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I bit my lip. "I agree with my father in that regard. I have to make a decision. I'd hoped it could wait until..." I stopped. Because I had no idea until what.
Cole waited. He waited and listened more honestly than Danny.
"I hoped there'd be a nice, definitive moment when everything made sense. When I was pretty sure the fet was behind me. When I knew what I wanted to do and where I wanted to live and work and whether or not I wanted to be with Mark."
He just raised those peaked and devilish eyebrows.
"I don't know yet. But I can't keep stringing him along. And if every time I go hom – back to the apartment - it feels wrong and weird and I feel out of place, then I think that's my answer."
Cole nodded, not offering any thoughts. "When will you want to go and talk to him?"
Abruptly I wanted to shout at him, demand he show some emotion. Didn't he care? Where was the fiery, emotional, or cold and controlling Master?
"I don't know. I don't know anything."
And then Cole did move. The triangular smile flashed, so he looked like Loki again, prowling through an Avengers movie. He crossed the distance between the doorway and where I stood beside the phone.
"Where do you want to be?" he asked.
He was standing too close. I could feel his heat. I could feel him.
"I don't know." The stubborn side of me.
"You have to know. You have to decide."
"I don't know."
Pause. A stillness that was a palpable threat. "Do you want to be here?"
"I don't know."
He moved fast and caught my chin in his hand, squeezing it even as he raised my head. "Do you want to be here?"
"Yes!"
His eyes narrowed. The smile remained, completely chilling now. "Then you have to kneel on your own. You have to ask to return and commit to submission. If you want to stay here, you're going to be mine. Otherwise..."
"Otherwise?" I swallowed hard, suddenly feeling adrift.
Abruptly he let go of me. "Otherwise, you can stay until you are ready for school and then I'll loan you whatever you need to get settled wherever you're going."
He didn't look at me again as he stalked to the door. But he stopped in the doorway and said, "But if you're going to stay, you need to come to me in the next hour, and submit."
9
Cole
It had to be up to her.
In the meantime, I spent the hour creatively.
"Jason."
He was in my office seconds later. "Boss."
"Where are Kie's men?"
Jason gave me a long look. He'd grown considerably since he'd smirked rather than helped Annie when Kie hurt her. He'd been taken out by sympathetic and understanding EMTs – anyone and anything can be bribed – patched up and sent back. Somewhere along the line he'd come to understand his place in the scheme of things and in turn, become my first in command.
