Coming Clean

  Shaw covered my hand with his as he readjusted his position the slightest bit. A semi-quiet gasp of surprise fell from my lips when I felt something rigid graze my palm and I looked directly at the spot of contact. It wasn’t just something rigid. It was his cock. Clearly he was so onboard with all of this now. When I met his eyes, I was rewarded with a pantie-melting wink.

  “Shoot, Doc,” he told her, redirecting his attention.

  Katya had just looked up from the folder, having missed the exchange. “Do either of you have any issues preparing for sex?”

  Shaw’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”

  Katya leaned forward, enunciating each of her next words. “Does your cock get hard for her?”

  I looked between Katya and Shaw, markedly turned on by the topic at hand. Though I already knew the answer to her question, I wanted to hear how Shaw would respond. If the rest of our discussions with Katya were going to be anything remotely close to this, I’d do anything to make sure we passed her test.

  “I don’t have a problem getting it up, Doc. In fact, I’m hard for her right this very second.”

  Any other woman would’ve looked to see the truth for herself, but not Katya. She merely grinned, a muted “touché” adorning her expression.

  “And how about you, Cassidy?”

  Oh. How to answer this? “My body reacts to his,” I told her. “I just don’t, um, orgasm during sex like I used to.”

  Shaw went rigid beside me, obviously still ego-struck by the truth. But we were here to fix it, so I had to be honest.

  Katya tilted her head. “Is that so? And why do you think that is?”

  I shrugged. “I guess because it doesn’t feel good.”

  On cue, an exaggerated, insulted pfft! from Shaw. He pushed my hand from his lap. “Sex with me doesn’t feel good? So I suck in bed now?”

  Of course he would take offense.

  “It’s not that. It’s…I don’t know, a mental thing, maybe? Mentally, I’m not engaged.” I drew my head back, not liking that he was making me out to be the bad guy here when it took two to tango. “Neither are you. It’s like…like something we do out of habit now. And not very often, at that.”

  Before Shaw could respond, Katya did some refereeing. “It’s quality, not quantity, that matters,” she told me.

  “Yeah, well, nothing but quickies doesn’t exactly allow for much quality,” I mumbled under my breath, though I knew they could both hear me.

  Shaw bristled, proving me right. “Oh, so let’s just bash Shaw, right? It’s all my fault? We don’t have a lot of time for sex because of the hours I work. That’s what you’re driving at, right?”

  Oh, my God! I was so exasperated by the hot-and-cold volleying we’d become so good at. He was just hard, I was just wet, and now we were back at each other’s throat. My hands slapped down on my thighs and my head whipped toward him. “I’m home all day and all night, so I’m really not sure how it can be my fault.”

  Shaw got that look in his eye that said he was about to put me in my place. “We’d have plenty of chances to not only have sex more often, but more thoroughly if you actually slept in our bed.”

  Ouch.

  Katya arched a disapproving brow at me. “You don’t sleep together in the same bed?”

  “Okay, fine. No. I sleep with our son a lot of the time,” I admitted, sounding very much like the accused on the stand confessing to a crime before the judge.

  “I can help you,” Katya said, abruptly ending the discussion on the matter.

  “What?” I asked, confused.

  “I said, I can help you. But you will need to do everything I say and trust that I know what I’m doing. Will you agree?”

  I knew that I should be leery of allowing a stranger to have complete control over my life, but I trusted Dr. Minkov, though it made no sense for me to. Maybe I was just desperate to get things back to the way they used to be between Shaw and me. Maybe I was just desperate to know that passion again. Or maybe I was just riding that competitive high of having won a prize. Because, yeah, we’d just aced Dr. Minkov’s test and she looked well pleased!

  I looked at Shaw. While it was true that we argued a lot, that was simply who we were, who we’d always been. Still, I knew with every fiber of my being that I wanted no one but him, that I’d never find with another the passion he and I had shared once upon a time. We could get it back. I knew we could. We could go back to the way we were.

  “Yes,” I told her without turning away from Shaw.

  All that turbulence turned into determination. The Shaw I knew and loved had made an appearance once more and I felt the first flicker of confidence that we could come back from this faraway place where we’d found ourselves.

  Shaw took my hand and placed it back on his lap. “We’ll do whatever it takes,” he said.

  “I’d hoped you’d agree.” Katya returned her attention to the folder on her desk, pulling out some forms and handing the stack over to Shaw and me. “The first document is our contract. You’ll each need to sign it before we can begin. The second is a questionnaire designed to help me get to know your desires better. I only need you to sign the contract today. Take a moment to look it over so that you understand everything that will be expected of you and what you can expect from me.”

  I read over the document, noting a lot of the same expectations as Dr. Sparling had had. The confidentiality section was ironclad, on both sides, and we’d be agreeing to follow the plan Katya would design for us.

  Admittedly, I was a little anxious about signing an agreement promising to do whatever someone else told me to regarding a topic as intimate as my sexual relationship, but if I hadn’t been willing, I wouldn’t have been there to begin with. So I took a leap of faith and scribbled my signature on the dotted line. Shaw did the same, taking mine from me and rising out of the chair to hand the contracts back across the desk.

  Katya took them, signing the witness section of each before returning them to the folder and filing it away in a drawer. “Marvelous! Now, the first thing I need you to do is to send your son to stay with a relative for a bit.”

  I drew my head back, eyes wide. I don’t know what I’d expected, but that certainly hadn’t been it. “Whoa! Is that really necessary?” I laughed.

  Katya put her palms on the desk, linking her fingers. “I don’t like to have my time wasted, so I won’t do the same with yours.”

  Um, okay. That really wasn’t such a big deal. We could totally do that. I shrugged at Shaw. “I guess we can ask Chaz and Demi if they’d mind having more time with him. I’m sure they’d love another sleepover.”

  “Oh, no. You misunderstand, darling,” Katya told me. “It will need to be for the duration of our sessions. All of our sessions.”

  I was confused at first until I started doing the math and put two and two together.

  “You want us to send our child away?” This airy sort of discombobulated panic rushed to my fingertips and toes and then retraced the path back to my heart before it ping-ponged up to my brain and then crash-landed into my heart again. Though likely it had found its final resting place in my throat because I was having a hell of a time getting any words to come out. “I—I can’t—I can’t do that!”

  “You came to me for help, and I’m offering it. Did you not just say you trusted me?”

  “Well, yeah, but I’m not going to send my child away!”

  Katya frowned, disappointment settling into her features. “That is a shame. I am sorry we could not work together. Nevertheless, I wish you the best of luck. Do see yourselves out.”

  “Hold on just a minute,” Shaw said, standing.

  But Katya cut him off before he could protest further. “As I’ve already said, I do not like to have my time wasted. Nor do I like to repeat myself.”

  “Can’t you just tell us why it’s necessary to send our son away?”

  Katya sighed, though softened. “It would only be a temporary situation. Your relationship is lacki
ng intimacy, and a great deal of that comes when a couple actually sleeps together. Cassidy sleeps with your child, and will likely continue to do so as long as he is there. It is a habit that develops not only for the young one but for the parent as well.

  “Aside from that,” she continued, “I will be giving you assignments to complete. Assignments that will be detailed and vary in timing and setting. Having to make arrangements for the child will alter the mood I’m trying to create for these missions. I cannot help if you insist on working against me.”

  Shaw and I looked to each other for an answer, neither of us seeming to have the right one. I could see the apprehension etched into his expression. Abe had never been away from us for more than an overnight visit. If the separation anxiety was already beginning to set in for me, I couldn’t imagine what that might be like for Abe.

  “I don’t want to be separated from him any more than you do,” Shaw told me. “It’s just temporary?” he asked Katya.

  “Of course, darlings.” She laughed, the playful sound oozing with sensuality. “I only desire to stoke your passions once more, not to have you abandon your child.”

  Shaw turned to me. “Do you think you can be okay with this?”

  I knew he expected me to say I wouldn’t, which would have been an honest answer, but I nodded instead. I didn’t like it, not one bit, but we were doing this for Abe as much as we were doing it for us. Shaw and I were the catalyst of our family. Without a healthy relationship, Abe would be another statistic from a broken home.

  “Yeah, it’s temporary.” I managed a weak smile, one I knew Shaw wasn’t buying. “I could use a break, right? I mean, we need a break, some time to sort things out and get back to the way we used to be. So yeah…We need to do this for us. We can send him to Stonington to spend some time with Da and Ma. Besides, he’ll just think of it as a grand adventure.”

  Shaw smiled, leaning over to kiss my forehead. “Okay, we’ll do it,” he told Katya.

  “Excellent.” Katya purred her approval. “The three of us are going to have so much naughty fun together. You will see.

  “Now that we have that settled, you will need to answer your questionnaires, leaving no blanks, and get them back to me this evening. You can email the scanned copies to the address included in the header. It is very important that I receive them before your next visit. Those forms will help me develop a plan that is right for you. Do you understand?”

  “Absolutely.” I’d make sure Shaw sat his butt down tonight and filled this form out without making a mockery of it like he did with Jeremy’s.

  “Wonderful. And no peeking at each other’s answers.” She stood and walked around her desk to center herself in front of it. Long, lean legs with curvy calf muscles, the definition of which could be seen even through all of that tight leather, crossed at the ankles above her sensual feet. “And now for my number one rule: no orgasms by any method not directed by me. Which means…no sex, no heavy petting, and no masturbating for either of you. No exceptions.”

  “What?” both Shaw and I squeaked at the same time.

  “Doesn’t that sort of defeat the purpose?” Shaw asked.

  “The purpose is to find your passion again, is it not?”

  “Well, yeah, but…”

  “But, but, but,” Katya said, waving him off. “Katya knows best, sweetling. Do not ask questions. Simply do as I say.”

  For whatever reason, I suddenly got an image of Mr. Miyagi saying, We make sacred pact. I promise teach karate to you, you promise learn. I say, you do, no questions.

  Shaw leaned over and whispered, “Wax on, wax off, Daniel-son.”

  “Oh, my God, get out of my head.” I laughed, suddenly straightening when Katya cleared her throat.

  I could feel embarrassment warming my cheeks as I apologized, elbowing Shaw to do the same. I hadn’t been called out by the teacher since the third grade when I’d giggled at the fart noises my best friend—and ex-lover—Casey, had been making with his armpit.

  “If you do not want my help, we can destroy the contracts now,” she threatened.

  “No! We do, we do!” I was surprised by how much I really meant it. “We’ll do whatever you say. Won’t we, Shaw?”

  Holy Jesus! When I turned to look at him, expecting his agreement—however forced—I saw a version of Shaw that I hadn’t seen in a very long time. His mouth was turned up in a teasing smirk, a sexy confidence smoldered in his eyes, and he sat back as if opening himself up, like he was daring another to try her hand at attempting to handle all that his body had to offer. That was the Shaw Matthews I’d hated, lusted after, and then ultimately come to love. And he was back in the game.

  “I’m dying to see what’s in store,” he told Katya.

  Excitement coursed through my veins and my heart thundered in my chest. I’d lost me and he’d lost him, but we were on the right track to finding each other again. And we had a gorgeous instructor that oozed all things hot and bothered to help us along the way. I could hardly wait to see what our first assignment would be!

  CHAPTER 8

  Shaw

  “Shaw, you must find a way to bring Cassidy to orgasm without touching her.”

  That had been the very first assignment Dr. Minkov had given to us. Well, to me.

  “And to be clear,” she’d continued, “you may not use dildos, vibrators, wands, whips, or any other fun little toys you might have on hand.” And then she’d leaned in to whisper something into Cassidy’s ear, her bosom pressing suggestively close to my woman’s. Cassidy still hadn’t told me what all that was about, saying she was permitted to tell me only if I figured out how to accomplish the task.

  It was more a riddle than a task. How the hell was I supposed to get her off if I couldn’t touch her? I would’ve pulled a Cassidy and run an Internet search on it, but if anyone had felt the need to check my search history, that shit would’ve been embarrassing as hell.

  No matter. Where there was a will, there was a way. Despite my already aching balls—a suggestion I was sure had been planted by Dr. Minkov herself, thanks to the “no getting off without her permission” rule, which Cassidy was damn sure going to stick to—I was determined to figure out the puzzle. It was just going to take a little thought. Thankfully, I had some time.

  Katya had given us a week before our next session to get things with Abe settled. Cassidy was milking every second of our time with him, though she’d already made the arrangements to get him to Stonington and into her family’s care by the end of the week. Abby, my “adopted” mother, was taking the primary role since Anna, Cassidy’s ma, had the bed-and-breakfast to tend to with the beginning of the tourism season, which happened to coincide with the busiest time of year for Duff, as well as Abby’s husband and son, Thomas and Casey, as they refreshed all of their lobstering gear and reset the traps. I knew firsthand how grueling that work could be.

  In the meantime, I had more pressing matters to tend to. Like the matter of Wade’s replacement in our partnership and getting Marcel Ingram signed.

  I’d gone to see Wade and had asked him how the search for his substitute was going. The secretive bastard had only given me a dubious grin and said, “I’ve got it covered.”

  “What the hell does that mean?” I’d asked.

  He’d stood, come over to me to put his hand on my shoulder, and then said, “It means, I’ve got it covered.” He’d escorted me toward the exit after that, nudging me over the threshold and then closing me out, to leave me standing there looking like an idiot with a solid slab of wood touching the tip of my nose. Rude, much?

  The office rumor, according to my assistant, Ben—who was absolutely on top of any gossip circulating the office and its validity, worse than any teenage girl—was that Wade already had a good idea who his replacement would be. In fact, many of our own agents had dropped out of the running because they were sure the decision had already been made. It would’ve been nice if Wade had filled me in, but it seemed he wasn’t even willing to giv
e me a clue. Whatever. He knew what he was doing. I hoped.

  So that had left me with only the Marcel thing to deal with, and he wasn’t going to be in town for much longer, so I had Ben get him on the line for me.

  “Hey, man! You got any plans for today?” I asked Marcel once I’d picked up the line. “I thought maybe we could spend some time together.”

  “Sorry, man, but the fam and I are going to head to the beach for a bit,” he told me. “Vale has never seen the ocean, and I’d like to try my hand at surfing.”

  “Wow, surfing?”

  “Yeah. When in Rome, right?” He laughed. “It’s something I’ve always wanted to do, and Kentucky isn’t exactly known for its bitchin’ waves.”

  I laughed when I heard Camille in the background, scolding him for the language usage in front of their daughter.

  And then an idea hit me. A wonderfully brilliant idea. If it didn’t backfire and blow up in my face, that is. “That sounds like a lot of fun,” I lied, having no desire to teeter precariously on a slim piece of wood—or whatever surfboards were made of—in the middle of a shark-infested ocean, the sister of which, the Atlantic, had once attempted to steal the life from me. Nevertheless, I made sacrifices where necessary when it came to business and the bottom line, and signing Marcel was a very lucrative bottom line. “Camille and Vale are going?”

  “Yep!”

  “Mind if my family and I tag along? My boy, Abe, loves the beach, and he doesn’t get many playdates with kids his age. I bet he and Vale would have a blast. Plus, it’ll give Cassidy and Camille a chance to get to know each other.”

  “Actually, that sounds like a great idea. Camille has asked about meeting your woman. Cassidy Whalen, right?”

  “Yeah. How’d she know?”

  Marcel laughed. “Because where I’m the brawn, she’s the brains in this family. She’s done her research, and Cassidy Whalen is a pretty big name in the industry.”

  “That she is.” I barely kept my competitive nature at bay, trying not to let the memory of Cassidy’s past victory over me with the whole Denver Rockford thing rear its ugly head. She wasn’t my competition on this one, but it seemed she might be in the plus category of my current endeavor. “Sounds like your girl and mine have a lot in common already,” I said with a forced chuckle of my own. “So let’s do this, man.”