by Angel Payne
Dasha had the strange urge to curtsy or bow or something, taken in by the romantic formality between the two. Thankfully, Philip took charge, lifting her hand to his lips with courtly style. “A pleasure, my dear. You do your Sir proud.”
“Thank you,” she mumbled. “Um…you know David, then?”
“No. Just met him today. But he’s a good man. He’s upstairs with Agent Moridian.” He gave her a deliberate nod. “Who’s also a good man.”
Her to-the-hair-roots blush didn’t deter him.
“They’re both concerned about you, little one. Doms need a little TLC too, you know. And the assurance you haven’t gone catatonic.”
As Dasha managed a nod, Raife came forward. “Okay, the therapy couch is closed. If you don’t get some knots on your toy’s wrists and some lashes on her ass, we’ll both have hell to pay.”
“He’s right,” chirped Mary, bouncing on her toes. “I’m waiting, damn it! I’m waaaaiting!”
Philip transformed back into a provoked lion. He stalked to Mary and, without skipping a beat, dropped to one knee and then flung her over it, punishing her backside with smacks loud as gunfire. He didn’t let up until she squirmed and screamed.
“Okay, little one, let’s get this clear,” he finally declared. “You’ll wait as long as I desire you to wait. Respond properly, or I’ll consider a few dozen more.”
“Y-yes, Sir,” Mary replied, completely droopy-eyed and limp-limbed, as he stood her back up.
“Now follow your Master to the dungeon. I want to see correct posture and distance as well, or I’ll stop you and go get the collar and leash. I’ll be right behind you to make sure you don’t fuck up.”
Dasha took that as her cue to leave too. Philip’s statement had sunk in. It was time to get the inevitable over with; hiding out with her guitar wasn’t helping matters at all. The music to be faced here was with David and Kress, even if it was in the key of awkward, with a resounding backbeat of uncomfortable.
Chapter Fifteen
Kress clicked the Pause button on the security camera footage filling his computer screen. His team in Miami had done a great job of pinpointing a half-dozen pertinent clips from the Viceroy Miami, but his eyes felt like dust balls from watching them a hundred times. He rubbed his lids and grunted in exhaustion.
“Not riveting shit, I take it.” The support came from Pennington, who sat on a couch nearby. The guy was buried in piles of surveillance photos from Miami International, background dossiers on the Buenos Aires outfit to which they’d tracked the cell phone, and a complete workup on Ambrose Smith, who remained a “person of interest” in case they’d missed any connections to their crackpot from Miami.
“No,” he stated. “But you’re not getting to read the top of the Times bestseller list there either.” He gave a gruff nod. “I appreciate the help, man.”
David pinched the bridge of his nose. “Anything to catch this bastard faster.”
“It’s still above and beyond. Especially after your dancers invited you to go watch their playdate in the basement.”
Pennington dropped his hand and reopened his eyes. They were dark as thunder. “Right. And you think that’d be fun for me right now?”
“Got it,” he returned. And he did. More clearly than he wanted to admit. He understood every note of frustration in the guy’s voice, betraying exactly what—more correctly, who—lay front and center in their minds right now. “Sorry.”
“Forget it. I just wanna know if she’s—you know—”
“Going to speak to either of us again?” Kress supplied. “Going to speak to anyone again? Not freaking out from the most intense sexual experience she’s likely ever been through?”
“Thanks for the reminder, Oprah.” His friend jolted to his feet, looking ready to punch the wall. “Goddamn it. I watch after my subs, you know? Aftercare is fucking key for me.”
“I’m on the same page, man. You know that.”
“Yeah, I do.” He pressed his fist into the side of a bookcase and let out a dark laugh. “I’ve had subs send me flowers for my aftercare excellence. Waiting for the chance to do it… Well, it’s just new.”
“Maybe in this case, the waiting is the aftercare.” Kress closed the video window and leaned back in his chair. “Dasha’s not exactly in a usual profession to begin with. On top of this, her world has been upended in less than a week. I’ve seen fewer plot twists on most cop shows. Give her some space to process it, man. She’s not a stupid woman.”
“I know that.” Pennington’s tone went grittier. “But I also know she has a tendency to bottle up. To hide out. To avoid dealing with herself behind the facade of stressing about everyone else.”
Kress took that statement and connected the dots in his own head. “Everyone else,” he echoed. “Like, what I witnessed with her on the call from dear Daddy last night.”
David arched both brows. “The lightbulb starts to come on.”
“But this case, the ‘everyone else’ is—”
“Us.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah. Shit.”
Kress shook his head. “She’s a forest with a few shadows, isn’t she?”
Before Pennington could respond, a soft rustle came from the doorway. “She’s also a forest who’s way late for breakfast,” came a soft soprano voice that robbed him of a few heartbeats. “And…she’s sorry.”
How the woman could get any more gorgeous than she’d been last night, Kress couldn’t understand, but here she was, irresistible even in her tied-up hair, Duran Duran T-shirt, black capris, and nothing on her feet except lavender polish. He remembered the color all too well—from every moment she’d tried to squirm away from his flogging.
Concentrate on something else.
He cleared his throat and forced an affable smile. “Hey, stranger.”
Fuck. Hey, stranger? What, now you’re Woody Allen with the dork-dick lines? But what was he supposed to call her now? Were they back to Miss Moore and Agent Moridian? He sure didn’t expect her to keep up the Sergeant act, though his cock twitched just at the thought. And taking that one step further, imagining the joy of calling her his good girl once more…
Best to cut that one off at the head right now, figuratively speaking.
Hell. This was new, land-mine-filled ground for him. Sure, he’d had the pleasure of getting to share some beautiful submissives before, just never any he had to get back to work with the next morning. Even worse, the definition of that work: tracking down the lunatic who wanted to kill them. And as long as they were on the subject of fuck-my-mind-please, now he had to pretend last night hadn’t blown the doors off every other D/s experience he’d ever had—meaning a vanilla relationship comparison was pointless too. Especially when he had to give a few thousand brain cells on acting as if Dasha, with her trusting eyes and sweet spirit and open eagerness to please, hadn’t likely ruined him for any woman who knelt for him again.
More importantly, he had to quash the hope of Pennington ever letting Dasha do it again.
“Hey, stranger,” she said in return, though her gaze already raced to her man. “David.” It almost sounded like a question, until David opened his arms for her. Kress clenched his jaw behind his smile, dealing with the mental dagger of her sloppy little “Sir!” as she raced past him, straight into Pennington’s embrace.
“Hi, sweetheart.” He murmured it into her hair as she burrowed against him. “How are you?”
“Good. Really good…now.”
David tugged her ponytail free. Kress grabbed a chair, surely refinishing it with his grip as D’s long, sunshine-colored curls spilled into David’s fingers.
“You don’t sound so sure about that.”
Her brow scrunched. Kress’s airway closed as he fantasized that his arm grew ten feet, letting him personally soothe that frown away.
“I’m fine,” she insisted. “Just…getting my shit together, you know?”
“Understood.” Pennington pressed a kiss to her temple
. “But we still missed you at breakfast this morning. Yeah, Kress?”
He dived for the easy out of sarcasm. “Yeah. He’s a bitch before his caffeine.”
David grunted with humor, but Dasha looked to both of them, features still troubled as a fallen angel. “I am sorry. I shouldn’t have ignored your request.”
“It wasn’t a request,” David stated. “And you’re right, you shouldn’t have ignored it. We needed to know you were okay, D. That’s our right and responsibility after what we asked of you last night.”
The angel gave a righteous huff. “You know my status quo on how I deal with stuff. I thought you’d just figure it out.”
David’s hand tightened in her hair. “We’re not dealing with status quo right now, not on a lot of levels. I thought you’d figured that out.”
“Okay.” She sighed. “You’re right; you’re right.”
“Hmm. Thanks. Now say it like you mean it.”
“I do mean it.” She added, with a soft jab at his ribs, “Sir.”
Kress caught Pennington’s fast glance. “I don’t think she means it, Kress. What’s your scope reading?”
He doubled a stare back at his buddy. Sure enough, the subtext in David’s words now gained reinforcement in the guy’s eyes. Was he really thinking of more discipline for D…now? Yet the man knew her, maybe better than anyone else on earth right now…and the glints now flaring in Dasha’s gaze, a brown-sugar mix of fear and lust, confirmed that like the woman had just chugged Sodium Pentothal. And in the doing, revealed something else too.
Maybe Pennington was contemplating a pleasure-and-pain ride for her with the two of them again.
Because maybe, if the growing intensity on her face was any indication…she considered it too. Considered it and was excited by it.
The holy shit had just had begun its victory dance in his brain, when a Skype call rang from his computer.
Chapter Sixteen
Dasha was simultaneously relieved and peeved by the sudden ring from Kress’s computer. Only when it sounded did she realize how thick the air had gotten in the room���and how she was hoping Kress would answer David’s question with one of his blatant, down-on-the-floor-now-girl stares at her. It’d been easy for her to imagine it, seeing how his stubbled jaw and uncombed hair had started the job for her…
But real life was determined to have its way with them today. The Skype rang again, sounding even more strident than before.
“Who the fuck?” Kress muttered.
She sent him a teasing singsong. “Hello, Agent Moridian? It’s the president on the line…”
The humor didn’t help. Kress’s glower deepened as he peered at the laptop. “Damn. It might well be. It’s a high-clearance, secured number from Washington.” He sat down with a hard grunt. “But it’s likely my director or one of your daddy’s security team.”
She lifted her head from David’s shoulder in astonishment. “Daddy’s team?”
“Oh yeah. The bunch of them have been all over my ass since this thing started.”
A mixture of emotion hit, along with the surprise. While she felt lousy Kress had to deal with another team of Washington asses, it eased the ache from Dad’s abrupt good-bye yesterday. In his roundabout way, maybe Daddy really was looking out for her.
Funny how she’d thought about aching. It seemed the ideal term to define poor Kress now, as he shifted in the chair with a grimace—and a discernible bulge at the front of his jeans. Dasha barely hid her smile. So she wasn’t the only one who ached for a reprise of last night. The knowledge warmed her, though Kress’s face hardened like a chunk of granite.
“Oh, this is gonna be a joy,” he grumbled. “You two might as well go watch another movie. Now’s a good time for Titanic. They’re gonna want a full debrief on the mall throwdown.”
He finally clicked the Answer button. The screen came to life. A face appeared at the other end of the call, making Kress blink with surprise—and hauling Dasha off David’s lap. She took a couple of stiff steps, then stopped in disbelief.
There was no mistaking who it was. Crystal Corso looked like Snow White in Prada, with those big blue eyes, the bouffant with tube curls at the bottom, and even a pristine business shirt starched into perfect collar points. The woman’s voice shattered that parallel, though. Her no-nonsense tone came over the speakers with clipped, queenly efficiency.
“Agent Moridian, I presume?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Kress replied, his posture still composed, his face all business. “And may I ask who…”
“Crystal Corso. I’m Senator Moore’s Chief of Staff.”
Dasha gasped. Kress spun around as she plunked back down to the couch, back into David’s hold. The agent looked like he thought a crazed psycho had gotten in. Maybe one had, Dasha concluded, and that nutcase was her.
“Chief of Staff!” She snapped it in a harsh whisper. “She was hired as a senior aide. Only a month ago!”
“Moridian?” Corso demanded from the computer. “What’s going on? Is everything—”
“We’re fine here, Ms. Corso. Naturally, we’re taking all kinds of precautions for Miss Moore’s safety, even inside the compound. I overreacted to…uh…something.” His features, now in profile to Dasha, dropped fast back into respect—though she saw he now scrutinized Corso in a new light. Despite her fury, Dasha melted into a tiny smile again. His immediate credence to her opinion was a special gift. “I regret the interruption. How can I be of service?”
“I’m simply checking in on your progress personally,” she replied. “As you know, the senator has asked for regular updates on his daughter’s case, and in light of the protracted pace of the investigation, I assured him I’d make it a top action item on my own list.”
The woman’s dig, even given in her friendly press-conference tone, clearly chafed Kress. “A manhunt like this doesn’t get solved like a TV show, Ms. Corso,” he said through tight lips. “If you let a lunatic know you’re on to him, he’s likely to hide deeper or run farther.”
“The senator is aware of your sensitive position,” came the whittling knife of a reply. “So you believe it’s a man?”
“Point of speech,” Kress clarified. “But, yes, the Bureau’s psychologist has indicated we’re likely looking for a male.”
“Good. That’s good, Agent Moridian.”
“Really?” The brow Dasha could see clicked higher. “And why is that, Ms. Corso?”
“I simply mean good progress.” Crystal gave him another canned smile. “Senator Moore is extremely concerned about his daughter’s well-being, and—”
“Then why doesn’t Senator Moore come and tell her himself?”
Dasha jumped up again as she cut Crystal off with the charge. She couldn’t stand by any longer and watch the woman try her smooth-operator routine on Kress. He wasn’t falling for it anyway. She let her glare say exactly that as she leaned in at the computer monitor.
“Dasha.” If she took the woman by surprise, it got covered well. “What a lovely surprise. You look well, darling. How are you?”
“I’m not your darling.” She couldn’t control the retort. “We’ve only met once, Ms. Corso.”
“Of course.” The fairy-tale smile tightened a little. “It simply felt like a natural thing to say. How fortuitous that you’re there, however. The second purpose of my call was to speak with you.”
She felt the guys’ tension levels ramping up in tandem with each other. “This is gonna be entertaining,” David muttered—and Dasha almost let out a bizarre giggle. She didn’t trust Crystal as far as she could toss a bushel of poisoned apples at the woman, and it felt good to hear David sharing her instinct.
“Speak with me about what?” But for a long second, Crystal didn’t reply. The woman scanned as much of the library as she could see through the laptop’s camera, as if expecting their dove killer to magically pop out from the volumes and turn himself in. She was so busy conducting her little Scooby-snoop-swoop, she didn’t notice Kress
scrutinizing her in return.
“Crystal?” she prompted again.
“Yes. Forgive me, dar—erm, Dasha.” Corso popped back into character, tilting her head with practiced ease. “Well. I have some exciting news. Your father will be flying to Atlanta at the end of this week.”
A handful of words. That was all it took to flip her mind from Angry Girl to Stunned Daughter. “He—really?”
“Oh yes. Really.”
She caught Kress’s skeptical stare, as well as David’s unchanged brood. She ignored both, focusing instead on her own face in the corner of the Skype window. She connected with her joyous gaze and excited grin. “So what time—”
“We’ll be there midday on Friday, give or take a bit,” Crystal interjected. “Your father has a couple of early appointments; then we’ll head for Dulles. I’ve booked a private charter.”
“That’s awesome.” Her elation gained momentum. “He’ll probably be in time for lunch. The chef at this mansion is amazing. Dad will love these peach things she makes for—” That’s when her face fell. “Wait,” she blurted. “We’ll be there?”
Corso’s expression remained as lacquered as her hair. “Of course.”
“Dad and…you?”
“Dad and everyone. This is a huge trip, Dasha.” The woman curled an evocative smile. “I’ve saved the best part of this for last. Your father has been identified as a potential front-runner for the candidacy in two years, and CNN wants to tape a special interview with him. Only him!”
The woman’s eyes gleamed as if world peace had just been achieved. But on this side of the conversation, Dasha felt like she’d just tossed smoking grenades. “What’re—you—” she stammered. “What candidacy?”
“Why, the candidacy. For the presidency.”
She blinked hard. A lot of times. “P-president? But—”
“Isn’t it thrilling?” Corso gushed. “The numbers we’ve gotten back so far look phenomenal!”
“He never told me he wanted to be president.” Something upended her heart again. Shock wasn’t the right word. Upended seemed more fitting. She shook all over. Kress gripped her arm gently and guided her to sit in his chair.