Deep Cover: A Dark Billionaire Romance

by Sophia Reed

  "But he's dead," I said. "You can't pay him back measure for measure."

  "It's not about you," he said and I felt my face heat.

  "It feels like it's about me! Maybe I don't want you to know everything I – " I broke off. Everything I went through. Every degrading thing he did to me. Every way he punished me. Every way he hurt me.

  Of course Cole would want to know. I just didn't know what he'd do with it. He couldn't make it up to me. He couldn't take it out on Vincent or on Kie.

  "I thought he sent you videos."

  I watched the muscles tighten in his jaw. The mischievous, triangular smile was nowhere in evidence. This was the rainforest businessman I'd accompanied out of the country, playing bodyguard, earning my keep. This was the man convinced I was harming my chances of recovery by not eating enough and insisting that I eat what he gave me. This version of Cole bought me textbooks and let me learn criminal justice so that someday when I left him I'd have a new career.

  For the first time the idea of leaving him filled me with a kind of sorrow.

  What I didn't know yet was that in a way, he had already left me.

  He interviewed the guards, all five of Vincent's men, one by one. One of them had run, the woman. I didn't blame her. She had seen what I went through and it was possible if she'd been present, knowing she'd done nothing to help me that, unfair or not, either Cole or I would have killed her.

  Women were supposed to be different. We're not, but even we can fall prey to the idea that we're supposed to support each other.

  The other five he interviewed one at a time and I stayed in his arms or at his side, a blanket wrapped tight around me even as the day heated up.

  It felt like I was never going to be warm again. It felt like I would never escape the house.

  While Cole demanded information from the remaining security team, and learned more than I wanted to overhear about the whips, the belts, the crops and the screaming, about the knife play and the backless dress and the games Vincent played that were unwinnable, I heard the sounds from elsewhere in the house as Kie's body was taken away.

  Vincent's was taken first. His body wouldn't be taken anywhere it could be found and the reports would make him into a fugitive. The cover story that he killed Kie and ran was likely enough because he had a penchant for blades. A plastic surgeon, after all. Someone who liked to cut. Who liked to alter appearances.

  Like Kie's cheeks.

  I didn't think the idea of letting Kie's suicide stand as such was untenable. She had killed herself. She'd been a miserable bitch and I didn't want to cover up anything for her, or spare her family if she had any, or be part of any other posthumous kindness.

  But putting Vincent to blame for it and letting other women he had hurt over the years come forward to file charges against him, that meant that his estate could be sued and maybe some women would get back some measure of wholeness. He'd hurt them as hookers, as patients, as partners before Kie. If his estate couldn't be sued without a body, I was sure his body would then show up. An anonymous tip. Or just Vincent's body, appearing somewhere. Hopefully degraded.

  There was much for his estate to answer to. I was in total agreement with trying to find a way to offer recompense to those he'd harmed. Though not in my case. I wanted nothing from him, and probably there were others who’d feel the same way; that anything touched by Vincent Geddes including his money would be more of a stain.

  As for me, I'd gotten my own back. I wasn't bothered being in the house because I'd killed him. I was fine with having killed him, even if it was pretty much simultaneous with Cole killing him.

  It was more that I felt that the longer I stayed there, the more, somehow, maybe, by way of magical thinking, he’d won. The longer I had to remain under Vincent's temporary roof, the longer he still had control over me, even if he was dead.

  And that was how I knew I was going to need help to get through this.

  20

  Cole

  She was mad about having to stay there.

  Good. Mad was better than hurt. Because she'd wrapped herself around herself and she wanted to run. The instant she saw me, she wanted out. The Annie Knox throwing herself into the arms of her savior to be pulled free of the danger was not the Annie Knox so determined to do whatever it was on her own, she was always running too fast in the right direction but too soon.

  It was healthier for her to remain in the house and face it.

  So all the stuff I would have put off, I did then. Interviewing the guards. Walking through the house. Getting an idea of where videos had been filmed, what had happened to everyone present and where. Making certain I understood all of it.

  She didn't let go. I hadn't expected her to. She'd run to my arms for comfort, exactly as I wanted her to, and she stayed pressed against me.

  Now let's see what she would do once the retraining started in earnest.

  21

  Annie

  "Aren't we going to the plane?" I could hear the whine in my voice. I didn't sound like anyone's submissive. I didn't sound like myself, either. I sounded like a spoiled, whiny child.

  The car was passing through the Paris streets, picking up speed and not heading to the airport.

  "We're going to a hotel," Cole said.

  Hours had passed since I’d killed Vincent Geddes, since I found out that Kie had killed herself. A tiny part of me wanted to see Kie's body, to know for certain she was dead. She had hurt me badly, twice, and even now pain throbbed up from between my legs, seeming to echo through my belly, down my thighs.

  But two men had told me Kie was dead by her own hand, and I trusted both of them in different ways.

  Vincent I trusted because he'd been in tears over her death. For how insanely fucked up he had been, he had loved her. In some sick, inhuman way.

  It didn't make me feel sorry for him for even a second. Or for her. If there had been anything at all about Kie that felt like she was trapped, that she needed help - and I was so glad there wasn't - I might have gotten killed over trying to help that bitch.

  And it was because of her death that Vincent had come after me as distracted as he’d been and Cole and I were able to take him out. For that reason only I was grateful to Kie. Her killing herself had allowed me to kill her master.

  Cole I trusted because in the entire time I’d known him, he had never lied to me. Not once.

  Being outside and free felt enormous. It felt like I'd been trapped years in that damn house and years since my rescue before Cole finally, finally said he was finished and we could go.

  Cole had been thorough in questioning everyone involved and making sure all stories were straight before contacting the police.

  Testimony to the perks of being a billionaire – the police asked their questions one time, took transcripts of reports, spoke kindly to me and offered me water, coffee, or wine. And then it was done. They were done.

  And we headed somewhere in a limo.

  "We're not going to the plane," he said, sitting back on the seat.

  There was champagne in the limo. I wondered if it had been headed for some other destination than picking us up and Cole had hijacked it.

  Billionaires did things like that.

  Or maybe he'd thought to celebrate and then changed his mind because of my recovery. That seemed far fetched, though.

  Maybe the limo just came with bubbly.

  I would have been more relaxed in a police car or a chopper or a motorcycle. Anything but a limo which reminded me much too much of the last time I'd been in a limo. My one-time therapist would have called it exposure therapy but the shaking started when I got into the car and didn't stop again until we got out in front of a five-star hotel.

  "You don't have to come in. I'm just registering." Cole was halfway out of the limo.

  I opened my mouth to say Wait. And closed it again without saying anything. He was Cole St. Martin. If he wanted to leave and desert me in France, he didn't have to come over here and clean up th
e whole mess. If he wanted to leave me here he could do it in a heartbeat. If I tried to protest and cling, there were literally hundreds of people he could hire in a second to pry me off him and keep me from following.

  That was nerves talking. The idea that I wasn't worth anything after everything I'd gone through. That he might not want me anymore. That he might leave me when I needed him.

  All my own fear. He'd shown no inclination to do anything like that. I might have to start trusting. Or understand that it didn't matter if I did or not. He did what he wanted. Right now it seemed that what he wanted was to be with me.

  I sat back on the seat and waited, not meeting the driver's eyes in the mirror. It felt like forever until Cole came out again.

  There was a bellhop with him, though the only baggage we had was me. That's how I felt. Extra. Baggage.

  "Annie."

  He offered me his hand, which was little practical use in getting myself free of the car but felt terrific.

  "If you'll both come with me."

  We moved out of the spring day I could have stayed in and into a lobby wildly over-decorated with plants and art and helpful people. I wanted to fade away, hide my face in Cole's neck, but of course that was absurd. Nobody could tell just by looking at me what had happened to me.

  Up in the glass elevator with the bellhop still by our side, which really made no difference unless he was going to pick me up and carry me across the threshold and put me on the weird bench thing fancy hotels have at the end of the bed, where you're supposed to lay the extra covers or put your luggage if you have it.

  Or turn an unwilling slave across it with her arms on the bed and her head down, her ass up and waiting for what she deserves after allowing herself to be taken like that.

  But none of that happened. The hotel was luxurious to a fault. Thick white towels and shining clean bathtubs, beautiful showers and sparkling everything in the bathroom. I looked at it all with longing. I wanted nothing more than to scrub off the previous weeks' worth of ugly.

  Cole tipped the bellhop what looked like a couple hundred dollars, then turned to me. I was wearing the jog bra and a pair of sweats, the clothes I'd been training in. The only thing added was the running shoes that mostly fit. All I had here was what I'd had at Vincent's. I didn't want any of it.

  Dragging my gaze away from the bathtub, I cast my eyes down and prepared to sink to my knees. There was no way I could endure another beating.

  Cole caught me as I started to drop, his hands under my elbows. When I was on my feet again, he used one knuckle to tilt my head up so my eyes met his. "Would you like to go take a shower or bath?" His voice was his usual voice of command. I got the idea if I didn't choose one would be chosen for me.

  "Bath, sir?" Somehow I made it sound like I was asking permission and not that I'd lost my mind and was asking what a bath was.

  "Absolutely. Don't spare the bubbles." And he went back to some phone call or other that made me feel very not there.

  The bath made me feel there. It made me feel almost clean. Another thirty years of very hot showers and I might "get over it."

  I could hear Cole on the phone as the tub finished filling with me already in it, trying to convince myself to close my eyes.

  My eyes never closed, but I enjoyed the luxury of the bath. Only once did I start violently, as a shadow crossed the wall and that was just Cole, coming into the bathroom.

  "Making sure you didn't drown." He gave me that mischievous grin, though it looked a little strained.

  "I suppose that would mean you'd wasted a lot of resources getting to me, sir." I waited.

  "No," he said, admonishing. Cole did not like being led. "It would mean I should have kept a better eye on you."

  That left me feeling bitter. Until he said, "That would mean I had failed you."

  That left me feeling guilty.

  But better.

  When I got out of my bath, fingers and toes pruned from immersion, I had nothing but what I'd been wearing and a determination never to wear it again. I wrapped the huge, soft, fluffy white robe around me, wishing I could buy it and the hotel, keep them as a safe place, and went out into the bedroom, uncertain what I would find.

  I might find a Cole who felt he'd failed me.

  Or one who felt his failing me meant I had failed him by some kind of twisted logic and who then decided to punish me for it.

  What I found was a man who had ordered me jeans and t-shirts, cardigans of the softest angora, bras and panties, a long white skirt that would pair beautifully with the pale pink sweater even if I wasn't a skirt kind of girl. He'd purchased toiletries and makeup, getting most of what I used right. He'd ordered toothbrush and paste and mouthwash and when I started to argue about everything, he just glared me into a different sort of submission and asked which of those things I could pay for and how.

  "I have no money, sir." How could I? In Nevada I was in rehab, so to speak, and in France, I was a prisoner.

  "So you were going to spend the rest of your life in a hotel robe?" He was smiling, a little, and without it having an evil glint to it.

  That was disconcerting.

  "There are worse things I could find myself wearing," I said lightly and it stayed light.

  Cole smiled. "Or you could wear nothing at all." He tugged at the big white robe and I let it unwind and unwrap and drop, gently, to the floor.

  Unpredictable as ever. Cole St. Martin took me in his arms again. He held me to him more sweetly than he had the morning I was taken. His kiss was anything but tentative. He pressed his lips to mine and his tongue found its way into my mouth right away, mine answering and touching his.

  Both hands ran upward into my hair, fingers touching my scalp that still hurt from all the times Vincent had snarled a fist and pulled. So Cole's touch both felt good and ached, a sharp but very bearable pain. It felt good to have him touching me there.

  Then his mouth was on my neck, his tongue darting out between his lips for little tastes of me as he kissed from jawbone to collarbone, from mouth to earlobe, from nose to solar plexus.

  My hands were uncertain at first, not knowing where to touch or how, not understanding exactly what was happening. I was naked and he was not and that was normal but his gentle touches, his caresses, those were new and different and any more new and different felt terrifying.

  So I went slowly, letting him bite and lick and kiss, following in my stead until he kissed down my torso, fluttering kisses against my wounded ribs that sent up a throb of pleasure anyway. He kissed the cut there, kissed down the length of my belly, kissed the top of my mons and shied away, but when I reached for him, my hand waiting for the hardness of him, he moved my hand away and went back to what he was doing.

  Which was to pick me up and carry me to the bed, releasing me with care, as if I were something fragile and breakable. Then he followed me down into the snowy linens of the bed, his hands in my hair, his mouth on my mouth again and when I reached for him this time he let me pull him into my hands, every long, hard inch of him.

  He slid from my hands when he moved above me, pushing me back by kissing me down into the pillows, his hands in my hair again, fingertips stroking, mouth pushing me back, his eyes open and locked on my open eyes.

  He followed me down to the bed, then surged up over me, his arms hard and braced, his chest above me, his eyes glued to mine, but only our hips were touching. Only where we fit together so well did we touch.

  Cole slid inside me and I gasped and cried out at the sudden fiery pressure. Not taking his intense gaze from me, he started to move in and out of me, long, deep strokes, filling me and pinning me down simply with his weight on mine and most of that around the hips. I felt small and delicate and cared for, felt that this complex man would stand between me and the world and that maybe, for once, I could let someone do that.

  Let someone other than me keep me safe.

  Then his mouth came down on my nipple, his tongue hot and teeth sharp, but he only let them
travel once sharply around and then it was his mouth again, pleasuring me as much as the rest of him.

  He leaned down, scooped me into his arms, twisted in a way that should have been impossible and came up with me on top, straddling him, my hands on his chest, my head back, his hands down between our legs, stroking me. I had started to cry, something about the gentleness of touch, the pleasure of someone who wanted to be with me without hurting me and the absurdity of thinking that person could be Cole St. Martin.

  With me on top he could reach up and put his hands over my breasts, cupping them without hurting them, rubbing the nipples, flicking them, stroking both hands down my ribs to the curls of my hips and then inward so his thumb stroked my clit and the length of him inside me made me come over and over, crying out wordlessly because I didn't quite dare to use his name.

  I saw the moment he lost himself in the act, the minute that he crossed over from the careful Cole bringing me back to something else. Someone else. I saw the blue of his eyes change from pale to dark, from ice to something indestructible. The darkness was filling him, that unquenchable thing that drove him, this time mixed with what Vincent had done to me and at Vincent and Kie now being beyond our reach.

  He forgot about my pleasure and maybe about me and he took his own pleasure from me, pounding in and out and it didn't matter, I was finding my way back and for now, I was fine. Just his touching me was enough.

  Just him being there in the dark.

  22

  Cole

  We lay in the bed together, my body wrapped around hers, as if I could keep her safe. As if anybody could ever keep anyone safe in this world.

  Her ass fit beautifully into my body. My arms were around her. At first after I came I rubbed the soreness in her back, easing my knuckles around bruises and into tight, angry muscles.