Paxton squeezed my hand when I spoke. I could tell it was to shut me up, but I wasn’t shutting. Go home? “What day is it?”

“It’s Tuesday,” Paxton answered.

“Go home? You can’t be serious. I don’t even know my name. You can’t just send me home with someone I don’t know.”

“I know it’s frustrating, but really all we can do is wait. I’ve seen these things cure themselves over night. I’ve seen them take months, years, and sometimes never. The best thing for you is to get you home where you’re familiar with things. Your home, and I hear you have a couple kids. That’s the best place for you right now.”

“I’m not leaving!” No way. No way in hell.

 

Chapter Two

 

I made Paxton mad so many times during the next few days. Intentionally. I was so sick of hearing him talk. I didn’t care how hot he was, how built, or how alluring he was. I didn’t want to go with him. He wouldn’t talk to me about anything important. Like my own kids. He was still on the game kick, thinking I feigned a brain injury. Freaking idiot.

I’d put up enough fight over the past couple days to get someone from social services in there. They wouldn’t help me, either. Paxton showed his charm when they talked to us both first. He had the two women eating out of his hand in a few seconds. And then politely excused himself so they could talk to me alone.

“This guy’s whacked in the head. I’m not leaving with him,” I assured the middle-aged women, jutting my thumb toward the door. It hurt too much to put any more effort than that into it.

The taller one offered little help. “We can make a home visit if you’d like. I can’t imagine what you must be feeling, but I really do think you should go home. Your family is the best place to be.”

It was a hopeless case. Nobody cared about me. Nobody saw the monster I sensed in him. I had no choice but to leave with him. It wasn’t even like I could run away. I could barely even walk, and where would I run to?

By two in the afternoon, they set me free. The cuts and broken bones healed by the day, but not my memory. My body felt stronger every day. My mind did not. Nothing. I had nothing to go on. My entire memory laid in six days. That’s how many days it had been since I had woken from a dark somberness to this. To hell.

I stood in my room overlooking the parking lot, and I waited. I just didn’t know what for. I didn’t feel like I belonged with Paxton. I didn’t feel like a mom, and I sure as hell didn’t feel like leaving with him.

“Ready, my love? I brought you a sundress to wear home. Hope that’s okay,” Paxton said, like we were going home with our first-born child. Like a proud papa.

I turned slowly and looked at him. “Yeah, it’s fine. Can you get the nurse for me?”

“For what?” Paxton asked, brows curled into a frown. His toe kicked the door shut and he opened the bag.

I reminded him of the obvious with a distasteful glare. I could barely sit on a toilet, and he thought I could handle moving my arms and legs in painful positons. Idiot. “I can’t dress myself yet.”

Paxton took my hand and helped me sit on my bed, propping my crutches against the chair. The scent of his cologne drifted between us when he brushed hair from my face. “Who do you think will be doing this at home?”

“No. I want a nurse. You’re not dressing me,” I said with an assured tone.

His fingers glided over my face and down my neck as his lips lowered to mine. My breath caught deep in my chest when his hand came to a stop around my throat. Is wasn’t the grip he held around my throat as much as the icy-warm words to my lips. The words were cold, spoken with warm breaths.

“I will be your nurse. I will change your clothes, and I will wash your pussy. We clear on that, baby? I don’t really like debating things. You know?” he questioned with a tighter grip and then another kiss.

Yes. I knew. I knew exactly what he meant. Don’t rock the boat. As much as I wanted to stand up to him, put him in his place, I couldn’t. I cowered with nod.

“That’s my girl,” he said with soft kisses to my lips. His grip eased up on my throat and his thumb lifted my chin. It hurt to look up like that, but the adrenaline pumping through my body kept me from saying so. A steady thump pounded in my chest as he kissed me. His tongue traced my lips, but I didn’t part them. I held them in a thin, straight line. He couldn’t make me kiss him back.

“Open. Your. Mouth,” he ordered, planting a kiss on my mouth between each word.

I wanted to tell him no. That was my intention, but it’s not what I did. I dropped my jaw, lowering my bottom lip for his tongue. It was those eyes. Those piercing, dark eyes. There was something there. Something behind them that scared the hell out of me. This was the first time since I had met Paxton that fear gripped me to my bones—at least from what I could remember, anyway. He’d intimidated me several times, but it hadn’t really scared me. Not like this.

Paxton hovered above me, kissing me with his hand around my throat. I’m not sure if I kissed back or not. I don’t think I really had a choice. It was hard not to with his tongue shoved in my mouth like that.

I felt the string being pulled from my green hospital gown on my back when he pulled away. Paxton stood in front of me and slid my gown over my shoulders. His eyes glittered with hunger as undressed me like we were about to make love right there in the hospital room.

I sat on the edge of the bed and watched his face and his lustful eyes. He licked his lips and ran the flat of his hand over my beading nipple. It didn’t go erect because of arousal; it hardened because of the chill. Of course, Paxton and his ego assumed it was their doing.

“I knew you missed me,” he said in a boasting tone, his gaze searching mine. The pounding in my heart picked up a thousand times harder, thumping loud in my head. With his power, Paxton showed me who was in charge, putting me right in my place. Wherever that was.

I didn’t speak a word—not that I could have if I’d tried, but still. I didn’t know what to say. This was about to happen whether I approved or not. Paxton and his power trip degraded me with elegance. Like it was his honorable duty to disgrace me with dignity.

His words were soft and loving, yet bold, and callous. “I’m so glad you didn’t mess any of this up. It would have been a shame.”

My chest was a faded black with grayish-yellow bruises, and I had numerous scrapes and cuts, mostly down my right side. I still didn’t speak. I listened. Listened and watched. I had a feeling all of my rebellious outbreaks were coming to an end. I feared him. I was afraid of where I would be taken, and what the hell I would be walking in to.

“I didn’t think this day was ever going to get here,” he said while admitting to a fact that told me his intentions with me. They weren’t good. Even I knew that. His hand grazed my leg and he dropped to one knee. The lace of a garment tickled my ankles. I didn’t move. A Thong? He had to look up and order me with his eyes before my foot lifted for him. He dragged white, lacy panties up my legs and over the bulky brace, stopping just below my knees. Paxton took both of my hands and drew me to a standing position.

His lips kissed my stomach as he stood, arranging the sexy panties around my hips. He pressed his hand against my bare ass and pulled my naked body into his chest. The force of his tongue proved to be enough of an order.

“Oh, my. Sorry,” my favorite nurse, Julie said from the door.

Paxton laughed and pulled his lips from mine. “Sorry, I couldn’t help myself. I’ve missed her,” he admitted with a soft smile. His hand pulled on my thong and the thin lace settled between my ass cheeks. One tug and he let me go, continuing with the dress. No bra. Just the dress.

Julie talked to us about my discharge instructions, explaining my meds to Paxton while he helped me into my sun dress.