Page 112 of Bonds of Shame, Bonds of Lust

He caught it. Of course he caught it. "You had me pegged as what, exactly, Lacey? I'm the father of your patient. What were you thinking?"

"I thought you were a cold fish," I conceded.

He laughed, from his belly. "A cold fish? Well. In some ways, sure. But not in that way."

Not in that way.

"Are you embarrassed, Lacey?" He wasn't needling now. "You go to the club. Why would you be embarrassed with me, of all people?"

"I don't know. Maybe because I'm always a little embarrassed about it. That's just how I am. And it's—" The safer word came up and I let it. "It's disorienting, that a lot of things changed for me in that place, and it turns out it was because of you."

"Now this is going to be an interesting conversation," he said. "Come sit on the couch by me. Let's talk. We built that place specifically to change people's lives. So, I'd like to hear what it did for yours."

What had I gotten myself into? Did I know Derek well enough to be telling him any of this, at almost one in the morning, in his house, with the rest of it dark and quiet around us?

I sat. He took one end of the short couch and I took the other, and even with the length of it between us I was too aware of him, close, and the subject of every thought I'd had for two days. And then I made the mistake of looking at his hands.

They were resting easy on his knee, big and still, and I knew exactly what they could do, because they'd already done it. Now, here they were, a couch-length away, doing nothing at all.

I forced myself to look away. He leaned back. "Go ahead," he said, and lifted his cup, amused but not teasing.

"Well. Until my husband and I split up, I was pretty—innocent, I guess. Protected."

He nodded. "That makes sense."

"What do you mean?"

"When I first met you, I had you pegged as sheltered. Protected. Probably a little naive. And I didn't change that read for a long time." He turned the cup slowly. "But there's been something different about you the last few months."

My face went warm.

"Something different about me," I said. "You mean you could tell I was going to a club?"

He laughed. "No. Nothing like that. You became more confident. More present, whenever you were in a room with me. You used to be sort of mousy, and now you're not." He looked at me over his cup, and the amusement in his face was gone. "I noticed. I've been noticing for a while."

For a second I thought he meant he could tell I'd gone sexual somehow, that it showed on me now, and the idea both thrilled and mortified me. Then I caught up to what he'd said. He'd been noticing. For a while.

"Noticing me. You almost say that like you're flirting, Derek."

Oh my God. I hadn't even had a drink.

He blinked, once, and recovered fast. "Would that be bad, Lacey? To flirt with you?" He turned the cup. "Maybe you're no sleeping princess. But you're definitely more than okay."

He chuckled at himself.

And then I understood the thing that had confused me for weeks.

"Last time I was here, Derek. You held my wrists together."

He nodded, slow.

"You held my wrists," I said again. "And after, I flirted with you. As much as I flirt, which isn't much, I'm not good at it. And you went cold as ice. And I couldn't understand it, and I've been not understanding it ever since."

"It was before I knew you went to the club. I didn't think you knew what was going on, inside yourself, or in the moment." He looked up. "I misread you, maybe. But it was also too fast, too uncontrolled. And that can be dangerous. So, I shut it down."

The room did something. Went smaller, or closer.

Because I did the arithmetic the way I always do, fast and against my will, and it took the floor out from under me.