The Cure He Craves

Chapter 9

I moved through the dark house toward the master suite, my stockinged feet silent on the hardwood. The order to heat my dinner sat in the air like a verdict, but I bypassed the kitchen entirely. I needed a shower. To wash the office’s sterile lemon scent from my skin, and the phantom pressure of a man’s need from my leg.

The bedroom was as dark and cold as the foyer. I didn’t turn on the light. Light felt like exposure. I went straight to the en suite, closing the door behind me before flicking the switch. The fluorescent bar above the mirror buzzed to life, casting a harsh, surgical glow.

I avoided my reflection. Deliberately. I kept my gaze on the marble countertop, on the monogrammed hand towels, on the chrome faucet. My hands went to the buttons of my silk blouse. My fingers, usually so deft, fumbled. The first button slipped twice before I freed it.

As the blouse whispered open, I shrugged it off, letting it pool onto the floor. I didn’t pick it up. The small rebellion was acid in my throat. Next, the clasp of my bra. It released with a soft click. The cool air of the bathroom touched my skin, raising goosebumps. Still, I didn't look up.

My skirt zipper was a louder sound in the quiet room. I stepped out of it, out of my stockings, leaving a puddle of charcoal wool and black silk on the white tile. I stood in only my panties, arms crossed over my chest, staring at the shower door. The glass was fogged with condensation from no one. It was always slightly damp in here, like the building itself was sweating.

My reflection was a peripheral ghost, a pale shape at the edge of my vision. If I looked, I would see the woman who had pressed her heel into a patient’s erection. I would see the clinical mask. I could see the faint red mark on my chin from Marcus’s grip. I kept my eyes lowered.

I hooked my thumbs into the waistband of my panties and pushed them down. They were simple, cotton. Practical. Nothing like the lace I sometimes thought about buying and then never did. I stepped out of them, kicking them toward the rest of the discarded clothes.

Naked, I felt the chill more acutely. And something else—a heightened awareness of my own skin. The memory of Mr. K's gaze was a physical touch. It had been assessing, hungry, stripped of all pretense. It had seen me, not Dr. Voss. I had felt seen. The realization was a shiver that had nothing to do with the cold.

I finally risked a glance in the mirror. Not at my face, but lower. At the faint, old scar on her hip from a childhood fall. At the curve of my waist. At the plain, unadorned body of a woman who lived a carefully curated life. There was no evidence of the afternoon’s transgression on my skin. It was all inside, a fever under the surface.

I turned the shower knob. The pipes groaned in the walls before water erupted from the rainfall head, a sudden, roaring curtain of sound. Steam began to billow, clouding the glass door, obscuring the mirror behind me. Relief loosened my shoulders. I could hide in the steam.

I slid the door open and stepped into the scalding spray. It hit my shoulders, my back, a punishing heat that was closer to pain than pleasure. I welcomed it. Let it burn away the feeling of his tremor traveling up my leg. Let it wash the scent of his expensive cologne and his sharp, humiliated sweat from my memory.

I tipped my head back, water sluicing over my face, into my mouth. I could still hear my own voice, so calm, so controlled. Is this what you wanted? I had asked it to humiliate him. To reassert the boundary. But the question had been for myself, too. And the answer, in the secret, shameful core of me, was yes.

My hands moved over my body with clinical detachment, scrubbing with a bar of unscented soap. I washed my arms, my stomach, between my legs. The touch was mechanical. Efficient. I was cleaning a vessel. But when my fingers brushed over my own n****e, a sharp, unexpected jolt of sensation made me gasp. My eyes flew open.

I stared at the white tile wall, water streaming down my face. My breath hitched. The reaction was involuntary, a betrayal by my own nerves. It was the same shock of contact I’d felt through the sole of my shoe. The connection. The power.

My hand stilled. I didn’t touch myself again. I just stood there, letting the water pound around me, feeling the echo of that jolt spread through my belly, a warm, unwelcome ache. Guilt curdled in my stomach, sour and familiar. I was married. I was a doctor. I had prescribed him medication to make the feeling go away.

But the prescription was in my desk. And the feeling was here, in the shower with me, naked and undeniable. It was the feeling of having held a man’s submission in my hand, fragile and complete as a bird’s heartbeat. Marcus controlled through fear. I had controlled through revelation. The difference was a canyon.

The water began to run lukewarm. I shut it off. The sudden silence was deafening. Dripping, I stood in the stall, listening. The house was quiet. Marcus was downstairs, or in his study. I was alone with the steam and the aftermath.

I slid the door open and reached for a towel, wrapping it around myself tightly, a fresh cocoon. I avoided the mirror again, now a fogged-over slate. I didn’t need to see. I could feel the shift inside me, a door I’d believed locked and dead-bolted now standing ajar, letting in a dangerous draft. The precipice wasn’t out there. It was here, in the quiet of my own bathroom. And I was already leaning over the edge.