by Maren Smith
“I can handle all that,” Cole said diplomatically. “What else?”
“She’ll need to make an appointment with her general practitioner in the next week or so, to make sure things are progressing well. She needs to keep her arms elevated as much as possible to help reduce the swelling, which will also help with pain. Especially at night, which isn’t the most comfortable position to sleep in, but it will make the discomfort the next day easier to bear. If her fingers become darkly discolored or she spikes a fever, bring her back immediately. And I think that’s about it. Sound good?”
Cole looked at the tips of her swollen fingers, peeking out at the ends of both casts. They looked a little purplish to him as it was.
“I can do that,” he said, winning another side-eyed look from Kelly.
She didn’t bother saying she was fine again, but she did turn her body to hide her fingertips in the folds of the plastic bag in her lap.
“I’ll order up your wheelchair.” The smile he gave Cole was flat and firmly pasted in place. “Good luck.”
“Thank you,” Cole called after him as he walked out. The minute he was out of sight, he rounded on Kelly. “What did you do to that man?”
“Look at this!” she hissed, waving her casts at him. “What he did to me! I’m practically peg-legged! Armed… whatever.”
“You told them we’re married?”
“They were being difficult! They refused to let me go home unless I guaranteed someone else would be there with me. Like twenty-four-seven. Who the hell lives like that?”
“Most the world,” he shot back. “And watch who you’re talking to with that mouth. I only have to go as far as the parking lot to tan your hide.”
“Sorry, Daddy,” she muttered, still disgruntled and not seeming to notice when he suddenly looked at her casts. “I’m just cranky because of how ridiculous this all is. I’ve been taking care of myself since I was a kid. I don’t need this much help. I’m—”
“Don’t say you’re fine again, young lady,” he cut in sharply. “You are not fine. You are stitched up like Mrs. Frankenstein’s Monster. Where’s the car? Is it even drivable?”
“I don’t know,” she wisecracked with a toothy smile. “I’m not allowed to drive on these pills.”
“Oh.” Cole laughed, so not amused. “I promise, that’s not the hill you want to take your last stand on with me. Also, don’t ever give me that smile again because you won’t like how I respond.”
Huffing, Kelly wilted where she sat.
“Please,” she said, looking every bit as defeated as she suddenly sounded. “Please just take me home?”
“Right.” Drawing himself up a little straighter, Cole gave in. “We can talk freely once we get out of here. Where are your clothes? Do you need help to get dressed?”
She held up her baggy. “They cut my clothes off in the ambulance.”
“God, I wish you’d called me.” Combing his fingers through her hair, he sank down onto the window seat to wait for the wheelchair.
“I—”
He cut off her ‘did,’ with an equally sarcastic, “I meant when you first got hurt, not when you’re trying to con your doctors into letting you out of here.”
She sniffed. “We’ll talk about it in the car.”
That was Kelly for ‘I hate it when you’re right, so I’m going to ignore the comment.’
Eventually, the nurse came with a wheelchair. “Hey, you’re finally getting out, huh?”
“Thank God!” Vaulting off the end of the bed, Kelly’s shuffle for freedom was the happiest he’d yet seen her, yet startling. She was walking like an old woman. Her back was hunched, her movements wobbly and uncertain. He got up to offer a steadying hand as she stepped between the footrests. One was folded up, the other folded down to reduce the chance of her tripping. He held her arm as she turned around and lowered herself. There was no missing or mistaking her wince. She was sore.
He’d been rear-ended once. The whiplash had lasted more than a week and affected every muscle in his neck, back, shoulders, chest, even his stomach. Every place, he supposed, that had tightened up, then lurched to the impact of the crash.
“I’m fine,” she said, though neither he nor the nurse had said anything. She was hugging her casts to her chest as she gingerly relaxed. “I’m okay.”
“I’ll run ahead and get the truck,” he said, anxious to get her safely home.
The nurse nodded. “We’ll meet you at the front entrance.”
“See you soon,” he promised Kelly, gently patting her shoulder. He left the room, rushing for the elevator in long-legged strides, digging the keys from his jeans pocket.
True enough, by the time he got to his truck and drove around St. Francis from the hospital’s ER entrance to the front, pulling up to the curb where the nurse and Kelly were waiting out front. He was prepared to pick her up if necessary, but in true Kelly form, she refused. She crawled up onto the passenger side of the bench seat all on her own. When she fumbled to grab onto the seatbelt, however, he stepped in and buckled her up.
“You okay?”
“I’m fine,” she said yet again, but her face seemed drawn and pale. She had just been in a car accident, a bad one from what he’d so far seen. He didn’t care how many times she declared it, she was not okay.
The nurse handed him her bag—wallet, keys, the remnants of all her cut off clothes—before bidding them goodbye and taking the wheelchair back inside. Hopping into the truck behind the steering wheel, he started the engine.
“All right,” he began as he pulled out of the drive-thru, but she immediately rolled her head toward the window.
“I don’t want to talk about it.” She closed her eyes as if pretending to go to sleep was going to deter him.
He’d never been put in a position like this before but knew what his gut was telling him, and it wasn’t ‘take her home and drop her off.’
“I’m not asking you to talk, but I am going to make you decide.”
“Decide what?” She rolled her head again, giving him a reluctant frown.
“My place or yours,” he said simply. “I don’t care how fine you say you are. If the hospital refused to let you go home alone, until I know you can take care of yourself, I’m not leaving your side.”
Her jaw dropped. “Are you freaking serious?”
He didn’t bother answering. Glancing both ways, he eased out of the parking lot and headed for the freeway.
“My place or yours?”
“I’ll go to mine, you’ll go to yours. I don’t need a babysitter, Cole. I just need some peace and quiet and a comfortable bed that doesn’t come with hourly blood pressure and temperature checks. Do you have any idea what it’s like to not be allowed to go to the bathroom by yourself?”
“Can you wipe?” he countered.
She didn’t just frown, she scowled. “I’ll figure it out.”
“Fine. When you do, let me know. I will happily go home and leave you in peace. But until then, baby girl, you may as well call me Daddy because I’m going to take care of you.”
Chapter Two
Oh, dear God, she just wanted to go home.
Kelly had never been accused of being a social person, under the best of circumstances, and nothing that had happened since the accident had the best of anything. She hurt. Her muscles all felt torn from her bones. She had a deep, dark purple diagonal line from her right shoulder to her left hip and around her waist from where she’d slammed against the seatbelt. She had cuts. She had stitches. Right now, heaven would be the ability to wash her hands or her hair… what she had left of it. Admittedly, hospitals weren’t known for their hair-styling surgeons, but still.
All day long, they’d been teasing her with the promise of finally going home until they sprang, ‘we can’t release you under your own care’ bullshit. Seriously, what was that? She was twenty-eight! She’d been on her own financially since she was nineteen, and frankly, if one counted her working, single mom childhood,
she’d pretty much been on her own in every other aspect since she was eight.
She could take care of herself. Would it be awkward? Sure. She had casts on both her hands; awkward was a nice word for how fucked up she expected this to get. But would she cope? Yes, of course, she would. Life was all about learning how to cope. She would figure it out.
Hugging her right hand to her chest, she wiggled her fingers in the hopes a little extra movement might finally get the dull throbbing to stop. It didn’t, but that just fit in with the way her life was going right now. Everything hurt, why not her hands? Head resting on the back of the seat, she sighed.
“How fast was he going?” Cole asked, breaking the silence.
“Who?”
“The guy who merged into you.”
Shaking her head, Kelly shrugged with her eyebrows. “I don’t know, but we were on the freeway. I honestly don’t remember getting hit, but when the police came by to get a report, they said there was a witness who stopped to call for help and keep me company until first responders got there.”
“But the car rolled?”
“Mm-hmm.” She looked out the window again. Either the last round of pills they’d given her at the hospital was kicking in, or three days’ worth of sleepless nights was finally catching up with her. She was getting drowsy. “I kinda woke up crunched up between the steering wheel, the seat, and the caved-in roof of my car.”
It was night, but there were so many cars whizzing past on the other side of the freeway, the inside of their car was anything but black. From the corner of her eye, she saw Cole’s shocked stare, snapping back and forth from the road to her and back to the road again.
“You sound so calm,” he said in disbelief.
“What’s not to be calm about? I survived.”
“You got hurt, Kelly,” he exclaimed, and she honestly couldn’t tell if he was upset or surprised. “Most people would be upset about that. You’re acting like you don’t care.”
“I care,” she protested, then shrugged again. “I just care more about going home and finally getting to relax. It’s been a long four days, Cole. I just want to be quiet for a while.”
He looked at her, then back at the road again. Hitting the blinker, he pulled onto the offramp.
“Okay,” he finally agreed. “That’s fair.”
“Thank you.” She closed her eyes, stretching her legs as much as she could in the passenger seat. Those muscles ached too, but she didn’t have much farther until she was home. “I’m sorry I didn’t call, but I didn’t want to distract you from your business trip. I didn’t want you to get hit by all this the second your plane landed, either, but I just had to get out of there. I’d have taken a cab if only they’d just released me.”
“Don’t you think there might be a reason why they didn’t?”
“Maybe, but they don’t get to be the boss of me just ‘cause they want to be.”
He hit the brake, and her eyes shot open. For a moment, she was sure he was stopping because she’d used her Little voice and popped a bit of attitude. But no, there was actually a stoplight at the bottom of the freeway offramp, and it was changing color.
“Okay,” he said, stern but calm. “If your Little comes out again, my Daddy Dom comes out. So, if you don’t want me to put on my bossy pants, you need to keep your Big in full control of your attitude.”
Tired as she was, her stomach still clenched tightly, the way it always did when he started laying down ultimatums. She blamed the hospital drugs for her sudden willingness to push his buttons. There really was no other reason. She knew him and exactly how he was going to respond.
“You’re not the boss of me, either.”
His low chuckle did all kinds of terrible, wonderful things to her tummy. “Uh… yes, I am. I’m Daddy.”
“Only at the club,” she protested.
“And anytime, anywhere, your Little decides to start acting up. Yes, ma’am, I am Daddy in public or private and everywhere in between. Whether or not you like it, I’m Daddy right now because you called me to break you out of the hospital. That’s number one. Number two, I’m Daddy until you’ve healed enough to do things on your own. Until that happens, I’m not leaving you alone… period. I’ll call my boss first thing in the morning. I can work from home and camp out at your place for a while.”
Her jaw dropped. “Now, hang on!”
“Nope. You have to show me you can take care of yourself. Once you do, I’m gone. I’ll tell you this right now, sweetpea, I’m going to take my cues from you. If your mouth wants to write checks your butt can’t cash, so be it, but don’t think for a second, you can do anything you want because you’re hurt. If you bring your brat out to me, Daddy’s coming out for you.”
That wasn’t at all what she wanted, yet the butterflies in her stomach were fluttering, and a languid pulse was throbbing low and slow between her legs. The rest of the drive to her house was made in pure silence while she tried to get those wayward sensations to stop.
As he pulled into the driveway of her little rental house, she was just starting to think this might not be too bad. In fact, this might be exactly what she needed—a nice two or three days to herself, with Daddy hanging around. A couple spankings, then she’d show him she could do whatever she needed to, he’d go home, she’d have a nice, hot, toasty bottom, and life would be golden again. Plus, he had a truck, and until insurance came through, she was without a car.
“Are we going to negotiate this?” she asked, as he pulled up to the walkway and parked.
He shut the car off, arching an eyebrow at her. “We just did.”
That set off the butterflies and the throbbing all over again. She really, really blamed this on the drugs.
“Clubhouse rules?”
“You mean, do you get a safeword?” He thought about it. “Sure, but you should know if you want to call a safeword, it’s only going to stop me long enough to talk about whatever issue you have, then I’ll proceed from there. If you were headed for a punishment, unless you do some fast-talking, I’m going to proceed straight into your punishment. If that’s what you really want to stop, I suggest you not start it.”
“What if you start something?”
“Safewords absolutely apply in that situation. I plan to be one hundred percent a gentleman in all situations.”
That shouldn’t have sounded anywhere near as good as it did, but she knew Cole. She liked him. They hadn’t been dating very long, only half a year, but they were the absolute definition of peas in a pod, particularly where it came to Daddies and Littles, the clubhouse, and the bedroom.
Kelly had a suck-ass history with boyfriends and an even worse history with what few Doms that she took as anything more than one-night-stand play partners at the dungeon she and Cole both attended. It was so bad, it had taken Cole almost nine months of conversation, coaxing, and friendship before she consented to her first scene with him. And the only reason that happened was she’d been in full-blown Little mode with crayons and everything when he’d approached her.
Her Little had liked him instantly, and the warning bells of her Big side hadn’t kicked in until after he’d plied her with juice, two mini candy bars, and the offer of a good-girl spanking, followed by the non-sexual cuddles of a gentleman.
Yeah, her Little had liked him right from the start.
Once they moved past strict dungeon play into the bedroom, her pussy had liked him as well. It was shameful to admit, but her pussy overrode a lot of decisions, it probably ought not to get a vote on.
It was trying really hard to vote on this one, too.
And God, her Little. They hadn’t been together long enough for Cole to get a good, long exposure to that side of her and how it always tended to pop out at all the wrong times—like at the hospital, and when she was grumpy. Cole had handled all that fairly well, but if he stayed with her, he was going to get his first long-term exposure. She couldn’t let that happen. She really liked him and didn’t want to lose him, cert
ainly not over something she couldn’t control.
She needed to say no to this.
Shaking his head, Cole said, “You can refuse all you like, but I promised the doctor you wouldn’t be alone, and I keep my promises. By now, you ought to know that, so this part is non-negotiable. The only part you get a choice on is which house, mine or yours, and whether you want to be a good girl. If you get sassy, then tell me I’m not the boss of you, don’t be surprised when Daddy issues a punishment.”
Her bottom tingled.
“Don’t for a second think the only punishment I can come up with is a spanking,” he said as if reading that unexpected hunger in her eyes. “I promise you, little girl, if you choose not to mind me, I will find the thing you hate the most.”
Crap.
She stared at him, her eyes wide, unable to figure out how to say no when her mouth refused to obey her, and her heart was pounding so hard in her chest. The heat and pulse and butterflies went absolutely crazy when he pointed at her bag.
“Get your keys out.”
She knocked her bag clean off her lap in her startled effort to obey. Her hands were shaking. That was weird. Her whole body was shaking, and she hadn’t even realized. She tried to reach through the layers of cut cloth, past her wallet in search of her house keys. The moment her sausage-swollen middle finger tried to hook the ring, lightning pain shot from her hand straight up through her arm. She yanked back, slamming into the back of the car seat. Hugging her cast and sucking air, she struggled just to breathe through the pain.
“Oh, fuck… oh, fuck…”
It was all she could do not to scream. Maybe she wasn’t that far into the painkillers after all. The good stuff, the doctor had said. He thought she was difficult before… She couldn’t wait to have another word with him.
As the pain was starting to recede, she became aware Cole had reached over her, snagging the bag from between her legs, and dug out her house keys.
“Wait here,” he said, getting out of the truck. The whole thing rocked when he shut the door. Not that he’d shut it hard, but there was a look on his face as he walked around the hood that grated against every independent fiber of her being. He was coming around to get her door. She could get it herself.
