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Just imagine him naked… Talk about the single worst piece of advice anyone had ever given a guy.
Constable Joe Hadley held back a sigh and did his best not to gawp like a teenage boy who couldn’t sit opposite a grown man without making a compete pillock out of himself.
Dr. Rawlings gazed back at him across the desk—tall, dark and as perfect as ever.
Shifting uncomfortably in his chair, Hadley renewed his attempts not to stare. It wasn’t easy. And it wasn’t fair either. Psychiatrists weren’t supposed to look like that.
They were supposed to be…well, Hadley wasn’t entirely sure, but surely any man who spent all his time sitting behind a desk digging through other people’s minds should be… Shorter? Skinnier? Generally far less like the guy Hadley had been fantasizing about ever since he’d realized that gay porn was a damn sight more interesting than the straight kind?
And now that he’d started picturing the man stark bullock naked, he couldn’t stop. The mental image wasn’t making him the least bit less nervous. It was starting to make him hard.
Hadley cleared his throat. “Can we just get this over with?”
The other man’s lips twitched. Hadley had seen that smile creep out when Rawlings was at the police station consulting on a case. Except, back at the station, there were always a dozen other police officers in the room, and Hadley had some chance of blending into the background.
In the station, the feeling that his every reaction was being studied and dissected by the other man was obviously paranoia. In the psychiatrist’s office, it was hard to believe the idea was anything other than perfectly accurate.
“That’s good, Hadley,” Rawlings said, his voice slow and rich with amusement. “This sort of session is always far easier when everyone’s enthusiastic about it, right from the start.”
Hadley wasn’t going to blush. He was twenty-five years old, a serving police officer and lots of other things that meant he certainly wasn’t the sort of man who blushed like a little girl when confronted by a little bit of gentle sarcasm—even if it was drawled by the same voice he often imagined ordering him down onto his knees…
The constable felt the heat rush to his cheeks regardless of all the very logical things he told his blood supply. “I’m not traumatized,” he blurted out, suddenly desperate to just get it all over with as quickly as possible.
Rawlings raised an eyebrow at him. Well, Dr. Rawlings could cheerfully go to hell, because it was the truth. And no man was going to make him squirm like a naughty schoolboy called into the headmaster’s office just for telling the truth.
Hadley folded his arms as he leaned back in the deeply upholstered chair and crossed his ankles. A second later, he leaned forward, clasping his hands together as he rested his elbows on his knees.
“I’m not traumatized,” he repeated, slightly more calmly. “I don’t need a shrink.” When Dr. Rawlings said nothing, Hadley had no choice but to push on. “And, since I’m sure there are a great many people who really do need your help, I don’t want to waste any more of your time than I already have.”
“That makes sense,” Rawlings agreed.
Hadley managed a nervous smile. “So, if you’ll just show me the inkblots or tick the box that says I’m not psychotic then we could—”
“We could just get this over with?” Rawlings cut in.
Hadley leaned back in his chair once more. Not sure what else to say or do, he fell completely still and silent.
After a few seconds, Rawlings nodded to himself, as if that was what he’d been waiting for ever since Hadley arrived at his office. “Tell me what happened.”
Hadley was pretty sure it was supposed to sound like an invitation to share his deepest darkest secrets with a trained professional. Somehow his brain turned it into an order, a command to do as the other man said or accept the consequences when he was turned over Rawlings’ knee.
“Doesn’t it say it all in there?” Hadley asked, nodding toward the folder resting on the other man’s desk. The fact that he was now picturing being spanked by the nude image of the other man really wasn’t improving his ability to concentrate. It was far more fun to wonder if he’d be able to feel the other man’s erection sliding across his abs every time he rocked with the force of a blow to his upturned arse.
“Tell me in your own words.”
Hadley pulled his attention back to the file. He had a pretty good idea what it said. It was all bollocks, of course, but he’d repeated it so often it should have been easy to rattle off the same stupid story all over again.
“It wasn’t like that.” The words were out before he could do anything about them.
“Then tell me what it was like,” the older man invited.
“Is there any chance you’ll tell the Chief Constable I can go back to my regular duties if I don’t?” Hadley knew the answer before the question hit the air, but he didn’t seem at all able to control the words that left his lips right then. He was far too on edge, too exhausted after not sleeping for a month, too sick of it all to control his tongue.
“No chance at all,” Rawlings confirmed.
Hadley sighed and looked back to the file once more. “It says I was taken hostage.”
“Yes.”
“Well, I wasn’t,” Hadley shook his head. “I mean, I was, but it wasn’t the way it sounds in there.”
“Okay.”
It had never occurred to Hadley that calm, patient answers could be so infuriating.
The doctor parted his lips. Hadley didn’t wait to hear the same question repeated yet again. Tell him what happened…
“A call came in from a farmer about three suspicious looking men trespassing on his land.”
“So you went to check it out—on your own?”
Hadley shrugged, sure it was only his over active imagination that made Rawlings sound as if he disapproved. “Half the force was down with the flu. There wasn’t anyone else. The old man sounded really freaked out.”
Rawlings held a pen in his hand. Hadley watched the doctor twist it between his fingers. “And what did you find there?” the older man prompted after a little while.
“Three idiots who were planning to…” Hadley sighed and rubbed at his temple with his knuckle, as if that might finally allow his brain to make sense of it all. “Damned if I still don’t know what they’d have actually done if I hadn’t turned up—they said they were going to rob a security van as it drove down the road running through the farm to deliver cash to the bank in town.”
Rawlings nodded for him to keep going.
“Except there was no delivery. There was no van. There were just three very stoned idiots sitting around in some old barn.”
“That was where you found them?”
Hadley nodded.
Rawlings didn’t say anything for a long time. Hadley couldn’t think of anything to say either. His mind was back on the sight that had first greeted him when he looked into the barn. Two guys, neither of them much older than himself, getting high between the hay bales.
“That’s where I found two of them,” he admitted eventually. “The third guy found me—or at least he found the back of my head with metal bar. I passed out.”
“And when you came around?” Rawlings asked.
“I was still in the barn.” The constable intended the words to come out strong and matter of fact, somehow, they emerged as a whisper.
“Alone?”
Hadley shook his head.
Rawlings seemed to be giving him time to think it all through. Hadley could have done without that sort of kindness. He’d already had more than enough time to replay that moment when he blinked open his eyes and believed he was somewhere else, with a different sort of man.
That second when he’d stared blearily around the barn, his wrists tugging at unexpected bonds. That instant when the feel of the ropes wrapped tight around him made him catch his breath and pleasure rush to his cock. It had been almost indistinguishable from those fantasies he was never quite able to control as his hand worked faster and faster around his shaft. And he’d loved it.
Clearing his throat, Hadley folded his arms across his chest and stared down at his wrists. There was nothing wrapped around them but his watchstrap. He looked away in disgust. His gaze met the doctor’s. Concern filled the older man’s eyes, as if he thought his client was having some sort of horrible flashback.
Suddenly, Hadley couldn’t stand it any longer. He was sick of it. Sick of feeling guilty for things that hadn’t happened, sick of damn near wishing something terrible had happened because then at least—
“Hadley?” The word was very gentle. That just made it worse.
“These aren’t master criminals we’re talking about,” Hadley snapped. “This isn’t some stupid Hollywood blockbuster. The mafia isn’t conducting a campaign of bloody terror against law enforcement. They were just idiots who panicked when a copper walked in on them.”
“And?”
“And what?” Hadley demanded.
Rawlings’ fingers tightened around the pen. Hadley couldn’t blame him for getting pissed off with his hedging, but it wasn’t as if he could tell the guy the truth either.
“They tied you up,” Rawlings prompted.
It was petty to feel pleased with himself for making the man admit that it was all in the damn notes, and he’d already read them. Hadley studied him carefully, wondering if he could convince him to just go through the file while he sat there and agreed with it all. He nodded. “Yes.”
Rawlings stared silently across at him, as if he thought that would make Hadley continue with his account of that night. Hadley stared back at him.
“With what?” the other man asked eventually.
Hadley frowned. He’d gone through the whole story a dozen times. That wasn’t the question that came next. “Does it matter?”
“Does talking about the details make you uncomfortable?”
Hadley shrugged again, unable to keep the nervous little gesture back. “Rope. They took a police officer hostage and they were so stoned out of their minds it didn’t even occur to them to use my handcuffs on me.” He looked down at his wrists, helplessly imagining how the rope might have looked around his skin. They’d tied his hands behind his back. He hadn’t even caught a glimpse. He was still stuck with silly little daydreams.
“Did they hurt you?”
Hadley looked back to the file. “Don’t you think it would say in there if they did?”
“I think this,” Rawlings said, resting his hand on top of the file, “is a record of what you said happened. The question still stands. Did they hurt you?”
“No.”
Rawlings stared back at him, his eyes unreadable.
“You don’t believe me,” Hadley realized.
“I don’t believe you’ve ever told anyone the whole truth about what happened that night,” Rawlings said.
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