The Love He Craves (The Love She Craves: Selling Her Soul to Declan Book 2) (38 page)

“Okay, I'm not surprised. We need to hike back to the RV."

"You can't drive like that.”

"No,” he agreed. "You'll have to drive."

"I can't drive Big Bertha."

"Well," he shouted. "I guess we can fucking sit here on the mountain while infection sets in so I will definitely be blind the rest of my life."

Nyxie blanched at his tone and sarcasm, but what he said resonated and made her realize it was up to her to get them out of there. She dropped down next to his pack and pulled out the first aid kit.

"Pull your hand away and let me see," Nyxie said weakly, her fear making her throat feel constricted.

His hand slowly lowered. "I can't open my eyes. I think I have dirt in the left one and the right…. Christ, it hit me just as I looked up. I took a direct hit. It must've caught me right as my eyes opened from a blink or something because I didn't see it coming. My eye was open. It feels like my eyeball exploded."

As his second hand lowered, the first thing Nyxie observed was blood. It was everywhere. His eyebrow was split open, and it, and all the tissue around his eye, showed a lot of swelling already. The blood flowed out of the wound and mixed with blood from the gash across the bridge of his nose.

"I think I'm going to get sick," she said with a groan of disgust.

"Maybe you're pregnant," he said without missing a beat.

"Shut up. Jeez you're so obsessed," she said with a slight grin that he couldn't see. The fact that he teased her, made her relax a bit. "What do I need to do?"

"What do you see?"

"Your eyebrow is gaping open and you've got a deep cut across your nose; both are bleeding a lot. Your right eye is so swollen, I doubt you could open it if you tried, and the other is puffy, and already bruising."

He took a deep breath. "Yeah, that's about what it feels like. Okay, we need to stop the bleeding. Get some gauze and press it against the wounds."

Over the next few minutes, Nyxie did her best to follow his instructions, and when they had done all they could do there, she put everything away in the backpacks and helped him to his feet.

"Try to keep the outcropping squarely at our backs and I think we’ll come close to where we parked," he said, touching the bandage taped above his injured eyes. The first aid kit was limited to very basic supplies, so he had to fight his instincts to open his eyes because he understood the movement of his eyelids could grind debris into his corneas.

Each wearing their backpack, he put his hands on her shoulders and let her lead him. Before she had gone more than fifty feet, she stopped. “Stay here for a second, I forgot something.”

Declan stood there stiffly, unmoving as she sprinted back to the cliff. She removed her pack and put the rock that had fallen inside. As she returned to his side, she zipped the backpack and put it back on.

“What did you forget?” he asked as he lifted his hands back to her shoulders.

“I thought the doctors might need to see how big of a rock hit you.”

Declan didn’t have the heart to tell her that no one needed to see the rock, but didn’t tell her to leave it because
he
wanted to see it.

She could only imagine how hard it was for him to be so helpless, and she prayed he wouldn't lose his sight. Nyxie suspected relying on her was practically unbearable for someone with his personality. He was about as alpha as a person could get, and having to depend on her must add to his frustration.

Nearly halfway back to the RV, Nyxie walked under a low-hanging pine tree limb. Because she could walk under it, it never occurred to her Declan might not be able to. He walked right into it, catching him in a glancing blow that not only snagged his hair and made him jerk back but also made his injury throb.

“Damn it, Nyxie, warn me if I need to duck!”

“Oh, God, I’m sorry. I didn’t…. I wasn’t…. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for everything. I was only going to climb a little ways. I didn’t mean to…. I’m so sorry.”

Nyxie had not felt such a gnawing pain in her gut since she had broken her father’s coffee mug while he was passed out cold. The hours of dread waiting for the discovery felt as if a fire burned in the pit of her stomach and she felt that again. Wait…waiting…waiting for the hammer to fall. How would he ever forgive her if she had blinded him?

The terrain was rugged and uneven and she tried her best to lead him as carefully as possible, but he frequently struggled with navigating through brush. Twice he nearly fell from stepping in holes that she hadn’t warned him about.

"Step down here," she said as they came to a spot where water had washed away a bit of soil. His hands held her shoulders tightly as he slowly lowered himself.

"I'm sorry," she said for what seem like the hundredth time when he tripped slightly.

A grunt of frustration came from his throat. "Stop apologizing. I know you didn't do it on purpose. I'm trying—very hard—not to be mad. Your constant contrition is just reminding me over and over, this didn't have to happen."

"Sorry," she said because she didn't mean to keep apologizing.

"That's it, Nyxie! When we get back to the RV, your backside is going to be sorry. I told you thirty seconds ago to stop apologizing and there you go again.”

Chapter 35

As soon as they climbed back into the RV, Declan told Nyxie to fetch his belt. He groped his way over to the sofa and waited for her to put it in his hand. She dropped her yoga capris and panties down to her knees and stretched out across his lap. Nyxie just wanted to get on the road, but she knew they would both feel better if he gave her a quick thrashing. He would get his anger out, and she would feel she had been properly punished for what she had done to him.

He placed his left hand on her lower back as a guide to help him hit her in the correct spot, but she could tell, without sight, his aim was off. Mostly the belt hit low, more on her legs than bottom, but he also caught her lower back a few times, once striking his own hand. He cursed and shook his hand in the air as if he could shake the sting out of it. Any other time, it would have made her smile that he’d accidentally hit himself, but not this time.

"Pull up your pants and help me to the passenger seat," he said, leaving the belt on the sofa.

Nyxie took his hands and helped him to his feet, but rather than help him to the front of the coach, she began to cry in loud sobs. She wept into his chest, clinging to him with her arms around his ribs. He stroked her hair, telling her it would be okay, but she couldn’t be consoled. Normally, Nyxie’s tears flowed silently down her cheeks, and sniffling was her only sound, but not today. She blubbered loudly, bawling like she hadn't bawled since she was a child.

"Now you cry when I can’t see you?"

"I can’t help it."

Declan held her and didn’t try to make her stop. He understood she needed to get her emotions out. It was better that she cried now before they left, rather than when they were driving mountain passes.

"We need to go," she said as her body hiccupped involuntarily in an attempt to stop crying.

"Considering how far we have to go, five or ten minutes will hardly make a difference. Get it all out so I will know you're not going to be driving these mountain passes blinded with tears."

She sniffled, smelling his scent mixed with the aromas of blood, sweat, and the pine trees from the mountain. Her body melted into his and she allowed herself to give into the emotions she felt. Her bottom and thighs burned with heat, but she shed no tears over the dissipating pain. It grounded her, gave her something to concentrate on besides the burning in her stomach and the way her heart felt sick about hurting him. It distracted her from the fear she felt over the prospect of driving such a large vehicle over terrain that she had no experience driving before. Lubbock and Chimera Flats were practically level. If she were to lie down on her back outdoors, her full A-cup breasts would almost give the area a geographic formation.

"I don't even know if I can get the RV turned around," she said.

"You have to. I stopped here because it looked like there was enough room to turn around."

The place where he had stopped the vehicle was wider than most of the road but there was no way to shoot a U-turn with such a long vehicle.

"When I was a Cub Scout, the leaders always parked facing the highway when we camped out in case there was a fire or someone got hurt. I wish I had turned Big Bertha around before I parked her. Live and learn."

Turning the RV around on a narrow dirt road with an embankment and no guard rail was a nightmare to Nyxie. He told her to adjust her mirrors so she could see where her back tires met the road, and despite her judgment, he had her back towards the embankment. Whereas the front axle was near the front bumper, the back tires were set a few yards in front of the rear bumper, and by hanging the tail over the edge, she had more room to maneuver. She must have climbed out of the vehicle a dozen times to look at how close she was to the edge, before she finally worked the RV around to face down the mountain road.

Then the real terror began.

Who knew driving down mountains would be so nerve-racking. And if driving up and down winding mountain passes wasn't bad enough, someone threw an occasional narrow-ass tunnel into the mix. Nyxie was certain she would hit the wall or meet a truck and have to come to a screeching stop while it passed her.

Her squawks of fear were so frequent and unhinging, that Declan had to order her in full Dom voice, not to make a sound. In his mind, every one of her little squeals and screams meant they were going over a cliff. He wanted to open his injured eyes, but could not risk damaging them worse than they already were.

It took hours from the time the rock had injured him, until they were off the mountain and on the highway to take Declan to a hospital. Declan told her to drive east on the first highway she saw, partially to get out of the mountains, but also because he doubted any small town hospital had the staff or equipment he would need. Most likely they would have to air lift him out, and Nyxie would be stranded in a town without him, and she would have to drive the RV out of the mountains on her own. They stopped for a few minutes when Nyxie spotted a cell tower. She called Kylie and told her to use the credit card Declan had given her to get a room for the night and buy anything they needed. She instructed the nanny to tell the kids the RV had broken down and they had to be towed to Denver to get it fixed.

At his request, she sent off a text with a picture of his injury to Dr. Patel, asking for his help to locate a hospital with an ophthalmologist on staff. Even without being able to open his eyes, by including the photo, he hoped Dr. Patel could assess where he might be best served. As a surgeon in a teaching hospital, Patel had a vast variety of colleagues, and one of the ophthalmologists in Lubbock must have met many doctors in the same field during medical conferences. If not, Dr. Patel would search down someone with stellar credentials to treat him.

Before they resumed their trip to the hospital, she sent a second text to his parents to let them know Declan was hurt and she would text them again when they arrived at the hospital to give them the details. She had sent the same picture because it was more expedient than a long explanation. Hopefully, his parents could see his life was not in danger.

They were in and out of cell range as they travelled, but his phone rang twenty minutes after they resumed their trek toward civilization. Declan fumbled with answering the call sightlessly. Nyxie wondered if she should pull over, but decided he would tell her if she should.

"You told my parents?" were the first words out of his mouth when he heard his mother's voice asking what had happened.

"Sorry," Nyxie muttered, and cringed when she apologized again, hoping she wouldn't feel his belt so soon after he had just punished her.

"Mom, I'm fine. I walked off the mountain on my own two feet and everything. No, we're still on the road. Probably Pueblo or Colorado Springs. I'm still waiting to hear from Dr. Patel…. No, Major, just stay there; we'll be home in a few days.… You should have waited to book a flight to Denver until after you got a hold of me. You don’t have to come…. No, you'll have to rent a car. I'm not sending Nyxie to the airport in Denver in an RV…. Mom
,
it's a rental. Why would I purchase an RV to use it for my honeymoon? I sincerely doubt I will leave my practice long enough to get my money's worth. I'll buy you and Dad one when he retires if you want."

The RV finished the long, strained climb to the top of the mountain. “Fuck me,” Nyxie swore as she spied the steep decline ahead and the RV began picking up speed.

"Gotta go, Mom. Nyxie’s driving is scaring the shit out of me. She's only had her license a few weeks.… Of course she's driving. I can hardly drive with blood running in my eyes."

Nyxie was quick to note that he made an excuse of blood running in his eyes, rather than telling her his eyes were injured and he couldn't see. She wanted to apologize yet again, but her backside was still stinging, and his belt was still on the sofa where they had left it. She had welcomed the pain, needing the distraction to take her mind off their situation, and to alleviate her guilt. Under other circumstances, she probably would have safe-worded him before he was finished. No doubt the punishment had been cathartic for Declan also.