The Love She Craves: Selling Her Soul to Declan (35 page)

36

Her second driving lesson went much better than the first despite the heavier traffic. He had her drive to the drive-thru at a nearby Mexican restaurant.

“When I was an undergrad, some of my buddies turned me onto this place. It's fast food, but they have the best fajitas in town. Great margaritas, too, if you’re eating in.”

“Do you drink a lot?” she asked tentatively.

He shook his head. “No. A glass of wine or beer with dinner is usually all I allow myself. Too many calories. Also, I’m not allowed to drink for twenty-four hours before surgery. It’s the biggest pain about being on a surgical rotation. A lot of doctors won’t even consider surgery as a specialty because of it; that, and because of the long fellowship.”

He sensed her body relax a bit. “Nyxie, it’s a hard limit for you, I get that. I’d rather be drunk on you than on alcohol.”

A shy smile crossed her countenance. “So what am I ordering?”

“The number twenty-nine, chicken, two teas, a chocolate cake and a carrot cake.”

“Cake, really? Which one is mine?”

“Either or half of each.” He laughed. “I wonder how many extra miles I’m running tomorrow.”

“I wouldn’t mind running with you.”

“No, maybe when you’re at your weight range but not yet. If you want to exercise, I have a couple of yoga DVDs or you could weight train. But I’d prefer you do nothing aerobic but walking and fucking. Which reminds me; I still owe you a punishment for walking to the hospital.”

Yes, please
, Nyxie thought as she pulled up to the speaker and placed their order. Her cheeks turned red and her pupils were clearly dilated when she looked at him.

“Oh, Nyxie, I can read your thoughts so clearly on your face. It really isn’t much of a punishment if you want it. We may have to think of some other punishment.”

“How did you punish your other subs?”

Declan leaned away as he eyed her speculatively. His arms crossed over his chest. “The subs I’ve been with were not necessarily mine to punish. Not to say I’ve never punished the subs
I’ve been with, but many times it’s their Dom who punishes them.”

She looked at him incredulously. “You’ve been with other men’s subs?”

His head slowly bobbed up and down. “Yeah, occasionally. Sometimes, when I go into a BDSM online community, a Dom is looking for another Dom to be with his sub.”

“Why? Why would someone want to invite another man into his relationship?”

The line moved up and Nyxie pulled up to the window. “Use your debit card, Nyx; I want to make sure it’s working.”

She paid for the food and the woman handed her
the drinks and a huge plastic bag of food with Styrofoam boxes and containers. Declan took the food from her and put it on the floorboard between his long legs.

As she pulled out of the restaurant, Declan instructed her to turn left out of the parking lot onto a six-lane street. “Take your time and relax. Just wait for your opening,” he said.

“Am I turned around? Isn’t your house the other way?”

“We’re not going straight home. There’s someplace I want you to see.”

It took Nyxie a good minute and a half to get her nerve up to jump into traffic, but once they were out on the street, Declan resumed their conversation. “Some Doms enjoy voyeurism. Their subs usually understand up front that they would be shared. Sometimes a sub might be punished by being shared and her Dom withholding his affections and some Dom’s might do it to prove their sub’s obedience—either prove it to themselves or to others. Most of the subs I’ve been with, have been unattached and perhaps looking for a Dom.”

“You said you wouldn’t share me. Does that include punishment?”

The roguish smile he cast at her made her core lurch. “I’m an only child. I never learned to share.”

“Good. And I’ve never had anything so I find I want to guard what is mine fiercely.”

Declan pointed ahead. “You need to take the first right after the overpass.”

Nyxie carefully picked her way across the lanes until she made it to the correct lane. She turned between a shopping center and a gas station into a neighborhood of moderately sized brick homes.

“Follow the street until it ends, turn right, go down to the next intersection and turn right again. Go one block then stop on the side of the road.”

She laughed. “That’s three rights. One more and I’ll be driving around in circles.”

“You know to yield at this T-intersection, right?”

“I believe I got that question right on my written test.”

“Are you checking that none of these intersections are uncontrolled?”

Nyxie quickly pivoted her head checking for stop signs. “We’re good.”

Within a few minutes, Nyxie pulled the car over and put it in park. To the right was the backside of houses in a cul-de-sac, and to the left a large collection of buildings with driveways. They didn’t look like houses or apartments, but in the middle of the complex was a playground.

“I thought we’d have our dessert first,” he said reaching into the bag for the two clear plastic to-go boxes containing their cake and forks. “Eat half and then we’ll switch.”

“Are you serious? You had me drive miles from your house to eat cake in the middle of a neighborhood? Is this one of those things where the calories don’t count if no one sees you eat them?”

He laughed. “I thought solitary
calories counted double,” he said before pointing across the street. “That’s the foster home where Lotus and Reina are staying. This is about the time they usually call. I thought we might get a glimpse of them if they come outside to play.”

She looked at him wide-eyed. “How do you know they’re here?”

He picked up his phone and wagged it at her.

She laughed. “You and your family stalker app. Can we go say hello to them?”

“No, baby. I’m sure Junior would pitch a royal fit if he knew we were here.”

“Give me your phone.”

Declan quickly paired the phone with the car’s hands-free feature. When they looked up, some teenage boys had come out of one of the houses and were dribbling toward a black top court.

“Should I call them, lure them outside?”

“No, don’t do anything different. Wait for them to call. Eat your cake and keep your eyes open.”

Nyxie tore open the plastic package and pulled out the fork. “This feels so naughty.”

“Eating cake before supper or stalking your daughters?”

She grinned widely and sighed.
Daughters
not nieces. The thought warmed her heart. “Both,” she said and put a fork full of carrot cake in her mouth. She closed her eyes as the cream cheese frosting melted over her tongue.

As she continued to eat, more and more children spilled out of various buildings with no sign of Lotus or Reina. She closed up the half eaten cake and handed it to him, but refused the rest of his chocolate cake.

Nyxie had begun to despair when her phone rang. The caller ID flashed Lotus’s name across the display. “Lotus! Is Reina with you?”

“We’re both here.”

Declan touched her hand. “Remember they’re on speaker, anyone can overhear,” he whispered.

She nodded. “I miss y’all. It’s good to hear from you. I have so much exciting news; I don’t know where to start. Do you want to hear about Cody? Or me? Or what the lawyer said about the guardianship hearing tomorrow?”

The girls began squabbling over what they wanted to hear first.

“Dr. Stryker is going to hold up some fingers. Reina pick a number between one and ten.” Declan held up one finger.

“Five,” Reina shouted into the phone.

“Six,” Lotus said knowing the drill.

“He’s holding up one finger.”

“Dang it.”

“Lotus…,” Nyxie admonished her for her language. “So, Reina what do you want to hear first?”

“When does the lawyer say we can come home?” Her little voice had a plaintive whine.

“Not yet, but we located your mother. She said when I get you back, I can adopt both of you. Would y’all like that?”

The girls began screaming excitedly on the other end of the phone and if they said any actual words, they were indistinguishable.

“Reina, Lotus!” a voice shouted from a distance. “If you want to make that much noise, go outside.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Nyxie stayed quiet on her end of the phone. She held her breath hoping she could see them. The rustling sound of the girls moving, and the whispers of, “Hide the phone behind Bear-Bear,” was followed by silence.

“We’re back,” Lotus said a minute later. “How was Mama?”

Nyxie’s eyes scanned the buildings for the girls, but Declan spotted them first. They were a good hundred yards away and she couldn’t see them very well.

“Lotus, I don’t want you to get upset, but your mama is in jail. This may be the best thing for her. She can’t get drugs in there, so she’s sober. And even though it makes us sad that she’s in jail, we have to be glad she can’t get high.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Nyxie could hear the sad resignation in her voice and she wondered if she should have kept the news from them.

“She was mad at me that I didn’t bring y’all. Now that she’s off the drugs, she misses you bunches.”

The conversation lagged and she wished she could hug them while they digested the news about Melinda.

“Lotus, what did you want to hear about next?”

“Cody.”

“He woke up from his coma today. He still very sick, but we think he could understand us.”

It felt strange to use the us pronoun, but she liked it. She smiled at Declan and felt guilty for being happy and in love when her family was torn apart.

“Did he want to know where we were?” Reina asked.

“He’s still on the breathing machine so he can’t talk because the tube goes in his mouth,” Onyx said trying to use language they could understand.

“Oh.”

“But I know he’d want me to tell you he loves you and he misses you. Hopefully, he can tell you himself tomorrow when you call. But don’t be too disappointed if he can’t. Guess what?”

“What?” they said in unison.

“Dr. Stryker moved all of our stuff out of our house and is going to help me find a new place for us to live.”

“Actually,” Declan stepped in. “I’ve already founded great place for y’all to live. I own a duplex and no one lives next door. Would you like to live next door? It’s a lot bigger than where you were living, but you don’t mind, do you?”

Nyxie stared at him as he continued.

“It has four bedrooms. You can either have your own rooms or you two can share.”

“We want to share,” Lotus said immediately.

Declan laughed. “I had an inkling you’d say that. Do you want two twin beds, bunk beds or a big princess bed with a canopy?”

The girls spoke quietly together in consultation. “We don’t need a bed. We’ll just sleep with Aunt Nyxie and Uncle Cody like always.”

“Girls, I know you love Nyxie and Cody, and when you all sleep together it feels safe, but Cody’s in middle school now. Boys his age, dream about football and sometimes they thrash around in their sleep. With all of his injuries, he could hurt himself if he accidentally head-butted you.”

“We could still sleep with Aunt Nyxie,” Reina said, hopefully.

“I will come lay with you in your room until you fall asleep, but Declan is my boyfriend and he and I will sleep together when he’s not working.”

“But….”

“Stop being a baby, Reina,” Lotus said to her sister. “Aunt Nyxie isn’t like Mama; she’s not going to dump us off with someone we don’t know because she’s got a boyfriend.”

“No,” Nyxie said quickly
now realizing why Reina didn’t want Declan to take her out. The little girl thought Melinda abandoned them because of her boyfriend. She looked at Declan in the eye and took a firm tone of voice. “I’m never letting you go after I get you back. If Declan wanted me to ship you off, I’d find another place to live and get rid of him.”

Declan reached across and touched her face. “I will never, ever ask you to do that. I know what it’s like to be ripped from your family.”

She covered his hand with her own, turned her face and kissed his palm.

“Why can’t we just get one big bed?” Reina whined.

“Because they want to have sex, dummy.”

“Lotus, I don’t ever want to hear you call Reina that name again. She’s not dumb, she’s just younger than you are and doesn’t know about some things. Tell Reina you’re sorry.”

“Sor-ry.”

“It’s okay,” Reina said in a tone that reflected Lotus’s insincere apology. “Aunt Nyxie, what’s sex?”

“Uh,” Nyxie said eyeing Declan as she tried to figure out how to answer the awkward question. “It’s how grown-ups show they love each other. It’s very private and very special.” She shrugged and smiled shyly at him as she spoke.