Dr. Chase Hudson (The Surrogate Book 2) (10 page)

I could hear rustling for a minute and an image of her
stripping out of her clothes flashed in front of my eyes. “Are
you naked?”

“Yes.”

“So am I.”

“Chase...” her shy voice reached my ear.

“Run your hand down your body,” I told her,
cutting her off and cutting through her insecurity. My hand moved as
I imagined hers did as well.

“Okay.”

“Are you wet baby?” I asked, grabbing my
cock.

A short pause before, “Yes.” Her voice was
airy. Turned on. Fuck me.

“Mmm. Touch yourself. And I am going to touch
myself. Just... relax. Let me hear you.”

The silence stretched on for a long minute before her
breath became faster, a hitching evident on each inhale and the sound
sent a surge of desire right to my cock.

“Does that feel good?” I needed to hear
her. Not just her breathing.
Her.
I needed to hear
her
.
I had expected a timid 'yes'. What I got was way better. What I got
was a unexpected moan. “Fuck baby. You sound so sweet when you
moan.” After that, the moans and whimpers came fast and frantic
and I knew she was close. I was too.

“Chase?” her voice reached to me.

“Let me hear you come, Ava.”

Then, as if she had been waiting for the command all
along, she did. With a loud half-gasp, half-cry that pushed me over
the edge along with her. “Fuck,” I growled as I came
hard.

I took a few deep breaths, standing to get cleaned up.
On the other end of the phone, I could hear her breathing slow to
normal.

“Ava?”

“I'm here,” she said, sounding both sleepy
and contended at once. I ignored the warmth I felt in my chest,
pushing that shit away to be dealt with at another time. Or never.
Never worked for me too.

A million things flashed in my head to say.

Not one of them appropriate.

In the end, though, I sighed to myself.

“Tomorrow at seven.”

Then I hung up, knowing sleep was never going to come.

Fourth Session

“You're out?” I asked, watching Eddie stuff
his clothes back into his bag.

“Place is ready,” he said, zipping his bag
and moving into the kitchen. “Thanks for letting me crash.”

“Anytime,” I said, watching him collect his
wallet and keys.

The leaving was the worst. Even when he was drunk or
high off his ass when he was staying with me, there was a sort of
comfort in knowing I was around to keep an eye on him. I was there to
make sure he didn't get alcohol poisoning or OD on whatever the drug
of the week was. Him heading back out always had a swirling pitfall
feeling in my stomach. Knowing he was alone. No one would be around
to look for the signs of shit going south.

But he was a grown ass man and I couldn't stop him.

So he was leaving.

And I would just have to deal.

“Do you want me to go to any of your appointments
with you?” I asked, shrugging into my suit jacket.

“Chase,” he said, his tone serious enough
to make me look up. “You've taken care of me for long enough. I
got this.”

Then he turned and was out the door.

I got this.

That was what he told me the day before he OD'd the
first time when he was eighteen and out on his own and I was still
stuck at the group home.

I was praying I wasn't going to get that call again as
I made my way to the office.

I was bone-deep tired after a night of no sleep. And I
still had ten hours before my appointment with Ava.

“Hey babe,” I said, wincing at myself when
she walked in wearing jeans and a simple long-sleeve purple tee. I
had to stop calling her pet names. Had to. “You look nice.”
Jesus fuck. What was wrong with me?

Something came across her face at my words then that
cut through my internal chastisement. It was something that didn't
fit on her face right. There was a tension in her jaw that made her
lips turn down ever so slightly and lowering of her brows that spoke
of something I couldn't quite place. Anger? Resentment? Coldness?
Something akin to those emotions. Something that didn't belong to
Ava.

“What's with the look?”

“Nothing,” she said practically before I
stopped speaking, shaking her head and the look drained from her
face.

“Want a drink?” I asked, needing one
myself.

“Sure,” she shrugged, following me through
to the bedroom and going to the stereo to choose a playlist.

I mixed drinks as a blues playlist came on. It wasn't
just any blues playlist. It was a sad one. It was labeled
specifically for that purpose. I
knew
something was up.

“Want to talk about it?” I asked, handing
her a martini.

“Talk about what?”

“Whatever is making you tense and play sad
music.”

“I
knew
the music thing was some kind of test,” she accused, lowering
her eyes at me in mock anger. “Sneaky.”

I felt my lips
quirk up and shrugged. It was sneaky. It was also a really good way
to figure out someone like Ava- someone who would rather sell her
kidneys on the black market than tell you what she was really
feeling. “It's a good way to get an idea what kind of mental
state a pat...” I couldn't even get the word out. She wasn't a
fucking patient. “
Someone
is in,” I said instead.

The look came back. Stronger. It was a quick flash that
pushed away something else that almost looked like pain from her
eyes. “Clever,” she said, draining her drink and putting
it aside. “I'm assuming this is a clothes-off session again,”
she said, her voice off, almost a little hollow.

“Yes,” I said, nodding.

“Okay,” she said and her hands went
immediately to her jeans, unfastening them and pushing them down. She
was out of them before I could even draw a breath. Her hands went to
the hem of her shirt. She took it off in one quick jerk, leaving her
there in just her bra and panties, every ounce of her seeming to
spark with tension. But not anxiety. Not nerves. Something else. But
damn if I could figure out what it was.

“Ava... what's going on?”

“What do you mean?” she asked, hands
dropping from the clasp of her bra. “This is what I am supposed
to be doing, right?”

I swallowed past the irritation I felt building. “Maybe
if you communicated with me instead of assuming things, you would
already know the answer to that,” I said, putting my drink
down. “Talk to me.”

“It's nothing. Jake said something that put me in
a bad mood,” she said but it rang only half true to my ears.

“Come here,”
I said, holding open my arms. She moved into my arms and I wrapped
them around her, feeling her hands slip up my back and dig into the
material of my jacket. “Tonight I wanted to undress you,”
I admitted, briefly letting the longing slip into my words. It was my
turn. Finally. I could touch her. Not just her back or her hair. We
were at the point where I could...
touch her.
And I wanted to start that by slowly lifting her shirt, then getting
to my knees to help her out of her pants. I wanted to look up at her
with my face level with her heat and see her eyes lit with desire.

“Sorry,” she said, sounding like she
genuinely meant it, like she was sad she missed out on that
opportunity too.

“It's okay. I still have some things to remove,”
I said, my hands sliding up her soft back to rest over the clasps of
her bra.

“Am I going to undress you?” she asked, her
words muffled against my chest.

“Yeah, baby.”

Then I felt myself stiffen because her hands went up
between our bodies, the closeness making her palms press hard against
my stomach as she slowly started unfastening the buttons of my shirt.
I couldn't tell you if I was more pleased by her sudden boldness or
more worried about it. It just simply wasn't like her.

Her hands reached the top button and they slipped
underneath the material, gathering it and my jacket and pushing them
back to move them off my body. I released her just long enough to let
that happen, then rested one hand on her hip, the other going to the
side of her neck, trying to get her to face me. “Ava...”

She shook her head
at me and her hands went for my belt. Her hands slipped inside the
waistband of my slacks as she undid the button. I was hard. And I
mean...
hard
. That was
all it took. She pushed my pants down and I slipped off my socks and
shoes before stepping out of the legs. Before I could even finish,
her hands went to my boxer briefs, not even pausing before pushing
them down, leaving me completely naked before her.

Her gaze was fixated down, looking at my cock and a
weird noise got caught in her throat. “Ava,” I said, my
tone firm, and her eyes rose to mine. “While I'm glad you're
taking the lead, babe,” I said, my hand moving from her neck to
her cheek, “I want to make sure it's for the right reasons.”

Her lips pursed
like she was thinking. “Are there...
wrong
reasons to undress you?” she asked, then her hands moved to
stroke over my abs and I couldn't fucking think of a good enough
response to that question.

“Fine. I'll let it go for now. But I will get to
the bottom of it eventually,” I vowed. “Go get on the
bed.”

Christ. Not only did I need to knock it off with the
pet names, I needed to stop being so bossy with her.

She simply moved away from me and went to lie down.

I climbed in with her, moving to sit on me heels beside
her, reaching behind her back and unclasping her bra. I worked the
straps down her arms, leaving the cups to keep her hidden until her
arms were free, then pulling the material away.

Fuck me.

It felt like I had been waiting so long for that
moment.

That moment when my hand reached out and brushed over
one of her perfect breasts, feeling a shiver move through her whole
body at the contact. My eyes lifted to her face as my hand brushed
across her chest again, watching as her lips parted, feeling her back
arch off the mattress, pressing her breast further into my hand.

Christ. She was going to be my fucking undoing

My fingers moved to her nipple, rolling it between my
fingers and she sucked in a shaky breath. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” she said, her tone breathless,
needy.

“Thank god,” I said, moving to her other
breast, rolling that nipple to a hardened point. “You have no
idea how hard it has been not to touch you. This is what we are doing
this session,” I said, looking down at my hands. “I am
going to touch you here,” I said, squeezing her breast slightly
as my other hand moved a slow line down her belly until it rested
over the juncture of her closed thighs, “and here.” I
paused, letting that sink in, seeing a bit of anxiety bubble up.
“Look at me, Ava,” I said, waiting for her eyes to find
my face. “I am going to touch you. And you are going to touch
me.” I gave her another second. “Do you think it would be
better for me to touch you first or...”

“Me touch you,” she blurted out, cutting me
off.

“You're sure?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said, sounding mostly confident
in her decision.

“Okay,” I said, pulling my hands from her
and she made an objection sound in her throat as I moved to sit
upright against the headboard. “Come here,” I said,
holding out an arm and she slid into my body.

She was tense. Even with me holding her. Her body was
taut. Her breathing shallow. I reached for her hand, interlocking our
fingers, and squeezed. “You nervous?”

“A little.” More like a lot. But I wasn't
going to push it.

“A little isn't bad, right?” I asked
instead, running my free hand up and down her arm. “Give me a
number.”

“Four... ish,” she decided, taking a slow,
deep breath, her nose close to my chest as if she was trying to
breathe me in.

“I can work with fourish. How about the idea of
me touching you?”

“Seven?”

“I can work with that too,” I said,
untangling my fingers from hers and pressing her palm against my
chest, my hand over hers. “But let's not think about that yet,
alright?”

“Alright.”

I slid her hand down my chest, my stomach, the muscles
twitching under the contact, down my pelvic bone. My cock was so hard
it was painful as her palm moved down my happy trail. But then she
tensed. Her hand curled into my skin like she could hold on. I smiled
down at the top of her head, pulling her hand up toward my face and
kissing it before pushing it down the same path. That time much more
quickly. Until I helped her wrap her hand around my cock. Her hand
instinctively tightened and I felt my cock twitch as I groaned.
“That's it. Touch me, baby,” I encouraged, my hand
dropping from hers.