Title: Group Therapy Author: BB Easton Genre: Romantic Comedy
I am thiiiiis close to finally becoming a full-fledged psychologist. PhD? Check. Prestigious postdoc position, providing therapy to entitled millionaires and C-list celebrities whose pumpkin spice lattes cost more than my Converse and make excellent projectiles during their reality TV–worthy tantrums? Check. Letter of recommendation from my velociraptor-like supervisor?
That’s going to take a miracle. Not only because my boss said I have to cure our most-prized client’s writer’s block in time for him to meet his insane deadline, but also because that client just so happens to be …
Thomas F*@%ing O’Reardon.
Yeah, that Thomas O’Reardon. The wickedly brilliant, achingly beautiful, devastatingly British best-selling author whose psychological thrillers line my bookshelf at home and whose face I might or might not picture while I … you get the point. Sitting in a confined space with him; inhaling the crisp, clean scent of his cologne; gazing into his broody blue eyes while trying to remember to nod and listen and come up with suggestions that don’t involve taking our clothes off … it’s torture.
So, when Thomas casually asks me out at the end of a therapy session, I’m forced to make an impossible choice: say yes and risk losing my dream job, or say no and risk losing my dream guy. In a panic, I blurt out a third option—the only solution I can think of that will allow me to see this man after hours without it being considered a career-ending ethics violation:
Group therapy.
The only problem? I’ve never actually done group therapy. And side problem: my other clients are heathens. But what’s the worst that could happen? I mean, it’s not like I’m going to lose all control of the group and let it devolve into a chaotic, bloodthirsty, topless fight club. Right?
He wraps his warm, ocean-scented, oxford cloth shirt around my shoulders, and for some strange reason, my eyes begin to burn. I blink the stinging sensation away and focus on my breathing as my fingers instinctively curl around the open material and cinch it tighter around my body.
It feels like a hug.
A hug that I didn’t realize I’d needed so badly.
“Thanks,” I whisper, swallowing the emotion lodged in my throat.
Thomas folds his arms across his chest and shrugs, his shoulders already tense from the cold.
Say something!
“So, you weren’t freaked out by what happened in there?” I ask, tilting my head toward the building where the group therapy session from hell just occurred.
Please say no. Please say you’ll come back next week.
“Actually”—Thomas gives me a crooked smile—“it was kind of fun.” The corners of his mouth drop along with his gaze as it drifts slowly to the ground. “I wonder what it’s like to feel that free.”
“You only say that because you weren’t the one whose client had you in a headlock.”
He laughs silently, and it’s the perfect example of the self-control he wishes he could let go of.
“Maybe that’s why you write about psychopaths,” I add, missing the weight of his eyes on me. “So you can experience what it’s like to be that … uninhibited.”
A crease forms between his eyebrows. “Wrote,” he says, his eyes darkening as they travel to a place even farther away from me. “Past tense.”
With that, Thomas turns to open his car door, and I panic. I panic, and I do the dumbest thing I’ve done yet, which is saying a lot.
I reach out and grab his hand.
Thomas goes completely still.
I go completely still.
Even the wind, which had been swirling brittle orange leaves around our feet, goes completely still as the words, “Will write,” leave me on a shaky breath.
I try to let go of Thomas’s hand, but he laces his fingers through mine, holding me captive. Then, he turns and captures me with his eyes as well.
“Future tense,” I add, unable to look away from the restraint and madness I see warring in his eyes.
Thomas’s gaze drops to my lips, and when I run my tongue along the seam instead of screaming or slapping him or prying my fingers loose, he begins to lean forward. No. He is being pulled forward. By me. By my actions. By my confusing mixed signals. I invited this. And I have to stop it.
But I can’t. My brain is barking commands that my body is no longer listening to. I watch helplessly from inside my traitorous body as Thomas lifts his other hand, slides it beneath my curtain of hair, which is still tucked inside his shirt, and cups the side of my neck.
His thumb caresses the ridge of my jaw, and like the strike of a match, my neglected husk of a body goes up in flames. The heat engulfs me, spreading like a forest fire as it burns away the fingerprints of every man who’s ever touched me before. It ignites something deep inside of me—an inextinguishable need. An excruciating singular desire.
I close my eyes and lean into his touch. And I hate myself for it.
I can’t do this. I can’t kill my career. I can’t sabotage his treatment. But as I stand here, rooted to the spot, with Thomas’s fingers laced in mine and his hand splayed across my skin, I can’t even make myself exhale, let alone walk away.
Just as Thomas’s breath, warm and sweet, dances over my parted lips, as my body tenses and braces for the impact of this wrecking ball of a man, it is the voice of another man that breaks the spell. “Dr. Sterling?”
Wall Street Journal bestselling author BB Easton lives in the suburbs of Atlanta with her long-suffering husband, Ken, and two adorable children. She recently quit her job as a school psychologist to write books about her punk rock past and deviant sexual history full-time. Ken is suuuper excited about that.
BB’s debut memoir, 44 CHAPTERS ABOUT 4 MEN, is the inspiration for the #4 Most-Watched Netflix Original Series of all time, SEX/LIFE. Because she had so much fun writing it, BB went on to publish four more wickedly funny, shockingly steamy, and heartwarmingly honest books, one for each man in her memoir: SKIN, SPEED, STAR, and SUIT.
THE RAIN TRILOGY, an epic, immersive, end-of-the-world romance, is BB’s first work of fiction. Or at least, that’s what she thought when she wrote it in 2019. Then 2020 hit and all of her dystopian plot points started coming true. Hopefully, her feel-good romantic comedy GROUP THERAPY will fix everything.
Their lives shattered, beyond repair, with jagged edges and pieces askew.
Now, Everly has a chance to make things right. To bring healing to the place where everything fell apart. But it means facing the family her father almost destroyed, and the boy with the dark eyes—now grown—who still haunts her dreams.
Just one breath away from having your life ripped out from under you.
The last thing Hayes wants is another reminder of all the ways he failed sixteen years ago. When Everly drives back into Wolf Gap, his only mission is to get her to leave. For his family’s sake, and for his own, those demons need to stay buried for good.
But everything about this woman is a surprise, from her spine of steel to the sanctuary she hopes to create with the land her mother left behind. And Hayes is powerless to stay away. As a careful friendship sparks into something more, someone watches. And they’ll do anything to tear it all apart…
I pressed on the accelerator to make it past the final rise, and as I did, the property came into view. My heart seemed to take up acrobatics in my chest, flipping and tumbling, expanding and contracting. My hands gripped the wheel harder as my foot eased off the gas.
The house itself was in worse shape than I’d expected. One of the walls had a gaping hole in it. But the small guest cabin didn’t look too worse for wear. The cottage had been in my mom’s family for generations, but the house had been my father’s construction after they married. She hadn’t stayed long after he went to prison, choosing to move us down to the flats to live on some land my uncle owned.
While the generations-old construction of the cabin had held steady, the barn and paddocks hadn’t fared nearly as well. The entire structure seemed to lean to one side, and a storm had taken down more than half of the fencing. My back hurt just looking at all the work that needed to be done.
I sighed and pulled to a stop in front of the cabin, releasing my hold on the wheel. My phone dinged, and I sent up a mental thank you to the gods of technology that it seemed I had service up here.
Shay: Are you there yet? Text me the second you arrive.
I smiled down at my phone, feeling a little less alone, knowing that I had someone who would drop anything to have my back.
Me: Just pulled up outside. Cabin looks okay. The house and barn are a disaster.
Shay: Are you sure you don’t want Brody and me to come help you get settled? We can be there in two days.
God, I was lucky to have her as a friend, but I wasn’t ready to open all the doors I’d need to if they came to stay. There were too many skeletons I didn’t want to let out into the light.
Me: Thank you, but I’ve got this. Let me get settled, and then you can come for a visit.
Shay: I don’t like that you’re there all alone.
Me: I won’t be alone for long.
Soon, I would have this place crawling with animals. It had always been my dream to build a home for neglected or abused animals of any kind. A sanctuary. It was simply coming more quickly than expected.
I turned off my SUV, rolled down the windows, and the pine air swept in. It was different than any other type, the Ponderosa pines. And as it filled me, tears sprang to my eyes. I’d missed this, more than I’d realized.
I leaned back in my seat and pulled out my letter.
Dearest Everly,
I know much of this will come a day late and more than a dollar short, but better that than not at all. Even once the doctors told me the cancer had a hold, I couldn’t bring myself to call you, to tell you these things face-to-face as I should’ve. So, I’ll take the coward’s way out. That won’t be anything new. There were so many times I should’ve stood up but didn’t.
But that’s not you. You’ve always been the bravest person I’ve ever known. Even before that night. I should’ve told you, but I didn’t—I’m so proud of you, beautiful girl. You made yourself into this amazing warrior all on your own, without any help from your dad or me.
I wish I had a chance to truly see you shine now. That’s the price for my sins. To miss all of your beauty and light shining on this world.
This should’ve come so long ago, but I’m sorry. For not being there for you. For not getting your father the help he needed. For not taking you and your siblings away when things went sideways. I’m so very sorry that I wasn’t stronger. That I wasn’t more like you.
I don’t have much I can give you, but the land’s still mine. I know a lot of pain’s been poured into the dirt there, but there was good once, too. When I spent summers there with your grandparents. As your father and I made it our home. The babies that grew there. The animals we raised.
Maybe you can find your good there, too.
I understand if you can’t. Or don’t want to. But I know if one person is strong enough to do it…it’s you.
I love you forever and always, my little warrior.
Mom
A single tear splashed onto the page. She’d been gone before I even knew she was sick. Buried before I even knew she was gone. My family hadn’t wanted me there. Not my brother—who I was sure still blamed me for everything—my uncle, or any other vast network of relatives still rooted in the area.
To them, I was the enemy, the outsider. And now, I’d returned. The only one who might be happy to see me was my cousin, Addie, but I wasn’t even sure about that. We hadn’t spoken since I’d left. All of my letters came back, marked as Return to Sender in her father’s handwriting. My mother thought I was a warrior, and I hoped she was right. I would need all my armor if I was going to face them again. Because no one would be happy that I was here. And they’d be downright livid when they learned I was staying.
Writer of words. Drinker of Diet Cokes. Lover of all things cute and furry, especially her dog. Catherine has had her nose in a book since the time she could read and finally decided to write down some of her own stories. When she’s not writing she can be found exploring her home state of Oregon, listening to true crime podcasts, or searching for her next book boyfriend.
SHE’s a good girl, or at least she tries to be. People think Samantha Hunter lives a fairytale life. Only this young, wealthy American in Paris has a secret. If she lets it free, there’s no telling what she’ll do. Being the wild child is one thing. Letting her dark fantasies run wild is quite another. How could she? The better question is…how could she not?
HE wears a suit, but he is not entirely civilized. Oleg Balashov is often hungry for something he’ll probably never find. His closest friends have similar appetites and the private club they own is the perfect place to feed their desires. Oleg is ready to pay an old debt with an arranged marriage, mafia style. Then Samantha appears on a bar stool with just enough curiosity to get her into trouble. She’s in way over her pretty head. Or is it the other way around? The Masters of Club Duval have a new pet and she isn’t so easy to tame. Samantha Hunter is about to rewrite all the rules for these Doms and nothing will ever be the same.
Trigger warning: Oleg owns a whip, and he knows how to use it. After the happily ever after ending, the epilogue of this book will be an introduction to the prologue of book 2, Unleashed.
Finally, he spoke. His voice was a raspy and feral version of itself. “Your safeword… Scream it loud. Scream it at the top of your fucking lungs, because I need your screams today for all the wrong fucking reasons.”
He cracked the whip again, and it snapped her shoulder blade with the thinnest of cuts, sounding like a gunshot, feeling like a hornet’s kiss.
“If I hurt you…” he said.
She turned around, and her gaze locked first on his trembling hand and then his tortured eyes. “I will survive you.”
“If you survive me, then you can have me, because truly I belong to no one else.” The whip cracked above her head.
“Turn the fuck around!”
When she did, he snapped a sideways strike across her ass. Her flesh lit with fiery agony. She balled her fists and inhaled deeply, trusting his control over the nine-foot length of braided leather.
Then a loud thud sounded, and a crash followed. She turned around to see Oleg stalking toward her, his whip strewn across the floor next to a broken vase.
Heavy, billowing breaths blew past his lips. He scratched his chin and then rubbed the back of his head. One last swallow, and he steadied himself. The worst of the storm had passed and she’d survived. In fact, she’d more than survived. Samantha had stood in the eye of the storm and remained on her feet.
“Where the hell did you come from?” he demanded, grabbing both of her shoulders, shaking her once, though she was certain he wasn’t concerned with the name of her hometown.
She didn’t flinch. His hold on her was nothing to fear. Then his thumbs swiped at the teardrops on her cheeks before he decided to sip on them instead. She melted right there. “How did you find me?” she asked the same unseen knower of all things.
God, how badly she wanted this man inside of her. She pawed at the chastity belt, angry at it so suddenly. Danger wafted off him in invisible waves, unspoken, ultrasonic, undeniably magnetic. The beautiful, broken monster had revealed himself, raw, untethered, and she devoured his anger, his pain. It had given her peace even as she hungered to know the limits of his pain, to be at the sharp edge of his despair with him. But why? What could be found in dark, bottomless pools that made her want to jump in? She’d been asking herself that question all her life and still didn’t have an answer.
Alyssa believes that when characters speak to you, you’ve got to listen. She’s been all ears and writing stories in all lengths since childhood. She only wonders where those notebooks of handwritten dramas ended up.
Almost everyone tags her romances as habanero hot, and with her proclivity for the ménage genre, Alyssa is often recognized for weaving complexity and emotional depth into her characters. She has so much fun writing, she can never be relied upon to put the wash into the dryer any time after 10 PM. Luckily, she is married to the most understanding husband in the world.
The Love Has No Regrets collection of novels by Alyssa Turner includes several series with familiar characters threaded into each story. Her LHNR world is ever growing, spanning from Manhattan to Paris, with Polyamorous love that answers only to the heart. Read more about Alyssa Turner and preview her published works on her blog.
