by Mandy Harbin
Copyright © 2020 by Mandy Harbin
BLADE
ISBN: 978-1-941467-32-9
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Edited by Brieanna Robertson
Cover Art by Najla Qamber
This book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any existing means without written permission from Mandy Harbin, M.W. Muse, Penning Princess Publishing, or Mandolin Park, LLC.
This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. The characters are products of the author's imagination and used fictitiously.
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Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Epilogue
Also by Mandy Harbin
About the Author
Prologue
“Are you ordering me to sleep with him?” Shelby Landry asked her smug boss as she stared across the conference room table at him. She loved her job as an FBI agent. It was a lot less messy than working in the garage back home. But in the three years she’d worked for the bureau, she’d never gone undercover alone. And even when she did work on assignment, she’d never been told she had to have sex with a man she didn’t know. What kind of woman did he think she was?
“I’m not saying that,” Rick, Mr. Smug himself, hedged. “The SEC has been cracking down on Ponzi Schemes ever since the Madoff embarrassment. The enforcement division had been investigating Feldstein and Baxter Investments for two years before even asking for FBI support. This is an inter-agency task now, and we’re going to do what we can to help.”
Shelby didn’t like the sound of that. At. All.
“Mason Showalter is the newest partner at the brokerage firm. His connection with Blade Young of the Bang Shift didn’t pan out,” Rick said, practically sneering. It was no secret he didn’t like those guys, not that she fully understood why. He’d been in the bureau a long time, though, so Shelby figured the reasons ran deep. Not that it made it right.
“He’s on the level,” Shelby said, cutting off her boss from whatever he was about to say about Blade. Not only was he a decent man, he was engaged to Anna Sue now, their former teammate who was still an FBI agent.
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Rick said but not elaborating. “We need to kick this investigation up a notch.”
“So because the SEC has identified Showalter as a Dom, you want her to go undercover as a sexual submissive? I might lead a pretty vanilla sex life, boss, but even I can guess what happens at a sex club,” Darrell said as he leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. Shelby could always count on Darrell to have her back. He’d mentored her from day one since joining the bureau.
Rick took a sip of the thick, black coffee he always drank and placed the Styrofoam cup next to his notepad. “Her objective is to gain his trust and see what intel she can garner. We don’t know if he’s privy to the illegal behavior at his firm. If he is, we can’t tap his house or office without enough evidence against him. If he isn’t, then maybe he can become an asset to us by getting information from the inside.”
“Because someone going in to get info has already worked so well,” Carson said, referencing Anna’s last role as part of their unit.
Without acknowledging Carson’s comment, Rick turned toward Shelby. “You’re to obtain just enough to get a warrant. The SEC will do the rest. This is still their operation. We’ll do our part to make the directors happy and then get out. We’ve been working on this too long already. We have other stuff to do.”
“Bet you’re glad you are a blonde, eh Viola?” Carson muttered. Carson Childers and Viola Lane rounded out the FBI investigative team Shelby worked on. Lucky for her, the enforcement division hadn’t only discovered Mason’s need for sexual domination, but also that he had a penchant for brunettes.
With long, flowing locks of the stuff, it was easy for Shelby to understand why she’d been chosen for this task. She’d been singled out for this particular assignment from the beginning. And not because of her mental assets. Hell, her specialty was linguistics. Under normal circumstances, she wouldn’t have been considered unless the investment firm under the microscope had documents in Mandarin Chinese the F.B.I. needed her to translate. That, or they could use her mechanical skills like they had when they sent her to work at the Bang Shift Garage.
“Yeah, that, and I’m married. My husband was all kinds of pissed when I participated in that massage parlor sting op. How would I explain to him that I have to get nasty with a suspect?” Viola shivered.
God, Shelby didn’t know if she could do this. She wasn’t a virgin, and was definitely used to hearing and telling all kinds of dirty jokes, but she was also the type of person who had no qualms with the basic missionary position. What had Darrell called his sex life? Vanilla? Yes, she was a big ol’ bowl of vanilla. Not even with sprinkles.
Rick sighed. “Let’s keep this professional, Lane.”
“There’s a word for a sex professional, sir,” Shelby finally said. “And prostitutes make a hell of a lot more money than me. Jeez, what if he wants to do this all in public?” It wasn’t really a question she expected an answer to, more of a fear she hadn’t known she’d had until right this second.
“I know this will be uncomfortable for you, but you don’t have to have sex with Showalter. Would it make things easier? Maybe. But he and some of the other Doms help with sexual awakening when a woman thinks she might be a submissive. They have been known to engage in activities that do not involve intercourse. This is the angle we are playing.”
“That’s a big gray area,” Darrell said as he glared at Rick.
“I know. But this is our best shot. She can’t go in one evening with a wire and hope to get what we need. The man is very private, and it will take time to find out what he knows. If he knows anything, and that’s a seriously big if.”
“So she wears a wire, has some meetings with the man, and we analyze everything first before she gets too involved,” Viola said, shrugging. “No need to go in guns blazing yet.”
“Won’t work,” Carson said, frowning. “What if he wants to see her naked? We don’t know how he decides to work with a submissive. It’s the same reason why she can’t wear a wire at all. At anytime she could be asked to strip. We have some very high-tech, inconspicuous devices, but they’re not foolproof. Hell, for all we know, he could have some top-notch security measures in place to scramble the frequency, and that’s if she doesn’t get caught with one on her. The only way I see this working is going in undercover. She’d have to be the eyes and ears for us. Sorry,” he added, looking at Shelby sheepishly.
“Agreed,” Rick said. “We need Shelby to gain his trust so he’ll let her get close to him and maybe even the more personal areas of his life. We only need enough to decide to bring him in to help us out or if we have to play hardball with him.”
But the phrase personal areas of his life lingered in
her mind. “How personal are we talking here?” she asked, gaping at her boss. Sure Carson had just teased about sex, but as the conversation went on, she got the sinking feeling her boss expected more from her than just showing up at the club.
He shrugged. “If you could get a date out of him, get him to take you someplace public, away from the club and any security measures it possesses, that would be a good start. We can record any conversation he has with you without needing a warrant. If you’re someplace public, you could be wired without the fear of getting caught. That’s just an idea, an option we’d have if it comes to that.” He took another sip of his coffee. “The closer you get to him, the better our chances are of getting intel directly from the source.”
“So I can’t just come right out and ask him if he’s involved or if he wants to help,” she said with an edge of sarcasm, though it’d be a heck of a lot easier on her if she could do just that.
Rick slammed his fist on the conference table, startling her. “Use your head. That’s what someone undercover does, Landry! You play along and get what you need through any means necessary.” She’d thought of Anna and the hell the last assignment put her through, lying to the man she loved in the name of justice.
How many lives would this case try to ruin?
She knew the answer to that. One. One life. Hers.
At least Rick had finally answered her question.
Shelby was going undercover in a sex club and would have to sleep with a man who had connections with the company they were investigating. She could fight this assignment and be relegated to a desk job for the indefinite future. Or be transferred out of state like they’d done to Anna and be forced to start over with a new team.
Or she could suck it up and do what she needed to see an end to this case. There was really only one answer, assuming she honestly had a choice. Prostitution was supposed to be illegal, but apparently not if one’s pimp was the federal government.
“Fine. I’ll do it.”
Chapter One
Mason sat at the bar, looking through the dimly lit room. He wasn’t staring at all the half-naked women—or fully naked in the case of Emory’s sub for the night. He was just watching, monitoring the level of energy in the atmosphere. Some nights, the feeling was subdued, but others, it arced through the air, electrifying his sexual desires. But tonight, as was the case for many weeks now, it was almost dull. He hadn’t lost his sense of need, but for some reason, he hadn’t been able to latch onto an honest opportunity to feed his primal hunger either.
Oh, there’d been offers. Mason was one of the four Master Doms who owned the club they’d deftly named Scene, although Rafe was the one who managed it. Jedrek and Emory dealt mainly with ordering supplies, and Mason’s finance background awarded him the dubious honor of handling the books. He’d tried to explain the difference between accounting and investment financing, but it had fallen on deaf ears. It was known throughout the club that all four of them were the owners, the Masters. And every sub in the place who wasn’t attached to a Dom vied for their attention. Yeah, there’d definitely been propositions.
Problem was, Mason was bored. His friends and colleagues would laugh at him if he’d ever verbalized that. Besides owning the club, he was a new executive at one of the largest investment firms in the U.S. To those on the outside, he was already spread thin, but his professional aspirations far exceeded the average man’s. He had every intention of rising up the ranks, getting as close to the top as he could without being blood related to the family who’d founded the company. And he would do just that. He sneered thinking about his new boss. That man was only there because he was in the family, but if Mason had his way, that prick wouldn’t be his boss for long. He aspired for greatness and reporting to the runt of the litter was unacceptable. Mason had worked hard to get where he was today. Nobody handed him anything.
But business was second-nature to him. He’d even taken steps to achieve his latest professional goal at the firm.
He needed a real challenge now, one that he could only find in the company of a woman. He’d thought he’d found one when he’d met Cassie. They’d had a fun night together, but she’d been more into light play. Mason was a hardcore Dom. He demanded and deserved sexual obedience from his partners. If the women weren’t willing to give themselves up to him completely, he just wasn’t interested in anything beyond one night. Some may think of him as controlling, and well, he was in a way. But to him, there wasn’t anything more beautiful than a woman letting herself go and entrusting herself with him. To be submissive required a truly strong person. The real power lay within his sexual counterpart, he merely the maestro to a woman’s sexual orchestra.
“Well, what do we have here?” Jedrek said as he took the stool next to Mason.
Mason looked at him, surprised the man had made it that close without him knowing before now. He must’ve been really deep in thought. “What?”
“By the door. Ten o’clock.” Jedrek pointed, and Mason followed the line of sight.
A woman wearing a leather skirt, stilettos, and a black lace top was talking to the bouncer. She had her hair pulled up, exposing her neck. Her collarless neck. For that to be so brazenly displayed, she was either screaming to every Dom in the room that she was up for grabs…or so new to the scene she was clueless. When she turned, Mason clenched his teeth as he saw her completely.
She was fucking beautiful. He appreciated the beauty in all women, but this one tipped the scales for him. He couldn’t put his finger on what quality it was that made her stand out to him at a distance. Maybe if he got closer to her, he’d figure it out. One thing was for sure. She was someone he’d never seen before. He would’ve damn well remembered her.
“Want me to—“
“I’ve got this,” Mason said, cutting off his partner as he stood. Since he didn’t know her, she wasn’t a member of the club, and tonight was closed to outsiders.
Jedrek chuckled…as much as the usually stoic man could. “Uh-huh, man, I’m sure you do. But you better get over there before one of the other Doms shows interest.”
Mason grunted as he moved, heading straight toward the woman with dark brown hair. As he stepped up behind her, the bouncer grabbed her arm, and he heard her gasp. Mason gripped her hips and pulled her against his body, his dominant side roaring to life.
“What’s the problem?” Mason barked, agitated that the other man would snatch her like that.
“Um, she’s not a member, Mr. Showalter. I was just trying to explain to her that we’re only open to the public on Tuesday nights.” The man wisely released the beauty and took a few steps back.
The woman tensed against Mason. He lessened his hold on her, but didn’t let go. “I’ll speak with her. You can go.”
“Yes, Sir.”
Mason lowered his head and sniffed her hair. Even in her high heels, she was a couple inches shorter than his six-three. God, she smelled just as wonderful as she looked. “What is your name?”
“Shelby.”
She trembled in his arms, and his dick stirred. He tightened his hold on her once again and stepped up against her, letting her feel what she was doing to his body.
“Why are you here, pet?”
“I-I didn’t know this club was members only. I didn’t mean to intrude. I can come back.”
Mason wasn’t sure if her stammering was because he was making her uncomfortable or because she was truly sorry for coming on a night she wasn’t allowed.
“You didn’t answer my question. Why are you here?”
“I, um.” Her shoulders slumped. “I just need…I mean, I want to try something different.”
At that, Mason turned her slowly to face him. Her big green eyes watched him as he studied her. Her skin looked flawless under all that makeup. She had a ton of it on. He’d have to fix that. The milky complexion of her cleavage revealed her true tone. But then he took what she actually had on and internally recoiled.
“You’re dressed like a Domm
e.” Why hadn’t he considered she might be into domination before now? He cursed his body for responding to her as quickly as it had. If she wasn’t submissive, she would be off-limits. Mason didn’t switch. She immediately looked to the floor, her cheeks turning pink. His heart pounded at her reaction. Her body’s instinctual reply reassured him she wasn’t a Domme. “But you respond like a sub. Tell me, what is it you want to try?”
“I want to try submission, Sir, but I’m not sure how far I want to go.”
Only one word came to mind at her confession—perfect. If any woman showed up at the club with the desire to try out the lifestyle, it was up to one of the partners, the Master Doms, to decide how to proceed. The situation hadn’t happened before. The only inquires they’d gotten were some emails via their website with visits prearranged, so no woman had just shown up out of the blue. Until now. If she wanted to learn, he’d teach her. He didn’t have a sub and hadn’t felt like playing with any unattached subs lately, but for some reason, she ignited that desire, and he learned long ago to follow his instincts. Oh yeah, he’d teach her all right, starting with correcting her good-intended but wrong address. “Master.”
Her head popped up.
“Call me Master,” he said softly as he stroked her cheek. “And for the rest of the night, I will call you pet.” When she didn’t say anything, he continued. “Normally, a sub in this establishment addresses her Dom with the title of Master, as he has earned that right, and will call other Doms Sir unless, of course, her Master requires it or she feels comfortable addressing another Dom as such. But as you will learn, BDSM is filled with caveats all depending on where you play, who you play with, and many other exceptions. In this club, there is an exception to that Sir rule. All subs address me as Master Mason. Master Rafe, Master Jedrek, and Master Emory also have the distinction. Most subs are called pet. It’s an endearment. I just told you a lot, but do you understand what I’ve told you?”