Chapter Seventeen

Dom and Jocelyn pulled up to the house around 5 p.m. Everyone was home.

"Let me go in first and calm things down," Dom said as they approached the door.

Jocelyn nodded and felt her heart rate speed up. She stayed very close to Dom. She wiped her sweaty palms on her shorts while Dom knocked on the door. Dom motioned for Jocelyn to step behind him. She did as she was told. The door opened slowly and Vince's body filled the doorway.

"You fucker," Jocelyn heard Vince say before punching Dom in the jaw.

The punch caused Dom to lose his balance and knock over Jocelyn. She howled in pain as she hit the ground.

"Shit," Dom said as he whirled around and knelt down beside her.

Tears began to stream down Jocelyn's cheeks.

"I think my stitches ripped," she whispered as she clutched to her stomach.

Vince ran up to her and brushed her hair out of her eyes. He lifted up her shirt to where her abdomen was exposed. Little spots of red began to peek through the bandages that covered her stitches.

"Yeah, I think you did too," he said softly.

Letty stepped outside after hearing all the commotion.

"Jocelyn, are you okay?" she asked in a panicked voice.

"She ripped her stitches out," Vince said as he picked her up. "We got to take her back to the hospital to get them put back in."

"I'm sorry, Jocelyn. I didn't mean to knock you over," Dom said.

Jocelyn shook her head. "It was my fault," she said while wiping at her tears.

"No it's not, baby," Vince replied as he took her over to his car. "It's my fault. I didn't know you were behind him."

Vince sat her in the car and ran over to his side of the car.

"I'll take her over there," he said before climbing into his car.

Letty nodded and motioned for Dom to go inside. Dom clenched his jaw and began to walk into the house. He had initially thought taking Jocelyn out was a good idea, now he wasn't so sure.

"Dom..." Letty said, getting his attention.

'Oh shit, here it comes,' he thought.

Vince sat in the waiting room while Dr. Jones finished putting in her stitches. He watched the clock intently.

"Mr. Catelloni?" Dr. Jones asked as he entered the waiting room.

Vince stood up and walked over to him.

"How's she doing?" Vince asked.

"She's doing fine. We replaced the stitches without any problems; however, you have to promise me that this time she will not leave her room. Walking aggravates the skin around the stitches. How did they get ripped out in the first place?"

"She fell down," he replied.

Dr. Jones nodded slowly. "Well, she's bandaged up, but I don't want her walking at all. I don't want to take any chances of them getting ripped out a second time."

"Gotcha. Does she know all this?"

Dr. Jones smiled. "Yes she does, and she's not very happy about it."

"I didn't expect her to be," Vince replied with a smile.

"She's free to go," Dr. Jones said, patting Vince on the back. "Take good care of her, I don't want to have to see her again."

Vince nodded and walked into the room in which Jocelyn was in. A nurse was helping her put her shirt back on. Vince racked his eyes over Jocelyn's torso. He could feel his heart rate begin to pick up. Vince dropped his eyes to the ground and stood silently.

"You ready to go?" he asked once the nurse had finished.

Jocelyn smiled. "You bet I am. I hate this place."

"Yeah, well I'm not exactly its biggest fan either. I was in it for three weeks and Jesse was in it for close to a year."

Jocelyn shivered. "I couldn't do it. I would have died."

"We almost did," Vince replied lowly.

Jocelyn frowned. "I'm sorry, V. I didn't mean to..."

"It's alright," he said. "It's over with."

The nurse helped Jocelyn into a wheel chair and walked with Vince out to his car.

"You really don't need to do this," she said as V picked her up and sat her in the passenger's seat.

"Doctor's orders."

Jocelyn groaned and put her head on the head rest.

"Just what the hell were you thinking? Taking Jocelyn from the house?" Letty asked.

Dom shook his head.

"She was miserable in there Letty. You should have seen her. I felt bad for her."

"Feeling bad for her and kidnapping her is two different things."

"I did not kidnap her, Letty. She went with me on her own free will. I just merely offered to take her anywhere she wanted to go," he replied as he sat down on the couch. He ran one of his hands over his clean-shaven head.

"You shouldn't have done that. What if someone had tried to hurt her?"

"The point is that they didn't Letty. The only person that hurt her was me and that was because I knocked her over. And may I remind you that that didn't happen until we got home."

Letty clenched her jaw.

"Don't be a smart ass, Dominic."

"I'm not being a smart ass, Letty. I'm telling you the truth. You know as well as I do that if Vince hadn't of punched me then I wouldn't have knocked her over."

"You're right, but still..."

"But nothing, Letty. Just let it go. I took her out so that she wouldn't die of boredom. There are only so many hours that you can sit around watching TV. Her room is like a fucking cave. It's cold and dark. I don't see how she can stand it."

Letty sat on the couch next to Dom.

"I just don't know what to do. I mean I'm following doctor's orders, or I was up until today. I'm giving her pain meds when she needs them and I'm keeping her in bed, but it's like she resents me for it. She's talked to Vince and you more than she has to me in the last couple of days. Hell she's been her for about a week and she's already been to the hospital twice."

Dom wrapped an arm around Letty and pulled her close to him.

"You can only do so much. We just have to take this one day at a time and make sure that there are no opportunities for her to get hurt again."

Letty nodded. "Promise me you won't pull a stunt like that again."

Dom laughed. "I promise."

"Good. I'll go get you something for that," she replied as she motioned to Dom's jaw, which was already turning shades of blue and black.

Vince carried Jocelyn into the house and up the stairs.

"I hate this," she said, groaning.

Vince chuckled. "I know you do, Princess."

He opened the door to Jocelyn's room and turned on the light. As he sat her on the bed, he said, "Do you want me to get you a change of clothes?"

Jocelyn nodded. "But either you're going to have to help me change or get Letty to help me."

"Why's that?" Vince asked as he opened up her closet. He was intentionally playing dumb.

"Hello...I have a sling on and stitches."

Vince laughed. "I know, I was just playing with ya. What do you want to wear?" he asked, afraid to touch anything.

"Um...grab that black halter and there is a white skirt in the back."

"You want to wear a skirt?" Vince asked. He turned around and looked at her.

"It'll be easier to put on. Plus I want to look decent for dinner."

"What do you mean?"

Vince reached into her closet and grabbed the articles of clothing that she wanted.

"I want to eat with y'all."

"Jocelyn..."

"Please don't make me eat up here by myself," she begged. "You can carry me down there and carry me back up. I just can't be in here alone anymore. I'll die if I do."

Vince sighed and sat on the bed next to Jocelyn.

"I'll talk to Letty about it, but I'm not promising anything."

Jocelyn smiled. "Thank you."

"Yeah, yeah. So how do you want to do this?" he said, motioning to the clothes in his hand.

Jocelyn bit her lip. "I'm going to have to take the sling off. Then you're going to gently take my shirt off and slip my other one on."

Vince's heart sped up. This would probably be the only time that he would undress a woman and not be able to sleep with her.

'Calm down, Coyote. You can do this. Just pretend it's not her.'

He watched as she slowly slipped her arm out of the sling.

"All right," she said.

Vince turned to her and took the bottom of her shirt in his hands. He lifted it slowly.

"Lift your arms up, Princess," he said softly.

He didn't notice the endearment slip out, but Jocelyn did. That was the third time she had been called that in one day. Part of her was happy that Vince was calling her that, but part was getting angry. Princess brought to mind a helpless beauty that needed her knight in shinning armor to save her. Jocelyn was certainly not helpless. She could do things on her own and she didn't like people thinking she couldn't.

Slowly Jocelyn did as she was instructed. Vince slipped the shirt off and threw it onto the floor. He couldn't stop his eyes from raking over her body once again. Her slightly tan skin just begged to be touched. Vince clenched his jaw to keep himself from touching her.

"Vince, my shirt..." Jocelyn said.

Vince nodded and slipped the halter top over her arms. As he pulled the shirt down, his hand brushed against her bra.

"Vince?"

Vince looked up from Jocelyn's chest.

"Yeah?"

"Kiss me," she whispered.

He didn't have to be told twice. His lips crashed onto hers within seconds. Jocelyn was surprised at the intensity of the kiss, but wasted no time in responding. Vince wrapped arms around her waist, but stopped kissing her when she hissed in pain.

"My stitches."

Vince removed his arms from her waist.

"Sorry," he said with a sheepish grin.

"It's okay. It's good that we stopped anyway," she replied.

Vince was confused by this statement.

"What do you mean by that? You were the one who asked me to kiss you."

Jocelyn nodded. "I know, but I'm hurt and at the rate we were going..."

Vince chuckled. "I see your point...Do you still want me to help you put this skirt on?"

"Uh, no that's okay," she replied as she slipped her sling back on. "I'll just wear what I'm wearing."

Vince looked at the denim shorts that she had on. "All right."

The room filled with silence.

"Hey, V?"

"Yeah?"

"What happened to my wall?" she asked as she peered at a hole in the wall above the TV.

"I got pissed off when I saw that you weren't here and punched the wall."

"Is your hand okay?"

"Yeah," he said. "It's fine. I cleaned it up earlier...I'm going to go downstairs and talk to Letty about dinner. All right?"

"Okay."

Vince watched as Jocelyn grabbed her remote and began to channel surf. He exited the room and shut the door behind him. As he walked down the stairs, he thought, 'Shit that was close. Another minute or two and I might not have been able to stop...'