Adrian gently withdrew from Stella, and when she turned to face him, he couldn't meet her eyes. Instead, he left the bed and began getting dressed.

"Adrian," she said.

He kept his back to her while buttoning his shirt. "This shouldn't have happened. I'm your therapist, and I've violated a boundary that should never be crossed."

"Please don't say that!" Stella hurried toward him, placing a hand on his shoulder. He tried not to tense at her touch, but he felt sick with guilt. "It wasn't wrong, what we did," she insisted. "And I promise I won't tell anyone."

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "If it wasn't wrong, you wouldn't have to keep it a secret." It required every ounce of his strength to turn toward Stella; he was terrified of what his face might reveal. Shame? Confusion? Lingering desire? He didn't think he was capable of hiding the conflicting emotions rushing through him. Stella waited for him to speak. It gutted him, the way she appeared so desperate for reassurance. He had failed her in every way. "I have to go," Adrian finally managed to tell her. "Will you be alright here tonight?" Though she nodded, her expression darkened with anxiety. "We'll talk about what we should do at your next appointment."

Stella reached for him again, but he took a step back, and she let her hand fall to her side. "Are you angry with me for asking you to come here?" she whispered.

"Of course not, but I'm furious with myself. I need a little time to... think about the situation." He hated to leave her like this, but he had no choice. What kind of mixed message would it send if he spent the night? "I'll see myself out. Take care, Stella." His words sounded too final, like a last goodbye. He immediately wished he could take them back when Stella's face fell, but he only left her in that godforsaken room. She didn't follow him into the living room, where he grabbed his keys and then stepped out of the house.

The drive home felt endless. Glancing at the clock, he was shocked to find that several hours had passed. Had he really spent all that time fucking Stella? Adrian allowed his guilt to eat away at him. It was a kind of futile self-flagellation, but he wanted nothing more than to be punished for his lapse in judgment. Placing the blame at his own feet stopped him from dwelling on the fact that he'd felt like a man possessed in that room.

How could he reconcile his skepticism with what he'd just experienced? It was utterly disorienting to recall the feeling of that presence invading him. A chill slithered through Adrian when he remembered speaking in a stranger's voice, so unlike his own. And the things he'd said! His face grew hot as he thought of the filthy way he'd talked to Stella.

Adrian was exhausted by the time he reached his two-bedroom apartment. After his ex-wife had gotten the house in the divorce settlement, she'd promptly sold it and then left town. Two years later, he couldn't be bothered with searching for a new place. As soon as he let himself inside the dark living room, he fumbled for the light, jumping at shadows. Relief washed over him when he realized that the presence in Stella's house hadn't followed him home.

The long shower Adrian took did nothing to clear his mind. He tried not to think of Stella and the cowardly way he'd left her. Would she sleep in that spare room again? he wondered. Would she welcome that spirit into her bed so she could be fucked for hours more? Despite the shame he felt, imagining Stella writhing beneath the entity's touch made his cock pulse.

After Adrian left the shower and put on a robe, he went to the kitchen to pour himself a glass of wine. He didn't often drink, but he desperately needed something to soothe his nerves now. In the darkness of the living room, he sat while trying to think of a reason for what had happened to him and Stella. The only remotely plausible explanation he could come up with was folie à deux, or shared psychosis. While extremely rare, there were numerous accounts of the disorder in the medical literature. But accepting that would mean accepting his mental state wasn't nearly as healthy as he'd always assumed; it would mean he'd fallen prey to the same psychosis plaguing Stella. That made no sense to him. He wasn't out of touch with reality, and Stella had never before appeared to be, either.

Two glasses of wine made Adrian drowsy enough to go to bed, but his rest was fitful. He kept dreaming of Stella, and in those dreams, he was back in that room, fucking her hard. He took turns sharing her with some disembodied spirit until she was drenched in sweat and begging for mercy. Adrian woke panting and flushed, his cock hard beneath the sheet.

The following day, he could barely concentrate during his sessions with clients. He struggled to form suitable responses to their questions; simply participating in a conversation seemed beyond his grasp. By the time he saw his last client out of the office, he was thinking of canceling all of the next day's appointments. It was merely exhaustion, he told himself. With a decent night's sleep, he would be able to function better.

But when Adrian saw Stella sitting in the waiting room, her hands clasped in her lap, he froze. Neither spoke until his other client said goodbye and left. Then Stella slowly rose to her feet. She was wearing a short-sleeved red turtleneck and black slacks, along with low black heels. Their eyes met, and she gave him a hopeful smile. "I know you said we'd talk next week, but..."

Adrian gestured toward his private office. "Come in." As she walked past him, he inhaled deeply, trying to catch her scent. Even now, he wanted her. His pulse raced at her nearness, and at the way memories of last night flooded into his mind.

After Adrian closed the door, Stella sat down on the couch, as she usually did, and he retreated to his chair, a safe distance from her. She brushed her hair back from her face, her smile wavering a bit. Adrian leaned forward, clasping his hands before him. "I can't be your therapist any longer," he said. "I'll refer you to someone who will be able to help you more than I've managed to."

Her smile vanished altogether. "Adrian..."

He hurried on before she could say anything else. "I want to apologize for what I did last night. I violated my professional obligation to you, and I also violated your trust. I never thought I was the kind of man who would behave in such a way."

"It wasn't your fault!" Stella cried. "I told you that spirit has the power to... to make us do things."

Adrian's smile was bitter. "You asked me if I wanted to stay, and I told you yes. That was no spirit talking."

"I threw myself at you," she insisted. "I wanted it to happen. I'm the one who should apologize!" She was growing more agitated by the second. The last thing Adrian wanted was to make her feel responsible for his wrongdoing.

"You think you're the first client who's thrown herself at me? It's called transference, and we therapists are trained to expect it and to deal with it in an appropriate manner. I always have before. But now?" He held up his hands, feeling utterly defeated.

"Now you're no longer my therapist," Stella pointed out, her voice growing calmer. "Will you please come sit next to me so we can talk about last night? We owe each other that much, don't we?" When Adrian didn't respond, she hurried to add, "And I promise that after today, I'll never bother you again."

His clinical demeanor crumbled at her words. He desperately wanted to take her in his arms, to hold and comfort her. Instead, he murmured, "You have never been a bother to me, sweetheart. But I hate myself right now, and I'm questioning who I am, along with every belief I've held for most of my life."

"Please come here." Stella held out her hand, and Adrian couldn't resist her pleading gaze. Wordlessly, he rose and joined her on the couch. Unable to stop himself, he reached for the collar of her turtleneck and gently pulled it downward, revealing the hickey he'd left on her skin.

"Christ," he muttered, overcome by another wave of self-loathing.

"It's okay." Stella tried to cover his hand with hers, but he quickly pulled away. They sat in uncomfortable silence for several seconds before she cleared her throat. "Can I ask you a personal question?"

Adrian couldn't suppress his grin. "Ask away. I don't think we can get any more personal than we did last night."

Stella snickered, then cupped a hand over her mouth, as if embarrassed. That only made Adrian laugh, too. "Speaking of last night," she said, "I was wondering if you've, uh, ever fucked anyone like that before?"

"Never!" Adrian said. "Are you kidding? I had no idea I was even capable of it!"

"And I've never been like that in bed," Stella confessed. "I wasn't being influenced by whatever presence was in that room. You're the one who drove me wild last night, Adrian." Her lips parted, and he heard her breaths coming faster. "I can't stop thinking about how you made me feel."

Even as several inches separated them on the couch, Adrian could sense Stella's arousal growing. It was infectious, fueling his own, and there was no ghost in his office to blame for the desire coursing through him. He decided to steer the conversation back into safer territory. "Stella, I've been trying to figure out what would make us both behave in such an unrestrained way."

Her brow furrowed in confusion. "But you know the reason why. It's because of him, the spirit in that room!"

Adrian dared to take her hand. "What if there's another explanation? What if you and I are having some kind of shared hallucination? Maybe I've allowed myself to become much fonder of you than I realized, and it's clouded my thinking. Maybe the feelings I have for you made me more vulnerable to believing as you do."

"That's bullshit!" Stella exclaimed, but she didn't withdraw from him. Instead, her grip on his hand tightened. "When you called me a whore, and talked about my greedy cunt, you weren't even speaking in your own voice!"

Adrian turned his face away, as if to hide from her words. "You can't expect me to suddenly believe in the supernatural. There has to be some other reason for this."

"Why?" Stella jumped to her feet and moved to stand directly before him. When he wouldn't lift his head to meet her eyes, she grasped his chin and made him look at her. "What if that room channels some kind of energy? Not a spirit, per se, but a... a sensual energy that manifests in a way our human brains can understand."

Adrian cocked an eyebrow. "And that energy rubs your clit and fucks you senseless?"

Stella drew in a sharp breath, and he noticed a blush heating her cheeks. "Yeah," she replied defiantly, "and you channeled that energy while fucking me for hours last night." He tried to shake his head, but she held him fast. "That's not any crazier than your shared hallucination theory!"

Adrian let out a sigh even while enjoying the feel of her fingers against his skin. "Touché," he conceded with a wry smile. "But can you understand why I'm struggling with this? The way I see the world has changed. I've changed."

"I've changed, too," Stella said. "And I know it's frightening to face the unknown. But I was never once afraid of you last night. Whatever that entity is, it's not evil."

"The fuck it isn't!" Adrian sputtered.

She shook her head. "He could have hurt me. He could have made you hurt me. But he only made us find pleasure in each other."

Adrian considered her words and realized she was right. Last night, he'd experienced unfamiliar, even disturbing, urges, such as the desire to fuck Stella's face, but he didn't want to be rough with her, so he was able to resist the temptation to drive his cock into her throat. And Stella had said that the first time the presence pinched her nipples, it stopped as soon as the sensation became painful to her.

Adrian closed his eyes, incredulous that he was entertaining this line of thought. But he didn't feel he had a choice. None of his rationalizations could explain away what had happened. "I'm sorry I left you the way I did last night," he told Stella. She wrapped her arms around him, and he rested his head against her stomach. "After I was gone, did he come back to that room to fuck you?" Adrian felt horrible asking her such a thing, but he had to know.

"I didn't stay in that room after you left," she said quietly. Her fingers stroked his hair. "I went to my own bed because I only wanted you."

He buried his face against the front of her shirt. "I want you, too," he dared to confess. "So much."

"You can have me." Stella stepped back and pulled the turtleneck over her head. The bra she wore was sheer, her nipples visible through the fabric. Adrian didn't try to hold back his moan of appreciation. "Take out your cock," she said. "I love to see you stroking while you're watching me."

He grinned while obeying her command. "You enjoyed that last night?"

"Oh, yes!" Stella stepped out of her heels before slowly, teasingly, lowering her slacks. "It turns me on to see you so excited."

Adrian took hold of his hardening cock. "And how much does it excite you?" he asked in a guttural voice.

Stella removed her slacks altogether, and when she stood upright again, Adrian's dick jumped at the sight of her crotchless panties. "Why don't you find out for yourself?"

As soon as she was within reach, Adrian pulled her to him. Sinking to his knees on the floor, he pressed his face between Stella's thighs, inhaling her scent. He parted her outer labia and discovered she was already drenched. "Such a naughty girl, wearing these to work today." Already, he was trembling with the need to be inside her.

"I almost embarrassed myself a few times," she said, the words coming out in a breathy rush.

Adrian moaned louder while he lapped at her flushed inner folds. He was drunk on the smell and taste of her. "How so?" With a gentle touch, he massaged her clit.

Weaving her fingers through his hair, Stella pressed his mouth firmly against her cunt. "Well, I kept thinking about your gorgeous cock, and the way it felt deep inside me. And I got so wet while sitting at my desk, I worried I might leave a damp spot on my chair!"

Adrian delighted in suckling at her inner lips; he loved how fleshy and swollen they were. By now, he had her juice all over his face. When he flicked his tongue against her clit, she released a soft cry. "You're well aware of what a greedy little cunt you have." His words made her gasp. "And yet you chose to wear these panties."

"I wore them for you," she whispered. "I was hoping you'd fuck me again."

Adrian wanted to, more than anything. But doubt settled low in his belly, weakening his erection a little. Lifting his head, he met Stella's gaze. "I'm afraid I'll only disappoint you after last night's performance."

She smiled with a tenderness that made him ache. "You could never disappoint me, Adrian. I've wanted you from the moment we first met."

He closed his eyes, hiding the rush of emotion he felt for her then. Stella caressed his face and waited until he'd regained his composure. When he climbed to his feet, she pressed a hand against his chest, guiding him back onto the couch. He quickly tugged his pants and underwear down around his ankles. After Stella moved to straddle him, he could feel the heat of her pussy against his cock.

As she rocked her hips, sliding her wet folds along the underside of his erection, they both moaned. His hands were shaking as he unfastened her bra. Once he'd removed it, with Stella helping a little, he noticed he'd left marks on her breasts last night as well. Now, however, he was gentle while drawing her nipple between his lips.

Stella held him to her breast; the way she said his name made it sound as if she relished the feel of it on her tongue. Her hips moved even faster while he suckled her skin. Sliding his fingers between Stella's thighs, he rubbed her clit, his touch gentle but firm. He couldn't believe he was doing this in his office, and with a former client. But he also knew he was helpless to resist his longing for her. After what they'd done last night, he only craved more.

Stella soon became so excited that she was writhing on his lap. When he lifted his head from her breasts, she gave him a deep, sensual kiss, nothing like those they'd shared the night before. No, this kiss was tender as her tongue met his, but it only served to heighten his need. His fingers pleasured her at a more fervent pace. She moaned into his mouth, her thighs quivering. Already he knew her body well, and the way to make her eagerly respond. Under the sway of that lustful entity in Stella's room, Adrian had learned exactly how to touch her.

When she finally broke the kiss, they were both breathing hard. "I need you inside me!" Her words sounded like a plea, as if he could possibly deny her. Reaching between them, Stella took hold of Adrian's cock and positioned her entrance just above its tip. He let out a pleasured groan as she sank down, taking every inch of him into her warm, wet cunt.

"Ah, yes!" he sighed. "You feel so fucking good, sweetheart!"

The helpless need she saw in his face made her grin. When she began riding him with a slow, gentle rhythm, he rested his hands on her hips. His gaze settled between her thighs; he was transfixed by the sight of their fucking. Stella whispered his name. Meeting her eyes again, he found she looked wild, not at all like the quiet woman who had sat in this office so many times before. He loved the way her skin blushed with arousal.

"Kiss me," he said, aching to feel her lips again. Stella lowered her mouth to his, muffling her cries as she began riding him in earnest. Each roll of her hips thrust her breasts in his face, and he licked her right nipple, his tongue extended to reach that peak. His palms slid over her skin and down to her ass so he could squeeze her flesh.

Adrian grew so aroused that his own hips began bucking. It was then that Stella leaned forward a bit, resting her weight on her knees. She lifted herself upward slightly, which allowed Adrian to thrust deep inside her. While gripping his shoulders, she brought her face within inches of his. Her hair fell around them both. "Yes, yes, fuck me!" she wailed, her breath hot on his face. Her voice shook from the force of his thrusts.

"Stella, I'm close!" he warned through gritted teeth. No longer was he capable of lasting for hours.

"Don't stop!" she pleaded. The sound of their coupling filled the room, and Stella grew frenzied, nipping his lower lip. "I want your cum deep inside my pussy!"

That was all it took to make Adrian climax with a roar. His body strained, determined to drive his cock inside her all the way to the hilt. Stella let out a choked cry just before she began shuddering. Her muscles spasmed around Adrian's dick, coaxing forth even more spurts of semen. When she finally collapsed against him, he held her close, kissing her hair. She trembled in his embrace, her arms wrapped around his neck.

Adrian remained inside her, slowly growing soft. Before their breathing had a chance to slow, Stella murmured, "I've been on the pill for years, so you don't have to worry about not pulling out."

"Mmm, I'm so glad, because I love coming inside you."

Stella took his hand, intertwining their fingers. "Adrian?"

"Yes, baby?" His voice was soft and drowsy; he thought he could doze off right there while holding her.

"If you'd never been my therapist, and we'd just happened to meet somewhere, would you have been attracted to me?"

Adrian smoothed her hair back from her face. "Absolutely! You're a brilliant, kind, and beautiful woman, Stella." His words made her beam. "But I also would have been a little hesitant about the age difference between us."

She gazed up at him, a grin dancing on her lips. "Why? You can't be a day over thirty-five."

That made him chuckle even as he said, "Try forty-three."

"Doesn't matter. You're sexy as hell." She planted a kiss on his mouth for emphasis.

"I'm thrilled you think so, but I'm also recently divorced. I often wonder if I'd be a suitable partner for anyone."

"Of course you would! You just need to find the right person." Her eyes searched his face, and he knew she was trying to gauge his reaction to what she'd said. The truth was, Adrian had begun to think the right person was in his arms at that very moment, but he kept quiet, not trusting himself to speak. Stella toyed with the top button of his shirt. "I understand why you wouldn't want to get involved with me now. You know all my hang-ups and flaws from therapy."

He stroked her cheek. "And I still care for you, deeply."

Stella smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. "And even though you're no longer my therapist, I know you can't just start dating me. It would look bad."

Adrian sat up a little straighter. "What are you trying to tell me, Stella?"

Her stare met his again. "I'm telling you that I meant what I said earlier. I won't ask you for anything more than this. I don't ever want you to feel obligated to spend time with me simply because you're holding onto guilt about what we've done."

"That's not why—" Adrian began, but she pressed a finger to his lips.

"Last night, you said you needed time to think about all this, so I'm going to give that to you, Adrian." Stella eased off his lap and stood. He watched while she grabbed a tissue from the box on his desk and used it to wipe between her thighs. Then, she began getting dressed.

"Stay," he urged gently.

Stella only shook her head. "Once you've figured things out, you know where to find me," she told him with a wink. "If you decide to stop by my house in the future, I promise we'll steer clear of the spare room."

Adrian climbed to his feet and dressed as well, all the while trying to think of a way to convince Stella to remain with him. She'd just pulled her shirt over her head when he asked, "Will you be safe there alone? In that house?"

Her expression was almost amused. "I won't be alone. You know that."

Adrian leaned forward to grasp Stella's arm. "But will you be safe... with him?"

The question hung in the air between them, seeming to take on its own weight. "Of course," Stella finally whispered. "Whatever that presence is, he's changed my life for the better. Just as you have." Before leaving Adrian's office for the last time, Stella kissed the corner of his mouth, making him hunger for more. "I really hope I see you again, Adrian," she said.

Then she was gone.