When at last he finally finished his run, he returned to his room and headed straight for the shower. He closed the bathroom door, leaving her in near darkness. Twenty minutes passed before he emerged and he immediately dressed and headed for the stairs.
“Go home, Onyx,” he said. It was his only acknowledgment of her presence.
~*~
Declan Stryker debated whether he wanted to drink beer or Jim Beam Single Barrel Bourbon to get drunk. His preference leaned towards beer, but his brain mentally added up the calories that the lower proof alcohol would take to get him to the same level of intoxication. He had been in a foul mood all day after the stunt Nyxie pulled that morning. What did she hope to prove? He’d already gotten the message loud and clear. She didn’t want to be married—that she married him as a means of getting her kids back. Why did she think it was a good idea to flaunt it in his face that she would rather be his submissive, when he had made it abundantly clear he wanted her for his wife?
He skipped eating that night for two reasons. One: he planned to drink his calories. And two: he’d just be that much drunker if his stomach was empty.
Being a complete control freak, Declan measured out six shots and put them in his glass before putting the bottle away in the cabinet. He wondered if he should check into the possibility of having a new cabinet front put in—one with a lock so her kids couldn’t get into his liquor.
Damn, why was he thinking long-term about Nyxie when she apparently had no plans to stay after her contract ended?
He took his first drink as he crossed to the sofa, sat down, and began searching for something to watch. His usual fare would have been some sort of ballgame, but he found himself looking for MMA. It wasn’t really his first choice tonight. What he truly wanted to watch was some hardcore BDSM porn.
He’d have to go to his computer for that, and frankly, he knew whatever he would see, would only remind him of Nyxie, and at that moment, he was trying to pretend she didn’t exist. He’d settled for boxing, but his mind was not on it. As he finished his drink, he was feeling a good buzz-on, but not really quite drunk enough. He wondered if anyone had ever considered MMA porn—men and women fighting for the right to be on top. They could strap the man’s dominant hand behind his back to make it more equitable. Nyxie would have stepped into the cage and gone prostrate on the mat immediately. No, that was more sport for a woman like Emily Saunders. He should call her and tell her.
He picked up his phone and called Emily. “Hey, did I wake you?”
“No,” Emily said. “Why are you calling me? Did you decapitate the teddy bear this time?”
Why did he call? God, he couldn’t remember. “I just wanted to apologize for being such an ash-hole today.” Declan looked around the room wondering who said that.
It took Emily a moment to respond. “Why should today be different from any other day?” she asked. “Deck, are you drunk?”
“Maybe a little,” he replied and shook his head to feel the lightheadedness that came from the alcohol. Maybe the word little was a bit of an under-exaggeration. Was that a word? Under-exaggeration. Maybe it should be. “I just came off the surgical rotation. I think I’m entitled.”
“I take it since you’re drunk-calling me, that you and Onyx are still fighting.”
“Nyxie,” he said. He decided he wasn’t drunk enough yet and headed back to his kitchen for more. This time he didn’t measure, he just poured. “She really doesn’t like being called Onyx. Isn’t she the sweetest girl e-ver?”
“Yes, she seems sweet—probably too sweet for you.”
“God, isn’t that the truth. My parents hate her, but I don’t care. Have you ever seen that sexy thing her mouth does when she smiles?”
“You really love her, don’t you?”
Declan settled back into the cushions and took a large swig, his eyes lolling back in his head as he closed them. “You have no idea. God, I’ve been in love with her since I set eyes on her when I was a teenager.”
Emily laughed. “You’re funny when you’re drunk. If you love her so much, why are you drunk-calling me? Go have sex with your wife.”
“It’s against the rules for me to touch her if I’ve been drinking.”
She laughed again and not a quick chuckle to convey she agreed with something funny he said but a loud, uncontrolled giggle. “She has rules about when you can have sex?”
“She has one rule about when we can’t have sex. Besides we’re not talking at the moment.”
“I hope this isn’t some sort of booty-call, Stryker.”
“Are you crazy?” he yelled into the phone. “I’d have to be a hell of a lot drunker to ever consider fucking you. Then I would have to tie you up, blindfold you and put a ball gag in your mouth.”
Emily resisted the urge to laugh again. “Is that the kind shit you’re into, Stryker?”
“Well, not the ball gag. I worry about TMJ. But most of the time when you open your mouth, I wish you were wearing one.”
“God, I wish I had started recording this call when I realized you were drunk. Tomorrow, you are so going to regret making this call.”
“You’re not recording it, are you?” he asked sitting up and trying to sound sober.
“No, Declan. I’ve made a few drunk-calls in my life too. No one should have these lack-of-judgment moments held over their heads.”
“You know, Emily, you’re ah right.”
“That means so much to me, coming from you when you’re shit-faced.”
He took another belt, emptying the glass and set it down on the glass coffee table harder than he intended. It made a loud clank. He cringed and checked the glass and table for chips. “Hey, I wouldn’t have said it if I wasn’t shit-faced.”
God, he shouldn’t have had that second glass. Between not drinking anything for the last couple of months and not eating since lunch, he was definitely feeling his alcohol.
“Maybe this would be a good time to talk to your wife and work out your differences. You seem pretty amiable.”
“No, she can’t see me drunk. It would scare her. Her father killed her mother in a drunken rage. Onyx saw it happen.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Do you think that’s why she doesn’t want to be married to me?” That made sense to his pickled brain. Maybe Nyxie’s issue was not being married to him, but being married.
“Oh, God, you’re not going to start crying, are you?” Emily asked.
He laughed. “I’d have to kill you if I did.”
She made a little harrumph under her breath. “It’s 10:00 o’clock. You have to be at work in nine hours. You need to stop drinking and go to bed so you’ll be sober for work.”
“I’ve already stopped. Didn’t you hear me set it down?”
“Then go to bed.”
“God, I hate bossy women—especially the ones with big noses and little penises. Penises or peni?”
“Good night, Stryker.” She drew out her words in a singsong fashion that made her sound as if she was indulging a child.
“’Night, Saunders,” he said imitating her tone.
Emily ended the call and Declan stood up, turned off the lights and climbed the stairs to his bedroom on the third floor.
When he flipped on the light switch, he was surprised to find Nyxie sleeping in the same spot where he’d left her that morning. He quickly dimmed the lights so he wouldn’t wake her. She was naked. She had been sitting on her feet and had leaned into the wall and the armoire in an attempt to stay upright but had fallen asleep. He doubted she had left her nieces' care to the nanny all day, nor skipped going to see Cody, so he didn’t think she had been there since that morning. She must have arrived before he came home from work. But just the same as that morning, her presence was unwelcome, especially in his present state.
He didn’t want to wake her and have her see him drunk. Fuck.
With a huff of frustration, Declan grabbed his overnight bag, and filled it with everything
he would need for the next day. He took the comforter off the bed, gently laid it over her and left his townhouse on foot to get a hotel room for the night. Luckily, because they were so close to the University, he had at least half a dozen hotels to choose from within a mile radius of his house.
Chapter 10
Nyxie forced a smile to her face as she chatted over the breakfast bar with Lotus and Reina. Apparently, Declan would prefer to pay for a hotel room than sleep in a room with her there. Never waking her, he had covered her up and left.
Her phone buzzed and she looked down to see an e-mail alert. She clicked on it and found it was from Declan.
Subs don’t come over uninvited. You may enter my side if you need something when I’m not there, but you will not lie in wait for me again.
I think we need to take a break until I finish my residency. I will contact you if I want to see you between now and then. Make sure you own a cocktail dress. There’s a fundraiser for the Garrison Center coming up. They will expect me to be accompanied by my wife. I will let you know the details as soon as I know.
D
Feeling empty inside, Nyxie stared at the D at the bottom of the page. There was no Your Loving Husband, no Love, Declan.
~*~
Declan found the little hand-drawn card on his pillow when he went to bed. Nyxie had used the girls’ crayons to decorate the card. A smile formed on his lips as he examined her rendering of them the day he took her virginity. The figures held hands and she had her other arm over her breasts while he held his second hand behind his back. His smile faded a bit as he noticed the way she portrayed herself. While all of his attributes were accentuated, all of her flaws were portrayed. Her hipbones stuck out and little lines showed her ribs.
He turned the page to find she had drawn them from behind on the reverse side. Behind his back, he held the flogger and she had purple stripes and pink handprints on her ass. This time their heads were turned to face each other, both smiling. Nyxie had a dialogue bubble saying, “Good times.”
On the next page was another picture of Nyxie in a pose that could only be accomplished by a contortionist or by someone with no bones. She appeared to be hogtied except all of her limbs went straight up. All five of them.
Declan laughed out loud when he realized she had drawn herself with three legs. Her head looked a bit disjointed from the rest of her body and she wore an exaggerated frown. He turned the page. “I miss you so much, I’m all tied up in knots,” she had written.
A piece of paper fell from between the last pages.
Dear…
I don’t even know what to call you now—Declan, Sir.
I know I made you mad when I said you married me to help me get my kids back after you told me not to say it again. When I said it, I just thought about how embarrassed you must be to tell your coworkers you married me—especially so impulsively.
You don’t even have to open your mouth for people to see you are a ten. On a good day, I am a five, so people don’t understand that my appeal is something unseen. Surely, you can see why I’d think you’d be self-conscious admitting you married me.
Of all the punishments you’ve given me, this one is by far the worst. Am I allowed to safe-word you over this punishment? I suppose not.
nyxie stryker
P.S. Have you received the marriage certificate yet? I need to get the right name on my license—assuming that’s okay with you.
Declan took the card to the armoire and put it in the drawer next to the sheet stained with her blood, the lingerie and mini veil she wore that night, the belt he used for her first punishment, and their marriage certificate.
God, if he kept saving all this stuff, he’d have to buy a second armoire to house it. He removed the legal proof of their marriage, locked up the armoire and headed for the B-side of his duplex. It wasn’t the first time he had entered when they were asleep. Before, he’d gone in first thing in the morning to drop off Cody's and Nyxie’s birth certificates. That time, he had found her in bed with Lotus and Reina. Nyxie slept on top of the covers fully dressed as if she’d only intended to stay until the girls fell asleep, but had drifted off as well. Reina’s arm was thrown over Nyxie’s and he had gently moved it. “She doesn’t like that,” he had whispered to the sleeping child before leaving.
At moments like this, he really wished he had already had someone come out and put in a couple of doors. Declan let himself in by the front door and put the code into the alarm. He took the stairs two at a time, peeking into the girls’ room to make sure Nyxie wasn’t there, and then quietly made his way to the top floor.
Her bed was empty, a pillow and the comforter missing. Had he walked past her on the living room sofa? He flipped on the light to make sure he hadn’t missed her.
“Sir?” she said, her voice barely a whisper.
Declan turned toward the sound. She was sleeping on the floor next to her armoire.
“What are you doing on the floor?”
She threw off the comforter and climbed to her feet, quickly picking up the bedding and placing it on the mattress.
“Sorry,” she mumbled as she smoothed out the spread, her panties peeking out from under her T-shirt as she stretched over the bed.
He wondered if she found the bed uncomfortable or if she was punishing herself. Maybe after sleeping on the floor of the closet most of her life, it felt comforting and helped her sleep at times.
“I asked you a question.”
Nyxie’s mouth tightened for a second. “I don’t want to tell you.”
Declan couldn’t fathom any reason that she wouldn’t want to tell him why she would choose to sleep on the floor over a bed. “You let Reina sleep with you and she wet the bed?”
“No.”
“Then tell me.”
“Please, it’s embarrassing and pathetic.”
“You wet the bed?”
“No!”
Her look of annoyance nearly made him laugh. “Then why?”
Her eyes fixed on a spot on the carpet and her lips sealed into a mulish line. He didn’t come over to argue with her. If she wanted to sleep on the fucking floor, why should he care?
“Look, I just came over to bring the marriage license,” he said, holding it out to her. When she didn’t take it, he tossed it on the bed. “Good night.”
He had crossed to the stairs when she blurted out in a rush, “I just wanted to sleep closer to you.”
Declan stopped, turned around slowly and came back into the room. “I’ve missed you too,” he said, returning to her. He put his finger under her lowered face and lifted until her eyes met his. “You will not sleep on the floor anymore,” he ordered, his Dom voice coming out automatically.
A little sigh escaped her lips. “Yes, sir.” A dimple appeared on one of her cheeks as she suppressed a smile. “You will not sleep so far away from me,” she demanded imitating his tone.
Declan’s brow lowered slightly at the tongue-in-cheek order. “Good night, Onyx.”
“You don’t want to spend the night?”
He shook his head. “I have to work in the morning.”
“Please.”
He detected a slight waver in her voice that echoed his own longing to be with her. The ache inside him had only one cure. He could have left the marriage certificate on the breakfast bar and followed through with a text to make sure she found it. Staying away from her was torture. He needed to see her as much as she needed to see him. How could he relent and give in to what they both wanted, when she still needed to understand the difference between being a wife and a sub?
“Yellow.”
Declan felt the tension from his body ebb as the word passed between her lips. That single tiny word meant he could lessen her punishment. He nodded curtly.
A wide impish smile crossed her lips, “Does that mean we’re going to have sex?”
He stepped back on one foot and crossed his arms over his chest. “I don’t know…. Have you been touching yourself?”
He lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. “That’s surprisingly common.”
In pre-med when they had been studying sleeping disorders, they had held a lab at a sleep clinic and witnessed it. The students thought it was funny, but to the lab tech, it was old news.
“Undress me, woman.”
“Yes, please,” she said, making him chuckle.
He wore a T-shirt with his scrub bottoms from work and a pair of sneakers.
Nyxie put her hands on his pecs and slowly dragged her feathery touch towards the hem of his shirt.
“Did I say you could touch me?”
“You didn’t say I couldn’t.”
The slight edge to his voice should have warned Nyxie to tread carefully, but she just couldn’t tamp down her happiness that he was with her. An impish smile lit up her face.
“Just take my clothes off without groping me or I may have to tie you up.”
Nyxie dropped her hands and looked him directly in the eye. “That could be fun too,” she said as she reached under the hem of his shirt. His shirt lifted a few inches as she ran her hands along his ripped abs to his chest.
“May I touch you, sir?” she asked shyly. “Please. You’ve worked very hard to have such a wonderful body. It deserves to be worshipped.”
In general, he disliked women showing aggression in the bedroom. It was a man’s job to set the pace and be the hunter. But there was something about the attitude Nyxie brought. She was like a kid with a big present in front of her. She wasn’t trying to lead anything; she was just unable to contain her enthusiasm. How could he say no, when she asked so sweetly and it felt so good?
“Since you put it that way….” His eyes closed and a hum of pleasure emanated from his throat. Impatiently, he pulled off his shirt.
“Hey, I was going to do it.”
“You’re taking too long,” he said, his word tinted with a harshness that reflected his mixed emotions. Maybe he should just strip her, throw her on the bed and fuck her fast and hard.
The Love He Craves (The Love She Craves: Selling Her Soul to Declan Book 2) Page 8