The Submission Sessions Read Online Free Page B

the restaurant in disgust, without paying his share of
the bill. Kerri didn't blame him. First thing Monday morning, she was going to
go find him and apologize.
    And
now she was back in her apartment, alone once more, and just as tormented by
thoughts of Sebastian as she was before. His business card lay on the dresser
across the room, taunting her with its understated yet elegant gold font, and
promising adventure if she was just brave enough to reach out and grab it.
Kerri kicked off the covers, stomped across the room, and threw it in the
bin.   The gesture was pointless anyway,
because she'd looked at it so many times, the number was permanently imprinted
in her brain.
    She
stayed up, aware it was much too early to try to sleep anyway. Friday nights
weren't meant to be so boring. The start of the weekend usually brought with it
the promise of excitement, not the sure and certain knowledge that nothing
memorable was likely to happen before she went back to work on Monday.
    Kerri
grabbed a bottle of white wine from the fridge and shuffled to the sofa. The TV
offered none of the distractions she'd been hoping for. Reruns of shows she'd
seen a million times before did little to lift her mood, and the half glass of
wine she drank while channel surfing made her a little lightheaded again. She
hadn't sobered up as much as she thought.
    Call him .
    The
thought came to her unbidden, and she began to reject it as she had countless
times before … but then she got angry. How dare he turn her world upside down
and then leave her to make sense of it alone? Didn't he know enough about her
to understand why she would never be able to initiate contact with him? Was
this some kind of weird power play, or part of the control he claimed she
wanted him to have over her?
    She
was dialing his number before she realized she hadn't consciously made the
decision to do it. Kerri pulled the phone from her ear after letting it ring a
couple of times and fumbled for the button to end the call, but then she heard
his greeting.
    "Hello?"
    Kerri
closed her eyes as panic set in. Maybe she should just hang up.   What had possessed her? Wine. That's what .
    "Hello?
Who's there?"
    "Me."
    She
heard him suck in a harsh breath. "Is that you, Kerri?"
    "Uh-huh."
    "Is
everything okay? You sound different."
    "That's
because I am different. Thanks to you." She took
another sip of wine to stop herself telling him
exactly what she'd been going through the last few weeks. "And I don't
mean that in a good way."
    "I
don't understand. Has something happened?"
    "No,
Sebastian, nothing has happened … except that I humiliated a good man tonight
because I was trying to get you out of my head."
    "What
do you mean?"
    "I
mean I accepted a date with a guy who's been asking me out for the longest time,
but I shouldn't have gone. Needless to say it didn't go well."
    "I'm
not asking about him. I meant, why were you trying to get me out of your
head?"
    "Because you scare me."
    A
Christian upbringing in the bosom of an Evangelical church made her naturally
wary of anything otherworldly or supernatural, and the way Sebastian seemed to
have read her mind that day in his office still freaked her out.  
    "There's
no reason to be scared. I don't want to hurt you, Kerri."
    "Yeah,
but you might."
    "And
you might hurt me." Seb's laugh didn't sound like it held much humor.
"For all you know, you're hurting me already."
    Kerri
almost choked on her wine. "How is that even possible?"
    "Being
forced to stay away from you and give you the space to decide whether you want
to explore this thing between us hasn't exactly been a pleasant
experience."
    "I
didn't force you to stay away. You chose to."
    "I
asked you to call me. When you didn't, I figured you weren't interested."
    "Right." Kerri couldn't
think of anything else she could say that wouldn't be too revealing. Then
again, she might have already revealed too much. "Hey. You can't do that
Jedi mind trick stuff over the telephone, can