Page 9 of Daddy's Little Patient

“I did.”

“I didn’t feel it.”

“I promise, I washed your feet,” he said, chuckling as he poured another cupful of water over her head. “I washed everything from your pretty face to your even prettier toes.”

“Foot freak,” she tried to joke.

“Kink shamers get their bottoms spanked.”

Don’t threaten me with a good time. She couldn’t tell if she actually said that part out loud. It was too lulling for her to resist when he poured shampoo on her head and began working it in.

The next thing she knew, he was helping her stand while the sudsy water swirled down the drain. Her legs wobbled as he quickly wrapped her in a towel, then lifted her all the way out. He sat her on his lap, holding her securely while he dried heroff. She kept trying to rest her head on his shoulder, but he kept waking her up.

“No, sit up now.”

She cried. “I’m so tired, Daddy.”

“I know, I’m hurrying.” He took the bags off her casted hands, then made her stand, so he could help walk her into her bedroom and over to her bed.

She had a slew of t-shirt style nightgowns, most of them with funny sayings across the front, likeThat Friday Night FeelingorSleep, Eat, Coffee, Repeat. He didn’t bother putting any of them on her. She wasn’t sure she’d have had the strength to let him. She barely managed to stay upright long enough for him to peel the blanket back. The second she saw her mattress and top sheet yawning open, she crawled in between them.

Curled on her side, her head on the pillow and her useless casts clunkily resting on top of one another, she sighed out a sleepy, “Thank you, Daddy.”

And that was all she knew. After that, sleep claimed her.

Chapter Three

Cole left her bedroom door cracked, so he’d hear if she needed anything. He cleaned up the bathroom, emptied her hospital bags, read up on the medications the hospital had sent home with her, then gave her painkiller schedule its own alarm setting on his cellphone, so he’d be sure never to forget or be late in administering one.

Adjusting the thermostat, he shut off the lights, then walked in to lie down on her bed beside her. Only then, with the faint light of the streetlamp outside shining its dim glow through the cracks in her window curtains, did he let himself think about how close he’d come to losing her. He studied every curve of her face in the semi-darkness, seeing the dark line of her seatbelt bruise instead. His fingers ached to touch her—her hair, her skin, any part of her really—but he didn’t dare for fear it might wake her.

I love you, babygirl.

He couldn’t say that out loud, yet. Kelly was the definition of someone with whom one could move too fast, and he wasn’t about to do anything that might risk scaring her into leaving—not even a declaration of love, only six months into therelationship. Six years might still be too soon. He’d test those waters when they reached that anniversary. In the meantime, he was content to be friend, lover, Dom and Daddy, whenever, wherever she needed it. Especially in moments like now, when she refused to admit how much she did, in fact, need him.

This had happened four days ago, and he’d been late to the party because she didn’t want to disturb his business trip. They would have to talk about that tomorrow. Morning would come soon enough, and the fit that would surely follow when he put his foot down and issued a new rule—nightly phone calls from here on out, especially when he was out of town and most especially if she got hurt. He didn’t care if it was a paper cut. By God, nothing like this was ever going to happen again.

How long he laid there, thinking that over and over again, he didn’t know. One minute, he was watching her sleep and, in the next, her six o’clock pill alarm started beeping.

He was not a morning person; Kelly was even less so. He barely got his eyes open the entire walk to the kitchen to get her pill.

“What the hell…” she groaned when he shook her shoulder and refused to stop until she woke up. He stuck the pill in her mouth and made her chase it down with several swallows of water.

“Do you have to go to the bathroom?”

“Fuck you.” Flopping onto her back, she pawed at the blankets blindly with one cast until he pulled them all the way up over her head. “Sadist,” she grumbled.

Some couples simply had no business talking to one another before their first pot of coffee. He was fine with them being one such couple.

Crawling back into bed beside her, he fell asleep again.

He was much more ready to be awake at eight when the beeps of a reversing trash truck woke him. He rolled onto his back,yawning, stretching, and rubbing his eyes before the much softer rustle of crinkling plastic caught his ear. The stretch of bed beside him was empty. He didn’t know when Kelly got up, but he found her in the kitchen, dressed in an inside-out nightgown and swearing softly under her breath as she struggled to separate out a single coffee filter so she could get the coffee started.

“Need help?” he offered.

She jumped, then stomped her foot. She whipped around and, in what could only be described as a fit of frustration, threw the entire package of filters at him. He didn’t try to catch them, but he did grab her arm before she could storm out past him.

He felt for her. He really did. He’d broken his right arm as a kid and couldn’t imagine breaking both at the same time, but he wasn’t going to do this for the next six weeks.

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