TYGERS 4:
SWEET AWAKENING
Melinda Barron
www.loose-id.com
Warning
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Tygers 4: Sweet Awakening
Melinda Barron
This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Published by
Loose Id LLC
1802 N Carson Street, Suite 212-2924
Carson City NV 89701-1215
www.loose-id.com
Copyright © February 2008 by Melinda Barron
All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the purchaser of this e-book ONLY. No part of this e-book may be reproduced or shared in any form, including, but not limited to printing, photocopying, faxing, or emailing without prior written permission from Loose Id LLC.
ISBN 978-1-59632-637-8
Available in Adobe PDF, HTML, MobiPocket, and MS Reader
Printed in the United States of America
Editor: Maryam Salim
Cover Artist: April Martinez
Dedication
Thanks to the usual suspects who keep me honest and sane while writing. Special thanks to Maura, for the wonderful title. Your ideas are always better than mine. Thanks to Maryam for her suggestions and subtle (or not so subtle) proddings, which always bring up new ideas and add to the story. This one is for Angie, who always has great praise and constructive criticism that help me along. Plus, she always says, “What’s next,” which makes me very happy. As always, remember that this is a work of fiction. And remember that all BDSM play should be SSC: Safe, Sane, and Consensual. ‑‑ MB
Chapter One
Harper Sampson’s hands shook. She felt moisture bead on her upper lip, and on her brow. Ty had assured her the owner of this detective agency would take her seriously, but she wasn’t so sure. She’d talked to one other investigator who had flat out laughed in her face.
Of course, the police had been doing that for two weeks now, ever since Helena had gone missing. Harper remembered the condescending look on the detective’s face when he’d said, “Your sister’s a grown woman, and she went to that place of her own free will. If she’s not back in a few months, call us.”
His emphasis on the words “that place” had made her want to reach across the desk and slap him.
“Self-righteous, moralistic bastard.”
“I’m sorry?”
Harper tensed, then tried to relax and smile at the woman who sat behind the desk at Los Solvers. She hoped they could solve her problem and that they wouldn’t laugh at her.
Ty Kessler, the owner of the BDSM club Tygers, had assured her Diego Fuentes and his associates would take her seriously. She hoped he was right.
“I’m sorry,” she said softly, lifting her shaking hand to tuck a stray hair behind her ear. “I’m just very nervous.”
“That’s understandable. Can I get you some tea? Or a soft drink, Ms. Sampson?”
“Tea would be nice. And, please, call me Harper.” Harper sat up straighter as the woman winked at her and left the room. She read the nameplate on the desk: Sorcha Morales. She was a pretty, heavyset Hispanic woman, who wore a thin collar of green stones around her neck. Harper knew the collar denoted her submissiveness and the fact she belonged to one of the men at the agency.
Harper herself had tried BDSM, at her sister’s urging, but she hadn’t had any success with it. She never had success with relationships, unlike Helena, who attracted men and women like flowers attracted honeybees.
Her sister’s bisexuality had never bothered Harper. She loved Helena too much to judge her on any aspect of her life. They’d always been there for each other. Until now. New tears welled in her eyes and she dashed them away as Sorcha carried in a tray with two cups on it.
“Here. I have sugar, fake sugar, cream, and fake cream.” She laughed and set the tray on the table.
Desperate for something to do with her hands, Harper took a cup, doctored it with all the real stuff, and took a large gulp. The hot liquid scorched her throat; she sat up straighter and coughed.
“Too hot?”
“No, it’s fine, thanks.” She took another sip, then cut her gaze to the door as it opened. A thickly built Hispanic man stepped inside, followed by a very tall man with shoulder-length blond hair.
“Sorry we’re late.” The first man held out his hand, and Harper stood and took it. “Diego Fuentes, and this is one of my partners, Walker Bryant. We’re happy you took Ty’s advice and came to see us.”
Walker stepped forward and she shook his hand too, hoping neither of them would notice how her hand trembled.
“Let’s go into the office, mi juguete,” Diego said to Sorcha, kissing her cheek.
“Whatever you say, my liege.” She picked up the tray and inclined her head toward an open doorway. “In here, Harper.”
Once they were all seated around the table, and the men had been served coffee, Diego nodded at Harper.
“Ty tells me your sister is missing, for two weeks now.”
“That’s right. She went to Paragon’s, the BDSM resort in the Caribbean. That was two weeks ago. The people there tell me she stayed her week, and then she left.”
“So technically, she’s only been missing a week.”
Harper turned to the blond man, her stomach churning. They were going to dismiss her concerns too; she could tell by the tone of his voice. “She was supposed to be home a week ago Saturday. The airline won’t tell me whether she used her ticket to fly back to Miami, or if she cashed it in or anything. I’ve been told she’s an adult and can do what she wants. But Helena would never worry me like this. Something’s wrong.”
She darted her gaze between the two men, who watched her intently. She knew they were studying her, to try and get a handle on her. Finally, Walker spoke. “You and your sister are very close?”
“Yes. We’re Irish twins, born eleven months apart. We’re all each other has.”
“What about your parents?” Diego lifted his cup and took a drink.
“We have different fathers, and neither of us have ever met them. Our mother is, well, she was seventeen when Helena was born and eighteen when I was born. She’s always been more interested in men, and having fun, than in her daughters. Right now she’s in Europe, with an Italian man she met. I’ve left several messages, but she hasn’t returned my calls.”
“I’m sorry,” Walker said. “It must have been hard.”
“It was, Mr. Bryant. We lived with our grandmother until she died. I was nine, and Helena was ten. Then, we lived under ou
r mother’s roof.”
Diego narrowed his eyes at her. She could tell he was trying to hide a smile. “That’s an interesting way to put it, living under her roof.”
“Theresa was never much of a mother, Mr. Fuentes. She would work when she had to, but most of the time she looked for a man who could pay the bills for her, in exchange for her services. Helena and I took care of ourselves, and of each other.”
She ignored both men’s upraised eyebrows and sat up straighter. “Are you going to help me, or am I wasting my time?”
“Relax,” Walker said. “We’re just trying ‑‑”
“Mr. Bryant, I don’t want to relax. I want to find my sister.”
“We understand that. And, please, call me Walker. We’re just trying to get some feel for the situation. You have to understand that to the authorities, a grown woman being gone for a week, with no signs of foul play, is nothing to be alarmed about. Maybe she met a new Master, or Mistress. She is a submissive who likes to play.”
“Yes, she is. But Helena would never be gone for a week without telling me. I’ve tried to call her cell phone, but it goes immediately to voice mail. I’ve left message after message. The only way she wouldn’t call me back is if she were…”
Harper’s voice cracked, and she looked down at the table as new tears flooded her face. When Sorcha put her arm around her shoulder, she flinched. She took the tissue the other woman offered. Then she turned her face away from the men, settled into the woman’s shoulders, and cried, her shoulders shaking as Sorcha patted her back. When her emotions were under control again, she wiped her face, lifting it back to the men sitting across from her.
“Will you help me?”
“We will,” Diego said. “But you have to be totally honest with us, with every question we ask, no matter how much it upsets you.”
“I understand. Do I pay you now?”
“The retainer is four thousand dollars,” Walker said. “Then it’s five hundred dollars a day, plus expenses.”
Harper nodded and Diego gave her an assessing look.
“You don’t seem worried about the money.”
“When she was nineteen, Helena married a very rich man. He was thirty years older than she and had no heirs. She always said he wanted to get her pregnant so he would have someone to leave his money to. But he died four years after they got married, and she’d lost the only baby she’d conceived. He left her everything, and we share it.”
“Wow. Are we talking thousands?” Walker asked.
“We’re talking millions, nine of them,” Harper said. “And if it takes every last dollar to find Helena, then that’s fine with me.”
Diego’s eyes widened. “Nine million dollars is a hell of a lot of money. Are you sure this man had no other heirs? People aren’t above killing for that much money.”
Harper stiffened, then tried to relax. “He had two brothers, who had just as much as he did. Their father, some sort of Texas oilman, left all of it to them. Neither of them laid claim to any money when Shawn died. In fact, they offered Helena investment advice to make the money grow. It started out as five million, and now it’s nine.”
“How long ago did he die?” Walker leaned toward her, his hands clasped together. Harper glanced at him and then looked away.
“Ten years ago,” she replied. “We don’t flaunt our money. Helena doesn’t want to work, so she doesn’t. She travels a lot, and I stay at our house and take care of our animals, and I work.”
“Where do you work?” Sorcha patted her hand.
“At Sapphire’s on the Square.”
“Oh, gourmet lingerie. I’ve always wanted to go in there,” Sorcha said. “But one bra costs more than these men pay me in a week.”
The woman’s lighthearted statement made Harper feel much better. “It’s not that bad. Come in and I’ll get you a discount. I’ll get you a whole ensemble that will please your, um, your husband?”
“He’s not my husband. Not yet, anyway,” Sorcha said. “But my Master will love it.”
“Yes, I will,” Diego said, his voice heavy with desire. They exchanged a look that made Harper very jealous. No man had ever looked at her that way. After a few minutes, he turned a serious gaze on Harper. “But back to the situation at hand. We have a contract for you to sign; then you need to write us a check. Once you do that we’re officially hired, and anything you tell us is privileged. After that I want you to tell us everything about your sister, and about the week leading up to her leaving for Paragon’s, the week she was there, and the week she’s been gone.”
Harper nodded and reached for her checkbook.
“I’m going to order food, since this might take a while,” Sorcha said. “Everybody like Chinese?”
* * * * *
Walker tried to keep his thoughts focused on Harper’s words, but it was hard. His gaze kept drifting to her, to her body, which was soft and curvy. He pegged her as 38-30-36, and he was very good at guessing figures.
He’d listened intently as she’d gone over the details of her upbringing, then of her sister’s marriage and move away from Albuquerque. When Helena’s husband had died, she’d moved back to Albuquerque. She’d been a little older, a lot richer, and a lot more adventurous.
“You disapproved of her involvement in the BDSM lifestyle?” He lifted his gaze from her cleavage to her eyes so he could gauge her reaction.
“At first, yes. Shawn got her into it. But it made her happy, and it didn’t seem to hurt her, at least not permanently.”
“Permanently?” Walker leaned forward. “Pardon my question, but is your sister into pain?”
He watched her swallow, hard, her eyes glazing over, and then she nodded.
“Does she have a Master or a Mistress?” He thought about Oscar. He’d have to ask his friend if he knew Helena Tisdale. After all, Oscar was a master at delivering erotic pain.
“Not right now. She’s had a few, over the years. Mostly she plays at Tygers, though, and stays uninvolved emotionally. She told me she likes it that way. That’s why she likes to go to Paragon’s. Hard sex for a week with no involvement.”
“And you don’t approve of her love of pain, or her submissive tendencies?”
“Mr., um, Walker, Helena’s sexual preferences don’t concern me. I know she enjoys it, and it makes her happy to be submissive. I tried it a few times and didn’t like it. At all.”
That’s because you didn’t have me for a Master. Walker nodded, then turned to Diego.
“So, nothing unusual happened during the week before or during her stay at Paragon’s?”
“No. I talked to her twice during the week. She was having a great time.”
Walker cleared his throat. “You do know that unattached submissives are auctioned off at Paragon’s? She would have belonged to someone during that week. Did she tell you who it was?”
“It was a couple,” Harper replied. “She said the man was the Master, and the woman was a switch. Helena, um, was with them.”
“Just to be clear, she served them during the week? They bought her for the week?” Walker asked.
“Yes.” She spoke the word fast, and he could see the conversation was making her very uncomfortable. She picked up a pair of chopsticks and stuck them in a half-empty box of sweet-and-sour pork; she speared a piece and ate it quickly. It was the first piece of food he’d seen her eat that afternoon. Her lips were full, and he imagined what they would feel like wrapped around his cock. She would suck him in hard, her tongue dancing around his balls. He could tell she would be perfect at sucking cock.
He also knew thinking about those things during a business meeting was wrong. Terribly wrong. This woman was affecting him in ways that could lead to big trouble.
“Tell us about the day she was supposed to be back.” Walker silently thanked Diego for speaking up. If he hadn’t, Walker might have ordered the woman to her knees.
“I was supposed to pick her up at the airport at two. I went, the plane landed, and she wasn
’t on it. I asked the airline and all the woman would tell me was that Helena hadn’t gotten on the plane.”
He could tell she was on the verge of crying again, more out of frustration than anything else.
“And then?” Diego prompted.
“I called the Miami airport and they had her paged. No one answered. I called the Miami police. They told me to wait a few days. I called the resort. They said she’d left on time, that morning. I tried her cell phone, over and over. It went straight to voice mail. Then I called the Albuquerque police.”
He watched her frustration turn to anger, and her lips tightened. “They basically told me an adult woman who would visit a sex resort could take care of herself, and without evidence of foul play, they would just consider her off playing somewhere. After all, she’s rich and beautiful.”
“Speaking of rich,” Walker said. “Has she used her accounts? ATM? Credit cards?”
“No. I check the accounts daily, since they’re in both our names. I’m the only one who’s used them. There’ve been no calls made on her cell phone, either.”
“What about the couple who bought her?” Diego asked. “Have you talked to them? Maybe she went home with them. Maybe they were having a good time and decided to extend the contract they had.”
She looked angry, then resigned. It was obviously hard for her to think of her sister as a couple’s bought-and-paid-for sex slave for a week. “The resort won’t give me their names. They said it was private.”
“We could hire someone to hack into their computers.”
Walker bit back a laugh as Diego turned toward her. “Sorcha? Have you forgotten what happened the last time you tried that?”
“No. I’m just saying it could work.”
“No.” Diego’s voice was firm. “I’m sure Ty knows someone at the resort we can talk to.”
Harper had put down her chopsticks and was looking toward the open window. The room grew silent, and then she sighed heavily.” How will you find her?”
Tygers 4: Sweet Awakening Page 1