Curing Erica's Phobia

The pounding on her door stopped, but the pounding in her head didn't. She welcomed the pain of the headache as penance.She heard steps inside her apartment. She didn't care. It was removed from her, from where she was now. Even when the steps entered her bedroom, she just lay still, staring at the wall, and when the steps moved away, it only confirmed what she suspected. She was well on her way to non-existence. Then there were noises from her kitchen, cupboards banging and pans rattling. Those noises were harder to ignore, but she was working on it; concentrating more deeply on the wall she was studying. After a while, even those noises diminished.

Erica wanted to close her eyes, to sleep, but her eyes wouldn't cooperate. They weren't through studying the wall. And her bladder was becoming more insistent, an annoying connection with reality that she hadn't been able to shed yet. Then the footsteps were back, and a hand was shaking her shoulder. She yanked her shoulder out of his grip and squeezed her eyes tight shut, trying to recover her non-existence. "Get up," Eric said. Her bladder seized the opportunity to ratchet up the urgency. But still, she resisted.

"No. Go away."

She felt his breath on her cheek. "Get up or I will take you over my knee and spank you." Her eyes flew open. When she didn't move, she felt the mattress shift and she leapt up and off the bed, her back to the wall she had been studying. Eric was kneeling on the bed, looking for all the world like he meant to carry out his threat. And he was smiling at her with undisguised humor.

"I made you some soup and my world famous grilled cheese sandwich. Come and eat."

"What are you doing here?" she said, shaking her head and trying to cope with the sudden full frontal assault of reality.

"I came to check on you after my shift. You didn't answer your door."

"How did you get in?"

"Lock pick. Took it off a lowlife." He stood and picked up her cell phone. "I tried to call. You didn't answer."

She shook her head. "I don't want to talk to anybody."

"Fine. Then don't. But come and eat. I'm not leaving until you do."

She took a deep breath. "I'm pretty sure you're exceeding your authority."

He chuckled. "Call 911."

She eyed her cell phone in his hand, watched as he tucked it into his jacket pocket. When she still didn't move, he started around the bed toward her. Erica raised her hands defensively. "All right, all right. I'm coming. I need to go to the bathroom first."

"Don't be too long. It's getting cold. And Erica, lock picks work on bathrooms, too."

She rolled her eyes as he backed away, clearing her route to the bathroom.

When she emerged she had shed the windbreaker, but the apartment had warmed once the sun came out. She kept the shorts and tank she had run in that morning. She saw he had set a place at the island counter for her. He stood from the stool where he sat, and pulled one out for her. She paused. His stool was so close to hers, too close. But maybe he didn't mean to sit. He still had his jacket on. Maybe if she started to eat, he would go. She forced her feet to move again, finished crossing the room and sat on the stool. The smell of the tomato basil soup and even the greasy cheese sandwich stirred her stomach back to life.

He picked up a coffee cup and went around to the far side of the counter to pour more. "I hope you don't mind. I made some coffee. I'm addicted to the damn stuff. Do you want some?"

She shook her head. "It keeps me awake at night." She took a sip of the soup. "I'm eating. You don't need to stay."

He leaned on the island counter across from her. "I just poured some coffee. Hate to see it go to waste." She could feel his eyes on her, but she kept her own eyes lowered, focused on the food in front of her. After a few minutes, he refilled his coffee cup again, then came around the counter and sat on that stool so close to hers. He was sitting, facing her and he had to spread his knees, one to each side of her stool, he was so close. One of her hands gripped the counter. She was determined not to let him know how tense his proximity made her, but perhaps his detective's sense had told him already, because he leaned even closer and his knee brushed her knee. Erica gasped, scooting to the edge of the stool.

"What's the matter?" he asked softly. She could smell mint and coffee on his breath.

"You're too close," she blurted out, leaping to her feet.

"Sit," he commanded, but he backed his stool away slightly. She forced herself to sit, kicking herself for confessing too much. She concentrated on eating the soup, ignoring his eyes that were studying her so exactingly. She finished the soup and had started on the sandwich before he spoke again. "This morning, in front of your stairs. I left you room. You could have brushed by me, but you didn't. Now I understand why. It would have been too close. I would have been too close. Here, I thought it was my charm that won you over." He paused, noting that she had stopped eating, was holding the sandwich midway between her mouth and the counter. "Eat," he said sternly.

After she took another bite, he said, "So, is it just me? Anybody? Any guy?"

"Drop it," she snapped.

"Oh, no. This is far too enticing a puzzle for a detective," he said with a chuckle.

She tossed down the remnants of the sandwich and wiped her hands, sliding off the stool. "It's a phobia, okay? People have phobias."

She went around the island into the kitchen and took an open bottle of wine out of the refrigerator. He followed her, reaching to take a wine glass from the rack. "So how close can I get before it kicks in, hmm?" He put the glass down next to the bottle she was holding, gauging her reaction with every motion he made. She grabbed for the glass and pulled away from him but he held on to it, pulling her back against the counter, then wrapping around her from behind to grasp the wine bottle with his other hand and fill the glass. Through his chest at her back, he felt her sharp intake of breath, then the trembling that seemed to spread from her center outward. He released the glass, then ran his hands from her shoulders down her arms. Curiously, she stretched her head back, toward him, rather than away, though the trembling became even stronger. He bent his head near her ear. "Talk to me, or I will have to keep exploring on my own."

"Please," she whispered, hating the sound of weakness in her voice. After a beat, he backed away to lean against the island counter. She took a deep drink of wine.

"Liquid courage?" he taunted.

She set the wine glass down and gripped the edge of the counter. "Why are you here?"

"You're a puzzle I need to solve. I'm fascinated with the picture that's beginning to emerge. I have to see more. Did you let Juan touch you?"

She spun around. "That's what this is about? You just have some prurient interest in my love life?"

"Prurient?" he said with a smile and cock of his eyebrow. He suddenly stepped up against her, his hands on her shoulders. She leaned back as far as the counter would allow. "Maybe I just want what he had. Tell me how he got this close." He leaned in and his lips brushed the corner of her shoulder and neck. She let go of the counter edge and planted her hands against his chest, pushing futilely. She could feel him smile against her neck. "Tell me," he repeated.

She gave a final hard push, and he backed up a step, but his hands went to the counter on either side of her, trapping her, but not touching her. "We have ways of making you talk," he said with his best comic leer. "Were you intimate with him, or just a front for his real interests?"

She shoved angrily at him again, with no effect. Her ragged breaths were close to becoming sobs. "He forced me, okay."

"What?" he demanded.

"He forced me to face my fears."

"How?" His voice was sharp, an interrogator's voice.

Now she was sobbing. She slid to the floor, between his arms, and he went to his knees in front of her. "How?" he repeated, somewhat more gently.

"He tied me to the bed, and then he... just... kept... touching me. His fingers, his hands, his lips, his..."

"Like torture," he stated, not quite a question but with just a slight rising inflection.

"At first," she nodded miserably, her breath catching in sup-sups.

His brow furrowed. "At first?" She didn't answer, holding her breath until he became concerned. "Erica, what happened then?"

Her words came very slowly. Her eyes were tightly shut. "And then it became torture when he wasn't touching me."

"Was that just the first time? After that was it more... normal?"

She gave a shrug of sorts, but her head was shaking, and then she said, "Please leave. I can't do this anymore. I can't..." Her head was rolling from side to side against the cupboard behind her, but she seemed to have forgotten the incomplete sentence.

"Nope. Not leaving you tonight."

Her eyes flew open. "What?" she asked, as much in confusion as objection.

"Consider yourself a hostile witness. I'm obliged to protect the evidence in the case." A moment later she was in his arms, hyperventilating from the intense contact and lack of connection with the ground.

"Eric, I can't breathe. Please," she begged.

"Yes, you can. You are. Funny thing. If you can't breathe, you can't talk." He carried her in to the bedroom and tossed her onto the bed. She bounced gently then started to roll to the far side of the bed, away from him. He reached out and grabbed her wrist, pulled her back and snapped his handcuffs about her wrist and headboard before she even realized what he had done. She kept trying to pull away to the far side of the bed despite the handcuffs, as if she just couldn't process what was happening. He disappeared into her closet, and re-emerged with scarves. A moment later, he had her spread-eagled on the bed.

"Was this how he did it?" he asked, not touching her. She was gasping too hard to answer, as if the air had been sucked from the room. "Slow down and breathe," he said, removing her shoes.

She stared at the ceiling, trying to calm herself, so she could reason with him. "Please," she whispered.

"I intend to please you. But unlike him, I won't torture you. I'm only about pleasure. Unless you misbehave," he added as an afterthought.

He pulled a flick knife from his pocket and opened it, keeping it from her line of sight. "I owe you a jogging outfit," he told her, studying her shorts and tank top. "A more discrete outfit that doesn't show your ass every time you bend over to stretch."

"What?" she said, craning her neck to look at him. Her confusion was breaking through her fear, until she saw the flash of the knife and felt her shorts falling away. Her eyes were wide as the knife was slicing through her top, up the center of her chest. He pulled the halves aside, taking care not to touch her skin. He closed the knife and returned it to his pocket.

"Now see, I know you have a sports bra because you were parading around in it and nothing else the other day. Yet here you are not wearing any. Why not just wear a tee shirt saying come and get me."

"I had a windbreaker on," she snapped.

He smiled faintly at her flash of anger, then he openly admired her body, now covered only by a pair of panties. "If this was mine, I wouldn't be able to stay away from it," he said with awe.

"Untie me, damn it! You've made your point, whatever the hell it was."

He chuckled. "I must not have made it very well." He removed his jacket and tossed it into a chair, then turned sharply at her gasp. He followed her gaze to the gun in his shoulder holster. "I'm sorry. I'll put it in the other room." When he returned to the bedroom, he remained in the doorway, looking chastised. "Another phobia?" he asked quietly.

She wanted to rail at him, but she only closed her eyes and nodded. After a moment, she said, "You don't have any spiders on you, do you?"

He burst out laughing, then moved cautiously to sit on the edge of the bed. She took a deep breath, but seemed to control her reactions beyond that. He was watching her closely, studying her again. "I want you to be angry at me, not afraid of me."

"Congratulations. You've succeeded. Now will you untie me?"

"Not yet. Because I want to turn your anger into something else, something healthier."

She glared at him. "Now you're a psychologist?"

"I prefer sex therapist." Then he was moving to the end of the bed, stretching out between her legs, careful not to touch her.

"Oh, no," she objected, trying to squirm away from him, but she only succeeded in rubbing her thigh against his shoulder, which led to a sharp intake of breath and an attempt to spread her legs even wider.

Eric blew softly on the crotch of her panties, noting the hint of moisture with pleasure. He began teasing with his breath alone, focusing on the joining of her inner thighs just below the edge of the panties, coming ever closer to her pussy lips outlined beneath the damp cotton. She was squirming again, but now, her thighs were against his shoulders, pressing as much as the bindings allowed. He began blowing against her slit moving slowly from top and bottom and back again. Her breathing was becoming ragged again, but in a substantially different way than before. When her back arched and her hips flexed, trying to come closer, he grinned and edged forward. Her thighs remained in contact. She was trying to scoot further down the bed when his tongue reached out and sampled the damp cotton. After a moment of more squirming, his tongue again tickled her lips through the cotton, longer and closer to where her clit lay in hiding. She moaned ever so softly.

Taking that as a cue, he ran his tongue along her skin where thigh met the outermost edges of her pussy and was rewarded with a powerful, involuntary arch of her back. Enthused, he kept at it, pushing at the edges of the cloth with his tongue until he had her outer lips exposed and the crotch of the panties embedded between those lips. He teased those lips with the tip of his tongue, watching them swell in anticipation. When she moaned again, he backed off slightly and whispered, "Erica, I need to touch you." She moaned softly and stretched toward him. "I need you to give me permission," he coaxed.

For a moment she didn't respond, and he wondered if he had pushed too hard too fast, but then she answered. "Please. Touch me." Instantly, he was on his knees between her legs, reaching for her panties. Her eyes were closed and she jumped when his fingers grasped the waistband and tore the material away. She jumped again when his hands came to rest on her hips, her breath catching, but she made no attempt to pull away. He slid his hands across her belly and ever so slowly downward, fingers splayed to cover as much of her pussy and the joining of her thighs as possible. Then he pushed his hands underneath to cup the cheeks of her tight, lean ass as he laid back down to let his tongue explore all the new wonders he had uncovered. As long as his hands maintained contact with her skin while they moved, she seemed comfortable, even welcoming of his touch, given the way she had writhed as this fingers slid along her pussy.

He explored every nook and cranny, following every twist and shudder as she seemed to alternately crave, then be overwhelmed by the sensations he was delivering. She was far more sensitive to his touch, even his breath, than any woman he had ever been with. He couldn't help but wonder if that heightened sensitivity was related to her phobia. He watched her closely as he freed one hand and slid it up toward her entrance; letting her feel his finger, guess where it was headed. When he reached her very wet opening, he slid the finger inside with the utmost caution. She had stilled and shuddered slightly at his penetration. She was breathing hard but not erratically. He curled the tip of his finger, searching for that special spot as his tongue reached for her clit, now mostly hidden by its protective hood. His finger and tongue connected with their targets at the same moment and she exploded, screaming "Fuck!" He resisted the temptation to try and draw out the orgasm, marveling again at her hypersensitivity. When she had calmed somewhat, he slowly withdrew his finger and knelt again, peeling his tee shirt off.

He gazed in wonder at the woman spread out before him. Her head was thrown back, her skin was covered with a sheen of sweat. She was breathing even harder now, but deep and evenly. He wanted to kiss that skin, taste the salty sweat, nip at the neck that thrust up so exposed and trusting. It took all of his will power not to devour her in adoration. "Erica," he called to her softly. Slowly, her head turned back to him. Her eyes, open now, drifted down taking in his chest and his abs and the beginning of the vee leading down under the waistband of his jeans. He knew he wasn't ripped like some of the men in the squad, but no woman had ever complained, either. Her expression remained unreadable, though, as her eyes slowly drifted back up to his face.

"I want to touch your breasts," he said, when he had her attention. She nodded slightly and he reached forward, resting his weight on his elbows as his hands moved to gently cup her breasts. Again, she jumped slightly; he felt it more than saw the tremor, but then she stilled and sighed softly. His fingers traced their way to her nipples, and he discovered them to be every bit as hypersensitive as the rest of her. He gently applied his tongue and then his lips to one breast and she writhed under him, making contact with his chest. When she didn't shrink from that contact, he slowly lowered himself until he was resting some of his weight on her.

He began sucking at her nipple, flicking it with his tongue, and she arched, writhing and moaning underneath him in a most gratifying way. When he moved to the other breast, he did so with a trail of kisses, maintaining that contact that seemed to help her cope with the intensity of his nearness. When that nipple too had become impossibly hard under his ministrations, he slid further up, finally savoring the column of her neck and trailing his kisses near her ear. "I want to make love to you. I want to be inside you. Tell me that's what you want, too." He whispered, his lips never breaking contact with her skin. He felt a shudder go through her, but then she whispered, "Yes."

He was off the bed in a flash, pulling his jeans off even as he pulled a condom from the pocket. He rolled it on, aware of her eyes on him. He took a deep breath and forced himself to slow down. He crawled onto the bed between her legs, and leaned over her, not touching. "Do you want me to untie you?" he asked, holding her gaze. After a long moment, she shook her head and he couldn't help but smile. "Too intense?" he asked softly. She nodded. "Tell me how to do it right."

She closed her eyes and trembled. "No one has ever asked before," she said.

"I'm asking now. Open your eyes and tell me, Erica. 'Cause I'm liking this and I want it to happen again."

She looked up at him, but then quickly away, almost shyly. "Slow," she said, "But..."

"But what? Tell me everything you need," he prodded.

"I need you to hold me tight," she answered, her voice strained. "Real tight, because it makes me feel like I'm going to fly apart."

"I won't let that happen," he assured her. "I'm going to touch you now. All over."

She nodded, closing her eyes. He sank down on top of her, staying just far back enough that his cock didn't make contact. He wanted that to be the last touch. He caressed her breasts and kissed them gently. He ran his hands down her back, cupping her ass tenderly. He rolled slightly to the side and slid a hand down her belly to delve between her lips and into the depths of her pussy. His lips kissed her neck and her shoulders. Her breathing was becoming erratic but when he tried to pull away and relieve her of his weight, she strained toward him until he settled back. He slowly worked his way forward until his sheathed cock was touching her, finding her entrance, bathing in her juices. His lips found hers and he kissed her softly as he eased inside her ever so slowly. When she gasped softly, his tongue plunged to meet hers and his kiss became more urgent. After the briefest pause, she responded. He wrapped his arms around her, one clinging to her ribs and waist, the other at the back of her neck.