The Love He Craves (The Love She Craves: Selling Her Soul to Declan Book 2) (40 page)

She set aside a pair of black yoga capris with a pink stripe down the leg and a spaghetti strap pink tank top that would be comfortable enough to sleep in. The only sleepwear she brought were silky teddies and sheer nightgowns—nothing she would wear in front of his parents—or the kids for that matter—at least not intentionally.

She didn’t pack Declan's clothes; she pushed them to one side, hoping with her things out, there would be a little space for her in-laws.

Declan had placed a square laundry basket in the bottom of the closet and Nyxie wasn't going to remove it unless his parents asked her to. She stripped off her stained shirt, bra and pants, and threw them in the basket, then turned back to the bed to get dressed.

"Nyxie, do you need any help?" Major asked.

Suddenly the door opened, and Roy and Dorothea stood only feet away staring at her naked backside.

Dear God
, her back and bottom were riddled with bruises, not only from her earlier punishment, but also from the corset marks he had placed upon her with the cane a week earlier. Those bruises were nearly gone—quite yellow and faded with age and the little scabs from the places where he'd opened the skin were also mostly healed.

But not completely.

Despite the bikini underwear she wore, she knew with his blind aim, her ass and the area around it bore marks.

"Oh my God," Dorothea said under her breath.

"Please, close the door," Nyxie pleaded, too embarrassed to say more.

Roy pushed his wife aside to get to the knob and pulled it closed.

Even after the door shut, Nyxie stood frozen, her arms shielding her breasts in a position that she didn't even remember moving into.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!

Before dressing, Nyxie briefly looked into the mirror to see exactly what they had seen. Maybe it wasn't as bad as she thought. Maybe she could tell them she slipped on the rocks getting Declan off the mountain. Would they believe that? As she did her best to look over her shoulder, she could see the marks looked exactly like what they were. Bruises in different stages of healing. Maybe if she hadn't had him put the lace pattern on her back, she could have been able to lie about the rest, but there was no way to lie about the symmetry of the fading yellow injuries. Obviously, they had been deliberately placed there.

She pulled her clothing on and checked the mirror to make sure none of the bruises showed above the tank top. Although she hadn't put Declan's jeans and shirts back in his suitcase, she took a deep breath and exited the bedroom with both their bags. His contained all of their toys and she didn't want his parents to happen upon them if there was a reason why they needed to open his bag.

Nyxie kept her gaze on the floor as she exited the bedroom, unable to meet their eyes.

"It's all yours," she mumbled. "I'm sorry I didn't have any clean sheets to put on the bed, but we washed them the day before yesterday."

"That's fine," Roy said, attempting to be polite.

"Declan's not a monster. Every mark was consensual."

Nyxie placed the luggage in an out-of-the-way spot behind the driver's seat and began closing curtains and blinds, while Roy and Dorothea disappeared into the bedroom. She grabbed her phone and called Kylie to check on the kids. Sitting down on the passenger side captain's chair, she drew her legs up in front of her, acutely aware of the whispered conversation going on behind the bedroom door. She couldn't hear their words, but she knew her back was the topic of conversation.

"Hey," Nyxie said into the phone, her voice quiet and subdued. She felt overwhelmingly exhausted. "Did y'all get settled into a motel?"

"We had to go to Pagosa Springs but the place seems clean and safe," Kylie said.

"How is…are they going to get the RV fixed?"

Obviously, the kids could hear the conversation. "Declan had surgery to repair a corneal laceration. His nose was broken and he had four stitches to sew up his eyebrow. They're going to release him in the morning and we'll be on our way to meet up with you.”

"Thank God," Kylie said.

"Are the kids behaving themselves? Have you had any trouble using the credit card?"

"No problem with the card, but Reina is upset. She doesn't think you're coming back."

Considering she had been abandoned by her mother a year earlier, it shouldn't surprise Nyxie that the girl might feel abandoned again. "Let me talk to her."

Nyxie spent a few minutes talking with each child before the phone returned to the nanny's hand. "Kylie, by any chance do you have any Kotex in your luggage I can use? I'll replace them as soon as I get to the store."

"Inside pocket," Kylie said. "Just what you needed—the cherry on top of a big pile of shit."

"Yeah, that's about right. Thanks for everything, Kylie. At least I don't have to worry about the kids right now. We’ll call you as soon as Declan gets released and we’ll head that way."

"Sounds good, Nyxie, we'll see you tomorrow."

Nyxie hung up the phone feeling empty and alone.

With a quick glance at the bedroom door where the discussion was getting louder, Nyxie grabbed a pair of clean panties and a towel from her luggage and what she euphemistically called back-to-school-supplies out of Kylie's duffel bag. She disappeared into the bathroom and took a quick shower. Maybe with luck, his parents would go to bed before she emerged. They hadn't. When she turned off the hairdryer after her shower, she could hear someone washing a couple of cups in the sink. Nyxie finished in the bathroom and reluctantly emerged, heading straight for her suitcase to tuck her worn underwear out of sight.

"You don't have to wash those," Nyxie said to her mother-in-law who was handing off the last cup to Roy for drying. "I would've done them before I went to bed."

Dorothea dried her hands on a paper towel. "Nyxie, you don't have to get defensive. You had more important things to deal with. No one is judging you on a pair of dirty cups in the sank."

No, they had plenty of other things to judge her about.

Nyxie felt sick to her stomach, standing in front of the people who knew her secret.

Roy reached across to his wife to put the cup away in an overhead cabinet with a little latch on it to keep it closed through turns and rough roads.

"Darlin', we need to apologize for walking in on you like that. It never occurred to us you might be changing."

"Even my eight-year-old knows to knock on a closed door," she mumbled. She felt like she was back in the high school gym and he was getting ready to go off on her again. And if not Coach, Major would.

"I don't even know what to say to you," Dorothea said, slipping the paper towel into a trash bag hanging from a corner of a lower cabinet.

"Then don't say anything," Nyxie said, wanting to bite back the words as soon as they were out of her mouth.

"When I find out my son is abusing his wife; I have to say something."

Nyxie gasped. "He's not abusing me…."

"How can you say that? There is no way you can claim those are random bruises. Some of those bruises are fresh and some are old. They are too uniform to not have been placed by intelligent design."

Nyxie stared at her, wishing she could deny what they already knew. "It’s nothing for you to worry about."

"Of course it is. He wasn't raised to act like that. He didn't see that behavior modeled in our home or my parents’ home."

"He's not abusing me! It's consensual."

"I don't know if you are a Svengali or a Jezebel, but I have no doubt that you led him down this immoral path."

Nyxie wanted to laugh. Not just because of the irony of it, but just the idea that she could somehow overcome her timid nature to broach the subject of being masochistic with Declan and then coerce him into something against his nature, seemed funny to her. Declan was a leader, not a follower. But she supposed it was easier to blame her than to admit Declan wasn’t as perfect as they believed.

"Thea, you know that's not true. Declan—" He stopped. "We should have put him in counseling when Junior told us what kind of websites he was subscribing to."

"What are you talking about?" she asked, turning towards her husband.

"The porn—the kinky porn sites. I told you."

Realization lit Dorothea's eyes. "You never said he was looking at S&M sites.”

"Not specifically, no." Coach looked into his wife's confused face and tilted his head sympathetically. Nyxie could tell he hadn’t told her to protect her from the truth.

“You should've told me. We could have gotten him help."

Dorothea’s voice cracked, but if she had any tears, Nyxie couldn’t detect them. If anything, the older woman’s stance seemed to take on her military bearing. Her shoulders pulled back and Nyxie felt relieved that airport security would not allow them to transport arms.

"I didn't want to add fuel to the fire. All you two did was fight and bicker."

"And now we have a son who's a pervert."

"Stop!" Nyxie shouted, finding it easier to stand up for her husband than for herself. The same way she could stand up for the kids when necessary. "There is nothing wrong with Declan."

"Says the woman who lets him hit her."

Biting her lip, Nyxie resisted the urge to throw some smartass comment their way—not that any smartass comments were coming to mind. She wanted to say it wasn't any of their business and they could fuck off if they didn't like it. Declan wouldn't want her to roll over and take it. He would want her to stand up for herself.

"Just because it isn't what's right for you or other people, doesn't make it wrong. It's right for us."

"It's unhealthy. Your relationship is like some codependent drug addiction," Dorothea said.

Nyxie couldn't deny it. She had never had a role model of a healthy relationship to follow. But she knew her relationship with Declan felt right.

"It works for us. Declan is happy. I'm happy. Can't we just leave it at that?"

Nyxie stepped away from them and lifted one of the bench seat bottoms to retrieve a pillow and quilt from the storage area beneath it. "It's been a long day," she said, putting two pillows on the couch that she intended to sleep on.

She retrieved her toothbrush and tube of toothpaste from her overnight bag and disappeared into the bathroom. As soon as she was locked in, she leaned against the door, drawing deep breaths into her lungs to try to calm herself. She would have stayed in there the rest of the night, sleeping on the floor if she could have, just to get away from them. Unfortunately, she couldn't.

After brushing her teeth, Nyxie emerged and went about ignoring them as she made up the couch to go to bed.

She lifted the quilt and climbed into her makeshift bed, pulling the quilt over her shoulders and closed her eyes before remembering she needed to charge her phone. With a sigh of irritation, she got up and took her phone to the plug with the power strip they had all been using to charge their phones. Six plugs with six chargers and hers the only one able to charge tonight. Hopefully, Kylie would have thought to buy one when she took the kids to the store to buy pajamas and clothing for the next day and whatever else they needed. She unplugged Declan's charger. He had an important call to make in the morning. His phone needed to be charged and even if it didn't, it was exactly the excuse she needed to leave the RV until they were asleep.

"Declan's phone battery was low. He needs to charge it to call about his fellowship. I've got my keys to the RV. No need to wait up for me."

As quickly as she could, she put on her shoes and slipped out the door into the brightly lit parking lot. She kept her eyes moving as she crossed the mostly deserted asphalt. It felt a lot like crossing the truck stop lot at home. She tried to be on the lookout without being overly scared. But she was relieved when she was back inside the hospital.

Nearly all the people she saw were leaving and she knew visiting hours were over, so she took the stairs to his floor because the elevators opened up right in front of the nurses' station.

The room was mostly dark, but light enough for the nurses to move around when they made their rounds. With his eyes bandaged, it was hard to tell if he was asleep. His breathing seemed deep and steady, so she crept around as quietly as possible to put his phone on to charge.

He hadn't stirred. She should just go back to the RV but she needed to be with him for a little bit. Climbing onto the bed near the foot, she slowly crawled between Declan and the rail. She intended to lie down beside him for just a few minutes.

"Nurse, what are you doing? My wife could walk in and catch us."

"Jerk!"

He laughed. "Uh, I mean, Nyxie, what are you doing? The nurse could…. I knew it was you," he said opening and lifting his arms to the side so he could hold her. She stretched out on her side next to him and his arm pulled her firmly to his side with her head on his shoulder.

"That didn't take you long to escape my parents. I figured you'd wait until you heard Coach snoring."

"Your parents walked in on me while I was changing. They saw my bruises," she blurted. "Who walks in through a closed door without knocking? They just stood there staring. I had to tell them to shut the door. If I walked in on someone wearing nothing but their undies, my reflex would be to close the door or turn around before I saw anything. Not them—not your parents. No. They had to look their fill."