Page 95 of Bonds of Shame, Bonds of Lust

I shook my head.

"Fuck," I said, under my breath.

"What's that, ma'am?" Aaron said.

"Nothing. Sorry."

I closed my eyes against the headrest. I must have some kind of horrible craving for disappointment and denial. I wanted what any healthy woman in her thirties wanted, a life with some thrill in it, and so of course I'd aimed myself at the one man guaranteed not to give it to me, the same as I'd done at twenty when I picked Brad.

And to make matters worse, I had been rude to him on the way out.

"Did you have a good time, Dr. Bonds?" Aaron asked.

I took a moment to collect my thoughts and chose my words carefully. "Yes," I said. "It was wonderful. He's a very good cook."

“Ha. Don’t tell him that, he’s got a big enough ego as it is.” I laughed politely.

It had been wonderful. Before the wrists, it had just been a good night.

That was the part I drove away from. Not the heat. That I could do something about. The liking I could not.

I picked up my phone. Ricardo had texted:

Hello, beautiful girl. I'm sorry I missed you at the club, I've been away a week. Want to do something fun? Text me when you get a chance.

Ricardo. Ricardo wanted me. Ricardo had never once been ashamed of wanting me. I waited for the warmth that usually came with that, the easy lift of being wanted by someone uncomplicated.

But it didn't come. Or it came and there was a hole in the middle of it. Ricardo would do anything I asked, and tonight, for the first time, that was somehow not enough.

I almost asked him to come over. I was keyed up enough. But Ricardo wasn't who I'd be thinking about while he was on top of me, and that wasn't fair to him.

I texted back.

Sure, let me call you tomorrow.

I closed my eyes again and told Aaron I needed to think for a few minutes. He nodded. The SUV moved through the dark.

There was a lot to think about, but I could only think about Derek. Exactly how he'd held me. The fear, the heat, the unbearable craving. Are you in pain? You could be. Was he just toying with me? Laughing at me?

My hand had slid down before I'd decided anything.

I'm a mess.

I lifted my fingers by a force of will and sat in the dark of the back seat, marinating.

41 - NECESSARY RISKS

Lacey

The next morning, I needed three cups of coffee to wake completely. In my office after the first two patients, I had a full forty-five minutes in mid-morning. Instead of doing paperwork, which I should have been doing, I brooded about Dad. Janice had told me the scab torn off when I met Carol wouldn't sit quiet on its own, and she was right. Especially now that I knew how it had warped me.

I sat at the desk and tried to script it in my head. Nothing came out clean. Every version was either an apology or an indictment, and I didn't want to hand him either one.

I couldn't do this down a phone line. Not this.

I put the phone down. Picked it back up.

My father didn't have much patience for being challenged, from me or from anyone. I'd seen his temper. He'd never raised a hand in his life. What he did instead was go quiet and go hard, keep the grudge for a decade, and never once try the other side of a thing on for size. I'd already lost a husband this year. The easy thing was to leave it alone, keep the peace, keep my father-daughter relationship intact. A year ago, that would have been the whole of it. Now he needed to know what he'd done.