Stare Me Down (Stare Down) (6 page)

“Oh, I do know, and I’m sure you don’t.”

“But—”

“Because if you did, you’d know whether it was two women, men or a woman and a man, there has to be some flexibility.”

Now he was insulting her? She smoothed her hands over her lap and remained calm. Elegant. She’d show him she was perfectly unflappable. “I’m open-minded and I can be more than flexible when it comes to discussing these types of things.”

“Discussing?” Were his eyes twinkling again? They were. “I wasn’t talking about discussing anything. I was talking about practical application.” He snatched the item in question out of the trunk and grinned holding it out level in front of him. “Tell me, doc, how could two people enjoy this at the same time without breaking it or themselves? Why, they’d have to be a set of book ends to get this to work.”

He had a good point there, now that she thought about it…‌although why she was even thinking about it was disturbing her more by the second. Especially when she saw the big picture. How the hell had he done it? He’d marched in here and taken over. Commandeering the lead role until she’d lost their test competition. The one thing she swore she wasn’t going to let happen had. She’d given up ground to him and after examining the particulars, now she knew why. He was trying to unnerve her. Worse, he was using her anger to his advantage. He wanted her to be furious with not only him, but herself. And she was.

“Very clever. Are we done?”

“No.” He tossed the dowel in the trunk, plunked the lid over the top and held it up. “Remember what you said this was?”

“Yeah.” She pinned him with her best glacial stare. “Your toy chest.”

“It’s actually my magazine holder. I hate a messy place. This is where I keep them. As for my toy chest?” he chuckled, and the husky sound was sinister. Wicked. Attractive. “My equipment has its own room.”

She snorted. She knew all about dungeons. She also knew Ramsey Taylor clearly didn’t need a special room or the accompaniment of equipment to torture a person. “Congratulations. I see you’ve mastered the art of eliciting a cognitive response out of a subject. Impressive, but not very gallant if you ask me. I suppose desperation to be somewhere else was a key factor? I hope so, at any rate, otherwise you’re just plain cruel. So tell me, why was it so important for you to get out of these last appointments?” She reached down and collected the papers from her test. Straightening them, she said, “Clearly you are the saner one out of the two of us, so I’m sure you’ve got a good excuse at the ready.”

She got up and put the stack of papers on the desk, continuing to pack things up without looking at him.

“I cheated.”

She dropped her can of pens and whipped around. “You did?” Her heart pounded, even as her mind scrambled to come up with a plausible how.

“Yes. Don’t you want to know how?”

She was dying to know. But the more sensible part of her was silently screaming, say no. Say NO. “Yes.”

“Sit down, Jaxx, and I’ll show you.”

It was his tone. It went through her like a hot knife plunging into freshly churned butter. Melting parts of her while it slid in deep. She should have said no. She should have asked him to leave, but the intensity in his eyes, combined with the power that radiated around him, touched her in places that had been lonely for far too long. Parts of her that wanted to reach out and grasp whatever he was silently offering.

“It’s Dr. Gavin,” she whispered. Hating how soft and feminine her voice resonated in the stillness between them. Had he noticed?

Yes, he had, because he smiled. A real “I can see right through you” smile. “You should have just told me to fuck off and get the hell out of your office.”

He was right of course. Clearing her throat she pretended she didn’t hear what he’d said. “Show me? Maybe you should just tell me.”

“Why? Are you nervous?”

The potency of the moment was gone and in its place came some semblance of reason. She wasn’t going to let him run her off. Nor was she going to succumb to her old fears. The ones she’d worked so hard to conquer and he’d unearthed so quickly…
No. You’ve got this, Jaxx.
She did. She could handle him. “All right, Mr. Taylor.” She sat in her chair and pushed her glasses against the bridge of her nose, looking up at him. “Show me.”

His grin nearly blinded her. “I’d love to, but first I think it’s time you call me Aries.

Chapter Four

Aries may have won the battle, but he’d lost the war. Given this he had no idea why he was sticking around. His end-game with the test had been to get her riled enough to confront him. When she did he’d win and therefore have his out. It had been right there. Right in front of him and yet, here he was, standing with trunk in hands, ready to what? Mess with her some more?

Abso-fucking-lutely.

“I’m not going to call you Aries. Your friends call you that, and I’m not your friend.” Jaxx pushed back against the chair so hard he feared it was going to swallow her up.

“I think someone’s a sore loser.”

She blew a stray lock of hair out of her eyes and stared at him. “I didn’t lose, you cheated remember?”

He stepped to the desk and plunked down the trunk, right over her papers, before he took off the lid. Grabbing the hook and the tape, he turned to her. “Sit up straight, please.”

“Why?”

“Okay, grasp this.” He ignored her and held out the hook.

She took hold of it, but when he picked up the tape she let go, and his “robe hanger” dropped in a bounce on her lap. “What’s with the tape?”

“I was going to do the show before the tell.”

“With the tape and that hook?”

He held her gaze. “Yes.”

“Normally I’d say, I don’t think so, but in this case? I know so. You are not taping my hands to that hook.”

“But I have to. It’s the main attraction to my show.”

“Well, the show’s cancelled, as I happen to like my job.” She pushed on her glasses and added, “And you know, it would be a shame for me to waste that one year of junior college and four years of regular college I completed in two to get here, just so you can be entertained for an hour.”

Sarcasm. Refreshing. “You’d be entertained too. I promise.”

She scooped the hook off her lap and tossed it to him. “I already am.”

Catching it, he didn’t take his eyes off her, saying, “I’m glad, but I can do better.”

“I have no doubt of that, Mr. Taylor. You’re a very resourceful guy.”

She wasn’t going to budge, he could tell. Huh. This was new for him. So what did he do now?

As if she read his thoughts, she sat forward and asked, “Why don’t I entertain you first. How about, you let me do my show and tell, as it were, of your test results. I believe you said you wanted to possibly gain some insight from a professional like me.” She reached around him and grabbed her clipboard off the desk. Checking a page she read. “You said that I could offer ideas and possibly improve your understanding of people because I might know better what makes them tick.”

She was fishing. All right, he’d bite as he wanted to see where she was going with this. “I did say that.”

She upended the clipboard and slid it between the side of the chair and the cushion. “Well, I can’t improve your understanding of other people.”

“No?”

She shook her head.

He was fighting hard not to grin. She was appealing in a nerdy, good-looking-woman-trying-to-downplay-her attractiveness kind of way. “Why? You weren’t paying attention in class? Don’t tell me you were one of those lazy females who slept with their professors to make their grades.”

Her jaw dropped and her eyes widened. “I assure you. I came by my honors degree in psychology by conventional methods. No sleeping around for me.” She looked away.

“That’s a shame.”

That had her glaring. “I simply meant that I couldn’t give you an understanding of people I haven’t met. But I can give you some insight into you, and that may lead you to a better understanding of the people in your life and how you deal with them.”

Not exactly what he was hoping for, but he supposed he could work with it. “Okay. You can go first. But I still get to do mine after.”

Her brows rose in such a belligerent know-it-all manner his palm literally itched to connect with her ass. And if she thought for one millisecond he wasn’t getting his turn, she was in for a rude awakening.

“We’ll see.”

More like she’d see.

He pushed away from the desk and walked around behind it, landing in a
whoosh
in her chair as he rocked from side to side. “That would be fine. Proceed.”

“I really don’t understand why you have such an aversion to my couch. It’s quite comfortable. More so than that chair.”

He stilled and didn’t say anything. He just stared at her, which made her squirm.

“Oh, fine. Suit yourself.”

“I have.” He smiled until he wound up grinning as she pointedly ignored him and carried on.

“Let’s have a look at these.” She pulled the images out from under his trunk and separated them. “The first was this one.” She checked his answer on the clipboard. “You said, ‘mask of a fox.’”

“Let’s skip that one. It’s too easy.”

“Do I need to remind you about who’s running the show at the present time?”

“No. That’s a fine point you make.” He inclined his head. “Because I don’t want to be interrupted when it’s my turn.”

She scowled so hard her brows got lost behind the thick frame of her glasses. “Yes, well.” Looking down at the image, she traced a hand over it. “A mask in any form represents transition.”

“I disagree.”

She shot a look up. “You didn’t let me finish. But how can you disagree when a person who dons a mask instantly changes into something that they weren’t before?”

“In some cultures or tribes, a mask symbolizes the opposite. It’s the unchanging face of their ancestry.” He leaned forward, encouraged by how engaged she was and listening to what he had to say. “To them, it’s a totem of stability. A concrete link to their continuity as a culture. Quite simply, it’s tangible proof of solid structure.”

She frowned and bent closer. “So, you don’t adhere to the belief that masks are the ultimate form of freedom for an individual?”

“I didn’t say that. I only said that masks mean different things to different people, and for you to suggest that a mask only represents transition is a little narrow-minded in my opinion. But then, I’m not the doctor. You are.”

She sat back. “As I was saying before you interrupted me the first time.” She sent him a pointed glare, which he ignored. “A mask frees an individual of his self-consciousness. It gives way for a person to drop social-psychological constraints and be authentic to their nature.”

“Amazing.” He nodded. “You got all that from the fox?”

“Excuse me?”

“The—” he did an air circle in front of his face, “—fox mask image. And no, I don’t think a mask loans itself to an individual being free. I think it’s just the opposite. I think a mask gives an individual an opportunity to hide from himself. He isn’t authentic when he puts on a mask. It’s when he takes it off that he has to face reality.”

“Ooh, very good.”

She spent the next thirty minutes grilling him on his theory and finally when she stopped making notes, he figured it was a good time to ask, “What did you write?”

“A few things to discuss after we go through the rest of these. Now,” she said as she held up the next image. “You said, ‘fat guy on boulder with legs stretched out and big boots on.’”

“Yeah.”

“Father issues.”

“
Buzz.
Wrong. I loved my father.”

She hugged the clipboard to her chest. “Issues don’t always mean something negative, you know.”

“To me, they do.”

She dropped a hand on the stack of images and patted them. “With these, they don’t.”

“Too bad we won’t find out until next week. We’ve gone over by half an hour. It’s a good thing I’m your last appointment for the day.”

“What? Half an hour? We did?”

“That’s okay, but it’s a shame to end now because I think I was close to a breakthrough.” He put his palms on the desk and made to get up but then stopped. “Hey, why don’t we finish the last half hour now? You’ll get to pick what’s left of my brain with the rest of the pictures, and I’ll get to call my time with you as being completed.”

She slowly sat back and eyed him over the rim of her glasses. “I suppose we could combine this and make this a two-hour session fulfilling the added requirements. Although—”

“Great.” He leaned forward plowing ahead so she didn’t have time to change her mind. “So, you were saying? About my issues?”

She hesitated and then blinked. “Right. You greatly respected the male role model in your life. I only assumed it was your father because of the boots.”

“Why? They would have been better for him to kick my ass with?”

“No, although you probably could have used a good‌—‌I mean, ah…”

“I know what you meant. What I don’t get are the boots.”

“Oh, that, it’s typical prodigal son imagery. You gave your respected male role model big boots. Meaning that you subconsciously know you’ll have a hard time filling them while you live up to his expectations of you.”

He let his head fall back as he stared at the ceiling. For no other reason than to contain the instant tightness that squeezed his chest. A whole world of grief was edging for some space and he wasn’t going to let it in. Not now, maybe never. But then an image of his dad laughing as he thumped Aries on the back came to mind. And with that came a wonderful rush of pleasure he hadn’t experienced in so long it made his eyes sting with the memory. A memory of how great he’d always felt when his dad was proud of him. The long missed sensation flooded to the forefront before he could stop it. Damn, it felt good and for just a stolen moment it was heartening.

Taking a deep breath, he let it out slowly. “Very impressive, Doctor Gavin. My father was an honorable man.”

“And the third? You said two bears climbing a mountain?”

“I did.”

“Sibling rivalry.”

He inclined his head. She was right about that one too. Although the feelings this conjured were anything but pleasant.