Page 9 of Binding Their Hearts

“The work is delicate, dear one. But we’ll see.” He cupped her face, the gentle arch of her cheekbone a delightfully smooth path for the pad of his thumb. This matter of their friends’ happiness held some significance for her, perhaps beyond the depths he could easily intuit. “Will did mention to me his intention to at last sever his marital ties. He may already be in the mindset to seek better companionship.”

“You—” Alice gave his sternum a three-fingered shove that moved him not at all. “That’s how you knew. You made me go through my whole logic chain when you already knew he was ready for something new.”

He captured her hand and kissed the knuckles. If he meant to propose to his pets, he’d need to commission a proper symbol for their union. Collars, bracelets, rings—a plethora of choices, a consideration for another day.

“A dominant must have some secrets,” he teased. He couldn’t deny her insight, however, or his own desire to help heal his dearest friends’ open wounds. “Your reasoning was quite sound without the confirmation. You see in ways I do not, my sweet Alice. But if Will and Emma might have as tight a grip on each other’s hearts as you and Jay have on mine, they ought to have the chance to enjoy such bliss.”

She tipped forward, stretching in the near dark, and he met her halfway for a kiss. Drained of the night’s earlier heat, yet something stronger remained, the ineffable everlasting. Lips still pressed to his, she whispered, “I love you, Henry.”

“And I you, my love.”

She snuggled down beside him with a mock grumble. “Course my reasoning was sound. I’m an engineer, not a tinkerer.” A yawn broke her rhythm. “Theory is my jam.”

He brushed a kiss against her forehead, inhaling the honey-lemon of her hair. “Right now, you are a woman in need of more sleep. I’ve overindulged on a weeknight. I do hope you’ll forgive me for it when you sit down at your desk in a few hours’ time.”

She shifted beneath the covers with a pleased sigh. “I’ll forgive you for it when sitting down tomorrow makes me remember how much I enjoyed tonight.”

Then he’d successfully fulfilled her needs while sating his desires. A dominant couldn’t ask for a better evening than that.

Chapter four

Jay

The stone in Jay’s pocket had two edges. Maybe three, if he counted the curve of the half-moon as two slopes. They did come to kind of a point, but not really, not a pointy point, so just one. One soft, smooth, curving side and one straight-ish rougher side, like the stone had been round once and cracked in two, with the middle bits jagged. Time and water hadn’t worn them down yet.

Slumped back in the therapy chair—not shaped like a dentist chair, but sort of the same thing, right? The therapist would drill into him and clean off all the gunk until he was shiny and new—Jay spun the stone slowly in his fingers, trying to keep the motion small. Unnoticed. He’d been in the office barely five minutes. Probably. None of the walls offered a clock, for all the knickknacks scattered on the shelves, and checking his phone would be rude.

The books on the shelves didn’t line up tall to small, or by color, or even all face the same direction. Piles stacked up, and rows tipped forward and back, everything as messy and disorganized as him. The rough side of the stone bumped along under his thumb. He’d picked up the pebble two weeks and two nights ago, from the driveway at the farm. Nat had bounced it off his shoe.

The therapist sat in the matching chair across from him, scanning the questionnaire Jay had filled out in the waiting room. He didn’t have a beard, or gray hair, or wear a fisherman sweater like the guidance counselor from Jay’s high school. He sported red hair—not hair-red, but ripe red-purple cherry red—styled forward in a wave, and a pair of loose-fitting jeans with fringed bottoms, and a gray-blue pullover with a faded brewery logo. So Jay’s bike shorts and layered tees definitely qualified as proper dress. Great, since he’d be coming straight from work every Wednesday from now until he got the good person seal of approval.

A casual toss sent the paperwork to a side table. “So.”

Jay scrambled up straight, yanking his hand from his pocket.

The therapist leaned back and wriggled his way into a comfy slouch, pen dangling in his left hand, a notepad on his thigh. “Tell me what brings you to see me, Jay. You like Jay, or you go by something else?”

“Jay, yeah. Just Jay.” He dodged the Jay Michael, sit up straight echo in his head. The papers lay in an untidy stack, partly curling up against a table lamp. He’d said all of the stuff there. He gestured toward them. “You know.” His knee bounced in the silence, but the therapist didn’t tell him to sit still and pay attention. “Aren’t you going to tell me what’s wrong with me?”

The faster this guy fixed him, the faster he could be the new and improved Jay that Henry and Alice deserved. They’d picked the therapist out together, the day after his lovers had rescued him, from a short list Henry brought home from the club. Dr. Brendan Harrington. Once Jay got a diagnosis and did the homework or whatever, his anxious funk would disappear. After two weeks of silent treatment, Peggy had left him a voicemail yesterday saying she hadn’t told Mom and Dad about his poor behavior yet but that he ought to come up and apologize, maybe get out and mark trees for the tree lot culling. His hand sneaked back into his pocket, fingers reaching for the rough edge of the stone.

Dr. Harrington could do an impassive face as good as Henry’s. “Do you think there’s something wrong with you?”

“I wouldn’t be here if there wasn’t.” Fuck, where’d that tone come from? Grouchy back-sassing teen wasn’t his thing. He was happy-fun-laughing Jay, all jokes and hidden deviance. “In the shop for repairs, right?”

A prickly feeling invaded his skin. He needed to be up and moving, to shake out the crawlies. He scraped his thumb back and forth against the stone’s rough edge. He’d promised Henry he would at least stay for the whole first session. Henry had done this therapy thing; he’d said so in his pep talk. And Henry had a damn good handle on who he was and what he wanted and how to make his life outside match the dream in his head. Jay could have that too. So how come saying the important stuff, the meaningful stuff, to get there was so freaking hard?

Harrington watched him, hoarding all the answers in his smug therapist head. He hadn’t said the rules for the room or anything, gave no hints about how Jay should act or who he should be here, how he would pass this class and be a model therapy student and win a forever life with Henry and Alice.

“I hate this.” His skin fucking itched, all over, like he’d knocked down a hive and buzzing bees swarmed him demanding revenge. They deserved to take it; he’d done the bad thing first. “I hate it.”

“Hate what?” Harrington stayed steady on him, his gaze always there every time Jay circled up from the beachy woven rug.

“This.” He jerked his arms, elbows bent, fists closed with the rock clutched in the right one. The bees shook loose for a second.

“Describe ‘this.’”

“This. This.” He launched out of the seat and stalked behind it, pacing in the gap between the chair and the narrow table with the water pitcher and glasses. “Being here.” The office wasn’t wide, maybe two bike lengths, barely enough space to find a rhythm. “Not knowing the right thing to say. Not knowing the right thing to do.” He’d worn his Henry-green compression shorts as a bottom layer today, but the connection fritzed with static. He didn’t have Henry and Alice’s help with this job; he had to do it alone, without any guidance from them, no guardrails to nudge him back on the right path. “Not having my partners here.”

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