at stake.

“That doesn’t matter to me right now.” Kurt chuckled. “But I did stack the deck in my favor. I’ve made sure there are context clues. The place, the clothes, everything I could think of. I want to make it good for her.”

“Of course.” Luke’s smile came through in the tone of his voice. “Well then, what are you doing wasting time talking to me?”

“Good point.”

“I’ll call the meeting for 10 a.m. day after tomorrow. Be ready.”

“We will be.”

***

The familiar comfort of Dr. Foster’s office embraced Rebecca. When she’d first started working at the clinic, the raw masculinity of his space and the sheer heft of the furniture had intimidated her. Now, though, the sanctuary seemed sturdy and safe, not at all overwhelming. She breathed deep for the first time in days, inhaling the calming spice of his cologne along with the musk of leather-bound medical tomes. By his absence, she deduced he intended to keep her waiting.

Disappointed, each cell of her body throbbed. If he’d hurry up and start the day’s events, she could steal one damn modicum of relief. The flare of Rebecca’s temper startled her. She couldn’t contain the mood swings zooming through her anymore. Sexual frustration was driving her insane. No man had ever made her want to do the things she craved now.

Wasn’t that the point of volunteering?
Her laughter held a bitter edge. Her plan might have worked a little too well. She could definitely identify with the cases she’d worked involving people unable to obtain the fulfillment they craved. The resulting hunger made her irritable.

Pacing around the room, memories bombarded her—Kurt in this office, taking care of patients, working case files, teaching her everything she knew and researching new theories. She smiled when her finger trailed over the spine of the book she’d given him for Christmas last year. It was prominently displayed on his shelf.

She lingered for a moment, considering the place of honor among all his other texts before continuing her circuit.

Her gaze snagged on the chaise lounge near the back of the room. She stumbled as she remembered the way he’d touched her there when he’d accepted her for the experiment and changed her life forever. Had it really only been three days ago? Her insides quaked.

Desire erupted again when she heard the door open behind her. She smelled the rich scent of Kurt’s soap before she pivoted to take in his damp hair falling in slim clumps over his forehead. He looked magnificent striding toward her in dark slacks and a dove grey pullover sweater. She thought the choice odd for the middle of summer but she recognized it as his favorite. The V-neck dipped, exposing his corded throat, while the supple fabric hugged his defined chest and shoulders. The garment made him look like a powerful animal as he stalked toward her.

The rose silk robe he’d laid out for her, while beautiful, left her decidedly underdressed.

“Lie down on the chaise, Becca,” he ordered without preamble as he neared. When she didn’t move fast enough to suit him, he pressed his hand on her shoulder until she sank onto the sofa. Situating a slick leather wingback within arm’s reach, Dr. Foster settled in beside her.

“Today we need to discuss the dreams you experienced last night.” Kurt began the formal process. If he didn’t follow the book to the letter to start with, he would never make it through this session. They needed to stick with procedure for the sake of the trial but he would have anyway, to ensure he didn’t harm Becca by exposing her to desires her conscious mind wasn’t yet ready to admit to.

“The next stage of the study involves comparing your recollections to the images captured by the Dream Machine. By doing so, we can prove the scenes recorded are your actual dreams.” He had no doubt of it but the board required verification.

“For the board to be satisfied with the accuracy of the Dream Machine, I need you to independently corroborate any dreams you remember having last night.” If she got any tenser, he feared she would shatter. He regretted having been so harsh with her earlier but she had to understand he’d thrust her away because it had been the only way to keep himself from taking her right then and invalidating the study. Didn’t she?

“I’ve reviewed all six of the REM stages you experienced last night but I won’t reveal anything you can’t recall on your own. As you know, dreams are an outlet for your subconscious. You may not be ready to face all you dreamed of. I won’t breech the internal safeguard your mind has put in place. Therefore, I need you to tell me what you remember.”

It was now or never.

“What did you dream about last night, Becca?”

Kurt didn’t know what he would do if she had no memory of the fantasies he’d witnessed in the recorded files this morning. At the limits of his control, he prayed for the strength to walk away if she required his patience. They desired the same things but he wouldn’t force her. The urgency tearing at his guts caused his voice to rasp out harsher than he intended.

“Concentrate.”

He braced himself as though he headed into a fight instead of a session, determined to bring them both through it in one piece.

Rebecca closed her eyes against the stern look on Kurt’s face. She drew on all the mental tricks she knew to quiet her psyche. She couldn’t bear to disappoint him. Thinking back to the moment she’d awakened this morning, she tried to hone in on the hazy images that had lingered when she first opened her eyes. Flashes of the events just after waking distracted her. The decadent sight of Kurt touching himself had driven all other thoughts from her mind.

“I can’t remember any dreams,” she confessed. “I’m sorry, Dr. Foster.”

“Don’t strain so much. Let your mind relax.” His fingers tracked over her furrowed brow, smoothing the tension, before he retreated. The profound silence overflowed with his will for her to remember.

His hushed support comforted her. She could almost wrap it around her like a security blanket. Settling into the sofa, she let her consciousness drift. The barest hint of something came to her.