Chapter Twelve
Jason gazed at the defiant woman opposite him for several minutes and then finally broke off the contest. It was the second time he had done so that day. He hardly recognized himself anymore, hating his newly discovered weakness and wanting to fuck her into submission more powerfully that he had wanted to fuck any woman in his whole life.
Zach. He cursed his brother with infinite frustration. If it wasn't for that damn promise.
He glared out the cabin window and adjusted his cufflinks. He was like a caged animal, rippling with muscle and tension under the expert cuts of hand tailored cloth that covered his athletic body.
"You got what you wanted." He said. "So what's next? You grill me about my sex life? My relationship to my mother? My father? Isn't that what you spend years studying to do?"
Melissa looked at her note pad. It was still blank. She set it to one side, uncrossed and then re-crossed her legs while Jason watched her every move.
"You look like you think I'm going to pounce on you." She said.
"You wouldn't be the first therapist to do that."
"Is that what you want me to do?"
He inhaled sharply, but said nothing.
"Remember you promised to tell me the absolute truth about everything." Melissa continued. "You made me that promise. You haven't told me a thing I can use up until now and we only have until Tuesday. So you better start talking."
The huge, sexy beast of a man before her looked down at his shoes and then back into her eyes. Despite her position of obvious control Melissa was apprehensive. Having power over Jason Demovic was like being given control of a tornado; lose your focus for a second and the backlash could be devastating.
"Do I have to answer that question?" He said.
Melissa mulled it over, considering her reply carefully as she watched him through the prim glasses perched on her nose.
She was in full psychotherapists attire, more tightly wound up and business like than ever and fully aware of the effect this was likely to have on her taut and anxious client.
"We'll come back to that one Jason. Answer me this though. Do you trust me?"
"Absolutely." He said without hesitation. The answer surprised her.
"Why?"
"You've helped me where no-one else could."
"Helped you with what exactly?"
His breath quickened and a bead of sweat broke out on his tanned forehead. She forced herself to ignore the sense of excitement she felt at making him lose his cool. Illicit thrills weren't part of the job. Not this part at least. She needed to focus on the cure, not the power she was beginning to wield over this formidable male.
"I've been… unhappy, very unhappy and you've given me hope that I can be happy again."
"Why were you unhappy?"
He took in a long breath and then let out an even longer sigh.
"Okay. I know this is for my own good and I'm aware that I made a promise to be honest--so here it is; I haven't been able to… to be with anyone for the last three years."
Melissa suppressed her absolute shock and totally inappropriate pleasure at the revelation.
"Why not?" She asked.
"It isn't physical if that's what you're wondering."
"I'm not wondering anything. I'm just listening."
"You don’t listen Melissa, you read minds for God's sake. At least you seem to know how to read my mind."
"And how does that make you feel?"
"Excited." He said urgently. He was completely motionless. Too still. The sense of a huge, powerful male trying to desperately hold himself back and restrain his desire was palpable in the air-conditioned atmosphere of the 727. Melissa felt her own excitement rising to match her clients in every place that counted. Underneath her carefully calculated business attire she had chosen to wear another of the expensive sets of lingerie that had been laid out for her in the hotel room. She would figure out her motivations for doing that later, not that it would require that much analysis.
Jason continued, speaking very slowly.
"Your insight into my thoughts and feelings Dr. Price, makes me want to take you right here, right now while my plane is up here at 32000 feet over the middle of the Atlantic and show you that all that education of yours means nothing when I fuck you so hard it's make you scream my name and beg for more."
Melissa's heart raced, her lingerie moistening rapidly with hidden desire.
She took a deep breath. Therapy sessions had never been like this in grad school.
"Do you think that would solve your problem?" She asked with as much self-control as she could muster.
"Damn sure it would." He grunted huskily, as though he were daring her to make it a reality.
Melissa didn't move. She didn't dare. The force of Jason's desire was a physical reality now and her eyes flitted involuntarily down to his lap where she was sure she would see his potent sexuality beginning to assert itself.
It was a bad idea. She saw nothing, but the fleeting nature of the glance made him seem all the more perfect and sexy in a way that defied reality.
"Do you know anything about psychotherapy Jason?"
"Maybe more than you think."
"There's a saying among therapists. Would you like to hear it?"
"I want to hear anything that comes out of those sweet lips of yours, especially if you're lying under me, screaming my name."
It was all she could do to keep her cool. The bunched hair at the back of her head was beginning to feel unbearably tight, as was the restriction of the professional skirt around her thighs.
"The saying is that professional therapy never includes sex."
He stared at her, his breathing heavier than ever. Motionless.
"Did you hear what I said?" she asked. "I said professional therapy never includes--"
"Sex. I heard you say sex." He said.
She shook her head and carefully uncrossed and then re-crossed her legs yet again. He was getting to her.
"Let's change the subject." She said. "Tell me about not being able to be with people. Does that mean with women? Specifically?"
"Do you need to ask? You know you can already read my mind."
An image of herself below him, her hair spread out wildly and his muscular ass thrusting up and down on top of her flashed through her mind.
She smoothed down the edges of her skirt.
"Okay. So you haven't been with a woman in three years."
"Correct." He said.
"Neither emotionally nor physically."
"Correct."
"You also haven't wanted to be."
He nodded his head and smiled, squirming under her intuition but marveling at the same time.
"And this was making you anxious. Questioning the meaning of your existence."
"Exactly. And trust me Melissa, everything is working physically. There's no doubt about that."
"You have always been a very physical person so this was confusing to you."
"Very physical."
"Insatiable even."
"Voracious is a better word, but insatiable isn't bad either."
"And that was a problem too."
He looked surprised again.
"I've never thought of it like that, but maybe you're right, maybe that was a problem. If I wasn't with someone regularly then I couldn't focus on my work. It would suffer and I would need to go out and be with someone. If I wasn't battering down doors in the business world or buying out competitors then I was battering down…"
"Loneliness?"
He took a huge breath in, stared at her in disbelief and then put his face into his hands.
"Oh my God." He whispered through his fingers. He had uncrossed his legs and Melissa couldn't help but dart a look down, just a micro-second but enough to reassure her that yes, there certainly wasn't any problem with Jason Demovic physically.
In fact, the only problem might be…
Focus Melissa, focus. He's still your client.
"Oh my God." He repeated. "You're right. You're always right. How could I not have seen it before."
She let him gather his thoughts for a moment and then pressed on.
"So what happened three years ago?"
He took another deep breath.
"I went to a ridiculous high school reunion."
"They can be difficult. But with your success in life? Surely it should be very easy, gratifying even "
"You would think that, wouldn’t you? Looking back I don't even know why I went. Maybe it was to prove something. It was the first one I had ever considered going to. My brother Zach kept telling me it would be a good idea. He said I should do it for 'closure'. Why did I ever think a software engineer could give me psychological advice? The guy is more screwed up than I am for Christ's sake."
"Tell me about the re-union. What happened?"
"Everything was going okay. I was just bored to tell you the truth, maybe even a little weirded out. Women I remembered as high school girls were hitting on me like crazy, guys who used to push me around were trying to get into pissing contests with me because they were jealous of my success and feeling…"
"Inadequate in your presence?"
He laughed. "Yeah, maybe. I guess. I was getting ready to leave when I felt hands on my shoulders and a kiss against the back of my neck that sent a shiver down my spine."
"Who was it?" Melissa said too quickly. The spike of jealousy she felt surprised her.
"It was a girl… a woman I had had a serious crush on all through high school."
Melissa felt the envy course through her veins. She wanted to know who this woman was.
"Her name is Tracy Dunleavy. I first saw her when she moved to our school from another state. We were both fourteen years of age. I was a goofy kid living in a trailer park with his mom and two screwed up little brothers; her parents had money and lived in the most upscale neighborhood in town. That was always the downside of mom sacrificing so much for us to get a good education. We were always the poorest kids in the school and boy did those rich kids let us know it. The only thing I had going for me was my IQ. That kept most of them at bay. The richest ones were mostly the dumbest ones as well. But being smart doesn't make you any friends in high school. Kids are jealous. They want to take you down. They want to exclude you. Harrison, Zach and I barely spoke to anyone except each other for years."
"It must have been very hard."
Jason looked at her.
"You can do better than that Dr. Price. I'm not fourteen years old anymore. I'm not the same person today that I was then."
"It's not me you have to convince of that Jason." She let the words hang while Jason absorbed the implication. She held his arrogant but increasingly frightened gaze imagining how potent it must have been when he was a teenager defending himself and his brothers from stupid high school bullies.
"Tell me about Tracy." She said.
"She was different. She was nice to me no matter how tongue tied I was. You have no idea how in love with her I was. She was perfect to me."
"What did she look like?"
"Gorgeous. You have no idea."
Melissa wanted to pull her hair out--cat-fight her into submission at the side of the road while Jason looked on. She put the emotions aside as best she could and waited for him to continue.
"She always led me on but then left me hanging for her baboon of a jock boyfriend--a knuckle dragging goon who collects debts for a living now."
"This all sounds like the typical experience of high-school Jason. How could these things have such an effect on your relationships with women?"
"I'm not finished yet. I eventually found the courage to ask her to the prom and I nearly fell over when she said yes. Don't get me wrong Melissa, I didn't lack confidence in high-school. Far from it. I was already pitching ideas to venture capitalists even back then and I wasn't shy with opposite sex. I just had no interest in the girls who wanted me. I was holding out for the best, for perfection and at that time, that was Tracy Donleavy."
He lifted his head and fixed his eyes on Melissa again.
"I still hold out for perfection today. Maybe I haven't changed all that much."
"Tell me what happened at the reunion Jason. Stay focused."
"Okay. Well when she said yes to the prom I knew for sure that the persistence and the waiting had been all worthwhile. I got dressed up the best I could and picked her up from her parents' house in a battered old car I borrowed from a neighbor in the trailer park. Tracy didn't seem to mind though. What happened next is…"
Jason struggled with his emotions. Normally Melissa would have given a client time to think or she would have asked sensitively if they wanted to continue, but with Jason she couldn't hold back--she had to know.
What the hell had that twisted little bitch done to him?
"She humiliated you." She hissed.
"Yes." He whispered.
"In front of her friends."
He nodded silently. Melissa leaned forward and put her hand on Jason's knee then drew back. As soon as she made contact she knew it was too much for either of them and his reaction was instant. Their eyes met and the glance they exchanged left little to the imagination.
"I'm sorry Jason. Continue. Tell me what she did."
"I can't. We have to break off here. This is too much in one go. I've only ever told one person about this and not in any detail. This is the closest I've come to sharing it with anyone."
"You have to tell me Jason. Don't back away now. You can do this. Tell me what that girl did to you."
"I promised to tell you the truth about everything Melissa, but I didn't promise to tell you whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted. This is too much. I need a break." He stood up to go into the private quarters in the rear of the plane but Melissa stood up as well, blocking his way.
They were both trembling and they were far too close to each other.
"Don't run away Jason. This can heal you. I promise you." Her eyes were turned up to him and he met her look with his own impenetrable gaze. Only the single bead of sweat on his brow gave any clue as to his anguish, both psychological and sexual.
"Get out of my way Melissa." He said in a low voice.
"I won't move. You'll have to pick me up--"
His strong arms wrapped around her, one cradling her shoulders and the other scooping up the back of her legs. The feeling was indescribable. He held her close to him, high up in his arms. She could feel his troubled heart pounding in his chest. Her own bosom was heaving, her cleavage stretching the fasteners on her pristine white shirt.
He stared down at her neck and whispered.
"You have no idea how hard it is for me to hold back right now. If it wasn't for that damned promise…"
"What if I don't want you to hold back?" She whispered. "Does the promise still count?"
He held her for another moment, struggling with his desire, his cock already rock hard in his pants, his whole body screaming out in agony for hers. His eyes roamed her neck, afraid to continue down the elegant lines of her throat to the perfectly formed curves of her full and heaving breasts.
"I can't." He said. "I made a promise and I can't break it. You have no idea how hard it is for me to hold back right now."
"What if I don't want you to hold back?" She whispered again, pouring quiet fuel on the flames. "Does the promise still count?"
He held her for another moment, agonizing silently.
"I can't." He said. "I made a promise. What you want or don't want me to do is irrelevant."
He set her back down, close to him, his labored breathing intensely exciting in her ear.
"I've got nothing to lose anymore." She whispered. "What are you afraid of? You said it yourself--"
"I made a promise." He hissed. "That makes all the difference. I don't break promises. My father broke promises. He broke all his promises but I never will. I'm not him." He turned away from her but she pursued him.
"You know I can help you." She said taking hold of his hand, bringing skin to skin, intentionally making contact. She was following pure intuition, the same intuition that had failed her so miserably before but had guided her unerringly on so many other occasions. Jason stopped. Waiting. His breathing labored and hard.
"She got you to make a promise, didn't she? That girl, Tracy Dunleavy."
He nodded silently, his jaw clamped tightly shut.
"Something humiliating. Something degrading." She probed.
He looked into her eyes.
"You know me." He said. "You know me too well." He pulled his hand away from her and made for the private quarters at the end of the cabin. Melissa followed in hot pursuit, entering the bedroom before he could close the door behind him. He sat down on the floor next the bed and Melissa came down to her knees in front of him.
"What was it Jason? What did she make you do? If you don't tell me then I can't help you. This is it. You can fix this now. All you need to do is find the courage to tell me."
He cursed silently, ground his teeth and bunched his fists.
"Okay God damn it. Here it is. She got me to drive her to a derelict house outside of town. She said she wanted to be alone with me before the dance. What a fool I was, I couldn't believe my luck. When we got there she put a blindfold on herself and then blindfolded me. There was an old chair in the middle of the room and she got me to sit in it while she sat on the floor in front of me, leaning on my knees. I'd never been so close to her before, never felt her hands on me that way… God I was so in love, so excited, so confused."
Melissa moved in closer to him. She hadn't seen him like this before, raw, vulnerable, exposed to the core.
"She made me promise to tell the truth and only the truth. She said she hated lies. She came in close to me and I felt her hands on my knees. I was a virgin for Christ's sake, I got a raging hard on as soon as she touched me."
Melissa decided to take a risk. This whole venture was about risk so why play by the book now? The damn book had already been torn to pieces, pushed through the shredder and set on fire by now.
"Like this?" She said, and put her hands on his knees, trying to recreate the experience he had so painfully described. He nodded his head while his erection hardened to diamond like consistency.
"I swore I'd always tell her the truth. I should have known something was wrong when she started giggling, but at the time it only made me even harder for her. Then she began asking questions. First about me and my family; where we lived, where our father was. Things we had always kept hidden from the other kids at school. It felt like are relief to tell someone I could really trust, someone who truly loved me and who didn't care where I came from or who my family was. She asked me if I would give her money whenever she wanted it and I said yes, I'd get it for her, no matter how much it was. I swore I'd get rich for her, make a million dollars and give it all to her. Boy did she laugh. That crazy, sexy teasing laugh that always used to turn me on so much. I went to take the blindfold off but she said I had to promise to keep it on until she told me I was allowed to see. Then she began asking me about sex. She got me to admit I was a virgin. She asked me if I had fantasies, sexual fantasies, and I said yes. She asked me if she was in my fantasies and I said yes. She asked me if I would do anything for her, without hesitation, and I said of course I would, without a thought. She went silent then. I don't know if she was feeling guilty or what or if she was just wondering what else she could get me to say or do next to humiliate me even more."
"She wasn't alone, was she?"
Jason nodded his head.
"They were all there, waiting to see you get dragged down."
"All of them. All her jock friends, the cheerleaders, the wannabe bullies, all the people I had spent years mocking whenever they tried to push me and my brothers around. Not one of them would have had the balls to say a word to me by themselves. Not one of them!" He shouted.
Melissa moved in closer. She desperately wanted to put her arms around him, hold him, but the memory of the last time she did that was still vivid in her mind. She drew back and his eyes searched desperately for hers as she did so.
"She told me she was taking her clothes off for me and then she asked me to do the same. I couldn't believe it but I didn't dare question her. I took off my jacket, my tie, my shirt and then she told me to get down on my knees for her, right there in the middle of the room. She walked around behind me and put her hands on my shoulders. God, I couldn't have been harder for her. She asked me why I was doing everything she asked like such a good little boy and I said it was because I loved her, that I had loved her ever since I had laid eyes on her and that was why I was still a virgin. I didn't want to make love to anyone else because I knew she was the one."
"My God Jason..."
"Don't!" He said angrily. "I don't need your sympathy."
Yes you do. She thought. You need me more than anything else in this world.
"Tell me what happened next."
"I… I can't. It's too much."
"You promised me." She snapped and then immediately felt guilty. She was barely treating him any better than Tracy Dunleavy had.
"Yeah, me and promises." He said as though exhausted. "Okay. You want to hear it so much, then here it is. She stood behind me for a long time and that was thrilling. I still had no idea what was really going on and it turned me on like hell. Nothing has ever excited me as much as that until…"
"Until what?"
"That's not important. I couldn’t think straight. I was about to do it with the girl I loved that was all that counted. She was standing there behind me, naked, while I waited on my knees for her. It felt like an eternity went by while I got harder and harder and then she leaned down and put her lips close to my right ear. I can still feel them there, like she's here right now, her warm breath, the smell of her perfume and God damn it, her hair brushing lightly against my skin. God." He groaned at the memory. "She said that whatever happened next that I was always to believe in her, no matter what. She asked me to promise her that and of course I did. I said I would always believe in her no matter what happened. Then she kissed my neck and God I thought I was going to blow right then and there but somehow I held on. She was whispering, doing everything a teenage girl could to turn a teenage boy on. Then she asked me if I would ever love another woman and I said no. I swore it on my life. I swore to her that I'd never make love to any other girl as long as I lived. I told her that she was the only one. Her hands tightened on my shoulders and she kissed my neck again. I don't know how I held myself back. Then she whispered one word into my ear."
Melissa was transfixed.
"What? What was the word she said?"
"Sorry."
"Oh my God."
"And that was it. She pulled the blindfold off my eyes and there they were, filming it all. It took me a few seconds to process it. I was reeling. I looked around at Tracy and she wasn't smiling. She still had all her clothes on. I looked back at the gang of stupid petty, jealous teenagers and they were all laughing at me--those shitty little dickheads." He shouted. "At least I made damn sure I smashed their cameras to bits, they didn't like that one bit."
Melissa came over next to him and put her arms around his broad shoulders and drew his head down her breast. He was trembling. Slowly she lowered her head and put one tender kiss on his forehead. It was nothing like the kiss she had given to her outraged client. That one had been chaste, comforting, respectful, a therapeutic decision that put her out on a limb professionally and then shattered the limb. This one was charged with feeling and personal emotion.
"I've never made love to another woman since then." He said. Melissa could feel the heat of his words on her neck. Her career was in tatters but she was holding Jason Demovic in her arms and it was clear that he wanted her and that she wanted him. What did it matter up here at 32000 feet anyway? They weren't in any country, not even in anyone's national airspace. What did aviation law or maritime law say about making blistering hot love to clients?
"I don't believe it." She whispered. "A man like you? That's impossible."
"Sure I've taken women to bed, but I've never broken that promise. I've never made love to another woman. I've never even wanted to. I don't even know if I can. He lifted his head up and pushed her arms down by her sides. His breathing was labored.
"I convinced myself… consoled myself that Tracy was forced into it, so I always kept that promise. Never make love. If I was with a woman it was just to fuck her, to satisfy a need. Just sex, always just sex."
Just sex. She thought. How could anyone call being taken by this man just sex?
"If I ever began to feel something for a woman then I had to back off. If I tried to get closer to them then it just wouldn't work. All the desire would go."
"The physical desire."
"Yes." he sounded ashamed, "The physical desire."
She looked down at his muscular body, obviously brimming with physical desire right now.
"Does that mean you don't feel anything for me?" She whispered.
He didn't answer for several long seconds. Melissa could barely stand to look at him, she kept her eyes lowered to his chest, his abdomen, watching his rapid breathing, observing his internal struggle and awaiting the outcome.
She was ready for anything.
"You're the first one." She watched his sensuous lips slowly mouth the words and her heart began to beat wildly.
Take me. For God's sake, just take me. Do it now. She willed him.
"I've been confused ever since I met you." He pushed her hands back to the floor behind her and then slid his own arm around her waist, setting her on fire as he did so. She didn't care anymore, her body was more alive to him than it had been to any man ever in her whole life. What did these professional ethics really mean anyway? They were just two people who wanted each other and the world with all its stupid puritanical rules was only jealous of their desire.
"I haven't had a clear thought since the day you walked into my office." She said. He pulled her closer towards him and already it felt like they were making love.
"I know I want you." He said. "I can't stop thinking about you. You fascinate me and screw me up all at the same time but what I really don't understand is how I can feel so much for you but still not be able to think about anything but screwing you twenty-four hours a day. I haven't felt this since…" He drew back. Melissa felt the withdrawal of his heat and it angered her. He was hers for God sake; he had no right to take himself away from her. What the hell was the problem now?
Instantly she knew the answer; with Jason Demovic she always did.
"You haven't felt this way since her. Since Tracy."
He nodded his head and began to push his way up the cabin wall away from her. She wanted to drag him back down but the therapist in her wouldn't quite give up and let go completely. He needed to be healed or it would all fall apart anyway.
"You're scared." She said. "You don't trust me because of what she did to you." He nodded his head. She was reading his mind again. "You think because you feel the same way about me as you did about her that the same thing is going to happen again."
"Yes." He hissed. "Only worse because I don't know what it will be."
"You can trust me. That's what will be different." She said frantically.
"I know. I know I can, but then there's a part of me that just can't go any further."
"Jason--"
There was a heavy knock on the door that divided their end of the plane from the business and cabin crew area up front.
"Mr. Demovic, I'm sorry to intrude but we have Asia on the line, there's a potential crisis in China and we really need your input."
Jason stared at her and tried to control his breathing.
"Mr. Demovic? This is very urgent--"
"I'm coming God damn it." He shouted. "Give me five minutes, I'll be right there."
Melissa felt a black cloud gather over her. Their moment had arrived, they were so close, but now Jason would be absorbed back into his work and the emotional intensity needed for br