by Julia Sykes
I hardly breathed as I waited for his response. I had either earned myself my most important assignment to date or I had cost myself my job. All of the air left my chest in a rush at his slight nod.
“Okay, Silverman. You can have the op, but Miller’s staying on, too. Don’t argue with me,” he cut me off before I could open my mouth to protest. “You’re not going in without a partner. I know you’re a trained agent, but you’ll be putting yourself in a vulnerable position. You can’t fight back if you’re tied down.”
He must have caught my flicker of hesitation at the idea of being restrained, because his countenance turned impossibly sterner. “How far you go with Carter is up to you, but he’s an experienced Dom and he will push you. Your success will depend on you playing your role convincingly. I’m going to give you one last chance to change your mind.”
“I want to do this.” I could handle it. My boss was right. I didn’t have to go farther with Carter than I wanted to. I could just talk to him about the lifestyle. If he pressed for more, I would handle that as it came. I certainly wasn’t going to sleep with the man. Even though I wouldn’t be doing it for money, doing it for information was still a transaction of sorts, and I wasn’t a whore.
“All right then. I’ll inform Miller of his assignment.” Kennedy’s eyes narrowed. “And you will work with him as a partner. It’s obvious you think you have something to prove, but I’m not going to let your ego get either of you hurt. Do you understand me, Silverman?”
“Of course, sir.” My response was as stiff as my tensed muscles. Had I really been so transparent? Yes, I had something to prove, but I didn’t have an ego. If anything, Miller was the one with an ego.
Kennedy nodded. “Then I’ll expect your full report on my desk in two weeks. If you find anything significant before then, notify me immediately.” He gestured toward the door in a clear dismissal.
“Yes, sir.” I bit out the words as I turned to leave.
“And Silverman,” he added. “You’ll have to practice being more convincing when it comes to showing respect.”
I resisted the urge to shoot him the finger.
“Yes, sir,” I said with a saccharine smile.
He snorted. “Carter has his work cut out for him.”
I turned quickly to hide my scowl. As soon as I successfully completed this op, I was going to request a transfer. To a BDSM-free field office.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Silverman?” Smith James’ voice was an aggressive growl.
My breathing was already labored from the effort of beating the crap out of the Body Opponent Bag, but I drew in a deeper breath to center myself as I turned to face my fellow field agent. I had known Smith long enough to recognize his don’t-fuck-with-me-you-won’t-like-the-consequences tone.
I usually got along with him just fine. When he wasn’t being a bully, that is.
Another Dom. God, I couldn’t take two steps in this building without running into one of them.
I raised a cool eyebrow at him as he stalked across the training room towards me. “I’m working out, James. Do you have a problem with that?”
“What I have a problem with is your dumbshit plan to go undercover at Decadence.” Fury pulsed off him in waves that slapped up against me with almost physical force. His silver-blue eyes glowed, and his slightly curled dark hair was in disarray. He looked wild, dangerous. The man was imposing, I would give him that. He was six feet, three inches of pure muscle, and he carried it with the grace of a man who knew his own power.
“There’s no need to be an ass, James.” Clayton Vaughn punched his friend none-too-gently on the shoulder. Out of the corner of my eye, I registered that Smith was scowling at him, but all of my focus honed in on the gorgeous man who had captivated my thoughts – and many of my late-night fantasies – for the last two years. His electric blue eyes sparked as he shot Smith an admonishing frown. I couldn’t help fixating on the twist of his full lips.
Clayton’s bearing wasn’t as potent as Smith’s, but he had his own sense of calm confidence in his abilities. His meticulously styled dark blond hair and clean shaven jaw only accentuated that sense of controlled surety in his power. He was noble and sweet and he would kick the ass of anyone who tried to fuck with his friends. And here he was, coming to my defense like some goddamn perfect knight in shining armor.
I had to hold back a sigh of feminine admiration. I had hoped that my attraction to him would fade with time, since it clearly wasn’t reciprocated. Clayton seemed to view me with the affection he might afford a little sister; he had never seen me as a woman. But ever since he had been shot – on my watch, no less – my infatuation had only increased. The realization that I might have lost him forever had shaken me to my core, even though I knew I didn’t stand a chance with the man.
I shook myself slightly and tore my eyes from his almost painfully perfect face. I had been staring for a few heartbeats too long, so I focused on my anger with Smith to cover my mistake.
“Kennedy gave me the assignment,” I told him steadily. “I’m the best agent for the op, and he knows it. If you have a problem with that, I suggest you take it up with him.”
Smith’s frown deepened. “I have taken it up with him, but he won’t back down.”
“That’s probably because he’s able to rein in his chauvinistic tendencies and admit that a woman can be a good field agent.”
Smith’s nostrils flared, and Clayton placed a restraining hand on his arm before he could bite my head off. He looked as though he was quite literally capable of it.
“No one’s saying you’re not good at your job, Sharon,” Clayton assured me smoothly.
And damn it if he didn’t look sincere. His earnestness played on my infatuation, and my aggressive stance eased. It would have been so much easier if he were an asshole. He was just too damn good for my own good.
“But,” Clayton continued. Ah, here came the insulting caveat. “You’re going into unfamiliar territory, and the boss told us you’re not keen to work with Miller. You have to trust him as a partner. It’s not safe for you to put yourself in Carter’s hands without someone with experience watching out for you.”
His lips thinned in distaste at the mention of Carter’s hands. The little flutter of pleasure that his obvious protectiveness elicited was swiftly quashed by his next words. “And it’s especially unsafe because you have naturally submissive tendencies.”
“I am not submissive!” I snapped. “Why does everyone keep saying that?”
Abruptly, Smith stepped right into my personal space, until his body was barely an inch from mine. He brought that pulsing aura of power with him, and it slammed into me, bearing down on me from where he loomed above. His silver eyes practically glowed as they bored down into mine. Instinctively, I lowered my gaze in the wake of that penetrating stare.
“That’s why.” The knowing satisfaction in his voice made me bristle, and I glared up at him. He had caught me off guard, damn it.
I spoke through gritted teeth. “Maybe in your kinky little world, everyone is divided up into Doms and subs, but that’s not how the rest of the world works. I don’t care about your lifestyle, and I’m not a part of it. I’m taking this assignment at Decadence because I earned it. If Santiago can pretend to be a member of the Latin Kings, I think I can handle pretending to be kinky. All I have to do is act like I’m on a power trip, and I’m a Dominatrix. Apparently if I drop that act, I’m a submissive. Which is complete bullshit, by the way. I’m a trained special agent with the FBI, and I have just as much right to run an op as you do, regardless of the setting.”
Smith’s jaw ticked as he ground his teeth together. “If that’s what you think being a Dominant is about, then you have no understanding of BDSM. Have you done any research?”
“Of course I did. I went on the internet and-”
Smith slashed his hand through the air as though to literally cut off my speech, and he talked right over me. “Do you know how much bu
llshit there is on the internet? What did you do, check Wikipedia?”
I couldn’t quell the heat that rushed to my cheeks. I had checked Wikipedia. I had also watched several video clips. But I wasn’t about to admit that out loud, especially not in front of Clayton.
“If you insist on going through with this goddamn reckless assignment, you will at the very least talk to someone in the lifestyle.” Smith delivered it as an edict.
I glanced from Smith to Clayton. They were both watching me expectantly, waiting for something.
Oh, god. They thought I was going to talk to them about kink?
“No.” I shook my head almost wildly. “No way. You two stay out of my business and stay off my op.”
Clayton sighed and shot Smith an exasperated look. “What James meant to say was: For your own safety, please talk to someone in the BDSM lifestyle before you go in blind. If you don’t want to talk to us, I’m sure Rose would-”
“No,” I cut him off. He thought I was going to talk to his girlfriend about their kinky relationship? I could hardly come to terms with the idea that Clayton had adopted that lifestyle, and I certainly hadn’t even begun to come to terms with the fact that the knowledge had resulted in some disconcertingly hot dreams.
I softened when I was reminded of the reason I had been sent into Decadence in the first place. Rose had been slipped rohypnol and almost raped at the club a few weeks earlier, and Clayton was eager to shut the place down. He wanted someone to suffer for what had happened to her, and neither he nor Smith could be involved in busting the club because of their involvement on the night of the attack. So it had fallen to me to confirm drug use at Decadence.
“Please, Clayton.” I tried for a more reasonable tone. “I’m doing this for you. Don’t make me feel any more uncomfortable about it than I already do.”
“Talk to Miller, then,” Clayton suggested. “I know he’s new, but he’s been a practicing Dom for six years. Maybe it’ll be easier to talk to someone you don’t know very well.”
Miller again. He was going to steal the op from me if I gave him the slightest chance.
“Leave me alone, Clayton. I’m not interested in chatting about sex with any of my co-workers. Is there no sense of professionalism in this unit?”
“Your safety trumps professionalism,” Smith said sternly.
If it weren’t for the fact that he was annoying the shit out of me, I might have appreciated the fact that he felt protective.
“I can handle myself in the field.” There was a frosty edge to my assertion.
“Spar with me,” Clayton said abruptly.
“What?”
“Spar with me. If you pin me first, I won’t say another word about the op. And neither will Smith.” He shot his friend a significant glance, and Smith nodded grimly. “But if you’re pinned first, you have to talk to Miller about BDSM.”
“And know that if you don’t agree, I won’t let up,” Smith warned. “Clayton might care about respecting boundaries, but I don’t give a shit about them. I won’t let you get yourself hurt just because I feel bad about annoying you. And for the record, I don’t feel bad about it.”
God, the man was infuriating. And brutally honest. Even though Smith had no regard for rules and social niceties, he had his own strange sense of morality. Right now, that morality was telling him that keeping me safe was worth the cost of pissing me off.
“Fine! Your ass is going down, Vaughn,” I warned Clayton. He might have a foot of height and forty pounds of muscle on me, but I was faster than he was. I had beaten him before. Sure, I ended up on the mat more often than he did, but this time losing wasn’t an option.
My feet had barely touched the mat when Clayton came at me. Automatically, I ducked under his grasping arms, but my legs tangled with something solid. Smith had tripped me on purpose.
I went down and rolled to lessen the impact. Before I could find my feet again, Clayton was on me, pinning me with his forearm against my throat. Heat rushed through me at the feeling of his weight atop me. It burned alongside my anger.
“Damn it, James! That wasn’t fair!”
Smith’s expression wasn’t the least bit contrite as he stared down at me. “Do you think the Kings are going to fight fair? If you don’t trust Miller – if you work alone – you’ll be vulnerable. Not to mention Carter. He definitely won’t fight fair. As a Dominant, he’s a master manipulator. He won’t have to knock you down to get you flat on your back.”
“You bastard!” I jerked under Clayton, but he held me down firmly. “I am not going to sleep with Carter! I don’t have to whore myself out to get information from a mark.”
“Good.” Smith nodded, satisfied at my defeat and completely unconcerned with the fact that he had just insulted me. “Now, you’re going to talk to Miller about BDSM. You need to understand what you’re getting yourself into.”
I growled up at him, furious.
“Sharon.” Clayton used a tone I didn’t recognize. His voice was calm and deep. It seemed to sink into my bones. “You’re going to talk to Miller. We had an agreement.”
I stilled beneath him, giving in. They had backed me into a corner, and I had no choice but to agree. I nodded my assent, and then turned my glare on Clayton. He wasn’t a knight in shining armor, after all.
Arrogant Dom.
Chapter 3
Squaring my shoulders and lifting my chin, I stepped into Decadence in my best imitation of a haughty strut. Miller gently grasped my elbow, anticipating my wobble on my high-heeled boots. I had remained steady until then, but I stumbled when I jerked out of his hold.
Damn it! Barely two minutes in, and Miller had already caused me to fumble. Was he doing it on purpose? If he thought he could play games to get ahead of me in the unit, he had another thing coming.
I had promised Clayton and Smith that I would talk to Miller about BDSM, but I hadn’t promised when I would do it. I fully intended to complete the op first. Then I could “talk to him” about how I had managed to do my job. Telling him that I could successfully pretend to be kinky technically fulfilled my friends’ requirements of talking to him.
Unease stirred in my gut. As much as I hated to admit it, the men were pretty intimidating, and I didn’t like to think what they might do if they found out my plan to circumvent our deal. It would probably be best to avoid them for the next few weeks. I was banking on Miller having the good sense not to tattle on a fellow agent. Even a rookie should know that there was no quicker way to get burned with his co-workers than to be a snitch.
“Let’s split up.” The cool decisiveness in my tone let Miller know it wasn’t just a suggestion. “I need to patch things up with Carter. I didn’t leave him on such great terms last night. Having you around isn’t going to help me flirt with him.”
Miller nodded easily. “Good thinking. I’ll scope out the regulars and see what I can find out from them.”
Well, he seemed amenable enough. That didn’t mean I was going to let my guard down for one second when it came to him, though.
I watched him walk towards the dungeon, and I couldn’t help but notice the hungry glances that the female – and some male – subs cast his way. The man was attractive, I would give him that. He exuded a sense of confidence similar to that possessed by Smith and Clayton, but somehow Miller’s powerful aura held a mischievous edge that was undeniably appealing. His muscles rippled beneath his tanned skin when he moved, and the open leather vest he wore did little to conceal those muscles. And the way those leathers hugged his ass…
I jerked my eyes away. It didn’t matter how attractive he was. Reed Miller was a cocky Dom.
Turning my attention away from my partner, I scanned the club for Carter. He wasn’t in the dungeon or at the bar, and I wasn’t about to go check the private rooms. The idea of walking in on him beating some strung-out woman made my stomach turn. In my short encounter with him, he had come across as arrogant in a playful, teasing way, but he turned deadly serious when it came to
discussing the safety of BDSM practitioners. That man didn’t seem the type to allow irresponsible play between intoxicated kinksters to take place at his club.
I shook my head. All the more reason to get closer to the man. Either he truly was oblivious to what was going on right under his nose, or he was a very good actor.
Most men can be good actors when their main objective is to get into your pants. I had met my fair share of horny liars in the past. I had always thought my jaw was a bit too defined and my nose a bit too wide to be truly pretty, but men seemed to think telling me I was beautiful would get me to sleep with them.
Steven wasn’t a liar. He meant it when he said he wanted to marry me.
The pang in my heart and the guilt that gripped my chest were all too familiar.
No. Don’t go there. I didn’t have time to think about Steven now.
Shrugging off the painful memories, I forced myself to focus on sifting through Derek Carter’s lies. Although I hadn’t spotted him yet, I did note that Reyes was working as dungeon monitor again, and there was another, equally brawny, Latino guy working the bar. He was short and so broadly muscled that he appeared almost squat. He had just as many tattoos as Reyes, but where the dungeon monitor was gaunt-faced and mean, the bartender’s face was wide, with a perpetual sneer.
Juan Ortiz. Another member of the Latin Kings. Ortiz had never been arrested for his association with the gang, but Santiago had IDed him during his undercover investigation. Ortiz was in the same tribe as Santiago and Reyes: Los Muertos.
One member of the Kings working at a kink club might not mean anything; gangsters could be kinky. But two of them from the same tribe, working in a venue with rampant drug use… That was significant. It had to be.
Miller had the dungeon covered. He would be keeping an eye on Reyes. That left Ortiz to me. I focused on carefully putting one high-heeled foot in front of the other as I strode towards the bar.