by Sophia Reed
But we did. We ended up there before midnight with James kissing his way down my body because apparently when he was dating a girl he didn't mind looking at all. Looking. Licking. Either one. He was very good at it.
He was very good at all of it. It was weird and delightful and I went to sleep happy that night, both at the date and the way it ended, and the fact that it had ended and I was sleeping alone.
The next morning I called Emily and thanked her.
9
Annie
Everything was new. Everything was unrelated to my life in Seattle or my life with St. Martin. I could be a totally new Annie if I wanted.
I didn't want to. I wanted to be Annie who was excited about having an everyday life that was nothing more than an everyday life.
Until the day James came in too excited to not talk about his latest assignment. He was already working in the field, a job with the DA's office in criminal matters. He was mostly a gopher, which had the advantage of teaching him everything, but because it wasn't an internship, he was actually getting paid. That made him feel more in the loop than a student and the day he came in he was bursting with information.
"There's a sex ring in Vegas," he said, looking like a ten year old saying My dad has these magazines under his bed!
"What else is new?" Brooke asked. She was blond and beautiful and cool as her name. She looked like a model, not a potential paralegal. "Have you walked through the streets right off The Strip?"
James wasn't interested in being silenced. "Not that," he said. "And not legal prostitution only on The Strip."
Because prostitution was legal in Nevada outside the two main metro area counties and the Carson City area, because it was the state capital. Drive over the line of those counties on any of the few major highways that crisscrossed the state and the instant you went rural there was a bunny ranch.
It was a weird place.
"Are you talking about trafficking?" one of the guys asked.
I was grateful for the question. Obviously it wasn't a topic that would be easily dropped but my heart was in my throat and hammering too hard for me to act cool if I asked. Not just because James and I had dated however briefly. But because I thought my interest would shine like a spotlight. I hated the idea of sex trafficking though I had no doubt some of it went right through the middle of Vegas. It's too big and glittery a city to not have runaways who can fall into the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong person. Hell, St. Martin and his billionaire sex kitten dinner parties raised money to fight it.
I'd gotten auctioned off to Vincent in one such auction and that's how all that started. I wrenched my mind back online.
"No. This is weirder. It's a group of rich ass men –"
"It's what?" Jenna asked. She liked precise definitions.
I almost said "Kinky billionaires." But I didn't want to tip my hand.
And I was hoping I was wrong.
"They're like millionaires or something," James said.
I bit down hard on my lip.
"They get together and they – " he paused with the word fuck clearly lined up to exit but thought the better of it. "They have like orgies and stuff."
And now he sounded ten again.
"Wait, what?" I asked. Because how many of these things could there be?
He spat out details then, about a bunch of rich guys who met in different houses around the valley and hired hookers – "Prostitutes," Jenna corrected; she was going to make someone a truly irritating wife someday – and had sex auctions and everything.
Shit.
"If they're all consenting, who the hell cares?" I asked. "Is there money changing hands for services or are they all in it for the fun?"
That won me a curious look from Julie, who seemed rather offended by the whole thing. I ignored it.
"It's not all consenting," James said, sitting back, satisfied. "Some of the girls are being sold."
"Then it is trafficking," someone said.
"No, but it's illegal. They're not selling them outside their own group."
There was silence for a moment, then two people said at the same time, "That doesn't make any sense."
Tell me about it, I thought. And then, Oh, Cole, damn it.
It took very little work to get the details out of James, all that he had. Which were all of them. When the raid was going to take place (in about a week). And why (because it's illegal to sell people, of course, weren't you listening, Brooke?). And because someone had gotten inside and knew where they were meeting next.
Some crazy compound out in the middle of the fucking southern Nevada desert, all rural and nowhere and super high tech anyway. Amazing, right?
Damn it, Cole.
I had a number for him but he didn't pick up. Of course he didn't. He was the billionaire CEO of an international pharma company. But I hadn't picked up his calls, so he wasn't going to pick up mine.
Because the billionaire CEO of the big pharma company was apparently twelve.
I didn't know how to get there. It wasn't like I could get a cab and tell it to take me to his house. I'd been taken there in a variety of ways, none of them convenient.
I'd been taken there blindfolded in a black SUV.
I'd been taken out of there blindfolded in a black SUV, unaware because I'd been drugged unconscious.
I'd been taken there from Seattle by helicopter because Kie wanted me to get there fast so I could watch her decide whether or not to kill St. Martin. Or me. Or both of us.
I'd run there once from Vegas itself.
Looked like I was going to have to do that again. It made me feel silly. But I could drive around the desert for some time without finding him. Those people not from Nevada have no idea how vast the state is and how much of it is unpopulated, beautiful and barren. I could run the distance in a couple hours and find the compound. I couldn't drive there or I'd have rented a car. But the area was completely rural, undeveloped and beautiful. I loved running there. I couldn't bear to be the person driving over the native plants. And maybe a tiny bit of me was stalling on getting there and asking in person, What the fuck, Cole?
What the fuck, Cole.
Sir.
10
Cole
There are two ways to deal with failure.
Ignore it. Or address it.
I'd chosen to address it.
There's an etiquette, a rule of behavior, for kinky groups as much as there is in any other facet of society and I'd screwed up with the new dinner party club. Probably not enough that they'd cut me out. Even if they did, there were more than enough millionaires in southern Nevada and undoubtedly with strange tastes and interesting pastimes, that I could form a new group if I did get booted.
The millionaires, by virtue of only being millionaires, would be more than delighted to party with a billionaire. The sadists and Doms and owners and Masters would be delighted to wine, dine and share their pets. Their slaves and subs and insignificant others.
That didn't mean I didn't want to make amends for my behavior. It wasn't my place to punish someone else's sub.
So we were planning a dinner party. We were. Because through a stroke of genus or desperation, not wanting to do it alone, not wanting to attend it alone, and thinking it would be nice to have someone there who could at least have some say in my deportment if the anger surged, I thought of Chloe.
Her divorce from Claude had already gone through. Nevada is the divorce capital of the U.S. - all those movie stars in the forties and fifties throwing their rings in the Truckee River outside the courthouse in Reno. That was northern Nevada. For whatever reason, in southern Nevada we were more known for weddings.
But the process was swift. It should have dragged out even in a community property, no fault divorce state but when you're worth several billion dollars as a mega well known plastic surgeon and your severance package for your wife is so generous it all but screams remorse, the court doesn't argue for long.
Plus, he could afford
to buy a judge or two.
Chloe had kept the house. She'd kept me too, as much as either of them had kept friendships.
I was willing to bet she'd kept the lifestyle, too. It was Claude she didn't want to keep and no one was surprised by her actions. On first meeting Claude presented as sweet, gentle, polite. Get under his thumb though, for a play session or more likely because he made arrangements with another owner, and there was another Claude. Dark. Dangerous. Not at all pleasant.
Annie had run from him, stolen his Bugatti and left it unlocked and the keys in the ignition and called me. She'd pretty much left Chloe the same way: Unlocked and ready to go.
I thought Chloe, having chosen to run to something rather than away from her home, might like an invite back into the society she'd enjoyed. I'd enjoy her company too, since Claude had never shared her directly like that.
It sounded like a good arrangement to me. It sounded good to her as well. So we'd been putting our heads together and a few other things were getting closer to getting together. I figured the night of the party she'd spend the night. Possibly whether she liked it or not. She was coming as my guest. I might make sure I enjoyed the ride.
The caterers were arranged for the evening. The usual maid service would do a two-day intensive on the house ahead of time. Security was being trebled by both my forces and those of the other billionaires. We needed to protect everyone coming against bribery, blackmail, kidnap and Kie.
"What haven't we figured out?" Chloe asked, stretching. She was a beautiful woman, kind of fairy-like in how slight she was. I was always surprised by her height. She was taller than I expected because she was so diffuse, so – ghost-like.
Not today. She'd changed over the past few months since she threw out Claude but kept a significant portion of his money. And his house. And sold the cars that had been left to her to start a charity for abused women and children. She was vibrant and somehow more colorful and when she stood up I anticipated her height.
I was also very much anticipating putting her on her knees after the guests had gone home – probably after the guests had gone home – and turning her skin from bright to bright red.
"Flowers," I said, more to say something than because I cared if there were peonies at the party.
Chloe stood. "I have to get going. There's an inspection for the foster system today. I'm going to go over the house for the ten millionth time and make sure there's no evidence of Claude's and my hobbies." She winked.
"There can't be," I said. "You've brought them all over here." Claude had truly amassed a shocking amount of fetish wear.
"Well begun is half done," she said breezily, then, "No, wait. Not that. How about, if it's worth doing, it's worth doing right."
I smiled.
Waited.
She shrugged and admitted it. "If it's worth doing, it's worth doing repeatedly and obsessively to make sure it's right."
I laughed. "Go. Be obsessive and repeated."
She leaned over and kissed me, aiming for my cheek. I turned my head and she caught my mouth. For a second we stared, then she connected. A good kiss that made me ache to take her now.
Patience. It would be more fun after the party. Or at the party. During the party, in front of everyone.
Wait and see.
11
Annie
The day of the party I had an exam in one of my classes. It was a Friday and I wasn't going to miss class or make up the exam. I'd left multiple messages for Cole. Either he'd changed his number or he didn't give a fuck about it or he had the message and no intention of letting me know so I could stop calling.
Whatever. I'd done what I could. There'd been no sign of Kie, at least from my side, a thought that instantly plugged itself into my brain and wouldn't let go. What if? What if Kie had gone out there, again, and what if all of St. Martin's vaunted security failed – again – and — ?
And I still had an exam and had made no attempt to take it earlier or later. I'd just have to wait until I was through before heading out.
I could have asked Julie or Jenna for a ride, but to be honest, I kind of wanted the time to go slow. Plus they'd have only gotten me to the edge of the city. That's where I knew to take off from, the edge of a kind of distribution part of the city.
It would be fine. You don't grow up to be a big bad billionaire bad guy without learning to stand on your own two feet. And whatever James thought about the excitement and definiteness of the event, these were very rich men who were going to be "busted." They could get themselves out of trouble with the wave of a checkbook.
So maybe I shouldn't go.
But that was wishful thinking. Sitting in class wearing running clothes, waiting impatiently for the pages to become available to fill out on my laptop and wondering what to do with it after the exam – go all the way home to drop it off first? – I knew I was stalling.
I'd liked the idea of Cole St. Martin not being a part of my life for a while. When I lit out of college after a few scant semesters the first time and went on with Seattle PD I had full family support. Well, as close to that as I was ever going to get from my three sisters who were my flip side – girly, giggly, just itching to start dropping children and marrying their daddies. I had my parents. I had a place to live. In short order I went from boyfriend to fiancé. I'd stood on my own two feet, but I had a lot of support.
From that I went to PD. They might not have been crazy about the undercover chick in narc but they had my back. They might not want to play poker with me but they liked how I skewed the stats on arrests and in our favor. I had a place there. And I had the money for my own place even if I wasn't rich. If it hadn't been for Mark, I still could've made it.
But after the fentanyl? After addiction and being with St. Martin, in his care for over a year, care that included kneeling naked and saying Yes, Sir and depending on him for everything? I wanted to know I could go it on my own with the money I'd made from PD and the money I'd stolen from drugs.
The fact of his money in the bank as back up? It was a nice cushion.
That's all I wanted it to be. Not my full support. I wanted to work through the semesters if I needed to because I needed to.
I started taking the test and after going over all my answers twice when still no one else was finished, I submitted it, waited until the TA motioned that it had been received, folded everything off and went back to my apartment. I had time.
I had more time during the run. Time to realize that seeing St. Martin again was a daunting thing. I didn't know if he could get in my head. I didn't know if the events with Chloe and Claude would come screaming back like nightmares or flashbacks.
I didn't know if I'd run to him or from him. Beg him to take me into the pain room or slug him in the stomach.
Once I'd made sure he didn't get arrested.
The sooner I finished school and got myself started at the DEA, the better. I needed structure and stability.
I did not need Cole St. Martin.
The day was beautiful. Perfect weather for running except there was an autumn wind blowing. Of course. There's always a wind in the desert. I ran easily at a measured pace, the way I couldn't run with St. Martin because he was a head taller than me and naturally, as a sadist, he enjoyed pushing me. Every few miles on this run I tried him again, leaving voicemails. I sent texts that became more sharp in tone.
And finally I gave up on that and just ran.
Until I reached his house and realized my dual natures were warring with each other. I'd been law enforcement too long to just turn my back on it. They were wrong in this case and either their information came from a conservative, judgmental source or it came from somebody with an axe to grind. The things that went on during those dinners were –
I stopped, panting, well out of range of the cameras that continually scanned the perimeter. The dinner parties were not to my taste. I might someday have to admit I had my own kink. That I was a submissive. It wasn't a part of me I was anxious to explor
e. If it would go back to sleep and let me just live my life and pursue my career, I'd be grateful. I didn't want sex on my mind 24/7. A bitter little thought flitted through my mind: At least when there'd been nobody but Mark in my life I hadn't had that problem.
Cole St. Martin awakened something in me. He hadn't closed down the part that was a cop. The police on this raid were doing exactly what they were meant to do with the information they had. If they truly thought, as James said, that there was sex trafficking going on, then of course they had to do something. That they were acting against the elite rich was impressive.
I was there because St. Martin had gotten under my skin. Because he wasn't doing what they thought he was doing. Because at least the members of the group he got together with did something about sex trafficking. Their sick games might not be to my taste. I apparently liked pain and that bothered me enough. Happily I didn't have to add exhibitionism to the list. But they raised money to fight trafficking.
And the consent? It's a slippery slope. But no one I'd ever seen had been sold in reality.
That, considering I had been. The cop who was my handler had sold me to St. Martin. Who at least in the beginning seemed to think he owned me.
I thought somewhere underneath all the posturing and weirdness of sexual sadism he knew that. He was also used to saying jump and having his submissives ask how high. The idea that he'd bought me? He liked that and as long as I bought in to it.
I had. But I'd stopped. Beat the addiction, tried to live with his anger and rage after my kidnaping. And now removed myself to live my own life.
Then why are you standing ass deep in sagebrush and watching his house?
Because apparently I could do all those things and figure out all the connections and still be an idiot.
I'd taken my test and not left until I was finished. I'd gone by the house and dropped off my laptop. St. Martin's dinner parties started at six with less booze than most people would expect and more showing off of flesh than most dinner parties would feature. The women brought by the guests were paraded and humiliated, forced to strip, to participate in sexual games and liaisons, forced to –