Page 8 of Bonds of Shame, Bonds of Lust

Jessica started shaking her head. "Daddy, stop."

Derek blinked, then said, "Okay, it's good now."

Then he looked at me. "Bonds, I have a really important question for you." Then he looked at Jessica. "Tiger, are you listening?"

Jessica looked up and nodded, seriously.

"Doc, we really need to know. Can worms hear?" He said it dead serious.

I stood for a second with a totally blank mind. Worms? Hear? What does that have—ah.

I looked down. "So worms don't have ears, Jessica, but they can feel vibrations so they know when someone is walking. That's a lot like hearing."

Her face said nope, that's not gonna work. "What's virtashuns?"

Derek chuckled and grabbed her shoulders and gently shook her. "Like this. The worm gets moved around and feels it."

Jessica beamed and looked at her dad. "See? I knew Dr. Lacey would know! She knows everything!"

Jessica hopped off the table. "Ice cream time!"

His mouth twitched. "Yeah, kid. Ice cream."

They headed for the door.

Jessica waved. "Bye, Dr. Lacey!"

Derek paused in the doorway, filling it. "Thanks. Even when you're being a pain in my ass." He patted my arm, a little too hard, like he hadn't calibrated his own strength or didn't feel the need to.

The door closed.

I leaned back against the counter and exhaled. The spot on my arm still held a small dull ache. Otherwise I might have been charmed, for Pete's sake.

Derek Harrington. Or as Janice said, "Derek Fucking Harrington." He was impossible. Stubborn. And convinced his money and his research made him the expert in a room with me. I wasn't going to be charmed.

5 - NIGHTDREAMS AND DAYMARES

Lacey

The bedroom was full of evening light and Brad's hands were on me as if he couldn't stand an inch of space between us. His mouth was at my throat, my collarbone, the buttons of my blouse coming loose under competent fingers. None of it hurried. None of it had to be asked for.

He moved down without negotiating it, exactly how he never did, and settled between my thighs. And when his mouth found me I forgot to control the sound I made.

This was the thing I'd begged for in the early years and then stopped begging for. And here it was, his tongue slow and then exact, and I was already close, embarrassingly close.

"Come for me," he said. Not a question. Not the measured voice he used at the kitchen table.

I obeyed.

The word obeyed was still in my mouth when I jolted awake, heart slamming, sheets twisted around my legs. The room was dim, morning light edging through the blinds.

The wanting didn't go when the dream ended. It sat there insistent and with nowhere to be.

I shouldn't. The thought arrived the way it had since I was thirteen. It had never once stopped me.

Downstairs I could hear the coffee grinder, the small domestic sounds of a Saturday morning. I pressed my thighs together, which only made it worse. Years of scheduled sex that never quite satisfied me, and one dream had taken the wall down in a single morning.

I shouldn't.