Dinah mewed indignantly at Alice’s distraction, nudging her phone hand again.

Maddie was still reading, something about oxytocin and g-protein coupled receptors.

Gah! How was she supposed to even feign interest? Dinah gave up on being petted and curled into a white ball of fluff on the covers, tucking her pink nose under a paw to sleep, and Alice gave up on trying to listen, settling down and drifting naturally into thoughts of Wade.

She had eight months of memories to flip through in her head, but the reality of Wade made him so much more of an immediate experience. Memory didn’t do the man justice. No matter how much time she had with him, she craved more. They’d spent plenty of time together-movie dates, the theater, a heavenly weekend trip to Bermuda, and whenever he stayed over, he would make her waffles or French toast while Dinah did figure-eights between his feet in the kitchen-but that wasn’t the best thing about Wade for Alice. She kept the best thing locked like a smooth, secret heart tucked inside of her beating one.

She hadn’t even told Maddie. Not that Maddie would understand with her belief that love was nothing more than biological instinct and brain chemistry. Alice knew better. Love went deeper than those things. It burned like a laser beam through to her core and broke her heart wide open. Love made her do things she never would have considered before. Love was silk and softness, but love was also leather and the bite of a riding crop and Wade’s commands. She hadn’t told anyone about the ropes and bindings, the endless cycle of pain and pleasure that forced her to her knees at Wade’s feet again and again.