7 Dane
Dane
“WILL YOU SIGN MY cast?” Levi grins and bats his blue eyes with long blond lashes at me.
I could explain to him that signing a cast is what grade school kids do, but I’m not going to put him down for something that clearly has him excited, even if I think it’s silly.
“I don’t have a marker.”
Levi whips one out from the top of his cast like a magician pulling a rabbit out of his hat.
“Hottie nurse gave this to me,” he chirps as I take it from him and pull the cap off.
He points to the side of his cast where there’s an LC and a heart drawn in black marker. “Wish she would have put her number, but I didn’t want to get the cops called on me for unwanted advances.”
I bend down to sign right under where the nurse did. Unlike the nurse, I don’t doodle any cute hearts.
I hand the marker back to him and put my hands in my jean pockets, drifting my gaze toward the clock on the wall above the bed.
It’s a quarter to five, and last I checked, WhyAmIHere33, aka Lindsey, has not emailed me yet.
I didn’t expect her to reply as quickly as she emailed me early this morning, but I’ve been curious all day if she will.
“How much longer till they release you?” I ask.
“Eager to get back to the woods?”
“You forget that I like the woods.”
“I do, too, but the non-woods are nice as well.”
“Back to this again?” I ask. The last thing I want is to rehash our conversation from the tent yesterday. We will only get the same end result.
“Just looking out for you. You know, you could see if you could get that nurse’s number.
She said she works in the ER—you could go find her.
Hell, I’d go find her, but”—he looks down at his broken leg, then back to me—“I won’t be having that kind of fun for a while. Which means you can have fun for me.”
His tone is hopeful and, dammit to hell, endearing. I don’t know how he does it. Regardless, he’s still on his way to annoying me again.
“Levi, enough,” I warn in my gruff tone.
“Fine, fine. Don’t go find the hot nurse. But I do have a favor to ask you.”
“If it involves giving you sponge baths, the answer is no.”
“But what if I—”
“The answer is still no.”
He chuckles to himself and leans against his pillows.
“Okay, fine. But in case you were worried about me, my friend Sven was back in town for the games, so he’s going to stay and help me out.
He’s not going to give me sponge baths, but none of that has to do with the favor I was going to ask…
” Levi runs a hand over his jaw, blue eyes staring at me.
“What is it?”
“I think I mentioned yesterday that I’m running a summer program for kids?”
My brow furrows, the words he said while lying on the mat yesterday coming back to me. “And?”
“It’s this once-a-week afternoon obstacle course program that has some lumberjack-type games in it. I need a replacement.”
“Okay, and?”
“Don’t act dumb, because I know you’re not. I’m asking you to take over for me.”
A bark of laughter bursts from my lips, and before long, I’m laughing with my entire chest and stomach until the rough sound echoes throughout the small white room. But Levi isn’t laughing.
I pull myself together and cross my arms over my chest. “You can’t be serious.”
“Serious as a preacher on Sunday.”
“What about Hunter or Jimmy?” I ask, mentioning the other loggers here for the summer.
“They can’t.”
“Levi, I don’t do well with kids.”
“Bullshit. You may be broody and like to spend time in the woods, but the people who do know you know you’re a nice guy. You’re trustworthy, too. I already asked the city council director that runs it, and he thought you’d be a great fit.”
“You what?”
“Look, man. Do it for the children,” Levi pouts.
I run a hand through my hair and groan. “There’s got to be someone else.”
“Not someone who has experience with the course and the games. The whole draw was having a real ‘lumberjack’ work with the kids. They’ll be disappointed if David-from-the-bank shows up to teach them.”
“David-from-the-bank is a nice guy.”
“With horrible aim. He could end up getting one of those kids’ eyeballs axed out. Come on, man. If you won’t do it for me, do it for the kids who will cry and be sad if it has to be canceled.”
“There is really nobody else?”
“Can you think of anyone you’d trust with kids?”
“Fox?” I say.
“Already asked. Said he’s planning his wedding and helping out with his niece or something? I didn’t ask questions.”
While I know Fox and Morgan have a new partner in their lives I haven’t met, I had no idea Fox had a niece. Maybe she’s related to their new man.
The muscles in my jaw tick. “It’s only on Fridays?” I can’t believe I’m really considering this.
“Yep. From one to three PM. Two hours of your life, once a week. It’s only for a month. Four classes total.”
“How many kids?”
“Nine—no, wait, ten! I got a text that there was a late sign-up.”
“You’ll tell me what you had planned?”
Levi grins sheepishly. “I was sort of going to wing it.”
“Of course you were.”
His grin turns devilish. “Does this mean you’ll do it?”
My jaw ticks again before I exhale and relax the muscles.
“Is that look on your face an agreement?”
“I’ll do it.”
Levi smiles wide, holding out his hand, and I force myself to shake it.
“I have your discharge papers here to sign. We’ve got a wheelchair coming to take you to your car.” An older nurse walks to the side of Levi’s bed and hands the stack of papers to him. He signs as she gives him some instructions to take care of his leg.
When the wheelchair arrives, I help Levi down, and before long, we’re ready to go. While I won’t be taking care of him, I offered to bring him back to the cabin he’s renting since it’s not far from mine.
The nurse begins to push his chair, and when I try to take over, she bats me away, claiming hospital protocol.
We exit the room, and I follow close behind. The Starlight Haven Hospital is small, and we have to walk through the ER hallway to get to the parking lot. It’s louder in here, and I can hear someone complaining about their stomach hurting while a female voice tries to calm them.
“I told you when you were in here last week that you can’t eat nuts anymore, Mrs. Crane. Diverticulitis isn’t to be messed with.”
“I know, I just really like my nuts.”
My cheek twitches as I hear the exasperated nurse or doctor reply, “I know, but you can’t eat them because you’ll keep ending up here in the ER. I’m going to get you something for the pain; I’ll be right back.”
As we pass the room, the woman who I can now see is a nurse pops out from behind the curtain in evergreen scrubs that hug her curvy body. She pulls her phone out from her pocket and starts to walk toward us while typing something on it.
I know she’s going to touch me before it happens. Her arm brushes mine, and she apologizes without looking up. My steps don’t falter as I look back.
I’ve seen that brown hair with blond highlights before. She’s the woman I ran into yesterday at the games.
“Hey, was that Lindsey?” Levi asks the nurse pushing his wheelchair.
Lindsey. LC with a heart. Lindsey_c@.
“Yeah, that was her. Poor thing has her hands full with the ER today. Must be a full moon,” the older nurse says with a chuckle to herself.
I look back over my shoulder again, but she’s no longer in my sight. Well, damn. What a coincidence that Lindsey, my possible client Lindsey, is the woman who ran into me yesterday. That she’s also a nurse and I’m here on a day that she’s working seems serendipitous, too.
The back of my neck prickles as I remember the way her body felt against mine at the games, how her nipples responded to our closeness. Now her comments about my nose make sense. That’s what she recognized.
I wonder if she put it together after the alcohol cleared from her system and if she’ll say anything.
If Levi figured me out, she could easily if she looked at more than my nose yesterday.
The peony and sparrow tattoos on my neck along with my silver-and-dark-brown beard aren’t exactly easy to forget, especially if you’re watching my videos like she was.
But she didn’t exactly take time to study my attributes yesterday.
Though I sure as hell noticed hers.
The doors of the hospital slide open, and we step into the warm early evening air. I tell Levi I’ll go grab the car, leaving him with the nurse while I walk away. I pull out my phone and see I have a new email notification.
Lindsey C
Re: Re: Questions (This is WhyAmIHere33)
Okay, I want to work with you. What is the next step?
A grin spreads on my face.
It occurs to me that taking on a client who lives and works in my town puts my anonymity at risk. But besides this kids’ program I agreed to do, my weekly grocery run, rare bank stops, and the dinner I pick up at the diner on Sunday evenings, I don’t come into town.
Then there is the little fact that I find myself attracted to her.
If I were to describe my type, Lindsey is it, and one thing I do not do is fall for my clients.
I’ve had some people say they wanted to hire me to help them with their daily lives only to reveal later they had hopes of starting a sexual or long-term relationship with me.
I ended those dynamics immediately. Because as I told Lindsey, I do not offer sex as a service, virtual or otherwise.
This boundary keeps professional lines in place.
Sex can muddy the waters, especially when a relationship is virtual.
It’s harder to read people’s physical cues and emotions.
It can make people mistake arousal for trust as well, and when your entire dynamic is built through a screen, the last things you need are blurred lines and broken boundaries.
Besides all that, my online persona is sexual, which can further confuse things.
My Loopr account is an outlet for me, a way for me to explore that sexual part of myself and another source of income beyond my Domming services.
It’s why I’m very clear with my potential clients about what I offer and what I don’t.
Beyond that, I create content that explains my two sides to my audience so I’m not misleading anyone.
The weight of my phone in my hand is noticeable as I look up at the hospital’s facade, imagining the voluptuous brunette inside.
I don’t know much about Lindsey, but sometimes I get a sense about people just from the questions they ask.
And after putting together our run-in yesterday and seeing her minutes ago, I truly do think she needs what I have to offer.
No matter what happens from here, I’m going to make sure she gets the support she needs.
And the attraction? I can manage it. It’s not like we’ll see each other again. This will be just like all my other virtual D/s dynamics.