Page 84 of Dreamscape Therapies

"I don't know what to believe," she finally admits. "I want to believe you, but I also believed him and look where that got me."

"That's not your fault."

She looks at me, surprised.

"You don't have to pick a side," I tell her. "I just want you to stop messing with my dreams."

Dany's eyes flick toward Jay.

"That's why we're here," he says quietly. "We aren't asking you to take Vincent's word for anything. All he wants is to sleep. That's it."

I give her a tired smile.

Jay chuckles beside me, and for the first time since we sat down, Dany smiles without looking like she's forcing it.

Then the smile fades.

"All of that sounds perfectly reasonable except for one thing." Her eyes are guarded when she asks her next question. "Why was he always covered in bruises if you were never abusive?"

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Vincent

Fuuuuuuuuck.

My face goes hot immediately. Like, nuclear-level hot. I can feel the flush spreading down my neck and probably lighting up my entire upper body like a godsdamned Christmas tree.

"The bruises," I say slowly, staring very hard at the mosaic table. "Right. The bruises."

Jay's hand finds mine beneath the table, his fingers squeezing gently around mine. Grounding me.

This is mortifying, but if I don't explain, Dany is going to keep thinking I beat my ex-boyfriend, and somehow that feels even worse than admitting what we actually did.

"Those were from sex," I finally say, my voice flat.

Dany blinks. "What?"

"The bruises. They were from sex. Consensual sex." I continue staring at the table. The rainbow letters spelling NOT BASIC, BITCH! have suddenly become the most fascinating thing I've ever seen.

"We were into primal play. Rough stuff. He liked it when I..." I clear my throat as I gesture vaguely with my free hand. "You know. Got rough with him."

The silence stretches long enough that I'm seriously considering getting up and walking into traffic.

"Primal play," Dany repeats slowly.

"Yeah. Hunting and chasing and pinning him down. Biting. Scratching. That kind of thing." My face feels like it's on fire. I swear to the gods I'm going to spontaneously combust right here on this whimsical little patio. "He'd ask me to shift partially sometimes. He liked the dangerous feel of it."

Jay's thumb strokes over my knuckles. I glance at him, and his expression is soft and supportive. He's not judging me for being a kinky disaster. Not that he really could, considering what we did in my last dream.

Dany, however, looks like I've just started speaking another language.

"So... you were pretending to hunt him?"

"Basically."

"And he liked that?"

"Very much."