PREORDER | Bonds of Shame, Bonds of Lust - Jordyn Haart

Dr. Lacey Bonds is a respected pediatric cardiologist. She is also a thirty-five-year-old 'good girl' who has never been allowed to want anything for herself. First the overbearing father who raised her after her mother walked out. Then the cold, almost sexless marriage to a husband who spent fifteen years teaching her that desire was shameful.

Until the afternoon she catches him in a living room threesome. Her marriage ends in one brutal moment. Something long buried in her cracks open.

Or maybe it finally wakes up.

Guided by her hedonistic, pansexual best friend Janice and Spanish guitarist Ricardo, Lacey begins saying yes to the desires she has suppressed her entire life. Soon she's saying yes to everything. Every temptation. Every fantasy. Every dangerous impulse.

As shame transforms into arousal and arousal spirals into obsession, Lacey's carefully ordered world starts to unravel under the weight of cravings she can no longer control, and the increasingly predatory attention of the people helping her explore them.

She does not know how to stop. She is not sure she wants to. She is no longer sure who would be left if she did.

Now, she finds herself falling for the formidable father of her favorite little patient, a desire very much not allowed.

Gruff, powerful billionaire Derek Harrington has always intimidated her. A widower, former Special Forces officer, and head of the hospital board, he is the one man who looks at her like he's actually paying attention.

Behind the hardass exterior is a father raising his sick little girl Jessica on his own. And in Jessica's five-year-old eyes, Lacey is the answer to a question neither adult is ready to face.

Tropes/Keywords:

• Fiercely competent independent FMC (pediatric cardiologist) [medical drama with hospital setting] with emotionally traumatic childhood (parental abandonment)
• Awaking of a traumatized repressed 'Good Girl' at the Second Circle private members only club
• Female Rage / Repressed Anger and Self-destruction
• Trauma bond.
• Exploration with younger MMC (10 year age gap)
• Morally gray psychiatrist best friend (F/F)
• Dominant Billionaire Alpha Male : Power and Control Energy with a Workplace Forbidden Attraction (doctor: single dad of patient )
• Forced proximity and "One Bed" with love triangle
• Slow burn emotional tension
• Cliffhanger with Duology HEA

Trigger Warnings:

• Marital infidelity and cold betrayal
• Infertility grief and longing for children
• Father-instilled shame and purity culture trauma
• Loss of Control Fantasy
• Group 'encounters' and bi-curious exploration
• Age-gap romance (24 M- 35 F and 35 F - 45 M)
• Emotional neglect and control from family (parental abandonment and cheating narcissist spouse)
• Shame driven arousal and alcohol consumption
• death of spouse involving medical malpractice as well as death of a parent
• cardiac emergency involving a child with emergency medical care