Free What Piper Needs by Amanda Abbott Page B

really. It’s all there for the taking.”
    “I’ll keep it in mind. Thanks.” He palmed the card and slid it to the edge of his desk, not flipping it over.
    “It’s an experience not to be missed,” Beth assured him as she turned toward the door. She glanced back. “One more thing. If you do that again with your wife, feel free to invite me in. I’d be happy to watch.”
    Michael coughed as his dick jumped, but he didn’t respond.
    Beth seemed genuine enough, but he was too smart to admit anything to her.
    Once she left, he turned the card over. Her name, number, and e-mail had been scrawled across the back.
    Michael grabbed a notepad from his drawer and wrote “My Top Five,” and then listed numbers one through five. Next to the number five, he wrote: Sexual Underground.
    That would be his finale.

8
    __________________________
    ____________

    I nstead of sitting in her usual chair, Piper stood in front of the only window in Marianne’s office. There wasn’t much of a view, just the side of a building, but it was one of only a handful of times she’d bothered to even look out it.
    “Well, you certainly have a spring in your step today,” Marianne commented from her desk. “Sounds to me like you’re on the road to recovery.”
    Piper turned. “I definitely feel springy these days. Life has been very good to me lately. It’s hard to believe life can do such an about-face in such a short amount of time, but it definitely has.”
    “Life is just one big about-face, don’t you think?”
    “You tell me, you’re the professional.” Piper smiled as she made her way to her favorite chair, crossing one leg underneath herself as she sat. “I can’t help wishing life could be a little more consistent, however. It’s been messing with my head too much over the past few years. But when things like this week happen, and everything seems to fall back into place, I finally feel like I have a handle on it, instead of it handling me.”
    “A lot of people feel that same way. You always want to be the one handling your life, not the other way around. That’s why you come here. So you can find better ways to do it.”
    “Yeah, but I have to give credit where it’s due. My friend Emma is the one who hit on the fact that I’m an adrenaline junkie. If we could’ve puzzled that out, say, a year or two ago, I might’ve been ramping up my sex life much sooner than this.” Marianne chortled so loud that Piper blinked. “Did you just snort-laugh at me?”
    Her therapist was slightly overweight with steel-gray hair worn long and natural when many women over sixty cut theirs short and dyed it. “I did.” She looked pleased with herself. “Piper, we’ve discussed your need for adventure almost daily since the very first time you arrived on my doorstep. That rush you feel during sex, and seeing others have it—that’s an adrenaline high. It’s never been anything else. We’ve even discussed how it acts like a drug on your system.”
    Piper was genuinely baffled. She blinked. “Then how come it took me so long to figure it out?”
    Marianne shrugged. “Because you weren’t ready. You still carry fear around with you like a security blanket—fear that you won’t be able to handle the emotional pain that might come with the pleasure. But this time, because you heard it from someone other than me, you listened. I think that’s very telling.” She held up a single finger before Piper could add her two cents. “And it makes me realize that it might be time for us to scale back our weekly meetings and for you to use your girlfriends for guidance. I’m afraid they might be able to help you more than I can now.”
    “You want to stop our sessions?” Piper opened and closed her mouth, but nothing more came out.
    “Of course I don’t want to see you go. But that’s because I enjoy you, not because you need to be here. You bring joy and light to my day, but a good therapist knows when they are no longer of