Page 6 of Smoke N' Stroke

“Everything seems cool.”

I caught a flash of a smile before she swallowed it. She nodded and sipped from her black water bottle. After a drawn-out moment she pinned me with a serious expression. I felt like I was in the hot seat and had no idea why.

“Is that how it seems to you, really, Dr. Booker?”

“Sometimes, I admitted.” She waited for me to continue and I contemplated my approach.

It wasn’t unusual for Dr. Patton to get my thoughts on new hires, but this was the first time shechallenged my assessment and I did understand the reasons for it. It was clear to anyone, that Nala wasn’t exactly warm to me, and everyone was warm to me, hot actually, but I didn’t exactly ask for that. Something about me had always been likable and I wasn’t going to fight that as long as boundaries weren’t crossed.

Under normal circumstances, I might have been completely transparent with Dr. Patton and shared how much I thought Nala hated my guts and also how she challenged me almost every day. Not only that, how resistant she was to the use of cannabis as a treatment option, though that was no secret to anyone at this point. However, maybe it was my blind loyalty to her or maybe because I licked her pussy until she creamed in my mouth just 200 feet away from Dr. Patton’s office door—whatever it was—I didn’t want to reveal the tension or that I acknowledged it existed between Nala and me. Not yet.

“I think she’s still adapting to how we do things around here but that’s nothing a few more months with the team won’t help her with.”

“Maybe you could help her with it too,” she said. I thought of all the ways I wanted to help Nala adjustto me, but I knew that wasn’t what Dr. Patton was referring to.

“I’ll see what I can do on the trip.”

She lifted her head and smiled. “See that you do.”

I nodded and turned to go back to my office.

“Oh, and Dr. Booker…”

“Yes?”

“Use unconventional methods. That seems to help you make breakthroughs with your patients. Nala may need a bit of that too. Now get out of here and take advantage of the early dismissal like I’m going to do.”

Her smile held a hint of mischief that I wasn’t sure how to interpret. I went back to my office, but each step made me more upset at Nala’s reaction and my insistence to keep things peaceful with her when Dr. Patton was looking for the truth and it was anything but peaceful between us. My relationship with Dr. Patton had always been positive, and even though the rumor was I was her favorite, I happened to know she could go hard on me when I got hard on myself. Working in her clinic motivated me to help my community more than my previous job at the psych hospital so if anyone deserved to know what was up, it was her and yet I kept that to myself knowing itwouldn’t assist me with a twofold mission: help Nala see the benefit of working together with me and also the benefit of taking my dick.

Seriously though, even though I was serious as a muthafucka about that, Nala’s response made me feel as if I wasn’t valued in her eyes. But I needed to push that away as much as possible because first, she was an employee who needed me to help her feel welcome, and two, as I admitted earlier, I liked her. A lot.

Her office door was cracked when I approached it. I took a deep breath before pushing it open and finding her seated behind her desk.

“You didn’t have to seem so bothered by us going on this trip together.”

She looked up from her laptop and peered over the black-rim glasses she wore for computer work. I found it interesting that we both wore glasses at least for part of our day. Me for reading and her for her computer work but hers seemed to fit her perfectly and only make her more provocative which I’m sure she didn’t realize. Even now with her look of irritation, it was clear she was working at it and I didn’t care because I saw through it. God, she was gorgeous. So smart, so sexy, and irritating as fuck.

“Who said I was bothered?”

My laugh sounded brittle even to me. There was a part of this game we were playing that bothered me more than anything else. It was the denial aspect. We’d already been halfway down the road together which meant I knew her enough to know that her asking to not be the one to attend the conference with me and instead putting up Tricia as an option had everything to do with her conflicted feelings about us. That wasn’t debatable and yet that’s how she wanted to play it.

“Really? You want to play this game with me, Nala?”

“I’m not playing any games,Dr. Booker. I only wanted to know why she would want me to go of all people. Besides, you probably could think of a million reasons you don’t want me at this conference.”

I didn’t hesitate to respond. “Not one.”

She paused. Our eyes held for a moment, and I smiled to myself when I saw her succulent breasts rise with her deep breath. Yeah, she wasn’t ready, but she was getting there.

“Be that as it may,” she said curtly like we were strangers and not two people who enjoyed some evening delight in the closet down the hall, “if Dr.Patton wants me there, I’ll be there. That’s all there is to it.”

“Cool. So, there’s no problem?”

“None at all.”

For some reason, the lies coming from her pretty lips were beautiful to me. I let her have each one because they told me what she truly wanted. Me.

“Good. You should head out of here. It’s starting to get late, and Raheem had been told he could get off at four at the latest. You know he was happy about that, so he asked me if was I okay with locking up and I said yeah but I had no idea that you were still here.”

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