Dr. Chase Hudson (The Surrogate Book 2) Read online

  Dr. Chase Hudson

  Jessica Gadziala

  Copyright © 2015 by Jessica Gadziala

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

  may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

  without the express written permission of the author except for brief quotations used in a book review.

  "This book is a work of fiction. the names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.”

  Image credit: glebTV/shutterstock.com – used under license from shutterstock.com

  Dedication:

  To Heather(QueenOfBooks) who loved

  Chase even more than I did and convinced me

  to tell the world his whole story. She's the best.

  I am grateful for all her excitement and

  (somewhat constant) forceful “suggesting” (which

  she has told me can no way be confused with “nagging”)

  that kept me on track.

  She's called “dibs” on Chase by the way.

  Don't try to steal her man- she'll cut you.

  :)

  Before The Sessions

  Her file was handed to me in a sealed envelope. I moved to the waiting area, breaking the seal and pulling out the paperwork.

  Ava Davis. Twenty seven.

  Young. That was really young for a typical surrogate client.

  She had a long history of panic attacks and generalized anxiety, selective mutism, and slight OCD. All of which she had opted to treat with talk and exposure therapy instead of medicine.

  I skimmed over her medical records. There was nothing of real importance save for a broken ankle when she was twelve, so I skipped right to the sexual questionnaire in the back.

  Describe, in detail, what you believe is the root of your dysfunction:

  My first sexual encounter was awkward and painful. So painful that I got sick. My boyfriend at the time freaked out, started cursing, telling me I ruined it for him. And ever since then, I just... can't let someone touch me because touching leads to sex, sex leads to pain, and pain leads to men getting really angry with me when I (inevitably) disappoint them.

  Christ.

  Point one for the dickhead first boyfriend. Screwed her up for life while he got to go on and live a normal sex life, surely disappointing every woman whose legs spread for him.

  How many sexual partners have you had:

  Four.

  Four. One would assume her pattern just kept repeating, adding more and more anxiety to a situation she was already uncomfortable with. All of that finally got her to the point of desperation which forced her to seek help. My kind of help.

  It really said something about how determined she was to get better. Because women didn't, almost as a rule, turn to sexual surrogacy. It wasn't that women had much lower rates of sexual dysfunction than men, it was that society made it impossible for them to seek help.

  Women were stripped of their innate complicated sensuality to allow them to become hollow sex symbols. Every magazine on the newsstand was shouting about hour-long orgasms, multiple orgasms, and how to please your man. They make it infinitely clear to women that their place in life was to cater to the sexual needs of male partners who generally prove inadequate in delivering the promised multiple or hour-long orgasms, further devaluing the woman's self worth.

  Without them even realizing it, they are being assaulted with an impossible standard daily.

  And it screws with their heads.

  It made women who would normally be able to achieve an orgasm in the right situation believe she was physically incapable of them.

  Or it made them believe they owned their sexuality and could have multiple sexual partners and no one would think the lesser of them whilst simultaneously slut-shaming them in a society that still, underneath all the “sex sells” mentality, held virginity as the ideal.

  The number of women truly dealing with sexual dysfunction was at least three times what the statistics suggest. They were just too embarrassed or too uninformed of the possibility of getting better to seek out professional help.

  My surrogacy practice was a testament to that fact.

  I had been doing it alongside my normal psychology practice for about a decade. I had a total of twelve clients. I averaged about one per year.

  Twelve women. In a city where hundreds were suffering.

  My clients were generally referred to me by other psychologists who had patients they realized were dealing with dysfunction. I was the only game in town. Hell, I was the only male surrogate in three states wide.

  Ava Davis was referred by Dr. Bowler, someone she had been seeing for years. She had tried more traditional approaches with Ava- trying to bolster her confidence, get her more sexually literate. Nothing had worked.

  I closed her file and slipped it back into the envelope. I went behind the reception desk, hitting a few buttons- increasing the heat in the next room and putting on some soft music, then I made my way to my office door and went in.

  Introductory Session

  I was prepared for her anxiety. I had been ready for her to be sitting ramrod straight, for her hands to be spread out on the cushions beside her, and for her head to snap up in my direction like a scared deer when the door closed.

  All of that, I had expected.

  What I hadn't expected was for her to be the prettiest fucking thing to ever set foot in my office.

  She was slightly taller than average with long legs and an average body type. Not skinny. Not especially curvy either. Her face, though...

  It was soft and feminine, dominated by big brown eyes and framed by long blonde hair, a little beach-wavy. She had a lower lip that plumped slightly out, just begging to be kissed.

  Her eyes were on me, taking me in, her features a mix of relief and utter discomfort.

  “Miss. Davis,” I said, my voice coming out a little tighter than normal.

  “Dr. Hudson,” she greeted in an even more tense tone, pushing her hands off the cushions and moving to stand.

  “Chase,” I said automatically, shaking my head. “Don't get up,” I said, holding up a hand and moving across the room to the alcove where she was seated. I put her paperwork down on the side table and sat in the chair across from her, my head tilting, watching her. Her anxiety was already spiking. Her breathing was coming out shallow, her lips slightly parted, her eyes a little wide. “Can I call you Ava?” I asked, but she wasn't paying attention. I could practically hear her mind racing. “Ava,” I broke in, my voice firmer than normal.

  Her eyes snapped to mine. “Sorry,” she rushed immediately, shaking her head. “I just...”

  “You're nervous,” I said, shrugging a shoulder.

  “Yeah,” she admitted, her breath airy.

  “We're just talking. Think of this as any normal therapy session, okay?”

  “Okay,” she agreed, sucking in a slow breath and letting it out just as slowly, trying to calm herself down. It didn't seem to be working.

  “Your chart says you started therapy when you were fifteen for anxiety issues,” I observed, trying to get her mind off the very prominent elephant in the room for a moment.

  “Yes.”

  “And now you are...” I started, and she quickly cut me off.

  “Twenty-seven.”

  “Any success with the treatment?” I asked, already sensing that the answer would be a resounding 'no' given how tense she was just talking to me.

/>   She made a half-laugh, half-snort sound, running a hand through her long hair, making it fall more to one side than the other. “Yes and no. Every time I get over one thing that makes me anxious...”

  “A new anxiety develops,” I supplied, knowing it was the answer. It was always the answer. Afraid of crowded stores? We fix that and suddenly you can't stand to be out in an open field. Anxiety was a bitch of a disorder to treat.

  “Yup,” she agreed, nodding a little. Her shoulders had dropped slightly. I was sure it was subconscious, but she was losing a little bit of her tension.

  “That must be incredibly frustrating.”

  “You have no idea,” she said, an edge to her tone.

  “What are your current anxieties?”

  “I have issues feeling trapped,” she started immediately, the words rote, like she had said them a million times. “So work can be a problem. Someone else driving me, especially public transportation. Public speaking and...”

  Her words trailed off, her cheeks getting a little pink, her shoulders tensing right back up. Embarrassed. She was too embarrassed to admit she was anxious about sex.

  “And sex,” I supplied for her.

  “Yeah,” she said, her blush getting darker.

  “Okay,” I went on, casual, trying to put her at ease. “I read in your chart that you don't ever remember not having a phobia about sex.”

  “Right.”

  “But you have tried to get more comfortable with it,” I observed, thinking of the number of sexual partners she listed.

  To this, she let out a tight little laugh, sounding nervous and somehow self-deprecating at the same time. “Exposure therapy,” she suggested.

  Caught off guard, I laughed. It was a low rumbling sound that made her eyes shoot to mine, her brows drawing together. “With no success though,” I went on.

  “No.”

  “Yet you kept trying.”

  “Yeah,” she said, looking down at her hands. The air around her seemed to get heavy. Almost sad.

  “So why are you here?” I asked, wanting to catch her off guard.

  It worked. Her head shot up, her gaze found mine, hers looking confused for a moment before settling into what could only be described as annoyed. Like she was angry at me for making her tell me.

  “I'm... frigid,” she answered after a long silence.

  “Are you?” I asked automatically, bending forward toward her, resting my elbows on my knees. I was trying to get into her space, trying to gauge her reaction to my proximity. “Being frigid implies an absence of interest in sex and a lack of sexual fantasies,” I explained.

  “Oh,” she breathed out, looking somewhere near a six on the discomfort scale.

  “Seeing as you are here,” I went on, fighting a smile at the way her eyes kept moving over my features, “I wouldn't call you frigid.”

  “Okay,” she agreed without even thinking about it.

  “Do you have sexual fantasies, Ava?” I asked and watched her eyes go almost comically wide. If she wasn't so utterly panicked and uncomfortable, it would have been cute.

  Her eyes dropped automatically downward, resting on my arm somewhere. There there was something else though. Her thighs pressed more firmly together. It was a telltale sign of arousal. She wanted me.

  Fuck.

  That was good. From a professional standpoint, that was a good thing. It would make the process easier for both of us.

  But on the personal standpoint... it made it complicated. Because I fucking wanted her too. It was not in a professional 'I need to get it up so I can help them get better' kind of way. It was in a very cut and dry 'If I saw her in a bar, I'd have been buried deep in her pussy five minutes from meeting her' kind of way.

  “Yes,” she finally admitted, snapping me out of my image of her beneath me just before it got really obvious where my mind was.

  “Do you get turned on?” I asked, already knowing my answer.

  “Yes,” she said again, her voice barely a whisper.

  “Good,” I said, watching the top of her head. “Ava, can you look at me?” It took her a few seconds, but she forced her head up. “There you are,” I said, giving her a small smile. “It's good that you get turned on,” I explained. “This process will be much easier because you do. Now, I'm sure you did some looking around on my website, but would you like a bit more in-depth information on how this works?”

  “Sure,” she said in a tone that suggested she'd rather get exfoliated by a cheese grater than have me keep talking.

  “Today we talk,” I explained, though talking was the last thing I wanted to be doing. “If all goes well and you are comfortable enough with the situation, we will set up the date for your next session. Each session will gradually lead up in intimacy. Provided things go par for the course, sex will likely happen around the sixth session.”

  She looked a mix of relieved and anxious. “Okay. Wh... what will the first five sessions be then?”

  She stammered.

  Actually stammered.

  And, damn if it wasn't one of the cutest things I had ever heard.

  I offered her a small smile. “The first session is just getting comfortable with contact. At most, it would be kissing. From there, the next session will include undressing. You will learn to get comfortable with your nudity as well as... someone else's.”

  I almost said 'mine' and carefully skirted around it at the last second. From the look of panic on her face, I might as well have not even bothered. She was already thinking about it. Normally, it would be pretty hot to realize she was thinking about me and her naked together. But when she looked as stricken as she did right then, yeah, there was nothing sexy about that.

  “Ava, don't go there.” I reached out, putting my hand down on her knee, trying to ground her, bring her back to the present. “Anxiety doesn't exist in the moment. It is only in the past and the future. So, let's not think about those things, alright? Just be in the moment.” Her gaze went pointedly to my knee. “This moment makes you uncomfortable, doesn't it?” I asked, squeezing her knee slightly.

  Her eyes rose from my hand on her knee to look me in the eye. “Yes.”

  “But not enough to push me away,” I observed.

  “Not yet,” she admitted and I felt myself chuckle, letting my hand drop.

  “The purpose of this is to push you out of your comfort zone. It's important that you don't push me away with the first twinge of anxiety. As I'm sure you learned in your previous therapy sessions, anxiety can really only be treated with exposure to that which makes you anxious.”

  “Right.”

  “So if kissing makes you anxious...” I prompted.

  “I have to let you kiss me.”

  I hadn't expected her to say it. I had expected her to hedge. Or to shut down. To slip momentarily into the mutism. At her words, I felt my eyes slip to her lips for the barest of seconds, thinking of them underneath mine, feeling the desire well up strong and insistent.

  I took a breath, pushing those feelings away.

  “Exactly,” I said, sitting back. I needed the space. I needed to put the professional line back into place. “Only pull away or push me away if you can't talk yourself down. When you get to the point where you can't take it anymore. That being said, I am going to be communicating with you the entire time, trying to work to dispel the fears before they become overwhelming. The point is for you to get to the point where you can enjoy being touched.”

  As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I could see the range of emotions overcoming her face. Most prominently, there was panic. She was freaking out about being touched. Specifically, about me touching her. That was to be expected, but it didn't make it any less troubling.

  “You're a very beautiful woman,” I heard myself say, inwardly cringing at the words. It was unprofessional to talk her up. To, essentially, hit on her. But at the same time, she was obviously struggling with her self-esteem and I w
anted to get a clear image of how much she was suffering.

  “I'm sorry?” she asked, brows drawing together, making two small vertical lines fold above her nose. Like she was confused. Like she thought she misheard me.

  “I said you are a very beautiful woman,” I repeated, watching as something very different from confusion take over her features. If I wasn't mistaken, it was frustration, bordering on anger.

  “Compliments make you uncomfortable?” I asked, already knowing the answer, but needing her to say it.

  “Yes.”

  “Why?” I asked, watching her squirm in her seat, knowing she was getting close to shutting down on me. “Because you don't believe them?” I offered her the olive branch.

  “Yes,” she said, looking relieved to not have to spell it out.

  “Ava,” I said, my voice a little firm. “I don't feed women compliments for fun. If I tell you something, I mean it. It is an observation. You are a beautiful woman. Case closed.” It was a fact. She was beautiful. There was no question about it. Her being unaware of it just made her all the more attractive.

  “Right,” she said in an odd tone. Disbelieving, maybe a little annoyed.

  I couldn't help it. My lips twitched then shifted up to a smirk. She really had no idea. Her steadfast determination to not accept a simple fact was at once frustrating and adorable. “Ava, what do you think the main reason men compliment women is?” I asked, letting there be a pause before going on. “To get women into bed.” I leaned forward, my smile getting a little bigger. “You are here to go to bed with me. Eventually. Do you really think I need to give you compliments?”

  “I guess not,” she said, but I could tell she was only half believing me.

  I fought a laugh. “Exactly. So, you're beautiful. It's a biological fact.” As soon as I finished, I watched her grasp at straws, trying to make herself believe that I didn't actually think she was gorgeous, that I was just saying she had good genes. “And I find you incredibly attractive,” I added, watching her practically pout.