Page 11 of Coach's Pet

The rope around my neck loosens, and I smile. “Seriously, now, Pebble, help me out here.” The voice comes out a lot harsher, and I frown.

“Sleep.” I tremble as the water shuts off, and my eyes open momentarily to see the man, whose name I still don’t know, standing in front of me. If he thinks I’m going to call him Master, he’s sorely mistaken. Laying my head against his chest is the only thing I can do as he picks me up and carries me to the softest bed I’ve ever felt.

“Dammit, wake up.” He shakes me, but the blackness tries to take me again.

The smell of food has me opening my eyes. “There you are.”

I jerk away from him, scared and uncertain of what he wants from me.

“Easy. I’m not going to hurt you.” My eyes focus on him, and I try to discern if that’s true or not. Everything rushes back to me, and his words don’t match his actions.

“I don’t trust that.” He laughs and shows me the tray of food.

“Good. I would have been disappointed if you were that naive.” The aroma of food hits my nose, and I groan as he sits the tray beside me.

“I’ve let you have a bath, and now I’m going to feed you. Once you are full, then we will talk.”

“What’s there to talk about you? You kidnapped me, left me to die, and for some odd reason, you are nursing me back to health. It must be so you can feel good about yourself.” Well, my filter sure has left the building.

Anger flashes through his eyes, reminding me of my stepsister Lucinda when I’d get in her way. He doesn’t strike me or argue, just smiles. That calm, collected grin makes me uneasy.

“Well, I guess that makes you the pundit of the situation.”

He’s intelligent. I’ll give him that. “Well, yeah, I’m the expert here. It’s not like you got kidnapped and tortured.” I reach for the French toast and chew without thinking. The buttery sweetness fills my mouth, and the moan that leaves my lips is obscene.

The man watches me eat and has a pleased look on his face. True to his word, as soon as I’m done with the food, he takes away the tray and comes back.

I’m grateful he left the coffee, but yuck, it’s pure black with no sweetener. When he sits down, he crosses his arms over his chest. “Where are you hiding all the animal bodies that you’ve killed for your designs?”

Coffee spews from my mouth at his question. “What?” I sit the mug down and blink at him. “I don’t use animals in my designs. Only wool, and that’s because my alpacas and sheep need shearing once a year.”

Putting my hands in my lap, I try to size him up. What exactly is he trying to do here? “Couldn’t you have made an appointment with my secretary, and we could’ve talked this through? I would have been happy to show you my farm, warehouse, the line, everything.”

“Bullshit. I saw the zebra-inspired line you did.” He clenches his fists. “And the same year, five zebras were killed.”

Is this an activist issue?

“I sent money to the organization to get the rest of the zebras to safety, and everything from that line except five percent went toward a wildlife charity.”

He stares at me for a long time. I’m almost worried he won’t believe me. My heart is racing, and I can barely stand the silence. “If you are with WWF or PETA, every one of my inspections has come back as animal-friendly. That’s why my label is allowed to boast cruelty-free.” I thought everyone knew this.

“Is…is this really why you…?” The words die in my throat as he reaches out and wraps his fingers around my neck.

Seven

Putrid hate runsthrough my chest at her lies. Clearly, she’s not ready to tell me the truth. It’s a shame because I want to hear it. Things aren’t adding up, but there’s no fucking way she’s telling me everything. Yet, when she speaks, it’s with such voracity I almost believe her.

We scrutinize each other as I squeeze her throat. “I’m truly trying to give you a chance here, but it seems like it’s going to have to be the hard way.”

Crucinda’s hands come up to my arm and try to get me to let go. I refuse to do so. A slight bit of pressure on her tender flesh, and she gags.

“Get up.”

The fire in her eyes excites me. Fuck, I hope she’s going to show me something other than her docile facade.

She slaps me. “No. I’m telling you…” I pounce on her. I didn’t expect her to hit me, and the way she looks at me, guilty and with shock, tells me she didn’t mean to. As I wrestle her to her back, her eyes get big with fear.

“Don’t,” she whispers, hardly able to breathe by the way she is gasping for air.

---