by Lexi Blake
“Found what?” Damon asked.
“Apparently even when we eradicate a virus, it never really goes away. The way he explained it, we just made it so it’s hidden. Like it’s behind a barrier because we immunized whole generations and now it’s behind that wall.”
Cold fear ran up his spine because he had an idea of what Carter was talking about. “And they want the wall to come down?”
“No one immunizes for it anymore. Not since 1972. And the immunization thing….it don’t last forever it seems. Everyone is vulnerable now.”
Fuck. Smallpox. Mandatory vaccines had ended in the seventies and the medical community considered it eradicated. But a dirty company like Agro could come up with a million ways to make a buck off something like that. “You’re talking about smallpox.”
Carter nodded.
Taggart shook his head. “The CDC has enough vaccine stored to immunize everyone in the States against smallpox if we have to.”
“This isn’t the same virus you’ve read about,” Carter explained. “Agro made it stronger. Smarter. More resilient. They figured out a way to weaponize it. And only they have the vaccine. They’re going to take out large swaths of the Third World. They plan to scare the crap out of the rest of us and then charge us through the nose to save the world. Millions will die so they can make a buck. Do you understand?”
Penelope gasped a little. “He was trying to warn us?”
“He still is. It’s why I took the job. Walter Bennett isn’t the enemy. Agro is. Walt got out with all the research. He wiped the drives. He took the samples and destroyed them. He wrecked his entire career because he couldn’t stand the thought of all those people dying for corporate profits. He took an oath, you see.”
Bennett was a virologist, but he was a doctor, too. He’d had to make a Hippocratic Oath, and it looked like he took it seriously.
And Damon had another mission.
He was going to save Walter Bennett. Penelope looked up at him, her eyes shining like he was some kind of hero.
He was going to save the whole bloody world if he had to.
Chapter Nineteen
Penelope shivered while she waited for Damon to return. He’d taken Carter to an empty cabin Jesse had procured and that Chelsea was securing from the cameras’ view. After a long discussion about what was going to happen next, they had decided to call it a night.
Carter and Walter had another meeting set up. According to Carter, he was supposed to vet the reporter in Finland. If she checked out, Carter would give them the meet spot in Berlin and travel there himself. Carter was supposed to meet Bennett and Candice at the Holocaust Memorial in the heart of Berlin, and they would have gotten Bennett on the boat from there.
They wouldn’t be getting back on the boat for the last leg to Amsterdam. They would be headed straight for the British Embassy.
In two days’ time, this mission would be over and her relationship with Damon could come to an end if she chose.
She didn’t choose. Not at all.
She’d been wrong. Wrong about everything. When he’d said he would let every Dom in the room have a turn at her, he’d meant a spanking not a massive gang bang. She’d been stupid.
The trouble with translating foreign languages was sometimes the person interpreting had to make a judgment call, and all too often it involved the translator’s own cultural prejudices.
Damon spoke a different language. Oh, he used all the same words, but it was different because he had no idea how to talk about what he felt. She had to look past his words to find what he truly meant. She’d been doing it since the moment she began her relationship with him. For the most part, she’d done a good job, but when she screwed up, she really screwed up. She’d made a call and it had everything to do with her insecurities. She’d allowed them to lead her to a place where she’d shut Damon out and he’d had no idea what to do with the behavior. Now that she looked back, she realized he’d actually done his best. He’d asked her about the problem.
It was more than he would usually do. She knew Damon and he would simply walk away from situations he didn’t necessarily understand on an emotional level. He’d done his best. He’d come to her and tried to talk about it. Yes, he’d put it in sexual terms but that was Damon Knight’s language.
He’d asked her in his low, careful voice why she wouldn’t sleep with him anymore. It was tantamount to asking her why she didn’t love him now.
She’d left him alone. She’d done what everyone else in his life had done, and she had to make up for it.
Penny pulled off the sweater she was wearing and wrestled her bra off. She’d made the mistake of putting her own insecurities over his words instead of really looking at the situation and evaluating how to translate him.
He was a man who was always in control, but he’d allowed her to manipulate him. Every step along the way, he’d backed down. Now that she looked at it with a wiser eye, she could see that he’d tried to rein her in, but when she bucked against the restrictions, he’d allowed her to have her way. Yes, he’d spanked her, but he hadn’t done what she would expect him to do. He hadn’t locked her away or shut her out. He’d made love to her. He might call it sex or discipline but it was how he expressed his caring. He treated her like she was precious, like she was everything he needed to breathe, to live.
She’d ignored what he did in preference to what he said. She’d heard the words and not questioned the meaning of them. It was a fatal flaw for a translator.
Every step of the way, every dumb word that had come from his mouth led her to one thing.
Damon Knight loved her, and he had no idea how to say it.
He knew one language though. He understood the language of submission. It was a gift she could give him.
She shimmied out of her slacks, tossing them to the side, and took a long breath.
Had she ruined it? Had she driven him away?
They were in the middle of a crisis but all she could think about was getting Damon back. She’d vowed that she would walk away if she couldn’t win him by the time they got back to England. She’d promised that she would let him go, that she would salvage her pride.
She sank to her knees, allowing them to spread wide.
Fuck her pride. She wanted her man, and he was worth fighting for. No one had ever fought for Damon Knight. His parents had died and his family had fallen away. He’d found himself in situations beyond his control. His country wanted him as long as he was capable of serving it. But only one person had loved Damon enough to give up everything for him. She was his woman. She wouldn’t ever give up on him. She would fight for him with every breath she had left in her body.
The ship moved beneath her, jostling softly under her skin. She barely noticed it now, but when she was still and quiet, she could feel the way the boat plowed through the waves. Motion. She’d been in motion since the moment she met Damon, moving to this moment when she finally made her choice.
Time passed, minutes going by, but she found a certain peace in waiting for him, in staying in position for her Master.
Finally, she heard the cabin door open.
“Are you sure about this?” Her heart skipped a beat as she heard Simon’s voice trailing in. She’d expected Damon to return alone. “I don’t know that I like the idea of leaving the bugger alone.”
Her first instinct was to leap for her clothes, but she stayed in position. Her submission wasn’t determined by who walked into the cabin she shared with her Master.
“I think he’ll be fine,” Damon said. “We need for him to trust us and quite frankly, we need to be able to trust him. If what he says is true, and I think it is, we’re all in this together and we have some hard decisions to make about where this information goes.”
“All right then. I’ll get back to the dance floor. I’m apparently teaching a bunch of subs how to tango tonight.” Simon chuckled all of a sudden. “Well, I didn’t expect to see that. Hello, Pen. You’re looking quite lovely this ev
ening.”
Damon huffed, a surprised sound. “Penelope? Weston, get the bloody hell out of here. Move. Now.”
She heard the shuffling of feet and then the door closing with a hard click as Damon locked it. She kept her head down because it was up to her Master to either accept or reject her gift.
Tears pricked her eyes because she’d been so foolish. He wouldn’t share her. Never.
His loafers came into view. They were normally perfectly polished but now they sported scuff marks and a long scratch on the top of the right one from where he’d stumbled trying to chase after Baz.
Accepting him meant accepting the fact that he would likely die in the field one day. It was a part of who Damon was. She wanted to beg him to quit, to retire and settle down with her, but she couldn’t. She had to accept Damon for everything he was—hero, protector, stubborn arse. She loved everything about him.
“You should get up now, Penelope. I’ll get your clothes.” His voice sounded strained, harsh even.
She tensed, her heart clenching. Had she ruined everything? “Damon, please.”
He stepped back, his hands out as though she was a dangerous creature and he needed to put space between them. “No. I’m not going to let you use me like this.”
“Use you?” She stayed still though she wanted more than anything to look up and plead with him.
“Yes. It’s what it would be. You think you can use me for sex for the rest of the mission? I’m not interested. Get your clothes and we’ll talk. I’m going to explain to you exactly how this is going to go from now on.”
Fear gripped her for a moment. “I’m sorry, Damon. I didn’t understand.”
“But you do now.” He reached for the Scotch he’d had delivered earlier and poured himself far more than he usually did. “You understand what it’s like.”
“No, I didn’t understand you.” And it was obvious he didn’t get what she was trying to tell him.
His foot tapped impatiently against the carpet. “Penelope, you will be quiet for a moment. I say that as your superior and not your Master. We both know that was only for show anyway. Put on your bloody clothes.”
She wasn’t sure where this was heading, but she wasn’t about to go backward. And he seemed to have real trouble concentrating on anything but her breasts. “I’m perfectly comfortable this way. And if you’re just my superior and not my Master, then I think I’ll make the decisions about what types of clothes I choose to wear.”
A bitter huff came from deep in his chest, and he took a long swallow of the Scotch. “Fine. You seem determined to punish me for something. Well, you’ll find I’m made of sterner stuff than that.”
Her heart softened. He looked so lost. “Damon, I can explain.”
His jaw straightened, a stubborn look coming over his face. “I don’t want to hear it. It doesn’t matter anymore. We’re starting over again. I pushed you far too fast and into a world you don’t have a real interest in. Fine. When we get back to England, we’ll play it your way. We’ll date. I’ll take you to a nice restaurant and treat you like a lady.”
She smiled at his words. It was ludicrous, but it was sweet to hear. “I don’t think that’s going to work.”
“It will. If you prefer vanilla sex, I can handle it. I’ll give you vanilla sex and we can work the rest of it out.”
He couldn’t even look at her while he said it. Poor Damon. He had no idea what had happened because she’d broken his cardinal rule. She hadn’t been honest with him. If she’d been brave, she would have called him out the minute he said the words and they would already be through this, but she’d been a hurt coward and she’d let Damon stew in his worry for far too long. Now he had it in his head to change his entire life for her.
But he claimed he didn’t love her.
They didn’t speak the same language. Men and women rarely did. She’d accepted that, but now she knew she’d forgotten something. Languages could be learned. They just had to be practiced.
“I love you, Damon.”
He turned, nearly knocking his glass over. “What?”
“I said I love you, Damon.” He would need to hear it many, many times before he got the meaning.
His eyes tightened, focusing on her. “I don’t understand.”
She rose to her feet and walked to him, peace filling her. This was what she should have done in the first place, but she was too used to hiding behind a wall. “I know you don’t, but I’m going to teach you.”
“Damn it, Penelope. I don’t understand a bit of this and I really don’t like it.”
He was confused and he hated it, and she hated that she’d placed him there. He looked so hard on the outside, so polished and smooth like nothing could touch him, but inside he was quite tender. Inside he was still a boy praying that someone would take care of him, love him enough to stay.
She reached out and touched him, cupping his gorgeous face in her hands. “I’m so sorry, Master. I broke trust with you. You said something that hurt me, and I didn’t ask you about it. I took that hurt and put it up like a shield between us to protect myself. It was wrong of me and I hope you can forgive me.”
He shook his head as though trying to clear it. “What did I say?”
She moved closer, brushing her pelvis against him. She sighed when his hands came out to skim the curve of her hips. “You told me if I disobeyed that you would allow every Dom on board to have a go at me.”
Pure confusion was on his face now. “I explained that.”
“Yes, you explained that you meant they could swat my arse. But that wasn’t what I heard.”
His hands tightened as realization seemed to dawn. “You thought…you bloody well thought I would let them fuck you as a punishment? You thought I would let other men use you?”
She was probably in for a few bad moments because there was a righteous indignation in his tone. Perhaps he would handle it a bit better if she showed him just how sorry she was. She took a step back and found her position once more, spreading her legs as wide as she could and allowing her head to fall submissively forward. Her Master had been overstimulated. Between the torture she’d put him through and then all the terror at the church, he’d likely had enough.
“I asked you a question.” Yes, his frustration was right there in his voice.
“Yes, Master. That’s what I thought.” Her arse was already starting to ache, and he hadn’t even touched her yet. She let herself cry because it seemed to move him and because she was done with all the games. The day had been perfectly dreadful and she needed to cry, to let it all out. She loved this lifestyle. It had all gone badly when she had played it vanilla. Kink couples had to talk. They had to communicate about everything and she’d broken that rule.
His hand came down, fingers finding her chin and tipping her head up toward him. His face was tight as he looked down at her. “And you didn’t think about talking to me about it? You thought I was the type of man who would share my submissive with every bloody cock in the place and you didn’t once think about asking me why?”
Put like that it really did sound bad. “I thought about it, Master. Once. Perhaps twice.”
“Those tears aren’t going to save you. Are you mine?”
An easy question. “Yes.”
“Say it again.”
She smiled up at him. He really did like that particular word. “Yes.”
He shook his head. “No. Not that. What you said before. I want to hear it again.”
“I love you, Damon.” She hoped he could see to her soul so he would know just how much she meant those words.
“I will never share you with anyone.” His voice was rough with emotion. “Do you know what it took for me to not put a bullet in that arsehole who hit you today?”
It wouldn’t ever matter that the man was defending himself. Damon would try to protect her, defend her, avenge her if need be. “I thank you, Master, for being so indulgent.”
It had been an indulgence on his part, an
d now she could see how much he’d bent for her.
“Not again, Penelope. You will not go in the field again. There’s no reason for it. Your gorgeous self is staying on this bloody boat until I come back for you. Is that understood?”
“But I was good in the field.” Except for a sore shoulder where she’d hit the brick wall, she was perfectly fit.
“Penelope.”
Just one word and she knew she’d pushed him to his limit. “Yes, Master. I’ll stay on the boat or wherever you put me.”
It was better that way. Damon spent all his time trying to keep her safe. He needed to focus on the job at hand.
“I don’t like it when you won’t talk to me.”
Translation. You hurt me.
“I’m sorry, Master. I won’t do it again.”
“You have to tell me what you feel. It’s important to D/s.”
Translation. I need honesty to feel close to you.
“I promise. I’ll be honest. Even when I’m hurt. Especially when I’m hurt because I don’t think you ever mean to hurt me.”
“I do mean to hurt your arse, Penelope.”
Translation. I’m horny, but I’ll make you beg before you get my cock. Yes, she was learning Damon’s language quite nicely.
“I can handle it, Master.” Her heart clenched a little at the smile that broke over his face.
“On the bed. All fours. I’m not going easy on you because you decided to cry prettily and apologize.”
She scrambled to obey. That needed no translation, though she knew some of it was bluster. He’d never harmed her. His version of torture brought about the sweetest pleasures she’d ever known.
“I want you to understand something. After this is over, I’m not letting you go. You’re mine, damn it, and it’s going to stay that way. You’re going to keep that collar on forever. And if you ever take it off, you won’t bloody well appreciate the spanking I give you. I swear every smack will be from my hand and when I get tired, I’ll switch to the flogger.” His hand came out, cupping her arse. “Who does this belong to?”
“It’s yours, Master. It’s all yours.” Everything she had or was or had been belonged to him. Everything she would be was his. For as long as she lived.