His Submissive Jewel [The Martinis and Chocolate Book Club 3] (Siren Publishing Everlasting Classic) (14 page)

She felt his chuckle as he nuzzled her neck.

“You’ll have to wait until later, baby. The big, bad Dom has work to do. Be a good girl, okay?”

She nodded as his lips came down on hers, sending her world into a spin. She was already looking forward to later.

* * * *

Noelle breathed deeply. The spring air in Montana was so sweet. So different than the salty air in Florida. The valley was beautiful, tucked in between mountain ranges. The sky looked the same blue as Cam’s eyes when he was making love.

Cam.

She had been at the ranch two weeks now. She was falling harder and harder for him, and he seemed to return her feelings. She couldn’t doubt his commitment to their relationship. He was slowly and patiently teaching her about submission. Heaven knew she had a long way to go to be his perfect sub. She’d earned a myriad of punishments since agreeing to be his sub. The spanking earlier had only been one of them. She squirmed on her saddle. Her bottom was still a little sore.

“Is your ass as sore as mine?”

Abby was rubbing her bottom with her hand ruefully. Noelle laughed.

“A little. It was going to be sore anyway, so I guess it isn’t a big deal. I didn’t think you would be sore. You’re wearing jeans. I got mine bare bottom, thank you very much.”

Abby’s eyed went wide. “Brody was pretty mad when I blew that raspberry. Bare bottom, huh? Does Cam keep paddles in the barn for punishment?”

Noelle knew Cam had a reputation for being a strict, mean Dom. Abby probably thought Cam had blistered her bottom.

“Well, he might. He used his hand today. It was hot, but too quick. I hope he does it again.”

Abby laughed. “Oh, I love a good, hard spanking. Wow, you have Cam wrapped around your finger. I would have thought you wouldn’t be able to walk straight after one of his punishments. You breezed out of the tack room with a blush and a smile.”

“Cam’s punishments are pretty mild, little sister. Um, have you talked to Brody about our family yet? I mean they can’t go around spanking and ordering us around in front of our parents. They’re way too uptight for that.”

Abby groaned. “I did. He said they knew how to act around company. I’m not looking forward to Mom and Dad being here. I can only imagine how they are going to react to my living here after we’re married.”

Noelle frowned. “You’re already living here. Don’t tell me Mom and Dad don’t know you’re going to be living here from now on?”

Abby chewed her bottom lip. “I’m not like you, Elle. You’re strong and independent. I get around our parents and wilt. When they call, they’ve been pressuring me to get Brody to move to Florida after we’re married.”

Noelle threw up her hands. “And do what?”

Abby ran her hand over her face and grimaced. “They want him to go to law school.”

Noelle barked with laughter. “What is this obsession with a lawyer in the family? Are they planning to knock over a bank or something?”

Abby sputtered with laughter. “That would be funny. Our uptight parents in prison orange.”

Noelle was laughing with Abby when they heard it. It sounded like gunshots not very far away. She didn’t have time to react before her horse was rearing up in fear. Noelle held on for dear life, but her feet dislodged from the stirrups, and she fell to the ground with a sickening thud, jarring every bone in her body and probably loosening a few teeth. She hadn’t let go of the reins when her horse took off like a shot, dragging her several yards over the rough, rocky ground before she could untangle her fingers.

“Elle! Elle! Oh dear God, Elle! Are you all right? Can you talk?”

Noelle tried to move, but Abby kept her still.

“Don’t move. You may have hurt yourself.”

Her choking laughter hurt. “I can guarantee you, sis, I’ve hurt myself. Shit, my head hurts.”

She reached up and felt a goose egg on her forehead. When she brought her hand down, it was smeared with blood. She gingerly moved her limbs, wincing when she tried to move her right ankle and left wrist.

“Stay there. I’ll call the men on the satellite phone Brody put in my pack.”

Noelle stared up at the blue sky, every part of her body starting to ache.

“I don’t think I could move if I wanted to. What happened to Turismo?”

“The horse took off and is probably halfway to the ranch by now. Elle, you’re not going to pass out on me, are you? You need to stay awake. You may have a concussion.”

Noelle’s lids felt very heavy. “I’m just closing them against the sun.”

She heard Abby’s voice on the phone and her reassuring hand on her forehead.

“Stay with me, Elle. Cam and Brody are on their way.”

“Great. Cam gets to tell me how right he was. I’m never going to hear the end of this.”

Abby patted her hand. “Neither will I, sis. Neither will I.”

* * * *

The next twenty-four hours passed in a blur. Cam, Colt, Brody, Caden, and Lucas had all shown up. Cam looked grim-faced and didn’t say much, but held her tenderly in the backseat of the Land Rover all the way to the hospital in Bozeman. He had stayed by her side in the emergency room until the intimidating nurse had shooed him away. Even then, he had growled his frustration and promised to be back as soon as he could.

He had kept his promise, holding her hand and talking softly to her when she had been safely ensconced into a hospital bed for the night. They said it was for observation. It appeared to be for driving her Dom and man insane. He was beside himself with worry, and nothing she said to the contrary seemed to make him any calmer. She hadn’t minded when the dragon-lady nurse kicked him out for the night so she could get some rest.

Now it was the next day, and she was tucked up into Cam’s bed at the ranch with her right ankle wrapped up and propped on a pillow. Her left wrist was also wrapped up, and her body was covered in bruises and scrapes. There was a bandage on her forehead, and she had a lovely shiner on her right eye. She was truly a vision to behold. If she was trying for pity sex, she was certainly on the right track. Cam would have to be downright crazy to want her in this condition.

Which was a shame, since all she had to do was doze and read her naughty, smutty books. All she could think about was jumping her man’s sexy-as-sin body. “How are you feeling, sweetheart?”

Cam stood at the door with a tray of food and a tentative smile. She threw her e-reader down on the bed next to her and waved him in.

“Pretty strange, actually. These painkillers are doing funny things to my brain.”

He set the tray down on the bed and helped her sit up, fluffing the pillows behind her.

“It’s nice to have a slave of my own. Do you do windows, too?”

She giggled, realizing the pills were making her say crazy things. Cam gave her an indulgent smile.

“I’m just taking care of you, precious. You scared the bejesus out of me and everyone, falling off Turismo like that. I want you to get better. We have your birthday party coming up.”

Cam was throwing a big barn dance for her thirtieth birthday.

“Maybe we should make it a costume party. I can go as Quasimodo.”

Cam frowned. “You look fine.”

“No, I don’t. I look like I went ten rounds with Chuck Norris.”

Cam fussed, placing the napkin on her lap and pulling the plastic wrap off the piping-hot food. Noelle brushed his hands away.

“Go ahead and say it. I know you’re dying to. Let’s just get it over with.”

His mouth twisted. “What am I dying to say?”

“That you were right and I was wrong. Ranches are dangerous places, and I ended up getting hurt. You had to take me to the hospital, and now you have to take care of the invalid.”

The medication was really messing with her. She was now so bored she was trying to pick a fight.

Cam’s eyes narrowed, and he took a deep breath. “Sweetheart, if you are trying to say I’m happy you got hurt or I resent taking care of you, you couldn’t be further from the truth. I’m very sorry you got hurt. Turismo shouldn’t have reared up like that. None of this is your fault. It was an accident, pure and simple. Yes, accidents happen on ranches, and that’s why you need to be careful. But this was nothing anyone could have foreseen.”

“So you aren’t mad?”

“No, I am not mad. And I like taking care of you, by the way. I don’t like you to be hurt, but I do like spoiling and coddling you. Although, on those pills you certainly don’t act like your usual self. You’re sweet and submissive one minute and meaner than a rattler the next. I hope there are no refills on that prescription.”

Noelle rolled her eyes. She knew she was an emotional roller coaster right now, but he didn’t need to remind her. Perhaps changing the subject was a good idea.

“Is Turismo okay? You won’t shoot him or anything, will you?”

“Of course not. We will do some more training with him, so he won’t be so jumpy next time. Luckily, Abby’s horse was much older and slower and didn’t react to the sound. It would have been much worse if you both were hurt.”

Noelle picked at her food. “Did you find out what made the noise? I swear it sounded like gunshots, Cam. I’ve heard gunfire when I lived in New York.”

A muscle worked in Cam’s jaw. “No, we didn’t. I can’t for the life of me imagine who would be out there shooting a gun. But when I find out—”

She caressed his arm, trying to soothe him. “Relax, my mean Dom. You’ve been wound tighter than a drum since yesterday. I’m okay. I was lucky. I landed on my hard head.”

That got a smile from him. He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it, frowning at the bruises and scrapes from the twisted reins.

“And your back and bottom, too, sub. Why don’t you finish dinner and I’ll come up and help you into the bathtub. It’s got a Jacuzzi setting, and it might help all those sore muscles.”

Noelle smiled and lifted a spoonful of potatoes to her mouth. “Now that finally sounds like a plan. Me naked and you running your hands all over me.”

Cam laughed as he headed out of the bedroom. “No way, baby. This is going to be a chaste bathing. You’re in no condition to be seducing me.”

Her pillow hit the door just as he closed it, his laughter trailing down the hall. Her Dom was an evil man. She was just going to have to convince him she was feeling fine.

* * * *

Cam slumped on the kitchen counter, sipping at his coffee. It tore his guts up to see his woman hurting. He knew she was in pain and the marks on her body made him mad as hell. Just what had spooked Turismo? He’d talked to all the hands, and none of them admitted to firing a gun yesterday.

Guns were a fact of life on a working ranch. All the groups carried a rifle in case they came across the odd snake or coyote. But something told Cam this wasn’t an accident. He straightened up as Colt came into the kitchen. He didn’t look any happier than Cam felt.

“Well, what’s the verdict?”

Colt pulled a mug from the cupboard and poured himself some coffee.

“I asked around. Gwen was seen at a charity event for the hospital yesterday afternoon. It couldn’t have been her trying to scare the horse.”

Cam exhaled slowly. “Then who, Colt? No one should have even been in the vicinity of where Abby and Noelle were riding, let alone shooting a gun.”

Colt lowered himself into a kitchen chair with a grunt. “Listen, Gwen’s crazy. I’ll give you that. I wouldn’t put it past her to want to hurt anyone or anything that made you happy. But you know as well as I do, Gwen hates guns. She wouldn’t touch one when she lived here at the ranch. She didn’t do this.”

“I know. But Gwen has a cruel streak a mile wide as you well know. This would be something she’d do. God knows she tried to mess with your relationship with Julie.”

Gwen had tried to come between Colt and his wife by putting doubts about Colt’s fidelity in Julie’s mind and throwing herself at Colt. It had been just one of the many mind games Gwen had played when they were married.

Colt’s expression grew hard. He didn’t have any patience for Gwen’s crap. “She’ll never do that again. Your punishment for her behavior was extremely effective.”

Cam had forbidden her to go to the club for several months. Gwen had bitched and fumed the entire time, but he hadn’t backed down. Taking away her means to get the pain she craved had been his only weapon to combat her continual bad behavior.

“So now what? If it’s not Gwen, are we saying it was an accident?”

Colt nodded. “For now, I think we have to think it’s possible it was an accident. Maybe one of the hands was using a gun and is afraid to admit it. Shit, Cam, you have to admit you were pretty intense when you questioned them. They were all scared as fuck for their jobs.”

“Hell, I just wanted a fucking answer.”

Cam glanced at the clock. “Noelle should be done with dinner. I’m going to help her take a bath.”

Colt snorted. “Help? Is that some kind of euphemism?”

“She’s hurt, bro. I don’t think she’s in any shape for a scene with her Dom, for fuck’s sake.”

“Yeah, she’s going to look up at you with those golden-brown eyes and her soft, naked skin, and you’re going to be a fucking angel. Don’t let your halo fall down and strangle you, big brother.”