Maybe I couldn't. But I'd rather find out by trying. It wasn't anything I wanted to explore.
When I was with Mark, there were times he'd be hard in bed, hard, ruthless, fucking me with no concern about whatever position I was in or whether I was comeing, whether I needed it faster or slower or –
Those times were rare. The further I drifted from him the more rare they felt. When he'd pull my hands above my head and pin them to the mattress, or when he'd start tearing my clothes off in the living room and carry me, impaled on his cock, into the bedroom to hold me down on the bed and shove himself into me -Those were the times when I came and came and came, orgasms rolling through me like waves of heat and electricity.
Most of the time Mark was respectful and loving.
So all right, then. I had learned something about myself. I like it rough. I like an element of danger. Not a huge surprise, given what I'd chosen to do with my life.
But Cole St. Martin - He made danger sound like an understatement. Cole was actual danger. Cole had so much money he had to be safe from anyone who might try and hold him accountable for something he'd done to someone.
He was rich enough for a compound in the desert where no one knew I was kept. He was rich enough to pay for my father's care, without batting an eye, making me more indebted to him. He was rich enough –
To make someone disappear.
Someone like Samuels, maybe? I eyed him carefully. Moments earlier, all I'd been thinking was that he was scaring me… and that a small corner of me that I wouldn't ever admit to found it exciting.
Suddenly that had changed. Suddenly I understood the amount of power he held over me.
Life and death, for one. He had the only access to the rainforest opiate cure. No one else had it. Placebo or not, it was changing my life and only Cole St. Martin could get it for me.
He had bought me from a Seattle police officer who had since vanished.
He had bought me and for now, there was little I could do about it. I could say he didn't own my ass. That didn't make it true. I was here. I had nowhere else to go. I was reliant on him for my father's wellbeing and my mother's easier mind about having care for my father, for my own recovery and resumption of my interrupted life.
He'd bought me.
I felt sick.
My eyes met his.
"It's my job," I said, as if all that hadn't just gone through my mind. "It's my job and my life, it's the thing I did and the thing I still want to do. How could I not?" I raised my hands, seeing his eyes flash that I'd do such a thing without permission while he was still holding my chin, forcing my head up. "Look at me! How could I not want to go after the people who are responsible for spreading that shit? To children," I snarled, and spit, just a little, not meaning to but the fury inside me was erupting. "To little kids. Kids in middle school. It's spreading," I said, and started to go on but he put one finger over my mouth.
"And you're the only one who can stop it?" He sounded eerily like Tad.
Of course not. "No, sir. But it's my fight. You – " Have to understand that, you're not stupid – "know I'm more than qualified for it." It came out self aware and more than a little snide and I saw just the corner of his mouth turn up.
He let go of my chin and stepped back. "Who did you speak with?"
I told him about Tad whose name was actually Thomas and who knew more about me than my own lieutenant. I started to tell him more and he reached out and slapped me, not that hard, just enough to get my attention.
"Answer the questions I ask. Nothing more."
So I wouldn't be defending myself, then.
"What did he tell you?"
"About the rate of spread of fentanyl and oxy and meth in neighborhoods I've worked in." He gestured at me to keep going. "He told me the Brotherhood is still riding in our area and there's another gang moving in. They're not an affiliated group and there's been shootings. Children have died in those shootings because those assholes – "
"No," he said quietly.
"They are." My face was heated but I shrugged it off. "Sorry." And that wasn't the right apology, it was more of an I'm sorry, sir; I didn't mean to be disrespectful around you but if he didn't understand how heinous this was and how upsetting for me, my apology would mean shit. "They're spreading out. There are of course undercover narcs and I'm sure with all the activity that there are DEA agents but – "
"But you want to be there."
I nodded. Mouthed a silent sir.
"Noble sentiment."
"Thank you, sir."
"You're not ready." He had paced away from me and now he stalked back and grabbed a handful of my curls and dragged me with him into the room. "You're not ready to take responsibility for something like that because what your hometown needs is not a vigilante and not someone equally as childish as those being harmed. Do you think I don't see it on you? You want revenge!" He spat the word. "You want more than simply doing your job." His face was up close to mine, his eyes terrifying and intense. "You want to get revenge for what was done to you and to that whoremonger you were fucking before someone killed him. It never occurred to you he was as vile a piece of filth as the rest of them?"
"Of course it did!" I snarled back at him. "But I was doing my job."
His hand tightened and both of mine went up to my hair, afraid he was going to pull it out by the roots. "Killing yourself won't change anything and if you go back unready, unprepared, that's all you'll be doing. Killing them, taking them down, making the charges stick, getting them off the street – those things will make a difference." His face was inches from mine. "And you'll still be alive."
I'd never heard that word sound like a curse before.
"What does that matter?" I was crying now, sobbing, tears being wrenched from me, and Cole, if possible, leaned in even closer to me.
"Because. You. MATTER." He roared the last word and then there was no more talk.
One of the things I'd learned reading about domestic discipline was that partners didn't punish each other during anger. They waited so they wouldn't accidentally seriously hurt the person they loved.
But Cole St. Martin wasn't in love with me and I wasn't his partner and this wasn't a domestic discipline relationship. He was furious and he wasn't going to wait to calm down.
This had been brewing. Since I ran. Since I came back. Since he found me and brought me back, allowed me to come back and went right back to work getting me well.
I was scared. I was scared and wet and anxious and I wanted it and I wanted to run and I didn't know what to expect and I knew he wouldn't tell me.
He dragged me by my hair, leading me forward and he was slightly ahead of me as we moved so his arm was snaked back behind my head, his fist tight in my hair. I stumbled, desperate to keep up. To not fall.
He didn't tell me to keep my gaze down and as I struggled not to fall, I looked around me wildly. For the first time, I saw some of the room around me. I saw the cross against the wall, straps for restraint hanging from it. I saw a whipping post, and a spanking bench, and another piece of furniture that looked like it would be a face-up spanking chair, one that could be cranked to separate the legs once they were buckled into place.