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

He dropped each of the ropes in the corner so they’d be out of the way until he could deal with them properly.

“I’ll be right back.”

She heard him rushed down the stairs, but fell asleep without moving before he came back.

“Nyxie?” He shook her almost violently, waking her up immediately. “Thank God, I thought you passed out.”

“I’m tired. That was exhausting.”

“Can you sit up a bit? I brought you something for the pain and swelling.”

Her eyes closed. “I don’t take drugs.”

“It’s over-the-counter, baby. I’m not going to give you narcotics. I can’t prescribe for you. I’d have to find someone else who would.”

Nyxie only rolled over as far as her hip and rose up on her elbow.

“Viagra?” she asked seeing the two blue pills.

“Naproxen.”

She swallowed the pills without difficulty and lowered herself to the mattress. She felt herself drifting off when he suddenly sprayed her ass with something cool. It startled her a bit and she looked over her shoulder at him.

“Bactine,” he said. “And ice.” He held up a flexible icepack sheet.

“I’m okay,” she said. “I just need a few minutes. That was… intense.”

39

Intense
?

Christ, it was insane.

Declan picked up a rope and began coiling it as he watched her sleep. His precious sub was so beautiful, so brave, so damaged.

Fuck, he almost couldn’t believe he’d taken it so far. But she needed to understand, really understand, that he was her Dom. They had an agreement and she merely skirted the edges. That was his fault because he let her get away with it.

But this? He wished he felt better about what happened. There was a big difference hitting a sub he met online, one with whom he had little or no emotional connection, and hitting the woman he loved. The only thing that made it bearable was the knowledge that it fulfilled a need in her.

She never wavered, never asked him to stop, even as the pain clouded her thoughts. Had she been able to think clearly enough at that point to know if she should stop it?

The first blow with the paddle bruised her. Every blow after that made it worse. Bruise upon bruise upon bruise. Christ, she wouldn’t be able to sit for a week. That would make court fun tomorrow. He wondered if the courtroom would have wooden chairs as it did in the movies.

As he moved to close the armoire, the paddle caught his eye and he felt a bit sick. Just because he could, didn’t mean he should use it. The longer he looked at it the more he knew the paddle was a hard limit for
him
. He would never again hit Nyxie with that fucking paddle. God, it had been such a fantasy to recreate the moment he became aware of her, but if that was what it took, he might as well turn in his proverbial Dom card now.

Declan took the paddle downstairs, put it in a garbage bag and took it out to the dumpster along with the kitchen trash.

When he returned, he stood by the bed watching her sleep.

Her eyes fluttered open. She found him and smiled. “I could feel you looking at me.”

“I’m worried about you.”

“Declan, I promise you, I’m fine. Maybe, I’ll be sore tomorrow. But I’m drunk on all the endorphins and whatnot. Look, I’m still shaking like a leaf. I'll be glad when the adrenaline wears off. That is what causes it, isn’t it?”

“Probably, but you’ll also hurt more when it wears off,” Declan plucked the ice pack off her backside.

“Afterwards isn’t the same as during,”

She said it as if she had been in the lifestyle for years. But the more he knew about her past, the more he knew she did have a certain expertise when it came to pain.

She twisted around and tried to look at her bottom but gave up after a few seconds too exhausted to exert herself further.
“Do I have a ba-donk-a-donk butt now?”

“Christ, Nyxie, how can you make jokes?”

“Lighten up, Declan, the human body heals.”

Declan picked up the unused riding crop and put it in the armoire and began closing everything to lock it up. The sight of it all made him feel a little sick.

“Does that mean were not going to have sex?”

“You want to have sex after that?”

She rolled onto her side, wincing slightly. “That was foreplay, wasn’t it?”

“That was punishment.”

“Oh. Can we have sex anyway?”

He sat down on the bed and touched her waifish face, her large brown eyes looking searchingly into his. “I don’t want to hurt you any more than I already have.”

“I thought we both agreed, I get off on that.”

She rolled onto her back and pushed herself to a seated position with a chagrined grimace. Placing her arms around his neck, she lifted her face to his ear. “You’re my Dom, I’m your sub. I have a need. And I promise to be duly grateful for everything you give me.”

Declan turned his head and kissed her slow and deep, treating her like the most fragile orchid. His fingers lightly traced each arm from her thin wrist to her shoulders. He splayed his large hand over her back, drawing large circles as he felt the texture of her flawless skin. Memorizing every inch of her back, his touch lowered with each circle, decreasing the pressure until he found his hands on her ass that had so recently been the center of his universe, the focus of his cruel intentions. The moan sounding in her throat was so quiet, he nearly missed it. It wasn’t the sound of pain he’d expected but the erotic sounds a woman makes to her lover.

He slipped his hands under her thighs and lifted her onto his lap, straddling his hips. He spread his legs wider forcing her weight off of her bottom onto her legs.

“Stop me if I’m hurting you.”

He was not so deep in his passion that the irony of his words was lost on him. By his hand, her ass was bruised and now he worried about causing her more pain. And if he did, she would embrace it.

He felt her lips draw into the smile under his kiss.

He chuckled. “You know what I mean.”

“I thought you wanted me to enjoy it.”

The roar that came from his throat could only be described as a groan. “
Nyxie, I thought you were a kitten, but now I know you’re a siren, here to lure me to my death.”

He suddenly rose, taking her with him and lowered her back to the mattress. If it caused her any excess pain, she made no indication of it.

Declan’s mouth fell upon her breast like a starving man attacking food. He dragged his tongue around the perimeter as if melting ice cream would drip down the cone if he didn’t. The little sigh from Nyxie encouraged him to draw as much of her breast into his mouth as he could, lightly biting as he allowed her flesh to escape the wet confines of his mouth. Holding her plump nipple between his teeth, he flicked his tongue against the tip. Her back arched as she dug her fingers into his deltoid. “God, it’s too much,” she cried. “I-I… Oh.”

But he didn’t stop. His hand dipped into the folds between her legs. She could only be described as juicy wet, her clit so coated, his fingers glided without the slightest friction.

He could hear her breath building to orgasm. The Dom part of him didn’t want to let her come, yet there was something magical about the way she responded so quickly to him. Increasing his rhythm and his pressure on her clit, and sucking harder on her nipple, he brought her to her zenith. Other than a soft mew at the beginning and a sigh at the end, she made no sound, but her whole body trembled and jolted as if electricity shot through it for the better part of a minute.

Declan did not end his attentions, he increased them moving his mouth to her sex. He moved one hand to cup her ass, gently cradling it in his large hand, his thumb occasionally stroking ever so lightly over the welts.

The fingers of his other hand explored the rest of her sex, dipping into the tight wet darkness. He drew his nectar-slickened fingers out and stroked towards her anus. She noticeably drew away and he squeezed her tender ass without thinking.

She moaned both in pleasure and in pain.

“Don’t pull away from me, sub. Your body belongs to me for at least the next year.”

“Yes, sir. It’s just….”

“It’s just nothing,” he said, cutting her off. “Your body is mine. Your asshole is mine if I want it.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Relax. I’m not going fuck you there today, I just want you to get used to me touching you there and anywhere else I want.”

He lowered his mouth to her folds and it didn’t take long for her to return to her state of arousal even while he continued to stroke the delicate tissue of her perineum. When he felt her going over the edge again, he pressed his knuckle against the tight hole sending her rippling into waves of ecstasy.

Before she floated back to earth, he lifted her leg over his head and effectively flipped her on her belly. He lifted her hips and drove his length into her, keeping one hand in the middle of her back so she couldn’t rise up. “Stay down,” he commanded.

He drove deep and hard, giving her more of himself than ever before. He’d never been so hard before or so aroused.

“Give me your arms.”

With her upper bodyweight pressed into the mattress, she reached behind her. He grabbed her elbows and pulled them together behind her back and held them in place with one hand. The painful strain on her shoulders forced her back to arch and her hips to rotate until every thrust into her depths slammed his balls against her clitoris.

“Come for me, Nyxie” he rasped. “I want to feel your cunt clutching my dick.”

She erupted, wave after wave of sweet ecstasy roiled through her
body. She whimpered, she hummed and cried out, begging and pleading for something beyond words.

He grabbed her undulating hips and buried himself in her. He came with a primal grunt of male pleasure, a sound unchanged from days of Neanderthal, a sounds so ferocious, a woman might think him in pain. It was the sound of a man claiming his mate, warding off all other males, the sound of possession and conquest.

It was the sound of love.

40

Declan had a hot bath waiting for Nyxie when he woke her the next morning. She insisted she was fine and made few movements to make him suspect otherwise. She did accept the OTC analgesic he offered and begged off any food insisting she was too nervous to eat. He tucked a protein bar into her purse in case she changed her mind.

Declan wore a pair of khakis with a white button-down shirt, navy blazer and a navy and tan striped tie. Nyxie suspected he could fit in anywhere in the world dressed like that.

She liked her dress also although she didn’t look like she belonged with him. He told her to buy a dress that looked like a waitress would wear to church and she was confident the dress fit the bill. It was a colorful floral print on a cream background with a pink belt at the waist. It had a retro feel to the cut with a faux button placard down to the waist, an open collar and short tailored sleeves. The conservative hemline stopped mid-knee. It was modest without being unfashionable. She paired it wi
th a pair of pink flats and a $10 silver tone cross pendant she’d spotted walking through JCPenney’s jewelry department.

Declan fingered the necklace. “Nice touch,” he said.

“It couldn’t hurt in a town this conservative.”

Up until the last five years, Lubbock had been the largest city in America that was dry. The 220,000 inhabitants could only buy alcohol in a restaurant by the drink inside the city limits. If you wanted a bottle of wine or a six pack of beer, you had to go to the strip—the row of liquor stores just outside the city limits.

Chimera Flats was the same way, accept the truck stop with its convenience store had been outside the city limits and was a steady source of alcohol for her parents.

Although they had taken her car, Declan had driven knowing her mind was not on the road. They met the lawyer in the corridor just outside the courtroom fifteen minutes before their 9:00 AM hearing.

They entered the small courtroom from the side and the room was deep and narrow as if the county decided to turn one courtroom into two and this was the result. The judge’s bench sat midway between the door and the far wall facing the room sideways to Nyxie’s way of thinking. An empty jury box sat next to the door they entered through and there were only two pews for interested parties to sit.

She quickly scanned the room for the girls, but there were only adults in attendance. The strangers sat on the front row, a middle-age man and his wife sat with a young woman wearing a suit and ca
rrying a briefcase. On the far side, a middle-aged woman sat with her arms folded over her chest, staring straight ahead.

Junior Vaughn headed straight to a table at the front with Declan and Nyxie at his heels. He placed his briefcase on the table and pulled out two folders.

“Do you have the check?” he asked Declan in a library voice.

“Of course.” Declan placed the check for the rent in his hand along with an envelope. “Here’s the bill of sales for her car. Everything’s in Nyxie’s name. Do you have the lease?”

“I’m a step ahead of you.” He reached into his shirt pocket and handed Declan his pen. “Sign here and here. Sign and date here.”

“Have a seat, Onyx.” He quickly went through the lease having Nyxie sign and initial different places. “I’ve got you signed up for online parenting classes. They are paid for already. By the next hearing, I want you finished with them. This paper has the URL, your login and your password. Print off a half-dozen copies of your certificate when you’re done. You know what, run off a dozen. The judge may want one for each child’s file and yours as well and CPS will, also. And I suppose I might, too. One more for yourself—just in case.”

“Okay. I will,” she said nodding and turning her phone off.

“Junior, we may have another small problem. Nyxie procured her learner’s permit with the wrong birth date. As a matter of fact, she gave you the wrong date, too.”

“Oh, shit. Not a little problem, Stryker.”

The lawyer picked up his cell phone and called his office. He demanded the person on the other end change her birthday on all the paperwork and get their ass over to the courthouse with them immediately – in triplicate.

“I’m sorry; I didn’t know it was wrong. I’ve always gone by that date.”

The same CPS caseworker who took the girls, showed up with the state’s attorney. Nyxie felt deflated that her nieces hadn’t come. She missed them. The previous night’s glimpse only made her miss them more.

Declan stepped over the rail to sit directly behind her and gave the woman sitting by herself and apologetic smile and a nod as he took his seat.

The woman looked to be in her early sixties with bottle-blonde hair and big doe eyes. He looked a little closer. He recognized a family resemblance in her delicate bone structure.

Declan’s head jerked around to the other people in the room. The man was a few years older than the woman with gray liberally sprinkled in his hair. Declan could see where Nyxie’s black hair and chocolate brown eyes had come from.

He realized the young woman with them was an attorney, dressed in her finest court attire. Every set of her grandparents’ eyes were glued on Nyxie, studying her.

Fuck
.

Declan stood up and leaned over the railing. “Junior, these people are relatives—grandparents if I don’t miss my mark.”

Junior was more subtle turning around to look at the people than Nyxie.

“They won’t give my kids to them, will they?” Nyxie asked her lawyer. “These people are strangers. Haven’t their lives been turned upside-down enough?”

“Did you know about this?” Declan asked Junior in an accusatory tone.

“No. I mean, I knew the possibility existed, but I didn’t know anyone else had been found who wanted the kids.” He turned to Nyxie covering her hand with his and patted. “I’m not letting them take them without a fight.”

As Nyxie pulled her hand free and put it in her lap, the door open in the front of the courtroom and a woman walked in and sat down at the stenographer's desk followed by the bailiff wearing his sheriff’s deputy uniform.

“All rise….”

“Always stand and addressed the judge as, ‘Your
Honor’ or ‘sir,’” Junior said into her ear as he took her by the elbow and stood up, compelling her upwards also.

As the hearing began, Declan sat behind Nyxie paying more attention to the way she rocked herself in the chair than he paid to the proceedings. If he could have touched her, reassuring her, giving her his strength, he would have.

Junior rose to his feet and began speaking directly to the judge, stating the reasons they were there.

Declan turned his attention to the man behind the bench who looked more interested in organizing the papers on his desk than what the expensive lawyer had to say. The judge was a tall, bald man who looked to be a contemporary of the man they suspected was her grandfather.

When Junior finished, the lawyer for the state stood up to tell why CPS opposed her guardianship for all three children.

“Your Honor,” the opposing counsel said. “CPS has located alternate placements for the minor children and is currently in the process of sending out workers to complete the home studies.”

The door from the corridor opened and a young man entered the room talking in full voice. He immediately stopped talking when he realized court was in session, but the distraction made everyone turn.

Nyxie saw Lotus and Reina at almost the same moment they spotted her. She didn’t even think, she just ran towards them and the girls shot past the man, into Nyxie’s open arms. Nyxie fell to her knees as they embraced, the judge banging his gavel.

“Your Honor, I apologize. I was told the hearing wasn’t starting until 9:30.”

“Who are you, sir?”

“I’m sorry. I’m Miguel Carrera. I’m Lotus and Reina’s CASA volunteer.”

The judge turned to Junior Vaughn with a stern look. “I assume you staged this little show for my benefit?”

Junior’s lip curled into a half smile. “Yes, Your Honor.”

“The court finds you in contempt and fines you five hundred dollars,” Judge Mason said banging his gavel.

Declan resisted the urge to reach in his back pocket and toss his credit card onto his lawyer’s table. He was perfectly happy to pay for anything that would get the children back for Nyxie.

“Ms. Carmichael, please return to your seat so we can continue.”

Nyxie looked up from her embrace. “Your Honor, may the girls sit with me?”

The man looked at her with disdain. “No. I don’t even know why they need to be here at all.”

“Your Honor,” Miguel Carrera said. “The girls wanted a say in their placement. As their Court-Appointed Special Advocate, I am here—we are here to speak to their wishes. I have only had the few minutes’ drive over here to acquaint myself with them and this case, but I can assure you the love these girls displayed just now for their aunt is genuine. And they don’t understand why they were taken away from her.”

“Mr. Carrera, are you new to your position?”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“We don’t just blurt things out in court. You wait until I ask.”

The man twisted his neck awkwardly as if his collar was suddenly too tight. “Yes, sir.”

“Lotus, Reina, go sit behind me next to Dr. Stryker. No talking unless the judge asks you something,” she said pointing at Declan in case they didn’t recognize him.

Declan moved down the pew far enough for the three newcomers to sit and smiled warmly at the girls as Nyxie returned to her chair.

The opposing counsel continued to stand at his table waiting to finish his spiel.

“Counselor, you may continue.”

“Uh, Your Honor, uh, as I was saying…. Penelope Nixon, the girls' great-grandmother has agreed to take the female minor children. And Martin and Olivia Carmichael have agreed to take the minor boy, uh…” He looked down at his paperwork. “Cody Carmichael who still remains in the hospital after his sister’s neglect landed him in the hospital.”

“Your Honor, I object,” Junior said shooting to his feet. “Ms. Carmichael was at work providing for her family when the accident occurred. I have letters from Cody’s teachers, principal and two of Chimera Flats' finest police officers plus the chief of police attesting to his maturity. This accident occurred not because she was neglecting her kids, but because a seventeen-year-old was driving recklessly through their neighborhood. She could have been at home just as easily when the accident occurred. The Police Department in Chimera Flats is acquainted with Ms. Carmichael and her family and has never had cause to have CPS to intervene. The fact that they were called this time was because they wanted an impartial body assessing the situation.”

“And we have assessed….” the CPS worker interrupted.

“Your Honor, Ms. Carmichael circumstances have drastically changed in the last ten days. She has a place to live for the next three years which will decrease her living expenses greatly. She has signed up for parenting classes and is working on getting her GED and driver’s license. She plans to continue her education after she gets her diploma.”

“And how is she going to support them while she is taking these classes?”

“Your Honor,” Declan stood up. “She isn’t. I am. I am going to support Onyx. I have already signed
a lease agreement for her to let my rental unit for three years for one dollar a month which she has paid in full already.”

The judge locked eyes on Declan. “Who are you and how do you know this woman?”

“My name is Declan Stryker. I was one of Cody’s surgeons. Ms. Carmichael and I attended the same high school. We’ve become better acquainted since the accident.”

The judge leaned back in his chair eyeing Declan and Nyxie alternately.

“You are her boyfriend?”

His mouth flattened into a hard line. To say he was her boyfriend was technically a lie and even though he had not sworn to tell the truth, he was in court and preferred to be truthful.

“Onyx and I are in an exclusive relationship, Your Honor.”

The man stared at him, frowning. “I don’t like this,” he said slowly. “This doesn’t play true. But I’m not sure if you’re trying to influence me unduly or if she’s manipulating you. I think this girl looked at you and saw a meal ticket. Don’t you see she’s using you?”

Declan’s face became stony cold. “No offense, Judge, but you don’t know jack about what’s going on. I am the one who pursued Onyx. She had no means to fight CPS. I used the promise of hiring a lawyer to get her to enter a relationship with me. I suppose I should pretend to be contrite about being so underhanded, but frankly, if I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t change a thing.”

Martin Carmichael made a scoffing sound. “She’s a conniving whore like her mother,” he whispered loudly to his wife.

Nyxie reeled around on Martin Carmichael. “If my mother was a whore, it’s because your son turned her into one. Your son never held a job during my lifetime. He was an abusive drunk. If my father was the product of his upbringing, the worst thing the judge could ever do is to put Cody into your hands.”