by Alexa Wilder
“Do you trust me?” he repeated.
I told him the truth.
“I do.”
“That’s all I needed to hear.”
Dylan pulled me into his chest and resumed his gentle strokes on my back. I must have drifted to sleep, because the next thing I knew, a nurse came in and Dylan was gently sitting me up so she could give me my discharge papers. She said something about my not having my insurance.
Dylan pulled a card out of his pocket and handed it to her, saying, “Have billing call my office on Monday, we’ll take care of it.”
The next thing I knew, he was carrying me, over the nurse’s protests, out of the hospital and to the black car waiting outside. I zoned out again on the way back to the Delecta. I didn’t realize I’d fallen asleep until I opened my eyes to see Dylan’s soft sheets as he lowered me into his bed. A moment later, he joined me, pulling my body into his until my head rested on his shoulder, my injured arm on top of his chest. The last thing I felt before I passed out completely was the thump of Dylan’s heart beneath my ear, strong and reassuring.
31
Dylan
It was all I could do to keep from hunting down that bastard myself. The look in Leigha’s eyes when she’d seen me - relief, then terror. It tore at me. She’d done this for me. To keep me safe. Had it even occurred to her that if that video got out she’d lose her job? I wasn’t in the tabloids every week, but I had my share of attention. If the video got out, it would be huge news. Overnight, Leigha would become a sex tape star. Completely unemployable and good for little more than hosting a third rate reality tv show. Or other options far worse.
I could answer that question. She hadn’t thought of herself at all. She’d been completely out of it at the hospital, pale, close to shock, and scared. In no condition to play a game with me. She could have accused me of putting her in that situation in the first place. She never would have been in that hallway, exposed to prying eyes with my hand up her dress, if I hadn’t dragged her along. I didn’t think that had even occurred to her.
It meant something to me that she’d been looking out for me. Something big. And it said a lot about her. But fuck, he’d hurt her. Terrified her. I was taking her in to press charges in the morning. I planned to hold her hand through all of it though I’d have to watch myself. I had a feeling there was worse she was hiding than a bruise to the jaw and a knife wound.
At least the bruises were contained to her face. I’d undressed her unconscious body for bed, my stomach tight with the fear that I’d find matching bruises on her body, her breasts and her thighs. If I had, I might have left her and gone with Axel’s men to bring Steven in. Then I might have killed him.
It’s always hard to say what we might or might not do in an extreme situation. Laying in bed, Leigha’s perfume drifting up from her hair, her warm body pressed into mine, I hoped I’d be smart enough not to do anything crazy, like kill a man in cold blood. Even my lawyers couldn’t get me out of something like that.
At the thought that he might have hurt her worse than he already had, that he could have raped her - the ice in my gut told me there was no limit to what I would do to keep her safe.
Still, she’d earned herself some punishment. I’d go gentle, since her face and her wrist would still hurt when she woke up. But Leigha needed to learn about trust. She’d said she trusted me in the hospital. She probably thought she meant it.
More likely, she wanted to mean it. I needed it to be deeper than that. I needed her to trust me all the way. To her soul. And the best way to show her what that meant was with a good, old-fashioned spanking. Sometimes the cliché was true. Actions did speak louder than words. In the morning, Leigha would find out for herself.
32
Leigha
I woke up draped across Dylan’s chest, his hand stroking my hair. I felt surprisingly good, considering the bruises on my face and the stitches in my wrist. Turning my head, I came eye to eye with Dylan’s phone. He wasn’t just awake; apparently he’d already been busy getting things done.
“How are you feeling?” he asked, meeting my eyes.
“Okay.” I shifted to sit up and leaned into the pillows beside him, laying half on my side so I could see his face. He looked concerned, sweet, and determined. The determined part gave me a shiver. I couldn’t tell if it was aimed at me or someone else. Maybe both.
“I’ll order up breakfast in a little while. Does your wrist hurt?”
“It’s not too bad.” It wasn’t. It throbbed, but not as much as I would have expected considering I had seven stitches.
Dylan reached towards his bedside table and handed me two brown pills and a glass of water.
“Ibuprofen,” he said. “Take them now before you start to move around too much.”
I did, staring at the light yellow stretchy bandage the doctor had wrapped around the dressing he’d put on my arm. It would look terrible with my dress for the wedding. The bruises on my face would be even worse. At the thought of Christie’s wedding, my stomach sank. The last thing I wanted to deal with was my sister’s wedding.
“What?” Dylan asked, catching my expression.
“The wedding. I feel better, but I don’t feel up to going to Christie’s wedding. And I really don’t want to face questions about this.” I raised my bandaged wrist in the air.
“If you want to blow it off, I’m all for it.”
“I can’t,” I said, wishing I could. But my mom would be both furious and disappointed. I could handle the furious part, but I didn’t want to disappoint her.
“I know,” Dylan said. “Don’t worry about the arm. Lola is sending over elbow length gloves. They’ll be a little too formal, but better than anyone seeing your wrist. And I had Melissa schedule someone to come up to do your hair and makeup this afternoon. They’ll cover the bruises so no one will know anything happened.”
“Did you do all that while I was sleeping?”
“You were out cold. Never even flinched when the phone rang.”
“Oh.” I could be a deep sleeper, but not usually that deep. Must have been a stress hangover from the night before. “Have you talked to Axel? Did he stop the video?”
“It’s fine.”
“And?”
“And, it’s under control,” he said, that determined look taking precedence in his eyes. I guess it was directed at me after all.
“I need to know more than that. What did he do?”
“Do you trust me?” Dylan asked. I remembered him asking that last night at the hospital. I’d said I did. Now that I was awake, the question seemed to have more depth. At the time I’d been overwhelmed with fear, pain, and relief at seeing Dylan. After a night of sleep, I wasn’t sure I’d give the same answer. Did I trust him?
“I do,” I said. “But I want to know what’s going on.”
“And I’ll tell you. First, I want to talk about trust.”
I stared at him, not sure what to say. I’d said I trusted him. What more did he want?
“Last night,” he went on, “That bastard called and threatened you. What did you do?”
“Dylan,” I whispered, wanting to stop him.
“You ran,” he said, ignoring my protest. He’d been so focused on taking care of me, I hadn’t realized he was angry.
“Dylan,” I said again, trying to explain. Dylan was done with explanations.
“You ran away,” he repeated. “Tell me what you should have done, Leigha. What should you have done when he texted you?”
“There wasn’t time.”
“Tell me,” he insisted, sliding out of the bed so he could pace out his frustration. “What should you have done when he texted you?”
I looked down at the sheets, avoiding his angry eyes and the distracting sight of his naked body. He was so pissed he didn’t seem to care that he was naked, but I didn’t think this was the best time to be ogling him.
“I should have woken you up,” I muttered, feeling like a recalcitrant child.
“Yes. You should have woken me up and trusted me to help you.”
His patient, firm tone suddenly struck a nerve. I was an adult, and I’d made the best decision I could at the time. He didn’t have the right to tell me what to do.
“I was trying to help you,” I said, irritated. I didn’t want to go over all this. I wanted to move on.
“I appreciate that, Leigha. I do.” He reached out and took my chin in his hand, lifting my face so I was forced to meet his eyes. “It means a lot that you thought about me first. But do you have any idea what went through my head when I realized you were gone?”
“I’m sorry,” I said, finally seeing it from his point of view.
“I was more pissed than worried until I saw you get in that cab. You didn’t look like you were mad at me, you looked scared.”
I had been. I’d been terrified.
“Then Axel called to say they found blood in your house. That you’d been tied up. I love that you’re the kind of woman who thinks of others first, but you need to be more careful. What happened was bad enough, but it could have been so much worse.”
At that I looked up, remembering Steven’s hand on my breast, the way he’d held the knife. Dylan must have seen something in my face.
“What did he do to you?” Dylan demanded. I sat up straighter, tired of cowering away. Dylan was pissed, but he wouldn’t hurt me.
“Nothing I haven’t already told you about,” I said, meeting his eyes. “I promise. He only touched my breast over my shirt and threatened me. That was all.”
Dylan swore and spun on his heel, swinging out at the lamp on the bedside table. It flew across the room and hit the wall, the metal fame gouging a chunk out of the drywall before it fell to the carpet.
“I’m going to fucking kill him,” he said, his eyes fierce.
“Dylan, stop.” I rose to my knees in the bed, clutching the sheet around me. “Calm down.”
“No,” he said, turning to point a long finger at me. “My job is to keep you safe. He could have raped you. Killed you. And I wasn’t there to protect you.”
“No, Dylan!” I yelled, trying to break into his rage, “I was trying to protect you. Don’t you understand? I’m okay. This isn’t that big a deal.”
He stopped and looked at me, his eyes suddenly calm. Coming closer, he sat on the edge of the bed and took my hand. His abrupt change in mood unnerved me.
“This is the biggest deal, Leigha. He cut you. He drew your blood, scared you, and stole from you. He threatened to rape you. While you were with me. And you didn’t trust me enough to let me keep you safe. You thought you had to risk yourself to protect me.”
“You don’t understand -”
“No, Leigha, it’s you who doesn’t understand. We have something here between us. Something important, but you don’t seem to get it.”
“What is it that I don’t understand?” I asked carefully, looking from his intent green eyes to my hand in his. His fingers closed tightly around mine.
“That you’re mine. You belong to me.”
“What?” My voice hit my ears in a shrill tone. What did he mean, I was his? This was just supposed to be for a weekend. And despite any evidence to the contrary, like the shopping trip or Dylan showing up at the hospital, I was still afraid to hope for more.
“You’re mine, Leigha,” he repeated. “I know it scares the shit out of you, but that doesn’t change anything.”
“I’m not scared,” I insisted, lying through my teeth. I was terrified.
“I know you’re scared,” Dylan said, his eyes patient. “Because the other option is that you don’t want me and I know that isn’t true.”
“Cocky,” I whispered under my breath, calculating the odds of making it to the bathroom and locking the door behind me before he could stop me. Not good. It’s not that I wanted to get away from him. I just needed a second of privacy to clear my head. Dylan Kane was an overwhelming man.
“Not cocky, sweetheart. I know you want me. Not because of me, because of you.”
I didn’t speak, only looked up at him. Maybe it was shock, or lack of sleep, but I was having a hard time following the conversation. Dylan went on, with the same patient expression.
“When was the last time you went to bed with a man you’d just met?”
I stared at him, my mouth open. Once. When I was in college. Not needing my answer, he kept talking.
“Yet you did it with me. Not an hour after we met, I had my fingers inside you. Two hours later I was fucking you. Ever done that with another man?”
I shook my head, my cheeks flaming pink. When he put it like that, I sounded so cheap.
“I -” I shut my mouth, not sure what I’d been about to say.
“Do you want to tell me why, Leigha?”
Dylan brought my hand to his mouth and kissed my fingers. A hot tingle shot through me, straight to my pussy. How could I be this confused, this annoyed, and still get turned on? It was the mystery of Dylan Kane.
In response to his question, I shook my head. Any answer I could think of would leave me too vulnerable. Because the real answer wasn’t an answer at all. Why had I done all those things with Dylan when I’d barely known him?
I’d done them because in some way, I felt like I’d always known him. Like we fit together. He set things off inside me that I’d never experienced with any other man. Not just the orgasms, although those were life changing on their own. Dylan pushed me, dared me to take risks. With him, I felt safe outside my normal comfort zones.
Suddenly, everything he was saying made sense. I trusted him. I had from the very first moment. Right up until Steven had stepped in with his video, and everything fell apart.
“It’s alright,” he said, leaning in to kiss my lips. “I know why. I know why you ran, and I know why you came back. So do you. But now, I’m going to prove it to you.”
“What?” I breathed, hoping he meant the talking was over and it was time for sex. Dylan reached up and tugged away the sheet covering my naked body. His eyes raked me from my bare breasts to the dark vee of hair between my legs and back up to my face. He grinned, that determined glint back in his eyes. A thrill of fear and anticipation ran down my spine.
“It’s time for your punishment, Leigha. It’s time for me to show you what trust really means.”
33
Leigha
He stood and reached out his hand for mine. I took it, nervous about what he had planned, but not ready to say no. I knew in my heart that if I stayed where I was our relationship would be over. Whatever was coming, it was important to Dylan. Too important for me to back away, not if I really wanted something with him.
I followed him into the living room where he sat on the couch, his posture oddly formal. I stopped, not sure what I was supposed to do. Dylan gestured to his lap.
“Face down, over my knees.”
Realization washed through me. He couldn’t be serious.
“You’re going to spank me?” I asked, incredulous. I knew people did this, and Dylan was definitely bossy in bed. But spanking me was a little weird.
“Yes,” he said, the devilish glint in his eyes sending heat through my uncertain body. “And you’re going to like it.”
“I don’t think so,” I said, eyeing his lap. Dylan grinned again, that same knowing, determined grin that got me wet.
“You will,” he said. “This is it, Leigha. This is trust. I’m asking you to do something you think you’ll hate. You need to trust that I’d never hurt you. Trust that I’ll take care of you.”
“And if I can’t?” I asked, my voice thin.
“You can.”
I closed my eyes for a long moment, imagining what would happen if I turned and walked from the room. Despite his determination, and his declarations that I was his, somewhere inside myself I was certain this was a deal breaker for Dylan. He wanted my trust. If I wanted him, I was going to have to try. I didn’t want to live my life afraid of loss.
Maybe Dylan wou
ld break my heart if I gave it to him. But there was a chance he wouldn’t. All he was asking, this magnificent, brilliant, beautiful man, was for me to give him a chance to prove that he was worthy of my trust. When I thought about it that way, how could I say no?
I opened my eyes to see him, patient and silent, waiting for me. Too nervous to be slow, now that my mind was made up, I crossed the living room and lay across his lap, face down. He reached to position my injured arm safely along my side. My face burned with embarrassment and I was glad he couldn’t see.
I was getting more comfortable with my body, but not enough to feel good about presenting myself to Dylan ass first. My rear end wasn’t exactly my slimmest attribute. Before I could go too far down that train of thought, he distracted me with a sharp smack to the body part in question.
I gasped in a breath. It hurt. Not as bad as a knife to the arm and getting stitches, but it didn’t feel good. The second smack, on the other side of my ass, was just as bad. I blinked my eyes against the welling tears. Why did he want this from me? He’d said he wasn’t going to hurt me, and this fucking hurt. The third smack, just where my ass met the top of my thighs, stung like the first two.
“Dylan,” I sobbed. Before I could go on, he smoothed a hand over my smarting flesh.
“Shhh. I know it stings. It always stings at first. This is where you have to trust me. You’re made for this. I can tell.” He stopped his gentle strokes and smacked me again, three times in rapid succession. The pain built with each stroke until my rear end was glowing with it. It took all my will to stay still over his knees while tears trickled from my eyes. I opened my mouth to protest, then shut it. He’d asked for trust.
