Later the same night
Roche needed a shower.
Cold.
Damn the bigmouths in this town. And damn Lil Dupre for the sneaking, dirty-minded prude she was.
He had hoped the story of what Lil saw and embellished that night had gone away. Enough time should have passed. But why did he think so, really? Once the mud hit you, it never completely came off.
This wasn’t the first time he had taken refuge in his offices on Cotton Street. He came here to think, to find the quiet he must have, regularly, or to deal with any inner demons on patrol. After the scene with Bleu, all the demons were out. He’d driven roads to nowhere for hours before coming here.
Once inside the building, via the waiting room, he entered his consulting rooms through a door behind his receptionist, Crystal’s mosaic desk.
Crystal was beautiful—an asset to him—around thirty and married. And Roche had never looked at her and wanted to have sex. Sure, he thought she was sexy, but that was different.
His “little” addiction took a very different form from that of most sex addicts.
Roche tore off his shirt.
Air-conditioning didn’t cool the kind of heat he felt.
He balled up the shirt and shied it across the room. What was happening to him, with Bleu, hadn’t come up before. He had never felt what he felt now.
Just lust?
Could be. He was the doctor, the shrink, but he didn’t have all the answers.
Love?
He loved his twin. In a way, he loved his father. But the kind of love a man could supposedly feel for a woman? He didn’t know, but he did care about Bleu, he did dream about her, waking and sleeping. He could still feel her skin on his, her hair slipping across his face.
He could still smell her perfume.
And he could still feel her encasing him.
Torn apart. His body and mind betrayed him. Sweat ran down the sides of his face. An erection sprang hard.
Hard, but not only-wanting-sex hard. He wanted Bleu. Now. And he couldn’t have her. She thought he could be a rapist.
From the office, he could go into a bathroom, and a bedroom containing a single bed and a closet where he kept spare clothes. And there was a galley kitchen for those times when he really felt like holing up here.
He kept wine in the refrigerator and the other booze in a cabinet in the office.
She danced nude in his mind.
Roche kicked off his shoes and walked into the bathroom. The bedroom stood open to his left and he went in there, unbuttoning and unzipping his pants as he went. When he got them off, hopping from foot to foot, he was grateful for the freedom.
Inside the dark walk-in closet he saw a shape reflected in a mirror on the far wall. A man. Tall and straight, his face indistinct, the man looked back at Roche. He started to turn away, but let his gaze pass over the rest of the man in the mirror.
Ready for sex. Wanting sex.
Roche averted his eyes, but an image exploded in his mind. Another room, another mirror, the same man, but with a woman. God, she felt like heaven, looked like heaven.
Cool-looking, covered with a white cotton spread, the bed invited him and he closed his eyes. Shudders convulsed him. He shook with the effort it took to hang on and deal with the power of his arousal.
But his need was for her and no one but her.
He hit off the lights and fell onto the bed. Stretched out on his back with his fingers shoved into his hair.
Light in the bathroom sliced a glaring wedge through the door. The gleaming blade cut over the bottom of the bed, over his feet, his lower legs. Every sense shivered and opened like a wound.
At first, Bleu had been frightened of him. She argued otherwise, but he had known what he felt emanating from her. He wanted to tell her the truth about himself, but couldn’t blurt it out. He didn’t know how.
How would he explain? “I’m sexually addicted, not to any and every woman I see, but when I am with one, alone, and she’s willing, then I want to take her and not just take her, but own her.”
Even that was too simple, too general.
I become someone obsessed, insatiable. Sex can be a work of art. Two people can satisfy one another, or they can come together with mind-blowing perfection.
And that was so damned esoteric, he made himself sick.
It could be he didn’t have to put anything into words, ever. By that morning, she hadn’t only started to melt—she showed him how much she wanted passion. She had reveled in herself and the way she felt, the way she felt with him.
Bleu, I don’t just want you to want me—I need you to need me.