The Love She Craves: Selling Her Soul to Declan (20 page)

“Where’s the Jeep?” she asked understanding that he took her phone away because he wanted her attention on him not the girls.

“It’s at home in the garage. It’s my everyday vehicle. This is my alter ego’s car. Do you like it?”

Nyxie didn’t think he’d appreciate hearing she knew nothing about cars and probably was not fit to make a judgment about an old piece of junk much less a pretty red BMW
Z4 convertible.

“You’re not going to drive fast are you?”

“Are you afraid of my driving?”

She glanced at him realizing he’d taken offense where none was intended. “I’m a bit of a white knuckle passenger.”

A humorless smirk came to his lips. “It’s because you don’t trust anyone.”

She would have liked to have denied it, but it was true. No one in h
er life had ever proven themselves trustworthy. The only person she could trust was herself. That’s the way it had always been.

“Ah, yes, back to my issues. It couldn’t possibly be that I’ve rarely ridden in cars and they make me nervous.”

“Watch the tone, Nyxie.”

“Well, you keep telling me all my problems like you know me better than I know myself, and it’s annoying. You believe I’m the same powerless kid you
think
you knew in high school. I’m not like that now. I’m not helpless. I never was. Up until that idiot kid nearly killed Cody, I had everything under control.”

“So says my underweight, malnourished sub who left her kids unwatched twelve hours a day so she could scrape together enough to keep her family of four housed in an overpriced garage. You’re deluding yourself if you think you had anything under control.”

She crossed her arms over her chest and turned her face away from him, looking sightlessly out the window. “Sometimes the things we tell ourselves are the only things holding us together,” she said so softly he nearly missed it. When she turned back, all the vulnerability was gone from her expression. “You grew up with every advantage. You don’t know what it’s like.”

He looked askance at Onyx, noting the way her
crossed arms pressed into her body, her hands wrapping around her sides. She didn’t need to speak her defiance, it showed in her body language.

“More of your particular form of foreplay, Nyxie? Are you hoping to provoke me into a little punishment with our pleasure later?”

“Am I?” she said, as much to ask herself as to ask him. “It’s not intentional. I’m nervous. And upset over Reina hanging up on me.”

He placed his hand on her thigh.  “I know.”

She sighed softly and stared out the window at the darkening summer night. “I started reading the first book.” A slight chuckle escaped her lips. “It’s been a long time since I could just sit down and read.”

A smile graced his lips. “How far did you get?”

“It’s hard to gauge on the phone, but she got her first punishment.”

“Ah, and…?”

She tried to suppress the smile threatening to spread across her face, but her eyes were the true measure of what she thought. They glistened with a spark of amorous intent.

“The only thing more annoying than the way you
think
you know what I feel is the way you do seem to know me better than I know myself.”

Declan laughed out loud in a quick triumphant outburst. “Got you worked up, did it?”

She blushed, but was unable to keep the grin off her face. “I kept catching myself crossing my legs and bouncing my foot.”

“Excuse me?” he said in an irritated tone.

“I stopped as soon as I realized I was doing it because I knew you wouldn’t like it,” she said as if he should have known.

“Good girl.”

A thought suddenly occurred to her. “Do you think I’ve always done that?”

“Probably,” he chuckled.

“Do you think other people knew what I was doing?”

He shrugged in response. “No telling.”

One hand went to her cheek feeling the heat radiating from below the surface. “I didn’t even realize I was doing it.”

“Yeah, you seem pretty oblivious to all aspects of your sexuality. If it weren’t for the fact that you masturbate, I would worry that there is something wrong with your pituitary gland.”

She looked at him sideways. “Is that a pitfall of being a doctor? Are you constantly looking for medical reasons for every little thing?”

“Pitfalls…?” he got out before she interrupted.

“Am I to be the victim of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy?”

His eyebrows lifted as he eyed her curiously. “You’ve heard of Munchausen by Proxy?”

“It was a yearly staple of the talk shows back when we still had TV. I think I saw it both on Oprah and Dr. Phil.”

“What, no Maury?”

“Paternity tests day-in and day-out? No thanks. That’s not entertaining to those of us who lived with it.”

“You?”

She shook her head. “No, not me. Cody. I don’t think he knows unless Daddy told him after he was older. But me—I am definitely the son-of-a-bitch’s kid.” She studied his face, but could not tell him her greatest shame.

She pointedly looked out the window and shrugged when she felt his gaze fall on her.  Nyxie had never told anyone, one of the major themes of her parents’ fights was the circumstances of her conception. If she hadn’t been conceived, maybe her parents wouldn’t have hated each other so much. Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad for her siblings. Melinda had told her more than once, that their marriage was not bad when she was little. Daddy only started drinking
all the time after Nyxie’s birth.

She knew that was why her mother hat
ed her and named her Onyx Ebony – two words synonymous with black to describe her hatred and dark thoughts regarding her unwanted child. It was an expression of what she was going through and how she felt about her second daughter. During her parents’ bitterest arguments, Nyxie learned her mother tried to self-abort her twice.

Sometimes, she wondered if that’s why she struggled so much in school. She was always littler and had a harder time. She didn’t know if it was worth her time to try to get her GED.

She missed a lot of school especially when she was in the younger grades and as a result she missed most of her fundamentals. She had no real foundation to build her education. Her first grade teacher saw no point in going out of her way for a Carmichael especially since Onyx was in the habit of falling asleep anytime she read to the class or they dimmed the lights to watch a film. The woman didn’t care that her father might have stumbled in at 2:00 in the morning and spent the next two hours in a tirade. The teacher had no expectations of white trash like her and told her second grade teacher just to pass her along. Any subject that required reading, she struggled with. Between being bullied and humiliated for being stupid, elementary felt like a prison sentence to her. It wasn’t until sixth grade when Mrs. North took pity on her that she really learned to read well.

20

The roadhouse-themed restaurant’s wooden plank walls were littered with neon beer signs and replica tin advertisements as well as license plates. Her shoes crunched on the peanut shells on the wooden floor as the hostess led them to a booth in the rapidly emptying restaurant.

“I hope anyone with a peanut allergy doesn’t wear sandals if they come in here,” she said as she slid into a booth.

“I hope they’re smart enough not to come through the door.”

Declan sat across from her, pulled the menu from her hand and gave it back to the hostess. “We know what we want.”

Nyxie sighed realizing this was all part of what she signed on for, but decided she’d probably ruin her appetite if she saw the prices like she had at IHOP.

The waiter, dressed in blue jeans and the same black Tech Polo the rest of the employees wore, stepped up. He was college aged and good looking.

“She’l
l have the filet mignon, medium-rare, broccoli and a sweet potato. I’ll have the filet mignon, medium-rare with no bacon, broccoli with no butter and a veggie kebab and we’ll both have iced tea.”

“Extra ice in mine,” Nyxie chimed in.

“Sweet or unsweet?”

A flash of irritation crossed Declan’s face. “Unsweet,” he said dryly staring across at Onyx.

“God, I hate that question,” he said as soon as the waiter departed.

She laughed. “Me, too. Do they ask people who order Coke if they want regular Coke or Diet Coke?”

“Exactly! Do you go to the store and buy unsweet teabags? Hell, no. They’re called teabags. The product they produce is called tea, not unsweet tea. The question is as asinine as asking if you want your ice frozen.”

“What drives me even crazier is when they call it
unsweetened
tea—like they removed the sugar.”

He laughed as he reached for the galvanized steel bucket of peanuts. “Sometimes when they ask me that question, I tell them I don’t want my tea bastardized with sugar. Half of them are so clueless, they just stare at me.”

“Yes, apparently we tea drinkers are too stupid to actually order what we wanted in the first place.”

They sat across from each other grinning at the strange camaraderie of sharing the same pet peeve.

The waiter returned with two glasses of tea, a basket of hot rolls, and saucers for their bread.

“Do y’all need any steak sauce?” he asked. “No, thanks,” Declan said sending the man on his way.

Nyxie used the tall teaspoon to fish out the lemon. “I wish I’d thought to ask them to leave it out.” Not that she had much chance to say anything to the waiter. She dipped her spoon in and scooped out a piece of ice which she promptly sucked into her mouth. It crunched loudly between her teeth as she caught him frowning at her. “I’d almost rather eat my liquids than drink them.”

“Pica,” Declan said. “Did you take the vitamins Emily gave you today?”

“Yeah, this morning.” Her brows lowered. “I think.”

“Dammit, Nyxie. You will not neglect your health. You need those at least until your levels come up.”

He took her phone and set the alarm for 8:00 AM with a reminder to take her vitamins. He cast a look around to make sure no one was within earshot before he spoke. “I need you at your physical prime. It’s my guess the reason my belt left faint bruises is because your iron level is so low—not that it wasn’t a turn on to see them today—purple stripes with bright pink handprints over them, but nevertheless, I prefer not to leave marks that’ll be there the next day. You have such a high capacity for handling pain; it’s hard to gauge how much force to use.”

A slight smile graced her lips over what she perceived as praise. Nyxie’s knees pressed together un
der the table as she reached inside her purse for the bottle of large pills. She kept her eyes down as she retrieved one, put it between her teeth, and swallowed it with a gulp of tea. “Sorry, sir. I’m not used to taking pills.”

“I’ve got a surprise for you. Tomorrow, Joseph and a friend of his are going to take you shopping. Hold on.”

He grabbed his phone and Google-searched limo companies in Lubbock then called and ordered a town car—preferably with a female driver—to tote her around.

“I’ll give you my card, take Joseph and his friend to lunch—let them pick the place. Maybe you should have the driver take you to DPS for a driver’s handbook. Find out if you need anything besides a birth certificate to get your license.”

“I don’t have a birth certificate.”

His shoulders sank. “You just don’t make anything easy. Remind me in the morning and we’ll go online and get Austin to mail you a copy. We’ll try to get the children’s also.”

She nodded as she dug another crescent of ice out of her cup and slurped it off the spoon. “Okay.”

“Junior said you should have your first court hearing in the next week or two so you’ll need to buy a couple of dresses—the kind of thing a waitress might wear to church—nothing too expensive. You don’t want to look like you’re spending money on yourself while your kids are doing without.” He stopped and looked around then dropped the volume of his voice so he couldn’t be overheard. “And don’t forget you’ve got bruises on your ass when you’re in the dressing room at Victoria’s Secret. The last thing we want is for ugly rumors to start.”

“Joseph is taking me to Victoria’s Secret?”

“Where better to buy some bras?”

“Wal-Mart, Goodwill?”

He laughed. “Remember, you’re not the only one who gets to see you in them.”

The sultry smile on his face made her blush with the promise of things to come. Of course, he didn’t want to see her wearing a utilitarian bra from a box. He wanted to see her dressed in titillating lingerie.

“Also, you need to get started on your GED. Go buy yourself a laptop or a tablet so you can take online classes while you’re sitting with Cody.”

She looked at him blankly, blinking. “I don’t mind using the computers at the library. I don’t need my own.”

“You really need something you can take to the hospital. When he wakes up, he’s still going to sleep many hours a day and as he recovers, he’ll also have physical therapy which will keep him out of the room.”

Nyxie nodded and bit her lip. “I bet I can find a good one at a pawn shop.”

“Nyx, I’m not asking you to use your money. I’m going to pay for it. I’m going to pay for everything.”

Her expression changed little as she tried to come to grips with the fact he wanted to buy her such an expensive gift. Although she pretended she didn’t care if she possessed all the modern conveniences everyone else owned, in truth, she wanted them, but never imagined she might someday have her own. But how could she justify accepting such an expensive gift when she was already indebted to him.

“Sir, I can’t let you spend that much money on me.”

“Nyxie,” he said reaching for a roll and putting it on her saucer. “We are very lucky that I have the means to take care of your needs. Some subs aren’t that lucky. But since I can, I do require more of you. Because you won’t be working, I expect you to be available to me when I want to see you. When you get your kids back, you will have to have childcare available when I call. My schedule is posted at the beginning of the month, so you should be able to make arrangements in advance. When I’m working, your kids can be your sole focus, but when I’m not, you belong to me heart, mind and soul. You need to understand that and so do they. If you want, tell them you are working for me. I’m sure we can figure out a little cover story to help them deal with your time away.”

“I-I understand, sir. It’s just I really don’t want you wasting more money on me. The lawyer is really all we bargained for.”

His lips tightened and his even tone sounded forced. “It’s not a waste to give you the things you need. You deserve to own clothing that no one has worn before you. When was the last time you wore something that wasn’t secondhand?” He stopped and waited for an answer, but she only drew her lips between her teeth. “If I allow you to dress in your old worn out stuff, when I can easily afford to buy you what you need, it would show that I am insensitive to your needs. And you will take the gifts I give you because you know it gives me pleasure to provide for you.”

She dropped her gaze as he had instructed her to do when she apologized. “Yes, sir. I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t mean to sound ungrateful. It’s just….”

“Nyx, you deserve….”

“But I don’t. What have I ever done to deserve anything? You seem to have some sort of romanticized image of me in your head. I’m not who you think I am. You can dress me up like I’m somebody, but I’m just a piece of trash.” Tears fell over her lashes. “Your parents knew the second they saw me. Everyone knows I’m one of the worthless Carmichaels. My father was the town drunk, a rapist and probably even a murderer. My mother was a functioning alcoholic and a prostitute, my sister is a meth-head who abandoned her kids.”

Declan moved in a blur from his seat to hers. Even as his arms wrapped around her, his muscled chest and hips slid her easily into the corner by the wall, making her space as small as possible. When she drew her hands between their bodies, he felt the tension ebb.

He lowered his head until his forehead touched hers. “If you ever talk about yourself like that again, I’m going to cane you so hard you won’t sit for a week,” he said into her ear. “You are none of those things your parents were. You did not turn out like your sister. And how you managed that, I don’t know. You deserve nice things because you have lived through it all and come out a good person with a loving heart.”

She sobbed into his shoulder. “N-no,” she hiccupped. “Cody got hurt because I neglected him. I-I knew I shouldn’t leave them alone. I deserved to have them taken away.”

“Dang,” the waiter said from behind Declan. “Usually people only cry when the food’s gone.”

Although Declan appreciated the man’s attempt at humor in an awkward moment, he barely glanced in his direction. “Please, package that up to-go for us with two teas no lemon and extra ice.”

“Sure, did you want to cut into them and make sure the steaks are cooked the way you like?”

“No.” His tone was curt.

“Unsweet tea, right?”

Declan felt Nyxie’s body hiccup as if she chuckled through her tears. “Right.” He waited until the man left before he turned his attention back to her. “Well, I could punish you for letting Cody get hit by a car if it would make you feel better. But frankly, my heart wouldn’t be in it. Or we could think of this logically. If you hadn’t been working, would you have been outside watching him or in the house?”

“I-I don’t know,” she said trying to stem the tears. “I usually let him go ride his bike alone with Levi and give him some boy-time away from the girls.”

“Do Levi’s parents watch over them?”

“No, not unless they’re out working in the yard.”

“And if you had been out there, would it have changed anything? Could you have stopped that truck?”

“Maybe I would’ve seen it coming and been able to shout to him or maybe I could’ve pushed him out of the way.”

“Or maybe you couldn’t change a thing,” he said gently. “Or maybe you would have jumped out there and been killed. Thankfully, he wore that helmet. It saved his life. If you had been there, nothing would have changed, not one damn thing, Nyxie. The state was wrong to take them away.”

She pushed away from him. “But when you spanked me with the belt….”

“I knew you felt guilty. I thought if you felt like you had been punished, you’d feel better.”

She laughed shakily. “That’s sweet in a warped kind of way.”

“Warped? Wait until I get you home.”

He kissed her briefly and dried her cheeks with his thumbs. “Feel better, baby?”

She nodded. “Big baby is more like it. I think I’ve done more crying in the last few days than I have in the last few years.”

“It’s been a rough time and I’m sure the implant in your arm has your hormones all confused, too.”

“You have a medical reason for everything,” she said sniffling.

“Wait until you see how I put my medical knowledge to work tonight,” he said sliding out of the bench as he saw the waiter approaching with their boxed up meals and drinks.

“I slipped you a few fresh rolls,” he said rifling through his folder for their ticket.

Declan barely glan
ced at it before pulling three twenties out of his wallet. “Keep the change.”

Nyxie stared at the money until the waiter tucked it away in his folder. There were weeks when she fed her whole family for less than that and Declan thought nothing of spending that much on one meal for two people.