My Obsession (18 page)

Sirens blared in the distance, and Brent could only hope it meant that Dex had received his message.

With one last glance at Sandra, the man turned and fled, navigating the slick mud with only a few lapses and wobbles.

Brent was tempted to go after him, to make him pay for attacking Sandra. But Sandra was still lying flat on her back in the muck, with rain pelting down on her and the wind howling around them.

Ice ran through his veins as he looked down at her still form. She had thrown one arm over her face, but made no move to sit up.

He knelt next to her, leaning over her to block the rain as much as possible. “Sandra, speak to me.” He gently lifted her arm to see her eyes closed tight. He brushed her matted, wet hair away from her face and glanced back quickly to make sure the man who had attacked her wasn’t doubling back. Another flash of lightning showed the man ducking between two houses across the street as he disappeared from sight.

Brent hesitated about moving Sandra in case she had sustained a head or neck injury, but he didn’t want to leave her in the pouring rain. He gently traced his fingers down the side of her head until he felt a large bump. It didn’t take him long to figure out what had caused it. Her head rested on a metal grate that was overgrown with grass.

Fear for her hit him like a fist to the gut as his mind raced with options.

The sirens blared closer, turning down the street, then the vehicles screeched to a halt in front of the house.

The strobe lights illuminated the scene, and he was glad to see an ambulance along with the two police cars. Dex was always prepared for any eventuality.

Dex’s car pulled up behind them as the police officers spilled out of their cars and shouted for him to raise his hands and step away from Sandra.

Grinding his teeth and leaving her to the mercy of the steady rain, Brent did as he was told. After he had shown his ID and Dex had flashed his credentials, the EMTs were finally able to tend to Sandra.

Dex laid a firm hand on his shoulder, guiding Brent back several steps to give the EMTs space to work. He knew his friend was right, but it killed him not to be there to soothe and comfort her in case she woke up.

As they slid her onto the backboard and lifted her onto the gurney, Sandra’s eyes fluttered open and her gaze searched for and then settled on him.

Ignoring the protests from the emergency workers and Dex, Brent stepped close and grabbed her hand. Her skin was cold and wet, and he was thankful when they slid a blanket over her.

“Sir, we need to get her onto the ambulance. We’re taking her to John C. Lincoln. You can meet us there.”

He nodded and turned back to look at her pale face, lit by the lights of the ambulance. “Sandra. I’m here. I’ll get to the hospital as soon as I can.”

Her gaze was weak and unfocused, but he thought it settled on him again before her eyes closed.

He squeezed her hand and then reluctantly let go and stepped back.

Dex moved up beside him. “They’ll take good care of her.” He gestured toward the porch and the cops. “Let’s get the rest of this taken care of so we can drive to the hospital to see her.”

As they stepped up onto the porch, one of the officers looked at Dex. “Agent Alexander. I just talked to an Agent Tanner at the Phoenix office.”

Brent looked between Dex and the cop who had spoken. Dex wasn’t actually an agent, he was a high-level analyst, but Brent knew that he didn’t often bother to dissuade people of that notion if it worked in his favor.

Dex nodded, waiting for the man to continue.

The officer stopped to motion to his partner, who had just come back from canvassing the neighborhood for Sandra’s attacker. “Jim. You’re going to want to hear this too.”

When Jim stepped onto the porch, the first officer continued. “I just talked to Agent Tanner from the FBI, who works with Agent Alexander here.” He gestured to Dex. “He wants us to send all forensics from the scene over to him tonight. There’s a rush on everything. He thinks there may be a connection between this attack and Miss Barry’s stalker from New York.”

Jim held up his hand. “From the briefing this morning I only heard that he had a restraining order against him, but there wasn’t any mention of him violating it. So what’s the FBI’s sudden interest in this?”

When Brent bristled, Dex laid a heavy hand on his arm, reminding him to hold his tongue and let this play out.

The first officer stepped in. “We knew he might be in town, but if he’s the man the Feds think he is, he’s pretty high on their Most Wanted list. If he really is that man, then under at least eight aliases he’s kidnapped, tortured, and killed a minimum of nine women in the BDSM and kink scenes, using dungeons around the country to find and target his victims. He’s been able to go under the radar since this was only put together lately when links were found between the cases and MOs. This guy’s never even been arrested for anything larger than disorderly conduct.”

Brent stiffened and his blood ran cold. Dex had said he was digging into Diego’s past so they could have a better chance of keeping him away from Sandra, but this was the first Brent had heard about the information he’d uncovered.

If Sandra hadn’t run from New York, she might very well have been Diego’s next victim. Brent shook his head, unwilling to imagine that outcome.

“In the meantime Agent Tanner has authorized an agent to be stationed outside Miss Barry’s hospital room, just to be on the safe side.”

A large weight lifted from Brent’s shoulders. He would still prefer to be there in person to watch over her, but until he could, having an FBI agent guarding her was a relief.

The man’s gaze moved to Dex. “You and Mr. Weston are on the visitors list, as long as her doctor okays it.”

“Thank you.” Dex reached out and shook hands with the older man. “I appreciate everything you’ve done.”

The first officer ran his hand over his jaw and then over his spiky dark hair before he continued. “However, after the break-in attempt last week, this might not have anything to do with Miss Barry’s stalker.”

“Break-in attempt?” Brent asked before Dex had the chance.

The officer nodded. “Michelle Emery filed a report last week. She and Miss Barry came home and scared off a man trying to break in through the window of the back bedroom that’s used as an office. A man matching the description of a local junkie ran, leaving behind drug paraphernalia. We’ll know more when we catch up with him. He’s been lying low.”

Brent clenched his fists. He didn’t like knowing there was another man who might also be a danger to Sandra besides Diego. He wished Sandra had confided in him, though if that hadn’t moved Michelle forward on fixing security for the house, then him pressuring her wouldn’t have changed things either. But his inner Dom chafed at the feeling of helplessness.

He hadn’t been able to protect Sandra, and that simple fact ate at him like acid.

Dex slapped him on the back, hard, and Brent turned toward his friend. “Hey, now that the police are done with us, the next-door neighbor has offered us tools to board up the back door and the broken window in the office so we can leave the house secured.

“While the EMTs were checking Sandra over, I called Michelle and her boss. She’s on her way here to check the extent of the damage and see if anything is missing. Her boss is giving her a few days off, with pay.” A self-satisfied smile curved his lips, telling Brent that feat had taken some finagling. Which was one of Dex’s fortes. “Then, because this could be peripherally related to Diego, as soon as she checks out the house and lets us know what’s missing, I’ve arranged to get her put up in a hotel room while the security measures are being installed here.”

Brent nodded as another huge boulder of stress was lifted off of him. “Good. Thanks, Dex. Give me one second.” He fished out his phone and called his friend who owned the security company he’d been trying to schedule to take care of Michelle’s house.

“Hey, Mitch,” Brent said when his friend answered. “Sorry to bother you after hours, but that job I told you about last week? It has just become urgent. Can you come out first thing?”

After getting Mitch’s agreement, Brent confirmed that his friend had the address and set up a meeting for nine a.m.

If tonight’s events and Sandra being in the hospital didn’t make Michelle see reason, he wasn’t sure what he would do. But the meeting was set up. He would figure out what to do if the problem presented itself.

Several hours later Brent was finally driving Sandra back to Club Desire. The hospital had released her after running several tests, including a CT scan and all the usual neurological tests. She had only a mild concussion as well as a goose-egg-sized bump on the back of her head where she had hit the metal grate when she fell. The doctor was concerned because she had been knocked unconscious, but other than the mild concussion she checked out perfectly on every test the hospital staff had run. So the doctor had sent her home and asked that as a precaution someone stay with her tonight.

Brent had been more than happy to volunteer for that duty. When he had seen her fall and go limp, he’d felt as if his chest had been ripped open. He had known he was falling for her, but that incident had proved it. Sandra was more than just a sub to him. More than just his old high school crush.

She made a small sound of pain as she shifted in the passenger seat. He reached out to lay his hand on her arm. “Are you all right?”

“Yes.” She sounded sleepy. “Just bumped the back of my head when we turned. I’m all right.”

Guilt stabbed at him, followed by a renewed determination to protect and care for her. She curled more firmly under the blanket and against the small pillow he had grabbed at the gift shop on the way out, and he took care to drive as smoothly as possible.

She would be groggy for quite a while from the pain meds the hospital had given her, and he had gotten the Percocet prescription filled as soon as they left the hospital so she would have the meds when she needed them. He hoped she would sleep and heal. She had already been talking about going to work tomorrow even though the doctor told her to take it easy for several days.

He shook his head. He would call Gary and tell him what had happened. There was no way his friend would expect her to be in the office tomorrow. He also knew how bad Sandra would feel for the next few days while she healed. He had sustained a mild concussion a few years back, and sleep and occasionally getting up to eat and take more meds for the pain were the only things on his mind.

Brent glanced over at her curled against the passenger seat window in the darkened car and his chest swelled with emotion and warmth that spread throughout his entire body.

It was finally time to admit it. He was in love with her. Not the Sandra from high school, the beauty he had worshipped from afar, but the Sandra Barry who had survived and thrived to become the woman she was today.

He waited for any small trace of denial or even fear, but none came. Only a sense of profound rightness.

He just hoped that someday she could come to love him too. Brent shook his head. He knew she was attracted to him, and that she craved him dominating her and showing her how much pleasure was possible. He was more than happy to be her Dom, and always would be if she still accepted him once she found out the truth; he couldn’t help that his emotions had gone well beyond that. He would have to carefully separate that from their D/s relationship until she fell in love with him too.

God, he hoped she fell in love with him! There was no guarantee, but he didn’t want to imagine a future that didn’t involve them ending up together. He thought about just telling her the truth about himself right now, getting it all out in the open so they could deal with it. But he bit his tongue. That would be selfish. She was in no condition to deal with that right now, and he knew it.

She moaned softly and burrowed tighter against the door.

Her blanket had fallen down around her shoulders, so he pulled it back up, tucking it around her before turning up the heat.

Rain still pattered against the car in a steady rhythm, but the storm had calmed considerably over the last few hours. The wind had died to only a breeze, and with everything so wet, no dust or leaves were flying around.

Soon the rain would stop too and the main evidence of the storm would be humidity, which was rare for Phoenix, and everyone waking up to their cars covered in dirt. Every car wash would have a long line both before and after work hours.

From what he had heard on the news over the car radio, a few power lines had gone down on the southeast side of the city and lots of tree limbs had ended up in yards and even a few in swimming pools, but no major damage had been reported.

The haboobs became more and more prevalent every year. When he’d been younger, the Arizona monsoon season had lasted for three months and consisted of several days of rain per week, but the raging dust storms were rare. Over the past twenty years that had all changed.

He would still take living in Phoenix over anywhere that had to deal with snow, blizzards, tornadoes, or earthquakes, but the dust storms could also be dangerous.

When he parked in his reserved spot in the parking garage at Club Desire, Sandra moaned and sat up, pushing the blanket away.

“How are you feeling?” He was instantly on alert, watching her carefully to see what she might need.

She groaned. “My head really hurts and I’m getting hungry.”

Brent bit back his own groan, remembering the last time Sandra had told him she was hungry in his alcove before their play with the violet wand. “Let’s get you upstairs and I’ll call the kitchen and order some food. You can’t take the Percocet on an empty stomach.”

She started to nod and then stopped, bringing her hand to her forehead. “Ugh. No nodding. I’m ready for food and Percocet.”

She started to open her car door, but he laid his hand on her arm, stopping her. “Are you okay to walk? I can carry you, or I think there might be a wheelchair in the storage room.”

She started to shake her head and then stopped, sucking in a breath instead. “No wheelchair. I can walk.”

Brent came around the car and helped her step out. After a few seconds she looked a little steadier on her feet, so as she leaned on him, he guided her toward the private elevator that would take them up to his personal suite of rooms. It had been another added expense to design things so he could maintain some level of privacy while still being accessible to the staff, with easy access to the main areas of the Club. But it had been worth every penny.

Sandra seemed to be more alert after her nap in the car. She had slept on and off at the hospital in between tests and the poking and prodding that came as a normal part of any hospital experience, but he could tell how much she had wanted to escape.

After she had been cleared of everything except the mild concussion, the police had stopped by to take her statement and see if she remembered anything about her attacker.

She confirmed what Brent had seen, that the man was tall with a medium build. But with the storm, the dark, and everything happening so fast she never got a good look at his face, although she said she hoped that he still carried some of the scratches she’d left there, and she had been quite proud that her head butt to the groin had brought the man down.

Just saying that much had worn her out, so the doctor had kicked everyone out while her discharge instructions were processed, and the police had promised to wait until the next day to drop by Club Desire to see if she was feeling well enough to speak with them more.

“Mmm.” She leaned against him on the elevator ride up to the fourth floor and he enjoyed wrapping his arms around her to keep her steady. She was warm against his side and tucked perfectly against him. There were a few times she began to sway and he held on to her to keep her from falling. She seemed ready to fall asleep standing up.

If he ever got a few minutes alone with the man who had caused this, he wasn’t sure he could contain his anger. But for that few minutes it would be immensely satisfying beating the man to a bloody pulp.

As the elevator came to a stop, the slight jarring of the car made Sandra groan softly and pull away to stand on her own.

He kept his arm around her and guided her down the hall, reveling in the fact that she would be falling asleep in his bed tonight. With him.

He didn’t often spend the night with women, even after sex. And since he had opened Club Desire, no woman had slept in his bed. In fact, he couldn’t remember ever bringing a woman up to his suite of rooms.

But that was before Sandra.

Sandra was surprised when Brent took her to his own suite of rooms rather than back to the guest room where she had stayed before. She knew he had agreed to watch her during the night because of the concussion, but she had assumed he would just check on her throughout the night.

Something warm squeezed her chest at the thought of spending the night with Brent inside his own space.

When he guided her through the front room and into the living room, she had only brief impressions of a tastefully decorated but comfortable room before Brent led her to a large bedroom decorated in various shades of blues and grays.

“Here we go. Let’s get you settled, and I can call the kitchen and get you something to eat. The doctor suggested soup as a good start. I think they usually have tomato basil and French onion as well as a rotating soup of the day, but they might have more.”

She headed for the California king bed and sat down, happy to find that it gave a little with her weight. In her experience, men usually preferred beds that were much too hard. But Brent’s seemed perfect. She pushed on it with her hand a few times, testing it, before tugging at the collar of her robe, as it rubbed uncomfortably around her throat.

She still wore the robe that Brent had bought at the hospital gift shop, since the clothes she’d been wearing were a muddy mess. The robe was soft, fluffy terry cloth and much better than the damn hospital gown, but she didn’t want to sleep in it.

Brent opened the top drawer of a polished oak chest of drawers and pulled out a sage-green cotton T-shirt. “This might be more comfortable to sleep in than that robe since you don’t have any of your things here. I can send Jake to Michelle’s tomorrow to grab some things for you.”

She smiled that he had picked up on her discomfort. She had felt cherished and cared for ever since waking up in the hospital. Well, at least after being angry and annoyed with all the tests, prodding and poking, she did. “Thank you, Brent.” She slid the robe off her shoulders and let it fall around her, leaving her breasts bare to the air in the cool room. Her nipples puckered, but not from any type of arousal. Even with Brent in front of her looking delicious as always, and his bed beneath her, sex was the farthest thing from her mind right now.

Brent’s intake of breath sounded loud in the quiet room, and she lifted her gaze to his to see only concern and tenderness.

She was surprised when his gaze raked over her torso and shoulder but didn’t linger on her breasts. “You’ve got a lot of bruises. Do they hurt?” He looked like he wanted to reach out to touch them, but decided not to at the last moment.

Her throat tightened with emotion at Brent’s obvious concern. He really did care for her beyond just being his sub. That much was obvious in his actions and how he treated her. “The bruises don’t really hurt except the ones on my back where I fell. But I’m not sure I would notice with my throbbing head. Not only from the concussion, but my scalp hurts where he yanked me across the lawn by my hair.”

Brent’s expression looked stricken and he closed it off quickly, making her wonder how much of his emotions he was hiding from her. He helped her put the shirt on, careful not to drag the material over the back of her head or to put too much pressure against her back.

When it was on, he smoothed down the material over her shoulder. “You’ll love this shirt. It’s soft and large enough that it should work as a very serviceable nightgown.”

She pushed to her feet and Brent took her arm to steady her. The T-shirt slid down her body to fall around her mid-thighs.

Perfect. “You were right.” She smiled up at him as he pulled the robe off the bed and laid it on the chest of drawers, out of the way.

“I usually wear panties with an oversized shirt to sleep in.” Standing and managing to verbalize that long sentence was exhausting, and she nearly fell back on the bed with her energy depleted, but settled for slowly sitting, enjoying the slight give in the mattress as it took her weight.

Brent steadied her again, taking a moment to skim his fingers down her cheek. “The gift shop at the hospital didn’t have any panties, and yours were a total muddy loss, so I figured you wouldn’t mind going commando just for one night.” There was a slight trace of teasing in his voice. More than she had heard all night. She knew tonight had been stressful for Brent too. She’d been the one attacked and hurt, but Brent had done most of the fighting and had been busy worrying about and taking care of her.

“That looks much better on you than it ever has on me. I might have to give up my favorite T-shirt. But it would be worth it if I get to see you wear it now and then.” He cleared his throat. “I’d better go order that food. I’ll be right back.”

Exhaustion pulled at her, but the pain was persistent and her thoughts diffuse. “Brent? Diet Pepsi?” She didn’t have the energy to say anything beyond that, but a Diet Pepsi sounded really good right now.

He nodded and pulled the covers back so she could lie down and find a comfortable position on her side that didn’t put pressure on the large bump on the back of her head.

The soft sheets and amazing bed were almost enough to lull her to sleep, except for the throbbing pain in her head.

Sandra woke the next morning curled against a very warm, male body. At least if the large erection against her ass was any indication of the person’s gender.

Her thoughts were slow and muddled, and her head still hurt, but she remembered Brent feeding her tomato basil soup and a wonderful piece of fresh-baked sourdough bread last night before she took her Percocet and then fell asleep in his arms.

She only wished she’d been more alert so she could have enjoyed it.

She must have given some sign that she was awake, because Brent laid his hand on her hip.

“Good morning. How are you feeling?”

His voice was gravelly and low and she loved it. She had just spent the night with Brent cuddling her almost reverently, and this morning, other than the pain and being a bit foggy, she felt almost buoyant. Like she could fly. “Good morning,” she mumbled, her own voice raspy and a bit hoarse. “My head still hurts and I’m kind of hungry.”