by Sophia Reed
But it was nearly impossible to make contact with seaweed as ii flowed. He’d definitely won our sparring match. His name was Dan and he didn't appear to be unbeatable at the outset. He had curly brown hair and a slim, unimpressive body.
He won a lot.
Dan hadn't been trying to kill me.
I let Kie come close to me. Watching how she moved, I looked for tells. She didn't have many of them, but she did look where she wanted to hit before she did so. That would help. For now all I wanted to do was dance and watch her.
We kept circling. I slowed my automatic dance, the forward and back movement that kept my weight from resting too long on one foot and made me less likely to be on it when someone tried to hit me.
The second time Kie struck, it wasn't a backhanded finger tap. I saw her eyes lock at the last possible second and when she punched at my solar plexus, I had enough time to deflect but not completely block. The blow landed on my ribs and it hurt but it didn't slow me down or knock the air out of me. I was slightly turned, as if brushing past her in a crowded hallway, and I let my momentum carry me farther, snapping out the arm I'd blocked her punch with and connecting a backhanded punch to her temple.
It didn't connect completely. I hit more ear than temple, but it was a solid blow and I saw her automatic movement before she could stop it as she shook off the punch.
Good. She'd felt that.
I was moving past her though, about three-quarters turned from her, and I saw her start after me. My weight was too far forward on the leg furthest away from her and there was no way to pivot or thrust well. But I brought up my following leg and backkicked, catching her a glancing blow off the ribs, my foot sliding to the outside of her body.
She curled inward, that flowing thing again, and most of the force of my kick just dissipated as I stumbled forward, turning to face her.
She was already on me and this time I didn't manage to block the punch. It came screaming up at me, heading for my throat, but I was off balance and falling toward her. I used it, pushing myself so the strike hurt, but it didn't catch my throat full center.
She had her balance but she was moving toward me, convinced I'd continue to nearly fall away from her. Instead, I turned to face her and brought my right foot up in a roundhouse, toes flexed back hard so the ball of my foot would catch her. She tried to duck, flowing away, but there wasn't time, and where I'd aimed for her jaw instead I connected solidly with her temple.
I saw her eyes close involuntarily before she forced them open, shaking her head like a dog shaking water off its coat. Good. I'd rung her bell. I was turned back to her and I pressed my advantage, following up with a series of punches aimed at midsection and head, trying to change them up and catch her, aiming my kicks low, to the low belly that would cramp her up and make her drop, to the thigh which would definitely charley horse.
She hadn't been rung hard enough. She backed up about three steps and when I tried my third front kick, meant to push her back again because I was coming too close, she reached down leaving her face unguarded and grabbed my foot, twisting savagely so it pointed to the inside of my body.
I spun. There was no time to think about it. The technique could wrench or sprain an ankle or knee. I threw myself over my own leg, spinning through the air. The leg she didn't have hold of clipped her in passing, but it only hit her shoulder, throwing us both a little off kilter and nothing else.
My speed and spin broke her hold on me, but I landed on one foot, wobbled, went down on hands and knees and somersaulted out of the position before she could hit me.
The only thing accomplished was she no longer held on to me. Neither of us would have scored a point (in a point competition, we would have probably been stopped and yelled at for the variety of techniques we'd used that were illegal in competition).
This wasn't competition.
This was real. She rushed me as I stood from the forward roll and shot up into the air, another backkick and a good one, flying, and this time I had the power and thrust behind it. If it had connected with her torso it would have put her down, on her ass, on her back, whatever, probably with the air knocked out of her.
But she learned fast. She avoided the kick, blocked it hard enough to send me faltering back to the ground and hit me in the kidneys with a straight hard punch that felt like a ton of overheated bricks being driven directly into my body.
I let the force of it propel me forward, getting me away from her, giving me time to process the pain and stick it down somewhere deep which I never seemed to manage when Cole did things to me but did when I fought.
For the next several minutes we exchanged punches and kicks. I was learning her flowing thing, the way she drifted in and out of range, and which way she most often went. It depended on what she was avoiding, but more often she favored moving to her right, being right-handed, that made sense.
She was getting an idea of my kicks, though I hadn't used any sidekicks. The TKD sidekick is major powerful and if pulled back fast enough, snapped out and snapped back, your foot doesn't get trapped like my front kick had.
She wouldn't be expecting it. So far most of my techniques had been straight forward or only came around from the side because she was right in my face.
My right leg was more powerful than my left; I was right-handed also. This was the first time in the fight I'd had an opportunity to plan anything. I executed a series of punches that had her moving away from me, again favoring her right, and I pushed that, striking more to her left side or the center of her body, letting her travel, letting her hands rise to try and protect her face.
I wasn't aiming for her face. I didn't want to hit her.
I wanted to open her up.
When she finally took a step to her right, planning a kick or punch she never had time to deliver, I was already standing slightly turned to my left, her right front leg in a loose back stance so my rear leg already bore my weight.
When her hands went up to block a punch that was meant to miss, especially directed to her left, I rocked back on my left leg, cocked my right, pivoted on my left, snapped my right leg out, using knife edge and heel to make contact with her lower belly, a vulnerable target, and felt my foot impale her before I snapped it back.
I hesitated, right leg barely touching the floor, waiting for another chance as she bent, gasping, and I reared back to try another kick. I'd hoped to have a chance to do a kind of haymaker uppercut under her chin but the timing and our stances weren't right. Instead I kicked out.
At the same time she let the pain drop her, falling backwards, sweeping my supporting leg out from under me.
But she still fell back.
And though initially tangled with her, I fell onto my side, slapping the floor with my left arm to redirect the energy of the fall, taking it on shoulder rather than elbow, and at the same time bringing up my right leg.
I'd rather have had my left, but it was pinned under Kie's.
I brought my right heel down on her solar plexus and heard the air explode out of her, leaving her gasping and vulnerable. Her body seized and her limbs didn't quite know what to do with themselves yet. I lifted my leg again, ready to slam it down into her exposed throat and end this once and for all.
Cole was over us in an instant, shouting. "Hold!"
My leg hesitated, trembled, and fell just past Kie's shoulder. I scrambled back on my ass and hands, getting out of range of her while figuring out what Cole was doing. I didn't want to be close to Kie. We were well matched but she was instinctively lethal.
I had to think about it, and that put me at a disadvantage.
Cole dragged me unceremoniously to my feet. Then he stood over Kie and grabbed her clothes at her waist, dragging her up until her back arched, her shoulders and heels touching the floor. A second later she gave a tremendous gasp, air starting back into her lungs. He set her down then and she began gagging, retching and coughing until the air was moving in and out of her lungs again the way it was supposed to.
When I caught myself just starting, I moved away from her and stood with my feet evenly aligned with my shoulders, my hands loosely clasped behind my back. But instead of the usual thousand yard stare that someone in my class had adopted from troops being trained by a drill sergeant, I watched as Cole stood over Kie.
She sat up slowly, started to speak, then stopped and looked around the room.
For the first time, I did too. Her men still ringed us from the corners of the room, but they no longer held their guns at the ready. Because Cole's men had recovered from whatever had been done to them and stood now behind Kie's guards, guns trained unerringly at her men.
And at her.
4
Cole
"And if I'd told you to run?"
She was standing there for the first time as if we were equals. For the first time since I'd known her, she was in a position of power. Not an addict. Not, for the moment, my submissive. My slave.
It took everything I had not to knock her to her knees. But Kie was still in the room, standing sullen and in pain, surrounded by my guards.
It was also the first thing I had been able to say to Annie since the tables turned. She looked mutinous.
When Kie put the call through to her, a knife to my throat, I'd panicked. In my position, I'm used to holding all the cards. Private security. My own helicopter. All the money I could ever need to do anything I'd ever want to do.
But a knife at my throat changed everything. Because without getting word to Annie, she'd be at risk. I don't know how Kie found out where she was. Maybe she bugged my communications. Vincent had enough money and until he was discovered dead, she'd still have whatever access to it she'd had while he was alive.
It wouldn't go on forever, but what I could tell about Kie Geddes, she wasn't looking for forever. She was looking for revenge and then, I thought, a way out.
Annie had just pissed all over that revenge. This moment might actually be more dangerous than any so far. Because if Kie's men were loyal enough to take on mine, there'd be guns firing in this room and I thought Kie was fully dangerous enough to put both Annie and myself at risk.
I looked to where Annie stood, having not yet answered my question, and she looked back, meeting my eyes, not kneeling, not bowing her head. I wouldn't require any of that until Kie was dealt with.
It still took everything I had not to beat her down to her knees for not obeying even my partial command earlier, and for not answering my question now.
And it took everything else I had not to put my arms around her and tell her I'd been scared for her.
The last time I could remember being scared was right before I lost Emily. My sister, lost to drugs and alcohol, and whoever provided those things or had fucked her and paid her so she could buy those things.
Emily. She was brilliant and creative and beautiful and she should have had a life that was full of everything. We might not have been the kind of rich I am now, but we grew up children of privilege.
Sometimes the best and the brightest are also the most brittle. Life got to Emily and then someone got to Emily, some friend or maybe some friendly enemy, who’d put drugs in her hands and said, “Look, see? Everything is so much more manageable now, so much softer and gentler.” And Emily agreed and within a year, she wasn't golden or glowing or even brilliant.
That wasn't going to happen to Annie. I'd determined it when Samuels from Seattle PD contacted me. He was scum, a lowlife who skirted around the edges of trafficking. I'd kept him on the hook for years because he was a good contact for the group of us, Southern Nevada billionaires with … special interests. Not in trafficking. We found wives and girlfriends, slaves and submissives, and the occasional masochist who just wanted to be beaten from time to time or strung up and whipped and fucked or whatever it was. We had our own contacts. Our interest when it came to trafficking was in raising money by exploiting our individual kinks and turning the money over to law enforcement or private interests that could combat human sex trafficking.
To date we’d had a better success rate than most metro police departments or the government.
Samuels never quite knew what my interest was and it didn't matter that he knew I had an interest, because of the extensive files I had on what he got up to. He wouldn't have stayed a cop for long and cops in prison don't stay much of anything for long.
Samuels was Annie Knox's handler when she was deep cover. He was good at what he did. He never put her in danger.
But when she slipped up and stress and grief and rage drove her to sample the product she was helping bring down the dealers of, he offered her to me.
She was angry. She was furious and hurt and scared and unwilling to show it. She ran more than once, striking out over miles of desert with no idea where she was or which way Vegas was, or any other town or city.
When she was under my control though, and every time I dragged her back, I was able to institute more control over her. I was able to trip her up when she thought she'd found loopholes. I kept her second guessing and off-balance. I put her in situations she wasn't used to and I exposed her equally to things she loved and things she hated. I exploited her own masochistic tendencies and I kept her bored enough to want to explore them.
I liked her fire.
I'd known other damaged women without it. Like Kie. Already vicious, already lost because her Master was Vincent Geddes. His cruelty was enormous. All I had to do was look at the scars on her cheeks where he'd marked her after she hurt Annie at one of our dinners.
She'd deserved punishment.
She hadn't deserved that.
Kie was lost. Whatever she'd chosen to do would have ended her life. By coming here, she'd meant to either have her revenge on me and on Annie, or end everything in a hail of bullets.
Instead, she now stood angry, twitching, looking to see what weakness in the room she could exploit.
There were none.
I would not make Annie kneel in front of this woman. Later, when we were together, I would teach her to never take so long to answer me, and to not police her own behavior in the presence of Kie.
"Annie?"
Her chin came up and she glared. "How did you think I was going to run? Past all the hired muscle? Past her – " an indignant and murderous look at Kie – "Holding a razor to your throat? Did you think I would abandon you to that?"
"Did you think you could fix it?" Arguing with her made me look weak. I was too angry not to.
"I did fix it," she said. "What do we do with her?"
There was no we. It was all up to me. There was no common ground. No cooperation. We were not partners. She was mine. My property.
"What do I do with her?" She needed to sense my tone.
She gave me a look that said she had and she didn't care. "Fine. What do you do with her now? You think I want her on my hands?" She threw a venomous look at Kie.
Who spat.
I expected Annie to leap at her.
Instead, she just laughed.
Good. We'd worry about her behavior later. For now, I was glad to see her unbroken in the face of the woman who had given her nightmares and night terrors in the days after we returned from France.
Later, after Kie was taken care of, after Annie and I had time alone together, I'd show her what submission really meant.
"We need to talk. Come with me." I turned to leave the room. The guards would watch Kie. For now, I needed Annie's mind while she was still acting as if we were equals.
No one was prepared for how fast Kie moved. The guards in the room broke formation instantly, surrounding her, holding her in their sights. No one fired.
She had moved like lightning, flashing across the space between us. Annie had nearly been as fast, winding up between only one gunman and Kie, her hand poised to deliver a punch to the back of Kie's neck.
She didn't strike. The guards didn't fire. And the target was the back of Kie's head, the back of Kie's neck, because Kie knelt at my feet, her hands balled i
n the leg of my sweatpants.
I looked down at her and felt desire race through me. I was hard a second after she landed, unarmed, at my feet. So submissive. So already primed for someone to beat her. Whatever I wanted to give her, she'd take and ask for more. She'd beg for it.
I wanted nothing of her. But my cock didn't know the difference between friend and foe. It saw a woman on her knees and was stiff as steel.
"Let go of me."
She did. Instantly. Without argument. She simply slid lower to the floor, on her face, her hands out in front of her, beseeching.
"Let me stay. Please, please, sir, please let me stay. Let me be your slave. I'll sign anything. I'll do anything. You know what my Master did to me. Please. Don't send me away."
Maybe it shouldn't have been a surprise. But then, I hadn't been thinking in terms of what Kie wanted other than to suspect she was suicidal. She'd walked into my home – my compound, as Annie called it - without enough gunmen to guard her. She'd come to take down one of the richest men in the world.
Her actions were desperate and ill-planned and the idea of dying had to have crossed her mind. All I'd been thinking was what to do with her.
Kie Geddes was too dangerous to turn loose on the world. Keeping her, though? I wanted no part of her.
Killing her would be the best and safest thing. For Annie. For me. There was no thrill in the idea. Killing was abhorrent. For Annie, for the job she couldn't do after someone's glassine baggies of sample changed her life, for Annie I had taken down the newest scumbags dealing in her neighborhoods in Seattle, the ones she could have taken care of if she was still undercover there and not, at that point, my prisoner.
This was different. Kie's death might even be better for Kie.
I wasn't the man to do it.
She reached for me again. This time I simply moved out of range.
She deflated, lying on her face. When I thought she had gone into herself, however, she spoke. "All I've ever wanted was to belong. I wanted a place. I gave myself to Vincent and in the end, he didn't care enough." She didn't finish that sentence. My guess was it would have ended he didn't care enough to keep me.
