Savage's Woman Page 10

  “Thank you,” Zora mumbled into her pillow.

  “Good night, Zora.”

  “Night, Wright.”

  ***

  “How do you do it, Ms Matthews?” Martin Holt inquired. “The work, that is, not the incessant misbehavior.”

  “I don't know,” Zora shrugged. “I just see patterns. Numbers make sense to me. They always add up. Always. Even when they don't.”

  “Well I am glad you've decided to use your powers for good.”

  “Who says this is good? Good is subjective,” Zora said. “I'm just doing what you want. That's all.”

  “I am glad you are doing what I want, then,” Martin Holt said, adjusting his pad and paper.

  Two weeks after Savage's deployment Zora was laying on the couch in his office, letting him 'shrink' her. With Savage away there was nobody to talk to and though she still told herself she didn't like Martin Holt, he at least seemed to understand her somewhat.

  “Are you starting to find things more tolerable, with work to do?”

  “I guess,” Zora said, picking at her fingernails. “But it's still boring.”

  “You want to be with Captain Savage, in the field?”

  She shrugged. “I don't know,” she said. “Yeah, I guess I'd rather be with him out of the field.” She turned so she was lying on her stomach and reached out to doodle on the carpet with her forefinger. “This sucks.”

  “You are still unfulfilled in some way,” Martin Holt said, translating her words into psycho-ese. “You're bored. You need more stimulation. I think it is time we got you back out there in some capacity.”

  “With Savage?”

  “Captain Savage's current mission is highly classified,” Martin Holt said. “He's so deep even I don't have contact with him right now.”

  “Oh.” Zora slumped further into the couch. Life was boring without Savage. In fact, life was boring in general. From the high excitement of being on the run, to living in manicured suburban bliss, she was not handling the culture shock at all well. “For how much longer?”

  “I don't know,” Martin Holt said. “Days, weeks... perhaps longer.”

  “Longer!” Zora sat up on the couch, instantly furious. “How can you say that?”

  “It's true, I'm afraid.”

  “I'm not going to sit around here for months all alone.”

  “You're not all alone,” Martin Holt said. “There are five thousand people here. Surely you could learn to find one or two of them tolerable company? Seems to me you spend all your time complaining about limited freedom and wishing for a normal life, but presented with the opportunity for one, you shy away.”

  “Shut up, Martin Holt,” Zora snapped. “That's not true.”

  “Of course it is. You're not interested in a normal life. In fact, a normal life drove you to drink.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I'm saying you, Ms Matthews, are an adrenaline junkie.”

  Zora grinned. “That's the silliest thing I've ever heard.”

  “Is it? When would you say you were at your most happy?”

  She thought about that for a bit. The answer came to mind almost immediately, but she had to double check with herself that it really was the answer. “After the Tex mission,” she admitted.

  “When you and Savage were living rough in Detroit, being chased by dangerous people, never knowing if your lives would end that day or the next.”

  She saw the point he was driving at and rejected it out of hand. “When we were together every day. When he and I had a common goal. Or at least, I thought we did.”

  “You don't still have a common goal?”

  “I don't have any goals,” Zora said.

  “Well maybe that's your problem.”

  “Maybe,” Zora said, pushing off the couch and falling onto the carpet with all the aplomb of a depressed rag doll. “Maybe I am a problem.”

  Martin Holt looked down at her. “I do wonder what happened to your filters,” he mused. “Most people your age would never dare dream of behaving the way you do.”

  “Are you saying I'm immature?”

  “No. I'm saying you do not filter yourself in the way most people do. I wonder if it is a side effect of your numerical prowess.”

  Zora laughed up at the ceiling. “You're studying me, aren't you, Martin Holt? You're probably trying to reverse engineer me so you can outsource me to China.”

  “If there is one thing the US Military does not want to do, Ms Matthews, it is outsource intelligence work to China.”

  “Good point,” Zora agreed, flopping her arms onto the carpet.

  “Let's talk about something else,” Martin Holt suggested. “Let's talk about the corporal punishment.”

  Zora closed her eyes and wished the carpet would swallow her whole. “What about it?”

  “It seems to be a constant theme in your life. A need, one could say.”

  “It wasn't a need until Savage started doing it every time he didn't get his way,” Zora reminisced.

  “So it's a means of control. One you seem willing to accept.”

  “I don't accept it. It just... I don't know. I don't want to talk about this.”

  “Why? Does it embarrass you?”

  “I think that's part of the point,” Zora said. “To embarrass me.”

  “Do you like it?”

  “What do you mean, do I like it? Of course I don't like it.” Zora felt her face flush hot red as she lied. Martin Holt's questions were becoming decidedly uncomfortable.

  “It seems to me that these disciplinary incidents...”

  She was grateful for the euphemism.

  “... are rather effective, not just at dissuading the behavior for which they were given, but for calming you entirely for a time. After Ms Wright's application of the paddle, you were quite well behaved for a week. Then, your behavior began to escalate once more. It is now at the point where it seems likely that you will either receive a further dose of disciplinary action or further escalate into potentially lawless territory.”

  “Well that's not going to happen,” Zora said. “Because I've decided that only Savage is allowed to discipline me.”

  “Do you think the decision is entirely yours to make?”

  “I think the decision is enough of mine to make,” Zora replied. “In case you hadn't noticed, it's a pretty hard thing to do to someone who doesn't want it.”

  “Assuming one works alone, perhaps.”

  She snorted as she pressed up from the carpet. “So the question 'you and whose army' will become appropriate, then?”

  “And now you are enjoying defying the very idea of being disciplined en masse, as it were.” Martin Holt made a note. “Ms Matthews, you are quite a curious woman.”

  “Thanks, I think,” Zora said, moving back to her seat on the couch. “Are we done now?”

  “You may return to your workstation. I believe there are some more problems for you to solve.”

  Zora looked at the clock. It was 5 pm. She was sort of hungry. She didn't feel like solving more problems. She felt like dinner. Lasagna, maybe.

  “Do I have to?”

  “Are you asking for permission to do something else?”

  Zora saw what Martin Holt was doing. He was trying to weasel her into accepting him as an authority figure. Fine, she figured. If it made him happier.

  “Yes, Martin Holt, I am asking for permission... to ask your permission... to suck my...”

  Martin held up his hand. “Close, Ms Matthews, you were very close there. Care to try again?”

  “I want to get dinner instead.” Zora found herself squirming where she sat.

  “So ask...”

  “Why are you making me jump through hoops?” Zora scowled. “It doesn't need to be this hard.”

  “Oh I very much agree,” Martin Holt said, nodding. “It's just interesting to see how hard a time you have admitting that anyone else might have any modicum of control over you. You would probably sit here, grow hungr
ier and end up throwing one of your infamous fits as your blood sugar plummeted before simply asking me for permission. I actually think you would rather be spanked than voluntarily make that concession.”

  “Fine.” Zora gritted her teeth. “May I please go have dinner, Martin Holt, sir?” She ground the words out, feeling her face blush for reasons she couldn't quite explain.

  “You may,” Martin Holt replied.

  Just like that. He folded. That was what she told herself. She told herself he'd folded, but really, he'd won. Oh god he had won.

  There was victory in defeat, however. A surprise was waiting for her later on that evening, a video chat with Savage. Ms Wright bought the laptop into her bedroom and handed it to Zora wordlessly.

  She tried not to burst into tears the moment she saw his face.

  “How are you, sweetheart?” His voice rumbled even through the tinny laptop speaker and made her body ache for his touch. He sounded so close, but she knew he was devastatingly far away and the embrace she so needed could not come.

  “I'm okay, how are you?”

  Small talk. They'd never made small talk before.

  “Tired,” he yawned. “Missing you.”

  She restrained the urge to snap that he should never have left, if that was the case.

  “Have you been good?” His brow rose ever so slightly with the question, seeming to think that she had not.

  “I'm not in prison,” Zora said. “And I'm still here, so... yeah?”

  Savage's low chuckle teased at her ears. “Two very good points. Have you been getting any work done?”

  “Actually, yes,” Zora said. “I have. And I let Martin Holt shrink me.”

  “How did that go?”

  “He said I'd rather be spanked than admit anyone had any power over me.”

  Savage laughed. “He's right.”

  “I don't like what he's doing,” Zora complained. “He's trying to mess with my head.”

  “That's his job,” Savage said. “You might be happier if you let him do it.”

  “Yeah,” Zora said, avoiding that conversation. “Oh, and Ms Wright has moved in.”

  “Good,” Savage replied. “Someone to keep an eye on you at home.”

  “I don't need constant supervision,” Zora said, wrinkling her nose and much of her face at the computer screen that had momentarily become Savage. “I'm a grown woman.”

  “You are a grown woman and you do need constant supervision,” Savage said. “The two are not mutually exclusive where you're concerned.”

  Zora shifted the laptop around so she could lie down on the bed and gaze into his handsome, strong face. “When are you coming back?”

  “I don't know, sweetheart. This is one of those wait 'em out missions.”

  “I could come and wait 'em out with you.”

  “You stay put right there,” Savage said, once again closing down that particular avenue of thought. “I want you to settle in at Fort Thistle, Zora. It's a nice place there and it seems to be suiting you.”

  Zora took in a deep breath and nodded. “Okay,” she said. “I guess.”

  He smiled and looked more handsome than ever. Her heart ached with the need to reach out and touch him, feel his impeccable body pressed against hers. She was not getting laid anywhere near enough in Fort Thistle.

  “What's the matter?”

  “I'm horny,” she admitted quite honestly. “You're killing me with this dry spell.”

  He beamed broadly. “You have my permission to relieve yourself as often as is necessary, little minx.”

  “It's not the same.”

  “I know it's not, but it will have to do until I get back and ravish that cute ass of yours.”

  She smiled and half hid her face in the pillow. As they spoke, she reached down between her legs and pushed her hand into her panties, playing with herself slowly, surreptitiously so he wouldn't notice.

  “Are you touching yourself now, Matthews?” His voice dropped into mock sternness.

  “Maybe,” she grinned.

  “Hmmm... I think you should put some headphones in, Ms Matthews,” Savage said. “I'm not sure I want your new roommate hearing what I have to say to you.”

  There was a frantic scramble to find headphones, and then an equally fraught one trying to find a way to secure the bedroom door. Zora achieved her goal by pushing a chair up under the handle, and then returned to the bed where Savage was still waiting for her.

  “Strip, Matthews,” he ordered playfully. She liked it when he gave her orders of a sexual kind, it added a certain frisson to affairs, especially when she could tease him by stripping off much more slowly than he would have liked, baring the skin of her belly first, then her bra covered breasts.

  He groaned audibly when he saw her nipples pressing against the sheer fabric. “Tease,” he accused. “I should have you spank yourself for me too. Or maybe I should get Ms Wright to do the honors whilst I watch.”

  “No!” Zora blushed at the idea.

  “Then take those clothes off, brat. Now.”

  Zora unhooked her brassiere and let her breasts go free so close to the camera she was sure Savage's vision was about 90% cleavage.

  “And the rest of it.”

  She fancied his voice sounded muffled as she moved back and pushed her jeans and panties down.

  “Let me see,” he said, his voice low with arousal.

  Zora obligingly moved the laptop so he could see the strip of fine hair leading to the pouch of her pussy.

  “Turn around, I want to see that spankable little ass of yours.”

  Zora rolled over, feeling surprisingly vulnerable as she presented her bottom to the laptop's camera. It wasn't as if he could reach out and smack her ass, but she almost felt as if that might actually be possible.

  “Oh god,” he groaned. “What I would do to that ass if I could touch it.”

  Grinning to herself, Zora reached back with her hand and spread her cheeks so he could see the sensitive flesh nestled between them, her bottom hole and her moistening pussy exposed to his gaze. It was a naughty sort of thing to do, but she was a naughty sort of woman.

  “Zora...” His voice was guttural and she was sure that she was no longer the only one touching themselves. She could imagine his hand wrapped around his thick, hard cock, stroking his rod as he watched her display herself to him.

  She kept her cheeks spread with one hand and reached the other down between her thighs, teasing along her slit with her fingertips. It felt good, and wet and surprisingly intimate as she played with the lips of her pussy, spreading them so he could see the tight entrance to her body.

  He was no longer speaking. All she could hear was his groan of pleasure. When she finally slid a finger inside her pussy, he let out an almost tortured sound.

  “God, Matthews, you are a very, very bad girl,” he moaned. She fancied she could hear his hand stroking the shaft of his cock as she penetrated her tight depths, pleasuring herself. “When I next get a hold of you, there will be consequences for this. Very hard, pounding consequences.”

  She responded to his sexual threat by sliding another finger into her pussy and stroking herself with more conviction. The thrusting rub of her fingers did not compare to his cock, but holding herself open and fucking her pussy for his pleasure was putting her into one of her rare submissive moods, the ones where she grew exceptionally wet and would have done damn near anything he asked her to.

  “Dammit!” His tone changed and she heard the click, as he no doubt minimized the window in it. “Zora, I'm so sorry. I have to go.”

  “What?” The question came out in a tortured whine. “No!”

  “I'm sorry,” he said, his voice reflecting sincere regret. “We just had a tip come in. I have to follow this up. I love you, Zora. I'll talk to you soon.”

  “Love you...” The chat disconnected before she could get the 'too' part of the sentence out. With a growl of frustration, Zora punched her pillow. Goddammit, it just wasn't fair. The di
sconnection had completely killed the mood. She no longer felt sexual, but she felt the frustration associated with having been blue-balled. Blue-ovaried. Whatever. It sucked.

  There was a tap at the door. “Are you finished with your call, Ms Matthews?”

  “No!” Zora sang out. Her access to computers had been severely restricted since her arrival at Forth Thistle and she was glad to finally have access to a laptop. Zora was not strictly a hacker, but she did understand how numbers worked and numbers are the basis of all things computer.

  Her brief foray into the data center had been amusing, but not particularly productive owing to the fact that every accessible machine had been off and turning one on would surely have brought down a torrent of fury, which she would not have enjoyed in the slightest.

  She poked around the local network for a while, but didn't find anything of great interest. There were a few social pages, which gave her the names and general rank details of some people she'd seen around the place. There was quite a fetching photo of Field Psychologist Martin Holt attending a base gala at some stage. He was holding a stick of cotton candy as if he wasn't quite sure what it was and smiling as if he'd once seen a seminar on facial expressions. Zora had a chuckle over it and moved on, scanning for anything that might be useful.

  “Ms Matthews.” Another tap at the door indicated that Ms Wright was pretty insistent on getting the laptop back. “I believe your call with Captain Savage ended several minutes ago.”

  “I believe that Aquarius rising makes people grumpy at breakfast time,” Zora called in reply. “Beliefs are funny things.”

  The door handle turned, but the door did not open, on account of the carefully placed chair.

  “Ms Matthews, open this door.”

  Zora ignored Ms Wright. There wasn't any good reason for it; she'd already done all the poking around she wanted to do. Now it was just defiance for the sake of defiance - though Zora didn't really like to think of herself behaving that way.

  “Last chance, Ms Matthews.”

  Zora maintained her cone of silence, wondering what Ms Wright would do. It was a test, that's what it was. Science.

  There was silence for a time. Quite a long time really. Then Zora thought she heard footsteps. She tiptoed over to the door and put her ear to it. Yes. Definitely footsteps. And manly, muffled voices.