Page 114 of Deep Cover

When I'd been making my way through San Francisco sex shops and dungeons, searching for Cole after I left him the first time, I'd picked up information as I went. I'd talked to people as well as searched for him, I'd showed his photo, instantly recognizable as the billionaire CEO of St. Martin Pharma.

But I'd also played. I'd also learned. I'd had an experience that reduced me to tears in the arms of a stranger, when neither strangers nor tears were normal in my life.

And I'd Googled, searched, read and learned. About the types of alternative sexualities, about the scene, as some people called it, about masochism and sadism and about domestic discipline, something as foreign to me as anything I could not quite imagine.

One of the things I couldn't make sense of was domestic discipline. The idea of consigning my life to my husband's – or wife's, whoever's – will was insane. To say yes all the time to whoever it was, a continuation of what I had with Cole, something that wouldn't end. To act as if I couldn't make my own decisions.

Maybe I couldn't. But I'd rather find out by trying. It wasn't anything I wanted to explore.

When I was with Mark, there were times he'd be hard in bed, hard, ruthless, fucking me with no concern about whatever position I was in or whether I was comeing, whether I needed it faster or slower or –

Those times were rare. The further I drifted from him the more rare they felt. When he'd pull my hands above my head and pin them to the mattress, or when he'd start tearing my clothes off in the living room and carry me, impaled on his cock, into the bedroom to hold me down on the bed and shove himself into me -Those were the times when I came and came and came, orgasms rolling through me like waves of heat and electricity.

Most of the time Mark was respectful and loving.

So all right, then. I had learned something about myself. I like it rough. I like an element of danger. Not a huge surprise, given what I'd chosen to do with my life.

But Cole St. Martin - He made danger sound like an understatement. Cole was actual danger. Cole had so much money he had to be safe from anyone who might try and hold him accountable for something he'd done to someone.

He was rich enough for a compound in the desert where no one knew I was kept. He was rich enough to pay for my father's care, without batting an eye, making me more indebted to him. He was rich enough –

To make someone disappear.

Someone like Samuels, maybe? I eyed him carefully. Moments earlier, all I'd been thinking was that he was scaring me… and that a small corner of me that I wouldn't ever admit to found it exciting.

Suddenly that had changed. Suddenly I understood the amount of power he held over me.

Life and death, for one. He had the only access to the rainforest opiate cure. No one else had it. Placebo or not, it was changing my life and only Cole St. Martin could get it for me.

He had bought me from a Seattle police officer who had since vanished.

He had bought me and for now, there was little I could do about it. I could say he didn't own my ass. That didn't make it true. I was here. I had nowhere else to go. I was reliant on him for my father's wellbeing and my mother's easier mind about having care for my father, for my own recovery and resumption of my interrupted life.

He'd bought me.

I felt sick.

My eyes met his.

"It's my job," I said, as if all that hadn't just gone through my mind. "It's my job and my life, it's the thing I did and the thing I still want to do. How could I not?" I raised my hands, seeing his eyes flash that I'd do such a thing without permission while he was still holding my chin, forcing my head up. "Look at me! How could I not want to go after the people who are responsible for spreading that shit? To children," I snarled, and spit, just a little, not meaning to but the fury inside me was erupting. "To little kids. Kids in middle school. It's spreading," I said, and started to go on but he put one finger over my mouth.

"And you're the only one who can stop it?" He sounded eerily like Tad.

Of course not. "No, sir. But it's my fight. You – " Have to understand that, you're not stupid – "know I'm more than qualified for it." It came out self aware and more than a little snide and I saw just the corner of his mouth turn up.

He let go of my chin and stepped back. "Who did you speak with?"

I told him about Tad whose name was actually Thomas and who knew more about me than my own lieutenant. I started to tell him more and he reached out and slapped me, not that hard, just enough to get my attention.

"Answer the questions I ask. Nothing more."

So I wouldn't be defending myself, then.

"What did he tell you?"

"About the rate of spread of fentanyl and oxy and meth in neighborhoods I've worked in." He gestured at me to keep going. "He told me the Brotherhood is still riding in our area and there's another gang moving in. They're not an affiliated group and there's been shootings. Children have died in those shootings because those assholes – "

"No," he said quietly.

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