by Gina Kincade
While his words swirled in her oversized head, she drank in his details. The curly dark hair and scruff already made their impression, but now she paid attention to his long slender fingers moving over the keyboard, his thick arms and legs. He was becoming clearer every breath, letting her enjoy his presence even more. His mellow voice commanded even when it wasn’t raised. He was a Dom? What would that be like?
“It’s obvious you’re new. He didn’t have to get fancy. Why not just tie you to the bed? So much safer. Especially if he’s a newb too.”
“He did.” Her tongue was fat and thick, but the words were intelligible.
“Oh, well, that’s good. Why did he move you?”
“F-f-fog.” Meh, that would have to be close enough.
“Ah.” Curt shook his head. “Still a dumbass. Here.” He pulled a sharpie out of a pocket and took her hand holding the still unused sick bag. “Call me if you have any questions. Or if you need someone to vet your next encounter. I know a lot of people in the scene here. I used to know all of them until Fifty brought everyone and their dog out of the woodwork. Fuck, I hate that James woman.”
Her head spun when she inhaled the pungent ink from a marker. Staring, she tried to read the number on her hand but couldn’t make sense of it. “No,” she argued.
“Yeah, yeah. You’re a fan. No offence, Little Song, but your taste sucks.”
“S-song?” she mumbled.
“Yeah, melody, a little song. You have to have other people who call you that.”
She shook her head but stopped after turning to each side once. The roof of the ambulance spun and she brought up the bag.
Curt helped her roll onto her side while she retched, very little coming up and all of it into the bag. When she stopped coughing, he let her slide onto her back.
“Hello?”
Melody frowned in confusion, was he saying hello to her?
“I have a 24 year-old female, Melody Carmichael. Head injury with an open lac.”
Lack? The rest of the words and numbers that followed didn’t make any sense. At least until he started recounting how she’d gotten hurt.
“Yeah, she was playing in the bedroom and someone can’t tie a fucking knot. She fell and clipped her head.”
Melody wanted to argue, to complain, but Curt went right back to medical jargon she couldn’t comprehend. Once he ended his call, he smoothed her hair on the side of her head that wasn’t one big bandage.
“Take it easy, Little Song. We’ll be there in a minute.”
Curt stayed by her side as they wheeled her through sliding doors and down hallways. Another rough ride, she bounced and her vision went blurry. She squeezed her eyes shut after seeing a woman in green scrubs carrying a clipboard join them. Not seeing helped, but her stomach continued to roil.
“This is the female who fell? Has her GCS changed?” she asked.
“Yeah, she’s talking clearly now. Fourteen.” Curt took the clipboard, scribbled on the page, and passed it back.
They stopped in a small room and another man joined them, wearing the same color scrubs as the woman with the clipboard. They counted down from three and Melody held her breath. On one they all lifted and she was moved to the hospital bed. Don and Curt began to wheel their gurney out.
“Wait,” Melody called. The woman remaining clipped a monitor onto her finger and a blood pressure cuff around her arm. She ignored them. “Curt.”
He stopped and turned back. “Curtis. Don’t worry, Little Song. They’ll take good care of you.”
Watching him go, she wondered if she’d ever see him again. Peering at his tight bum in his loose pants, she really hoped she would.
Chapter Three — Pain and Prejudice
Melody avoided looking at her reflection in the mirror. The brown of her hair blurred as she opened the medicine cabinet. Popping two Tylenol, she closed the cabinet again, turning her back to it. The last thing she wanted to see was the bandage over her right eye.
In the kitchen, she filled a mug with tea and scrolled through media on her phone. The number on the back of her hand had faded over yesterday, but she’d been careful not to scrub it off. Damon had left another message. He’d called twice since she’d taken a cab home from the hospital. This one was as apologetic as the last.
“Melody, I’m not sure what I got wrong. I know that knot and it should have held. Can I do anything? Bring you anything? I’m here if you need me.”
She’s talked a lot yesterday with Frank about Damon. Luckily, her friend had the day off to spend with her. He’d been there when she was sick again, reminded her to take her pain meds, and listened to her gripe that her first BDSM experience had gone bad. Frank had fetched her copy of Fifty Shades Darker so she could curl up in her chair and read while he fixed dinner for them. There was no friend like Frank. Well, maybe his SO, Mike. By the time he went home last night, it was clear her concussion wasn’t getting worse.
Inhaling deeply, she held her breath a moment, considering how she should respond to Damon’s message.
I’m going to be fine, Damon. I wanted you to know that. But I can’t play with you anymore.
She debated calling or texting and opted for the latter. She didn’t want to talk about how she was feeling. She’d lie and say she was fine when she still had a tender stomach and her head felt two sizes too big. She sipped the mint tea from her mug and waited for the drugs and herbs to treat pain and nausea.
A message came on her phone.
Let me know if I can help.
Damon’s care made her smile despite wanting to keep her distance. It hadn’t been a deep or long relationship, so she wasn’t heartbroken and he shouldn’t be either. The accident had broken her trust, though, and that wasn’t something that could be stitched up like her forehead.
Her forehead. She touched the bandage covering the stitches. Heat flared and she winced. It wasn’t puffy, though. That was good. The gouge had gone right to the bone and would leave a small scar high enough on her forehead to hide by combing her hair forward.
As she set the mug on the counter, she noticed the number again. She’d fought the urge to call her hero yesterday, but curiosity was killing her. Frank encouraged her to do so, after listening to her crush on him for an hour or more. What was Curt like when he wasn’t saving the lives of damsels? What did he do for fun? Who did he do? What would he do to her?
Closing her eyes, Melody focused on the steam rising from her cup and condensing on her chin, moist and warm. Opening her eyes, she dialed the number into her phone. It rang four times before going to voice mail.
“Uh, hi. It’s Melody? From the other night? You drove me to the hospital?”
What a stupid thing to say. How many girls did he take to the hospital? Mel slapped her forehead and then dropped her phone on the counter when she clipped the wound. Cursing and hopping, she knocked over the tea and scalded herself and her phone. The burn in her arm matched the flare over her eye. And in the middle of it, her phone was frying.
“Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck.” She picked it up and shook it out. Using the bottom of her shirt, she wiped the tea off and discovered the line was still connected. “Oh, holy shit.” She tapped the disconnect button three times before it actually responded. Letting it clatter on the counter, she backed away from the traitorous device, from the tea, from every embarrassing element.
She dropped into her stuffed chair and noticed the book resting on the arm. She could go for some sexy distraction and her hand playing idly on her breast as the steamy scene erased all memory of the phone call.
What was his problem with this book anyway? Melody had no trouble putting herself in Ana’s place, imagining everything happening to her instead. She wasn’t used to finding someone taking Christian’s place in her mind, though. Instead of a wealthy businessman in a suit, he was a curly haired paramedic. Once the shirt was off, what was the difference?
Melody closed her eyes, slipping her fingers into her underwear. Curtis perched over her, his cock right in he
r face, stroking himself. She didn’t even pull at the ties holding her, opening herself completely to him.
“Those ropes burn, don’t they? That’s because Christian can’t rig for crap.”
Melody’s eyes flew open, shattering the illusion. It was absolutely something Curtis would say, based on her ride in his ambulance. She shivered and put the book down. Despite being certain she knew what she was doing, it dawned on her that she didn’t understand it as well as she might.
Her tablet was charging on her dresser and she grabbed it, opening a browser. Fine, he wanted her educated, she’d learn. And she’d prove that Fifty was still hot as hell.
***
Curtis picked up his phone for the first time in twelve hours. He didn’t even bother taking it with him anymore. He never had time to check it and it was too distracting.
“Mom. Douglas. Don. What the fuck? Don? You were working with me!” He found a new voice message and retrieved it. It was probably a stupid marketer. No one else left messages anymore.
“Uh, hi. It’s Melody?”
He’d recognized the voice, but the name brought the full memory back. “Little Song.” Why was he so affectionate of a woman he’d met on the job?
“From the other night? You drove me to the hospital?”
His cheeks tightened at her trepidation. It was very cute. She’d been cute, too. Even with a pair of boxers tied to her head and clotted with blood. Hell, he couldn’t hold that against anyone, and it didn’t detract from her upturned nose and full lips, or the freckles sprinkled on her nose. He’d forgotten he’d given her his number.
There was a scream, and his reflexes kicked in. His pulse jumped up and he balanced on the balls of his feet, looking to the windows to see if he could locate the source.
The bang that followed and a long string of cursing turned his attention back to the phone. It was definitely the same girl, apparently having a very bad day at home. The best part had to be the “Holy shit” right at the end. He’d relaxed completely by then and his breath caught from laughing. He could only imagine how embarrassed she must feel.
“To save this message—”
Oh, he had to save that. He hoped to find another message, one actually telling him something, but there wasn’t. Damn. He couldn’t call her right now. Lexy was expecting him at her place and that meant packing up. He’d call her in the morning. Well, afternoon.
***
On the corner of her desk, Melody’s phone chirped. Once finished typing her sentence, she picked it up and answered the call.
“Hello?”
“Little Song, it’s Curtis.”
Melody’s stomach flipped. He sounded jovial. Was he still laughing at her message? Did he think she was an idiot savant? “Hi.” She tried to say something more, but the words dried up on her tongue.
“You called?”
“Yes.” The silence on the line lengthened when she still couldn’t find anything to say. She slapped her forehead in frustration and sent a flare of pain shooting down the side of her face. “Ow. Crap.”
Curtis laughed from his end. “Did you just slap your stitched up forehead?”
“Maybe,” she grumbled, tucking the phone in the crook of her neck and attempting to return to work. If she didn’t focus on him, she might have a better chance of acting normally. “You’d said I could call, for advice.”
“Yeah, I did. Do you want to get coffee or a beer? I’m off for the next four days.”
“How about tonight?” She cringed, hearing her own eagerness. She didn’t want to come across desperate. “I mean, grabbing a bite.”
“Sure, that sounds good. Do you have a preference?”
Melody took the phone in hand again, her butterflies finally slowing down a bit. “Nope. What’s your favorite?”
“There’s a burger bar on Oats. You know it?”
“Tino’s, right? Yeah, I can be there at six.”
“Sounds good. I’ll see you then.”
Melody had trouble focusing the rest of the day, so she blew most of the last hour typing up a page of BDSM possibilities and marking each as something she liked, a soft limit, or a hard limit. She made sure to delete the file immediately after printing it and paced beside the printer until she could snap up the warm pages.
Once her list was in her hand, she popped into the washroom to touch up her hair and makeup. Curtis had seen her in a much worse state when he met her, so she wanted to replace that first impression as much as possible.
Descending the winding staircase to the building lobby, Melody waved and said goodbyes to various colleagues. As the administration assistant to one of the presidents in this tech company, she interacted with her counterparts in other departments.
“Good night, Mel,” Destiny said, skipping down the stairs in her flats. Melody in heels couldn’t match that speed, and let the younger, darker woman run off ahead.
Chapter Four — You Want to Know What?
Melody took her time getting to Tino’s, stopping to reread her list. It should be perfect for setting boundaries. Much more confident than she had been when Curtis called, she stepped out of her car and crossed the lot to the burger bar.
Tino’s was known for gourmet, build-your-own burgers. Popular with almost everyone, it was packed. Melody waved away a waitress, winding through the bodies to find Curtis. Instead more than one idle hand goosed her until her temper simmered. When the next guy made a grab for her, she turned on him.
“Keep your hands off me!” she shouted.
A large man with a beard that reached his chest grinned. He was missing several teeth. “Sorry sweetie-pie, but that ass is too hot not to try.”
The man to his left, farther from Melody, grabbed the hairy man by the scruff of his neck. “You might find trying a very bad prospect, pal.” With a shove, he slammed the man’s head to the bar. Without the big one in the way, Melody could see him clearly. He wore a bright yellow shirt that contrasted with his dark curly hair. Short sleeves revealed clearly defined biceps and triceps. His forearms were thick too, ending in long, slender fingers.
“Little Song?” He drew her attention from his hand on the bar back to his face. “Here. Take this stool.” Curtis stepped to the right. Once she sat in his seat, he would be between her and the large man that had tried to grab her.
“Thanks,” she murmured. “I was thinking we’d be somewhere a bit quieter. Where we could talk.” Already her throat was straining, yelling for him to hear.
“Oh, right. Follow me.” He held her hand and led her away from the lounge to the restaurant side of the establishment. It wasn’t much quieter. Children’s laughter and screams mixed with the music pumped out of the speakers to try to rush everyone through their meal. Curtis flagged a waitress. “How long until we can get a booth in the corner?” he nodded and passed her a five.
She rounded the hostess pedestal and looked over the information there. “Probably fifteen minutes.”
“Thanks. We’ll be just outside.” His hand fell on the small of Melody’s back, guiding her out the door. One of the staff puffed her cigarette a few feet away. Melody stepped to the other side of the entrance.
She looked him over from tight fitting blue jeans to the shirt she had already grown to like. His hair was different from that night. The curls were slicker, shinier, and less wild. His stubbly shadow was gone too. “Curtis. I didn’t recognize you right away.”
He laughed. “No kidding? You look different without blood matting your hair, but I still spotted you.”
Heat burned in her cheeks. What a terrible first impression.
“Oh, don’t worry about it. I meet lots of people under similar circumstances. It’s nice to get to see them in the light of a normal day.”
Her embarrassment eased, but she knew she was still blushing. Curtis focused on her nose. Still self-conscious from his last comment, she covered it. “What? Is something stuck to it?”
“No. Your freckles, they look different when you blush.�
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That brought back the flush with a vengeance. The tips of her ears pricked and burned. “Stop staring,” she complained, wrapping her arms around herself.
Curtis slipped an arm around her and held her closer. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you. You’re really cute. You know that, right?”
She looked away but smiled. “Yeah, I’ve been told.”
“So, what sort of questions did you have?” he asked, dropping his hold. He spoke quietly without whispering and the employee didn’t seem to pay any attention to what he had said. Even so, Melody wasn’t sure she could talk with the woman standing there.
Curtis turned and looked in the smoker’s direction as well. “Don’t worry about her. She’ll be gone in a minute.” The cigarette she held was short and would burn away entirely soon.
“Okay. You talked about what makes a good Master.”
“Dom,” he corrected.
“What’s the difference?”
“One you need to learn. A Master implies a total power exchange. You would object to nothing demanded by your Master throughout the day. Safe words still apply, of course. A Dominant is more situational. You give him power for a time, to do a limited scene. It is expected you will compromise with one another. That doesn’t happen with a Master.”
“Oh.” She looked at her feet. How much didn’t she know? She thought her reading had prepared her, and certainly Damon hadn’t made her feel inadequate like this. “Are you a Master?” Her voice squeaked at the end.
“No. My schedule and lifestyle don’t suit it.” He shrugged. “I don’t mind. I get to play with a lot of different people this way.”
Melody put her hands in her pockets and felt the printed list. “Would you play with me?” she asked, pulling the page out. “I made a list.”
Curtis frowned and took the paper. His eyebrows went up. “Interesting.” He folded it again and tucked it into his jeans. “How about we talk about your history instead of your future? What was your last relationship?”