Done with You

Looking for one night to forget her problems, Oona Young uses an alias and follows a handsome stranger back to his hotel room. Their time together is brief but passionate, and she leaves in the morning, believing she’ll never see him again. Only when her newest patient is the same man who’s seen all of her tattoos, do things get awkward. She’s read his file and knows what he’s dealing with. Ethically, she must refuse to treat him.

Forced into therapy before he can return to active duty as a police officer, Aiden Lassiter has been on the waitlist to see Dr. Young for months. So imagine his frustration and shock when the woman, who hasn’t left his thoughts since that wild night he used a fake name, is sitting in the therapist’s chair and refuses to treat him.
Things can’t get any worse, right?

Oh, but they can and certainly do when he finally works up the courage to visit his estranged brother and Oona ends up beside him on the plane. Little do either of them know they’re in for one interesting Christmas.

You know, one of these days you should probably say something,” Greg said with a slight chuckle in his voice as he rested a hand on Aiden’s shoulder. “You can’t just come to an anger management class and not participate.”

Aiden glared at the man and jerked his shoulder, so Greg’s hand slipped away. “Start seeing a therapist tomorrow. There’s no need to talk here. Just gotta show my face, so you can sign the papers.”

Greg’s brown eyes turned sad. “No, Aiden, it doesn’t work that way. You need both. You need to participate in both. Therapy and anger management together. The therapist is going to help you in a different way. Discuss your trauma and triggers more in depth, get to the root of it all, and give you long-term coping tools. But anger management will help, too. It’s comforting to be around others who experience similar intense emotions. To hear how they cope. To hear how they have slip-ups and how they handle day-to-day triggers. How they can come back from difficult episodes, and make amends with those they’ve hurt. We have tools here, too. But both this class and therapy are required for you to get back to work.”

Aiden ground his teeth together and bunched his fists as he slowly turned around to face the gray-haired man old enough to be his father.

Greg’s dark brown eyes shone like a glass of Coke being held up to the light, with sincerity, then slowly drifted down Aiden’s body until he focused on his fists. His mouth twisted beneath his thick mustache, which had twice the amount of salt as it did pepper. “You want to punch me, don’t you?”

“Did you drink and then drive here?” Aiden asked through clenched molars.

Greg’s brows pinched together in confusion. “No.”

“Then it’s not you I want to punch.”

“See, now we’re getting somewhere. Why can’t you discuss this in class?”

“Don’t need everyone else knowing my business. I’m a cop, and I’ve probably pulled over at least a few of these people. And I know I went to a domestic dispute regarding that tall motherfucker over there and his wife.”

Greg pivoted for a moment to see Damien, who was closing in on six-foot-seven, standing next to the refreshment table with a paper coffee cup in his hand. He was smiling and talking with Terry, a long-time participant and a veteran.

Understanding flashed in Greg’s eyes when he faced Aiden again. “That’s fair. Perhaps this might not be the right class for you. Maybe you need to go to one out of town, or geared specifically for police officers, where you don’t run the risk of being in a class with civilians you’ve witnessed at their worst.”

Aiden snorted and rolled his eyes. “I just want to get the fuck back to work. So just let me come here, sit, listen and stay quiet. These people don’t need to know why I’m here. We’re all here for the same reasons, anyway. We’re angry and we can’t control it.”

Greg shook his head. “No, that’s not it. At least, not all of it.”

Huffing out a breath in frustration, Aiden shoved his fingers through his short brown hair. “Look, I’m doing the best I can. I’ve been waitlisted for this therapist for months, and I finally got in to see her. She’s apparently the best for PTSD and anger. So that’s gotta count for something, right?”

“It definitely does. But you need to actually go to your appointments with her for the healing to begin. And you need to actively participate in anger management, as well.” Greg pulled his phone from his pocket. “Let me call around and see if I can pull some strings to get you into a class elsewhere, where you’re less likely to run into people you know. People you’ve encountered while on the job.”

Aiden grunted. He appreciated Greg’s effort and understanding, but the whole situation just pissed him off. Yes, he’d overreacted when he punched that drunk driver he pulled over. But the guy had his fucking nine-year-old daughter in the car with him. They’d been at a friend’s barbecue, and the dad tied on one too many, thought he was fine to drive home, and was swerving all over the fucking road.

Aiden pulled him over and was furious enough to see the man had been drinking and was driving, but when he noticed the kid in the back, Aiden lost it. He lost his temper, his cool. He lost all sense of composure, reached into the car, hauled the man out, and decked him hard across the jaw.

That’s when he saw the camera-phone vigilante who’d pulled over behind them and was filming the entire thing.

It went semi-viral, and Aiden was cast as the villain in the story.

Not the negligent father who could have killed his daughter.

Aiden was suspended from work—normally he’d have been fired, but someone somewhere was apparently looking out for him—however, in order to return to work, he had to attend mandatory therapy and anger management classes.

But everything was full and wait-listed because the world was an angry fucking place.

He’d been out of work for four and a half months and was going stir-fucking crazy doing nothing every day as he waited for the call that he was next on the list to see the therapist.

He was even willing to see other therapists. And travel to do so. He didn’t have to see this Dr. Young. But apparently, she was the best and the one who was recommended for him. So he had to at least try to see her first. And besides, all the other therapists were booked, too.

“If you want to come by and just chat one-on-one, I’m happy to listen,” Greg said. “I understand what you’re going through.”

“Do you?” Aiden bit back, his voice loud enough that it echoed around the room. All other conversations halted like cars screeching to a stop so a mother duck and her ducklings could cross the road, and every set of eyes in the room pivoted to him.

Greg swallowed, and his eyes darted sideways.

With his face on fire, Aiden squeezed his fists even tighter, shifted his eyes around the room for a hot minute, then spun on his heels and stalked out of the rec center basement into the frigid early December evening in Montreal, Quebec.

He hit the fob for his truck and the auto-start button so the engine roared to life before he was even at the door.

Normally, an event like this would make a person turn to booze. Hit up a bar and grab a drink—or several—to numb their feelings. But Aiden didn’t drink.

He didn’t use any kind of substance, illegal or legal.

His only vice was coffee. The stronger and darker, the better. He drank at least four cups a day. But he was also strict about that consumption and never took a drop after three o’clock, since it would just keep him up. And as a cop who worked two day-shifts, then two night-shifts, then had four days off, his sleep cycle was already fucked up enough.

He climbed into his truck, which was already getting toasty warm, since he made sure to leave the heaters on full-blast before he left, and the seat-warmers were at max, too.

He might not drink alcohol, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t just go sit at a bar, watch the hockey game on the screen, indulge in some nachos and just exist among the carefree.

Besides, it never hurts to have a cop in the bar in case things get rowdy. More than once, he’d had to jump in and help a bartender throw out some degenerates who were getting obnoxious after one-too-many beers, and their team lost the game.

He did a quick Google search for a nearby bar with televisions and nachos and lo and behold, there was a hotel only two and a half kilometers away with just what he was looking for.

With his face still full of flames from that outburst in the rec center, he put the truck into gear and pulled out of the parking lot, careful to keep his eyes peeled for black ice. They hadn’t had a big dump of snow yet, but it was coming, and soon. He could smell snow in the air, and the clouds above were a dense, dark and gray blanket. The thermostat on his dash said it was minus eleven Celsius.

Fuck, he hated the cold.

He drove to the hotel, parked his truck further away than right in front of the front door, so that hopefully nobody would park right beside him and scrape his shiny black Dodge Ram, then hoofed it across the slick parking lot to the entrance.

The hotel wasn’t huge, but the parking lot was absolutely packed.

As he opened the front door to the lobby, a roar of a crowd, followed by applause, made him pause.

The bar was to the left, but the cheering was coming from the right.

“What’s going on in there?” he asked the red-vested hotel staff behind the front desk.

“Monthly pole and burlesque show,” the guy with the name tag that read Rakesh, replied, his smile big and showing perfectly straight white teeth. “Always pulls in a huge crowd.”

“A what?”

“Pole and burlesque. You know, pole dancers.”

“Like strippers?”

“Well … it’s more than that. In fact, I don’t think they take their clothes off at all.” He scrunched his nose. “I mean, they’re not wearing a lot to begin with, but it’s not a strip show. We’re not licensed for that.” He tipped his chin toward the door to the show, just as another cheer made the pictures on the walls tremble. “You should go check it out. These women are crazy strong and fit. It’s an art form. I couldn’t do it.”

Aiden grunted and was about to scoff at the idea when he was interrupted by a loud announcement from inside. “And please welcome the beautiful, the talented, the brilliant … Luna Love.”

The crowd went bananas.

“They do know it’s Monday, right?”

Rakesh shrugged. “Doesn’t seem to matter what night of the week it is; the house is always packed when these ladies perform.”

Another cheer shook the walls.

“How much?” Aiden asked.

“Fifteen, or twenty, and that gets you two drink tickets. Otherwise, drinks are five bucks each.”

“Don’t drink,” he said, reaching into his wallet and pulling out a ten and a five. He took a step toward the room filled with music and more cheering, but then paused. “Can I order food from the bar and have it sent in there?”

“Afraid not, sir, but the show in there will be over in a little over an hour, then you can move to the bar.”

Aiden grunted again, nodded, said a quick thanks, then headed toward the music and cheers.

The place was dark and filled with round tables that sat four people. All the tables were full, and people stood around the edges, drinks in their hands, eyes glued to the stage, as a caramel-haired beauty with a super-sexy silver bathing suit thing that was up her ass crack like floss, and giant cut-outs on her abdomen, hung from a metal pole by nothing more than one bent leg.

Her body was at a ninety-degree bend outward and she was spinning around the pole—or the pole was spinning her around—backward, her arms out.

“Fucking hell,” he murmured under his breath.

“Drink, sir?” a chipper-voiced male server asked.

He glanced down at the kid, who was probably no more than twenty and weighed less than a Great Dane. “Club soda with lime,” he said.

The kid nodded. “Be right back.”

Aiden meandered through the crowd, his eyes glued to the woman on stage. So, this was Luna, as the announcer had called her. She was in ridiculously high, clear, plastic, chunky heels and had just hoisted herself into the air by holding onto the pole with her arms. She spun around a few times, continuing to stay off the ground, then, while still in the air, she flipped herself upside down, hooked one leg around the pole, maneuvered her body so her head was hanging below her legs, and bent the other leg so that she could grab the heel of it with both hands. All while still spinning. All while holding onto the pole with just that one leg at the knee. Squeezing it with her calf and hamstring.

Then, still just using her arms, she lifted her bent leg back up and held herself on her back in the air, in the splits with the pole between her legs, before finally dropping to the ground to her knees in a sexy way, then standing up by pushing her ass up first and flipping her high ponytail.

The crowd went apeshit.

Aiden hadn’t fucking blinked, and when he finally did, his eyes stung and he realized he had a dry mouth from standing there with his mouth open.

“Club soda, sir,” the server said, approaching him with his drink on a tray.

Aiden grunted. “Thanks.” He handed the kid a five, knowing that the drink was probably no more than three bucks since there was no booze in it.

“Change?” the kid asked.

Aiden shook his head, pulled out the straw, and put it back on the tray before taking a sip from the glass.

“Thank you very much,” the server said, his grin getting bigger before he disappeared into the masses.

Luna continued to do tricks and spins on the pole, defying gravity and all other laws of physics, while simultaneously blowing Aiden’s mind.

He’d been looking for nachos and a hockey game to ease his temper, but this was somehow doing the trick, too.

Eventually, Luna’s time on stage was over, but as she bowed and left, the crowd stood up from their seats and gave her a standing ovation.

She bowed deeper, then hopped back up onto the pole for an encore. This time, the move she did certainly had to have wires or something because nobody had that kind of upper body strength. Especially someone who didn’t have enormous biceps. She went upside down, parallel to the pole, hooked one foot around it just at the ankle, then held on with one hand and spun around, giving him a clear view of the tattoo she had on her left shoulder blade, as well as her right tricep. Her other hand and leg just hung out away from her body.

How?

Just. Fucking. How?