The Love She Craves: Selling Her Soul to Declan

by Gemma Jenkins

  The doors to the elevator opened and Declan stepped in, but Onyx stood rooted to the spot. They stared at each other. His hand shot out and grabbed her arm pulling her in only moments before the doors closed.

  “We’re not in high school anymore. Full disclosure when we get to my car.”

  “Did you do something mean to me you’ve felt guilty about all these years?”

  “No—yes, well, not guilty, something I’ve regretted. I always regretted giving into peer pressure and not befriending you.”

  An almost imperceivable harrumph came out under her breath followed by a slight chuckle. “It’s probably just as well. The girls would’ve scratched my eyes out if you had acknowledged my existence.”

  Declan turned, stepping forward somewhat so he could look into her face. His stony expression softened slightly as he examined her. “On some level, you do remember me, don’t you?”

  She pulled her eyes away from the brushed aluminum doors, glanced at him and nodded curtly.

  “I told the nurse we were friends because it’s inappropriate for me to start a relationship with you while I’m on your brother’s team. I thought it would seem less questionable if people thought we already had a previous connection.”

  “You want to date me?” Nyxie hated the incredulous sound of her voice and wanted to repeat her question with disdain.

  “Not exactly.”

  Nyxie stared straight ahead as she felt the heat of embarrassment creeping up her neck into her face. Of course, he didn’t want to date her. Why would a hot stud like Declan Stryker want to be with white trash like her? He was gorgeous with the body of a Greek statue, the face of a movie star, and if the M.D. after his name was any clue, he was smart, too—a regular trifecta of genetics.

  Christ, she just wanted the ground to open up and swallow her.

  The elevator dinged and the doors opened. Declan grabbed her hand and led her into the first streaks of morning sunshine.

  Nyxie looked at her small hand engulfed in his and wondered if she’d ever held anyone’s hand voluntarily besides her kids’. She remembered as a child, having to hold hands when they played Red Rover. Her classmates may have made a huge fuss over holding her hand, but she was just as repulsed by holding theirs. Nyxie did not invite any kind of physical contact. It was completely foreign to her to touch other people because she had not grown up in that kind of an environment. She may have held Cody’s hand out of necessity when he was little, but it grew into the only way she knew to show her brother affection. It broke her heart when at the age of seven; he announced he was too old to hold her hand like a baby. But sometimes at night, when their father stumbled in drunk, he reached for her hand.

  As they approached the parking lot, he withdrew a key fob and the lights of a pale metallic blue Jeep lit up. He opened the door and waited until she was seated before stretching the belt across her and clicking it into place. With a slight smile, he gave it a little tug to make sure it wouldn’t come loose. He closed the door and walked around to his side and climbed into the bucket seat.

  “Where to?” he asked starting the car and buckling his seatbelt. “Waffle House? Tech Café?”

  She looked at her hands folded around the cup in her lap. “I’ve always wanted to go to IHOP.”

  “You’ve never been?”

  She shook her head. “When we could still pick up the TV stations, before they went digital, we used to practically salivate over IHOP commercials.”

  Declan pulled his phone off his hip and turned on the Bluetooth before connecting the charger.

  “IHOP it is.”

  The doors locked automatically when he put it in gear making her jump, her head pivoting to the door lock button and then to Declan.

  “It’s just a safety feature, Onyx. I’m not a kidnapper or rapist.”

  Again she felt her cheeks burn with embarrassment.

  As they pulled onto the street, she peered out the window so she didn’t have to face him. He said he wanted some kind of relationship, but not to date her. Did he think because her mother sometimes turned tricks, she was for sale? Was she for sale? Would she sleep with him to get her children back? Yes, she was sorry to admit.

  “You said something about full disclosure?”

  5

  “Getting right to it, are we?” he asked glancing at her then turning back to the road. “How much do you want your kids back?”

  Onyx bit her lip schooling her emotions because she knew he planned to take advantage of her powerless state.

  “My mother hated us kids. She was nearly as much of a drunk as Daddy, but she held down a job as a waitress at the truck stop. When Daddy’d get his hands on her money, he’d drink until the money was gone. The electric company and the grocery store take cash not excuses. That’s when Mama would turn tricks. And don’t pretend you didn’t know. Every kid in school knew. She hated us, yet she did what she had to do to feed us. I was ashamed of her. I didn’t understand the sacrifice she made.” Nyxie turned her head slowly to him. “I would sell my soul to the devil to get my kids back and I suspect you know it.”

  Declan nodded his head. “Yeah, I do. But straight up, it’s not up to me if you get them back. I can hire a great attorney, but you know there’s no guarantee. Maybe the best you can hope for is supervised visits.”

  “I understand. And what do I have to do for you?”

  His hands tightened on the wheel and he took a deep breath as if girding himself for war. “Nature versus nurture. Why is someone like Joseph gay? Why were your parents alcoholics? Who knows? As you may have guessed by now, I have tastes that run out of the bounds of what society deems normal. Yes, I’m sure there are places, even here in the Bible belt, where they cater to desires such as mine. But I am unwilling to explore that venue for fear of exposure.”

  “You’re not afraid I’ll expose you?”

  He glanced at her as he stopped at a red light. “At this point, what would you have to gain? If you’re not interested, say so. We’ll go eat breakfast and you’ll have a story about a weird guy you ate breakfast with once.”

  She placed her cup in a holder in the console. Her hands shook like a leaf and she wasn’t sure if it was from the strong coffee or fear. “You know even if I don’t want to, I’ll agree if it means I might get my family back.”

  “I know you feel trapped and coerced, but this will benefit you as well—not just by getting you help to fight CPS.”

  “I don’t see how you can say that. How will I benefit from this? It’s your proclivity, not mine.”

  He gave her the strangest look, as if he thought she, too, would embrace his particular taste in sex. A second later, the look was gone and a shield of aloofness settled over him. “For one, you can quit your job and I’ll support you.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest making the name tag on her shoulder poke out at an odd angle. “Then I’ll really be your own personal whore. It’s bad enough….”

  “No, Onyx,” he said shoving the gear into first and racing away from the intersection. “Is a man’s wife a whore if she doesn’t work? I’m not paying you for services rendered. I’m taking care of my precious sub.”

  “Sub? As in BDSM?”

  He nodded and quirked an eyebrow at her. “Yeah, what do you know about the lifestyle?”

  Her shoulders lifted in a shrug. She would never admit she Googled, Define BDSM on the library computer when no one was around. She didn’t know anyone who would tell her without making fun of her ignorance. She read the definition, but when she tried to click on one of the websites that came up, she found the library had blocked access to it because it had questionable content. She felt certain the librarian had given her strange looks the next few times she came, so she never pursued it further. “You hear people making jokes—oh, God; this isn’t like one of those golden shower things, is it? I don’t think I could get over the yuck-factor.”

  “We’re on the same page there.”

  “So, I’m supposed
to let you tie me up and beat me to a pulp while you use my body as you see fit?”

  His fingers tightened on the wheel again as a growl of frustration seeped between his lips. “No, it’s not like that at all. My job as your Dom is to know your limits. I may cause you pain, but I’m not going to injure you. Welts and bruises should be the worst of it. Nothing permanent. Your job as a sub is to do as you’re told and be available to me when I want you. If you behave, you will be rewarded. If you don’t, you will be punished. Simple.”

  She scooted to the door taking note of the handle’s location and casually moved her hand to the seatbelt buckle in case she needed to bale out. “Do you realize how crazy you sound to me?”

  His face became taut as he looked straight ahead. “Subs like to see the marks left by their Doms—you might, too. It’s a point of pride to know you endured the pain to make me happy. But this relationship is not all about the Dom’s pleasure. It’s about trust and letting go of control. I’m going to take you places physically and emotionally where no relationship has ever taken you before. You get to set limits and you can stop me with one word. My need for absolute control is not just limited to commanding you. I have to have complete discipline over myself, too. If I lost control, I could hurt you or cross the limits you set up.”

  Her head turned slowly around. “I get to set limits?”

  “Of course. I don’t get to ride roughshod over you. If caning is too much for you, I can’t touch you with a cane.”

  “So, if I say you can cane me, but only on my butt and thighs, you won’t hit me on my back and my head?”

  “Exactly.” He thought about that for a moment then decided he needed to clarify something. “I would never hit a sub in the head with an implement, that’s just downright abusive—and yes, there is a difference. I don’t think I’ve ever slapped one with an open hand—but I suppose in the right scene, I might.” His brow lowered. “Nyxie, that’s not the kind of thing a novice usually asks, it’s too specific.”

  She cursed herself silently for revealing a part of her life to him she’d rather he didn’t know. The silence between them lengthened until she could no longer deny the question in his statement. “My father wasn’t just a drunk. He was a mean drunk. I can’t imagine being hit with a cane is much different from being hit with a stick.”

  He glanced at her, blinking as he took in her petite form. Her body shrunk back into the seat disgusted that she’d told him something so personal. Popular people loved to use your secrets against you. She hated herself for her weakness.

  “How thick was the stick?”

  Nyxie made a circle using her first finger and her thumb. “About like that, maybe an inch and a half or two inches. I think it could have been a sapling of one of those paradise trees.”

  If it had been a laughing matter, the shocked look on his face would’ve been priceless. “Your father used to beat you with a tree? Fuck.”

  She chuckled, but it was irony in her laugh not humor. “You sound so appalled when you essentially want to do the same thing to me.”

  “It’s not the same. I’m not going to beat you wildly out of control, taking my anger out on an innocent child. We’re consenting adults. I’m trying to make sure you understand what you’re getting into before you agree to anything.”

  Nyxie nodded knowing she could and would take nearly any amount of pain to get the kids back. How different could it be from her childhood?

  She looked across the car to the man in the driver’s seat and mentally compared him to her father. There was no comparison. Her father was neither a large man nor a fit one, not like Declan Stryker whose arms bulged with muscles. But she was not a child anymore. She’d long ago learned how to distance herself from pain.

  “Sometimes, I would draw the blame away from Cody so I’d get hit instead of him. I knew I could take whatever Daddy dished out.”

  The vehicle cornered through the turnaround as they approached the restaurant. “Maybe you have masochistic tendencies you don’t acknowledge,” he said with an enigmatic smile as if he knew something she didn’t.

  She crossed her legs high on her thin thighs and began to bounce her foot. “When I was a teenager, I could take it without crying,” she said dispassionately. “That fucking pissed him off.”

  He pulled into the parking lot and into the first open parking place. He frowned at the way she bounced her leg, but said nothing. “If you do that to me, you’ll be punished. I need to see your true reaction, so I know how you’re tolerating the pain.”

  She looked down at her hands. “It’s been a long time since I’ve cried over physical pain. I don’t know if I can anymore.”

  He supposed he already knew being an outcast and daughter of a drunkard had damaged her, but he never realized there had been physical abuse. He wondered why none of her teachers reported it. Fucking small towns. They seemed to collectively condemn her for her parentage, while at the same time ignoring the telltale signs—because there had to be signs if he was hitting her with sticks. Perhaps Chimera Flats didn’t want to admit these things happened in their community. Or perhaps they thought the little Carmichael girl wasn’t worth saving. That thought irritated the hell out of him.

  “How much time do you need to make a decision?” he asked shutting off the engine.

  “I already made my decision. I told you, I would sell my soul if I have to. Short of letting you render me unfit to care for them, I’d agree to anything.”

  The note of hostility in her voice annoyed him. He wasn’t the only one who would benefit from this arrangement. The last thing he wanted was a sub who acted like a martyr. “I wish you could muster a bit more enthusiasm for it.”

  “My nieces are God-knows-where, my brother is on death’s door and I’m having trouble mustering enthusiasm for IHOP and I’ve wanted to eat here since I was a kid.”

  Declan shook his head, a chagrined smile lifted one corner of his mouth. “Point taken.”

  He stepped out, but before he could get to her side, she had already climbed out. “When you’re with me, I don’t want you to open doors.”

  She stared at him blankly. “You want to see me walking into doors, too?” A slight smile of mischief lifted a corner of her mouth. “You really are a sadistic fuck.”

  His hand snaked out and grabbed her upper arm tightly. “I don’t appreciate your insolence and you would be well advised to never speak to me that way again. You will call me sir in private and, Declan in public, a privilege most subs don’t get. I don’t get into the master thing that’s some Doms insist their subs to say. I am also not into humiliating my subs unless that’s something they want. Respect is a two-way street.”

  “I’m sorry, Dr. Stryker. I was just playing around. I think it’s nice that you want to open doors for me. No one’s ever done that before. And I am grateful you’re going to help me fight for custody.”

  He looked deeply into her eyes. “Sir,” he corrected. “In the future, that kind of disrespect will result in punishment.”

  Her eyes widened and she gulped. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  “I want your eyes down when you apologize and any time we are in the bedroom or playing a scene. Do you understand me?”

  “Okay.”

  “Say, ‘Yes, sir’,” he corrected.

  She chewed the inside of her lip then realized he was waiting for her to correct herself. Nyxie cast her eyes down. “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. Ready to eat?” He held out his hand to her and she quickly slipped her hand inside his.

  Strangely, Nyxie’s thoughts wavered between wanting to pull away and wanting to cling tightly to the warmth of his hand. Wondering if people would look at her differently when she was with him, Nyxie felt a strange desire to be invisible because she knew she was completely out of his league.

  “Um, I think you should know; I’m not on any form of birth control. So if we, uh, do something, we’ll have to get some condoms.”

  He squeezed her hand ge
ntly then looked down at her with a puzzled look. “You don’t think we’re going to jump right into that, do you?” At her doe-eyed shrug, he realized she had thought exactly that. “Nyxie, I would be a total asshole to fuck you when your brother is in a coma. Trust me. I’ll know when you’re ready—just like I knew you needed that shot to sleep last night.”

  He released her hand long enough to open the door for her.

  “Good morning,” the chipper hostess greeted them. “Just two?”

  “Corner booth if you can spare one.”

  The woman seemed to hesitate. Her painted-on smile waivered slightly as she consulted her seating chart. “Yes, right this way.”

  They weaved their way to the back corner and took their seats. Examining the menu, Nyxie’s face nearly radiated with joy as she scanned the pictures and fell when she saw the prices.

  When the waitress came back to the table to take their order, Nyxie ordered a bowl of fresh fruit off the a la carte menu.

  “Will you give us another minute,” Declan said sending the waitress away. “A bowl of fruit?”

  She mindlessly ran her finger along the side of the table. “I didn’t know everything would be so expensive. We only charge $4.99 for pancakes at the truck stop. And I didn’t think to grab my purse in all the confusion. Jimbo, he’s the one who drove us, gave me his credit card. He said there was $300 left, but I’m trying not to spend any more than I have to. I’m going to have enough trouble paying my bills since I’m missing work. The more I charge, the more I have to pay Jimbo back.”

  Declan’s face became stony. “Is he your boyfriend?”

  “Jimbo? No, he’s just a customer. I see him five days a week, but I don’t even know if he’s married or single.”

  Instinctively, Declan knew the man was single and hoped the kindness would culminate in a closer relationship. No married man would hand over his credit card without his wife’s permission. And few single men would lend it to a waitress without motive.