Page 92 of Bonds of Shame, Bonds of Lust

He had found the same wiring Janice had, but he wasn't using it.

"See," he said, his voice lower than before. "Now I've got a free hand."

The sound I made was a small yes.

"What could you do with it?"

It came out of me even and not innocent at all. The me from weeks ago would have hidden behind not-knowing. But I knew what I was asking now. I also knew I was going to lie awake tonight replaying this exact moment approximately four hundred times.

He went still. The amusement that had run under the lecture left the room. He clenched his jaw lightly, his nostrils flared. My arms had quit holding themselves up.

"I could put my hand on your throat," he growled. The free hand twitched but stayed at his side. "On your jaw. On the back of your neck. I could turn you around." Then a frightening half-smile. "I could do almost anything."

I didn't know if I was in danger or not. Part of me went cold and still, like prey, but the greater part pleaded, Yes, yes, any of it. Just don't stop holding me.

"Lacey," he said, very quiet. "Are you going to do something?"

I was very much doing something, I just wasn't moving.

"Are you afraid?" His eyes gleamed.

"No," I lied, partly.

"In pain?"

"No," I repeated.

He still didn't let go.

"But you could be," he almost whispered.

He took a deep breath, ground his teeth, and his grip opened.

My wrists dropped into the space between us and my arms fell and I almost went with them, stumbling half a step. He stepped back. It looked like it cost him something.

The loss of his hand was a kind of physical bereavement, my wrists going cold the second he let go. He had almost done something.

"Lacey." His voice was gravelly. He cleared his throat. "I pushed that too far. Sit down."

"I don't need to sit down." I felt electrified.

"Sit."

I sat. He hadn't raised his voice.

He brought me water from the carafe Marissa had left. I took it. My hand was steady. I drank. I had no business swallowing anything that smoothly.

"Sorry," he said. "That was rough. I forget what the hold feels like." His eyes unfocused for a split second.

He went to sit too, and halfway down he stopped, and he turned a quarter away from me as he lowered himself carefully, and the color came up at his collar. He looked at the fire and not at me. The fire had gone down to one small flame, and he didn't get up to feed it.

I drank water I didn't want and looked at the floor, keeping my eyes off his hands.

"Derek."

"What?"

"Do it again."