The Love She Craves: Selling Her Soul to Declan

by Gemma Jenkins

  But if she was truthful with herself she had to admit he did intimidate her. She could almost understand her parents’ abuse more easily than she could understand how he derived sexual pleasure from this. At least when her parents hit, it was out of anger, frustration and drunken rage. That made sense to her.

  Declan wanted her to believe that he wouldn’t hurt her—not really hurt her—but despite his calculated punishments, he had shown he did have a temper and he could be pushed into giving her unplanned spankings. What would keep him from lifting his belt from her bottom to her back and repeatedly striking her in an out-of-control storm?

  “It’s nothing personal, sir. I don’t trust anyone.”

  “The product of your upbringing, I’m sure.”

  She sighed and shrugged.

  “Nyx, I’m going to go to my office to make a list of errands you need to try to take care of tomorrow. Come out when you feel better and we’ll talk,” Declan said closing the first door. “All the way closed?”

  She nodded.

  23

  Declan sat at his desk in the bedroom he converted to an office. On the wall, he displayed his medical degree from the Yale School of Medicine and his Texas Tech diploma both professionally framed for the day he could hang them in a place of prominence when he owned his own private practice. The desk looked out onto the street and he wondered what on earth had possessed him to buy the house. It was supposed to be the up-and-coming part of town, urban renewal at its prime but for the most part, he found the neighborhood unappealing. It was too close to the University. On game days, he could hear the noise from the stadium and his friends wanted to park in his driveway. And good God, the traffic on those days was a nightmare – if he could get out of his garage.

  The elementary school sat a mere block away. It was as if the teachers had his work schedule and knew when he was trying to sleep. That’s when they released the feral children to the playground to scream as if half of them possessed axes to kill the other half. Who would’ve thought a classroom of kids could make more noise than a stadium full of rabid tortilla tossing Red Raider fans.

  Declan picked up his phone and called Joseph using the number he’d texted to his friend. “Everything set for the kid’s surgery tomorrow?" he asked and waited for Joseph to respond. “Two? That’s late. Hey, do me a favor; don’t tell Nyxie. She’s got enough to worry about…. Look, I’m calling because I need your address…. No, not for your date. Nyxie doesn’t drive. I’ve got a car picking her up. I thought I’d give the driver an itinerary.”

  He typed it into his laptop as Joseph rattled it off.

  “Yeah, can you and your friend be ready by ten…? No, it’s not a stretch limo, just a town car. Stay out of the minibar, too. Nyxie’s a teetotaler. I’ll let you and your friend get drunk on my dime another time. I appreciate you doing this….Uh, one more thing. I don’t think Nyxie’s ever worn makeup. Do you think...? Not one of your drag queen friends.…You know what, never mind. I think she’s beautiful the way she is. Yeah, yeah, that’s okay. If she wants to.”

  Declan looked up as Nyxie appeared in the doorway. She wore one of his T-shirts and smiled shyly as she stepped inside the room but came no further. He hoped she hadn’t heard any of his conversation.

  “Speak of the devil. Gotta go.”

  He hung up on Joseph without another word.

  “Hey,” he said. “Feeling better?”

  She chuckled. “Yeah, I am. I didn’t think I would, but I do.” Nyxie pulled at the hem of the T-shirt. “I hope you don’t mind. I couldn’t find my clothes.”

  “Considering how sexy you look, I may not tell you where they are. Come here.”

  The way her shoulders sagged showed her reluctance, but she bit her lip and walked to him. He took one hand dangling loosely at her side and tugged her off-balance. She fell into his lap with a squeal and giggled.

  “After my Dom fattens me up, you won’t be able to do that so easily.”

  “Want to bet?”

  She reached for his arm and lightly squeezed his bicep. He flexed his guns and grinned with male pride. Her hand flattened and stroked the muscle. She sighed and smiled at him.

  “No, thanks. I don’t take sucker bets.”

  “Smart girl.”

  “Yeah,” she said dubiously.

  He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her closer. “You’re twenty-two, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Huh, that’s weird.”

  “What’s weird?”

  “Well, I thought I’d try to get your birth certificate. I’ll tell you the system is messed up. You’re supposed to put in your state license or ID number to get it. But how can you get an ID if you don’t have your birth certificate? Anyway, I started trying to find your date of birth by doing an internet search.”

  “Why didn’t you just ask me?”

  He looked at her like the answer was obvious. “You were in my armoire. I didn’t want to bother you.”

  “Did you figure out I was born August 30, 1991?”

  “Not according to the records I found.”

  She looked at him as if he just told her aliens abducted him and took him to Planet Nuttier-Than-a-Fruitcake.

  “So when was I born?” It didn’t surprise Nyxie too much that her mother remembered the date wrong. No doubt the woman neither stopped drinking or smoking during her pregnancy. She didn’t stop when she was pregnant with Cody, she knew.

  “How far off?”

  “Thirteen months—give or take.”

  “Thirteen! You’re kidding me.”

  He shook his head and brought up the newspaper birth notices. “Your folks are John and Amanda Carmichael, right?”

  “Black Jack and Mandy were the names they went by, but yeah, Daddy’s real name was John. Mama, I don’t know—could have been.”

  He pointed at the screen, “I tried several combinations. But John and Amanda were the only hit I found. Look, ‘Congratulations to Amanda and John Carmichael of Chimera Flats on the birth of a daughter September 20, 1992.’”

  “But that can’t be right.”

  “Were you born at UMC?”

  “I-I’m not sure.”

  “Tomorrow I’ll pull up the records and see what I can find out. Since UMC is the county hospital, it’s where everyone without insurance goes. She wouldn’t have had you at home and had another baby a year later who died, would she?”

  “No, I don’t think so. The paper has to be wrong.”

  “Does it?” he asked turning her face back to him.

  “Did you attend prekinder or go straight to kindergarten?”

  “I didn’t go to pre-k. It was full.”

  “Ah the last piece of the puzzle. I bet she took you to enroll you in pre-k and didn’t see any harm in fudging the deadline by a month. But when she found out it was full, she lied to the school and told them you were about to turn five. You had to be five before September first so she said you turned five August 30th.”

  She stared at him. “Are you suggesting she started me in kindergarten when I was four?”

  “Three—your birthday isn’t until September. I think you started kindergarten one month before you turned four.”

  “No, that’s not possible. Surely, she had to prove my age.”

  He shrugged. “How’d you get Lotus and Reina registered? Did you have their birth certificates?”

  She leaned against him putting her head against his neck as she remembered how she argued to get them enrolled. Neither of her nieces had attended school regularly in her sister’s care. The girls provided a list of schools they attended in Lubbock, but their records showed they were absent nearly as often as they attended. In the end, Onyx questioned if the school would be so nitpicky if the girls had been the children of migrant workers. She knew it was a shit thing to say, but she didn’t care. The girls needed an education and the school district was obligated to provide it.

  “It’s a small town. Sometimes they can be pers
uaded to bend the rules.”

  “Yeah,” he said setting his hand on her thigh.

  “She probably wanted to get me out of her hair,” Nyxie murmured. “I wonder if that’s why I struggled so much in school.” She went completely still in his arms. “I always figured I had some mild form of fetal alcohol syndrome. It’s good to know I might be normal.”

  He leaned his head against hers. “Hey, leave the diagnoses to the experts. You struggled because you were placed with kids two grades above you.”

  “Two?”

  He placed his soft lips on her forehead. “If she had told them the correct date, you wouldn’t have been allowed to start school the next year either.”

  “No wonder I was always the smallest in my grade. I used to try so hard in P.E. but I could never keep up.”

  “Yeah,” he said simply, his mind going to the confrontation earlier with his father. He wished he had a way to apologize for what Coach did to her—for the embarrassment he caused. Christ, not only would his father have detested her for her footwear but also for having the coordination of a middle-schooler—because physically that’s what she was.

  Declan cringed realizing how young she’d really been when he had first taken notice of her. The age difference didn’t seem so far now that they were adults but she was just a baby back then. Thank God he never pursued her.

  Maybe part of why he felt the need to help her was because she seemed so out of place and overwhelmed. But only part. How many times had imagined her touching herself in the girls’ room after the principal paddled her? How many times had he imagined following her in there and fucking her like the world was ending?

  “We still need to talk about what happened in the bedroom,” he said. “I can’t figure out if you antagonize me because it’s a defense mechanism and you’re trying to push me away or if you’re doing it because you are trying to draw more pain from me.”

  She buried her face in his neck not wanting him to see her face. “I don’t know. I think it’s because I’m scared. I’ve never been with anyone. You’re convinced I am a masochist but I’m not.” She chuckled and shrugged. “But then again, maybe I am. I know I couldn’t sit still when I read that book. Or maybe I just don’t want to be a freak. I’ve been an outsider my whole life. I just want to be normal for a change.”

  His mercurial mood shifted. “A freak? Goddamn, Nyxie. That’s what you think? That’s what you think of me?”

  He grabbed her by the shoulders and shifted her away so he could see her face.

  Nyxie kept her eyes down unable to meet his gaze. She tried to be honest, tried to explain what she felt. She didn’t mean to make him angry. “I’m sorry, sir. I don’t know how else to explain it.”

  “No reason to try another way. I think I understand. I don’t think you understand anything. There’s nothing to be ashamed of. We are not freaks.”

  “No? I don’t see you flaunting it around.”

  “Only because other people don’t understand. Maybe in fifty years, Doms can walk down the street with their subs on a leash but not now.”

  She drew even further away. “Am I no more than your pet? Are you going to put me in a crate when you don’t wanna play?” The sudden laugh that escaped her lips sounded loud and forced. “Oh, shit, you already did.”

  His face hardened and his grip on her arms tightened. “First of all, I didn’t cage you up. You said you feel safe in small places. I was just accommodating you by taking care of your needs. You weren’t locked in or even told to stay there until I let you out, so don’t act like I was punishing you.

  “Secondly, I wouldn’t walk you on a leash, ever. I was using that as an example of the extreme. Do you see how strong your reaction is? That’s the reaction most people have to the prospect of a little swat during sex. They don’t understand and apparently neither do you.”

  “I never sought out pain,” she said slowly. “I just dealt with it the only way I knew how. I’m sorry if that makes me a freak.”

  Declan gave her a hard shake. “You are not a freak and neither am I. And I swear if you say that again, I’m going to turn you over my knee.”

  “But….” She bit the inside of her lip knowing she wanted to tell him how she felt, but also knowing that he’d never accept it. “Why can’t I just be your girlfriend and we just have the sex as kinky as you like. Why can’t I call you Declan? I know you don’t have time for a real girlfriend, but….”

  “Nyxie, if I wanted a girlfriend there are a hundred women at the hospital I could date. I want a sub. I want you to be my sub. We have an arrangement and I’m doing everything in my power to help you regain custody of your kids. In return, I need you to do your part—live up to your end of the bargain. I’m sorry if you want a boyfriend—that's not our agreement and you’ll just have to figure out how to deal with that.”

  “Yes, sir. Of course.”

  He was right. She may not have understood the lifestyle completely, but she agreed to it. She could not expect him to change now she had begun to fathom what she had agreed to even if she found it unsettling.

  “We both have a busy day ahead of us tomorrow. Are you ready for bed?”

  “Yes, sir. Will I be sleeping with you or somewhere else?” she asked as she climbed from his lap.

  He stared at her as if she should already know the answer, his eyes narrowing.

  “In that story, the guy didn’t normally sleep with his subs,” she added quickly afraid that he would think she was being sarcastic. “I didn’t know if that was usual. My clothes weren’t in your closet.”

  “I wasn’t sure which clothes were clean. I took them to the laundry room. If it weren’t for Cody being in the hospital, I might not let you have them back—I’d love to see you just the way you are right now.”

  Mercurial shift again.

  She tried to divert him from the seductive look she saw in his eyes. “It’s the swamp cooler. It makes everything smell a little musty. I’ve lived with it so long, I hardly notice unless someone says something.”

  Declan rose from the chair and slung his arm over her shoulders as he led her back up to his room on the top floor. “Come on, my succulent sex slave. I owe you a little stress relief. But I promise if you make one more smartass comment I’m going to wear out that tiny little butt of yours and then you’re going to blow me again.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said feeling her whole body tense.

  He stopped at the top of the stairs and turned her towards him. “You have me in a hard position, baby. You’ve agreed to be my sub which gives me implicit permission to fuck you nine-ways-to-Sunday, but I was raised never force a woman to do anything she doesn’t want to do. So help me out here. Tell me where you are mentally. Tell me you’re okay with heavy petting and oral sex.”

  “I’m just nervous. I’ve never had a boyfriend before,” she said then corrected herself. “I’ve never had a boyfriend.”

  An involuntary frown flashed across his countenance. A moment later, it was gone. Declan didn’t miss the play of emotions or her choice of words.

  “You look sexy in my T-shirt and you’ll look even sexier without it.”

  She swallowed convulsively then reached for the hem of the shirt and pulled it over her head in one fluid motion. He took the shirt out of her hand and tossed it on the ground.

  It happened so fast, she didn’t know how she ended up over his shoulder being carried to the bed fireman style. She squealed. “Let me down Deck—sir.”

  His free hand came down on her ass hard. “Sir.”

  He heard her open mouth exhalation. His hand stung so he knew her ass did as well. He knew better than to ask her if she liked it. She could deny it all she wanted but he could sense the change in her body—the way her tense body seemed to mold over his shoulder with a sudden calm and relaxation.

  He pulled back the white Jacquard comforter before placing her on the bed. “You know the best part of having a doctor for your Dom is that I know the inner workings of the
female body. Did you know your clitoris is more than the external part, that it actually extends around your vagina and the contractions of a good orgasm actually draws the semen inside to aid fertilization?”

  A reluctant smile came to her lips. “Oh, sir, is that the way doctors talk dirty to a girl?”

  He removed his clothing then retrieved a rope from the armoire. He bound her hands together and tied her to carabiner rings hidden between the mattress and the headboard.

  “If I were going to talk dirty to you,” he said lowly into her ear. “I’d tell you how I’m going to leave handprints on your ass and how they would be bright pink on that alabaster skin of yours. Oh, and they’d feel so hot, burning from each delicious blow. Can you feel it from my little love tap a minute ago? Does it still sting?”

  “Yes,” she said breathlessly. “A little.”

  “Would you like another?”

  She didn’t answer but her breathing increased. He would have been surprised if she had asked for more since she refused to admit to herself she liked it. But she also hadn’t told him no.

  Declan’s eyes roamed from her face, down her neck, over her too pronounced clavicles to her small breasts. “I wonder how your breasts would look striped from a whipping. He traced the lines over each breast to show where he’d like to see marks. Her nipples puckered into two hard buds. He rolled one between his fingers, progressively pinching harder until she moaned.

  “My little sub likes a firm hand on her titties. Sweet.” He lowered his head and took one nipple into his mouth while he finger-teased the other using various amounts of pressure making her writhed underneath him. “Someday, we’ll have to explore whether a woman can truly come from just breast stimulation. I suspect it’s just a myth, but we can have fun trying.”