Page 73 of Look, Don't Touch

“I’d prefer you did.” He takes a heavy gulp from his glass, then sets it down while I try not to choke on my tamari truffle. “You’re much prettier to look at and more interesting to talk to.”

Heat flushes my cheeks.

What am I doing? Flirting? Simpering?

A lump forms in my throat. I swallow it. “Why did you donate…so much money to The Veterans Residence of Long Island in Matt’s name?”

“How do you know it was me?” He stuffs his mouth so he can’t answer whatever retort I might give.

“The notes. The donation and the response to my request to remove my blindfold.”

Arlo gulps down the large bite and then takes a drink. He settles back in his seat with his glass. His gaze roves over me as if sizing me up. “I made the donation. And I’ll tell you why if you tell me something about you that no one knows.”

My mouth moves, but he stops me with a twitch of his chin. He points his glass at me. “To be clear, you can’t use the excuse that I’m your patient anymore. You’ve never let your patients suck your clit until you come.”

“To be clear.” I smile. “I didn’t come when your mouth was on my clit, but I would have.” I pinch a piece of lobster with my chopsticks.

“Keep talking about it, and you will.”

My thighs clench. I drop the lobster, abandon my utensils, and sit forward. I unbutton the top three buttons on the slim-fitting blouse and spread it wide. The sinister eyes of my dragon stare across the table at Arlo Judge.

“Each of my tattoos has meaning. No one knows what they are except me. Not my aunt, not Astor, not my tattoo artist. They’re for me. No one else. It’s why I don’t show them often. People ask incessantly. When I don’t answer, they take it on as a mantle, a new challenge. Even those closest to me. But you’ve never asked. Not in the room at Crave and not after, when you’d figured out who I was.”

“If you want me to know, you’ll tell me. If you don’t, you won’t. And either is okay.”

“Which is why I want you to know.” I look down at my oldest friend. “The dragon was my first tattoo. Smokey.” I smile at his name. “The artist argued with me for days, trying to convince me to start with something smaller, something prettier, something befitting of a girl like me. Needless to say, I found a new artist who worked this monster into my chest for ten hours straight.”

Arlo sits across from me, his expression nothing short of enraptured in the mundane words I say. His food is forgotten. My lower lip wobbles. He sets his glass aside.

“I got my dragon to protect my heart against any idiot who would try to take it or try to break it.”

“And has he done his job?”

“Relentlessly.” I button him up because, for the first time, he wavers.

“Matt didn’t have your heart?”

“No.” I chew the inside of my cheek. “I’ve wondered if I’d loved him if it would have saved him, but that’s not fair to me.”

“He loved you,” Arlo says as a matter of fact, no intonation, no accusation.

“As you said, Celeste once fancied herself in love with you. Matt did with me.” I play with the edge of the table, spreading a droplet of water from a dot into a line. “He knew nothing about me. He liked how I looked from the outside, from the little piece of me that I let clients see. He liked that I listened to his problems and offered solutions. That was it. I cared for him, but never more than I should have.”

“Your simple care is more than most people’s love.”

Astor had said something similar. Why does it mean more coming from him?

I grab my glass and guzzle half of it. “I’ve given. Now, answer my question.”

“I donated because I knew he meant something to you, and you mean something to me.” He offers a palm up. “Nothing more. Nothing less.”

“Nothing more? That’s a whole damn lot, Arlo.” I stand and walk to the window. My heart shakes inside my fucking chest. Tears prick my eyes. My dragon is failing me.

I like this man and genuinely want to spend time with him, digging until I’ve discovered his every thought and understood his every feeling, yet he’s unavailable to me. And maybe that’s why I like him so much. Because I know this is doomed before it’s even begun.

We both have traumatic baggage creating a barrier between us, and he has…

“What about your woman, the one you came to therapy for? Is she so easily cast aside?”

---