The Love She Craves: Selling Her Soul to Declan

by Gemma Jenkins

  The screen blinked on and both women reached for the phones simultaneously.

  “Onyx! My God, I didn’t know who would come to visit? How did you know I was here?”

  “The chief saw you when he was dropping off a prisoner and told me yesterday. You didn’t call.”

  Melinda shrugged and flipped her chestnut brown hair over her shoulder revealing a tattoo of a playing card under her ear and shrugged. “I knew you didn’t have bail money or even a car to drive out here. How’d you get here?”

  Nyxie was ready with a lie. “One of the regulars at the truck stop gave me a ride.”

  “Did you bring the girls?” Melinda stretched her tattooed neck as if she could change the camera angle and look around the room Nyxie sat in.

  “No, Melinda, that’s why I’m here. Cody got hit by a truck last week while I was at work. CPS took Reina and Lotus because they said I was negligent.”

  “You lost my girls?” Melinda shouted into the phone making Nyxie pull the receiver away from her head.

  “I’ve been working doubles to feed and clothe your girls. Cody was watching them.”

  Nyxie noticed Melinda didn’t ask about Cody and it broke her heart that she cared so little for their brother.

  “I think I can get them back. The police aren’t filing charges on me and one of the waitresses introduced me to a Legal Aid lawyer who will help me fight for them.” Nyxie explained everything as she understood it and asked if she would sign the paperwork.

  Melinda acted annoyed. “I should’ve never given them to you. Only someone as stupid as you can lose custody of two kids.”

  Nyxie mentally corrected her. Three. “I can get them back. How-how long are you going to be in jail?”

  “I really can’t talk to you about my case. They’re recording our conversation, but if I’m convicted, probably a couple of years.”

  Nyxie nodded hoping her sister would be put away until the girls were grown. “That’s a long time for them to stay in foster care.”

  Melinda shrugged. “That’s all you are to them—a foster home. I’m their mother.”

  Nyxie coaxed a smile hoping to disarm her. “I know. I just hate to see them forced to change schools and lose their friends. They’re already used to Cody and me. Why make them change? Besides, when you get out, you’re going to want to know where to find them and not have to go through all of the bureaucratic bullshit to get them back. Of course, if you want to let me adopt them, you won’t have to worry CPS will take them and move them around from foster home to foster home.”

  Melinda looked as if she smelled something foul as she studied Nyxie. “Would you give them back to me when I get out if I sign adoption papers?”

  Nyxie bit her lip trying to decide if she should lie. “No, if you let me adopt them, they are mine for life. If you’re sober, you can visit all you want. If you’re on drugs or drunk, you can’t.”

  “Oh, look who’s acting all high and mighty. You’re no better than me. You dropped out of school just like me. Only I was smart enough to leave home. But brains were never your strong suit.”

  Nyxie counted to ten and slowly exhaled trying to calm herself. “Why are you mad at me?”

  “Because you’re full of bullshit. You want to steal my girls from me.”

  Nyxie became deadly calm and turned her eyes from the monitor to the camera. “That’s right, I do. I love them. You’re a drug addict and a terrible mother. You neglected them and then you abandoned them. They cried for days until they realized they were safe. I went without so your daughters could eat. I enrolled them in school and helped them with their homework. Neither one is caught up yet, but they will be if they stay with me. What have you ever done for them besides squeezing them out of your uterus and give them to me?

  “Do you know,” Nyxie continued, “that Lotus is a prankster and Reina has a beautiful singing voice? They are so beautiful just like their mother. And Cody loves them, too. When he found out they were getting picked on at school, he confronted the kids doing it and told them if they didn’t stop, they’d be sorry.”

  Tears welled in Melinda’s eyes, but she chuckled at the image of Cody intimidating the bullies. “Thank Cody for me.”

  “I will. If the lawyers come with the papers, will you sign them?”

  After a lengthy pause, Melinda nodded.

  “Temporary guardianship. Not adoption.”

  “Okay,” Nyxie said. “Thank you. I love them with all my heart.”

  Melinda frowned. “Onyx, do you have any extra money?”

  “I need to pay the electric bill. How much?”

  “Can you spare ten?”

  Nyxie smiled at her sister. “I already put fifteen on your account. That’s all I had.”

  30

  Nyxie walked around Declan’s empty house feeling uneasy about the prospect of sleeping alone in his bed. As odd as it seemed, Nyxie realized she’d never slept alone in her life—not all alone—not in a house with no one else there.

  She checked the locks on the doors twice, took a shower, then sat down and tried to watch TV. Nyxie chuckled thinking on all the times she wished for a few hours alone, but this was not the kind of solitude she wanted. In her wildest nightmares, she never imagined a situation where she might never have her family with her again.

  Nyxie took her phone to bed, assuring herself the volume was all the way up in case the hospital or the girls called. It didn’t take long for exhaustion to pull her into the depths of sleep.

  Nyxie awoke with a start when a loud thud penetrated her slumber. As she lay there trying to figure out what kind of noise woke her, she heard more noise followed by men’s voices speaking loudly to one another outside. They sounded as if they were directly below the window.

  Suddenly, she heard another sound coming from inside the house. Declan was scheduled for another thirty hour shift. She knew she hadn’t slept that long.

  Nyxie grabbed her phone and jumped out of bed wishing she could get to the safety of the pantry. She looked around for somewhere to hide and remembered how well she fit in his armoire. Grabbing at the knobs, she quickly realized he locked it. She darted into the closet and called Declan. The phone rang twice before going to voicemail. She hung up and called again, hoping he would realize it was an emergency. When he sent her to voicemail a second time, she texted the number 911 to him.

  Within a minute, her phone rang and she cursed herself for forgetting to turn off the ringer which she had set to its highest volume the night before. To her ears, it sounded as loud as an air horn.

  “Dammit, Nyxie. This better be a real emergency.”

  “I didn’t fucking call you to say good morning,” she whispered. “There’s someone in your house. I’m hiding in the closet.”

  “In the closet? There’s a lock on the bathroom door, baby, go in there.”

  “I don’t think I can move,” she said as a sound closer than the noises she heard earlier made her jump. “They’re on the second floor.”

  “Did you call 9-1-1?” he asked, her anxiety spreading to him.

  “No. I don’t even know your address.”

  “I’m putting you on hold.”

  Nyxie looked for a place in the closet to conceal herself better. Declan was too much of a neat freak to have clutter on the floor to hide behind. She flattened her body against the door wall hoping if anyone stepped in, they wouldn’t turn around.

  Fuck. What if someone saw her in those thousand dollars shoes and followed her home. And she’d hidden in the first place they’d look for them.

  A phone rang in another part of the house. The stupid burglar didn’t even turn off their ringer—not that they’d made any attempt to be quiet.

  Why wasn’t Declan coming back on?

  “Nyxie?”

  It was a female voice from inside the house calling her name. How the fuck did a burglar know her name? Had they been in the boutique when she bought the shoes and heard Joseph and Treshaun calling her by name?
<
br />   “Nyxie, I’m Dr. Stryker’s housekeeper,” the voice said coming up the stairs. “It’s okay to come out. I didn’t mean to frighten you. Dr. Stryker’s Jeep was gone so I didn’t know anyone was home.”

  The door slowly opened and the face of a fifty-year-old Hispanic woman swept around the perimeter of the closet until it fell on her. The woman rivaled Nyxie in height but had a stocky build. She wore a T-shirt with jeans and her hair was a light reddish-brown that probably came out of a bottle.

  “Hi,” the woman said with a sympathetic smile on her face.

  Nyxie, still holding the phone to her ear waiting for Declan to come back on the line, shrank back.

  “You poor dear. You still look terrified.” She reached out for Nyxie’s hand and gently pulled her out of the closet. “What a terrible way to wake up. I’m Sonia by the way.”

  “N-nice to meet you,” Nyxie said, her voice cracking as she realized she was safe and Declan wasn’t coming back on the phone.

  “He didn’t tell me he had a housekeeper. Do you come in every day?”

  “Usually twice a week. The days vary depending on Dr. Stryker’s schedule. He prefers I come when he’s not home.”

  Nyxie nodded her head. When she realized she was breathing hard, she took a deep cleansing breath. “Good to know. If you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to the hospital.”

  “Do you work there, too?” the woman asked.

  “My brother was in an accident,” she said. “I’m just staying here because I live out of town and I don’t have a car.”

  The woman eyed Nyxie speculatively. “He said you’re his girlfriend and you’re not in one of the guestrooms.”

  She didn’t feel like offering any explanation of their arrangement to the woman. If Declan wanted to tell her anything, that should be his prerogative. “I’m not saying we’re not in a relationship, I’m saying, I haven’t moved in.”

  The woman cocked her head to one side as if she didn’t understand why Onyx was justifying her presence. “Dr. Stryker texted me a grocery list. Do you need anything, toothbrush, tampons, popcorn?”

  “Hangers, maybe twenty or thirty. I’ll get you some money.”

  “That’s okay. I do most of his shopping and he’s given me a credit card to use for his household expenses. Do you need anything else?”

  “No, I can’t think of anything.”

  “You should ask me to buy a few houseplants,” the woman whispered in a conspiratorial tone leaning towards her. “They would really make the place look less stark and I’ve got a real green thumb, you and Dr. Stryker won’t have to do a thing.”

  Nyxie grinned, but was too afraid to overstep her bounds. “Uh, sure, why not? Maybe just a small one in a decorative pot that goes with his décor.”

  “Good.”

  After the woman went back to work, Nyxie showered and dressed in her old sneakers, a new pair of blue jeans and a lightweight yellow sleeveless sweater. Nyxie carefully folded the matching cardigan and packed it and an old T-shirt to sleep in, in her overnight bag with a change of clothes. Declan was scheduled for thirty hours so he wouldn’t be off until 5:00 AM the next day.

  Because Cody would hopefully be waking up soon, Nyxie was glad to have Declan working long hours. If he was at the hospital, she could stay with Cody without him making demands of her other than sharing the residents’ beds at night.

  Nyxie had given in about not taking the bus, but she hadn’t implicitly agreed to take a cab. She decided to walk. She’d walked everywhere her whole life and the hospital couldn’t have been more than two or three miles away. Before she left, Nyxie checked to make sure Sonia would lock up. When she walked out, she was surprised to see furniture being delivered to the other side of the townhouse—it accounted for the male voices she heard earlier and the thud that woke her up.

  She walked west knowing the hospital was located on the other side of the university and she cut through the middle of the campus. She liked the campus and the Glenna Goodacre statues she’d heard so much about. She even liked the trees. The energy of the students felt infectious. They were close to her age but she felt a lifetime older than most of these kids. From the outside, they looked like their only care in the world was their next grade. She wondered if any of them knew how lucky they were.

  Did she?

  Declan had been so good to her and yet she acted like a brat whenever he asked anything of her. With a guilty heart, she realized she defied him even now. It wasn’t an overly long walk, but he wanted her to take a cab for her own safety. She tried to justify her actions by telling herself it was 9:00 in the morning and she figured most miscreants were still in bed.

  She didn’t know why she acted like that. How difficult would it have been to do what he asked? Was he asking anything unreasonable? Hell, she hadn’t even eaten breakfast because she didn’t like the way he wanted to control her. Perhaps her rebellion stemmed from the lack of structure growing up. Their house had one rule; don’t make Daddy mad. Her parents didn’t care if she did her homework or if she and Melinda fought. She could have stayed out all night if she’d had a place to go and they wouldn’t have cared. They would have been glad to be rid of her. When Melinda ran away, no one wondered where she’d gone. They seemed pleased that there was one less mouth to feed.

  But Declan wasn’t like that. He took pleasure in seeing to her welfare. He cared if she ate and he worried about her safety. And it didn’t seem to be an act. He genuinely cared about her.

  She thought about all the things he did for her. He had no concept of the value of money as far as she could tell, but she did. With the amount of money he was spending, she should follow his directions to the T. It wasn’t as if this would last forever. It was only for a finite amount of time. Hell, even if it cost as much as the lawyer said it might and she was contracted to him for three years, she had worked at the truck stop twice that long. Three years wasn’t that long of a time at all. And she benefited in ways she never imagined possible. Someday she might have her GED and her license. Why would she risk losing everything to be willful?

  Did she still feel he was trying to perpetrate an elaborate hoax? No. Absolutely not. For reasons she could not grasp, he actually wanted her even though he had made it abundantly clear she was his sub not his girlfriend. But she never doubted he felt something for her. She couldn’t quite fathom what, but she didn’t understand her feelings for him yet either.

  Nyxie admitted to herself she felt attracted to him. What woman wouldn’t? He was handsome and hard-bodied, smart and he had a way of making her feel special, wanted. She wasn’t sure if his kindness was an act. Other people certainly had differing opinions of him and she had seen his dark side. But perhaps that part of him was the part that recognized her needs.

  Christ, was she going to admit to herself she really did like the kinky aspects of their relationship? Maybe that was why she rarely felt attracted to the men she met. Maybe she knew none of them would fulfill her unrecognized desires.

  Her vagina was suddenly awake and wanting at the thought of him tying her up and feeling the sting of his riding crop. She knew she would struggle with coming to terms with how she could embrace something she spent her whole life trying to avoid. But how could she deny it. Even now, just the thought of him reddening her ass made her juices flow.

  As she approached the main entrance of the hospital, the motion-sensor parted the wide doors and she walked through without changing her stride. But before her eyes could adjust to the interior lighting, Declan grabbed her arm.

  “Dammit, Onyx, I told you to take a taxi.”

  Damn his family stalker app.

  She pulled at the biting fingers of his hand. “You’re worse than a helicopter parent.”

  “If you want me to stop treating you like a child, act like an adult for a change,” he said in an overly controlled voice. “This isn’t Chimera Flats. You can’t just walk all over town.”

  “Yes, you can. I just proved it. Not a single person
stopped me or bothered me.”

  His grip tightened painfully as he pulled her away from the entrance and the foot traffic of people coming and going. “This isn’t Chimera Flats,” he repeated.

  “This isn’t the bad part of Houston or Laredo either.”

  If it had been the dead of winter, the breath he exhaled out his nose would have looked like a cartoon bull breathing smoke.

  “The fact that you arrived safely is irrelevant. We have a verbal contract and that agreement absolutely and unequivocally demands you must do as you’re told. If you have to, think of this as your fucking job. If your boss says always use the ice scoop because the health department requires it, would you still shove the cup through the ice?”

  Nyxie kept her mouth shut. She had had that exact conversation with Bob many times before and when the diner was understaffed, she shoved those cups through the ice repeatedly to save time.

  “Just because you know I won’t renege, you think you can do anything you want. It doesn’t work that way. You have earned a punishment and I have twenty hours to plan it.”

  Nyxie stopped dead in her tracks and looked at her feet. “I spent much of my walk coming to the conclusion I am not living up to my end of the bargain. Sir, I will accept whatever punishment you see fit. Also, you should know, I didn’t eat breakfast before I left. I did it to defy you and it should probably have its own punishment.”

  “Go to the cafeteria; get a Greek yogurt, an egg-white Denver omelet and a V-8. You have to eat every bite before you can go see Cody.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  31

  Nyxie walked into the SICU some thirty minutes later and had the unpleasant surprise of finding Cody’s regular day nurse had the day off. It made her nervous when Cody didn’t have his regular nurses. Although Rachel had a somewhat surly disposition, Declan had assured her the woman was an excellent nurse. She also didn’t balk at Nyxie being present outside visiting hours.

  “Hey, Cody,” she greeted her unconscious brother taking his hand and stroking the little skin on his cheek that wasn’t obscured by his feeding tube and ventilator straps.