Page 29 of Doctoring Dolly

“Excuse me?”

“You have a beautiful wife waiting at home for you. You should be with her, not sitting here with me making small talk.”

Derek chuckled and shifted in his chair before taking another cookie off the plate between them.

“There’s another problem I need your help with. The cleaning staff found a notebook at one of the tables in the pool area this evening. They turned it over to Lost and Found. When Erika looked through it to see if she could identify the owner, she was disturbed by what she read and brought it to my attention.”

“Okay,” Quincy said, not sure where the conversation was going, “but I’m not a psychiatrist, so unless they threatened to harm themselves I’m not sure what you need from me.”

Derek took a deep breath, as if preparing himself for something. “The writer wasn’t threatening anyone, except the anonymity of my other guests and employees. The book is filled with notes about BDSM, and even passages where a few scenes were sketched out in great detail. The writer also described you to a T.”

An icy shiver raced down Quincy’s spine as he thought of what it might mean if the world learned he was a BDSM practicing Dominant who was also a physician. He had always been careful about where and with whom he played his sexy dominant games.

“Who?”

“We think the book belongs to Dolly.”

“My Dolly?”

Derek simply nodded, looking sadly grim. “I’m going to call her into my office in the morning and discuss the book, why she wrote it, and what she’s planning to do with the contents. As her Dom, would you like to be there when I do?”

Quincy frowned. “Absolutely.”

CHAPTER 16

Dolly tried to sleep, but her worries kept spinning through her thoughts. What would happen in the morning? She had no doubt her book had been found when the staff cleaned. It had most likely been turned in because the members of the Ranch staff were too professional to steal it or just throw it away. Her biggest worry was if someone would read it, and whether or not she would be kicked off the Ranch come morning.

A few hours later, she heard Quincy return to his room. Scared of what he might or might not know, Dolly pretended to be asleep, so she did not have to talk to him. Since she was in her bed in her room, he should get the hint she needed a night off. It was not his fault she was a big fat chicken.

Keeping her eyes closed and her breathing slow and steady, she listened to him move across the room. A moment later, he pulled the covers over her shoulder and tucked them around her. She then felt the warmth of his lips brush her temple before he straightened and walked away. A few seconds later, she heard the soft snick of a door closing.

Rolling over, she peered through the shadows to see that he had closed his side of the connecting doors. Not only had he not woken her up for some middle of the night talk or sexy playing, he had retreated to his room, and closed her out.

This could not be good.

The fluttering in her stomach grew gritty. No longer were mere butterflies filling her belly. The butterflies had morphed into big dust-covered crows whose wings beat at the walls of her stomach, making her feel nauseous.

Sitting up, she crossed her legs and wrapped her arms around her middle, hoping that by hugging herself she could settle the crows and maybe get some sleep. Only the self-soothing measures did not work and she ended up racing for the bathroom where she threw up the late-night snack she had picked up at the café on the way back to her room.

Once she had emptied her stomach, she settled back on the floor and cried. She knew that come morning she would be kicked off the Ranch. She wondered if they would offer her a ride to the airport, or just drop her at the gatehouse.

When her tears finally abated, she pushed to her feet, flushed the toilet and then washed her face and brushed her teeth again. Staggering out of the bathroom, she made it to the bed before collapsing. Pulling a pillow to her chest to hug for comfort, she curled up in the middle of the king-size bed and willed herself to sleep.

Only problem with sleeping was that her dreams were more vivid than anything she faced while awake. She woke from the too-vivid dreams every hour for the rest of the night. When the sky began to lighten outside the sliding glass door, she decided she might as well pack her things so she would not have to do it after Master Derek evicted her from the Ranch.

Once everything was packed and her bags sitting by the hall door, she pulled out another empty notebook she had brought with her. Opening the sliding glass door, she moved to the patio area and settled at the table there. Then she turned her notebook to the first page and began to write. The words that flowed from her were not notes, thoughts or impressions of the Ranch and her time here. This was the beginning of a new story.

A story that was very different than the knock-off BDSM erotic romances she had published to date.

As he had done every day since high school, Quincy woke up five minutes before his alarm was set to go off. Rolling over, he frowned when he saw the door to Dolly’s room was closed. Had he closed it? Or had Dolly?

He remembered talking to Derek the night before and relaxing to the point of almost falling asleep while sitting out on the front porch. He barely remembered arriving at his door but could not recall what happened once he came inside. Rolling out of bed, he did some calisthenics to loosen up his body before taking a shower and dressing for the day.

Once he was ready to face the rest of the world, he went to the connecting door and hesitated. Should he open it and check on Dolly now? Or should he go to the café and bring back two cups of coffee before waking her?

Something niggling at the back of his brain urged him to fetch the coffee before checking on Dolly. With a deep breath, he walked away from the connecting door and headed out of his room to the café.

When he returned with two large to-go cups of coffee, his black, hers with a pump of chocolate, two sugars and a dollop of cream, he headed straight to the connecting door.

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