Corrective Treatment (12 page)

Sophie was not entirely sure what happened after that. She was aware of being released from the straps, of being pulled into his arms and of being held atop Richard on the bench, which had been lowered to a horizontal position. It was not the most comfortable place to cuddle, but Sophie did not care. Richard’s broad chest made the most comfortable bed she’d ever laid upon.

She let herself doze with him and together they laid in post-coital bliss until twenty minutes or so later, they were interrupted by an icy voice.

“Doctor, would you like me to escort the patient back to her cell?”

Both Richard and Sophie looked up from their embrace to see the nurse who had spoken to Sophie with those curt, sneering words giving them both a cold stare.

“It’s quite alright, nurse,” Richard said. “I’m assisting the patient’s recovery and will see her back myself.”

“Yes, doctor,” the nurse replied, somehow managing to make the words sound disrespectful. She was clearly not pleased with what she was seeing, but she couldn’t do anything about it.

Sophie smirked as the door closed. The woman could be jealous if she wanted, Sophie understood. Doctor Richard was hot, and he only had eyes for her.

“I should take you back to your cell,” he said. “We can’t have people talking now, can we, Sophie?”

She made a vaguely human type sound in response, too tired to vocalize her reaction. Richard picked her up in his arms and carried her from the machine room back to her little cell where he laid her down on the bed and pressed an affectionate kiss to her forehead.

Sophie was content to go to sleep, feeling her heavy lids closing from pure exhaustion. It would have been nice to go to sleep in Richard’s arms, to curl up against his strong body and feel his arms around her, but she was a naughty little prisoner and this separation was part of her punishment. It was not much of a separation though. Sophie could still feel his touch on her skin, his cum trickling slowly between her cheeks from a reservoir created deep inside her bottom, and his scent lingered on her body.

Sighing with the unmistakable contentedness of a well-sated lover, Sophie relaxed and let herself fall into a deep and dreamless sleep.

Chapter Eight

In the middle of the night the door to her cell slammed open. Wrenched roughly from slumber, Sophie was pulled from her bed and a hood shoved over her head. She screamed, but a hand clapped over her mouth, silencing her immediately.

“Quiet,” Richard’s voice growled through the darkness.

“What’s happening!” She yelled the question into his hand, making a muffled sound of outrage.

“I’m getting you out of here,” he said. She felt the world spin as he lifted her up and put her over his shoulder. “They’re coming for you, Sophie. We have to go. Now.”

There was something different in his voice. The usual cool timbre was gone, replaced with an aggressive note and an urgency that made her heart pound. She felt Richard carrying her out of the room and through the warren of corridors that comprised the treatment center with swift, long strides.

“Stop! Hand over the girl!”

Someone shouted the demand. Sophie felt Richard’s grip tighten around her thighs as he quickened his pace and kept moving without making any reply. What followed was a lot of shouting and within seconds, the sound of gunfire. The booming shots were deafening in the darkness, and the constant motion of Richard’s body carrying hers to safety disoriented Sophie completely.

“Give us the girl! Surrender Sophie Eins! We’ll shoot you both if we have to!”

They were calling literally for her life. Sophie was not sure who was trying to kill her and who was trying to save her, but instinct told her that she was safe in Richard’s arms.

She heard a weapon discharging nearby, and beneath her she could feel the force of the ricochet through Richard’s muscles. He was shooting at people, and by the sounds of it, he was hitting his mark too. The whiz of a bullet singing past her ear made her scream again. Sophie squeezed her eyes tightly together, as if that would somehow make it all go away: the noise, the terror, the nightmarish conflict that was rising to a brutal cacophony all around her.

Suddenly, there was silence. A door slammed shut and she felt a rising sensation in her belly as they began to move upwards at a rapid pace. Sophie was sobbing from fear as the hood was removed, her eyes still pressed closed tightly as if the darkness could save her.

“Shhh,” Richard soothed her. “It’s okay. You’re safe now. You’re safe.”

She opened her eyes and found herself in the interior of a military star cruiser cabin heading away from Newtopia at warp speed. The receding planet getting smaller and smaller through the window was not as surprising as the man standing before her. It was the doctor, but not as she knew him. Richard was no longer wearing his customary white coat. Instead he was clad in black tactical clothing, weapons strapped to his hips and legs, his broad chest encased in hard armor.

He ran his hands over her trembling body, checking her for injuries. “Deep breaths, Sophie,” he said in calming tones. “You’re okay. You’re safe now.”

She let out a little whimper as he drew her close and hugged her reassuringly, pressing kisses to her cheeks to dry her tears.

“What happened?”

Richard’s piercing gaze focused on her tear-filled eyes. “The official story is that you’ve been kidnapped by off-world rebel forces who staged a daring attack on the treatment facility just hours before your release. The real story is that the president issued an order for your execution and you’ve been evacuated to safety.”

Her stomach clenched with anxiety. “My… execution? Why would anyone want to kill me?”

“The authority wanted to be rid of you, Sophie,” Richard explained. “When the corrective treatment didn’t take in the first week, they decided to charge you with treason. The last law that still carries the death penalty.”

“But… why!? Why would they want to kill me? I never hurt anyone!”

“This has never been about you,” Richard explained patiently. “Your father fled the colony months ago and defected. The authority have been putting pressure on him to return by putting you on trial. At first it was a bluff, but he called it, and… well… you know the rest of the story.”

“So this was never about me, or where I’ve been, or who I was talking to? This wasn’t about contact between echelons?”

“You were deliberately targeted and drawn to those places,” Richard said. “I doubt you ever met an actual laborer. It was a very elaborate plan in which you were a pawn.”

Sophie could not believe it. And yet, she also very much could believe it. The authority were ruthless and her father’s absence had been sudden and largely unexplained. She had assumed it was a regular diplomatic mission that called him away so suddenly. Her father was not in the business of sharing details with her, and she was not in the habit of asking for them.

Richard picked her up and carried her into the equivalent of a lounge. It was a comfortable room with couches underneath the windows that showed the universe streaming by. He sat down and cradled her close, soothing her as best he could with his touch and his words.

She sat curled in Richard’s arms, trying to come to terms with the fact that ultimately, her life had meant less to the authority than the life of a beetle beneath a laborer’s shoe. It was a humbling revelation—and it led to a number of other revelations.

She looked up at Richard, at his broad shoulders, his brave features, at the face she had been fascinated with from the first time she laid eyes on him.

“So you’re not a doctor,” she said. “You’re someone my father sent to infiltrate the corrective treatment facility.”

“Oh, I am a doctor,” he said. “A military medic.”

“But you knew I was innocent? All those times you were smacking my ass!”

Richard ran his fingers through her hair and shook his head. “You weren’t entirely innocent, Sophie. You were a little brat and you made things worse for yourself by taunting the authority and their judges.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “You should have been nicer to me.”

“I was nice to you,” he reminded her gently. “Very nice, at times.”

“Having sex with me doesn’t count, Richard,” she said in sulky tones.

“A little discipline was never going to hurt you, Sophie.” Richard smiled at her pout. “Besides, we couldn’t let them know our plans. The only way to keep you safe was to let the authority believe that you were entirely in their control. That’s why you weren’t extracted earlier. You were being watched. Any attempt to move you off world would have triggered an assassination. We had to be careful. The corrective treatment facility was actually the safest place for you.”

“So safe I almost got shot there,” she scowled at him. “You should have told me about all of this.”

“It would only have made you worry. You were better off thinking I was the mean doctor than thinking your life was in danger. Besides, you knew something was going on, Sophie. You picked me for a soldier the moment we met.”

“That’s right,” she nodded, feeling edified. “I did.”

“I’m sorry things were so rough at the end there,” he said. “They were more desperate than we knew, and I suspect one of the nurses leaked our relationship, which is why they came for you in the night.” She felt his arms squeeze her tighter. “That was a much, much closer call than I would have liked.”

It was closer than Sophie would have liked too. She cuddled into Richard and breathed deeply, his masculine scent calming her as she came to terms with what he had told her. She had been a pawn all along, something to be sacrificed in a game between powerful old men. The mean nurse had been right. She was a silly girl who had been too naive to see that nothing had been about her, not really. If not for Richard, she would be dead, or worse by now. She owed him her life.

“Thank you,” she said, her voice small. “You could have been killed saving me.”

“I protect what’s mine, Sophie,” he replied, running his hand through her burnished hair with a tender touch.

She looked up into his face, a little smile playing about her lips. “Oh, and I’m yours, am I?”

“More than you know,” he said, dropping a kiss on her lips.

There was something significant about his words, something that made her senses tingle. “What are you talking about?”

Richard cocked his head to the side and gave her one of those looks that made her feel as though he were looking right into her soul.

“From the moment I met you, I knew you were trouble,” he said. “You’re not going to stop being trouble anytime soon, no matter how much discipline you receive. You need someone keeping an eye on you. You need to be under the care of a man who can spank your bottom soundly most days…” his voice lowered to an erotic growl, “…and keep your hot little cunt busy the rest.”

She blushed and lowered her eyes.

“I intend to be that man,” he continued. “I asked for your hand in marriage, and your father agreed to it. The papers were signed a few days ago.”

“Wait,” Sophie frowned in confusion. “You and I… we’re married?”

“Yes.”

“Of course,” she said, throwing her hands up dramatically. “People sign death warrants and marriage certificates and who knows what else without telling me. Of course I’m married to you. Of course. I suppose the notion I might have some choice in the matter is too much to ask. Are there any other secrets you’d like to share with me? Am I also pregnant with your baby?”

Richard looked at her steadily, calm in the face of her outrage. “Well… that’s not entirely out of the realm of possibility. Though you can’t say you didn’t know that, Sophie. My cum has been inside your bare pussy too many times to rule it out.”

As he spoke, his hand snaked between her thighs and cupped her cunt, a simple touch that drained much of the drama out of her response almost immediately. She let out a little moan as he massaged her lips with gentle strokes of his fingers.

“Do you want a choice in the matter, Sophie? Or do you want to be mine?” He murmured the question seductively in her ear as the tips of his fingers circled the bud of her clit. “I’ve wanted you from the moment I met you. I’ve needed you, desired you, craved you, and I don’t ever want to let you go. This may not be the marriage you intended for yourself, but I think it’s the match you need—and the match you want. Am I wrong, Sophie?”

He spoke with a passion that touched the love inside her, breaking through the brittle shell of offense she had taken at the announcement of the wedding she had not attended. Damn him. Yes. She wanted to be his. She wanted to be his with everything she had.

“Okay,” she agreed breathlessly as his fingers teased her lower lips. “I’ll play along with this arranged marriage. But I am not going to obey you just because you’re my husband.” She gave him a cocky little look. “Think you can handle me without a slew of specialist machinery, doctor?”

“Hmm,” he said, sliding a finger casually into her already wet pussy. “I don’t know. Let’s see.”

He fingered her slowly, teasing her with a touch that made her want more. Sophie moaned as he swirled his finger inside her moist cunt. Her hips were already making their familiar ‘fuck me’ motion as he stripped her of the thin gown that had barely covered her during her corrective treatment, laid her back on a low couch near the window, and pressed his mouth between her thighs, his lips and tongue paying gentle, tender homage to her sex.

Sophie surrendered to her lover, her savior, her husband with a willingness she had never allowed herself before. There was no need to resist. They were no longer locked in combat. Richard had saved her from that, from political machinations, from the desires of evil men. As he pleasured her most tender places, she watched the stars swim by, her orgasm rising in the sure knowledge that she was safe and loved and finally free of echelons and the world that had trapped her since her birth. Now it was time to seek a new world, a new life, and discover who she was with the only man who had ever succeeded in breaking through the illusion of Sophie Eins, and finding the woman within.