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3
Annie
Beside me, Mark snored softly.
It used to bother me, the way he snored at night. I've always been a light sleeper, something of paranoia even before the job made me officially and properly paranoid. When Mark did anything but a rhythmic in and out breath it would wake me and I'd lie there wondering how I was going to live my entire life with him doing that.
Since Cole had sent me away, since coming home to Seattle, it didn't matter anymore if Mark snored or not. I wasn't sleeping. Now it only bothered me because I was jealous.
Ten days in Cole's "care" and once during that time he moved me from one location to another. Now I was starting to wonder if he really had. I'd been blindfolded again, given anti-nausea drugs and driven for long enough the sun went down. When we reached our destination, he'd had the car drive inside and I'd been carried into the house still blindfolded.
The more I thought about it, the more I figure a lot of the sounds had been the same, the birds and the distant air traffic patterns. The air had felt the same, dry as dust and warm, and then too, there'd been the same sound of a mockingbird outside.
The why of it was harder to figure out, though it kept me off balance and maybe that was the entire point. Plus I couldn't say exactly where I was.
Not that it mattered. Cole St. Martin. He's so well known. Billionaire with a heart of gold, always giving to charities, booking cruises for the disabled, taking small children with serious diseases to the pro-sports games in Las Vegas. Even if I told somebody it would sound like the delusional ramblings of a madwoman.
Or the delusional ramblings of someone who'd not yet kicked her habit.
I hadn't. But I hadn't used. Out from under Cole's supervision I was using other things – alcohol, I was smoking again, and I was taking a lot of Advil. But I hadn't gone looking and I hadn't made a buy.
Mark welcomed me back with mostly open arms. He had to be an idiot not to be suspicious. On the other hand, he had never once asked where I’d been and it seemed far-fetched that I had gone from strung out and drooling, giggling on the couch to an undercover assignment during which I got clean.
He'd never said another word about that afternoon when he basically turned his back and told me I'd better get myself cleaned up.
I had to wonder that the man I was going to marry tacitly believed with no proof that I'd gone somewhere to clean myself up and kept even that a secret. I've always been closed mouthed but that was too much, wasn't it?
Mark turned over and his eyes opened. I'd been thinking so hard about him, wondering if I was doing the right thing to stay here, that it felt for a second like I'd wakened him with my thoughts alone.
Then he blinked against what I realized was sunlight coming into the bedroom. "Morning," he said. His voice was husky with sleep and when he turned toward me, warm and with that curious heaviness that seems to come with a cozy bed and deep sleep, I remembered a lot of the things I loved about him.
He was kind, mostly. He'd make a good doctor because he cared, though I thought he'd find himself on the wrong end of an addiction before retirement because he did care so much. Unless he picked a specialty where people didn't die too much. Podiatry, maybe. So far that didn't seem likely.
"You sleep at all?" he asked, moving under the covers like a swimmer so he ended up on his side, forehead to forehead with me.
"A little." I leaned forward and brushed my lips over his.
"Liar."
"A very little," I modified.
His kiss was a little longer than mine. "What's got you most worried?"
I smiled into his neck, loving the musty warmth of his sleep smell. "You want me to prioritize?"
"Yes, please."
I laughed and it sounded rusty. "My dad, my dad, my dad, and probably another my dad, because it's –"
"Logical? Likely? Lucky?"
"Mm, not that last." He was biting my shoulder, very lightly, but it was still sending warm thoughts south. "Let's go with probable."
"M'kay. What else is bothering you?"
It wasn't really a question.
I said, "Well, there's something … under the covers … poking me. It's very hard and it seems to need somewhere to go."
Mark pulled back and smiled before he licked my upper lip. "I've got just the place," he said.
It was so warm, so easy and familiar, so what I wanted. And still I was grateful when he pulled back and took the time to break open a foil packet and slip on a rubber.
Shit. Life was short. Life was complicated. I needed to go back through the hours and figure out what parts of life mattered the most. What I wanted out of it. What I was willing to give up to get the rest.
Then Mark rolled over me and came up between my legs, sinking deep inside me and starting to stroke gently, rocking into me, pulling out and thrusting in, slow but deep, each stroke seeming to fill me more.
And finally, mercifully, my mind shut down and there was only the pleasure, the racing chills taking my body, the heat building in my core, the throbbing pleasure of him buried deep inside, his lips on my ear, his voice enticing. "Come for me. Let me see you come."
"Hey, pumpkin. How's my girl?"
The fist sized rock of nerves in my chest started to relax for the first time since Mark and I had pulled apart and he'd showered and gone off to the hospital.
"Dad. That's my line."
He laughed at that. "Laughing hurts, you unkind child. Your line is 'How's my girl?'"
"Okay, maybe not that. How's my father?"
"Better."
"The question or the man in question?"
He made a sound like argh and said, "Both."
I didn't call him a liar. That's what I wanted to hear. "What's your ETA on getting out of there?"
"I'm hoping fifth of never. You know what's waiting for me."
I bit my lip, staring out the apartment window into the rain-slicked Seattle day. "I know. I'm sorry, Dad."
"Shit, don't be. You didn't do it. But listen, pumpkin, I need your help."
Everything in me froze up. He wasn't just my father, he was my hero, my motivation, the reason I became a cop. I wanted to help him and if I said no, he'd understand but if I said yes – and I couldn't see saying anything but yes – god. If I said yes, then Mark would get his wish. I wouldn't even be safe as a patrol officer unless we moved to another city. I'd be riding a desk for the rest of my career.
If he needed me to testify on his behalf, I'd do it.
Because my dad would do it for me.
"What do you need?" I asked and was proud that my voice barely wobbled.
"I need someone in my corner," he said. "Your mother and sisters, they're trying to put me into some kind of home."
There was a moment's horrified silence between us on the line. I wanted to tell him not to be silly, he was being paranoid, of course they weren't trying to do any such thing.
But I knew my bitch sisters. They were pretty fucking determined not to let anything come between them and cranking out babies to keep their husbands close. And my mother, it had been at least ten years since she last made a decision on her own without checking with all her daughters, all her girlfriends, and probably my father.