Maybe, With Conditions

by Mariella Starr

  "Dalton!"

  Their arguing was heard until he took Nicole into a bedroom and kicked the door shut with his foot.

  Chapter Five

  Nicole spent the rest of the day in bed making her accuse Dalton of slipping her a sleeping pill. She had slept nearly all day, and she never slept during the day. Daylight hours were her best painting hours.

  The next day began the same way. Dalton hid her suitcase, again, and removed the crutches from the room. She was trapped in the bedroom and when she complained, Dalton ignored her. He left her with books to read and the TV remote saying he would return in a couple of hours. His grandmother and Kay would fetch and carry for her—she was to rest.

  Nicole was tired of lying in bed and tired of Dalton ordering her around. She could be as wily and sly as he. After he left the room, she gave him a few minutes to leave the house, and then she left the bedroom, hopping on one foot as best she could. She made her way to the hall. It was painful, but she would not give up. She opened one room where she found a desk and chair, so she appropriated the rolling chair and wheeled herself along the long hallway. At the end of the hall, she found a laundry room from where she borrowed a pair of jeans and a shirt from a laundry basket sitting on the floor. The clothing obviously belonged to Kay. She rolled up the pant legs several times and then wheeled out of the room to the top of the stairs. She gingerly maneuvered from the chair to the floor at the top of the stairs and shifted her butt to the top step. She scooted down step-by-step until she reached the second step from the bottom.

  "Dalton isn't going to be happy about this," Kay said grinning as she appeared in an adjacent entryway with Matty.

  "Mommy! I'm going to ride a pony!"

  Nicole hugged him being careful so he wouldn't bang into her knee. "Are you?"

  "Yeah! Daddy says I can have a pony," Matty said gleefully.

  "Daddy also said he had to clear it with Mommy, first," Kay added watching Nicole's reaction to the information. "The old pony I'm letting Matty ride is safe. I'll be with him every second," she promised.

  "Thank you."

  "You know," said Kay her eyes lighting up with mischief. "I think I know how you can get on your feet. Stay right there."

  The girl ran off returning a few minutes later with a walker. "Try this. We got it for Dad before we realized he wouldn't regain his mobility."

  Nicole positioned herself behind the walker, gave it a try, and grinned. "This is definitely better than crutches."

  "Dalton will still have a fit," Kay said with a grin.

  "Dalton can shove it up his…" Nicole looked at her son who was eagerly expecting a windfall of money and changed her wording. "His canoodle."

  Kay tried to hide her laughter.

  "What's canoodle, Mommy?" Matty asked.

  "An empty head," Nicole made up, causing Kay to turn away laughing.

  "Kay, you know Dalton," Nicole said. "He's hidden my suitcases, which seems to be a nasty habit of his. I'll take it up with him later, but he's also hidden my art bag. Do you think you could find it?"

  Kay squinted her eyes in thought looking up the stairs. "I'll find it."

  She did. The pastels, charcoal pencils, and drawing paper in the bag gave Nicole a morning of pleasure. It also gave Helen and Roy Mac Calloway a look into their great grandchild's early years as Nicole drew Matty from memory. There were sketches of him as a baby and a toddler, smiling, crying, and getting into mischief. Nicole drew quickly and accurately. As lunchtime approached, Helen had pictures propped on every surface in the sunroom. Roy Mac was giving Matty fast and whirling rides in his wheelchair when Dalton found them.

  He glared at Nicole, but she grinned and thumbed her nose at him. He saw the drawings and smiled. His grandparents were enthralled with Nicole. Helen gushed over her talent, and Roy Mac was delighted with his great-grandson.

  Dalton glared again as she used the walker to move to the kitchen for lunch.

  When lunch was finished, he looked around the table at his family and clinked his fork against his glass. Everyone looked at him expectantly.

  "I'm taking Nicole upstairs to rest. She's not to come downstairs, again, unless I bring her. The doctor said she was to stay off her leg for at least three to four days. Brat that she is, she probably hasn't told you she's in pain."

  "Who made you my keeper?" Nicole objected.

  "I did," Dalton said bluntly.

  "You…"

  "Daddy?" Matty interrupted. "Do you have an empty head?"

  Dalton, as well as everyone at the table except Kay and Nicole, looked puzzled.

  "Why do you think I have an empty head?" Dalton asked.

  "Because Mommy said you could stuff it up your canoodle. I thought she was going to say ass and I was going to get two dollars, but she said canoodle. Canoodle means you have an empty head."

  "Who told you canoodle means having an empty head?" Dalton asked looking toward Nicole, who rolled her eyes and turned the other way.

  "Mommy."

  Most of the adults chuckled. Dalton shook his head. "Momma mixed up her words. Canoodle doesn't mean I have an empty head. Momma will pay you the two dollars, anyway," he promised the boy. He lifted Nicole despite her protests and carried her upstairs. He put her down on the bed gently and reached to unsnap her borrowed jeans.

  She slapped his hands. "Dalton, go away! I'm okay. I don't need your chauvinistic attitudes."

  Dalton unsnapped the jeans, anyway, and pulled them down carefully. He inspected her knee gently. "You've been on this knee too much today. It's swollen."

  "It's no different than it was this morning," Nicole snapped. "Give me my suitcase!"

  "No," Dalton said. "You will take the prescription the doctor gave you and rest."

  "No!" Nicole practically screamed. "Dalton, you can't tell me what to do!"

  "Yes, I can," he disagreed. "I will until you are on your feet, again. Jesus, Nicole, you could have been killed."

  "I wasn't," Nicole snapped.

  "You don't listen!"

  "I don't have to listen to you!"

  "Wrong again," Dalton said calmly. "Okay, if this is what it takes to make you behave, this is what you get."

  "What? No!" Nicole made a dive to get off the bed.

  Dalton caught her, dragged her over his knee, pulled down the tiny scraps of cloth she called panties and gave her bare bottom five hard whacks. "Are you going to listen?"

  "I'm going to bash your head in with a brick the first chance I get!" Nicole yelled.

  Dalton landed three more hard smacks, which had her howling. "Are you ready to listen?"

  "Damn it, you can't keep doing this! Stop it! I'm a grown woman! I make my own decisions!"

  He landed five more even harder whacks. "Are you going to listen and behave?" he repeated.

  "You're hurting me!"

  "It's the general idea of a spanking. Have I got your attention, yet?"

  "You're hurting my leg!"

  Dalton let go of her immediately, even though he suspected she was lying. "I didn't mean to hurt your leg. Now, listen to me carefully. If I catch you out of this room again before three days are up, I'm blistering your backside. Mark my words, Nic, because I mean it."

  * * *

  Nicole spent four days under house arrest. At least, she considered it house arrest. Dalton was serious about her staying off her swollen knee and following the care sheet the hospital provided. He was a veterinarian, not a human doctor, but he could keep an eye on her injury for indications of an infection.

  She was allowed to watch television, which she hated, or listen to music. Unfortunately, Dalton seemed to have only country western music, which was not a favorite of hers. She was allowed to draw, but even she could only spend so much time with a pencil in her hand. Each morning before Dalton left, Nicole completed a set of strength and flexibility exercises the doctor prescribed. Then, she repeated them each evening. He wasn't aware she was also doing them several times a day when she could catch some a
lone time.

  Nicole did escape early on her third day but quickly discovered Dalton had not been kidding about his keeping an eye on her. She'd been going a little stir crazy and had watched Dalton's truck drive down the lane away from the ranch. She assumed he would be out of her way for a while. She didn't realize the Calloways considered vehicles interchangeable. Any member of the family or ranch staff used whatever was available to serve their needs. Keys were always left in the ignitions.

  She only walked as far as the outside garden in the backyard. Unfortunately, Dalton had seen her. When he brought her lunch tray, he delivered something else.

  He checked the bandage on her knee, told her it was healing nicely and suddenly pulled her over his knee and spanked her, again. Kicking at him hurt her, not him, so she clawed him with her fingernails. Her actions resulted in him dodging her, grabbing a hairbrush off the nightstand, and applying even hard swats to her backside.

  His hand was hard enough, but the brush was a painful implement of torture. Nicole screamed and fought him until the pain in her bottom was so intense she gave up and lay still, sobbing until he stopped.

  Dalton made his position clear. He didn't yell, he didn't lecture. He laid down the law on her backside. He ordered her to remain in bed an additional day, and although she chafed at the idea of following his orders, she was actually glad. Her bottom was so sore she spent most of her fourth day lying on her stomach. It was a lesson she would not forget soon.

  Helen brought her jigsaw puzzles, along with the weird word puzzle and game books from the supermarket where you were supposed to find words from scrambled letters, and circle phases and whatever, another waste of her time.

  She played Go Fish with Matty and read to him, but his attention span was only slightly shorter than her own. Kay took over the duties of watching the boy, trying to keep him occupied and out of mischief.

  Nicole spent a lot of time plotting revenge against Dalton. Some of her plans were deliciously devious and diabolical. However, her imagination kept veering toward what she really wanted to do with Dalton. What she really wanted to do involved bare skin and friction. It included his mouth and hands all over her and best of all his oversized…

  "Hey!"

  Nicole jumped, her daydream vanishing as the real thing appeared before her.

  "Are you okay?" Dalton asked. "Why do you look guilty? Have you left this room, again?"

  "No," Nicole replied eyeing him hungrily as her sexual fantasy vanished, but her blush didn't.

  "I have to head out to pick up a horse this afternoon, so I thought I'd check on you before I left. I won't be back until later this evening and I don't want you to forget to do your exercises. They're important. Nicole? Nicole! Are you listening to me?" Dalton waved his hand in front of her and she grinned mischievously.

  "Oh, I'm with you."

  He frowned as she limped over to close the bedroom door and flip the lock. He watched warily as she approached him. Her behavior was that of a stalking cat.

  "Are you okay, you seem…"

  "Horny?" Nicole said stripping off her tee shirt where she stood.

  Dalton looked surprised, then definitely interested. "I was going to say distracted, but horny works for me."

  "Good," Nicole said pushing him backward toward the bed. "Because I need you, Dalton. Fast, hard, and deep."

  He was out of his clothes in fifteen seconds flat. "Don't do this to tease me, Nicole, because it will backfire on you."

  "I'm not teasing," she said spreading herself open for him.

  Dalton took her invitation at face value. He was hard, erect, and pulsing with instant need. "Your knee?" he growled.

  "Let me worry about the knee, you worry about everything else," Nicole breathed.

  "Will do," Dalton agreed burying his mouth into her, his tongue flicking, licking and plunging into her, fast, and frantic and enjoying every second of tantalizing foreplay.

  Nicole arched backward, giving him more access until she was panting, gripping his shoulders, and needing him inside her. "I need you."

  "Not yet," Dalton growled as he plunged one of his fingers into her, fingering her with a matched rhythm to his tongue at her clit. She bucked as an orgasm swamped her with arousal and need. He plunged his fingers into her wetness, pushing, stretching.

  "Oh, God," Nicole moaned.

  "Again," Dalton commanded. "Come again."

  "Oh!" Nicole arched, bucked, and writhed with sensation as her body responded.

  Suddenly she was bereft of him, as he slipped on a condom. He parted her and plunged his aching, dripping cock into her clear to the hilt. In, out, in, out. Each time he nearly pulled out, she moaned wanting more, and then he was back in, filling her, as she needed to be filled. She didn't want it to end. Over and over, he plunged into her and she took every inch of him.

  Dalton knew how Nicole liked it, and he provided it. He thrust deep and delivered the goods, taking as much as he was giving. This was how it had always been with them. They had been a young, lustful couple, screwing their brains out every chance they got, even if it meant skipping classes. This was passion, desire, mating like two wild animals. It was pure lust taking over their senses. He was only a man, though, and his body's need for release hindered his passion and desire to make their mating last longer. He spilled into her at long last and thought he would die from the sheer relief of it.

  Dalton collapsed and Nicole lay underneath him in a fuzzy trance of sexual euphoria.

  "Miss me, brat?" Dalton asked chuckling.

  "Only certain parts, you idiot."

  He rolled so she was on top and he smacked her butt.

  "Have you got something kinky going on with my ass?" Nicole demanded.

  "Nope, although I want to take you there, too," Dalton laughed. "You made my day. As much as I enjoyed my lunch break, I have to get going." He rolled off the bed and detoured into the bathroom to deal with the condom. When he returned, he started putting his clothing back on.

  "I get out of this prison tonight, right?" Nicole demanded. "I want to see where Matty and I will be living."

  "Uh, yeah," Dalton said with a grimace. "We'll talk about it when I return this evening."

  "Talk about it?" Nicole demanded. "What's up?"

  Dalton tucked his shirt in giving himself a little hitch to make sure his equipment was out of the way of the lethal zipper before yanking it up. "Not much, thanks to you. I'll see you later." He leaned over and kissed her.

  Nicole squinted her eyes and glared at him as he left her room. He was keeping something from her.

  * * *

  Nicole was waiting for Dalton in his bedroom. She pounced as soon as he came through the door much later that night.

  "What did you mean when you said we would talk about my moving into the guest house? You promised me the guest house!"

  Dalton held up both of his hands in a stop motion and backed away from her. "Nic, I've been fighting to save a mare's life for the past nine hours. I'm disgustingly nasty. I need a shower, and I could really use some food and a beer."

  She regarded him critically and saw the fatigue etched in his face and posture. "Okay, you jump in the shower while I get you something to eat and drink."

  "Thank you, but be careful on those stairs," Dalton warned and then grinned. "The only thing keeping me going today was remembering my lunch break."

  She returned his smile before turning and giving him a wiggle of her butt as she left the room.

  When Dalton emerged from the shower, he was naked and magnificent. He wolfed down a sandwich in four bites, took two very long swigs of beer, and collapsed on his back. His eyes were closed.

  "Don't you dare go to sleep," Nicole warned.

  Dalton patted the mattress beside him. Nicole climbed on the bed and he pulled her close. "Later, I'm fried. I saved the mare and the colt." He shut his eyes and fell sound asleep.

  Nicole grumbled to herself but she didn't attempt to wake him. Dalton was a veterinarian and a
rancher. Sometimes, his work required long, grueling hours. He cared as much about the health of his four-legged patients as medical doctors did for their human counterparts.

  She glanced around the room considering her options. She and Dalton had enjoyed sex several times, but they had not shared a bed since she came to the ranch. He had taken her to a spare bedroom, where she had slept ever since her arrival. Dalton had not approached her, but she knew it was probably because of her injury. She had changed the playing field today. She still wasn't ready to concede to moving in with him permanently. He had promised her the guesthouse and she expected to get it.

  Nicole sighed. Who was she kidding? If sleeping in Dalton's bed gave her another chance of sex with him, she would be there willingly. They could work out the details of their relationship later. To make sure he got the hint in the morning, she pulled off her tee shirt and panties, and slipped under the sheet beside his sleeping form. She pushed her butt up against him. His arms automatically circled her waist as she closed her eyes to get some sleep herself.

  Dalton awoke from a dream to realize it wasn't a dream, but reality. He was spooned against Nicole and his early morning hard-on was almost where it wanted to be. He began to move slowly, creating enough friction for the hard-on to complete its journey to full-alert erection. She moved against him, and he knew she was awake and aware. His hands slipped around to enjoy her breasts, as he positioned her for entry and slid into her carefully since he had not prepared her. Nicole's body was ready, wet, warm, and inviting. He didn't want this time to be the frenzied mating they had before. He wanted slow, enthusiastic pleasure for both of them. He took his time. When the release came, it was rapturous, seizing their bodies, convulsing them with need, and leaving them trembling with aftershocks.

  Dalton turned her over and kissed her, owning her, possessing her. "Good morning, brat."

  She laughed. "You're such a romantic!"

  He chuckled. "You are a brat; you always have been."

  "Me? You're the one who always has to have his way," Nicole complained. "Confess, big boy. What's the problem with my living in the guest house?"