Page 109 of Bonds of Shame, Bonds of Lust

LACEY, I LOVE YOU!

It reverberated in my mind. I knew she wanted me, like a notch on her belt. No, I knew it was more than that, long ago. But not I love you, not like that. I'd almost wrecked. How long? She told me, long ago, that her romantic affairs were all male, that women were for flings, sex. When had that been? Medical school, not long after we became BFFs. How had I not seen it?

But I was still angry. Love me or not. She had known me for twelve years, everything about me. She was a psychiatrist, for God's sake! The only way she could have thought I already knew about my wire was by lying to herself.

Deep breath. I missed her. That made me angry too, because her stupid, selfish manipulation took my best friend from me, and I still needed her.

My watch alarm went off, startling me. Right, like there's not enough to deal with, time for the party.

Derek had invited only the ones who saved her, and he'd sent cars, because he wouldn't hear of any of us driving Versailles Road in the dark after a few drinks. At the hospital there'd been sidelong looks, the ones that meant somebody had done arithmetic about why Dr. Bonds had been out to the house once and was going again. I answered the easy questions and left the rest alone.

Aaron arrived in the car for me. He put me in the back seat. Derek's rule. I didn't argue. The door shut me into the quiet, the lights of Lexington started sliding past the glass.

Derek founded the Second Circle.

So he wasn't the cold one. That went first, and it went hard, because I'd had him grouped with Brad for five years, men who'd look at my appetite like a stain. The man I'd been afraid was disgusted by what I desired had built the place to serve that desire. And more, I'd guess.

Which meant the wrist control wasn't an accident. He hadn't just happened to be strong and happened to close one hand around both in his living room. He knew what a hold like that was, knew it from the inside.

Dominant.

And its opposite, the word that fit me. I'd have flinched at it a season ago. It sounded weak, or should have. It rang in my mind and didn't sound weak at all.

Submissive.

Then why did he stop? That was the wall, and I hit it at full speed. He'd had me completely, thirty seconds from coming apart standing up, and he'd known. And then he'd opened his hand and stepped back and said he was sorry. A man who could do almost anything, who'd said as much, and did nothing, and apologized for the almost.

I kept going back to the man and not the hold. The burned hand under the tap. The oven mitt his dead wife made him. Jessica carried out asleep with his hand still doing slow circles on her back after she couldn't feel it.

And under all of it, further down, the thing Janice said that I'd never once seen. The column of dates on his arm he wouldn't read me. Sixteen years in places he couldn't name. Extreme, she'd said. Men like that scare me, and I won't apologize for it. I'd never seen what she was scared of. But I'd never seen the founder either, and the founder had turned out to be real.

The car left the highway. Fence lines, the far light of a farm, then the gate and the long drive, and the house came up out of the dark with a lamp lit in every front room.

The small purple boots were still by the door.

50 - CHARMING

Derek

They came early, most of them, which amused me. Medical people. The whole tribe ran ten minutes early and couldn't help it.

Marissa had the doors open and the food going and eighteen of them filled up the front rooms, the flight crew still half in their off-duty stiffness, the ER people already loosening. I moved through the crowd the way I move through any room I own, shook hands, got drinks to people who needed something to hold. The taxi driver came, which I hadn't been sure of. I found him by the window looking like he'd wandered into the wrong house and got him a beer. He asked me who this Harrington fella was. "Some rich asshole," I said. "Let's down his fancy food and booze while we have the chance." He laughed and stopped looking for an exit. I'd laid it out as a buffet, because I hate a seated dinner with its formalities, and a room full of nurses off shift doesn't want to be told where to sit.

I kept my eyes on the door.

The door would open, I'd look, it'd be another nurse or Aaron bringing somebody up from the cars, and I'd go back to whoever I was talking to. Then it would open again and I'd look again.

Jessica was running the party. I tried, early, to slow her down, put a hand on her shoulder, told her to walk. Pointless. You don't slow Jessica when she's decided, you just spend energy you're going to lose anyway. She's stubborn like her mother was, though Pamela would have said she gets it from you, Derek, and been right. I watched her plant both feet on some resident's shoe and grab his leg and order him to walk her across the room like a ride, and the guy did it. She doesn't get enough days like this. A full house, nobody checking a monitor, her heart just an organ in her chest and not the thing the whole room is quietly arranged around.

The door opened, and it was her.

She'd worn a dress the color of butter, bare at the shoulders. I was talking to someone. I couldn't tell you who. I set my drink down mid-sentence and crossed the room to my front door, which I do not do. Marissa answers the door. Aaron answers the door.

I answered the door.

"Lacey." I put my hand out. "Glad you could make it." And added, "Really glad."

She reached for the handshake and gave me a hug instead. Came right in against my chest, quick, gone before I reacted. I'm not a hugger.