Zane
It was a long day. After a brief period of relaxation at the pool hall, I went into the shop and spent the rest of my day wrangling my guys into doing what they were supposed to be doing, balancing the books for the shop, and in general being pissy. I had agreed to meet with Sasha just after seven at the pool hall, but by six thirty I couldn't take it anymore and jumped ship for better climes.
I only got a few minutes of shooting in before she texted me that she was outside, but it was enough to calm me down. It wouldn’t have been fair to bark at her just because I’d had a shit day. She was the one good thing about my day. Or, at least, I hoped she would be.
Truth be told, I had no idea what this session with Asa was going to be like. I only hoped that she wouldn’t figure out that it was all a ruse. I’d spent a decent amount of money furnishing Sasha’s basement as a therapist’s office, though, so I had pretty high hopes. Yes, it was more money out of my leaving fund, but the cost was significantly lower than what it might take to raise a kid. Or at least have to deal with Asa for the few months it would take to have the kid, and then get a paternity test that proved I wasn’t the father.
Everything else was just details.
Sasha looked beautiful. Thankfully, she’d already had professional clothes in her closet. It tickled me to think that she could go from sex goddess to stern businesswoman with just a black pantsuit, an austere bun, and some glasses. It was downright sexy. I wanted to hold her by the bun and take her, make her mine. By the look on her face when I stepped out of the hall, though, she already was.
“Hey stranger,” I greeted. “Are you ready for this?”
She stopped in front of me and huffed a sigh. “About as ready as I’ll ever be. Are you sure this will work?”
I didn’t want to ever lie to her. “I’m not.” I reached out before concern had a chance to flash across her face, pulling her by the hand toward me. “But the fact that you’re going to try anyway means the world to me. Thank you, Sasha.”
I didn’t give out thanks to just anyone. She might not know that from experience yet, but the pleased expression she displayed made it known she understood. I didn’t let her hand go, savoring the contact between us. I wanted more of it. I didn’t want to go to this “therapy session” at all. In fact, I was pretty tempted just to say “fuck it” to the whole thing and drag her back to that room in the pool hall.
But, as it often seemed to do, life called for other things.
“Is there anything I should know before we start?” she asked. Her tone was professional and cold. It turned me on even more. Who knew I had a thing for therapists? I bet Freud would have a field day with that one. Maybe it wasn’t therapists in general, though—just one in particular.
“I think you’ll find it easy to pick up on the kind of person she is,” I replied. “I don’t want to tell you anything that might cloud your judgment.”
She raised an eyebrow at me, those perfect lips curving into a smirk. “You don’t want to cloud your fake therapist’s judgment in the wake of your fake therapy appointment about your fake baby?”
I tightened my grip and pulled her in. I reveled in her sarcasm, but I also reveled in letting her know who was in control. My hands gripped her waist firmly and pressed her close to my body. She let out a gasp as she came in contact with my rock hard cock.
“If anything’s going to cloud my judgment…” she murmured.
I laughed, pulling her in for one quick kiss before releasing her. There was no telling who might be around to see the exchange. It was risky even touching her here, but hell that was a risk I was willing to take.
“Let’s go then,” I said. “I’ll follow behind you.”
She nodded and began a shaky walk to her car. Maybe the pantsuit wasn’t the sexiest garment ever created, but it hugged her ass well enough. I watched until she slid into her little green sedan, then got onto my bike and revved up.
Sasha’s house wasn’t in the nicest part of town, but it wasn’t the worst part either. I appreciated the clear devotion she and her mother had for the property. All the grass on the front lawn was trimmed, the driveway was clear of debris, and the house looked recently painted. It was a little rancher with nothing special about it, but Sasha had assured me the basement would work for our purposes. She and her mother generally used it in the summer when the rest of the house was too hot to relax in.
I wasn’t afraid of mothers, by any means, but I was glad Sasha’s was asleep. She hadn’t told her mother about our plan and didn’t want her mom to worry about her, so she wouldn’t. But her mom spent enough time sleeping for us to easily fit in our sessions. It was like being in high school again; trying to sneak in friends while my dad was out at the shop. He was never very strict on me, but I tried to avoid him seeing my friends. Or them seeing him. Or me seeing him, for that matter.
I waited for Asa outside, as we’d agreed. She pulled up on her bike five minutes late, but for her, that was basically ten minutes early. Dating her and trying to go anywhere was a fucking hassle. She was never ready on time, and somehow she’d always make it my fault.
“Nice of you to show up,” I said.
She stalked up to me with a sour expression on her pretty face. “If you’d given me better directions, I wouldn’t have had such trouble finding the place.” She swept her hair over her shoulder. “What kind of therapist works out of their house, anyway?”
“The cheap kind,” I replied through gritted teeth. “But make no mistake, Doctor Walker is the real deal. If she can’t help us, nobody can.”
Asa batted her eyelashes at me and smiled, changing tune faster than a record scratch. “Can I get a kiss?”
I snorted and walked past her to the front door. “Let’s just get through our first session. Then we’ll see about touching.”
Her angry footfalls followed me up the steps to Sasha’s front door. I knocked and waited patiently, ignoring Asa as she fought for space on the front step with me. I was a big guy; there wasn’t much room.
Sasha answered moments later, clearly pretending not to have been standing right by the door. “Hello,” she said. “You must be Zane and Asa.”
“That’s us,” I replied, my gaze boring into hers. “And you’re Doctor Walker?”
She smiled. I knew how much she loved being called that. “That’s me. Come on in.”
We walked down the main hallway, Asa shoulder to shoulder with me even in the narrow space. At the basement door, Sasha gestured for us to go down first. I let Asa go in front of me, and gave Sasha a lecherous wink as I passed her. Though her face betrayed nothing, I knew she had some seriously dirty thoughts about me. Good.
The basement looked good. She’d set up a desk in the corner with some flowers and paperwork on it, but seated us on the couch in the middle of the room. Sasha grabbed a clipboard from her desk and sat across from us in a plush red armchair. The couch was comfortable, but I would have rather sat on nails than sit next to a woman threatening me with my non-existent unborn child.
“So.” Sasha adjusted her glasses on her nose and peered down at Asa and me through them. “Let’s talk about why you’re here. Who wants to start?”
The silence in the room was palpable. I expected Asa to leap at the opportunity to make me look like a bad person in front of the therapist, but she was oddly quiet. I looked over to see her studying Sasha.
“You look familiar,” she said.
I held back a sigh. Asa was very drunk the night she and Sasha met. I had hoped she had forgotten Sasha’s face entirely, but it appeared even that pissed Asa was able to identify a competitor.
“You’re right,” Sasha said cooly. “We met a few days ago. I was out at Armand’s. That’s where I met Zane.”
Asa turned to me with a scowl that could have melted bones. “You’re taking me to therapy with one of your whores? Do you know how fucked up that is?”
I rolled my eyes. “She’s not one of my whores,” I snapped. “She’s a doctor of psychology who happens to be shit at pool. We talked at the bar, but I was more interested in her professional assets than her ass.”
That was probably the biggest lie I’d ever told. I doubted there was much I was more interested in than Sasha’s ass.
Asa turned her attention to Sasha again. “But you guys disappeared into the back room. The one that Zane goes in when he wants to fuck.”
I admired Sasha’s collected expression. It struck me that I should have warned her what kind of things Asa would say about me. Many of them, such as the bit about the back room, were true. I wondered how Sasha would handle it when it was the two of us were alone. I was just glad she didn’t storm out then.
“I don’t know about fucking,” said Sasha, “but I do know it’s a good place to go when you want to talk in quiet. After you had accosted me by the bar, Zane pulled me away to that back room because he wanted my professional advice.”
Asa looked stunned. “About what?”
The first hint of a smile graced Sasha’s full lips. “Even in pool halls, I’m afraid, doctor patient confidentiality still stands. But rest assured it’s in your interests to attend these sessions.”
Asa looked over at me, weighing me with her eyes. I shrugged in response, which infuriated her. She wanted to know what we’d talked about in that room, and thought the only way she’d ever find out was to stay and chat. Sasha was brilliant. If only Asa knew what had really happened in that room, what kind of dirty things I’d done to the perfect little therapist sitting in front of her.
Asa turned back to Sasha. “Fine. Let’s talk.”
Sasha made a note on her clipboard and donned a gentle smile. “Let’s start with you, Asa. Why are you here today?”
“Well, we—”
“Ah,” Sasha tutted. “Not we. You. Why are you here today?”
Asa’s eyes were probably red at being cut off, but her curiosity and desperation ran too deep. She merely gritted her teeth and said, “I am here because I’m pregnant with Zane’s baby, and I want us to figure out our issues so we can be together and be a family.”
Sasha nodded. “What would you say your ideal outcome for these sessions would be?”
“I want him to man up and marry me, for a start.” She crossed her arms over her chest and sunk back into the cushions. “But my absolute ideal is for us to rekindle the passion and love that he let die.”
I rolled my eyes, though only Sasha could see it. The passion and love that I let die? Was she insane? There had only ever been passion in the first place—not love—and it hadn’t died so much as become toxic. For both of us. How easy it was for her to forget that. If we had stayed together I would have gone crazy and begun to hate her and everything she stood for, and she would have gone crazy and hated me for resisting her attempts to sculpt me into the person she wanted me to be. The person she thought would be right for her.
Sasha turned to me as if sensing my thoughts. “And you, Zane? Why are you here?”
I was so pissed off that I didn’t even say what she’d told me would be the best answer. I just said, “She says she’s pregnant with my baby, but I think it’s a trick.”
Asa rounded on me, her hands clenched into fists at her side. “Excuse me?” she seethed. “You think I’m tricking you? Why would I do that?”
I chose not to engage. I stared her down instead, my eyes harder than steel. She didn’t scare me. She never had. If she thought that turning her fury on me would do anything but make me laugh, she was the dumbest of them all.
Seeing that I wasn’t going to respond, Asa turned to Sasha. “He is the absolute lowest of the low!” she spouted. “He has no idea how to treat a woman and is rotten to the core. He might look like a man, but he’s nothing but a spineless rat.” Her voice began to crack, but I stayed motionless. “He uses women and discards them like trash. And everyone knows it. Even his own club is out to get him. Graham—” Her voice broke down into sobs.
Sasha leaned over toward Asa. Maybe it was to put a hand on her; maybe it was to slap her. I would never know because Asa leaped out of her chair and stormed toward the stairs.
I was always stunned by how irrational Asa could get, but tonight she’d reached a new low. But I sensed it was a low for her in other ways, too. She clearly had felt something for Graham. If not love, still something. And his death must have been the spark that set this whole thing off.
“Sorry,” I muttered to Sasha, rising from the couch and striding after Asa. She’d already made it out the door by the time I caught up with her. “Asa.”
She stopped in front of her bike and turned on me, sour. Her eyes were red and puffy, smeared with black makeup underneath. I didn’t reach out and hold her, as she undoubtedly wanted, but I tried to appear as understanding as possible. She waited for me to speak.
“If you want me to believe you, you need to do these sessions with me.”
My firm tone inspired a response from her. She spat at me. It failed to hit me, but it was a piss off nonetheless.
“Asa!” I boomed. “You will come with me to see Doctor Walker or you won’t ever see me again.”
She took in a deep breath, blinked back some more tears, and said, “Fine.” Her tone was a sharp blade, pressed against my throat. I didn’t react. “I’ll go with you, but don’t you ever talk to me like that in there again.”
Technically I had been talking to Sasha, but I wasn’t going to split hairs with her when I’d already exhausted my patience for her shit today.
“Fine,” I agreed. “Do you need a ride home?”
She wiped under her eyes and shook her head. “I’m fine.”
I watched her leave under the pretense of checking something on my bike. She roared out of the suburb with all of the ignorance and arrogance she went anywhere with. I supposed it was fitting, though I hoped it hadn’t woken up Sasha’s mother.
I had no idea how this was going to go. Sasha had completely floored me today with her abilities as both an actress and a therapist. Though undoubtedly crazy, this plan of mine might actually pay off.