“I don’t understand why you still care.”
He’d never stopped caring. “Neither do I.”
“I got blood all over your sweater.” She released his wrist and ran her palm over his chest. “It’s a nice sweater. You didn’t have to take me to the hospital.”
If she kept touching him like that, he wasn’t going to be responsible for his actions. He captured her hand, kissed her palm, and then he set it on her thigh. “Shut up, Mina. We’re fifteen minutes from the hospital. Just shut up for fifteen minutes.”
HIS COMMAND, THOUGH rude, lacked heat. For the first time since she’d known him, he sounded defeated. Exhausted, she rested her cheek against his chest and closed her eyes.
The cold air roused her. She opened her eyes to find Ever setting her onto a gurney. A huge red-and-blue sign on the building read EMERGENCY. This was the point when they parted ways. Fine, sharp points of panic poked at her stomach and made it difficult to breathe.
Ever was talking to the nurses, but his words didn’t make sense. His voice soothed her, and she was so afraid he’d leave. She clutched at him, and she cried out at the burning pain in her arm.
Hands pushed her back onto the gurney. Ever peered down at her, his bright eyes swimming in and out of focus.
“Don’t leave me alone.” She sounded desperate. She was desperate, but she didn’t know why.
He held the hand that didn’t hurt and brushed his thumb under her eye. “I’ll stay until your mother gets here.”
He straightened up and said something to Wilder and the attractive woman holding Wilder’s hand. She recognized the woman from Elmhurst the month before. Mina had been dancing with John, and Ever had been crouched down with his arm around that woman’s shoulders, having a private conversation with his mouth so close to her ear. It made Mina strangely happy to know the woman belonged to Wilder.
Then Wilder and the woman got into the car. The nurses wheeled her into the building and parked her in a curtained room. Ever stood off to the side as they shined lights into her eyes and probed her limbs for more damage.
She focused on Ever, on the strength emanating from him, and she felt her senses return to normal.
“You called my mother?”
“Lydia did.”
Lydia must be the name of Wilder’s girlfriend. “Can you thank her for me?”
“Yeah.” He shoved his hand in his pocket and shifted uncomfortably.
“Thank you for bringing me here.”
John would probably come with her mother, but she knew better than to mention it. When she’d wondered at the fact that he still cared, the flash of pain in his eyes had cut deep.
That was why she’d broken off their relationship over the phone. She’d told herself she was afraid of his temper, but she also knew she couldn’t handle hurting him. If she’d faced his grief, she would have crumbled the second he asked how they could work it out. Ever was a big believer in working out problems. Mina was a big believer in running from them.
Yeah, she was a chicken. The nurses left, and Mina became a nervous chicken. They were alone, sort of. The curtains cut down the ambient noise and provided some privacy, but people were nearby.
“Thank you for staying with me.” She disliked hospitals. A few times her father had beaten her mother to the point where she needed medical attention. It was never anything that couldn’t be easily explained away—a kitchen accident, a fall down the stairs—but it seemed nobody ever noticed or cared that her mother was being mistreated.
“Stop.” He approached the bed, firm resolve stamped in the harsh slant of his mouth. “We don’t have to do this. Small talk isn’t necessary. We don’t have to pretend to be friends. I’m okay with sitting in silence.”
Unable to face him and the shame she felt, she looked away. She couldn’t go on second-guessing herself. Thanks to her move, she had the job she’d always wanted. She hadn’t compromised her dreams or ended up with a man who had no compunction about hitting a woman.
She’d asked her mother once what she had seen in a man like Jong-Kyu Sung. Her mother had said he had been handsome and charming when they first met. He’d been exciting, and they had so much in common. She had given up her dreams and her dignity for him.
John was the all-around safer choice.
The curtain parted, and a nurse came inside. She beamed a smile at Mina as she hung a bag of saline on the IV stand. “I have you booked with X-ray for your arm, but the doctors want to run some tests on your head first. I’m going to take some blood and start an IV.”
As she spoke, she extracted things from the containers on the shelf and put them on a nearby tray. Mina looked away from that side of her body. She could handle having blood taken and an IV tube put in, but she couldn’t watch it.
Having to turn her head in that direction put Ever in her sight line. He leaned against the sturdy partition separating this room from the next. His dark slacks were rumpled. His soft sweater stretched across his shoulders and accented his firm chest. The pleasing shape of the shirt on his body didn’t draw her attention away from the smears of blood that lent a macabre pattern to the solid design.
Dark drops stained his pants, and she’d thrown up on his shoes. Yet he didn’t seem to notice any of it. Concern etched lines around his mouth and eyes, and his gaze didn’t waver from her.
The nurse finished her tasks, assured Mina that her turn in radiology was close, and left.
She was alone with Ever for the long wait. Her head throbbed, but she was feeling better. She should tell him he didn’t have to stay.
“If you send me the bill, I’ll pay for having your clothes cleaned.”
He blinked, staring at her as if her suggestion was preposterous.
It didn’t take long for her to realize why he was looking at her that way. “You have to get over this whole ‘not letting women pay for things’ problem you have.”
Something dark and dangerous glittered from his eyes, and the lines around his mouth turned harsh. “Even if I were so inclined, I don’t have your address. It’s one of those things you neglected to leave behind when you tossed me aside and fled the state.”
He made her sound heartless, completely callous, and a little criminal. She huffed, and the move made her aware of some of the bruises forming on her chest. “I didn’t toss you aside. You lied to me, Ever. Big, fat lies.”
Pressing his lips together, he glared at the ceiling. Then he muttered under his breath. “I didn’t lie to you.”
“You’re a Dom. The only way you could have failed to bring that up in five months is because you meant to keep it from me.” Aches throbbed in her ribs and shoulder. She didn’t want to fight with him when she could barely keep her wits about her.
She didn’t want to fight with him at all.
“I might not have used that word, but I was pretty explicit about the kind of man I am. You didn’t have a problem with it. You had a problem when I tried to go vanilla, so get off your high horse.” He clenched his fists, but he didn’t otherwise alter the casualness of his pose. “Damn it, Mina. It’s been six years, and that’s all you have to say to me?”
Shock coursed through her system, combining with whatever was already there. “What did you expect?”
He looked away, pushing off the wall and turning his back to her, but not before she saw the raw pain in his expression. The pain echoed in her heart.
“Nothing. I expect nothing from you.”
She wanted to slip her arms around him, to soothe his pain and hers, but she lacked the strength to get out of bed. “Ever.”
“You left, Mina. You left without talking to me, without yelling or screaming or giving me a chance to respond. I would have done anything to make you happy. Anything at all.”
She had to strain to hear the low rumble of his voice. Silence ticked away the seconds. He took one step toward the curtain, and she panicked.
“I was afraid. I couldn’t find a job here, and I knew you wouldn’t leave. I k
new you would talk me into giving up. And then finding out what you are…what you do… It was too much. I couldn’t stay and let you destroy my dreams.”
“Jesus, Mina.” He took a ragged breath, but he didn’t turn to face her. “It’s a good thing you left. If you thought so poorly of me, then you didn’t know me at all.”
With that, he did the leaving. She didn’t call him back. Her brain was too muddled to process everything he’d said.
* * * *
Several hours later, after she’d broken up with John and sent her mother to drive him to the airport, she slept in her private room. She sported a short cast for her broken wrist, and bandages covered four stitches. They’d admitted her for observation, probably because she couldn’t stop crying.
She wanted Ever to come back. She wanted him to hold her in his arms and tell her that everything would be okay, that he forgave her for the way she’d left.
In her fantasy, he explained his reasons for keeping such an important secret.
In reality, the soft knock on her door led to a visitor she hadn’t expected. A petite lady stood at the threshold, her blonde hair swept up elegantly and her coat belted in a way that emphasized her slim waist.
“Macy?”
Mina hadn’t seen Everett’s mother in years. She’d once enjoyed an amiable relationship with the woman, and she knew her mother had maintained a close friendship with Macy Burke. However, she’d never anticipated having to face the mother of the man who still suffered from having been with her.
“Hello, Mina. I hear you’ve had a rough day.”
Her mind raced, trying to figure out what Macy was doing there. She gave a weak smile. “Not one of my ten best.”
Macy closed the door to the hall and pulled a chair to sit next to the bed. She switched on her tablet computer. “Darling, I know Everett hasn’t been terribly forthcoming with regard to what we do at Oasis.”
In point of fact, he’d never said a word. Mina shook her head, agreeing with Macy’s statement.
“We are firm believers in happy endings, my dear. We make wishes come true. We help soul mates take steps that will lead them to spiritual harmony. Sometimes, when things go horribly wrong, they need an outside force to set everything right.”
Mina stared at Macy. Perhaps she’d hit her head harder than she thought.
“Mina, you are a sweet submissive, delicate and charming. There’s nothing wrong with letting a loving Dom take care of you. It doesn’t make you less of a woman, and it doesn’t take away your independence. Submission makes you stronger. After all, as a submissive, you call all the shots. The Doms have the harder job. They have to take care of us.”
She smiled dreamily, though Mina didn’t make the mistake of thinking that Macy had lost her marbles. The things she said made sense on a level Mina desperately wanted to understand. Everett had always taken care of her. Even today, he’d seen to her care when he could have left it up to the medical professionals.
Macy’s expression turned sad. “My son found his soul mate years ago, but he failed to follow some really solid advice from his father and his brother, and he lost the only woman he was destined to love.”
A knot of emotions squeezed Mina’s insides. “Macy, Ever is finished with me. He doesn’t want me back.”
Macy’s smile turned indulgent and the tiniest bit devious. “He might not be in a place to admit that, but that’s a small hurdle. Let’s start with your wish, darling. We have a lot of paperwork to get filled out, some permissions to be signed, things like that. It’s going to take a few hours. You must not be shy with me. Ask questions about anything, and I’ll give you my best answers.”
The knot loosened, shaking free hope and a lingering reluctance to talk to this woman about intimate matters. She couldn’t speak frankly to Macy Burke about her son. That would be far too awkward.
As if she could read Mina’s mind, Macy stood. “I know. We’re not there yet. But you must work with someone on staff. Isla is in the hall, waiting. She said I might need backup. I’ll leave you two alone. Remember: be honest. It’s the only way this can work.”
Chapter Eight
Case 5-E
Give me two days to prove I can be Ever’s submissive.
“No. Fuck no.” Everett paced the length of his mother’s office, shaking his head vehemently. He jabbed his finger in the air, pointing to the thick folder on Macy’s desk. “Reject it. Throw it out.”
She remained seated behind her large oak desk, her hands folded sedately in front of her. “Ever, darling, I’m not going to throw it out. It is within our power to make her dreams come true.”
“At what cost?” He thundered the question and slammed his fist on the file folder. “I can’t do this, Mom, and I can’t let anybody else do it either.”
Micah followed the volley of the conversation, wisely keeping his mouth shut. One of Ever’s oldest friends, Micah had been there the night he’d confronted Mina while she was on a date with another man.
His temper had never ruffled his mother’s feathers, or Micah’s for that matter. He was mostly bluster and wind. She gazed at him through calm blue eyes, her expression firm. “Darling, you’ve spent six years torturing yourself over this woman. Don’t you think it’s time for some closure?”
Oasis didn’t operate on the basis of looking for closure. His parents had built this business on the philosophy that sometimes people needed to set up the right circumstances to make a couple seize their chance at happiness.
“She’s spent three years living with a guy.” It killed him to think about her with anybody else. “Now she suddenly wants to give being submissive a try?”
A brilliant smile lit her face, an expression he hadn’t seen too often in the year since his father’s car accident. “Isn’t that what you’ve been waiting for? You can’t force someone to be submissive. They have to want it. The timing is finally right.”
Weary, he sank into the chair next to Micah’s. “I haven’t forgiven her for what she did to me.”
“I know.” Macy came around the desk and perched on the arm of his chair. She put her arm around his shoulders. “But you weren’t exactly in the right either, my stubborn, stubborn boy. You must get to know her all over again, have honest conversations about painful topics, and finally learn to communicate with each other.”
He wanted nothing more, but Mina had run from him last time. “I couldn’t survive losing her again.”
Macy kissed him on the forehead. “We’ll have to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
Ever didn’t know how they were going to manage that, but he knew it all hinged on how he handled the details of her wish.
Macy patted his shoulder and went back to her desk. She scooped up the folder and held it out. “Micah, sweetheart, set this up.”
Standing, Micah towered over Macy. He was a few inches taller than Ever. His shoulders were broader, and he boasted more muscle than anybody Ever knew, even Micah’s younger brother, Jude.
Doubt clouded Micah’s dark eyes. “Macy, are you completely sure about this? I know Ever wants another shot with her, but do we know why she’s suddenly asking to spend time as a submissive? Didn’t she get a concussion when her car went off the road?”
“Yes.” Macy’s smile grew. “Sometimes life smacks you hard to force you to see what’s right in front of your face. Valentine’s Day falls on a Monday this year. Start the wish the Friday before, and give it the weekend. Ever, darling, I found the perfect Valentine’s gift for you two. I’m having it delivered to your house. I hope it shows up in time.”
As he and Micah returned to their end of the building where the security offices were located, the thoughts zooming through Ever’s head made him dizzy. Did Mina honestly know what she was getting into? She’d had plenty of time to research D/s relationships, but had she really? Underlining all that was dread. He knew they were in for one knock-down, drag-out argument. He hated arguing with Mina. She was as stubborn as the day was long, and he could
only lock her in the stocks so many times.
“This was your wish.” Micah’s quiet observation brought him out of his head. They’d reached the hallway in front of their offices.
Four years ago, his group of friends had made wishes. Eva’s had come true almost immediately. Wilder’s had happened just a few months ago. That left him, Micah, Jude, Isla, and Jessalyn.
Isla, the tiny blonde Domme who was also the oldest member of their group, poked her head into the hall and lifted one finely sculpted brow. “You accepted Mina’s wish?”
Ever nodded. Now that it was on tap to happen, he couldn’t seem to settle on an emotion. Wilder had been a mess from the time he found out about Lydia’s wish until she took matters into her hands. Eva’s romance had been fairly straightforward. One look at Pete and she’d never looked away.
“I want to have a play party that weekend.” He glanced around at his dominant friends. “Tell Pete and Eva, Wilder and Lydia, Jude, Sara, Sydney, and Jessalyn. I want her to meet other submissives. They’ll be able to give her insights I can’t.”
Micah’s mouth twisted with an ironic smile. “And it reestablishes her with your group of friends. This time nobody will have to hide who they really are.”
The times he’d brought Mina around before, he’d asked his friends to refrain from discussing dominance and submission. She’d been so naive where relationships and sex were concerned that he hadn’t wanted to shock her.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’m done handling her with kid gloves. She’s going to get one hell of an education.”
Isla pursed her lips. “Are you sure about this? Your friends are awfully protective of you, and I can’t imagine everybody welcoming Mina with open arms. Not after what she’s done to you.”
They’d all seen the way he’d grieved her loss. But they were his friends. How could they be anything but sympathetic? If he wanted Mina, then they would support his efforts to win her back.
“Maybe not at first, but they’ll warm up to her.”
Safe Word: Oasis 5: Mina's Heart Page 16
