Beautiful Force (7 page)

“It’s only fair...I mean
tit for tat
, right?” she said condescendingly. “I don’t even know why you are still here.” Her voice trailed off. 

Allison glowered into his handsome face—challenging him to leave. His features were beyond perfect.

Damn why did he have to be so delicious and drop-dead-gorgeous?
She thought. 

It occurred to her that aside from his odd behavior, he seemed totally different today. From the moment he walked into her office, she noticed his demeanor had shifted all within the time of his last visit.

How was this possible?
She wondered
.
Did he have an epiphany? No one can change over night. Scratch that, Mr. Patterson did. However, who wants to think about him? He was old, fat and a psychopath! Last she had heard he was curled up in a straitjacket doing time in a mental hospital. He was arrested in Time Square; naked and popping little blue pills one after the other. You could only imagine.

Jace was different. He was eat-your-heart-out gorgeous. Could that one mind-blowing orgasm she gave him—all the biting, hard stroking, swallowing and the sexual heat have turned him into Mr. Grey—Dorian Grey that is?
 

He was undoubtedly much more confident than usual, a lot more! This actually intrigued Allison. In most situations she was always the one in control. She hated to admit it, and she probably
never would, that his newfound take-charge attitude was turning her on. 

Her face flushed with desire—an intense moment to reconnect with him on a sexual level flooded her mind. She quickly pushed down the lascivious heat that was racing through her veins for the second
time today. 

Jace agreed to her financial proposal. “Yes. Anything. I will pay you for your damn time, Allison—but you need to listen carefully. We have two—no three issues here. Jace and the state of his marriage—and my situation.”
 

“Jace—” She tried to interrupt him but to no avail.
 

“I really need someone to hear my story and you’re that someone—why you may be asking yourself—because we
’re cut from the same fabric. You and I have a lot in common,” he rambled on. “Somehow I will fix the problem we created for Jace and his wife—
and you will help me
—they will go on but, for you and I, timing will be everything. We are so damaged.” He hung his head.

So much of what he was saying didn’t make sense to Allison. Confusion splayed on her face, her lips quivered as she choked on her words. “Jace, why do you keep referring to yourself in the third person?” Her voice vibrated.
 

“Because I’m not Jace. I mean this is Jace’s body. But inside of him is me…my name is Channing Stephens. I suppose Jace is in here somewhere,” he said, glancing down toward his chest, and he placed his palm over his heart.
 

Hearing this confirmed
that their little encounter had taken him over the edge of insanity. She feared that her insatiable appetite for sex would now cost her more than just getting barred by the board of psychiatry. Perhaps his alter ego would kill her and then cut her up into a thousand pieces. The thought of this sent shivers down her spine.

Allison had a vivid imagination and watched too many episodes of
Criminal Minds
when she couldn’t sleep. 

“I’m clearly confused right now, Jace,” Allison replied nervously, forcing a smile. She squared her shoulders and sat up straighter. She needed to gain control over him. He was frightening her. However, she had learned from the past to never show any fear.

“Allison, for the most part Jace is in a catatonic state. This is complicated to explain. It’s like he is here, but he is not in control...I am,” he asserted with such confidence, causing Allison to shudder in awe of him. 

Silence fell, cloaking the air in the room, it was suffocating, what he was suggesting couldn’t be possible.

Allison broke the barrier of silence. “Yes...I see. This does sound quite complicated.” She agreed in order to avoid upsetting her client any further. Allison sighed out of frustration, trying to make sense of his babble.

How far gone was Jace?

“I’m assuming he is aware that we just had sex, amazing sex may I say.” Jace’s eyes narrowed and a devilish grin replaced his confusion, more than likely he was reflecting on the sex they had earlier. As quickly as the smile rose to his face, the corners of his mouth dropped. His smile faded to a frown. That was it. 

It was now very obvious to Allison that he created an alter ego in order to deal with his cheating. Clearly, if she downplayed their sexual act, he would recover. And hopefully he would leave so that she could put this day behind her. She would have to succeed in convincing him that the oral sex they had was no big deal—she could definitely pull this off for Jace’s sake but mostly for hers.

“Jace, if I may interrupt—that was not sex. We didn’t have sex...so you don’t need to suffer from any feelings of guilt that you may be experiencing. It would be a waste of time. All you did was taste me and I returned the favor. Think of it like that,” she explained, with a flare of poetry. “You were thirsty, and I quenched your thirst…I needed to satisfy my oral fetish and you were the sucker—oh shit,” she gulped, flashing at him apologetically. “Oops, that was a bad choice of words.” Her voice trailed to a whisper. She realized how ridiculous her explanation sounded, not to mention her Freudian slip.

“Are you kidding me?” Jace quipped and threw his head back. His chest expanded, squaring his shoulders. His eyes dilated to black. All that remained was a small ring of color around the circumference. His confidence was staggering. He was unlike she had ever seen before. He was more stunning than ever. How sick that thought was to her.

“Now you sound like our ex president. Don’t try to use political semantics on me, Doc,” he ordered arrogantly. “Why do you act flippant about everything that’s important?” 

Allison tried to restrain a nervous giggle. She took him seriously. However, she would always get giggly
ever since she was a child, this was an involuntary behavior she couldn’t help doing when someone was critical of her, especially when the criticisms were true. “I don’t. Geez. Relax...that’s just your perception of me.”

“No. It’s reality.”

“So be it...I helped you didn’t I?”

“You have a weak little response to everything—don’t you? And, you don’t give a shit about anyone. You hide in this office—you’re afraid of living your life. Instead you vomit psychobabble all day long and kid yourself that you have a lot going on. But, you don’t fool me.”

“Wow, now, tell me what you think about your mother?” She glared into his eyes. 

“No. Let’s talk about your father!” he barked.
 

They were like two dueling cowboys and both of them shot below the belt.

“I-I don’t know why you are so bitter. Okay...we had oral sex. It’s not the end of the world.” She leaned back into her chair, tossed her hair back and crossed her legs.

At this point, she’d do anything to make him chill out, especially since he brought up her father.
Asshole,
she thought. She certainly didn’t want to explore with Jace the subject of her father.

“Talk-talk. You’ve got the floor. I’m waiting,” she hissed.

“Just so you know—I’m not angry because you seduced me, but I know Jace didn’t want this—he is not in control. Trust me, having sex with you didn’t trip me up. But, it certainly would good old Jace. When he realizes what happened between you and me,”—He pointed his index finger between his chest and Allison’s—“he is going to go haywire. After that, I have no idea what he will do on a physical level to himself or maybe even to you. What we’ve done to him and his wife is our fault. It’s our responsibility to fix things before it’s out of our hands. You know he suffers terribly from feelings of guilt without valid reasons to. Now you—we, sure have given him one helluva reason.” 

Allison placed her palm over Jace’s hand to comfort him. “It’s okay Jace, I understand how you feel. It was wrong for us to have sex, but I promise I will never tell anyone.”
 

“No!” he bellowed. “I’m sick of your manipulation.”

“Someone is going to hear you and call the police.” She warned and said, “You need to control your tone, for both of our sakes.” Allison suggested rather soothingly.

Frankly, she really didn’t give a crap if the police hauled him away at this point or not. Her real concern was that any kind of outside interference could cause Jace to expose them. Of course, if that happened she would flat-out deny any unprofessional behavior. She would have no choice to betray him professionally or otherwise.
 

Jace glanced toward the door, lowering his voice to a civil tone. “Yeah, no problem. I just need you to understand Jace really does love his wife, and it would kill him to break her heart. It’s not about us. It’s about Jace. Surely, you know what this will do to him, right, Allison?” He questioned.
 “Do you care...can you care even just a shred?”

Dang he is in denial
, Allison thought to herself, smirking on the inside.
Or a good liar!
Would a man go as far as making up a dual-personality to cover his ass for cheating? Probably. More than likely, hell, yes he would! If he wanted to play like he caught a sudden case of schizophrenia, so be it. This usually only happened to people in their early twenties and Jace was well beyond his twenties, more like pushing forty. He didn’t fool her.

Allison hung her head, remorsefully, using her acting skills again of course. Her patient needed to see her as human and, if that bought his silence, she would oblige him.
 

“I do understand. Trust me. I do. I would never do anything intentionally to hurt you—Jace...or whoever, you are right now,” she forcefully uttered.
 

Her hair hung down hiding her face. When she finished speaking, she flipped her head up and around. Her hair followed in the movement, flying into the air. It seemed to move in slow motion. The waves of silk settled perfectly, coiling around her gorgeous face. She was the most stunning woman he had ever seen.
How could someone so beautiful, be so damaged?
He thought.

Chapter seven

The man who claimed he was not Jace observed her for a prolonged moment in silence. The memory of her long red burgundy colored hair cascading against his groin excited him again. His manhood was aroused at the mere thought of her naked and on her knees moments earlier.
 

Her pale fingers slowly traveled down the plane of his muscular chest, unzipped his jeans and unfurled his straining manhood. Her firm grip barely fit around the circumference of his expanding shaft. She encircled the smooth head of his penis with the tip of her tongue, flicking it against him sensually. Her eyes appraised his delicious vessel, surely sizing him up.
  

This dame sure knew her way around a man’s equipment. He immediately swelled against the warm moist touch of her full lips as she wrapped her kisses around him and slid him into the chasm of her mouth. In slow circular motions, her lips twisted up and down on his hardened length, chased by her tongue as she opened her mouth wider to engulf every inch of him in her wet embrace. Her head bobbed as her body thrashed about him like a wild alley cat in heat devouring her prey.

It startled Allison when she s
aw Jace’s eyes roll upward into his forehead. She leaned in closer to examine him. “Jace,” she said, a concern intonation filled her voice. His expression was motionless.

“Jace, Jace. Are you okay?” She waved her hands in front of his face, as he stared into space, catatonically. “Oh my God, Jace, can you hear me?” Her tone sounded panicky.

She grasped his shoulders and shook him ferociously. No response. “Snap out of it,” she demanded, slapping him on his cheek. 

There was a delayed response. Finally, a grin flashed on his face, jaw clenched, he blinked, and exhaled deeply.  Then he just stared into thin air. Suddenly, he raised his hands, tangling them through her long hair and pushed her head into his crotch.
 

“What the fuck, Jace, what is wrong with you?” she yelled slapping his hands from her tousled waves.
 

The sound of Allison’s voice captured Jace’s attention. His body shuddered, releasing the sultry apparition.
 

“Nothing, I—” He smiled broadly.
Why bother explaining,
he thought. If he told her he was reminiscing about their salacious act, surely he would not accomplish what he came to do. He knew he had to stay focused, at least, until he had finished telling her his story.

“God, Jace, you scared me. I was trying to tell you I understand—and suddenly you looked like you were having a flipping seizure or something else—.” She raised a single brow, suspiciously.
 

“I am fine and I hope you mean what you said.” He lowered his head, looking up at her beneath his dark brows. “And call me Channing,” he said and the rugged sexy lines in the corners of his eyes relaxed.