Page 143 of Deep Cover

Not bored enough that Cole's smile wasn't absolutely terrifying.

"You see," he said slowly, raking his gaze up and down my body and making it feel like I was wearing nothing - not my running tights, jog bra, t-shirt, sweatshirt. "It's more than just the orgy I told you about."

Of course it is. But I felt anything but flippant.

"It's pretty much anything goes."

I was startled out of common sense. "What does that mean?" I squeaked. There were times having been deep cover stood me in good stead and then there were times like this when I couldn't think of anything in the world that would work for preparing.

"It means," he said, and now he dragged a finger from my forehead to the tip of my nose, then down to my chest. Useless, it was squashed into a jog bra the athletic company called a "major masher." His hand lingered for a minute, as if confused, then he pulled back. "That I've been leaving you alone because I want you to feel every. Single. Thing. And it means that Vincent will be there and while I can stop him from taking my property out of the house, I cannot stop him from touching you this time."

I was on my feet before I managed to stop myself and Cole, for his part, stepped back rather than trying to stop me. This was where gangbangers were better than crazy rich guys – you knew what they were going to do. If Jesse had told me to sit and listen and I'd jumped up and paced, he'd have corrected my behavior without bothering to name it as such.

Cole, though - he stepped back. And I never knew what was a test with him and what wasn't.

"I can't – " I started, then stopped, then tried again. "I mean, I'm – " afraid of him, but fucked if I'm going to say that. My gaze went back up and my eyes locked with Cole's. "Please, sir."

The smile that slowly crept across his face was cold and rock hard with certainty. He wasn't going to do anything about this. He wouldn't let Vincent take me anywhere out of the house because he considered me unready.

But he was going to let that dead-eyed man do what he wanted to me during a party that was part orgy, something I thought had gone away with swingers in the seventies. Before I was born, for fuck's sake. Without being told I took the chair again, staring at Cole.

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