Page 120 of Bonds of Shame, Bonds of Lust

"The shrink?"

I felt myself get defensive, and then felt ridiculous for it, defending Janice at one in the morning in the bed of the man she'd warned me about. "The psychiatrist. Yes."

"Ah." He turned his head on the pillow. "That's unfortunate."

So he knew her. "What do you mean, unfortunate? What happened?"

He was quiet long enough that I thought he might not tell me. Then he did, in the same even voice he used for everything that cost him.

"A few years ago, one of the guests at the club had too much to drink. We asked him to leave. I was there with Pamela. And Pamela was—she was good at that, at smoothing things, she could get anybody out the door feeling like it was their idea. She went to walk him out. Gently. And he turned around and went after her."

He stopped.

"Derek."

"She was three months pregnant." He said it to the ceiling. "I stopped him."

The room had gone very quiet. "How badly?"

"Very badly." He didn't soften it. "If somebody hadn't pulled me off him, I'd have been up for manslaughter. As it was, I came close to attempted murder charges. It went away the way I can usually make things go away." He said that last part with no pride in it at all.

A little cold went through me, sitting there naked in his sheets, still wearing the marks of how careful those same hands had been.

"Janice was a regular back then," he said. "One of the originals, like us. She was in the room. She knew the guy, might’ve been involved with him.” He shrugged, one shoulder against the pillow. "She never came back as far as I knew. I didn't know she'd started coming again after I left. But I understand it. Janice is about as anti-violence as a person gets.” He let it go. "She watched me nearly beat a man to death. I'd think less of her if she hadn't warned you."

"Are you dangerous, Derek?"

He reached over and moved the glass on the nightstand a half inch to the left, set it true to the edge, and I don't think he knew he'd done it.

"I've been trained to be dangerous, Lacey. But only to my enemies." He looked at me. "To answer you, yes. Very, very dangerous."

Then he let it go, the weight came off his face. "Especially if anyone messes with my romantasy organization."

He reached out and pulled me back down to him and kissed me again, slow.

"But in your case, Bonds," he said against my mouth, "I'll allow it."

Derek was right about Aaron. He must have texted him, because later he walked me out and handed me off to Aaron. He wasn't ashamed of it, or awkward about it, seeing me off to his oldest friend at five in the morning. The look on his face was too complicated for me to read, and I gave up trying.

Aaron was grinning when I got in the car.

I was still raw enough to be a little acerbic about it. "What, Aaron. Go ahead and say it."

I was braced for something male and rude. He faltered instead.

"Sorry. Dr.— um. Lacey." He pulled out onto the road. "I'm just really happy for him. I can't help it."

That wasn't what I'd braced for. "Happy."

"Yeah. He hasn't been relaxed like this since Pam." Aaron kept his eyes on the dark road. "He's even cracking his dumb jokes again. I forgot he had them." He caught himself. "Sorry. Not my business."

I looked out the window at the trees going by. "No. You're a family. I get it. I'm glad he's happy."

I said it and meant it, and then it sat there getting heavier the longer the road ran under us.

Because I'd walked in the door of that house tonight thinking I knew what this was. A want I'd finally said out loud, a man who knew what to do with it. I'd come for his hands. And now Aaron, who'd known him twenty-five years, was this careful and this glad in the dark of a car at five in the morning, over me. Not because he thought Derek was getting laid. Aaron wouldn't drive across the countryside smiling about that. Whatever had changed in Derek that his oldest friend could see from across a room, it was bigger than the night I thought I'd had.

I'd gotten exactly what I asked for, and somehow I had gotten more back. I wasn't sure I was ready to think about that.