AllFreeNovel
Share Us
41
Annie
After three days in the hospital, I was discharged in Cole's care.
That seemed strange to me. Despite going undercover without being attached to an actual law enforcement entity, I wasn't charged with anything. There had been actual police on the scene, and they'd been witness to what I'd done to Bevington, but either Cole's money or whatever information was working its way down to local level kept me from going anywhere other than to make a statement. I wasn't printed. I wasn't arrested.
I was still, in their opinion, Erin Trace. That was fine with me. When I wasn't arrested, when I didn't have to prove who I was, I stopped having to think about whether to get myself out through professional courtesy: Their understanding that what I'd done was illegal, but necessary.
The first week, as November moved toward Thanksgiving, was quiet. I went for a run with Cole and discovered my healing ass wasn't up to that kind of friction from clothing and sweat from exertion. Cole stripped off his t-shirt and put it on me, covering me down to midthigh, then stripped off my shorts so the cloth would stop rubbing. He carried me back to the compound and ran a very tepid shower, helping me gentle away the salt from the sweat.
After that we took walks in the morning until the brand was healed enough I could run again. That was determined by the lifestyle savvy medics he called who came by daily to check the healing. I kept waiting for Cole to make it into a scene, to order me up on my hands and knees, naked from the waist down, for him to ask them to check my temperature and the thermometer to slide in all cold and foreign where I didn't want it and couldn't fight him.
He didn't. I knew always when the medic was expected. I was allowed to see him alone. I wore tights Cole had cut the ass cheek out of, and was covered by a sheet before and after the medic took a look. He was young and he blushed more than I did, but he answered my questions, listened to Cole talk about what he was using for the bruising, the blistering, the pain, the scarring. He suggested treatments I could try after it healed to reduce scarring even more. He asked every time about other problems but never insisted on checking out anything else except my shoulder.
It was healing even better than the brand. Physically, I was doing great.
"Another clean bill of health," Cole said, entering as the doctor left.
I nodded and pulled the sheet up to my waist. We hadn't played in the month since I'd been back under Cole's roof and with every day that went by the things we had done together seemed more impossible to believe.
"Should I run you a shower?"
I sat up, favoring one side, the sheet wrapped around me despite the fact that, sitting up, I was completely clothed. I reached out to Cole and held his hand, bridging the gap between us but not closing it.
"You've done so much for me. I'm fine, Sir. Honest." It was the first time I'd called him Sir since returning, because I'd wanted to stay in the world of undercover. I'd been kind of pretending I was still a cop. It felt better.
Less vulnerable.
Today I could see something in Cole's eyes that said just maybe my time was coming to an end. I was going to have to make a decision about what I wanted and if I didn't, he'd do it for me.
I'd go back to my apartment, I thought. I'd visit Cole regularly and he could visit me. We'd date, figure out what our relationship was. Everything could be –
That was stupid. We weren't the dating kind. I knew what our relationship was and he was being very patient waiting for it to come back.
It was just taking so long. I hadn't been raped. All the undercover with all the weird and dangerous people I was around and still I hadn't been raped.
I'd been assaulted in the shower room. I'd been stripped and punished and branded. I'd nearly been raped by a man old enough to be my great grandfather. I'd been seen by guards, sexually assaulted. I'd been hurt worse than I had ever imagined.
It had taken its toll.
I looked up to meet Cole's eyes, to beg him for a few more days, or a week, a month at most I just had to pull myself together and understand this was over and then maybe –
But he had already turned away.
