After making sure that I was ready, I walked to the door and opened it.
It was when I was halfway to work, however, that I decided that maybe I wasn’t all that sure about this man. Why did I care if I dressed up around him or not? He wasn’t going to see what was underneath.
Chapter 5
Thongs—the best thing since sliced bread.
-Tate’s secret thoughts
Tate
She was wearing a thong.
The skirt she had on today was shorter…way shorter.
It was also skin tight, and I had a feeling that she had no clue that she was showing me the goodies.
Though, that had a lot to do with the way the glass table was pushed up close to her knees.
In the reflection of the glass I could see pink, and bare skin.
It wasn’t much, not at all, but it was enough for my dick to like what it was seeing.
When I’d arrived, she’d had me sit down, and then had jumped up about five minutes into our session when her pen had run out of ink.
She’d stood up, placed the pad of paper in her seat, and then had turned around to grab a pen from her desk, leaning over the back of the wide, plush chair to do it.
That’s when my eyes had gone to her ass—hey, I was a man. What could I say?
The lines had started at the top of her skirt, right underneath her lower back. The lines then went down the side of each thigh.
I didn’t have confirmation that she was wearing a garter belt and thong until just then, seeing the pink stocking clips on the outsides of her thighs, and the reflection in the glass.
“Can you tell me what went through your head when you saw the victim in court?”
“What victim?”
She growled and started to explain.
“When you saw the young men that you’d hurt after they’d hurt that girl, were you angry? Sad? Upset in any way? Tell me what you were feeling.”
I shrugged. “Not any more or less pissed off than after I was forced under control by those officers.”
She sighed and closed the book—the book I was convinced that she was doing nothing but doodling in—and set it on the table next to her left knee.
“All right, Mr. Casey.” She stood and smoothed her skirt down.
Doesn’t matter if you do that. I still know what you’re wearing underneath.
I followed suit, and started making my way to the door.
“I want to try something different next time,” she said to my back.
I halted with my hand on the doorknob and turned slightly to look over my shoulder at her.
“What kind of different?”
She crossed her arms over her chest.
“Somewhere not in a formal setting,” she said. “Somewhere where you can feel more comfortable to speak to me without the fear of having your words used against you.”
My brows rose.
“I’m not fearful that you’ll use anything against me,” I told her honestly. “There’s nothing I can say to you that’ll cause this all to turn out any differently. I’m broken. Always have been, always will be. Ain’t nothing you can say to fix that.”
She opened her mouth to protest, but I held up my hand. “Text me with a time and place, and I’ll be there.”
Then, without another word, I yanked open the door and walked out.
I was unsurprised to find her father sitting in the reception area.
I couldn’t wait to see what he thought of today’s outfit.
He’d never had a problem with letting Hennessy know that her outfits were out of line.
I remembered one time, what felt like a hundred years ago, when he’d disliked something she was wearing. He’d forced her to spend the rest of the day in his office while the rest of the youth got to have a fun time—even though the rest of them were dressed nearly identically to what she was wearing.
The guy was an asshole, plain and simple. Overbearing, hateful, and if I were being honest, not really a man of God.
But that may just be me.
“Afternoon, Reverend Hanes,” I drawled as I made my way out of the office.
Reverend Hanes looked up at my voice, and then skittered past me when a movement behind me caught his attention.
I knew the moment he saw her.
I also knew that he was about to lay into his perfect ‘untouched baby girl.’
“Please, for the love of all that’s holy, tell me you are not dressed like that in front of God and this entire town,” Reverend Hanes growled, standing up.
Hennessy came to a stop directly behind me, and froze.
“Father, what are you doing here?”
“I’m here because he’s here.”
I pointed at my chest. “Me?”
Reverend Hanes lifted his lip in silent snarl. “You know what you are.”
Sure, I knew what I was.
I wanted him to say it, though.
But before anything else could come out of his mouth, another patient walked in, this one looking around like he was about to fuck up everyone in the room.
My body tensed.
I’d spent years in prison, and thirty years in hell before that.
I was thirty-seven years old, and I didn’t have a single good memory where I didn’t have to be on alert. When I walked into a room, it was getting scanned by me in case there was something in there that had the possibility of fucking me up.
And no, my fifteen years in the Marines—Oorah—weren’t responsible for that.
My shit mother was.
Seems like, when you're raised in a house where your mother whores herself, not because she has to, but because she wants to, you have to learn how to defend yourself at an early age…or else.
I learned that early in life, and when my mother watched me get the shit beat out of me instead of helping me, I realized that being a mother didn’t make you a mother.
So yes, on Sundays my mother may go to church and act like she was God’s child, but on every other day of the week, she spread her legs for fun. Let her Johns pay her bills, and in return, she turned the other cheek if someone liked little boys.
In a roundabout way, she was responsible for me learning how to protect myself early, and inevitably that saved my ass when I was in the Marines.
A whole lot of fuckin’ times.
Funny how life worked like that sometimes.
“Ms. Hanes, I really need to speak with you,” the man with the crazy-filled eyes demanded.
I looked over at ‘Ms. Hanes’ and gauged her reaction.
Her flinch was telling.
“Mr. Finch,” Hennessy smiled woodenly. “Won’t you come back to my office?”
The Finch character did, slamming the door shut before Hennessy could follow.
“Mr. Casey, I’ll see you next week.”
With that, she turned around.
“I’ll see you next week, too,” Reverend Hanes growled.
I gritted my teeth and watched him leave, then took a seat in the lobby and waited.
Exactly forty-six minutes later, Finch walked out of the office, his eyes still as crazy as they’d been when he walked in.
He paced into the reception area and looked at the walls like a cornered bear. “Gotta go.”
Then he left without another word, looking over his shoulder twice at the building he’d just exited before he rounded the corner.
“What are you still doing here?”