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"Bend over and grab your ankles."
"I'm trying!" I protested.
Which never helped at all.
"Annie." He could imbue so much warning in just my name.
I didn't meet his eyes. For now, that wasn't allowed. Cole suspected me of topping from below. He was having none of it. And while he still liked that I wasn't submissive automatically, that I fought and argued and sometimes walked away, he liked the challenge.
Only right now his voice didn't sound that way.
But – "I'm trying my best!"
I heard his laugh from behind me. "I didn't ask if you were or weren’t. I told you to bend over and grab your ankles."
The laugh died out somewhere in that last sentence. I could do as he said or I could face a lot worse when we got back to the compound. With me fully naked, possibly.
I didn't turn to face him. I bent, my hands on my ankles, my eyes open and trained on the ground because if I tried to hide inside myself he'd order me not to.
"Count," he ordered, and he used the birch, giving me a full two dozen and ordering me to hold the position for several minutes after. My face flamed with humiliation and my ass flamed in agony. I hated the birch and whether he was playing or serious or punishing me, Cole had a very heavy hand.
"You may thank me."
I let go of my ankles and turned gracefully, going down to my knees on the hard, rocky soil. Head up, gaze down, hands behind my back, I said, "Thank you, Sir, for caring enough to hurt me." It was the best I could do when I didn't know if I was being rewarded or punished, trained or prepared for whatever came next.
He moved behind me, his shadow long in the early morning desert. One hand snarled my ponytail and he yanked my head back. His other hand tightened on my throat, interrupting my breathing, stopping me from swallowing. He leaned close. "You're welcome." Then he kissed me, long, deep, his tongue in my mouth. When he released me he handed me my shorts. "Get dressed. Let's go back."
We walked back through the morning, this day's sunrise being wild fireworks of desert colors. The shorts brushed against the marks of his birching and cropping, hurting with every step. I didn't know if I was grateful for the distraction or not. Sir had his own concerns. He was deep in thought as we moved, sometimes muttering to himself, what sounded like alchemical formulas. He was the mad scientist, the wizard putting together spells. Or he was the pharmacist to started the company and had new ideas for cures.
I didn't mind so much. After the first mile I got used to the pain of the spanking and let my mind wander. It had been a month since the September raid by the Judge determined to "Clean up Sin City!" who had turned out to be a major player in the trafficking ring. Girls who fell afoul of the law for minor infractions found themselves not only fined and warned but actually going before the judge, who told them if they just behaved and played along, all charges would be dropped and wouldn't you like that, sweetheart? As if they had any choice in the matter. As if the hearing was real. As if it were normal to be dragged before the judge like that and to have him all avuncular and helpful about their futures.
Right before the girls disappeared.
The first attempt I made with Cole was to pose as a University student studying Criminal Justice. Which I was, both those things, but I passed myself off as a airheaded co-ed willing to do just about anything for extra credit. The persona was a cliché anyone should have seen through, but the Judge saw what he wanted to see. And wanted to fuck. He didn't get he chance to either assault me or carry me off to his trafficking buddies. Because Cole had kind of jumped the gun, then, when he sent in help, and the only one we took out was the judge.
He'd been taken to a nice cabin in the Sierra where he was supposed to answer questions about the other missing girls and how the ring worked.
Instead, I'd recently learned, he'd hanged himself. There were worse things that could have happened – like Cole getting busted for kidnapping a judge and no one listening to what the judge was – but information would have been great.
The second time I went undercover as a young, almost homeless girl picking up cosmetics with a five finger discount so she could look halfway decent for the job interview she had the next day.
Instead, poor helpless me, I got caught and then I got hauled in front of the next judge and almost disappeared except that Cole had trackers implanted in me. That time we took out Samuels, the bad cop who'd "sold me" to Cole in the first place, because Samuels had gone from bad to worse. He seemed to be something like middle management in the ring. We took out a handful of others, too, though none of them were all that high up the hierarchy.
But we didn't break the ring. That time I'd panicked. After all that time working undercover at Seattle PD and still I panicked. Because I'd been undercover with drugs and the people who sold them and that didn't scare me like the people who sold people did.
"You're thinking awfully hard," Cole said. We were within camera distance of the compound and I hadn't noticed Cole emerging from his thoughts.
Shit. "You started it, Sir," I said, trying for teasing. Or bratty. Or something.
It didn't fly. He thought I needed to be super aware. He thought the humor was disrespectful.
"Pants down, bend over."
I hesitated, my eyes going just for a second to the guard building. Because he had a whole new crop of guards who had never seen Cole discipline me, never seen me even partially undressed.
"That's two," he said, and then he grabbed me, ripped the shorts down to my knees, pulled me across his body and held me tight with one arm around my belly. The other hand began slamming into my already painful ass.
I couldn't help it. I twisted and begged. "Please, Sir! I'll be good!" It sounded idiotic. And it had no effect. He gave me thirty strikes, alternating between sides.
"Go inside and wait for me in the bathroom."
My stomach dropped. He was going to clean me out before breakfast. I took a breath. "Yes, sir." I trudged off to the cell, an entire beautiful suite, but still a cell. Security electronically opened the locks when I got there.
They'd been watching.
They'd seen.
The door automatically closed behind me. I heard the locks fall into place. My face burned with humiliation as I made my way inside, stripped off my running clothes, and knelt on the hard bathroom tile, head up, gaze down, hands open and accepting on my knees.
