Dance for Me

by Kay Elle Parker

  “That is some kind of fucked up.” Loki commented. “How did a sweet little thing like Bodie turn out the way she did with monsters like that raising her? No wonder she was so skittish when she came to Avalon.”

  Connie sniffled, but no one commented. No one dared. “Because she’s stronger than they were. She wanted no part of that life and she refused to give in to the pressure to become like them. That’s a lot of why they hated her; she was more than they could ever be.”

  “What’s going to happen to Alicia?” Braun asked.

  “They’ll take her in, either to the local department or the hospital if her condition isn’t good. From Hennessy's opinion, I imagine she’ll be taken straight to the emergency room. They’ll take her statement. I don’t think they’ll see her as a flight risk, so if they don’t charge her, she’ll be discharged.”

  Guilt tugged at him. He had no business sticking his nose into Bodie’s family, especially when she had no idea what was going on and didn’t have a voice to add her input, but he had sisters of his own. It would kill him to know one of them was in trouble and no one offered help. “Who takes care of people in this situation, when they’re incapacitated? Will they try and find another family member to take care of her?”

  “You can’t take this on, Braun. Bodie will consume all your time, every last drop of energy you can muster, for the next six months.” Connie piped up. “Alicia may well be adept at caring for herself with the right surroundings.”

  “Doesn’t feel right, letting Bodie’s sister drift alone through all this. Do you think Bodie would want us to abandon her, even with the bad blood that’s been sitting between them for however many years?”

  Connie sighed. “No. I think Bodie loves her. Or at least, she loved the irritating little sister she knew back then. Goddamn it, Braun.”

  His mouth twitched. “Pretty please, Mistress?”

  “You’re an asshole, you know that? A big, soft-hearted, idiotic asshole.” She thumped her fist on the back of his headrest. “Fine. But you owe me big-time. I mean, I ask for something, you don’t say no. Yes, Mistress is the only answer I get from you from now on, and there better be a fucking cherry and whipped cream with it.”

  Loki leaned forward. “Am I missing something here?”

  “Go back to sleep, sloth,” Jasper said on a sigh, shoving him back. “I swear, the universe revolves faster than the brain cells in your head sometimes.”

  Braun grinned, feeling lighter. It might be the wrong thing, one of those choices that led him in the wrong direction on his path, but in this moment, it felt as though he was doing something right in the middle of a nuclear fallout of bad shit. “Just to clarify: that’s a yes?”

  Now her head thunked heavily against the headrest. “I just know I’m going to regret this, but yes. Atticus, when you speak to your detective friend again, let him know that a friend of the family is willing to assist Alicia with a place to live and her personal care if she requires it.”

  “Thank you, Mistress. I love you.”

  “Shut up, you ginormous Irish lummox. I’m not talking to you.”

  “I think she loves you too, boss,” Loki chuckled, then yelped as the sharp sound of flesh striking jeans-clad flesh echoed in the truck. “Vicious, vicious woman. You treat all the men in your life this way?”

  “Yes. Now zip it.”

  Jasper almost crawled into the front. “If we’re done with the revenge part of tonight’s entertainment, can we please get moving? I find tossing recalcitrant children from a vehicle much more satisfying when said vehicle is in motion.”

  Atticus started the engine. “We can lock them in the trunk, let them fight it out in there on the way back to the hospital. We’ll still be able to hear them, but they won’t be quite as loud. The radio will cover the noise.”

  Braun eased back in his seat, frowning as Atticus three-pointed the truck in the opposite direction. He was conflicted as he watched the house shrink in the side mirror. He’d come here to do a job, to get justice for Bodie, and he felt just a little jilted someone had gotten there before him.

  On the same token, if he’d done that job, gotten his hands bloody for the second time that night, would he be going back to her the same man he’d been? Taking a life carried a huge penalty, one he was sure he could bear. But it wasn’t only his soul he’d have tarred with blood, was it?

  There were four other people in this truck. Four people he trusted his life and his secrets to, and while he knew they’d have his back, he’d been selfish to drag them out here, to let them shoulder the burden of murder.

  Alicia was a blessing in disguise.

  He might not have dealt it himself, but Bodie’s parents had gotten their comeuppance. They’d paid the price for their crimes. Maybe justice was sweeter coming from Alicia’s hand. A betrayal of sorts, their own blood ending their pathetic existences and bringing their sins to an end.

  At least tomorrow, when he sat at Bodie’s bedside and waited for her to come back to him, he could be with her with a clear conscience. She’d run away from the criminal lifestyle, turned her back to it. Why would she want to be with a man who willingly become a killer?

  He hadn’t considered that before setting off on this journey.

  They had enough to deal with. Recovery was never easy, and for one as active as Bodie, there were rough times ahead. Physiotherapy was not only strenuous; it was painful and exhausting. Took a toll on the brain as well as an already overtaxed body.

  Add in the news that she probably wouldn’t ever dance again, and he was going to have an angry wildcat on his hands.

  It didn’t matter. They would get through it, like they’d done with every challenge so far. This was a fresh start, uncluttered by the threat of her parents, and he was determined to make the most of it.

  She wasn’t alone in this.

  She never had to be alone again.

  Chapter Fifteen

  They let him in to see her at eight a.m. the next morning. Ostensibly for a few minutes, but Braun had other ideas. Once his ass sat in that damn ugly visitor’s chair, it wasn’t moving. Not for anything.

  The blinds were pulled, shutting out most of the bright sunshine outside. He wanted to let it spill in, banish the gloom so she woke in warmth and light, but one look at her face told him it wouldn’t be the best idea.

  Standing at the foot of her hospital bed, he raked his gaze over his subbie, feeling the same tightness in his chest that had plagued him all night. There was nothing he could do to help, and that irritated him deeply. Being useless wasn’t something he was accustomed to.

  They’d stitched the gash on her head, shaving part of her scalp so they could treat it. The small bald patch made his heart ache; she had such beautiful hair.

  It will grow back. It’s only hair.

  The plastic surgeon couldn’t do anything for her fractured cheekbone until the swelling subsided but apparently, he didn’t think they would need to operate. A blessing, albeit a minor one. They would monitor it over the next few days and see how it looked when the swelling went down.

  The rest of her face was a riot of reddened skin and nasty bruises spreading over the puffy flesh. She’d be able to open her eyes with effort.

  Raw scratches marred her slender throat.

  The nurses had tucked the blanket under her arms. One was weighed down by a cast, the other remained mobile, but both hands were bloodied, the joints ripped and painfully distended.

  He hated to think what the surgeons must have needed to do to her body in order to stop the bleeding that threatened her life. Faraday hadn’t given him a lot of information on that, other than to say the hemorrhaging had come close to winning the life or death battle Bodie found herself fighting.

  His woman was now a battle-scarred warrior, inside and out.

  They’d told Braun that samples had been taken from under her nails.

  He knew the results would come back as a match for her unlamented parents. They were lucky they were
already dead. The urge to pound their cold, lifeless faces into mush hadn’t completely faded in the early hours of the long night.

  He gripped the baseboard of the bed as he finally dared to look at the part of her he couldn’t bear to see. Her left leg was encased in a cast to mid-calf, wrapped in a bright and cheerful pink bandage, resting on a heap of pillows. Like that would make her feel better.

  The right...Jesus, God, it was enough to drive a man to tears. Metalwork framed it from foot to knee, all manner of spikes and screws piercing delicate skin like olden day torture instruments.

  Doctor Faraday had thrown words like spiral and closed and complete at him. The gist of the situation was, if he understood the jargon correctly, Bodie’s leg had been wrenched so viciously, the force caused the bone to fracture in a spiraling pattern down its length. Added pressure had then snapped the tibia into three pieces, shattering along the fracture.

  Jasper’s quick thinking and reactions had realigned the larger chunk of bone into position, saving her circulation to the foot. But even he hadn’t realized the full extent of the damage he’d held in his competent hands.

  “Be thankful the bone didn’t pierce the skin.” Faraday’s voice echoed hollowly in his mind. “Compound fractures, where the bone becomes exposed through the skin, are prime targets for infection setting into the limb.”

  They couldn’t guarantee there wasn’t already an infection coursing through Bodie’s veins right now, but Faraday assured him they were going to monitor her regularly. Well, so was he. If he had to sleep with his fingers superglued to her pulse, that’s what he would do.

  Oh, Bodie was going to have a fit when she came around and got a good look at all the tubes and pipes and wires she was hooked up to. So many of them. Fluids and blood to try and keep her blood pressure rising to an acceptable level she could maintain, wires connecting her to machines that did who knew what. There was a tube disappearing up her nose. And he couldn’t forget the blasted catheter, snaking from beneath the sheets.

  Braun released the bed, his fingers aching from the death grip in which he held it, then walked around the drab piece of furniture to drag the chair closer to where she lay, silent and still. His body groaned in thanks, grateful for the reprieve when he sank onto the overstuffed padding. He’d done nothing but pace a trench into the waiting room carpet since he and his friends returned from their nocturnal excursion hours ago.

  Connie had waited for an update before kissing Braun goodbye and promising to return as soon as she could. She’d taken Liam with her, the boy damn near dead on his feet. Knowing the Mistress, she wouldn’t drop him off at his own home, but take him back to her place where she could mother him and make sure he wasn’t alone.

  Atticus was lurking around the hospital somewhere, doing God knew what. They were still waiting to hear back from the homicide detectives, which didn’t bode well for Alicia, in Braun’s opinion.

  Loki had taken off just before dawn in Atticus’s truck, offering only a cryptic, “I won’t be long before I’m back. Don’t miss me too much while I’m gone.”

  No one had heard from him in the hours since, and Braun assumed his friend had gone home for a shower and crashed the moment he saw his bed. Christ knew, that’s exactly what he wanted to do this very second—he thought the nurses might frown upon him crawling in with Bodie.

  He’d balance on the edge for her, so long as he could just touch her.

  Cupping her hand between his, Braun bowed his head over the connection. No one who knew him would say he was a spiritual man, but he might surprise them. He was a firm believer in the power of a touch, a thought. He understood how so much could be conveyed through the stroke of a hand over a nervous submissive’s head, how things could be said without a syllable marring the perfect silence.

  He hoped Bodie could sense him.

  Closing his eyes was a really bad idea. With their skin pressed together, his fingers linked with hers, his brain switched off. He didn’t have the energy to think about Jasper sitting out in the waiting room with a stubborn, loyal little subbie curled on his lap, or a scared young woman dealing with the cops as her life flipped upside down and inside out.

  He was done.

  *

  He jerked awake sometime later, confused to find his feet propped up on another chair and a blanket spread over him. Someone had leaned him back into his seat and tucked a thin pillow behind his head.

  His hand was exactly where he remembered leaving it.

  Braun squinted at the nurse dutifully checking the long line of staples piecing Bodie’s stomach back together from sternum to navel. His muscles contracted in sympathy. His girl was going to hurt. “She okay?” he croaked pathetically, then cleared his throat before trying again. “Is she doing okay?”

  The nurse, a middle-aged brunette, lifted tired green eyes to his. Her lips curved in a smile. “Ah, you’re awake. We wondered how long you’d sleep for. You missed your girl earlier.” She gently replaced a dressing over the wound, then folded the blankets back into position.

  “I...what?” Blearily, he stared at her.

  “She woke for a minute. Barely made it sixty seconds before she slid back under with a little help from Mr. Morphine.” The woman turned her attention to one of the machines for a moment. “She’ll be out for a while longer now if you want to go back to sleep. I’m Lisa, I’m on duty today for this part of the ICU. If either of you need me before I come back, just press this button here.” She tapped a finger on a slim plastic box beneath Bodie’s fingers.

  Fuck. how could he have slept through her first moments back with him? He felt as though she’d punched the air from his lungs. “Did she...did she know I was here?”

  Lisa smiled kindly. “Patients rarely have their bearings about them when they wake from general anesthetic and we have very good drugs here. We told her she wasn’t alone, she squeezed your hand, then we hit her with a shot of morphine. Sleep is the best thing for her now.”

  He cleared his throat again. “Would you wake me if I’m asleep next time?”

  “Of course. Get some more rest; you look like you belong in one of these beds.” She hurried off to her next patient, quietly closing the door behind her.

  Well, wasn’t that a kick in the teeth? Seething at his stupidity, Braun growled under his breath. Determined not to make the same mistake again, he rested his head back and stared at Bodie’s face, thinking of all the ways he’d make his failures up to her when he got her home.

  Flowers. She’d like flowers, wouldn’t she? Something colorful and vibrant to chase away the depression that was sure to come on the heels of her recovery. He’d fill the house with wildflowers and violets and daffodils, whatever he could find. Blossoms with pretty scents to cleanse the odor of hospital from her senses.

  Chocolate. She all but inhaled chocolate.

  He’d have to consider giving Liam a raise and asking him to take over Avalon for the considerable future. There was some paperwork and a few things the boy didn’t know how to do, but that was easily remedied. Liam was a fast and efficient learner; it shouldn’t take him too long to get the hang of things.

  Braun’s time and sole focus would be on Bodie from today onwards, at least until she was back on her feet. Even then, he couldn’t imagine leaving her for longer than ten or fifteen minutes. His protective instincts were on overdrive, driven into a frenzy by what happened.

  With thoughts of improving the security systems at the house and club circling his head, Braun did what he swore he wouldn’t do again, and fell asleep.

  *

  “Blood pressure seems to be holding steady. I think you can unhook the blood once that bag has finished. I want her BP testing every twenty minutes for the next couple of hours, then every hour after that if she continues to improve. Push fluids, keep them ticking through.”

  Braun blinked slowly, processing the familiar voice before his eyes found the doctor conferring with the kind nurse on the opposite side of Bodie. His head rolled be
fore he could stop it, on the verge of turning his head back into the pillow and going back to sleep before he shook himself awake.

  “Mr. Fitzpatrick, welcome back. You sleep like the dead.” Faraday peered at him, obviously wondering if he needed her services.

  Truth be told, he felt that way. His goddamn body was too big to be scrunched up in a small space, and it told him so in no uncertain terms as he pushed himself back into a sitting position. Apparently, he’d slid down the damn chair as he slept. “Bodie?”

  “Sleeping. She’s showing signs of improvement every hour, but we’ll continue to monitor her for some time. While she’s not out of the woods yet, I’m pleased with her progress. Depending on how she manages over the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours, I’ll consider moving her to a normal ward.”

  He scrubbed his face. “That’s good, right?”

  “Yes, Mr. Fitzpatrick, that’s very good. She hasn’t given up, and that’s always a good sign.”

  Braun sucked in a breath, nodded. “Thank you. I needed to hear something good today.” The blood on Bodie’s fingers caught his attention. “Could I possibly ask a favor?”

  “You can ask,” she agreed.

  Something switched inside him, sending the Dominant roaring to the forefront. Reminding him he wasn’t just a man bogged down in guilt and worry. He was a goddamn Dom, the Master of Avalon, and the broken woman on the bed wasn’t just his woman, she was his submissive.

  His to take care of. His to tend.

  Motherfucking his.

  They may be on Faraday’s territory with Bodie’s physical health in the doctor’s clever hands, but by God, that didn’t mean he had to stand back and act like a pansy. “She’s a bit of a mess. Would it be too much of an imposition to ask for a cloth and hot water?”

  Faraday pursed her lips. “The nurses are in charge of bed baths, Mr. Fitzpatrick. Lisa?”

  Lisa lifted her eyebrow at him. “Ever done this before?”

  “In one capacity or another, yes.”

  “Well, it would save me a job this afternoon, if Mr. Fitzpatrick is sure he’s happy with doing it. I’ll get you what you need.” She walked off quickly.