Love Ignited (Hollywood Series Book 2) Read online

  I was standing right in front of him now looking up at him. He must’ve been six-two at least. He just glared at me in response to my observations. “Good day, Mr. Bradley.”

  “Until tomorrow,” he said slyly as I reached the door. I just kept walking. He didn’t know it yet, but we weren’t having therapy tomorrow. He would be sweating the drugs out of his system for the next week.

  ****

  I had gone over and over my conversation with Nathan Bradley at least a hundred times in the past week trying to figure out where I’d gone wrong, where I’d lost control, but I kept coming to the same conclusion. I didn’t lose control until I walked out on our session.

  Answering his intrusive questions had just been a means to gain his trust. My methods of therapy had never quite fit the mold set within the parameters of the textbooks, but they worked. My patients’ successes spoke to that. However, with Mr. Bradley, I should’ve gone with the flow instead of walking out. Walking out had given him the rise he’d been looking for. Going off on him in the stable had made me feel like I was gaining ground at the time, but afterward, something had told me that I was giving him exactly what he wanted.

  I hadn’t seen him all week. I had avoided the treatment area altogether. Mrs. Faulkner had brought me his urinalysis report every day. Each day the level of narcotics and barbiturates in his sample had steadily declined. Today it was untraceable. He was officially clean.

  I decided that I would try harder to keep my wits about me from here on out. If I played his game, eventually he would let me in. If I didn’t, he would shut me out. He had already proven that much. I would’ve hated for Mr. Bradley to go to prison just to prove his point, but since he seemed to despise himself part of the time, I wouldn’t put it past him.

  “Good morning,” I said when he walked into my office. “How did you sleep?”

  “Very well, thank you. And you?” This was a completely different man than I had spoken with a week ago. I was pleasantly surprised.

  “Well, thank you.” I gave him a slight smile. When he looked up at me, I immediately noticed the change in his appearance. The dark circles under his eyes were gone. Instead, his face was evenly and thoroughly tanned from working outside. His skin tone made his smile brighter when he returned the gesture.

  He was fresh out of the shower. His dark hair was still damp and clung messily to his forehead. When he sat, the motion sent his scent wafting through the air, darkening it somehow. He didn’t smell like shower gel or cologne but of spices, or maybe just masculinity. I couldn’t be sure. He stared at me, waiting for me to say something.

  “Congratulations, you’re clean!” I handed him his report. “How does it feel?”

  “Like it always does when I’m clean.”

  “How is that?”

  “Scary.” It wasn’t the word, but the way he said it, that made me feel a little frightened myself. He didn’t say it in a whisper the way one would if they were afraid; he said it huskily as if it were a threat. I looked down at my notebook to keep from reacting.

  “Mrs. Faulkner reports that you haven’t had a single sign of withdrawal. Is that correct?”

  “That’s because I’m not an addict.”

  “Oh, but you are. You admitted as much a week ago,” I said, flipping through my notes.

  “I meant I’m not a drug addict.”

  “What kind of addict are you then?”

  One side of his mouth twitched upward. “I think it’s my turn to ask a question, don’t you?”

  Great. I had hoped he would’ve moved past this game by now. “All right,” I said, casually leaning back in my chair. His demeanor seemed different. More controlled.

  “Did you enjoy punishing me for offending you?”

  I was appalled. “It wasn’t punishment. It was conditioning, and no, I didn’t enjoy it.”

  “Yes, you did. I saw the way you smiled when I told you that Mrs. Faulkner sent me to shovel horseshit. You looked pleased.”

  “I was pleased that you were actually participating in therapy willingly. I’m glad you didn’t give Mrs. Faulkner a hard time.”

  “Right,” he said with a raised brow.

  I almost took the bait and defended my actions, but then I remembered: I was in control, not him.

  “May I?” I asked, before I took my turn in his game, to give the illusion that he had a say in the matter. He nodded. “What kind of addict are you?”

  “The dangerous kind.”

  “You’re addicted to danger?”

  He twisted his mouth to the side, as if to consider the question. “You could say that.”

  “Like an adrenaline junkie. You like to skydive and swim with sharks, things like that?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Is this what we’re doing? Are we dancing around straight answers?” I asked, a bit miffed.

  “I don’t mean to. I just don’t have a single word for what I’m addicted to. It’s hard to explain.”

  “Try,”

  “Let’s circle back to that. Ask me something else.” The way he said ‘circle back to that’ reminded me of my own therapy back before I secluded myself inside these gates.

  “Okay, how about my perception of you? Was it accurate?”

  He laughed. “Oh, you mean that little tirade you went on in the stable? You couldn’t have been more wrong if you tried.” The astonishment must’ve shown in my expression. “Do you know where I’m from?”

  I flipped through his file, pretending to look. Of course, I knew. I used to be a big fan. “Idaho?”

  “Do you know what my family did before I became an actor?” I shook my head. “We ran a farm. A real farm, nothing like what you have here. Since I was old enough to walk, I was up at sunrise collecting eggs and milking cows. Shoveling horseshit makes me feel right at home.”

  I tried to hold back the look of shock that threatened to break across my face.

  “I never aspired to be an actor, Doc. That fell in my lap at a McDonald’s in Los Angeles, while I was on vacation with my parents. You can check my bio. You’ll see that I never did commercials or any television roles as a child. My first acting job was a major motion picture. I was recruited to audition. I did and won the part. Overnight celebrity, just like that.”

  “Do you think that contributed to—”

  “Why did you become a therapist?” he asked. I shifted slightly in my chair. “Why aren’t you comfortable with that question?” His ability to read my body language was uncanny, and his tone and vocabulary seemed to have expanded as the drugs in his system dissipated. I’d never seen anything like it. I felt like we should switch roles.

  His talent for perception was unparalleled to anything I had ever seen. And his calm, controlled demeanor was completely irreconcilable with the person who had walked in here a week ago. I briefly wondered if he had dissociative personality disorder. If he weren’t a patient, I would’ve had a mind to offer the man a job.

  “If that question is too much, I could think of something else.”

  “It’s fine, Mr. Bradley.”

  “Nate, please.”

  “Nate,” I corrected. “I became a therapist because my dad was a therapist and the field interested me. It’s as simple as that. As I was saying, do you think that your drug abuse is related to your stalled career?”

  Now he was the one shifting. “Not at all.”

  “So you are okay with me describing your actions as drug abuse but not drug addiction?”

  “It’s true. I do abuse drugs, but I’m not addicted to them. I don’t need them. They just help me feel better about who I am, less ashamed. Why am I the only patient here? This place is huge. Shouldn’t I have to sit through group therapy or something?”

  “You’ll get plenty of group therapy when you leave here. You will attend narcotics anonymous meetings.”

  “That doesn’t answer my question. Why am I the only patient here when you have room for more?”

  I’m not comfortable in gro
up settings… “I prefer to concentrate on one patient at a time. I’ve found that the one-on-one experience is very successful.” He assessed me carefully but seemed satisfied. “You said you use drugs to make you feel less ashamed of who you are. Why are you ashamed?”

  “That’s a pretty broad question. Everyone is ashamed of something. People handle those feelings differently.” I felt schooled yet again.

  I waited for him to ask a question. “Look at you, being a good girl and waiting your turn.” He smiled. The way he said “good girl” ignited something inside of me, but simultaneously made me feel disrespected. He wouldn’t speak to a man that way.

  He leaned forward, looking into my eyes, and said, “You enjoyed that, didn’t you?”

  “What?”

  “Being complimented on your behavior.”

  “No; actually, it makes me feel like you’re a sexist. I’m beginning to think that maybe you don’t like women.”

  “Oh, I can assure you that’s not the case. I love women.”

  The thought occurred to me then. “You’re addicted to sex.”

  “Is that a question?” I didn’t respond. “I’m not a sex addict. I actually don’t find as much pleasure in sex as I do in sexual acts. I’m more of a foreplay guy.”

  I was growing agitated with him dancing around the questions when I needed answers for us to move forward. “We would get a lot farther a lot faster if you would talk to me about your addiction issues.”

  He glanced out the window, seemingly ignoring my statement. “I wanted to apologize for the way I spoke to you that first day. It was very disrespectful.”

  “It was,” I agreed, grateful to hear that he wouldn’t be asking me about sex anymore.

  “I was high, and I shouldn’t have spoken to you as if you were a hooker. I knew you weren’t a prostitute. I was just being an asshole. Of course, I didn’t know you were the therapist either.”

  “Oh,” I said, caught off guard. “How about our first therapy session?”

  He smiled. “I was being an asshole then too…at first.”

  “At first?” I let out a clipped laugh. “I think you were extremely disrespectful during the entire session.”

  “It was wrong of me to try to tempt you sexually.”

  “Tempt me?” I balked. I was gathering that his sexuality was the thing about himself with which he was most confident. He seemed completely at ease discussing sex.

  “Maybe entice would be a better word. I shouldn’t have asked to sleep with you in exchange for drugs. That was wrong, but I won’t apologize for asking you about your escapade the night before. After all, I wouldn’t have known about it if you hadn’t walked through the foyer of your work place looking like you’d just gotten nailed. You opened that door, Doc.”

  I frowned at that.

  “Which brings me to my next question,” he said, “I still think you lied to me about that night.”

  “That’s not a question.”

  “No, it isn’t. You lied. I’m being perfectly truthful with you. Why can’t you be honest?”

  I decided to be honest. It seemed very important to him. It seemed as though he wasn’t really interested in whether or not I had sex so much as he wanted to test the limits of my honesty. “I went out to have sex, but I didn’t.”

  His eyes lit up at my admission. “Why didn’t you?”

  “I’m not good at casual sex. Okay, that’s enough about that.”

  “You had an orgasm.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You were glowing. You aren’t now, and you weren’t when I saw you earlier that day. Did you have an orgasm?”

  “Why is that relevant?”

  “I want you to be honest.”

  “Yes, I did.” A satisfied smile graced his handsome face. “Now, let’s get back to you. What are you addicted to?” I could hear the desperation in my voice. I was desperate to redirect the conversation back to him.

  “I’m addicted to control.”

  “Earlier you said danger.”

  “Control can be dangerous when placed in the wrong hands.” The way he said it made me believe him. I was caught in his gaze. I couldn’t pry my eyes off of him, and he didn’t break contact either.

  “Um, lunch…Let’s break for lunch. We can pick up at one.”

  He blinked, “Sure, sounds good.” Then he was gone, as if we weren’t just having such an intense conversation.

  He was getting to me. I needed a break, but I had just taken a whole week off, so I was going to have to suck it up.

  I was getting through to him on some level though. I could see just by glancing at my notes that we’d made tremendous progress for a half day’s work. It usually took weeks or months to get this far with a patient. His need to control was actually helping me get through to him with his drug problem, but if he was admittedly addicted to control, then I shouldn’t use that…but when had I ever worked strictly by the book?

  I took a dip in my pool over lunch and grabbed a ham and cheese sandwich before heading back to the other side of the Vestige campus.

  He was waiting in my office when I walked in. “You went for a swim?”

  “I did.”

  “Do you do that often?”

  “I do. It’s one of my favorite activities.”

  “Coupled with bareback horseback riding, huh?” He smiled.

  “I don’t usually ride Fierce. I was just blowing off steam that day.”

  “It made you feel good though, didn’t it?”

  “I suppose so. I enjoy riding.”

  “I meant that riding until your ass hurt.”

  I looked up at him sharply.

  “It’s okay. You don’t have to be ashamed around me.”

  “I’m not ashamed. I’m appalled by this conversation.”

  “I don’t think you are. I think, on some level, it excites you to realize that you can find pleasure in pain.”

  “You’re crazy,” I blew off the notion.

  “Is that your professional opinion?”

  I dropped the papers I was holding onto my desk, “Look, Nathan, I’m really trying here, but you are making this very difficult. While my methods of therapy are unique, I’m not accustomed to being spoken to the way you seem to want to speak to me.”

  “Well, I’m not accustomed to being eye fucked by my therapist, but I got over it.” My cheeks burned with embarrassment. “It’s fine. You’re a very beautiful woman. I would eye fuck you, too, if you were nude in front of me.”

  “I didn’t—”

  “You did, and you would do it again. If I were to slip off my shirt—” He lifted his shirt enough for me to catch a glimpse of his washboard abs. “You would enjoy that.”

  “No.”

  “I think if I were to slip off your blouse, you would enjoy that even more. I know I would.”

  “If you’re trying to get me to prescribe you drugs…”

  “I’m not. I’m trying to get you to see in yourself what I see in you.”

  “That’s funny. I thought that was my job,” I said.

  He stood from his seat and walked toward me. The way he moved made me go into defense mode. I stood too.

  He reached his hand out as if to touch the button on my blouse. “May I?”

  “No” came out in a whisper. He smiled and reached for it anyway. When his fingers grazed my collarbone, I felt a flush of heat rise over me. I didn’t dare move for fear he would stop…for fear he would keep going…

  He unbuttoned the top button of my blouse. When I didn’t move, he moved on to the second, then the third. He pressed the fabric to the sides, and his eyes roamed my breasts. I was wearing a bra, but I felt exposed. My mind was warring with my hormones. Touch me… Don’t touch me…

  “Absolutely gorgeous,” he whispered. When I felt his knuckle graze one of my breasts, I snapped to my senses. I grabbed his wrist and wrenched it around, expecting him to fall to the ground, but he didn’t. Instead, he smiled and said, “Harder.” I felt
a shot of anger course through me. I twisted his wrist as hard as I could manage. “Yeah,” he whimpered.

  I immediately let go, noticing his bulging erection through his jeans. “Get out,” I said, tears stinging my eyes.

  Suddenly, a look of shame coated his features. “I…”

  “Just get out!”

  He nodded once and left my office. I slumped down in my seat and cried. I had lost it. I couldn’t work with him anymore.

  Chapter 4

  I called Judge Macon to tell him that I didn’t think I could work with Mr. Bradley. There was a long pause on the line.

  “Judge?”

  “Yes, I’m here.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m just not getting through to him.”

  “Ella, you understand what this means, right? You understand that if you turn him out…”

  “Sir, there has to be another facility that he can be transferred to.”

  “No. Like I said before, this is his only option other than prison.” Then I was the one who was silent. “You’ve never turned anyone away. I don’t understand…”

  “I’m attracted to him,” I said bluntly.

  “Oh.”

  “So, yeah, you can see how that is a huge conflict of interest. I can’t properly treat him this way.”

  There was another pause on the line. “Hmm, well, do you think you could maybe get a hold of yourself long enough to save his life? We are talking about a man’s life, Ella. I mean, really.” I was surprised to hear him speak to me that way. “Has he spoken with you about his family?”

  “A little but—”

  “At least talk to him about that before you make this decision.”

  “Fine, all right.” I hung up.

  I spent the evening going over my notes and preparing an outline for our session tomorrow, just trying not to think about how far I had let him get before I had tried to take him down. Or how much he seemed to enjoy it when I did.