Last Second Chance (7 page)

A dangerous heat flashed in his eyes, burning her up from the inside out. “Because I want to hear the thoughts in your dirty mind come out of that pretty mouth. And by the way, my pants were still zipped and I was in the middle of kicking that
girl
out of my room.”

Emboldened by his admission, Stella squared her shoulders. “So she didn’t suck your dick then?”

His grip on her chin tightened. She might’ve imagined it, but he looked staggered, as if his knees had just gone weak. “No. She didn’t. Because I wouldn’t let her.” Releasing her, he stood up straight.

She exhaled the breath she’d been holding. Her face tingled where he’d touched her. She wanted more.
Needed
more.

“Well, that was dumb. If some chick wants to give you a conjugal visit in rehab, maybe you should take her up on it.”

He flashed her a sexy grin and stepped right back into her space. “You volunteering?”

“No.”

“Well, that’s too bad then. I don’t want
some chick.
And you’re not that good at hiding your emotions, beautiful. You snapped on those nurses at lunch and ran out of my room so fast I barely had time to blink. Any particular reason why?” He trailed a finger down her cheek and over her lips.

Instead of an answer, a whimper escaped her throat. A painful throbbing began between her thighs, intense and demanding.

His touch deepened the pain. Her policy was no dating people in her workplace. She certainly wasn’t going to date Van Ransom. Hell, he’d probably never taken a girl on a proper date in his life. But right now, she didn’t care about any of that. She just wanted him to take her up against the back of the barn, hard and fast.

“Stella Jo, you going to answer or do I have torture it out of you?”

The way he said her name, the one she was used to hearing drop only from the lips of family members, made her shiver. She let her head loll back to rest on the wall behind her. “Do your worst. I’ve dealt with animals much bigger than you.”

Leaning in until his nose brushed hers, he let out a soft growl. “You sure as hell better be talking about horses, because if you’re talking about Dr. Dickhead or any other man who’s put his hands on you in a way you didn’t want, they’re fucking dead.”

She grinned and winked at him. “Guess that’s for me to know, darlin’.” Her breath was still coming too fast, but she was gaining confidence. She was having as much of an effect on him as he was on her. A competitive streak she thought she’d buried rose to the surface. “Speaking of guys putting their hands on me, if this is your brand of torture, I’m disappointed.”

Thrusting himself up against her, he growled again. “Baby, my brand of torture involves that riding crop you bent over to pick up. Matter of fact, it involves you being bent over also.”

An audible gasp of surprise escaped her. His threat pulled at something deep inside of her that she didn’t know was there. Something dark and terrifying that she knew she should feel dirty and ashamed of. But she didn’t. Because apparently he wasn’t the only one who was twisted like that.

“Surprised?” he asked with a gleam in his eye.

“That you know what a riding crop is, yeah,” she said, her breathy voice giving her away.

“Don’t be coy. I’ve got your number, babe.” He winked at her and backed off, leaving her bereft. And pissed off about it. He laughed at the petulant expression she felt pulling at her features. “I’m starting to wonder if you even recognize what you want as well as I do.”

“You don’t know a damn thing about me.” She tried to sidestep him but he stepped with her as if he’d anticipated the move.

Backing her up once more, he let his eyes trail down her body briefly. Looking back up, he cocked his head. “Don’t I? Let me guess. Went to college on Daddy’s money, wanted to be on a horse ranch but not the one you grew up on because you’re oh so independent now, and the only orgasms you’ve ever had are the ones you’ve given yourself. Bet those pretty boy frat brother fuckers you dated didn’t have a clue how to please a woman.”

Okay, so maybe he knew a few things. Not that she’d admit it. But she’d gotten an academic scholarship, fuck him very much. “I’ll ask you kindly to watch your language. There’s a lady present.”

His brows lifted as did one corner of his mouth. “Which word offended you,
darlin’?
Orgasm?”

She couldn’t help but smile in spite of herself. “Not that I don’t appreciate the witty banter and all, but what exactly did you come down here for, Mr. Ransom?”

For a split second, his overconfident expression faltered. He cleared his throat and reached into the back of his jeans. Producing a white folder she’d dropped on her rush to escape the situation in his room, he grinned.

“You dropped this.”

Oh. Right. Taking it from him, she glanced at the label. Her name in bold then below it, smaller, her title. Because she worked here.

Van Ransom was messing with her head, toying with her for whatever reason. Probably because he was bored without all of his groupies around. Talking about riding crops, making her imagine the umpteen levels of inappropriate she’d like to get with him. But the folder snapped her back to reality.

“Thank you for bringing this, Mr. Ransom. Have a good evening.” She forced a tight smile and faked him out, dodging left and then stepping right around him. Walking as fast as possible back to her bungalow, she tried to shake the look he’d given her. Hurt. Confused.

Too bad. He’d have to find someone else to toy with. She couldn’t play this game with him or anyone at SCR. Ever.

S
he’d just shut down on him and walked away. Pretty damn quickly, too. He’d watched every step. Something about the way she walked had caught his eye. Either he was finally stroking out from all the drugs, or she had a slight limp.

Why in God’s name would a twenty-two-year-old, obviously healthy woman have a limp? If that asshole doctor had hurt her in some way, he didn’t even want to think about what he’d do.

While he walked back toward the
facility
where he currently resided, an idea struck him. One that would put him in close proximity with Stella Jo Chandler on a regular basis.

Once he made it to his room, he smiled to himself. He’d affected her. Somehow all the tattoos and piercings hadn’t mattered to her. Or if they did, she liked them. Because the cold stare she’d been aiming at Dr. Dickhead at lunch said that she wasn’t interested. Loud and clear. So loud, that Van had heard it from across the room. But the look she’d given him in the barn when he’d lost control of his mouth and told her what he wanted to do to her? That look had said that she was definitely interested.

So she could shut down and stomp off or whatever she wanted. But he had ninety days—well, close to it—to make her admit it to herself. To him. Suddenly the mandatory stay that had seemed like a lifetime felt entirely too short.

For the first time in years, he drifted into sleep peacefully. No unwelcome memories. No booze. No pills. Just the image of her in that sexy cowgirl outfit, begging him to be a better man so he’d be worthy of her.

“I
overheard some staff members talking about how they need help with the animals. I’d like to volunteer. It’d give me something to keep my mind off…things. Too much time doing nothing drives me nuts,” Van informed his therapist.

Dr. Miranda McLendon furrowed her brow and stared at him as if she could tell that his motives for volunteering were a little less than honorable. Surely she couldn’t know about his infatuation with a certain sexy employee. This was his third counseling session with the good doctor, and it hadn’t gone much better than the first two. Yet, he no longer felt the need to carve a countdown into his arm with a rusty knife. But that had less to do with the actual treatment and more to do with the woman he’d dreamt of the previous night.

“I can check with Dr. Ramirez and see if we can make that happen. Meanwhile, we’ll sign you up for the riding lessons and animal care classes so that you can get familiar with the horses.”

Van swallowed hard. “Uh, no thanks. I’ll pass on the riding lessons.”

Dr. McLendon tilted her head to the side. “But you just said—”

“Look, I want to help out in the stables. Clean up. Fill feed bins. Stack straw bales. I’ll shovel shit or whatever. But getting up on one of those enormous creatures from Hell? I’ll take a pass on that if it’s all the same to you, Doc.”

“I see,” was all she said in response. But the look in her eye was a knowing one, as if he’d shown his cards without realizing it.

He hated how doctors did that. Said two words that meant nothing but made you feel like they knew everything. No one really knew shit about him. And he intended to keep it that way.

Well, for the most part. There was a certain brunette employee he wanted to show a few things about himself. Mainly how hard he could make a woman come if he put his full effort into it. Which he would. Because if he ever got a shot with the mysterious goddess that was Stella Jo Chandler, he’d give her everything he had and then some.

“Have you invited anyone to next week’s family session?” The doctor adjusted her glasses. He wondered if she was piercing his brain with her x-ray doctor vision.

“No, I haven’t.” He could’ve added that he hadn’t because there really wasn’t much family left to invite. His sister had been dead for going on ten years, his mom had crawled off into some gutter and hopefully died, and his dad had never been in the picture. He was pretty sure his mom had never even known who he was. But this woman was a professional. If she wanted to know all this shit, then she’d have to use her skills to pull it out of him. No sense in volunteering all the dark shit the voices in his head constantly told him.

“Do you intend to? Is there someone we could contact for you?” She perched on the edge of her seat. Her legs were long and smooth, and he was a man. He noticed. If he’d met her somewhere else—a coffee shop, a bar, wherever—he probably would’ve been a bit more charming. Worked his broody musician angle to get her likely pink—the same shade of her lipstick—panties off. But here, in this place, even his dick was downtrodden.

“No. And no, thank you.”

She raised her brows and sighed. “Mr. Ransom, it’s my understanding that your career is dependent upon the effectiveness of this treatment program. But I want to be perfectly honest with you.” She paused to slide her thin silver-framed glasses off and rub beneath her eyes. “It’s only as effective as you’ll allow it to be. So if you just shut off or shut down every time I ask about your family, your past, and so on, I don’t think we’ll be making much progress at all.”

Van nodded. “I get that. It’s just… It’s complicated.” He rubbed a hand roughly across the back of his neck. “There’s no right place where I can start. No beginning and no clear-cut ending. There’s no ah-ha moment, Doc. No point where I can just shine the spotlight and say, ‘Here it is, the place where everything went to shit.’” He shrugged. “Sorry.”

Her forehead wrinkled and her lips pressed into a thin line. “There usually isn’t, in my experience.”

“Your professional experience or your personal experience?”

One corner of her mouth lifted slightly. “Both.”

“Well, then. You see my dilemma.”

“You want to know what I actually see?”

Well this was new. In all of his previous encounters with head shrinkers, he’d never had one volunteer to share their actual opinion of him. Usually he just assumed they thought he was a lost cause while they answered questions with questions.

“Sure. What do you see, Doc?”

She pulled in a deep breath and looked at him. Really looked at him. Long and hard. If he were younger and gave a shit, her penetrating stare would’ve made him squirm. But he’d looked the devil and all his demons straight in the face on multiple occasions. A pretty Ph.D. wasn’t about to rattle him.

“I see a man.”

He let out a sarcastic snort. But she continued.

“One who carries things with him that weigh him down. That taunt and torture him. I see walls, thick steel ones, meant to keep everyone from seeing the vulnerable part of him. From slipping into that tiny crevice where someone might actually get in. For fear they might start to mean something to him. And then he’d really be in trouble. Because the man I see has lost everything, is in danger of losing the small semblance of a life he has left, and will do whatever it takes—drinking, drugs, sex, whatever—to keep from feeling the fear and the pain and the loss that he carries.”