[THIS BOOK CONTAINS MATURE THEMES WHICH IS ACCEPTABLE FOR 18+ READERS ONLY]
"Yes?" His deep voice growls. It's so deep, so velvety. I can feel myself getting aroused. Aroused in ways I've never felt before.
"I was told to come and speak to you abou...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Jackson Blake's POV
"What if I can't? What if I can't give him what he wants?" He growls at her. The question stung in the air and it saddened me to hear him ask that. Does he really think he isn't capable of reassuring me? Or loving me?
"It's not a question of whether you can, it's a question of whether you want to. That wasn't the first time you've comforted him during a panic attack, was it?" She said.
"No, he's had them before," he replies, a defeated tone in his voice as he considered the time I'd broken down in front of him.
"And in those moments did you comfort him?" She insists and he gives her a look which answers her question. "So you can do it. You've done it before. What you need to work on is preventing the attacks, not just comforting him when they happen. Your issue isn't with providing comfort in those moments because you already do it, your issue is that you don't know how to prevent them from happening," he nods his head slightly in response and she shoots him an encouraging smile. She was seeing him open up.
"Let's work it out then. When Jackson was talking about his anxiety, why did he say it happens?" She enquires.
"That he has abandonment issues, that he's scared I'll leave," he sighs, letting himself answer the questions rather than building up the walls around him.
"Good, that is part of it. Why does he feel as though you're going to leave?" She presses.
"He doesn't feel confident that I want to stay. He thinks he'll wake up and I'll have decided that I don't want him. And he feels like that because I've left him before. Because his mum left him," he explains, resting his chin on the palm of his hand as he stares at the wall to the right.
"So, doesn't that tell you something? That perhaps the way to prevent him from having panic attacks is to make him feel loved. To make him feel wanted. To make him confident that you want him to stay, that you want him with you?" She suggests and he only nods. "Do you think, with that, you behaviour is sometimes to blame? That, when things are heated or complicated, walking away or dismissing what he's feeling isn't the answer? That perhaps betraying him and sleeping with another woman has been a factor in why he has all these pent up feelings? Do you think your behaviour should change? Is it going to change? Because even after observing our conversation, after listening to him talk to me about those issues, you still chose to ignore him when he asked you to stay. He needs you to stay for him, not just for you. You wanted him to get help, and getting that help includes you understanding and making changes. It took for him to have a panic attack for you to listen and sit down with me. Does that not suggest that perhaps you're the cause? That your attitude and behaviour causes him to panic?" She implies and once again he only nods his head.
"Good, so, over the next few weeks, are you going to work on that? Are you going to stop storming out? Are you going to listen to him?" She asks and he nods again. It warmed my heart, that even with such little words, he was willing to try. "Ok, that's really good. That's a positive step forward. The next piece of homework I'm setting you is to tell him how you feel. Jackson feels so confident that you don't care about him. That you don't love him. That you don't feel the same way as he does. If you want this to work, he can't feel like that. I want you to try and express that to him now," she suggests, he shifts in his seat, and I can feel how uncomfortable he is.
