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Was I out of control because of what happened to Annie? Because I honestly couldn't accept that maybe it was Annie who killed Vincent and not me? Or was it the fact of Annie choosing to leave, as if there were no contract between us.
As if everything I did to her didn't make her soaking wet between the legs.
As if she didn't want me.
I looked at Marilyn again. She was shivering. It was too cold in the pain room. I took my shirt off without thinking and wrapped her in it. Her teeth were chattering as I pulled her into my arms and so I did something I'd never done with anyone but Annie.
I carried her into the holding cell – holding suite? – that Annie had occupied, and through into the beautifully appointed bathroom that was mine when I stayed here. I seated her on the closed commode and started the water that sprayed out of two opposing shower heads. Plenty of warm water for everyone. Then I helped her up and when she was disinclined to release the t-shirt, I let her keep it, picking her up again and stepping into the natural rock-lined shower, holding her cradled in my arms until her shivering stopped, then letting her slide down my body. I still held her, slowly prizing the t-shirt away from her and off, throwing it into the corner. I didn't care about her being naked. I thought she'd be warmer under the hot spray without it.
I washed her hair. Her back. I washed her beautiful long limbs and I kissed her neck. I went to my knees and kissed and licked between her legs until she grabbed my hair and let her head fall back, the telltale swelling and pulsing of her sex letting me know as well as her moans that I'd pleased her.
I asked for nothing in return. How big of me. I'd seriously hurt her. The blow to her torso was already bruising and I wasn't going to let her leave for another couple days unless we went to one of the handful of doctors I trusted who were in the scene and could tell me there was no lasting damage. I didn't want to think I'd done any damage to her organs.
When we got out of the shower I wrapped her in a thick soft robe and pulled her with me into a huge easy chair where she could curl in my lap. She put her head on my shoulder and kissed my neck.
"Something is wrong with you, Cole," she said quietly in a kittenish voice and then, "Sir."
I smiled into her hair. Marilyn was a fuck buddy and a pain slut. It was strange and somehow pleasant to hear that she cared about me, even if it was only in relation to what I'd done to her.
"Is there anything I can do?"
Time travel, I thought. Get me back to the night I thought it was a good idea to auction off Annie before I realized I cared what happened to her. Or back to the day that Vincent realized he hadn't gotten what he wanted and his own slave had been beaten for hurting mine and so he determined to take Annie. She was supposed to be his for a number of weeks. He'd paid $5.5 million for her at that dinner party auction, but I hadn't let her take him. He was too brutal, too dangerous and I had developed a fondness for Annie. At the time I'd seriously meant to let him take her, only later. When she was further through training. When I'd brutalized her body enough times that her screams wouldn't drive Vincent into a frenzy of hurting her more.
Or to the point where she acknowledged to herself what she enjoyed, what she wanted and needed in her life. The beatings. The breast play. Knife play. Breath play. The things that made her cry and beg and to which she didn't always realize she was smiling. Humming. Moaning.
Coming.
And failing that? Failing taking me back in time so I could stop those things? Or the chance to go even farther back to those days when I had subs for limited amounts of time, mine to fuck and hurt and cane, mine to break and send away and it meant nothing to me. Less than nothing. And in that state, let me say no to the dirty cop when he called and instead, let me turn him in and see him taken off the force and whatever internal justice would almost have certainly been done to him.
Because cops don't sell other cops to sexual sadists. They shouldn't, anyway. And never without reprisals.
Though there may have been reprisals. No one had heard from the son of a bitch for a long, long time.
Failing any of those choices of things Marilyn could do for me?
Find Annie.
Bring her back.
I couldn't say that to the woman I'd hurt who now was offering to help me. I murmured into her hair and waited for her to dry off and warm up before she took her leave of me. She'd stay in a guest room, fed and clothed and cared for, but I'd stay away from her for the rest of her stay. Let her recover. Let her find me if she wanted to.
I didn't think she'd want to.
In two days time, if my limited education before I left med school surgical track and moved to pharmaceuticals was enough to convince me she wasn't bleeding or swollen, that I'd gotten lucky (and she hadn't – god, she didn't deserve that!) I'd let her go home.
I wondered if she'd be back.
I left a message for Annie. There was no way of knowing if she'd ever listen to it. And I texted.
"Please don't hang up. I just want to tell you something. I sent Kie with Norcross but his chopper went down. Kie lived through it. Norcross did not. She's loose, Annie. I just wanted you to know that."
And then because I couldn't think of any way to help her, or anything to offer her that didn't involve protection she'd refuse or coming here and going to school locally, which I knew she'd refuse, I hung up.
And faced my silent house.
Not completely silent. Other than the techs and the guards, there was one other person.
The guards were employed by me and far more visible than the techs who came and went by way of a distant door. I rarely saw them.
