I’d taken a suede flogger from the wall and run my fingers through the strands, remembering the last time I’d used it . . .
I had invited a close dominant friend and his collared submissive over to my playroom shortly after my breakup with Beth. Hours later, we were deep into the scene. Jen was on her knees before Carter, his c**k in her mouth. At Carter’s request, I was flogging her with a suede flogger. I timed the strokes with each thrust of Carter’s hips, my eyes and concentration focused on Jen—her breathing, her movements.
My c**k grew hard as I waited for him to release into her mouth. He was taking his time, his hands buried in her hair, holding out for as long as he could.
“Damn, Nathaniel,” he said. “Her mouth is so hot. If you want her to service you, I’ll have no problem with it.”
I knew many dominants who shared their submissives and, while it never bothered me, I had never been one to share my collared subs with others. Would I be a hypocrite to accept Carter’s offer?
I refocused my attention on Jen. Her body strained with the effort of controlling her own lust.
Fuck. I was turning her on with the flogger. Exciting her. My c**k strained against my jeans.
Would I do it?
“That’s it, my Jennie,” Carter said. “Nice and hard.”
Jen moved her body, and we were all in sync—Carter’s hips, Jen, and my flogger.
“I can’t hold out anymore,” Carter panted. “Let me know, Nathaniel. You really should f**k her mouth.”
I unzipped my pants.
“Nathaniel!”
Melanie’s voice broke through my memory, and I opened my eyes. The flogger dropped to my side. Somehow during my daydream, I’d undone my pants and had been stroking myself.
“What the hell?” Melanie screeched.
She stood in the playroom door with her hands on her hips, all the blood drained from her face.
“Wait downstairs,” I said, buckling my pants.
“Not until you tell—”
“Now!”
She turned with a huff and stomped away. I walked out of the room and closed the door behind me.
Melanie waited in the living room, pacing.
“You want to explain to me what the hell I just saw?”
I collapsed onto the couch. I felt a hundred years old. “You knew. I never made a secret of who I was.”
“You told me you’d try. That you weren’t going to do it anymore.” She paced to the fireplace.
“I wasn’t doing anything, Melanie.”
“That’s not what it looked like to me. What was that . . . that . . . thing in your hand?”
“A flogger.”
“A flogger?” she asked in disbelief. Her pacing stopped. “You flog people?”
“Don’t look at me like that. It feels quite nice if the flogger knows what they’re doing.”
“Which you do, I suppose?”
“Of course I know what I’m doing.” I felt anger start to boil deep within me. “I’ve been doing it for a long time.”
She huffed one more time and turned from me. “That room. That room with all that stuff . . . I didn’t know . . .” Her shoulders hitched. “I thought I’d come by tonight and surprise you. Mom’s sitting with Grandmother. I guess I’m the surprised one, huh?”
I got up and put my arms around her. “I’m sorry. I thought you’d be away. I just wanted . . . I just wanted to remember. I thought it would help me. Help us. I never wanted you to know.”
She was crying. I hated knowing I had caused her tears.
“Melanie,” I whispered. “This is why I never wanted to scene with you. You wouldn’t like it. It just . . . it wouldn’t work.” Like we don’t work, I’d wanted to add.
She turned to look at me, her eyes filled with tears. “I can try, Nathaniel. Please, let me try.”
“Don’t. Please. It’s not your fault. It’s me.” I stroked her back as she cried. “It’s all me.”
We went through the motions for another month. Pretended we were okay. We slept together, went out, tried to put that Thursday night behind us.
It didn’t work.
I was who I was and Melanie was who she was.
I’d told her she deserved better than me. Deserved a man who could love her the way she needed to be loved. Who wouldn’t need the crazy lifestyle I needed. She’d begged me to collar her, to try to scene with her, but I couldn’t do it. I knew deep down that Melanie would never be a submissive.
And I knew that I would always be a dominant.
My phone rang, dragging me back to the present. I checked the caller ID. Elaina.
“Hey, Elaina,” I said. “What’s going on?”
“I told Abby all your deep, hidden secrets and she said she didn’t care.”
“Silly woman, I could have told you that.”
“I really like her. You better hang on to her.”
“I plan on it. Where are you?”
“We just left Delphina’s. I’m heading back to see Linda, and Abby just got a . . . Abby!” Elaina screamed suddenly. “Stop!”
I jumped to my feet, sending my office chair sliding across the floor. “Elaina!”
I heard a terrific crash through the phone and then a low moan from Elaina: “Oh, God. Abby.”
“Elaina!” I shouted into the phone. “Where’s Abby? What happened?” She didn’t answer. “Elaina!”
“Oh, God. Nathaniel,” she said. “It’s Abby. It’s . . . it’s not good.”
My heart felt like the world’s strongest man had it in his grasp. I couldn’t breathe, and only one thought kept running through my head.
Abby.
Abby.
Abby.
Chapter Thirteen
“Elaina!” I shouted again, but she didn’t answer. From her end of the phone, I heard frantic voices and the sound of a car door slam. “Elaina!”
What had happened to Abby? What did Elaina mean, it wasn’t good? Was Abby involved in the crash I’d just heard?
Then I heard yelling.
“Call 911!”
“Is she breathing?”
“Can you find a pulse?”Breathing? Pulse?
Abby?
“Elaina!” I shouted.
Nothing.
“Abby,” I finally heard Elaina say. The tone of her voice didn’t comfort me. I strained to hear more. “Abby, wake up. Wake up, Abby.”
“Don’t move her,” someone else said. “Her neck could be broken.”
My body shook and my knees threatened to give out. Broken? Abby? I reached for my keys with fumbling fingers. A cab or the car?
“Elaina!” I tried again. I picked the keys up and they fell to my desk. “Elaina! Damn it. Talk to me!”
I picked the keys back up, held on to them this time. The car.
“She’s alive, Nathaniel,” Elaina sobbed.
The keys dropped again. Alive? Had there been a doubt? I swiped the keys and shoved them in my pocket. “Where are you?” I asked as I stumbled out of my office.
“Mr. West,” Sara said, jumping up from her desk.
“I’m leaving! Don’t know when I’ll be back.” I turned once more to the phone. “Where, Elaina?”
“Lenox,” Elaina said with a shudder in her voice. “I’ll have them take her there. I’ll call Linda.”
I don’t remember much from the drive to the hospital. I tried calling Elaina several times on the way, but she didn’t answer her phone. Linda didn’t pick up her phone either.
I pulled into the parking lot, stumbled out of the car, and ran to the ER. Had she made it here yet?
Why hadn’t Elaina picked up her phone?
Because Abby was worse.
I felt sick.
She was worse. Or else her neck had been broken. Or else her pulse—
I couldn’t think that. Couldn’t do it.
I burst through the hospital doors, and the receptionist looked up and smiled. Thankfully, she was someone I recognized from visiting Linda before.
“Mr. West,” she said. “How are—”
“I’m here to see a patient.” My eyes darted frantically around the room.
“Patient’s name?”
“Abigail King.”
“I don’t see her here,” she said, looking at her computer screen. “Maybe they just brought her in.”
“Yes!” I shouted in spite of myself. Damn it, when would she let me through the doors? “They just brought her in.”
“Hold on.” She picked up the phone.
Hold on? Hold on? Had the entire world gone crazy?
She spoke low into the phone, having a conversation that took damn near years. She looked up. “She’s in trauma room four. I’ll send you through, but you’ll have to wait outside the room.”
The door to my right finally buzzed open, and I ran through.
I’d been in the ER before, mostly to visit Linda. I sprinted down the corridor and turned left. Doctors and nurses rushed around, but my eyes focused on the room at the end of the hallway.
Abby!
If I could just reach the room. Just get there. Had a hallway ever been so long?
“Nathaniel!” Elaina jogged toward me. “She’s okay. She’s going to be okay.”
I pushed her aside and opened the door. “Abby! Abby!”
Then I stopped short.
The trauma team worked frantically, moving around the room, all of them talking at once. The center of their attention was Abby. She lay naked, still as death, and the blood from her head drenched the white sheet of the bed. Only when someone touched her did her body move. So vulnerable. So very fragile.
Abby?
I grabbed on to the doorframe to hold myself upright.
Mumbled voices. Something metallic.
“Got the call hours ago,” a deep male voice said. “Took a long time to get down that ditch. Can’t imagine anyone’s still alive.”
I couldn’t open my eyes. It hurt too much. Where was Mommy? Where was Daddy? Why had they stopped talking?
“Probably hit the ice. Had no chance once he hit the ditch.”
“Man and a woman. Look to be DOA. Damn, all that blood.”
“There’s a child in the backseat!”
The voices weren’t Mommy or Daddy. Who were they? What happened?
I cracked my eye open. Didn’t hurt too much if I just moved my eye.
“Hey! You can’t be in here!”
I shook myself and looked back to Abby. Was she breathing? They were checking her IV, taking her blood pressure, and hooking her up to monitors. That was a good sign, right? It was only bad when they stopped.
“I’m Nathaniel West,” I managed to say. “Linda’s nephew.”
“I don’t care who you are. You can’t be in here!”
I stood where I was, unable to take my eyes off of Abby and the blood. All the blood.
“Why won’t you—” I started.
“Don’t make me call security!”
Two gentle hands grabbed my shoulders. “Nate.”
“Linda!” I spun around. “Is she okay? Why won’t they stop the bleeding?”
“She’s okay. Let them work.” She pushed me to the door. “You can’t be in here. I’ll be out in a few minutes.”
The door closed behind me and I faced Elaina. Mascara smudged her eyes, and she sniffled. “Is she still okay?”
I turned back to the closed door. “I don’t know.”
Time stood still. I measured its passage by my breaths. Willing Abby to keep breathing. No one else entered the trauma room. But no one left either. Was that good?
What would I do if something happened to Abby?
Surely nothing would happen to her. Not now. Not when she finally had a place in my life.