His hands slid away. She heard the click of his riding boots as he stepped back, the soft whisper of the deerskin flogger.
The first impact was scarcely harder than the touch of his fingertips as the flogger danced over her skin. Once, then again, as Frank swung the whip in what felt like a slow figure-eight.
The next stroke was a bit harder, the one after that still harder, faster, the impact increasing with each rotation of the flogger, until the soft falls began to sting as they snapped against her ass.
Then he swung up between her spread thighs, and she gasped at the sharp thump against the lips of her pussy. It was hard to remember guilt and loss with her cunt blazing and her body tightening with curls of dark arousal.
“Yeah,” he growled, the sound of his voice hot with arousal. “Bounce on those long, long legs. So sweet. So hot.” A snap entered his tone. “Call it. Red, yellow, or green?”
“Green,” she gasped. More, oh, God, more.
The impact on her ass bit this time. Alex threw her head back and gasped into the darkness of her blindfold. Another biting blow. Even as soft as the flogger was, he knew how to get a harder snap out of it.
His bare chest pressed against her back, and his hand slid between her thighs, long fingers testing her pussy, finding it slick and swollen. “Mmmmmm,” he purred. “I think you want more out of me than pain, don’t you, baby?”
“Yeah. Oh, yeah.”
His other hand found her nipple, teased its desperate peak. The heated honey pleasure that rolled through her breast made her writhe in need. “What do you call me?”
“Master,” she panted. “You’re my master.”
“And don’t you fuckin’ forget it, baby. Not even when you won’t use the word. Not even when you can’t use the word.” He leaned down and lifted his hand to brush her hair away from her ear. His breath heated the tender shell of it. “I’m your master, darlin’. And you’re my submissive. I don’t need to collar your neck if I can collar your heart.”
The words rang through her with that inner reverberation a secret truth carries. And it scared the hell out of her.
But then he stepped away again, and the flogger licked out to taste her ass. The sting made her gasp.
“You’re turning a pretty pink now,” Frank said, dark satisfaction in his voice. “God, I love that color.”
Boot heels clicked. Plastic rattled, as if he tore some kind of packaging. She sensed the warmth of his powerful body again, and he started wrapping her hips in thin Velcro straps. Cool plastic settled against her clit, and he buckled the thin belts around each thigh, securing something soft and rubbery against her clit and pussy. It began to hum, sending ripples of sensation everywhere it touched.
A butterfly vibrator.
“Now,” he growled, “let’s quit playing around.”
The next swats stung so viciously, she writhed, gasping, even as the butterfly vibrator buzzed against her pussy in waves of sweet pleasure.
He’d switched floggers, she realized. This one had thinner tresses, cowhide or kangaroo, without the doeskin softness of the other toy. Even as he struck again, the vibrations of the butterfly picked up speed. Apparently he had a wireless controller.
“Call it.”
“Green.” She managed to hold still, though it was tough to do, balanced between the waves of pleasure from the vibrator and the hard, bright stings he flicked over her flexing ass.
“Oh, yeah,” he murmured. “God, you look so hot. So tempting, bouncing on those long, sweet legs. Not sure whether to moan or yell.” His voice dropped into a vibrating register. “I’ve got a hard-on up to my navel. I want to fuck you so bad, I can taste it.”
Another set of flogger strokes, each tress leaving behind a bright lick of pain. Making her gasp and jerk, unable to hold still. Her eyes stung behind the blindfold. Not crying yet, but close.
Close as the climax she could feel gathering around the vibrations of the butterfly. Sweet, God, it was sweet. The sensations hit her in waves, spinning her helplessly between pain and delight until it became hard to tell one from another. All she knew was that she wanted more.
He was good. God, he was better than any Dom she’d ever had.
I don’t need to collar your neck if I can collar your heart . . .
She thrust that frightening thought away before it could act as a brake on her pleasure.
“I think you’re ready for something a bit more intense. Here it comes . . .”
The next impact of leather tresses jolted her onto her toes in surprise. The sting was intense, edging into true pain as keen as the pleasure from the vibrator.
“Call it.”
“Green!”
I don’t need to collar your neck if I can collar your heart . . .
* * *
Alex had her fingers wrapped around the ropes that stretched her out for him, unconsciously increasing the tension.
Most subs would have been screeching by now, but she only gasped, panted, writhed in her bonds in steadily increasing arousal. That long, lovely body, those exquisite legs flexing, rolling her ass as if fucking the air. Fucking the strokes of his whip.
Frank could have driven railroad spikes with his dick.
This was why he loved Dominance and submission. Having a woman give herself over to him in utter surrender. The eroticism sizzled in his brain, raw and exhilarating, until he had to clamp down on his need to hit her harder, to force her to give him more. Jesus, she had him halfway to Top space—that Dominant’s equivalent to subspace, when you soared like a rocket on a hot blend of testosterone and adrenaline.
He checked her face, though it was harder to read her reactions with her eyes covered. There was a certain twist to her lips he recognized, a blend of pain and arousal and furious pleasure. A storm front of emotion about to break. . .
Spotting his moment, he reached between her legs and plunged two fingers into her wet, deliciously tight pussy.
She screamed, her voice spiraling as she came, shuddering in her bonds. Yet there was a note to her voice, a certain vibrato that suggested pain as much as pleasure.
He couldn’t take any more. Tossing the whip aside, Frank strode to the bedside table and grabbed a condom. He ripped the package open with his teeth, unzipped and pulled his cock out, then sheathed himself without bothering to pull his jeans down.
Returning to his delicious little sub, he jerked the Velcro straps open on her wrist cuffs, leaving them to dangle as he grabbed one shoulder and bent her over the bed. His plunge into her pussy ripped another scream from her lips.
Frank froze. He was a big man, and he had a big cock. Had he hurt her? “Call it!”
“Green!” she shouted. “Green, green, green!”
“Good. Hold on, baby.” He started fucking her.
Long and hard and fast, rolling his hips, digging deep and merciless. Fucking as the pressure built until he swore he could feel it right to the eyeballs.
“Master,” she gasped, the word becoming a breathless chant of need. “Master, Master, Master! Master, please . . .”
Hearing that word, sensing she used it only when hunger maddened her, turned up the heat on his lust.
“MASTER!” she shrieked, writhing, her pussy clamping down on his sawing dick as she came again in delicious, gripping pulses.
Frank thrust as deep as he could get, right to the mouth of her womb, and filled the fucking condom.
He kept thrusting then, if more slowly, letting them both come down as the pulses died away and his dick softened in her hot grip. God, she felt so good, her pretty ass silken and curving against his hips, her back a long sweep of pale skin against the gold and chocolate of the comforter. Draped over her body, he listened to her heartbeat slow, deliciously wrung out himself. Drained by pleasure. “God,” he groaned, “I wish we could stay like this forever.”
She laughed. It sounded a little stuffed and unsteady somehow. “We can’t. We’d starve.”
“Ah. Good point.” Yielding to t
he inevitable, he withdrew, peeled off the condom, wincing a little, and tossed it into the bedside trashcan. Dropping to his knees, he unbuckled the cuffs around her ankles, then picked her up and put her down in the middle of the bed. He sat down to pull off his boots and jeans, then rose to study her for a quiet, delicious moment.
God, she was beautiful. Gloriously naked in nothing but a blindfold, her hair a shining spill of autumn curls, her breasts full and tipped in pink as she lay on her side, her runner’s legs long and muscular. Stripes marked the curve of her ass, a sweet reminder of the flogging he’d so thoroughly enjoyed. Her rosy lower lip trembled.
Frank frowned. Probably the guilt again. He lay down facing her and began stroking the rise of one cheekbone under the blindfold. The black silk contrasted starkly against her Celtic-pale skin. “You know, as much as I enjoy a good scene, I love the aftermath just as much. There’s just something about feeling a woman go limp . . .”
She sobbed once, then curled her body tight and began to cry in earnest. Deep, tearing sounds of grief and despair that stabbed him right in the heart.
“Alex!” Frank pulled the blindfold off over her head, leaving her brilliant hair to tumble to the comforter in a riot of curls, copper against gold. Tears ran down her reddening cheeks. “Alex, what’s—”
He broke off, realizing belatedly why she was crying. And it wasn’t from any pain he’d inflicted. She was finally crying for Ted. The sensations he’d created had blasted through the emotional walls she maintained. Just as she’d wanted.
Pulling her close, Frank started murmuring whatever nonsense came into his head. “That’s my girl. My good girl . . .”
“It hurts!”
“I know. I know.”
She balled her fist and hit his shoulder, but it was a weak blow, rendered powerless by the depth of her grief. “Fucker murdered him, Frank, and there wasn’t a damned thing I could do about it. Nothing!”
“No. You’d have saved him if you could have.”
“Why? Why did the bastard do it? Ted was a good cop. ‘Serve and protect’—it wasn’t just a slogan to him. It was everything he was. And that murdering motherfucker killed him because of who he loved!”
Frank stroked her, his heart aching. “I know. They’ll catch him.”
“I want to catch him! I want to go after that Klan son of a bitch and blow his brains all over that sheet he’s wearing!”
“Me, too.” He combed his fingers through the tangled red silk of her hair. “I want to make him pay for killing a good man. For how you’re hurting. For Cal. But Tracy’s a good cop. He’ll get the bastard.”
“But it won’t bring Ted back.” She lifted her head and met his gaze, her green eyes taking on a gemstone shine behind her tears. “If they catch him, convict him, if they strap him down and pump poison into him until he fucking dies, none of it will bring Ted back!”
“No.” Frank’s heart ached in his chest. “But we can remember him. He’s part of you, Alex. You’ll always carry a piece of him in you. And so will Cal and his mother, and all the ones who loved him. So will all the people he helped, all the people he served and protected.”
“It’s not enough!”
“No. But it’s all we have.”
* * *
Alex lay listening to him breathe, limp in the aftermath of the storm of weeping. Long minutes ticked by before she even felt capable of speech again. “Thank you.”
He smiled at her, slow and so tender she wanted to cry all over again. “Believe me, the pleasure was mine.”
She sniffled, aware suddenly that she probably looked half-drowned. She’d never been pretty when she cried. Frank grabbed a box of tissues from the nightstand and pulled out a fistful, which he handed to her. Alex muttered an incoherent thanks and started wiping everything that ran. “Boy, I’m a buzzkill, aren’t I? You gave me the best climax I think I’ve ever had, and the next thing I know, I’m sobbing like a two-year-old.” Balling up the used tissues, she sat up to toss them in the bedside wastebasket, then settled down again with a tear-drugged sigh.
“You needed it, Alex.” He gave her hair another slow stroke, his hand so gentle, so kind, it made her eyes well all over again.
“It really was amazing. Hot. Delicious. Just . . . amazing.” Which didn’t even remotely do it justice, but was still the best she could manage at the moment.
“That it was.” Rolling onto his back, he tugged her over to lay her head on his shoulder. She listened to the strong, even thump of his heartbeat, savored the male warmth of him.
“I do have one piece of news.” His deep voice rumbled in his chest. “Not sure if you’ll think it’s good or not.”
She made an encouraging hum, stroking one forefinger in circles over the soft fur on his chest, stirring the hair.
“I spoke to the major today. They’ve assigned me to Ted’s area on Charlie shift. I didn’t ask for it, but I couldn’t really say no either. You think it’s going to be a problem, given . . . this?”
Her finger froze before Alex said carefully, “Well, they had to assign somebody to 23. They couldn’t leave it unpatrolled.” She wasn’t sure how she felt about that.
“And I’m the new guy, which means I’m the logical candidate for a third-shift position. Question is, do you mind?”
“No, of course not.” The answer was automatic, though she didn’t know if it was true. “We may have to keep things professional, especially around Bruce . . .”
“Bruce?”
“Bruce Greer. He’s got Charlie 22.”
“He’s the one who went with us to Cal’s last night?”
“Right. We dated in high school, but . . . it didn’t end well.” Which was a massive understatement if she’d ever made one.
“High school was a long time ago.” He paused, lifting a dark brow. “Unless it’s not. Does he want to start things up again?” There was a hint of a growl in the question.
She frowned. “I’m not sure. I thought he was starting to get interested again, but then I got involved with Gary and he backed off. Then that ended . . . really, really badly. I wasn’t interested in going out with anybody until . . . Well, now, there’s you.” Alex grinned. “Boy, is there you.”
“You sure you don’t want to keep your options open? He’s a good-looking bastard.”
“Jealous, Frank?”
“Do I need to be?”
“Considering Bruce is a giant vanilla bean and I’m Rocky Road, hell no.”
Frank studied her with narrow eyes. “Are you’re concerned he’ll get pissed when he realizes we’re involved?”
“Probably not. He’s about as straitlaced as you can get short of a corset.” She frowned. “Sometimes a little too much so, if you know what I mean. I just wanted to make sure you knew the background.”
“Yeah, a heads-up is always welcome.” Frank stroked a hand down her arm.
Alex closed her eyes, feeling drained after the violent storm of tears. It was like lancing a boil; it hurt, but there was also a sense of relief.
The sound of his heartbeat was so soothing, she felt her eyes drift closed and let herself ride his chest into sleep.
* * *
“Alex, wake up,” Frank said softly. “We need to get ready for work.”
With an effort, she surfaced from a luscious dream of licking her way down his muscled chest. “Oh, God. I do not feel like working. What time is it?”
“Ten o’clock.” He grimaced, giving her disordered hair a last stroke before she scrambled off him. He sighed. “My fault for letting us sleep so long. Guess it’s dinner from the drive-through. Again.”
“Life of a cop, Murphy. We’ve got two food groups: burgers and Red Bull.”
He grinned. “And donuts. Don’t forget the donuts.”
“Stereotype much?”
“Just because it’s a stereotype, that doesn’t mean it’s not true.”
Alex smiled at him. Despite the horror of the murder, it felt good to connect, to joke, to feel li
ke life would go on when the terrible grief abated.
Ted would like that.
* * *
Alex made her first patrol of Area 21 that night, absently listening to the voices of her fellow cops over the radio. Especially Frank’s, deep and crisp, as he reported pulling over a speeder. Just the sound of him made heat gather in her belly. Work, she reminded herself. Work now, sex later.
Really, really good sex.
Ted will never have good sex again. She cringed as guilt ambushed her with its sharp fangs of memory and pain. Do the job. For God’s sake, do the job. Concentrate on that, not how much it hurts. That’s what Ted would want.
She followed her patrol route until it took her into the Happy Valley Trailer Park. Where she immediately went on the alert. A smart cop did not patrol the collection of aging double-wides with anything less than her full attention.
As Ted had said once, “You know any place called Happy Valley just has to be a shithole.” And as usual, her mentor had been right. The trailer park was home to gang bangers, drug dealers, hookers, drunks, thieves, and about six different flavors of addicts. And poor elderly people and folks who worked three jobs.
Then there were the children. Way too many children, growing up under the weight of poverty and despair and too-frequent violence.
Alex slowed her black-and-white down to five miles an hour and cruised the rutted gravel road that snaked through the park, sweeping her gaze through the shadows, looking for anyone creeping along where he had no business being.
Huh. Lights were on at 30A Jasmine Drive. Donny Royce must be up drinking again. Which meant chances were good she’d be answering a call to peel him off Polly before the night was over.
God, she hated domestics. Of course, every cop she knew hated domestics.
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