Any good psychiatrist has their own shrink on speed dial.

The man who kept me from curling up into a ball of sniveling goo was an old school head shrinker. He provided a comfortable couch that I wanted to steal every time I stretched out on it and poured out my guts all over his antique Aubusson rug. He answered almost every statement I made with a question for the first thirty minutes and then offered up pearls of wise advice and feedback for the last twenty.

I wouldn't give up my massage time for an extra session with Dr. Stuart Rasmussen but I never missed a session. I couldn't be a good doctor if I didn't.

But when it came down to it and I really needed to talk through what was going on in my head and get it straight, there's a very short list of the people I call. My best friend Jamie was currently in the middle of the move from hell as he switched hockey teams from New Orleans to Washington DC. He's also had his hands full with his new sexy as hell Cajun lover and I never knew if I'd be interrupting something hot and X-rated when I tried to FaceTime.

When Livvy was in town and not jet setting around the world stealing things and screwing her gorgeous husband, she was always good for a heart-to-heart over a bottle of vodka and pedicures. But, according to her latest text they were somewhere over the Atlantic in an airplane and wouldn’t be in town until tomorrow.

But my current option wasn’t the B-Team. Ryker was a first-rate, gold-medal level friend. He would make a terrible shrink because he never hesitated to tell you exactly what he thought you should do. He didn’t give you shit about it if you didn’t listen to him but he saw things in a very linear way and he didn't understand why you didn't just walk a straight path between A and B when it was right in front of your face. The only time I'd seen him hesitate was with this little thing he had going with his hot little rent boy, Sebastian. He hadn't asked my opinion on that potentially toxic and destructive non-relationship but I'd be happy to offer it up when he asked.

But he never would.

So this session was all about me.

“What the fuck were you thinking, lying to the cops?” Ryker asked, his anger making his movements abrupt and jagged. He watched his form in the mirror of the gym, only giving me the briefest of hot glares but I got the message loud and clear: he was beyond pissed at me. “Seriously, Doc, what the fuck were you thinking?”

His rage toppled his desire to maintain his ridiculously cut body and he dropped the weights onto the rack, making several people turn and look with the clatter of metal on metal. Reaching over to grab his water bottle, he took a long swallow before he turned to really look at me. One look at his face and I corrected my previous assessment, he wasn’t mad. He was scared.

“Doc, you can’t lie to the police. They get pissed and put you in the spotlight and your life is over. Jail would be the least of your worries. You know this. One whiff of your alternative lifestyle on social media and you could wave goodbye to at least half of your patients.”

The truth of his words made me shift uncomfortably, the heat racing up my skin having nothing to do with our workout. The world of Club D was safe, we worked because everyone had something to lose if our world was exposed. My reliance on the club had made me reckless. I’d been stupid and cocky and left myself open to more trouble than Senator Nathen Marsden was worth.

And I knew why I’d done it. One hot, sexy, broody cop who’d made my thighs clench and my tongue run away with me. I wanted his attention at a visceral level and our verbal sparring had gotten that and more.

“It was that fucking cop,” I ground out, plopping my ass down on the weight bench. “He just made me . . .”

“He made you pull out the A-game.” He laughed but nothing about it was happy. “I knew the minute you two locked eyes in the office that it was on. If you’d met him in Club D, you’d have fucked him before you knew his name.”

He wasn’t wrong. Aiden Cross had said I was a dangerous woman but he was the one who had “caution” flashing over his head in neon and it was like fucking catnip to me. But I wasn’t so sure that he’d ever act on the attraction that existed between us.

“He’d never go for me, Ryker. You should have heard the derision in his voice when I told him about my arrangement with Nathan and Davina. He thinks I’m a deviant and not in the good way.”

“But you said he admitted to being bi. He can’t get too high on that horse when he likes sucking cock as much as eating pussy,” he answered, scanning the room and taking note of each of the patrons. He didn’t recognize that he did it anymore but habits developed while learning to survive in prison were not easily broken. “But none of that has anything to do with the fact that you lied to the police in the middle of a murder investigation. The murder of a United States Senator to boot.” He shook his head. “Fuck, Doc.”

I opened my mouth to argue with him but I shut it. He was right and I knew it. I just didn’t like being wrong.

“At the time, I just didn’t think that Nathan wanting me to have an affair with him was relevant. He propositioned me once and when I shut him down, he never mentioned it again.”

“And you were the only woman he wanted to stick his dick in without his wife there to supervise?” he scoffed, wiping off his forehead with a towel. “You’re hot as fuck Doc but I don’t think you were the only extracurricular ass he was trying to score.”

I thought back to how the last few times I’d been with Nathan and Davina something had felt off-kilter. When you do what I do, all you have to do is watch a couple closely to see when they’re not in sync with what is going on. The Marsdens had not been on the same page and it’s why I’d backed off meeting up with them recently. I was there to make couples better, closer. Not to assist in their implosion.

As usual Ryker was done with the conversation and he let me know it. I had people on my couch that I couldn’t get to shut up and most days I barely got a sentence out of the man before me.

“Call Detective Dickhead and tell him what you know. If you get arrested, I’m not bailing your ass out. I don’t go to police stations, they give me a rash.”