"Cynthia, what the hell are you doing here?" Joseph asked his ex-wife.
"For a cripple you're really giving me the run around," Cynthia replied maliciously.
Joseph bit down an angry retort, and looked at Maria shivering naked before them.
"You have no right to bring her out here, Cynthia," he said quietly.
"This is far too public a place and the weather far too bad."
"Heck, a little water can't hurt her, and these back woods people probably all treat their wives this way," she replied, glancing at Robert.
Now, Robert was a big man, not fat, but big. He moved just one step closer to Cynthia, which got her attention. She looked at him with interest.
"Cynthia Booth-Parker," she said, holding out her well-manicured hand. "And you are?"
"Enchanted," was Robert's reply, which caught both Joseph and Maria by surprise.
Cynthia was amazed, she had always liked big men, but still! Her attention was so distracted that she failed to notice Peter move closer to Maria.
While Maria stood red with embarrassment at been seen with a leash hanging from her private parts, Peter took off his coat and draped it over the nude girl's shoulders.
"Are you alright?" he whispered.
Maria nodded, feeling the chill again now that they were out in the open. The coat felt very good, very warm. She twisted her wrists around in their confinement in an attempt to dry her arms off.
Joseph noticed the attention Peter paid Maria, and didn't know what to make of it. He DID know Maria shouldn't be outside for much longer.
"Peter, would you be kind enough to get Maria out of the rain."
"Sure, Sir," Peter said, but didn't move because Cynthia still held the leash attached to Maria's clitoris.
"We have to talk, Joseph," Cynthia said.
"So talk," Joseph replied.
Cynthia looked once more at Robert, who stood smiling at her.
"We can talk when you come back, when we have some privacy."
"Fine. Go home, but you're not taking Maria with you."
"Don't you trust me?" Cynthia said with a laugh.
"No," said Joseph, the tone of his voice flat.
Slowly, Cynthia released her grip on the leash, and let it drop in the mud. Peter bent low to pick it up.
"Peter," said Joseph. "Take Maria home with you, I'll let you know when you can bring her to me."
"Yes, Sir," Peter answered, and guided the wet, naked girl to his car.
Joseph waited until they drove off, before turning his back on his ex-wife.
"Fine!" was all Cynthia said, before walking back to her own car.
***
Peter turned the heat up in his car, driving in silence. He was acutely aware of the woman sitting next to him. Under her coat she was naked, her hands locked behind her. He found himself getting hard and willed it to stop.
"Thank you," Maria said quietly.
"It's...it's okay, the coat will dry easily enough."
"No, thank you for getting me away from that woman."
"Who is she?" he asked.
"Long story," was all Maria would say about it.
Nothing more was said until they pulled up behind Peter's apartment building. Peter looked about, hoping there was no one around to see him take a half naked girl into the building. It looked clear. He got out the car and opened her door. Maria stepped out and as she stood suddenly cried out and sat back down.
"What's wrong?" he asked nervously.
"I stood on my leash!" Maria said, and began to laugh.
Peter was at a loss, but Maria was letting go of all the tension that had built up during her time with Cynthia. Even though her clit hurt like hell, and she desperately wanted to reach it with her bound hands, something about the whole situation struck her as absurdly funny. As the waves of pain slowly lessened in intensity Maria felt them replaced with waves of something else. She couldn't help reflecting on how long it had been since a man last had her.
"You okay now?" Peter asked.
"Yeah, just...could you grab the leash?"
Peter pulled the leash until it was clear of the car, and Maria stood up again. The two of them hurried through the rain to a set of stairs that went up to Peter's second floor apartment. He figured he set a record for getting the door open and Maria inside.
Maria stood dripping in the entryway as Peter rushed into the bathroom for towels. She looked about as she waited and found the place simply, but comfortably furnished. She noticed he had a taste for wood, as almost all his furniture was made of it.
She liked it.
He came back with a bunch of towels and a blanket.
"Er..I need to take the jacket off," he said.
"Please!" replied the still shivering girl.
Peter carefully removed the jacket, revealing Maria, nude except for her bright red collar and cuffs, and began to towel her down. As he did so he tried to keep his erection from showing, a difficult task. If he had looked at her face he would have seen that she kept her eyes closed, enjoying the way his hands rubbed every portion of her skin. Too soon it was over, and Peter draped the blanket over her and sat her on the couch.
"If you can wait until I dry myself off, I'll get you something hot to drink," he said smiling.
"Thanks," Maria replied.
He disappeared with the pile of towels into what Maria assumed was his bedroom, and a few minutes later he came back out, drier, and in a change of clothes. Maria tried to get comfortable under her blanket as he went directly to the small kitchen area.
"What would you like?" he called out, "I have coffee, hot chocolate, cider..."
"Chocolate would be good," Maria answered.
"Chocolate it is! You know, I have a set of bolt cutters, I can free your wrists in a little bit."
"NO...I mean, thanks but no. I had really better keep them on. It's...well, better that I do." Maria didn't want to think of what Cynthia might do if Maria broke her bondage. She'd heard stories.
"Sure," said a puzzled Peter, and nothing more was said until he came over to her with two steaming mugs.
"Here," he said, sitting next to her and leaning close with a mug.
"Ouch!" she yelped, and he jumped back with a start, almost spilling the chocolate.
"What!" he asked.
"The leash, you pulled on it," said Maria, bending low again. "Could you take it off, it isn't locked, just clipped."
"Er...okay." Peter put the cup down and pulled the blanket aside to reveal Maria's groin. Maria felt herself blush as he stared for a moment before reaching down with one hand to unclip the leash from the clit chain.
His touch was light, and through the pain the delicate swing of the chain once more sent it's erotic message.
"It looks swollen," Peter said.
"What?" asked Maria, wondering if her arousal was THAT obvious. She looked at Peter's crotch, his certainly was.
"It must hurt a lot," Peter replied, a flush appearing on his face too. "Is there anything I can do?"
Yeah, Maria thought, rub it until I cum. "No...wait, you got any ice?"
"Sure." He got up and got a few cubes of ice in a bowl, he took one in his fingers and held it out to her.
"You're gonna have to do the honors." Maria said with a pained grin.
"Oh...yeah, right."
As if sticking his hand into fire, Peter reached between her legs and placed the ice against Maria's clitoris.
She jumped at first, but soon the pain, and her passion, began to cool and drift away.
Peter watched her face, and kept the ice cube moving slowly. Maria had closed her eyes and he took the opportunity to take in her features. He was glad to see her face unmarked, despite the number of scars he had seen on the rest of her body. The scars were only visible from close up, but he thought they were horrible, and he wondered how she got them. Was it Joseph? A man he had come to like in the short time he had know him.
Maria's senses were concentrating on the ice cube, cold as it was it didn't dim the heat in her entirely. She knew that over the past couple of years, she had been changed by the almost constant erotic atmosphere of her daily life. It seemed that she was always burning on some sexual level, even at her worst moments. The slow movement of the ice across her clit began to have the opposite affect of what was intended, the cold sent shivers through her that were definitely not temperature related. She pulled at her locked wrists, twisting them unconsciously like she always did when aroused, their movement hidden under the blanket.
The couple sat like that, immersed in their thoughts and feelings for several minutes before Peter realized that the ice had almost melted and that the tips of his fingers were now brushing the smooth bare skin of Maria's labia.
Reluctantly, he pulled away.
"Do you want another one?" he asked.
Maria opened her eyes. "Oh...I'm fine, now," she said, and closed her legs together so that Peter wouldn't see that not all the moisture down there was from the ice.
Peter pulled the blanket over her and tried again with the chocolate. This time there was no problem, and after Maria had drunk, Peter wiped her lips with a napkin. A small domestic move that Maria loved. Suddenly she sat up. "Shit! I need to call Melissa," she said.
"No problem," Peter answered, and got up to get the phone. He brought a cordless over and dialed it.
"Hi," he said. "I'm calling for Melissa...do you know where she is?...I'll try later." He hung up the phone. "A woman answered. It may have been the woman at the river. She said Melissa wasn't there and asked who I was."
"Damn. Why don't you try the diner," Maria suggested.
Peter nodded and dialed. "Hi...is Melissa there?...okay...hi Lisa, is Melissa there?...okay," he shook his head.
"Let me speak to her," Maria said, and he held the phone up for her.
"Lisa, it's Maria."
"Hi, what's up?" Lisa replied.
"Do you know where Melissa is?"
"I thought she was at home, she said she had a bunch of stuff to do."
"Cynthia said she wasn't there, but I don't trust her to tell me what color the sky is."
"Well where are you, that was Peter on the phone right?"
"Yes, that's where I am."
"Oh...ah," Lisa said, making connections in her head.
"Look, I'm worried about Melissa being alone with Cynthia. You know what Melissa can be like and you don't want to know about Cynthia."
"Well I can go home right now if I wanted, business is dead right now because of the storm."
"Could you? You might save a life if you do."
Lisa laughed. "Sure."
"And Lisa! What ever you do, don't tell Cynthia how to find me."
"Okay. You know you're going to have to explain this all to me sometime."
Maria sighed. She knew she had a lot to tell her friends about.
"Thanks, I'll be home later."
"Fine, you want me to tell Joseph where you are?"
"No need, he sent me here," Maria replied, and nodded for Peter to hang up.
"Now," he said, putting the phone down. "I want to know what's going on."
"It's a long story," Maria said reluctantly
"We have plenty of time," said Peter, leaning back.
***
Maria started by telling Peter what had happened to her after Alan's death. She explained her time in the Kennel and how Joseph had adopted her. She went into closer detail about her life with him than she had when she told Melissa about the same period in her life, she even covered Cynthia's involvement. Then, with greater difficulty, she told Peter about being Kidnapped by Hiro Atamo and her time aboard his boat, finishing up with the escape that she still had the occasional nightmare about.
During her recital, Peter sat and listened quietly, both engaged and yet amazed by the life she had led, although he felt a kernel of anger build in himself after hearing about Atamo. At one point he got up and made them both a quick lunch which they ate as she continued to tell her story.
Eventually she was done, and the two of them sat quietly for a while.
"You've certainly taken your share of beatings over your time," Peter said quietly. "But, I still have a couple of questions."
"Alright," Maria said nervously
"Who beat you up, the first time I met you?"
Maria went pale and looked away.
"Why won't you tell me? If it was Alan, then he can't be harmed if you admit it. If it wasn't him than there is someone else out there that might do it again to another woman."
Maria sat silently, images of her first beating flashing through her mind.
"Maybe he already did," continued Peter. "Maybe he got to Melissa after he got to you, I've seen her scars too."
A sudden flash of jealousy swept through Maria, as she realized that for Peter to see those scars meant that he had to see Melissa naked, and close up. Then she remembered that her friends gave him plenty of opportunity to see them nude during his "education".
"The only thing I can come up with, is that it's someone you know, someone close by, which is why you're protecting him.
The only man in your lives that has been close to you guys all this time is Robert. Is that who you're protecting?"
"Why are you asking me this?" wailed Maria.
"Dammit! I don't like seeing women hurt, and this has been bugging me ever since I met you. If there is a guy out there that is beating on women, he has to be caught. Call it the policeman in me, but I need to see the guilty punished." Especially for hurting you, he thought.
"Well he has been," Maria said, almost in tears. She did NOT want to tell him who had beaten her, for that would have led to questions about WHY he had beaten her, which would have led to Alan and the death of Eric Maximer, as well as Palmer's death itself. Too many closets to open all at once.
"How?" Peter pressed.
"He's dead too. Okay!" Maria shouted, and broke down crying.
Peter moved closer and pulled her to himself. Once again he held Maria in his arms while she cried, bound at the wrists, almost naked and helpless. He held tightly and almost gave in to tears himself.
They sat for a long time like that, and Peter gradually began stroking the back of her head. She shifted back slightly, her head moving from his chest to his shoulder.
He continued to move his hand, his fingers massaging her neck. Her face tilted up and his lips found hers. Slowly his other hand found it's way into the blanket and cupped a naked breast.
They leaned over together until Maria lay on her back, Peter leaning over her. The hand that had held her breast now moved downward, parting the blanket, revealing her bare skin.
Their kissing intensified, and Maria felt a surge of pleasure as his fingers found her sex. It felt so good, so very good. So very wrong.
"No," she said, breaking the kiss.
"What?" said Peter, too caught up to catch what she said.
"No. Please."
Peter pulled back, his hand on her slit, but now no longer moving.
"We can't. Joseph..." said Maria.
She couldn't read his face, and for a moment that scared her. Then a look of sadness passed over it and he took his hands from her body.
"Yeah," he repeated, "Joseph." He got up and headed for the bathroom. Maria lay as she was, almost completely uncovered now. Shit, she thought.
There was a knock at the door as Peter came out of the bathroom. He quickly pulled the blanket back over Maria and went to answer it. It was Robert.
"I've come for Maria," he said, noticing the flushed faces of both the people in the room, not to mention the way they avoided direct eye contact. He felt he had a pretty good idea what had been happening here.
He held up a small set of keys as Peter let him in. "Joseph got these from Cynthia, so I can bring you home a little more decent than when you left."
"Thanks," Maria said.
She shrugged off the blanket and Robert unlocked her cuffs. It had been a while since she last had use of her arms, and she stretched them before gathering the blanket back around her. "No clothes?" she asked.
"We were lucky to get the keys," said Robert.
"You can keep the blanket," Peter said from across the room.
"Thanks...and thanks, for listening," Maria said, avoiding Peter's eyes.
"Are you going to be okay?" he asked her, looking at Robert.
"Yes. I'll be fine," Maria answered, hoping he would catch the double meaning.
He did, he nodded and gave her a small smile.
Barefoot, but wrapped in her blanket, Maria followed Robert out to his truck. The storm itself seemed to have moved on, but the rain was still coming down. Robert went out first and opened the passenger door for her and she made a mad dash out to it.
The drive back to the house was done in silence.