A hint of hurt appeared before Abby’s expression chilled into that of a marble statue. “If I’m driving, tell me what I need to know for the trip.” Her voice was as frozen as her face.
“The doctor reset his dislocated shoulder. He needs to keep the sling on. Sprained ankle. Keep it in the brace.” Summer glanced at Xavier and added, “No weight on it for three days. Then a cane or crutches.” She turned back to Abby. “Right now he can’t use crutches because of the shoulder, so…wheelchair.”
Abby nodded. “Go on.”
“Ice packs for the shoulder and ankle for twenty minutes at a time. Keep his leg elevated. He received a heavy pain medication earlier. When it wears off, ibuprofen should work. Got it?”
Xavier frowned. He’d never been talked around like this. Then again, his brain wasn’t tracking well.
“Yes.” Abby tilted her head coolly. “Thank you.”
“Let’s go, then,” Logan said. He stepped behind the wheelchair and pushed.
The boardwalk of rough wood planks almost did Xavier in. He clenched his jaw as pain stabbed through his shoulder with every bump.
When Logan opened the back door to the SUV, Xavier shook his head. “I’m not—”
“Summer’s orders. She wants that ankle elevated for a while.” Logan lowered his voice. “And you don’t want to talk with Abby until the morphine clears your system.”
Good advice should be heeded. Xavier held his hand out. “Thank you for the help.”
“Least we could do.”
“Give that dog of yours a steak for finding me.”
Logan grinned. “Becca was cooking bacon for him when we left.”
With a grunt Xavier tried to get to his feet. Logan put a hand under his good arm and lifted. The assistance was needed—and not appreciated.
As blood rushed into Xavier’s injured ankle, the pain felt like someone had turned a burner to high. His shoulder screamed with every movement, but compared to the feeling when dislocated, this was nothing. Clumsily he pivoted and slid into the backseat.
When Logan fastened Xavier’s seat belt as if he were a child, Xavier managed to keep from punching him and settled for a deadly look. Logan laughed and closed the door.
Smothering a groan, Xavier settled against it.
On the other side of the car, Summer leaned in to put a pillow under his leg. She put an ice pack over the ankle and handed him another for his shoulder. As Abby climbed into the driver’s seat, the nurse frowned at her. “Ignore the crankiness and do what I told you. Doms make the worst patients.”
Abby nodded, glanced at him, and started the engine.
Xavier realized he didn’t know if she was a good driver. After a second he closed his eyes. He didn’t have the energy to care.
* * * *
Xavier woke when Abby pulled in to a gas station.
“Here.” He held out a credit card.
She ignored him, filled the tank, and disappeared into the store.
By the time she returned, he’d managed to maneuver himself out of the car and into the front seat. Eventually—maybe—his ankle and shoulder would stop feeling as if they were about to explode.
She opened the driver’s door and saw him. “Why aren’t you in the back?”
“I’m awake. It’s time to talk.”
Gaze averted, she got in. In silence she drove onto Highway 120 toward San Francisco. After a minute she put the sack into his lap. “Ice. And ibuprofen. And water.”
“Thank you, Abby,” he said softly, watching the pink climb into her cheeks. He suppressed a sigh. She’d lied to him, spied on his club members, cheated on her boyfriend, and he wanted to comfort her. You’re an idiot, Leduc.
He washed the ibuprofen down with water. “Tell me about your research.”
“The university is doing cutbacks. I needed a publication on my record—fast—and BDSM interested me.”
Because of Nathan, undoubtedly.
“To get it published in time, I have to submit the paper before July twenty-ninth.” Her hands clenched and eased. “I’m writing an ethnography essay—basically my observations of what goes on.” Behind her oversize glasses, her gray eyes flickered toward him and back to the road. “I wasn’t taking names or talking about anything intimate or kinky. I wrote about the social interactions in the club, comparing the dynamics to that of a family.”
“Personal descriptions?”
“Just gender and what position they fill in a relationship and how they fit into the club—and the hierarchy. As the owner, you could possibly be identified. No one else.”
The hard knot in Xavier’s gut began to unwind. Not an exposé. She didn’t plan to out the members. She couldn’t lie to him if he was watching for it, and she wasn’t lying now.
“I want you to think back to the first scene we did.” He waited until she nodded. “You were embarrassed, Abby. You felt exposed, even though others around us were also doing scenes. How would you have felt if you realized someone was studying you like a research monkey?”
Pink flowed up her neck and into her face. He’d never known anyone who blushed so often—or so beautifully.
“Answer me.”
“I would have…have left.” Her gaze stayed on the road, but her fingers tightened on the steering wheel. A car passed them. A logging truck rumbled past on the other side. “I didn’t think writing about a social network could possibly hurt anyone or put them at risk. And the lifestyle wouldn’t welcome a sociologist, but I hoped my paper would help BDSM be more accepted. I wanted to show the honesty and communication. The caring. I thought it would be good for the community.”
Wanting to help. Yes, she might have started the project because she needed the paper, but in a uniquely Abby way she’d ended up trying to help. Xavier’s anger kept seeping away. “Go on.”
“People weren’t in a bedroom—they were in a club, doing intimate performances right out in public. So how could it be wrong to observe? That’s what I thought.” Her eyes gleamed with tears. “But I saw the reactions last night. And Summer’s today. I should have realized that, to the members, they’re not in public but inside their family. I was blind.”
She bit her lip. “Or maybe I didn’t want to see it.”
For someone so intelligent, that was a difficult acknowledgment. “You probably didn’t.”
Her voice dropped. “I can’t think of how to make it right.”
True repentance. Xavier took a slow breath, fighting the way she softened his heart. The research was only the first of her offenses. The taste of the second was bitter. “You and Nathan are lovers? Involved?”
“For months,” Nathan had said.
“We were during the spring.” Her laugh held a doleful note. “He broke up with me before he left for Maine. The day before I came to the club.”
Before I ever saw her. Another hard ball in his chest loosened. “Did you join because of him? Partly?”
Her lips trembled as she nodded. “I thought if I learned more, maybe we could make it work. Maybe I’d be comfortable with what he wanted.”
She hadn’t appeared comfortable last night.
“I’m a moron,” she said under her breath.
“Why do you say that?”
“We had a committed relationship. Monogamous. We’d agreed. But that girl last night knew him. He’d been…with…her before, hadn’t he?” She glanced at him.
“If you’re asking if their scenes included sex, then yes.” Xavier rubbed his shoulder and winced at the pain. “So the first day at the club, you told me the truth when you said no significant other.”
“Of course. I wouldn’t lie.” Dismay filled her face. “You thought I had. Last night you believed I’d cheated on Nathan with you.” She stared straight at the highway, blinking away tears. Slowly her chin firmed.
She hadn’t lied to him. The rush of relief was unsettling. He might tell himself that it was because he hadn’t misread her personality, but he knew better. “I’m pleased to know
you weren’t cheating, Abby. More relieved than I like.”
“I don’t particularly care.” She blinked her eyes hard. “I’m no concern of yours.”
He shifted in his seat to study her. Her jaw was tight, her eyes haunted. Nathan Kemp had damaged her ego—and so did I. Her self-confidence in relationships had been fragile to begin with.
Unfortunately he wasn’t the Dom to put things right. She needed someone who could commit to her. That someone wasn’t him, and the thought of doing her further harm was more than he could bear. She’d already decided to break off any relationship with him. This was obviously the right time for her to return to her own life.
* * * *
“Nice place,” Abby said, staring at the golden and tan Mediterranean-style home. How could Xavier’s club possibly provide enough income to afford a Tiburon mansion overlooking the bay?
His lips twitched. “Thank you.”
The door to a three-car garage slid up, and she pulled in.
Without waiting for her, Xavier got out. With his sprained ankle off the ground, he held on to the car door as she unpacked the light wheelchair and wheeled it over.
“I appreciate the chauffeur service, Abby. Come in, and I’ll call you a taxi,” he said. When he tried to wheel up the incline into the house, she realized he couldn’t use his right arm—and a wheelchair required both. As he used his uninjured foot to assist, the muscles on his jaw grew tighter. He was hurting and too stubborn to ask her for help.
The big bad Dom would normally expect a submissive to serve him…but she wasn’t his. The knowledge was demoralizing. Painful. He might have forgiven her to some degree, but what they’d started… That was gone. He’d undoubtedly written her off as a total loser.
Which was good. She’d given up on men, right? Jaw clenched, she pushed the wheelchair up the ramp into the house.
They entered a tall foyer with red-gold hardwood flooring. The walls held the creamy warmth of the exterior. Stairs curved up to an inside balcony.
“In there, please.” He pointed, and she wheeled him across the wide space into a living room. The subtle colors of the beige walls and carpet and white leather furniture were a quiet frame for the stunning view of Angel Island and San Francisco across the bay.
“How beautiful.”
“Thank you.” When he pulled out his cell phone and punched a button, she realized he had a taxi service on speed dial. Maybe for his club members? Or maybe he sent all his women home this way.
She wasn’t one of them, though, was she? Odd how depression could darken the sunlight streaming through the glass. As she walked to the window, her brows drew together. With a two-story house, the master bedroom was probably upstairs. How would he get up there?
Not my problem. The couch looked comfortable, and he was an adult. But when the taxi service chirped a busy signal, her mouth overruled her mind. “Who will you call to stay with you?”
“I’ll manage, thank you.” His black eyes held no emotion. He punched a redial into the phone.
“You can’t. You need someone here to help you.”
“It’s not your problem, Abigail.” His mouth flattened. Busy signal. Redial.
“I bet you’ve got ibuprofen upstairs in your master bath. Your clothes will be up there. But you can’t get up the stairs, can you? You certainly can’t cook, balancing on one leg and using one hand.”
“That’s enough,” he snapped. His anger came through clearly. Busy. Redial.
Fear turned the pale walls an ugly red, and her heart banged against her rib cage, knocking her back a step. He’s furious. Don’t make him yell. Just stop.
He’d manage. He’d be fine.
He wouldn’t.
“You need someone to help you.” She snatched the phone out of his hand. “I’m staying the night, so deal with it. Y-yell at me if you want to, but I’m s-staying.” Her shoulders knotted. She braced her legs, preparing for the screams. The names. Nausea twisted her stomach.
His mouth opened…and closed. He leaned back. His gaze traveled from the phone in her tight grip upward in a comprehensive sweep to linger on her face. “If I can’t get out of this chair, Abby, why are you afraid of me?”
She blinked.
The anger was gone from his voice as if it had never occurred. Resting his elbow on the chair arm, he cupped his chin in his hand and watched her.
“I’m not afraid.”
“Really?” His gaze didn’t waver. “Apparently you continue to have difficulty identifying your emotions. Are your muscles tight? Hands sweaty?”
She resisted the urge to rub her palms on her jeans. “This is—”
“Abby.”
“Fine. Yes.”
“Your eyes are wide. Is your breathing fast or slow?”
She was panting. Had retreated a step. “Okay. I’m scared.” Which seemed really stupid.
“Do you think I’d hurt you?”
“No! No, you wouldn’t.”
“Then what are you afraid of?” As his voice rose, she flinched. His eyes narrowed. “Who used to yell at you, Abby?”
“That isn’t—”
An eyebrow rose slightly in the ominous signal of a Dom growing impatient.
She was far more submissive than she’d thought, because the answer slid from her as if greased. “My father.”
His finger stroked the beard stubble on his jaw. “Was he abusive?”
“It wasn’t like that.” She walked to the window, needing space. A view. An escape from those penetrating eyes. “He had cancer. A brain tumor. We didn’t know—he wasn’t diagnosed until a year or two later.”
A gull soared over the ferryboat churning across the choppy waves toward Pier Thirty-Nine. Her father had loved to visit the wharf, but then the bustling became more than he could tolerate. “If he got excited at all, he’d burst into a rage. For so long, we didn’t understand why. We thought we’d made him mad, and Mom would cry.”
“Just you and your mother?”
“Um-hmm.” The backyard had a wide stone patio with a pool and hot tub. Grassy stretches extended on each side like wings. Farther out, the land rolled downhill. “Xavier, it’s not imp—”
“What happened after he was diagnosed? Did it get better?”
“Of c-course.” At last they’d known why. And his berserk screaming fits had been far better than the blankness that eventually consumed his personality. Before the cancer, her father had been an even-tempered, brilliant archeologist. Near the end, in his few moments of lucidity, he couldn’t bear what he’d become. “My death will be a blessing, baby. A gift.” He’d patted her hand. And then he’d cried.
A flicker drew her attention to where a hummingbird visited a bright globe hanging from a tree branch. In the next tree, two sparrows perched on a stained-glass feeder. Life, big and small, went on. And Mr. Oh-So-Stern My Liege fed the birds?
“Come here.” That note again, the one that said he expected her to obey.
She turned.
His hand was out. Open. Waiting. And very warm when his fingers folded around hers. “How did you and your mother cope?”
Looking down at him, she made a noise that should have been a laugh but didn’t sound like anything funny. “Very carefully. For a long time, as long as he didn’t get upset, he did well. He never hurt us, just yelled. Called us names.” She shrugged.
“So you did everything you could to keep him calm, didn’t you?”
The understanding in his expression made her eyes burn. “Where’s your ibuprofen?”
“This is why you freeze up when you think someone will yell.” He held her trapped for another minute. “But you risked my temper because you were worried about me.” A corner of his mouth edged up; his eyes filled with tenderness. “Your courage wins the battle, little fluff. I have a bottle of ibuprofen upstairs in the master bathroom.”
He hadn’t yelled, had actually complimented her for being rude. She ran up the stairs, feeling as if she’d been staggering and found her b
alance. Her throat was tight.
He’d called her his favorite name again.
Chapter Sixteen
That evening in the guest bath, Xavier scratched his cheek, grimacing at the day-old beard growth. At least Abby hadn’t offered to shave him.
Determined little submissive. If he hadn’t had a downstairs bedroom, she’d have insisted on helping him up the stairs—and been flattened, trying to save him.
Maybe he should put in an elevator. A man couldn’t predict accidents.
With frustrating slowness, he cleaned up, then used his foot and good arm to wheel himself into the bedroom. Lowering his ankle made it swell into a throbbing balloon.
He transferred to the bed, grateful that his shoulder had died down to a dull ache. With a grunt of pain, he took off the sling and his shirt.
“Whoa.” Holding a serving tray, Abby stood in the doorway and stared at him. “You look as if someone beat on you with a club.”
He glanced down. Scrapes everywhere. A jagged slice from something sharp ran across his upper pectoral. Bruises made black shadows on his dark skin. “Better me than you. With your delicate skin, you’d look like a patchwork quilt.”
Her throaty laugh was a treat. After calling her tenants to babysit the puppies another night, she’d been a solemn owl during supper.
“Here’s your ibuprofen.” She set the tray down and handed him a couple of pills and a glass of water. As he sipped, she cleaned his scrapes and very, very gently dabbed antibiotic ointment on each.
“I’m not going to break.”
“I don’t want you to hurt.” Her voice was soft with a resolve that shook him. “Stand up, and I’ll get your pants off.”
He’d often commanded slaves to unclothe him, but when he actually needed the service, the pleasure turned sour. Jaw clenched against a growl, he rose, balanced on one foot, and pushed his jeans down. After he sat, she knelt in front of him to pull them off.
Another change. Usually if he had a woman on her knees in front of him, he had something better for her to do.
“Lie back,” she ordered. Her serious tone lightened his mood. As he complied she primly covered him with a sheet before arranging a pillow under his leg.
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