McKenzie, Cooper - His Beck and Call Girl [Club Esoteria 6] (Siren Publishing Allure) (9 page)

“Jenna, you do know I’m not into this as a lifestyle, right?”

“Of course you’re not. You’re too kind and loving and gentle to get off on beating a sub, but I do believe that you have enough dominant characteristics to want to call the shots in your relationships, especially after that ex-bitch of yours. Just remember that while women are instinctively submissive, we can’t read what’s going on in your heart and do need words, which is something you seem to have difficulty with.”

Before Jackson could defend himself, the woman in his arms slurred a soft, “You tell him,” causing the Domme to laugh and Jackson to chuckle.

Stopping at the reception desk, Jackson rested Sinclair on the counter long enough to dig the basket key out of his pocket to claim her things. Jenna helped put Sinclair’s shoes on her feet then tucked the rest of her things in her lap once Jackson picked her up again.

“Good night, boss,” he said as he pushed out the front door.

After strapping Sinclair into the passenger seat, he climbed in and drove. He knew he’d treated Sinclair badly these past months, but had no clue how to make the past up to her.

When he parked in her driveway he reached over. “Sinclair, sunshine, we’re home.”

“Home?” She opened her eyes and looked at him, but he could tell she really wasn’t awake.

“Yes, we’re home. Do you think you can walk inside? Or do you want me to carry you?”

Again, his questions didn’t seem to have much of an impact as she just stared at him with those big gray-green eyes. “Okay,” she finally said before her eyes slid shut again.

“Okay, indeed.” Jackson released both their seat belts before opening her purse and finding her key ring.

Climbing from the car he quickly went to the front door, unlocked it, and pushed it open before returning to the passenger’s door. By the time he opened it, Max had joined them and was dancing around his ankles, begging for attention.

Not able to ignore the happy dog that seemed to have claimed him, Jackson bent and ruffled the dog’s head in greeting.

“Go pee, and hurry up about it. Your lady needs to go to bed.”

Max made a grumbling sound then ran across the yard and peed on the first bush he came to. By the time Jackson had lifted Sinclair into his arms, the dog was back.

“Good boy, now let’s go inside,” Jackson said, half hoping the dog would obey without bribery. On previous visits he’d witnessed that Max was headstrong and stubborn, sometimes exasperating Sinclair with his defiance.

With a yipping bark, the dog turned and led the way into the house. Jackson followed, bumping the front door closed once they were inside. Then he walked through the house, straight to Sinclair’s bedroom. Laying the sleeping woman down, he took a moment to turn on the small lamp on the bedside table.

“Sinclair, sweetie, you need to wake up now.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re home. You need to change into your sleep-shirt and get under the covers.” He took off her shoes and set them on the dresser.

“Okay,” she replied, pushing into a sitting position, then not moving again. Her eyes never flickered.

“Sweetheart?”

“Shhh, I’m dreaming,” she said, sounding drunk and just a little bit whiney.

Jackson chuckled and knew it was the sex that had finished her off. Going to her closet door, he opened it and found a large white T-shirt hanging on the back. That looked like something she would sleep in, so he took it down from the hook and carried it back to the bed.

It took some wrangling, but he finally got Sinclair out of her dress and into the T-shirt. After hanging the dress up on the closet door, he turned and found Sinclair now curled up in the middle of the bed, sound asleep. There was no way she was getting under the covers.

Going to the living room, Jackson found the blanket she wrapped up in on cool evenings and carried it back to the bedroom. Max followed his every move. When he spread the blanket over Sinclair, the dog jumped up and burrowed his way under the blanket and curled up next to his mistress.

Leaning over the bed, Jackson kissed Sinclair on the forehead. “Goodnight, sunshine. Have good dreams and I’ll call later.”

“G’night,” she slurred before snuggling deeper into her pillow.

Another kiss to her cheek and Jackson forced himself to straighten and turn off the light. Walking toward the front door, he turned off the living room lamp and made sure the door was locked before he left.

Climbing in his truck, he started the engine, then sat and just stared at the little house. For a moment he wished he had the guts to go back inside and join Sinclair in her bed, but he needed time and space to do some serious thinking.

* * * *

When Sinclair had not heard from Jackson in a week, she made the hardest decision of her adult life—to give up the man she’d fallen in love with.

Driving home from work that afternoon, she hoped to hold in the tears until she got home. Miserable to her core, she wasn’t paying her normal careful attention to her own driving, or anything outside her car. All she wanted to do was curl up on the couch, eat the pizza she’d just bought, and snuggle with Max until she felt better. Since it was Friday, she had all weekend to wallow in her sadness without having to face anyone except Megan until Monday morning.

When the light turned green, she hit the gas without pausing to look around first as she usually did. She didn’t see the oversized pickup truck run the red light until it was too late and the truck hit her. She screamed as the air bag deployed and smacked her in the face. The windshield shattered as the car folded in around her, and then flipped onto its side.

Then everything went silent. Reaching down with her right hand, she unfastened her seat belt then fought with the air bag so she could breathe. She was amazed at how calm she was, but also knew there was no way she was getting free of her metal prison without help.

Sliding her left hand down, she tried to pull her cell phone out of her skirt pocket. But her fingers wouldn’t obey her command. That was when the pain reached her brain and she screamed again.

“Oh my God, lady, are you all right?”

She didn’t know who asked such a stupid question, but was too busy trying to pant and breathe through the pain to answer them with a snarky, “Duh, do you think I’m okay?”

She heard cars driving past slowly and heard people talking, but didn’t really care what they were saying until a young man leaned in. “We’ve called 911 and they’re sending help. Don’t move, lady.”

“I don’t think I can. I’m in here pretty tight. And I think I broke my hand or my arm or something.”

“Don’t worry, they’ll get you out. Just don’t go anywhere, okay?” the man said.

“Yeah, sure, no problem,” she snarked just as she heard sirens beginning off in the distance.

As they grew louder she separated and identified them. That was yet another thing Jackson had taught her, how to tell if it was an ambulance, police, or one of the big red trucks that was screaming down the road.

In this case she heard all three kinds and multiples of each. Would Jackson be one of her rescuers? Thinking back, she couldn’t remember if he worked the day before or that day, but it didn’t matter. She’d gotten the message. He didn’t want to build a lasting relationship with her. He just wanted her as his beck and call girl.

Without warning, tears filled her eyes and began to slide across her cheek to drip onto the broken glass she lay upon as the sad reality of her life swamped her.

She’d never see Jackson again.

Her car was probably crushed beyond recognition.

She was hungry and her pizza was smashed and getting cold.

As she was about to lose control and start sobbing, another face peered through the shattered front windshield.

“Hey there,” the man in tan turnouts and yellow helmet said by way of greeting. He looked big and strong and competent with kind eyes, but at that moment, the last person she wanted to see was a fireman. “What’s your name, honey?”

“Sinclair Malone, what’s yours?”

“Andy Zimmerman.”

“Hello, Andy Zimmerman,” she said. She fought to keep from screaming to get her the hell out of here.

“Do you know if Jackson Matthews is working today?” she asked, as if she weren’t wrapped in a twisted hunk of metal with a full gas tank

“Jackson…oh shit, you’re the one,” the man said.

Before she could ask which one, he moved out of her line of vision again.

She heard the deep buzz of men talking, but once again didn’t try to make sense of it. The pain had finally localized. Her left shoulder, left arm, and right ankle seemed to be burning with painful fire. Nothing else seemed to hurt, but she knew she’d probably be sore in the morning.

Then someone else leaned in and started asking questions about her medical history, allergies, medications, and whether she could crawl out on her own. She answered as best she could without getting an attitude. After all, wasn’t it obvious that she couldn’t climb out on her own? The tears continued to fall, but she couldn’t seem to stop them.

Once that person left, they seemed to ignore her alone for a bit. As long as she didn’t move, the pain to her body wasn’t too bad, but the pain in her heart grew even bigger when she thought she heard Jackson’s voice just outside the car.

Then the fireman was back with a silver blanket. “Okay, honey, I’m going to cover you with this to protect you from anything that might fall while we get you out of there.”

“Okay,” she said as he draped it over her. He seemed to carefully cover her completely while at the same time leaving a hole for air to get to her.

“Now it’s going to get real noisy, but don’t let that worry you. We’re just going to open this puppy up like a can of beans.”

Feeling oddly drowsy and suddenly not caring, Sinclair just nodded.

“Sinclair, honey, you still with me?” the man asked when she didn’t answer.

“Yep, I haven’t gone anywhere,” she said, her tone flippant, but she heard her words slur. “Hey, Andy, before you go away, would you do something for me?”

“Sure, honey, anything you want.”

“Would you tell Jackson that I love him and I understand why he can’t love me back and that it’s okay?”

“Sure, honey. I’ll tell him the next time I see him.”

“Okay, thanks.”

Taking a deep breath she closed her eyes and relaxed into the fog that filled her senses, dulling the pains and protecting her from the hurts she knew were going to come once she was out of this tin can and watching as Jackson walked away.

Chapter 10

As soon as he saw the accident, a knot tied itself in Jackson’s gut. He recognized that little car lying on its side, though he wondered how it got there. He hoped Sinclair had loaned it out for the day and wasn’t the woman reportedly trapped inside.

Pushing away everything except the job at hand, he parked the engine across the road, blocking traffic to keep the lookiloos from interfering with their operations and possibly causing another accident. After climbing from the cab, he donned his turnouts and retrieved the extrication equipment from the locker where it was stored.

He purposely stayed in the background, allowing Andy to assess the situation and deal directly with the woman trapped inside the little car.

It took awhile to peel the roof off the car’s cabin and then even longer for the paramedics to get the woman free. He forced himself not to help as they strapped her onto a gurney and loaded her into the back of the ambulance. The man driving the pickup had some cuts and bruises, but refused to go to the hospital. He was more worried about his truck than he was about the woman he’d injured. Jackson wanted to punch him in the nose, but restrained himself. Especially when the police stepped in and discovered he was more than a little drunk.

Jackson forced himself to stay focused on the job until they were packing up the equipment. That’s when Andy found him and punched him hard in the shoulder.

“What the fuck?”

“That’s for being a stupid son of a bitch with your head so far up your ass you need a plexidectomy,” the other man growled.

“Huh?” Jackson asked as he stripped off his turnouts and stowed them.

“You know, a plexidectomy, where they put a piece of Plexiglass in your belly so you can see where you’re going. I have a message from that woman,” Andy said, pointing to where the ambulance had been. “She said, and I quote, ‘Tell Jackson that I love him and I understand why he can’t love me back and that it’s okay.’ What the fuck did you do to her?”

Jackson stood in shock for a minute. “She said that?”

“Yes. Now I don’t know what you plan to do about it, but I’m going to be calling her as soon as we get off shift and asking her out…”

Jackson stared hard at the man he considered one of his best friends. “I wouldn’t advise it, pal. By the time you get off shift she’s going to be engaged, and I don’t share. Call headquarters and tell them I need a replacement for the rest of the shift,” Jackson said as he opened the door and climbed into the driver’s seat.

Andy didn’t respond until they were halfway to the station. “Does this mean you do feel something for her?”