Page 150 of Deep Cover

31

Annie

It felt like I'd been set on fire.

One minute I'd been in the room, horrified at what was happening. Cole stripping me and presenting me was worse, even, than the auction. Because we knew each other so much better now. And because it was so much more intimate. His fingers must still smell like me.

Then he stepped away from me and in the second that I crumbled there, the dissociation settled in as hard as it ever had.

So one minute I was there and fighting and lost and scared, and the next minute I just wasn't. There was no me there. Even as I began to scream, as the delayed heat and then horrible pain began to eat into me, I couldn't convince myself anything I was going through was real.

I started to scream. Or maybe I'd been screaming. Over the sound of it I could hear Cole bellowing at someone to get the fuck out of his way, and someone else to get milk.

Then my brain was buzzing too hard and the fear ratcheting too intense to pay attention. I heard him tell everyone to get out and again demand the milk.

Which came to him fast from somebody I never identified.

"Now everybody. Get. Out." He roared it. And they did it. Even Chloe went.

He didn't waste time talking about it. He soaked a napkin and held it up to press against me, tight between my legs. When instead of panicking or squirming away from him I pressed my crotch harder into his hands, he squeezed the milk into me.

It took no longer than the casein had taken to start working. The active ingredient that makes jalapenos hot can be isolated and frequently is by people who get hurt doing stupid things like How hot a pepper can you eat/drink/smoke/do something asinine and stupid with?

When the pain finally went out, like a burn when the ice takes hold, I was sweating horribly and trembling with the adrenalin from the event. Cole pulled me into his arms, then held me off just far enough to pull his suit jacket off and wrap me in it. It was loads too big and swam around me, making me feel good that he'd wrapped me in it.

And not gone away.

He told me he was going to go after Kie and demand the right to kill her.

I told him not to be stupid. "That's not even a thing."

He didn't censor me or tell me thirty or any other number.

I told him I was going to kill Kie as soon as I could actually stand again.

He told me not to be stupid. "You have the ability to kill her. And that would be a waste of what you are."

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