Page 11 of Deep Cover

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Cole St. Martin. He looked exactly like a billionaire should. Tall and imposing and impossibly self-confident, he looked like Loki from The Avengers but with more muscle.

He greeted us at the door, wearing jeans with a thick, well broken-in leather belt, a white linen button up. Bare feet. He accepted my bag from the driver and carried it himself.

The instant I'd been taken through the door the blindfold had been removed. I'd seen Cole come down the wide, curved staircase and shuddered with the force of something I couldn't explain.

His hands were long-fingered and strong. His voice brooked no argument. He had the situation, whatever it was, totally under control and I had yet to say a word.

Something about him made me uncertain I could.

"Annie Knox." It wasn't quite a question but he did wait for a response. How many blindfolded and handcuffed women did he expect to take delivery of in a single day?

"Will you join me for a light lunch? Or are you feeling sick?"

I was starting to shake, but the fentanyl hadn't robbed my appetite yet. "I'd like something to eat," I admitted. "Thank you." Unconsciously, I rubbed my wrists where the cuffs had been.

"Thank you, sir," he said.

Confused, I looked up, then looked around. Had I mistaken the man the driver had meant? Sir? And then I understood because he was watching me.

Sir?

I met his gaze, cool brown eyes appraising me. Abruptly he nodded to himself and turned into the house. "Follow me."

Simple but lavish, every part of the house, the formal and informal living rooms, the formal and informal dining rooms, the buffet lunch laid out in the sunny kitchen, and beside the place set for me, a handful of capsules and a glass of water.

"Go ahead and read it. I have to see to the salmon," he said, and rolled up the sleeves of the button-up, all the way to mid-biceps. He pulled on a stark white apron and busied himself across the expanse of kitchen while I read about the experimental, non FDA-approved, rainforest-based drug that could cut through opiate addiction safely and completely. ]The capsules bore the mark of the drug, a stylized "SM" in a circle, for St. Martin, I guessed. There were side effects, very few and infrequent, including stomach upset, fever, headache, sleeplessness. If that was it, I'd take it. This was the way to get my job back.

This was the way to get my life back.

Over lunch he read peer review journals to me, which could have put me to sleep but I spent the time watching his face, the square jaw, the stubble gracing it, the sensual, full lips, the brown eyes that looked up to find mine.

"If you're in agreement, then," he said as I ate the last bite of salmon. "Swallow the pills."

I took them without question. Nothing I had ever done rendered me high enough on anyone's radar to do something this elaborate just to hurt me.

I stood then, at his bidding, and he took my hand, his strong and dry. Holding mine firmly, he led me up the stairs and into a bedroom holding only a bed, a four poster that dominated the small and barren room.

If sex was what I had to pay, there were worse things. He was beautiful.

He'd explained very little during our lunch, but now, taking me by the shoulders, he stood me in front of him. "Your body is yours to take or give by your own consent," he said, his voice calm, a little formal. "But your wellbeing has been placed into my hands and the person who did so has been paid a handsome fee."

My attention had strayed but now my eyes snapped back to his. "What?"

"Your Mr. Samuels," Cole St. Martin said. "He is hoping for the best for you, and doing what he can to help you. He has been compensated for finding you for me."

My breath stopped coming and his words stopped making sense. I heard snatches of things - that I wouldn't be permanently harmed, that I might find I liked it, that I could sleep with him or not, or change my mind about either whenever I chose, that the cure was real and the cure worked, and after all those articles I didn't doubt that.

It was everything else I was starting to doubt. Because Dave Samuels had sold me?

And Cole St. Martin was telling me I was his for the duration.

And I hadn't yet even tried to drop him to the floor or run or even scoped out the room properly.

There was something compelling about his strength. His looks.

The way he slid his belt out of the loops of his jeans and snapped it through the air so it made a sharp sound.

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