by Sophia Reed
"He's my father. You have to understand why I – "
The warning look was enough to make me stop. There hadn't been a repeat of the night of the crop. I'd healed from that, and there'd been nothing to heal after the spanking, which had been thorough and embarrassing but not like the crop. It had hurt because his hand was hard and the cropping had been the night before.
But I wasn't stupid. I stopped.
In truth, information filtered into me. I'd hear things about a bust in Washington State. Or just about drugs in the U.S. As more people died from the opiate epidemic the more determined I was to follow through with Cole's program and get back out there.
The drug he was giving me was working. It was natural, with no side effects and only a brutally ugly taste, like drinking dirt.
Now I accepted what he told me about no news is good news and not pushing and I pulled back.
Far enough to be convincing.
And bided my time.
Three days later Cole left the office right outside my cell open.
The cell he was keeping me in was a suite of rooms, a white bedroom with the bed fitted with shackles and tie-downs, a luxurious bath and insane closet, and a sitting area near barred windows.
It was still a prison and I was still subsisting on no news is good news. So when he left the office he used, between the bathroom and closet and front door unlocked, I watched.
That day he came back and continued our yoga practice, remembering to lock the door on the way out. He appeared unaware of what he'd done but I didn't know if I believed it.
The fourth day I chose to. Out of my mind and bored, tired of working out, healed and stupid enough to have forgotten what I'd gone through, I watched when he left the office open. Then as he left the cell altogether and the guards were pulled away as they often were once the door was locked.
The office wasn't locked.
I gave him five excruciating minutes, then ran across the floor to the open office.
It was small and utilitarian. A safe on the wall. I knew better than to waste my time on it. The long desk was neat, very little on the surface. The PC was locked down and password protected.
But the landline was a blessing.
I checked once for any sign of Cole, then settled behind the desk with the phone.
I tried my dad first, but his cell went to voicemail. Mom second, and the same thing. While I'd come in here for a little bit of resistance and a little bit of information, now I was scared, imagining a dozen unlikely scenarios in which my father was back in the hospital or worse, dead from some unforeseen problem.
Mark would logically be at work or working out or for all I knew, on a date.
But he answered.
"Mark! Thank god."
I could hear his initial flat tone greeting turned into avid interest. "Annie? Is that you? Oh, my god, are you all right?"
"I'm fine," I lied and I had a huge smile on my face just talking to him. He deserved so much better, a full time fiancée who didn't run off to be with some other man and get herself punished and live some weird wild life.
But I loved him. I'd figured that out, at least, for whatever it was worth.
"Are you all right?" I asked him.
He snorted. "That's my line. I'm not the one undercover."
I bit my lip and didn't answer that. What I was doing could be considered being undercover.
Please just let him understand when all this was finally over.
"I'm afraid I've only got a couple minutes," I said.
"That's okay," Mark said promptly. "I'm just glad you called and you're all right. You are, aren't you?"
"I'm fine." Automatic brushoff. "Are you? Are you eating anything other than mac ‘n’ cheese out of the blue box?"
"Yogurt," he admitted.
That was better than it could have been. It almost sounded healthy.
Maybe I could tell Cole the rainforest product had done its work and there was healthy food waiting for me back in Seattle and I had to go.
But I wasn't strong enough and I wasn't ready and I wasn't leaving until I could have everything back because to do so would be to quit and to always wonder what I could have done, or to fall straight back into addiction.
"Mark, is my dad –? " I didn't finish.
"He's okay, Annie. He's at home, got about a million doctor’s appointments so he doesn't get bored."
It was my turn to snort.
"And someone paid for him to have round the clock nursing on premises."
On premises. Only Mark could come up with a term like that for my parents' small, ranch style house.
"What do you mean?" I asked. "Does he need that kind of care?"
I could imagine him dry washing his face with one hand. "Not really. But it doesn't hurt and it takes a load of work and worry off your mom."
An idea was growing. Cole had said something about skilled nursing and now Mark was telling me my dad had a nurse in the house 24/7.
"No one knows where the funds are from?"
"Anonymous," Mark said.
I started to smile.
The rest of the conversation was about nothing in particular and lasted about a minute and a half. If I'd truly been undercover this wouldn't have been uncommon. Ditto calling from Cole's house.
Turned out my dad was taking walks through the neighborhood and eating right whether he wanted to or not. My mom was working part time at the bank and a skilled nursing service was making things easier for her.
A skilled nursing service paid for by an anonymous benefactor.
I made promises of calling again when I could, which was a lie. I'd call if I freaked out again and had to know. It would be about my dad. Mark was in a low-risk job and he was young. Nothing was going to happen to Mark and that gave me comfort and the ability to lean on him the way my mom had leaned on my dad for so many years, free to transfer her worry to her four children.
Mark didn't get that, though. He didn't understand it was a compliment that I didn't worry about him because I knew he could take care of himself. He just thought it meant I didn't check in on him like I did on other people.
So he felt singled out and then ignored. Sometimes any relationship seemed like too much work.
We talked for another minute, I told him I loved him, not lying but knowing it didn't rank where it should in my priorities, that love of ours. If I hadn't needed an update on my father, I wouldn't have called him.
Where did that leave my real life? Once I was finished with the work I was doing with Cole, what exactly would I be going back to?
And would it be enough?
I said goodbye and hung up and turned around. Stopped dead in my tracks, cold chills running through me.
Cole St. Martin stood in the doorway of the little office.
28
Cole
She was starting to ask questions. She was starting to make decisions and act on her own. In most situations that would be a good thing. But in recovery like this, it wasn't. I needed her to still be off balance. I needed her to come to trust me whether she hated me or loved me.
I didn't care if she did either of those. Her emotions weren't of interest to me except in the way they fueled my lusts and fed my hungers and answered my questions about the opiate cure.
There was no way to let such an infraction go. If she started thinking for herself, she would try to leave. She couldn't actually hurt me. Having enough money really does act as a buffer. Even if I was sued, the courts would never find all my accounts or be able to impose a fine that actually hurt me. She'd signed a contract that might not be for acceptable services but between consenting adults, was certainly legal. I should know – I'd had it drawn up by one of the best attorneys in the country. So I couldn't be prosecuted for a crime and jailed.
But my reputation could be ruined. I could be outed for the things I enjoyed and I'd worked long and hard for my privacy.
And she'd disobeyed what I'd told her. Having her come to heel
mattered.
There was no need for anything elaborate. I only opted for one guard, unarmed, because I wanted her to have the option to fight. She did, but only token struggles that increased when she realized what I was going to do.
Stripped naked in front of the guard, she was tied again to the frame and this time left for as long as my own impatience to enjoy her pain could stand the wait.
Her fear was justified. When I went back into the cell, I carried with me the same riding crop I'd used on her before.
29
Annie
Up at dawn, running in the desert. Returning to the compound to work the heavy bag, hit the weights, shower, be massaged, shower. Breakfast at least once a week something I couldn't stand, like fish, that resulted in a fight.
I lost those fights and still I couldn't resist them. Like a child, I couldn't bear to eat things I hated. And like a teenager, I hated being told what to do.
Working in law enforcement, there's always a hierarchy and obviously only a small number of people who reach the very top, commissioners for entire departments.
But those of us in undercover work are autonomous. There's no way for anyone to even be in touch without putting the operative in danger. We learn to make our own decisions and something like what I was doing with narcotics opened me up to a lot of freedom to make the wild and dangerous kind of decisions.
I was used to doing what I wanted.
It wasn't that I thought I'd made great decisions. After the first two sessions with the crop, it definitely wasn't that I wanted it again.
It was just hard to cast my gaze down, put my head down, say Yes, sir and eat fish.
The rest of the time it was fruit and eggs and some mess of green crap that was probably good for me but tasted like wallpaper.
I would never have expected it, but my life was falling into place. There was never a time in my life that I sought out peace. But I might have found it with Cole.
"Lower your eyes."
We were back in his playroom. Or dungeon. Or punishment room. I didn't know if it had a name. I only knew that breakfast had been a mess, he'd given me food I couldn't bear to eat, fish that I couldn't take, too much of it, protein shakes with kale, cod liver oil.
He was pushing. I knew that. Every day was a contest. After the workouts, time slowed. My contact with the outside world was limited. There was martial arts training three days a week, but as November progressed toward Thanksgiving, even that wasn't enough.
My father had been released from the hospital and whatever charges were being brought against him, nothing more was going to happen with his case until the new year. That news brought both a bout of intense relief, and the return of utter boredom, because Cole put his foot down.
No more contact with Mark or my family until after Christmas.
Maybe it was being bored that made me refuse the fish.
"I'm not five years old! Breakfast has nothing to do with my recovery! Just let me take the pills and go work out!"
I might have gotten away with that but I added a heartfelt "Fuck!" under my breath and the next thing I knew he had wrapped my hair around his fist and was dragging me to my feet.
I'm tall – five-six – but he's over six feet. When he fisted my hair, it felt like he would tear it out.
"Bend over the table."
I had no choice. My scalp was on fire. Cole's voice was dark fury. Every muscle in his body was pumped from our workout and as he pressed in close behind me, I could feel his erection pressed into the crack of my ass.
The day was coming when I'd have to decide if I would stay and have sex with him, or break the contract and run. If that was my choice, it meant two things. First, finding out whether or not he meant to let me break the contract. Probably the damn thing wasn't legally binding, but Cole owned judges as well as lawyers. He'd find a venue where it held up.
I truly had been sold.
The other thing was, if I ran, this was over.
I was changing. I didn't like all the changes but others left me breathless with the need for strong hands holding me down and an angry man fucking me.
Once the cure took hold, once I wasn't addicted and could move freely in the world again, what would that freedom look like? Would I go back to Seattle, deal with my parents and sisters, spend time watching hockey with my dad? Marry Mark? Would Mark even have the new and improved Annie back?
Standing over me, Cole growled out a command and the cook came fast from the kitchen, clearly terrified something in the breakfast wasn't up to standards. Her relief in seeing me bent over the long, twelve person table with my head cranked back was so obvious I wanted to hurt her for it at the same time I understood why Cole's staff worked so very hard for him. Clearly it was more than just good wages from a billionaire who kept his staff living in and far from civilization.
For the first time I wondered if they'd all come here as addicts of some kind, looking for change, and never managed to leave. The idea scared me and again I started wondering about the future.
And then I was only concerned about the present.
Because the cook returned with a handful of new wooden spoons, the big heavy ones meant for stirring thick batters. The fact of more than one scared me. I started to babble, promising to eat the fish, which I was more or less stretched over at present.
"Shut up," Cole snapped. He stood to my left, his right hand wrapped in my hair, and shifted so his left hand got a better purchase on my dark curls.
I howled and he said, "Yes, I should think so." The pressure relented but only because he was using his left fist to press my head to the table. His now free right hand yanked down my underwear from under the short dress I wore. I felt him move his hand and pick up the first of the spoons. I felt his whole body turn with the wind up and then pain exploded through me as the thin wooden handle and flat bowl of the spoon snapped against my skin.
"Count," he ordered, and I had already lost track, the explosive pain felt like it had been radiating through me since time began.
I started with one and added ‘sir’ to each, without being ordered to, and after a dozen I begged him to stop.
After two dozen, he did.
He kept his hand snarled in my hair. I was sobbing, my face wet and the area between my legs on fire, a different fire than the pain radiating through my backside.
"Don't pull your dress down," he said. "Get on your feet and into your seat."
I operated on instinct, not taking the time to figure out his commands, just obeying instinctively. My bare ass hit the cold of the chair and I shivered, feeling the reality of it try and snap me back into the Annie who would be appalled by what was happening to me.
That Annie seemed lost to the one who wanted him to bend me over the table and take a different hard implement to me. I could feel his erection, now pressed against my shoulder as he stood close. His free hand reached down my dress, and for the first time since he'd left bruises and welts, he fingered my breast through the cloth.
"No surprises," he said to himself, I thought. "Pick the fish up with your right hand and start eating."
He hadn't moved away. I did as he told me, picking up the fish, cold and now more repellant than ever. As I took the first bite, he slammed the spoon down on my breast, making contact with the center of it, the nipple taking the brunt of the bowl. I thought that was probably better than the sting of the handle but I grunted, tried to put the fish down, and then understood as he ordered me to eat the rest of it.
One bite. One slap. Until the fish was gone and the fist left my hair and he told me to kiss the spoon and thank him, then take them all back to the cook. I was so grateful for him not having broken any of the spoons or started over, I responded promptly.
The cook, a beautiful woman in her forties or fifties, took the spoons back and said in a low voice, "You're lucky he didn't break them on you."
"I expected that, with the selection."
She winked then, unexpectedly, and pulled out
a slotted wooden spoon meant for draining pasta or vegetables. "I told him I lost this one and they don't make them anymore."
I gaped at her for a second, so far into whatever headspace such scenes sent me, I couldn't process. Then I found myself laughing, quietly so he wouldn't hear. "Bless you."
She smirked, gave me a totally unnecessary pat on the ass that actually hurt, and sent me back to Cole.
* * *
That night we watched Pixar movies while sitting wrapped in warm fluffy robes on the wide, 70s style conversation pit couch Cole had set up in the movie room. I half suspected it was meant for orgies. We had popcorn and he had wine, while I had a soda. The edges of need crept around me. I wanted his wine. Or something stronger. Codeine from cough syrup, maybe. Anything to take the edge off the antsy anxiety.
"I'd like to ask a question, sir," I said, keeping my eyes on the movie. Asking if I could ask was still a bad idea.
"I'm fine with that." He was laid back, looking sleepy and evil as the god Loki in the Avengers movies. His smile was almost playful. His robe was a gray blue of a twilight ocean and set off his dark blue eyes. His hair looked more blond. He sat back with his legs crossed tailor-style and the robe pooling in his lap, looking lazy and sexy and dangerous. "But drop your robe to your waist. That's the price."
I wanted to protest. There were only the two of us present. But I supposed there were cameras on us and I was still uncomfortable doing it. I loosened the belt, slipped my arms out and let the top of the robe fall away.
He glanced at me, said, "That's going to bruise." He didn't sound pleased or displeased by it. It was a fact.
It hurt. Even when nothing was touching it. I thought if he did anything to it I'd drop to my knees.
"What's your question?"
"What happens next?" I asked. "I'm doing better with the need. I sometimes feel it when I'm – " I paused for only a second, because aroused sent the wrong message and excited didn't mean exactly what I wanted. "When I've got a lot of adrenaline."
