After Hours
"She's his therapist. She's also his aunt. When he shows up at her door at midnight, two years of professional boundaries collapse in a single night."
The first rule of therapy is boundaries.
The second rule is don't treat family members.
I broke the second rule two years ago when my sister's son showed up at my practice, freshly destroyed by a woman who'd shattered him. He needed help. I was good at helping. The family connection, we agreed, wouldn't matter.
That was the third rule I broke: lying to myself.
My name is Dr. Elena Reyes. I'm forty-six years old, licensed for twenty-two years, and I've never once crossed a line with a patient.
Until tonight.
The knock comes at 11:14 PM.
I'm in my living room, half a glass of Malbec on the coffee table, reading case notes I should have finished hours ago. The knock is frantic—three sharp raps, then silence, then three more.
I check the peephole.
Daniel.
My nephew. My patient. The man I've spent two years pretending I don't see the way I see him.
I open the door.
"I need to talk," he says. His eyes are red. His hands are shaking. "I know this is—I know I shouldn't be here—but I can't—"
"Come in."
I shouldn't let him in. This is my home, not my office. There's wine on my coffee table and I'm wearing a silk robe over a nightgown that barely covers my thighs. Every protocol I've ever learned screams at me to redirect him, to schedule an emergency session tomorrow, to maintain the boundary that's kept us both safe.
I let him in anyway.
He sits on my couch.
Not the leather chair in my office where he usually sits, maintaining the carefully constructed distance between therapist and patient. My couch—soft, lived-in, intimate. The couch where I read, where I nap, where I've spent too many nights alone.
"Tell me what happened," I say.
"I saw her. Jessica. At the grocery store." He laughs, hollow. "Two years of work, and seeing her for thirty seconds undid all of it."
"That's normal. Healing isn't linear—"
"It's not about her." He looks at me. Really looks. "It hasn't been about her for a long time."
Something shifts in the air. I feel it like a physical pressure—the way his eyes move over my face, my neck, the exposed skin above my robe.
"Daniel—"
"I need to tell you something." His voice cracks. "Something I should have told you months ago. Maybe you'll fire me as a patient. Maybe you'll never speak to me again. But I can't keep sitting in that office pretending—"
"Pretending what?"
He stands. Crosses to where I'm sitting in the armchair. Kneels in front of me, the way he's done in session when the emotions get too big, when he needs to feel grounded.
But this doesn't feel like session.
"I'm in love with you."
I should stop this.
I should stand up, put distance between us, deliver the clinical speech about transference I've given a hundred times. What you're feeling isn't real, Daniel. It's a projection—the intimacy of our sessions creating a false sense of connection.
But I've used that speech on patients who weren't also my nephew. Patients I hadn't known since they were born. Patients who didn't look at me the way Daniel is looking at me now—like I'm the only solid thing in a world that won't stop spinning.
"Daniel." My voice comes out wrong. Too soft. Too honest. "You know why this can't—"
"Because you're my therapist? Or because you're my aunt?"
"Both."
"What if I fired you as one? Would the other still matter?"
"You can't just—"
"I'm not a child, Elena." He's closer now. His hands are on the arms of my chair, caging me in. "I'm twenty-seven years old. I've spent two years sitting across from you, telling you things I've never told anyone, and pretending I don't notice the way you look at me when you think I'm not watching."
My breath catches.
"You think I don't see it?" he continues. "The way you uncross your legs when I talk about my ex? The way you lean forward when I describe what I want in a woman? The way you touch your neck when I—"
"Stop."
"Tell me I'm wrong."
I can't.
Because he's not.
Here's what I've never admitted, not even to myself:
I've wanted my nephew since the day he walked into my office.
Not immediately—not consciously. It crept up slowly, session by session. The way he talked about his dreams. The way he cried without shame. The way he looked at me like I had answers to questions he was afraid to ask.
He's built like his father—my sister's husband, a man I once found attractive before she married him. Broad shoulders, strong jaw, dark eyes that see too much. Twenty-seven years old and somehow both vulnerable and solid, broken and unbreakable.
And I'm forty-six. Divorced for eight years. Thick in ways I used to hate—wide hips, heavy breasts, a soft belly I hide under professional blazers. I haven't been touched in three years. Haven't been wanted in longer.
Until him.
Until the nephew I was supposed to help heal started looking at me like I was something worth wanting.
"You should go," I whisper.
"Is that what you want?"
"What I want doesn't matter."
"It matters to me." His hand comes up, cups my face. Warm. Gentle. The touch of someone who's learned how to be careful with fragile things. "Tell me what you want, Elena. Not Dr. Reyes. Not my aunt. You."
I should lie. Should push him away. Should protect us both from the fallout of what happens if we cross this line.
"I want—" My voice breaks. "I want to stop pretending I don't think about you. I want to stop analyzing why I schedule your appointments at the end of the day so I can go home and—" I stop.
"And what?"
"Don't make me say it."
"I need you to say it." He's so close now. His breath is warm on my face. "I need to know I'm not crazy. That this isn't just transference. That you feel it too."
"Transference is what patients feel for therapists," I whisper. "It doesn't explain what therapists feel for patients."
"What's that called?"
"Counter-transference. It's—it means—"
"It means you want me too."
I close my eyes.
"Yes."
He kisses me.
Soft at first—testing, questioning. His lips are warm and he tastes like spearmint and something else, something that makes my head spin. My hands find his shoulders, meaning to push him away.
They don't push.
They pull.
He groans against my mouth, and the kiss deepens. His tongue slides against mine, and I feel something crack open inside me—two years of discipline, of denial, of watching him leave my office and wishing he wouldn't.
"We can't—" I gasp between kisses.
"We already are."
"Your mother—"
"Doesn't have to know."
"I could lose my license—"
"I'll never tell anyone." He pulls back, looks at me with those dark eyes. "Elena. I've spent two years sitting across from you. Telling you everything. Trusting you with all of it. Trust me back."
I should say no.
I stand up instead.
Let the robe fall.
His eyes move over me.
The nightgown is thin—champagne silk, hitting mid-thigh. It hides nothing. The heavy swell of my breasts, nipples hardening against the fabric. The curve of my waist into hips that I've spent years hating. The soft roundness of my belly.
"God," he breathes. "Do you know how many times I've imagined—"
"Show me."
He lifts me.
Hands under my thighs, hoisting me up like I weigh nothing. I'm not small—five-four and a hundred and seventy pounds—but he carries me like I'm precious. My legs wrap around his waist. My arms wrap around his neck.
"Bedroom?"
"Down the hall."
He carries me there without breaking the kiss. Lays me on the bed I've slept alone in for years. Stands over me, pulling off his shirt, and I finally see what I've imagined in the dark.
He's beautiful.
Young and strong in ways I'd forgotten men could be. Broad chest, flat stomach, a trail of dark hair leading down to the waistband of his jeans.
"Your turn," I whisper.
He strips. Stands there naked, cock hard and thick, waiting.
I sit up. Pull the nightgown over my head.
"Elena."
My name sounds like a prayer in his mouth.
I'm bare now. No hiding. All my softness on display—the heavy hang of my breasts, the fold of my belly, the stretch marks from a pregnancy that ended too soon, decades ago. I want to cover myself. Want to turn off the lights.
He doesn't let me.
"You're beautiful." He kneels on the bed, crawls over me. "Every session, I've thought about this. Thought about touching you. Tasting you."
"Daniel—"
"Let me."
He kisses my neck. My collarbone. The swell of my breasts. He takes one nipple in his mouth and I cry out—a sound I haven't made in years, a sound I didn't know I could still make.
"Yes—"
He sucks harder. Bites gently. Moves to the other breast and gives it the same attention while his hand slides down my belly, between my thighs.
"You're wet," he murmurs against my skin.
"I've been wet since you walked through my door."
He slides down my body.
Kisses my belly—soft, reverent, like it's something to worship instead of hide. Settles between my thighs and looks up at me.
"How long?"
"What?"
"How long since someone touched you here?"
I swallow. "Three years."
Something dark flashes in his eyes. "That's a crime."
Then his mouth is on me.
I'd forgotten what this felt like.
His tongue traces my folds, slow and deliberate, like he's memorizing me. He licks from entrance to clit, circling, teasing. When he finally seals his lips around my clit and sucks, I scream.
"Daniel—"
His hands grip my thighs—those thick thighs I've always hated—and hold them apart while he devours me. He eats me like I'm the answer to every question he's asked in my office, like two years of therapy led to this moment.
"You taste incredible," he groans against me. "I knew you would—"
I can't respond. Can barely breathe. His tongue is relentless, his lips persistent, and when he slides two fingers inside me and curls them upward, I shatter.
I come harder than I've come in years.
Screaming his name. My nephew's name. My patient's name. Every rule I've ever followed burns to ash.
"Inside me," I gasp before the aftershocks fade. "Please—I need—"
He crawls up my body. Settles between my thighs. The head of his cock presses against my entrance.
"Are you sure?"
"I've never been less sure of anything." I pull him down, kiss him, taste myself on his lips. "Do it anyway."
He pushes inside.
He's big.
Bigger than I expected, bigger than I've had. He fills me slowly, inch by inch, stretching me in ways that make my eyes roll back. My body remembers what to do even if I've forgotten—opening for him, adjusting, welcoming.
"Fuck," he breathes. "You're so tight—"
"Don't stop—"
He starts to move.
It's slow at first. Deep, rolling thrusts that hit something vital every time. I wrap my legs around his waist, pull him deeper, feel him bottom out inside me.
"Elena—" His forehead presses against mine. "I've wanted this—fuck—so long—"
"Harder."
He gives me harder.
The bed creaks. My headboard slams against the wall. He's pounding into me now, and I'm meeting every thrust, my nails raking down his back, my moans filling the room.
"Yes—right there—don't stop—"
"Never stopping," he growls. "Never—you're mine now—"
The word hits something deep. Something I didn't know I needed.
"Say it again."
"You're mine." He grips my hips, angles deeper, makes me see stars. "My therapist. My aunt. Mine."
I come again.
He follows—burying himself deep, groaning my name, pulsing inside me. We collapse together, sweating, panting, tangled in sheets that smell like sex and wine and broken rules.
After
We lie in the dark.
His head is on my chest, rising and falling with my breath. My fingers trace patterns on his shoulder. Neither of us speaks.
I should feel guilty. Should be calculating the damage, planning how to refer him to another therapist, drafting the apology I'll never give my sister.
Instead, I feel... whole.
"What happens now?" he finally asks.
"I don't know." I kiss the top of his head. "I should refer you to someone else. Officially."
"And unofficially?"
"Unofficially..." I tilt his chin up, meet his eyes. "This can never happen again."
"Okay."
"I mean it, Daniel. This was—we can't—"
"I heard you." He's smiling. That smile I've seen in session when he's working through something, finding his own answers. "You said it can never happen again."
"Right."
"So tomorrow it'll be a new day. Technically not 'again.'"
"That's not how—"
He kisses me. Slow and deep and full of everything we've both been hiding.
"I'll see you tomorrow, Dr. Reyes."
Six Months Later
He moved in last month.
My sister thinks he's staying in my guest room while he saves for his own place. The guest room has never been slept in.
I transferred his file to a colleague. Officially, I'm no longer his therapist. Unofficially, we still have sessions—in my bedroom, in my kitchen, in the shower where he holds me against the tile and makes me forget every rule I ever learned.
"Do you regret it?" he asks one morning. We're tangled in sheets, sunlight streaming through the curtains, his hand tracing the curve of my hip.
"Professionally? Yes. I broke every ethical standard I ever held."
"And personally?"
I turn to face him. This man who was my patient. My nephew. Now something I don't have a clinical term for.
"Personally, you're the best thing that ever happened to me."
He smiles. Pulls me close. Slides inside me the way he's done every morning since this started.
"Good," he murmurs against my neck. "Because I'm not going anywhere."
Some lines shouldn't be crossed.
We crossed them anyway.
And I'd do it again.
Every single time.