Page 56 of Nine Months to Bear

Then she clicks her tongue and all the depraved fantasies vanish.

I stay leaning against the desk. She turns to her cabinet and retrieves a small plastic cup, identical to the one I’d left unused in my office. She holds it out for me to take.

“Same instructions as before,” she says flatly. “Abstain for twenty-four hours beforehand for optimal count.”

I take the cup. Our fingertips touch. Just barely, just for a moment. “And if I prefer the traditional method?”

A flush creeps up her neck, but her gaze remains steady. “This is a medical procedure, Mr. Safonov. A contractual arrangement. Not a hookup.”

I beg to fucking differ. I’ve seen you come on my cock, Doctor. I’ve tasted your sweetness off my fingertips. Nothing about this is “medical” anymore.

I step closer. “Is that why you’re trembling?”

Her eyes widen.

For a moment, I think she might finally admit that something is percolating between us. She wants “medical”? She wants “science?” Well, there’s some fucked-up chemistry in the air, and it’s driving me insane. The need to taste her is like coppery blood in my mouth. My fingertips itch and burn, my cock aches, every breath is agony.

It’d be such an easy solution, too. We’ve done it before. She wanted it. I wanted it. We both got what we needed from it.

And so it could happen again, if we so chose. One gentle tug and she’d be in my arms, against my chest, under my mouth. One reach of my hand and she’d be on her knees, on her back, out of my fucking dreams.

I lean in.

She leans in.

I lean closer.

She leans closer.

And…

She steps back. No,lungesback, as if from the lip of a cliff. She snatches up the folder I brought and holds it between us like a shield. Anything she can do to get away from me.

“I’ll review these terms. If there’s anything I object to, I’ll let you know before tomorrow.”

I’m relieved. I’m disappointed. I’m neither. I’m both. “Very well, Doctor.”

As I turn to leave, she calls out, “And Stefan?”

I pause, hand on the doorknob.

“Next time you want to add contract clauses, a phone call would suffice.”

I can’t help my smirk as I turn to look at her again. “Now, where would be the fun in that?”

24

OLIVIA

He’s been gone for a while.

And yet I’m still a fucking mess.

I can’t stop staring at the bloodstained tissues he left behind in my trash can. God, even Stefan Safonov’s blood looks expensive somehow—deep crimson against white, like everything about him has to make a stark, violent statement.

I take a deep breath and regret it immediately. It’s been thirty minutes since he left, and I’m still breathing him in.

I’ve been trying to distract myself with work, but that’s gone about as well as could be expected. The farthest I got was turning on my computer. But the screen has since gone dark, so all I see is my own dazed and confused reflection.