After several slow blinks, he looked back down at her forms. “Tell me about your job.”
Jessica smiled, tilting her head to the side, unable to hide the amusement that trickled through her whole body. Actuary intern by day and vampire by night and he asked about her job? “It’s a lot of qualitative and analytical stuff. I help put together spreadsheets and presentations, including researching information about clients and issues affecting them now or in the foreseen future. I spend way too much time justifying and explaining myself to others, but I guess that comes with the territory.”
Her job was not only confusing, but extremely boring to the average person. Why she was good at math and where she got her talent was a mystery. Neither one of her parents liked math, nor did Jude, her twin brother, although he was still good at it. Jude was good at everything.
“Do you like your job?” Dr. Jones looked up for a second then jotted a few notes.
Jessica shrugged. “I’m good at it.”
“That doesn’t necessarily equate to liking it.”
She drummed her nails on the arm of the chair. “Is your secretary your mom? She seemed very proud of you, more like a mother than a receptionist.”
“Let’s talk about you.” Dr. Jones looked up again, lips in a firm line.
“So she’s your mom, right?”
“No. How would you describe your relationship with your brother?”
Jessica leaned back, swinging her feet up on the desk, legs crossed at the ankles. “I’m not here to talk about my brother, even if he’s the reason I’m here. Bossy bastard thinks I need ‘help.’”
“You don’t want to be here?”
“I’m fine with it. However, I wish we could just get to the point instead of engaging in meaningless small talk about my job and my relationship with my brother.”
“And what is the point?” Dr. Jones folded his hands in his lap on top of Jessica’s chart.
She stared at his long fingers wondering if they’d ever seen a day of manual labor in their life. Dr. Jones was handsome, but not ruggedly so, more preppy handsome like a Hugo Boss model: clean shaven, neatly trimmed nails, and perfect white teeth. But he stood easily over six feet with broad shoulders and those soft hands were large. Jessica imagined the body hidden beneath the immaculately pressed layers of his suit far exceeded handsome.
“I can’t be intimate with a guy until I make him bleed.” Her gaze inched up to his face.
Surely a whisper of a voice in his head screamed “cuckoo.”
Jessica wrinkled her nose. “That’s messed up, right?”
Dr. Jones rested his elbow on the arm of the chair, his chin on his fist. He’d perfected the stoic thinker pose. “And why do you feel the need to do that?”
“I need the illusion of control … not the blood, because I’m a vegetarian.” She twisted her lips. “Hmm, maybe it is the blood. Do you think I have a vitamin deficiency?”
“Why do you say illusion?”
Maybe he’d address the possible vitamin deficiency later.
“Because I don’t need my lovers to roll over and play dead. And I don’t need them tied up. It’s really more of a healthy respect. Okay, maybe not ‘healthy’ but a mutual respect. Fifty-fifty.” She rolled her neck to one side and then the other. “Fifty-one-forty-nine … sixty-forty. Well, you get my point. I just need a guy to think I have control, even if I don’t … which I usually do. My father has a high risk job so he’s made sure my mother, brother, and I have the proper skills to defend ourselves.”
“I see. However, self-defense requires self-control. Making someone bleed just to prove a point is not self-control.”
Jessica spun in the chair a few inches so she could see out the window. Dr. Jones’s twenty-seventh story view of San Francisco Bay was stunning. “Don’t you think there should be some law requiring all psychiatrists to have ground-level offices?”
“Have you ever had suicidal thoughts?”
Jessica turned her head toward him. “Is this about my ‘control’ issue? As in I probably feel the need to control my own destiny, including the way I die?”
He jotted down a few more notes. “No, this is about your suggestion that I have a ground-floor office. I want to be sure you have no intention of throwing yourself out my window.”
She looked back out the tall glass panels. “That might be bad for business.”
“I was referring to the window. I don’t own this space, I just rent it. I imagine replacing that window would be expensive and might prevent the owner from renewing my lease.”
Jessica grinned until she felt it tugging the corners of her eyes. Dr. Jones had a sense of humor, even if dry, which proved his approach to treatment was in fact unconventional. And that made Jessica happy … very happy.
“Maybe you should include a damage deposit at the beginning of treatment.” She spun back around to face him.