Page 32 of Flog Me, Sir

Chapter Eleven

Lissa

The fucker broke my mom’s nose and cheekbone, and the size of her left pupil had me calling for an ambulance within seconds of my laying eyes on her. Two hours she’d lain on the couch—it took me two goddamn hours to drive to the shit hole of my childhood home.

Rage filled me to the point I wanted to rip the head off her boyfriend—ex, or whatever—wherever he’d gotten to. He’d beaten the shit out of her then lit out without a backward glance to make sure she survived.

Wasted and half-gone on pain, my mom only managed whimpers and ineffective pleadings to let it go. She would be okay, she claimed. He would apologize like he always did and everything would go back to being fine.

Fine.

I snorted, not for the first time, while sitting in the hospital’s waiting room. My mom had gone in for emergency surgery. It turned out the fucker had hurt her inside, not just the outside. Internal bleeding—she was lucky she hadn’t bled to death before I’d gotten there.

My face hurt from scowling for hours—what felt like days. I pulled out my sagging ponytail and wrapped it back up tight enough to smooth the dent between my eyebrows.

She’d had hand prints all over her almost naked body—and there was nothing sexy about them.

I heaved a sigh and slouched down in the hard chair, the scent of burnt coffee and cleaning supplies filling my nose, while murmurings of others in the waiting room droned in my ears. Unable to rid myself of the depression creeping up the back of my neck, I swiped my cell on and reread Garret’s message from hours earlier. I hadn’t replied, but I appreciated his offer of help even if I had zero intention of taking him up on it.

Garret didn’t need to see my past. He’d heard it, and even though he could care less about the how, why, and where of my childhood, if faced with the shit, he wouldn’t give me a second thought.

We’d had our fun. Our shared passion.

The yearning for him, his hands, to take it all away again turned on the ants in my pants, and I started bouncing my knee up and down like I thumped on a drum. My stomach twisted and my skin felt feverish while I chewed on a hangnail.

I felt like a damn junkie, one in desperate need of a fix so I wouldn’t have to face reality.

Addiction.

Tears stung my eyes. I liked Garret—too much. I liked the taste of the BDSM lifestyle he’d shown me—too much. I enjoyed the pain and the slow loving afterward even more. Swiping across my eyes didn’t lessen my hazing vision or the tightness in my throat.

“Miss Groff?”

I jerked my head up to find a female police officer with a look of concern on her face. Hopping up, I stuck out my hand. “Yes.”

“Officer Foland.”

“Thanks for coming down,” I said, motioning for her to sit beside me after she shook my hand.

“So, tell me about your mom and her boyfriend.”

I’d called the cops earlier—against my mom’s drugged-up mutterings not to—and was going to get charges pressed and a restraining order in place no matter how my mom attempted to stop me. The doctor had told me that brain damage was highly probable, and as the only adult child and Mom being unmarried, I would doubtless become her guardian.

An hour later, I’d filled in Officer Foland on everything I knew, and she gave me the information I needed to get the ball rolling. A bit more relaxed, all things considered, I ended up passing out in the waiting room only to be woken up by a gentle touch to my shoulder.

“Miss Groff?”

“Hmm?” I rubbed my eyes and straightened with a grimace at the crick in my neck.

“Your mother is out of surgery, but isn’t yet awake,” the doctor said. Lines wrinkled his face, dark bags beneath his eyes. I expected I appeared just as exhausted.

“Is she okay?” I asked quietly, hating the concern in his eyes.

“We think she’ll be alright, but only time will tell. The surgery went well—we have high hopes.”

I nodded, not nearly set at ease as I’d hoped. “Can I see her?”

“Of course.”

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