Let Me: An O'Brien Family Novel (The O'Brien Family Book 2) (13 page)

“I . . . I don’t understand,” she says, pulling her hands away from me. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No,” I bite out, unable to look her. I try to put some space between us, swearing when I lift my hips and agony rips through my groin. Son of a bitch, no way can I drive her home like this. “Take my truck.”

“What?”

The pain I’m feeling sharpens my tone. “The keys are on the kitchen counter. Take my keys, take my truck. I’ll come by for it in the morning.”

“I don’t understand,” she says again.

I don’t have to look at her to know she’s upset. I hear it in her voice. She wants and deserves an explanation. But I can’t explain what I don’t understand myself. I open my mouth to try―Christ above, I owe her that. Yet all I do is end up snapping my jaw shut.

“Finn . . . please talk to me,” she begs.

“Just go, all right?” I say, trying to keep my voice soft and doing a shitty job. “Call me when you get there so I know you’re safe.”

I expect her anger, or at the very least some serious name calling. But, this is Sol―the same woman who meets me with a wide smile and who fits too perfectly tucked against my shoulder. So instead of shouting, arguing, or demanding an explanation, things that would make me feel even shittier, she backs away in silence.

Which is way worse than anything she could have said or done.

I don’t watch her dress, don’t bother sneaking in one last look at her bare skin; don’t try to assure her that it’s me, not her. Hell, I don’t even bother to say goodbye. All I do is stare at the door long after she shuts it, knowing I’m more fucked up than I ever could have imagined.

And I’m only getting worse.

CHAPTER 14

Finn

“How was your weekend?” Mason asks, exactly the way he does every time we meet.

My counselor―the one that court appointed therapist thought would be a great fit for me―sits across from me in tweed (I shit you not) pants. He has his legs crossed as always, causing the tassels on his shiny leather shoes to dangle to the side. The last person besides Mason I saw wearing tassels was a stripper, and hers didn’t exactly dangle from her feet.

“All right,” I answer, because it’s already ten minutes into our session and I haven’t said jack.

“Just all right?” he asks.

No. It sucked balls. Sol left, and she won’t talk to me. She didn’t even text me to say she arrived home safe. Instead I received a text from Sofia saying she’d driven my truck back to her and Kill’s place. No, that didn’t raise suspicion or anything. No, that didn’t cause Kill to rip into me. Oh, wait―it did.

“What happened?” Kill yelled. Wren gave me a lift to his house, and while she guessed something was up, she didn’t expect Kill to be so pissed, just like she didn’t expect to be shoving her way between us.

Kill doesn’t lose his temper often, but when he does he really loses it. “I asked you a God damn question,” he hollered when I didn’t respond. “What happened between you and Sol?”

“None of your fucking business,” I fired back.

My comment only pissed him off further. “She’s my wife’s cousin, Finnie. Not someone you can whore around with.”

“I said, it’s none of your
fucking business
,” I repeated, shoving my face an inch from his. Sofia’s cousin or not, what happened between me and Sol is private. No way am I disrespecting her.

Kill knows I’d never force a woman to do something she wasn’t ready for. But I’ll admit, it doesn’t look good on my end. Sol was upset when she left, Sofia probably saw as much. They don’t know what went on between us and I think it scares them, especially given how I’ve been lately. But no matter how tight me and Kill are, I couldn’t exactly tell him she left because I couldn’t have sex with her, even though that’s exactly what happened.

I couldn’t have sex with Sol
, I repeat in my head, barely believing it myself. I couldn’t have sex with this hot woman who I can’t stop thinking about, who gets me so worked up, I want to tear her clothes off with my teeth
. Christ, what’s wrong with me?

“You seem troubled,” Mason says, tilting his head to the side as he scrutinizes me. “If there’s something you want to discuss, I’d like to help if I can.”

“Would you?” I ask in a way that would make most men back away from me.

Mason smiles softly, like I’m not capable of bashing his face in . . . probably because it’s true. Despite that I’m royally pissed, like I said, I don’t hurt those who are weaker than me.

“I would,” he answers.

“I got some head over the weekend,” I tell him. There, he wants to know something about me, there it is.

If I’m expecting a big reaction―slacking jaw, widening eyes, even a gasp―it doesn’t happen. Don’t get me wrong, my response gives him the barest pause, but not much more than that. If anything, he’s probably shocked I finally said something worth scribbling in his notes. “Did it feel good?” he asks.

“What?” I respond like a dumbass.

Okay, maybe I’m the one who ends up being shocked. It’s a simple question, one any guy should be able to answer without much thought, and a cocky smile. But it’s the way that he asks that throws me off―not like how guys in a locker room would ask―but in the same manner I’d ask if it’s going to snow.

“I asked you if it felt good,” he repeats. “You’ve mentioned there are times you feel numb, as if you’re disconnected from the world.”

I didn’t use those exact words, but it’s more or less the one thing I’ve managed to tell him during this whole time we’ve been meeting. “That’s right,” I say.

“So did it feel good?” he asks. “Were you able to derive pleasure from it?”

“It felt . . . great,” I say, thinking back.

“So you successfully felt something during the act? That numbness you often experience failed to manifest, correct?”

I nod, but again that cocky grin that should form based on the topic doesn’t appear. My expression and tone remain tight. With Sol,
damn
, I always feel. That disconnect he mentioned doesn’t happen when she’s around. I thought it was because she’s a woman I’m hot for, but based on what Doc Mason is saying, I can’t be positive that’s all it is.

“I felt everything,” I confess.

“What about the other piece?” At my frown he explains. “You claim it’s something that gave you pleasure, but was it a pleasurable experience?”

It’s then I realize where he’s going, and what he’s asking, and I swear it’s like a freight train hits me at the same time the light bulb goes off. “No. I wanted it to stop.”

He nods as if he’d anticipated my response. “Why do you think that is, Finn?” When I don’t answer he asks. “Do you think it was your partner?”

“No, S―”

I cut myself off when I almost say her name, remembering she works here and could get in a shit storm of trouble for messing around with a client. “Sal’s awesome,” I say. “Among the best people I know.”  

“Sal?” he asks, like he doesn’t believe me.

“Yeah, Sal,” I say. “It’s short for Sal . . .veeno . . . ah.”

“Salveenoa?”

Shit
. “It’s French,” I add, because I haven’t lied enough.

“Very well,” Mason says, clearly humoring me. “Is Salveenoa a man or a woman?”

“A woman. I’m not into men.” I shake out a hand. “No offense.”

The corners of his mouth lift. “No offense taken, Finn,” he assures me.

He considers me a moment. “So you like Sal, I take it.”

“I like her a lot,” I say.

“Do you trust her?”

“I guess,” I answer. “I mean, we haven’t been together long. I’m not exactly giving her my bank account information or anything, but yeah, I trust her.”

“Do you trust her not to hurt you physically?”

“Like punch me?” I ask. “She’s not the type to take a swing at me just because I annoy her.” I huff. “Not like psycho Chelsea, my ex. Shit, she hurled a toaster at me once.”

Mason cuts me off by lifting his hand. “We’ll get back to Chelsea. When I ask if she’d harm you physically, I mean during the act.”

“When she was going down on me?” I ask. At his nod I say, “No, she wouldn’t bite me or anything crazy―at least not on purpose. But I do have a big penis so she did accidently scrape me with her teeth.”

“That’s not what I mean,” he clarifies. “Let’s talk about what was happening when she was giving you pleasure. Were you able to watch her?”

I freeze because me and Mason here are going someplace I hadn’t planned on when I first plopped down on this leather couch. I can say yes, and switch subjects. I can tell him I’m done talking and we would be. But this thing has been eating me alive. So I stop playing and give it to him straight, even though everything male about me calls me a pussy for doing it. “No.”

“Did you encourage her movements or motions?”

Again I say, “No.”

He nods like we’re getting somewhere, even though I’m not exactly sure where the hell we are. “Has it always been this way for you when it comes to oral sex?” he questions.

Damn it, here we go. “In a way, but in another way it was a lot worse this time.”

For a few beats we just watch each other, both of us waiting for the other to say more, and me expecting him to tell me I’m screwed in the head for feeling what I’m feeling. Instead he asks, “Tell me, what you usually do during oral sex?”

“When I give it or receive it?” Again it’s like we’re talking about the stupid weather.

Mason thinks about it. “How about when you give it?”

“It’s not something I usually do,” I admit.

“Why?” he asks.

I don’t know what’s up with me. I want to tell him, but it’s like I can’t answer.

“Is it an act you don’t enjoy performing?” he offers.

It’s probably TMI, but I tell him anyway. “It’s actually something I love doing, but I don’t do it often.”

“Why?” he questions again.

I give it some thought. Who am I kidding? I give it a lot of thought, recalling that fantasy I had about Sol―the one I rubbed off to after she left―the one where I’m spreading her legs wide and burying my face against her.

I drag my hand through my hair, pulling my head out from between her thighs and back into reality before I pop some serious wood. “The times I’ve done it, it’s always been with a woman I’ve been with for a while, someone who I know is clean and who isn’t going to give me an STI.”

“So when you choose to perform, it’s with someone you feel safe performing it on.”

I should just nod and move on. But if I do, it’s like I might miss something I’m failing to see. “It’s not only a safety thing. It’s more like if I go down on her, then she’ll feel like she
has
to go down on me to return the favor.”

“So this goes back to your aversion to receiving oral sex.”

“I’m not opposed to it,” I tell him, frowning. “Like I said, it feels good. It’s just . . . Hell, I don’t know what I’m trying to say here.”

He leans back, giving me time to gather my thoughts to say more. But I can’t seem to, and he picks up on it. “From what I’m hearing, Finn, you enjoy the sensation, but you’re incapable of enjoying the act.”

I nod despite the tension straining the muscles along my neck and shoulders. “Have you ever achieved orgasm from oral sex?” he asks.

“Never,” I admit. It’s then I say a lot more than I’ve ever said to anyone. “I can’t come like that. It gets me hard, and keeps me hard, but the tension it causes makes it uncomfortable.”

“Do you tell your partner as much, or ask her to stop?”

I shake my head, staring at the gray carpet that makes up his large office. “No, I just let her do it.”

“Why?” he asks. “If it’s something you’d rather not do, why do it at all?”

I lift my head, despite how I want to turn away. “Because I’m supposed to. It’s part of foreplay, expected, you know? I’m supposed to want it and enjoy it.”

“But you can’t,” he reiterates.

“No,” I admit.

“How do you achieve release?”

I raise my brows. “Is this relevant?”

His expression is relaxed yet somehow serious. “I believe it is.”

“By fucking a woman,” I tell him point blank.

“When you say ‘by fucking a woman’ are you doing all the work?” He holds out a hand when I cock my head. “Are you the dominant party, the one who takes control?” he explains.

“It’s consensual,” I insist. “I’ve never forced anyone.”

He smiles in that metro-sexual way of his. “I’m not accusing you of overpowering someone through sex, Finn. You’ve never given me any reason to believe it’s in your nature. But when you do have sex with a woman, is it in positions where you’re on top?”

“No,” I say slowly. “I’ve fucked women standing up, and against the wall, on top of furniture, in the shower―you know, the usual.”

I’m not making this up, or trying to impress him. Being a top ranking MMA fighter, women are all over me. He stays calm, recognizing I’m not bragging, his demeanor split between unaffected and concern.

“Take a closer look at these positions,” he says. “
You’re
the one holding them.
You’re
the one imposing your muscle. It’s
your
strength and power you’re demonstrating.”

Again there’s that freight train plowing into me. Holy shit. He’s right.

“Tell me, Finn,” he says. “Have you ever achieved orgasm when the woman has been the one in control, on top of you, masturbating you, anything?”

I don’t know how long it takes me to answer, my mind digging through my memories, trying to find one that will disprove his beliefs. But I can’t. “No,” I answer.

“Then I think we’re onto something here,” he says.

I think he’s right.

“Oral sex is more complex than people realize,” he begins. “It’s perceived that men who receive it are the ones in control, because it’s about them, and how much they’re getting out of it. However, most fail to see that it’s the person giving it who’s actually in control. She’s the one capturing that man at his most vulnerable with his most masculine and susceptible organs within her grasp.”

“You’re saying I don’t like to be vulnerable,” I bite out.