The day Jace Riggs had his second appointment—because, against all odds, the office told me he was coming to see me again—I woke up close to orgasm.

In my half-awake brain, Jace Riggs was naked in my bed. He was solid muscle, powerful and hard. He was on top of me, his wrists pinning me, his mouth on mine, his tongue in my mouth. I couldn’t move, could feel nothing but him, could taste nothing but him. I squirmed my hips, my knees apart, and felt only him.

In my fever dream, he broke the kiss and whispered in my ear: I’m going to fuck you so deep. I’m going to take your sweet cunt. Tell me you want me to.

“Yes,” I said. “Yes.”

He pushed inside me, fucking me, and I knew I was awake now but I didn’t care. I pushed my fingers into my panties and came hard in three quick strokes, my hips bucking off the mattress.

In the shower fifteen minutes later, I tried to rationalize it. It wasn’t all that uncommon, according to the research, to have sexual thoughts about a client. Therapy could be intense, and it could be raw and emotional. Sexual urges were normal human urges that sometimes came out when things were raw and emotional. In fact, there was a term for it: transference, in which one transfers one’s intense emotions onto one’s therapist, or in this case onto one’s client.

No, even though it had never happened to me before, having these urges wasn’t wrong. What mattered was whether one acted on those urges—and I had no intention of doing that. Crossing the line to having sex with a client—even if he was agreeable, which I was pretty sure he wasn’t—was unthinkable for a counselor, a complete disgrace to the profession and an easy end to one’s career.

So everything was fine. Just fine. What I was experiencing was a fully calm, fully rational, fully scientifically documented experience that would not affect my performance as a professional.

Or I just really, really wanted to fuck Jace Riggs.

I shut the water off and ran a hand over my face. “Shit,” I said out loud to no one in my small, lonely apartment. “Just get through this session, Tara. It’s an hour of your life. Act like the intelligent woman you are, write your report, and get rid of him. Then you never have to see him again.”

That sounded good, so I got dressed, put some makeup on, and went to work. The morning orgasm had made me feel pretty good, actually—thanks, Jace Riggs. Though I wasn’t supposed to think about that.

I did two morning sessions. I talked to John, whose daughter had now recovered from the flu. I did paperwork. I ate lunch, a grilled eggplant sandwich from the Italian deli down the street. I sat at my desk and answered emails and drank a bottle of water and did everything a normal person would do. And when the door opened and Jace Riggs walked in again, I was just about ready. Just about.

But damn it, he had a huge presence. He was wearing much the same outfit as three days ago—jeans, motorcycle boots, T-shirt—except that it was cool out today, so he had added a hoodie beneath the black leather jacket. The hoodie was unzipped, so I could glimpse his chest and his stomach beneath the tee, and he was wearing those rings. This time I noticed that he had two rings on his left hand, too, as well as a thin leather bracelet on the wrist.

Kryptonite. Fucking kryptonite.

He sat in the chair across from me like he’d done the other day, and I could see from his face that he had the same resolve I did. He was going to be polite today. He was going to be businesslike. This was going to be a textbook session.

“Hello, Jace,” I said. “How are you?”

He nodded. I was wearing dark jeans topped with a loose-necked thin summer sweater with a cotton camisole beneath it. His gaze did not travel below my chin.

“I’m fine, thanks,” he said. “You?”

“Very well, thank you.”

“That’s good.” He drummed his fingers quickly on the arm of his chair—those long, gorgeous fingers that I was not staring at. “I’m sorry about last time. I was an asshole to you. It won’t happen again.”

It was honest, and it was surprising. And it was nice. “Thank you,” I said. “Apology accepted. And I apologize, too. I was unprofessional.”

He shrugged. “I made you mad. I get it.”

“Okay, then. So we’ll start over.”

“That’s what I’m here for.”

This was going well. Really well. We could do this, him and me. I pulled out his file—I’d retrieved it from the cabinet where I’d slammed it last time—and said, “Let’s get started. We’ll steer away from personal topics for now. I’d like to talk about your time in prison and your arrest. What led up to you being arrested.”

“Sure,” Jace said. “I guess we can talk about that.”

It didn’t matter that the last session had ended terribly, that I’d fantasized about this man naked in my bed, fucking me until I came. I could have an hour-long session with Jace Riggs, and everything would be fine. I was sure of it.

I should have known better.

That was the last time we were civil. After that, it all went to hell.