The Institute: Daddy Issues (24 page)

“You bas­tard,” I snarled at him. “You made me…the things you made me do…”

“And the things we made your
part­ner
do to you, too—right?” Mandy smirked at us. “Now
that’s
got to be awk­ward—let­ting someone who’s ba­sic­ally just a coworker shave your pussy and shove a plug up your ass. Tell me,
De­tect­ive,”
she said, turn­ing to Salt. “How did you like do­ing all that to your part­ner? Was it fun? Did it turn you on to spank her un­til her little bot­tom was all rosy red?”

Salt glowered at her.

“I will not listen to this. Everything you have forced
mishka—
Andi—and I to do to­gether while we are here has been for one pur­pose only—stop­ping the dan­ger­ous drugs you are re­leas­ing onto the streets.”

“I’m afraid you’re not go­ing to get your wish, my dear De­tect­ive,” Berkley drawled. “Far from stop­ping the flow of Please, you two are ac­tu­ally go­ing to help us dis­trib­ute it.”

“What?” I ex­claimed and at the same time Salt growled,
“Fuck you.”

“It’s your little
mishka
you’re go­ing to be fuck­ing, De­tect­ive,” Mandy sneered. “
She’s
the one who had a double dose of Please so she’s the one who’s go­ing to need to be fucked. Oh, and fucked
hard
too.” Her eyes widened. “But I’m sure that won’t be a prob­lem. I’ve been watch­ing the two of you on the mon­it­ors in the view­ing room—I’ve seen how hot you are for each other. Really, we’re do­ing you a fa­vor, giv­ing you a reason to screw.”

“I’m afraid Mandy is right,” Berkley said, smil­ing nas­tily. “Your part­ner is go­ing to need you in a new and spe­cial way very shortly, De­tect­ive Saltanov. I just hope you’re up to ser­vi­cing her the way she’s go­ing to need to be ser­viced.”

“You bas­tard…” Salt took a step to­wards the other man, his hands flex­ing into fists. “How dare you give my
mishka
such a dan­ger­ous drug? How dare you risk her life?”

“Oh, she’ll be fine—as long as she gets the in­tense sen­sa­tions her body is crav­ing,” Mandy said, grin­ning. “You see, Please en­gages the pleas­ure cen­ters of the brain and at the same time, it over­loads the auto­nomic nervous sys­tem cre­at­ing a crav­ing for sen­sa­tion so strong, the heart can stop if it isn’t ful­filled. The brain will lit­er­ally stop send­ing mes­sages to the heart to beat if the crav­ing isn’t sat­is­fied.”

Salt and I stared at her and she laughed.

“What? You thought I was just a dumb blonde? I don’t think so—I hold a PhD in Bio­med­ical Sci­ence. How do you think I met
Dr.
Berkley? I was his lab as­sist­ant.”

“That’s enough show­ing off, Mandy,” Berkley said but he didn’t really sound angry. “The point is, De­tect­ive Saltanov, you’re go­ing to have to fuck your part­ner, De­tect­ive Sug­ar­baker there very hard in just a mo­ment if you want to keep her alive.”

“I will never do this—it would be rape,” Salt pro­tested an­grily.

“Not when you’re high on Please, it’s not,” Mandy said snarkily. “Then all you want is to get your pussy pumped by a big, hard cock. By your
Daddy’s
cock—isn’t that right,
‘mishka’?”

I wanted to rap out a comeback but when I opened my mouth, only a moan came out. My whole body was in des­per­ate need now—my nipples were so sens­it­ive I wanted to rip down my dress. My pussy felt swollen and empty at the same time.

You need to be filled,
whispered a dark little voice in my brain.
You need to be fucked or you’re go­ing to die.

“Andi?
Mishka?”
Salt was look­ing at me, his pale blue eyes filled with anxi­ety. “Are you all right?”

“I…I…” I wanted to say I was fine but the words wouldn’t come out. All I could see when I looked at my part­ner was the man I wanted more than any­thing else in the world. All I could think about was hav­ing his thick cock bur­ied to the hilt in­side me, filling me, fuck­ing me, com­ing in me…

“Mishka?”
he said again.

“Salt,” I whispered brokenly. “Papa…I need…need you so much. I’m sorry but I can’t help it.”

“Ah-ha—I do be­lieve that’s the Please kick­ing in.” Berkley soun­ded in­suf­fer­ably smug. “Such a pity we can’t stay and watch but we thought you might like some pri­vacy.”

He star­ted to go for the door but Salt was sud­denly block­ing his path.

“No,” he growled men­acingly in the other man’s face. “No, you will fix this—fix Andi right now! There must be an­ti­dote to help her re­cover. Give it to us
now.”

“Alas, De­tect­ive, I fear the only an­ti­dote is in­tense phys­ical sen­sa­tion and only you can give it to her. Ah-ah—not an­other step closer.” A snub nosed re­volver sud­denly ap­peared in one ar­is­to­cratic, long-fingered hand. “Mandy, come here,” he called and she came to him im­me­di­ately, put­ting an arm around his waist.

“Salt,” I begged. “Papa, please…I need you…need you in me.” The words were dragged from my throat. I didn’t want to say them but I couldn’t help my­self—I was burn­ing and I felt so
empty
in­side.

“You—I will kill you!” Salt snarled at Berkley, who only shook his head.

“I don’t think so, De­tect­ive Saltanov. Now listen care­fully, be­cause this is how it’s go­ing to go. First Mandy and I are go­ing to leave while you and De­tect­ive Sug­ar­baker stay here. You
will
help her with the Please crav­ings—I know you will be­cause you don’t want to see her die. Cor­rect?”

“You bas­tard,” Salt said thickly. “Of course I do not want her to die but neither do I wish to rape her.”

“Well, I don’t think we can call it rape when they’re crawl­ing on the floor and beg­ging for it,” Berkley said, grin­ning evilly. “At least,
I
don’t. Think of it—your part­ner is a strong wo­man who re­fuses to fol­low your lead and do as she’s told. And now here’s your chance to get her back for all that. Ad­mit it, De­tect­ive Saltanov, doesn’t it feel
good
to hear her beg­ging for you to fuck her? It’s po­etic justice, don’t you think?”

“Is
sick,”
Salt growled at him. “Just as everything else you do in this fuck­ing place is sick. I am dis­gus­ted by you.”

My part­ner’s words some­how pen­et­rated the drugged haze of lust that had clouded my mind. Des­pite the burn­ing in­side me and the feel­ing of need so deep I thought I might scream, I felt them like a knife in my guts. God, did he really feel like that? Did he really think that everything we’d been do­ing here was per­ver­ted and dis­gust­ing?

“I’m sorry you feel that way,” Berkley said coolly. “But dis­gus­ted or not, I’m afraid you’ll have to get used to me. As I said, you and your sweet little part­ner are go­ing to be our new­est Please dis­trib­ut­ors.”

“Like Hell we will!” Salt snarled. “Why would we do such a thing?”

“Why be­cause, De­tect­ive, this whole en­counter is be­ing re­cor­ded. And not in grainy black and white like the mon­it­ors—oh no.” Berkley grinned. “It’s be­ing re­cor­ded in high def color. And as soon as you fuck your part­ner—which you
will
do, be­cause you don’t want her to die—I’ll have the per­fect piece of black­mail to hold over your head. You and De­tect­ive Sug­ar­baker will do any­thing I say or I’ll re­lease this re­cord­ing over every so­cial me­dia chan­nel in the world.
And
I’ll see to it that both your names are plastered all over it so that every­one, in­clud­ing all of your friends, fam­ily, and cowork­ers, know that it’s
you
on that nasty,
nasty
video.”

He gave an ugly laugh and Mandy re­peated her an­noy­ing giggle. I wanted to shoot both of them but I had no gun—I only had a burn­ing void in­side me that needed des­per­ately to be filled. With a low groan, I fell to my knees. It was all I could do not to reach between my legs and star­ted touch­ing my­self at once. The de­sire in me was get­ting so bad that I didn’t care who saw me do such an in­tim­ate and private thing. I didn’t care about any­thing but get­ting re­lief.

“Please,” I moaned to Salt. “Please, I
need
you!”

Berkley let out an ugly, bray­ing laugh.

“Fuck or die, Baby­girl,” he sneered. “Fuck or
die.”

His crude words struck a chord with me and brought back a vivid memory.

The video,
I thought wildly.
The one on­line with the blonde girl and the man in the suit—it’s Berkley. He’s the man in the suit! He’s not just run­ning a Please lab here—he ac­tu­ally in­ven­ted the stuff!

If we could prove that and bring him in—

But the thought was cut off by an­other wave of long­ing. My body was lit­er­ally re­belling against me—de­mand­ing that I get the at­ten­tion I needed. I felt like if I didn’t have it soon, I really would
die
.

The door slammed be­hind Berkley and his Baby­girl and Salt and I were left alone in the big room to­gether. Salt looked at me and I looked at him.

What the hell were we go­ing to do?

“Salt,” I moaned, reach­ing for him. “Papa—
please.”
I got to my knees in front of him and star­ted fum­bling for his zip­per but Salt knocked my hands away.

“No, Andi!” he said sharply. “Did you not hear what that bas­tard said? We are be­ing re­cor­ded here. Everything we do will be seen by every­one.”

I knew cog­nit­ively that what he was say­ing was true—that we were in danger of com­mit­ting pro­fes­sional sui­cide if we did any­thing sexual at all. Not that the Cap­tain would ne­ces­sar­ily fire us—how could he when I had been given a drug dur­ing the course of duty which im­paired my judg­ment? But real­ist­ic­ally, even if Salt and I kept our jobs, every­one we saw would know us. We would be In­ter­net fam­ous and
not
in a good way.

I could just ima­gine try­ing to ar­rest a sus­pect and be­ing re­cog­nized as the cop who got screwed by her part­ner while she was high on Please. It would be hard for Salt too but he was a man—he would sur­vive it. Me, on the other hand—well, I would be fucked. Both lit­er­ally and fig­ur­at­ively.

But none of that seemed to mat­ter now. All I wanted was to feel Salt’s thick­ness in­side me. All I wanted was his big, hard body cov­er­ing mine, tak­ing me, mak­ing me his. All I wanted was to be filled.

“Salt,
please,”
I begged, reach­ing for him again. “I can’t stand it—I need you
so much!”

“This is not what you need—you only think you need it,” Salt pro­tested.

“I
know
I need it.” I was sink­ing to the car­pet now. My body felt like it had some­how ac­quired a black hole—a suck­ing de­sire that ec­lipsed everything else in the world. That hole in­side me needed to be filled. If it wasn’t, I had the feel­ing that I would col­lapse in on my­self—that I would cease to ex­ist. I slumped to my side and felt the thick car­pet against my face.

“Andi?
Andi!”
Salt soun­ded pan­icked now. He picked me up off the floor as though I weighed no more than a rag doll and car­ried me to one of the oxblood leather couches. “Andi!” he said again, shak­ing me.

“Please,” I whispered, the need still ra­ging in­side me. “Please, Salt, I’ll die if you don’t give it to me. I know I will.”

His face grew grim. “Then I will give you what you need—but not what you want.”

“What…what are you talk­ing about?” It was an ef­fort to get the words out but be­fore I could ask any­more, Salt was flip­ping me over and bend­ing me across his knee.

Be­fore I could protest, he had pushed up my skirt, ripped down my panties and was rain­ing a vol­ley of hard, open-handed blows down on my bare ass.

“Ow…
ow!”
I gasped. “What the hell are you do­ing?”

“Giv­ing you what you need.” Salt’s voice was harsh as he con­tin­ued to spank me.
Smack…smack…smack…
went his big hand against my na­ked bot­tom. “Is the de­sire be­gin­ning to be less?” he de­man­ded.

It was in­cred­ibly hard to think through the thick haze of lust and the over­whelm­ing drug-in­duced de­sire but I made a real ef­fort and fi­nally un­der­stood what my part­ner was do­ing. He was sav­ing my ass—lit­er­ally—by beat­ing it. And it was ac­tu­ally help­ing—
some.

“More,” I begged him, wig­gling on his lap, though the rough spank­ing was already mak­ing my ass sting and the tears come to my eyes. “Salt, if you’re go­ing to spank me you have to do it more—
harder.”

“I do not wish to hurt you,” he pro­tested.

“You
have
to.” I wriggled in his grip, press­ing my ass up to meet the pun­ish­ing blows. The void in­side me had shrunk a little when Salt had first star­ted spank­ing me but now I felt it ex­pand­ing again, threat­en­ing to eat me whole if I didn’t get enough sen­sa­tion. Pleas­ure or pain or both—that black hole in­side me didn’t care as long as it got fed.
“More!”
I in­sisted, dig­ging my fin­ger­nails into his thigh.
“Please, I need more!”

“You want more? Very well—I will give you more.”

Salt stood ab­ruptly, spill­ing me out of his lap and onto the floor. With quick, jerky mo­tions he began un­buck­ling his belt.

At first I thought he was go­ing to fuck me after all and my heart leapt in my chest.
Fi­nally,
whispered a little voice in­side me.
Fi­nally you’ll get what you’ve been want­ing for so long.

I didn’t just mean since my Please over­dose, either. If I was be­ing truly hon­est with my­self—and in that brief mo­ment, I was—I had to ad­mit that I had wanted Salt for years. From the mo­ment he came into my life and re­fused to back down no mat­ter what I threw at him. At work, even Cap­tain Douglas backed off when I got ag­gress­ive enough. But not Salt. He was un­mov­able, loyal, de­pend­able, and pro­tect­ive. All that made me want him, with or without the Please in my sys­tem.

But my an­ti­cip­a­tion was short lived. In­stead of open­ing his trousers, my part­ner pulled his belt off com­pletely and wrapped the buckle end around one big hand. The rest dangled from his fist limply like a sleepy snake.

“Salt?” I asked un­cer­tainly. “Papa?”

The ex­pres­sion in his eyes was hard and cold and dead as he looked at me.

“Andi,” he said tone­lessly. “Lie across the arm of the couch and raise your skirt.”

I looked at the long black strap of leather hanging from his fist and sud­denly I was afraid.

“Please,” I whispered, look­ing up at him. “Please, can’t you just…just fuck me in­stead?”

“You know I can­not.” His eyes were still cold. “Now do as I tell you or I will have to force you into po­s­i­tion. I do not wish to do that.”

It came to me that he didn’t want to do any of this—that he was for­cing him­self to go to a place he’d never wanted to be in. I couldn’t help re­mem­ber­ing the scars on his broad back which had been made by his father’s belt. He had told me once, be­fore we fell down this rab­bit hole, that he would never beat me in the way he had been beaten. Yet, here we were and he was pre­par­ing to do ex­actly that.

I wanted to protest but I could feel the void open­ing up in­side me again—de­mand­ing to be filled. I had no choice.

Stiffly, I got off the floor and walked over to the broad leather arm of the oxblood sofa. Lift­ing my frilly, little girl skirts, I laid my­self across it, feel­ing the cool air cur­rents circ­ling in the room caress my bare ass.

“All right,” I said, my voice trem­bling only a little. “Give it to me, Salt. Give it to me
hard.”

His face was a mask I couldn’t read as he stepped up to me and raised his arm. When the first blow fell and the leather snake kissed my ass with a sharp
snap,
I knew at once this was what I needed. That doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt—it hurt like Hell—much worse than Salt’s hand had when he’d been spank­ing me over his knee. But it seemed to fill that aching void in­side me. At least, it
star­ted
to fill it. I could still feel the ef­fects of the Please in my sys­tem, for­cing me to beg for more.

“Again,” I whispered, grip­ping the cool, slip­pery leather with my nails. “Do it again, Salt. I need more.”

“As you wish.”

He lif­ted his arm again and again I felt the sharp
snap
of the belt against my na­ked back­side. I couldn’t repress a groan this time. God, it
hurt.
But I knew the sting­ing pain was all that was keep­ing me from go­ing crazy with lust or pos­sibly even dy­ing from the ef­fects of all the Please I’d in­ges­ted.

“An­other,” I said in a strained voice.

Salt com­plied. I couldn’t tell from his face how this was af­fect­ing him—his eyes were still cold and dead. I knew he didn’t want to hurt me and I was sorry I had to ask him to. But he was right—in the long run, this was bet­ter than fuck­ing me. At least, that was what I tried to tell my­self.

“More,” I begged breath­lessly and an­other blow fell, the black leather lick­ing around my na­ked, up­turned but­tocks, giv­ing me the harsh, angry kiss my body so des­per­ately needed.

The pain was in­tense, es­pe­cially when the belt fell on a spot it had touched be­fore. I could feel my skin get­ting hot and swollen with the re­peated lash­ing and I wondered if I was bleed­ing. It wouldn’t have sur­prised me if I was and yet I still needed more.

“Again.” I whispered, bit­ing my lip. “Please, Salt—again. And this time…don’t stop.”

He hit me again and then again and again. Over and over his arm rose and fell, not stop­ping between blows this time. I put my head down and bit my lip un­til I tasted blood, tak­ing what I needed from him even though it hurt both of us—him to give it and me to re­ceive it. The pain of the whip­ping seemed to grow un­til it filled my whole world and I couldn’t think any more. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t do any­thing but just lie there and take it.

Little by little, the void the Please had opened in­side me was filled with sen­sa­tion. But filling it came with a price. I turned my face away so Salt couldn’t see me and stuffed a fist in my mouth, try­ing to muffle my cries of pain. Though I tried to hold still, I could feel my body try­ing to jerk away from the harsh blows as they fell. Some­how I forced my­self not to run—to stay and take the pun­ish­ment I had begged for. The pun­ish­ment I de­served.

“You’re the reason he left,”
whispered my mother’s voice in my head.
“It’s your fault your Daddy’s never com­ing home again. He got tired of tak­ing care of you. Tired of you need­ing all of his at­ten­tion. He’s never com­ing back and you’re the reason why.”

I felt some­thing warm and wet trick­ling down my cheeks and dimly real­ized I was cry­ing. But that was all right—it was what I de­served. I was the one who had driven my Daddy away—I de­served to be beaten for it. I ought to hurt and sting and cry to atone for that sin. I should—
“No more!”

The harsh cry made me turn my head. I saw a tall man stand­ing over me but I wasn’t sure who he was.

“No more, Andi,” he re­peated. “I can­not hurt you like this any­more. You’re
bleed­ing.”

“I’m sorry, Daddy,” I whispered as my eyes filled with tears again. “I didn’t mean to make you go away. Please tell me what I did that made you leave—I swear I won’t do it again.”

“Andi, it’s
me.”

My vis­ion seemed to clear and the tall man be­came my part­ner. I real­ized that once again I had some­how fallen into Little-space and not in a good way.

Salt’s face was no longer cold and im­pass­ive. There was an­guish now in his pale blue eyes—a look of re­gret and self-re­crim­in­a­tion so deep it made me ache for him.

“Salt?” I whispered, mak­ing an ef­fort to come back from the dark place in my past. “Salt, is that you?”

“Andi…” He threw down his belt and gathered me into his arms. “Sorry. I am so sorry, my darling,” he whispered into my hair. “I never should have hurt you in that way.”

I wanted to protest that it wasn’t his fault but everything seemed to be fad­ing. Black flowers were bloom­ing be­fore my eyes and dark­ness was eat­ing the world.

“Andi,” I heard Salt say. “Please be all right. Please, I can­not hurt you any­more. I can­not bear it.”

“You had to hurt me,” I whispered. My mind was hazy but I wanted to make that much clear. “It was…the only way other than…than fuck­ing. The only thing that could…could help.”

Des­pite my words, Salt’s strong fea­tures were still filled with re­morse.

“I still should not have—”

Sud­denly there was a splin­ter­ing sound and the thick wooden door burst in­ward.

“All right—hands up where we can see them,” barked a sharp voice. “Tampa PD—every­body just stay where you are.”

“What the hell do you think you are do­ing?” Salt de­man­ded.

The other voice seemed to be an­swer­ing but I couldn’t hear it any­more. The black flowers had grown to fill my en­tire field of vis­ion and it seemed like someone had turned the volume in the room way, way down so that the other voices around me were noth­ing but whis­pers.

“…my part­ner,” I vaguely heard Salt say. “…take her to the hos­pital
now.”

No hos­pital,
I tried to say—I hated those places. My mom had died in one and I didn’t want to die there too. I didn’t want…

But it didn’t mat­ter what I wanted. Everything went dark and si­lent and the world faded to black.