9. Drake
CHAPTER 9
Drake
Mimosa has been the perfect doll for the past few days, ever since I dunked her under the bath water a few times, and it’s been frustrating.
Infuriating.
I want a reason to hurt her again.
A part of me remembers that I don’t need a reason to hurt her. She’s mine, and I can do whatever I want with her. But I’m aware that she might have a breaking point, and if I end up with someone like Hunter’s Stef, it’s game over.
Ugh. I don’t understand how he can be so far gone over a submissive little bitch, but my friends seem to have horrible taste in women.
The only frustrating thing is that Mimosa genuinely can’t seem to walk, and crawling isn’t very efficient. It’s harder for her to get my drinks and serve me like she should be when she’s limping so hard.
“Mimi,” I finally say when she staggers across the living room a day later. “Sit down on the ottoman.”
Her expression doesn’t change at all, even though I know she must be in pain as she slowly makes her way to the ottoman and sits down. The only concession to her injuries is how she keeps her feet angled away from the floor.
“Lift your feet,” I order her.
She obeys in that same robotic way she’s been doing everything, and I hiss as I see the bottoms of her feet. Fuck. I know I’ve been pushing her, but I didn’t expect her feet to be this red, this inflamed.
Maybe even infected.
I can’t take her to the doctor, which means I’m left with only Hunter.
I have to make it look like I at least tried before I call him, though.
I grunt and get up, stalking toward the bathroom, and I yank out the first aid kit. I need to get a better one if I’m going to hurt her, because this one only has the basics.
Need your help. Do you have antibiotics? I text Hunter.
I’m sure I’ll get his usual spiel about how he’s a doctor for women having babies and not for women getting the shit beaten out of them, but whatever. He’ll give in for reasons I can’t even understand.
I am not at work or at home , is what Hunter types back.
I grit my teeth, ignoring my irritation.
Mimosa is still sitting there like a puppet, and I text back, Still need antibiotics, bro.
It’ll piss him off, but what else is new?
I grab a packet of alcohol wipes and open it, wrinkling my nose at the harsh smell. “Put your feet up,” I direct Mimosa. “I’m going to clean them.”
Like I should have to begin with, probably, but whatever.
She follows my orders without protest. I don’t particularly want to be on my knees in front of her, but I can’t think of any other way to get her feet clean.
When I look up, I notice that her face is flushed and she’s sweating. I reach out to touch her forehead, and grimace at how hot it is.
Fuck.
My phone buzzes again, and I swallow a sigh of relief when I see Hunter’s response: Fine.
“You’re a fucking idiot,” I say, and I realize I’m not sure whether I’m talking to Mimosa or myself. I shake it off before she can respond. “My doctor friend is coming over. With antibiotics. That way you won’t have an excuse to get more blood and pus or whatever all over my floor.”
Mimosa lets out a small laugh. “Because that’s my fault. I’m the one who caned my own feet. ”
“You might as well have,” I retort. “You’re the one who brought it on yourself.” I ignore the tiny, tiny stab of guilt I feel about not having paid attention to cleaning her feet before now. Not at hurting her; that part, I don’t regret. But maybe I should’ve paid more attention to the aftermath.
“I think drowning would be better than dying of infection,” Mimosa suggests. She looks at her feet, the same listless look in her eyes. “If you drown my sister, too, we could go four-for-four.”
I arch a brow at her. “What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask. “Four for four?”
“Me,” Mimosa says. “My parents. Then Irene. All four, dead by water.”
It surprises me that she’s talking like this without being forced, but the flush in her cheeks tells me she’s not as aware as she would usually be. “Your parents drowned?” I ask, squeezing some antibiotic ointment onto my fingers and wiping them on the open cuts on the bottom of her feet. She hisses in pain, but she doesn’t move her feet.
I make a mental note to have Pat look into her family. Now that I know her name, I can dig into her past a little more.
“Yeah.” She wraps her arms around herself and slumps forward. “When I was eleven.” She makes a strange sound that’s a cross between a giggle and a sob. “I almost forgot. You reminded me.”
She was young when she lost her parents, then. “Who’d you live with after that?” I ask, curious despite myself. I’d at least been nineteen when mine had died, and honestly, I hadn’t really given a fuck.
“Irene,” she answers. “Irene took care of me, until she decided to be a whore and piss off Giulio Pavone and get me into this shit and?—”
She cuts herself off. A few tears roll down her cheeks.
Without even realizing what I’m doing, I lift my left hand, clumsily wiping away her tears. “Jesus, don’t cry,” I mumble, suddenly feeling awkward. What am I supposed to say to that? I shouldn’t be feeling bad for her. She’s just a whore, a sex slave, and nothing more. Her life before me doesn’t even matter anymore.
“Don’t you want me to cry?” she says, deadpan once more. “A broken toy who can’t fight you, who hangs onto your every word and strokes your ego?”
I make a face at her. “No,” I say curtly, and I’m surprised to find that I mean it. If I wanted someone like that, I’d have found a crybaby like Hunter’s girl, someone easy to break and mold like he’d done to her. “I mean… I don’t want someone who tries to fuck with my head and tell me I’m fucking wrong all the time, but nah, I don’t want a pain in the ass little slut who constantly needs attention to survive.”
“Make up your mind,” Mimosa mumbles. “You don’t want obedient or submissive, but you don’t want strong or opinionated either. You’ve never been satisfied with anything in your life, have you?”
The words cut like a knife.
“No,” I find myself saying. It’s true. Nothing has ever been good enough. Even after I started the firm, even after I found success with my business, nothing held my attention for long. I’ve always been searching for something more, and so far, nothing has given me what I want. “Have you?”
“I liked my classes.” Mimosa shivers and pulls her legs closer to herself. “I liked researching. I liked writing papers. Maybe that’s boring. But it was my life. I was doing something with myself.”
I grab her ankle, but before I can fumble with the bandages to try to wrap her feet, the intercom buzzes. “Stay here,” I say, knowing the order is unnecessary but not sure what else to say.
I get up and tap my phone to see who’s in the elevator. As expected, it’s Hunter. Less expected, he brought Stef. They’re both dressed in semi-fancy clothes. Stef’s got long sleeves, like always, but the skirt of her dress is very short.
I try not to make a face. This is a favor I’m asking of Hunter, and if it means dealing with his pet, fine.
I activate the elevator so they can get to my floor and go wait by the foyer for them to arrive.
“Thanks for this,” I say when the elevator door opens, motioning them inside. “I think Mimosa’s got an infection.”
“If she gives you an STI…” Hunter says as he strides inside. Stef follows at a much less confident pace, eying me warily.
I roll my eyes and lead them to the living room, where Mimosa is still sitting on the ottoman. Stef inhales sharply when she sees Mimosa’s feet, and she huddles closer to Hunter .
“It’s not an STI,” I say. “Dunno how it happened. Mimosa is just really clumsy.”
Mimosa laughs. “He caned my feet, doctor. Then he made me walk on them.”
I scowl at her, but I can’t argue.
Stef flinches, and the look she turns on me is one of fear and… accusation? Does she even have enough of a personality to look at me like that?
I glare at her, and she wilts.
“Either way, she’s got an infection,” I say before any of them can speak again. “I told you; I need antibiotics. Not a fucking lecture.”
Hunter gets down on his knees in front of Mimosa and takes one of her feet gingerly. He grimaces at what he sees. “I’ve mentioned I’m an obstetrician, not any other kind of doctor, right?”
“Just a few times,” I snark at him. “But you can prescribe meds. People with babies get infections. I cleaned them, okay?”
I don’t mention that I’d cleaned them exactly twenty minutes ago, after I’d texted him, and I glower at Mimosa, almost daring her to tell him that.
Hunter scowls at me. “I’ll do what I can, but not if you’re just going to open up her wounds and make it worse. It’s not worth the trouble if you plan on neglecting or killing her.”
“I’ll be gentle as fuck with her,” I tell him drolly. “I’ll even carry her around for a few days. Jesus, I didn’t know it was going to get infected.”
I definitely don’t need him to know I almost drowned her. If I’d been in slightly less control of myself…
No. I’m not fucking thinking about that.
Mimosa sits quietly while Hunter swabs her feet and applies the salves and bandages. I’m torn between relief that he’s doing his job and anger that he’s this up close and personal with Mimi in the first place. He has a great view of her cunt from down there.
I check briefly, but it doesn’t look like he’s got an erection. Who knows, though. Maybe Hunter’s got a micro-dick.
“So who’s she?” Mimosa says, pointing to Stef. “Your girlfriend, doctor? ”
“Don’t ask questions,” I snap at Mimosa. “You don’t need to know who she is.” “She’s my fiancée,” Hunter answers flatly.
Mimosa giggles. “Really? I’m sorry. You probably deserve better, Miss.”
“Mimi,” I hiss. “That bit—” I catch the look Hunter gives me and decide it’s better not to continue that thought. “Stef is lucky to be with someone like Hunter.”
Stef nods enthusiastically. “I am,” she says, and her usual soft voice is firm. She’s like a different woman from the one I’d first met at Hunter’s party. She looks at Mimosa, and her voice is quieter as she says simply, “I love him.”
I snort, unable to help myself.
Love.
Right.
My friends are still fucking losers for falling in love with their sex slaves.
“If you say so.” Mimosa glances down at her feet as Hunter finishes wrapping the second one. “What’s the verdict, doc? Are my feet going to fall off?”
Hunter places all the trash on the coffee table. “Only if you keep walking on them and injuring them.” He glares at me. “I don’t want to interrupt another date because you were careless with your toys.”
“A date,” I say dumbly.
Jesus fucking Christ. Who is he, and what has he done with the Hunter Savage I once knew?
Mimosa starts laughing again. “This is the kind of guy you’re gonna marry, Stef.”
Stef’s cheeks turn pink, but she lifts her chin, looking directly at Mimosa. “At least I have someone like Hunter and not someone like Drake.”
I can’t even be mad because she’s right.
“Guess so.” Mimosa stretches her legs out in front of her and rotates her ankles from side to side. “He can even patch you up if he does serious harm.”
Hunter makes a disgruntled noise. “I didn’t know you were like Chase, Drake. ”
“What do you mean by that?” I snap. “Being into a little bit of kink isn’t a bad thing. I’m so fucking sorry I didn’t realize she couldn’t walk after a mild caning.”
“No. That you liked them mouthy,” Hunter answers. He rummages in his bag of tools and places supplies on the coffee table, next to the trash. “Antibiotics, bandages, wound-cleaning supplies. Change the bandages daily, more if they get damp or dirty. Clean the wounds too. If nothing improves within two days, call me again.” He hefts his bag and looks me in the eyes. “Can you manage that?”
Anger rolls through me. “Yes, I can fucking manage that,” I tell him. But I’m distracted, too, by the idea that I might’ve done so much harm to her that she’ll need more intense treatment. Fuck.
Maybe I had been a little out of control, but she’d made me so mad.
“Thank you,” I add quickly.
Hunter wraps his arm around Stef, and she returns the embrace like some kind of barnacle. I see the way Hunter’s expression softens when he looks at her.
“I’m on vacation for the next two weeks, so I’ll have plenty of time to cater to my little mess of a slave here,” I add.
“It was definitely my fault,” Mimosa agrees sarcastically.
I almost laugh at that, but I’m not going to show her that I’m even slightly amused.
Hunter sneers in her direction, but he doesn’t respond to her. “We’re going now. I’d rather you didn’t need me again any time soon.”
“Yeah, well. Tell her to use her mouth for better things than pissing me off, and we’ll see,” I say as cheerfully as I can. “I’m going to get her something to take the meds with. You can see yourselves out. I’d say, ‘bill me,’ but you owed me.”
I did help save his Stef, after all, which was a bigger favor than I could’ve imagined at the time.
Stef glances at Mimosa and adds, “I hope you get better soon.”
“Me too,” Mimosa answers with half a giggle. “Maybe you can invite me to the wedding, if my feet still work then.”
I make a disgusted sound. “You’re not going anywhere near polite society,” I tell her .
I watch as Hunter and Stef leave, shaking my head. I still can’t believe they’re getting married.
“I should cane you again for running your fucking mouth while my friend was here with his… his girlfriend,” I snarl at Mimosa.
“His fiancée,” Mimosa corrects. “And you can’t, unless you want your friend to get pissy at you again.”
“He can get pissy all he wants,” I say, but I don’t really mean it. I don’t want Hunter mad at me. He’s one of the few people I can talk to about this sort of thing.
It’s a little sad that my group of close friends is so small.
Then again, how many people can you really admit to owning a sex slave to?
Three, in my world.
She looks at the door wistfully. “Dunno if I pity or envy her.”
I scoff. “She’s pathetic. All she does is cry all the time. I don’t know what Hunter sees in her, especially to marry her. He bought her to fuck. If you think I’m ever gonna have that kind of… whatever it is, you’re wrong.”
Mimosa looks at me with a strange expression. “Yeah, I figured you weren’t the marrying kind.”
“What’s that look for?” I ask, feeling defensive.
She shrugs. “Nothing. But marriage usually requires the ability to connect to other people.”
The words are like a slap in the face, but what else is new? Mimosa has a way of getting right under my skin, prodding at all the places that leave me feeling vulnerable.
I don’t like it.
I scoop her up into my arms anyway, carrying her into my bedroom. “Get some sleep,” I mutter. “I’ll bring you some pills that you can take so you don’t die or whatever.”
Mimosa rests her head against my shoulder as I carry her. “That would be such a shame. You haven’t even broken this toy yet.”
“It would be a shame,” I concur. “I haven’t gotten enough use out of you yet.”
“Exactly. You want me to die because you meant to do it, not because you screwed up and caused an infection.” Mimosa smiles, then adds, “I really don’t want to die though. Could you please get your shit together?”
She really does have to be feverish and delusional.
I snort. “Yeah. Whatever.”
I set her down onto the bed, pulling the blankets up over her.
There’s nothing kind or compassionate about it. I’m not going soft.
I don’t want to have to deal with a dead body, and it’s easier if she’s in my bed so I can watch her.
And that’s all it is.
It’s not that she’s new and interesting. It’s not that she’s quick-witted. I’m not worried at all.
I’m not intrigued.
Nope.
Not at all.