Wicked Shots

by Katana Collins

  Also by Katana Collins

  Wicked Exposure Series

  Wicked Shots

  Wicked Exposure

  The Soul Stripper Series

  Soul Stripper

  Soul Survivor

  Soul Surrender

  WICKED SHOTS

  KATANA COLLINS

  KENSINGTON BOOKS

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  Contents

  Also by Katana Collins

  Title Page

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Playlist for Wicked Shots

  Teaser

  About the Author

  Prologue

  Jessica Walters’s phone buzzed from inside her bag and she reached for it as the most boring date in the whole world droned on about banking. Why men thought working on Wall Street automatically made them interesting was far beyond her comprehension.

  “Oops, sorry. One second,” she said, holding a finger up. Her sister’s name illuminated the screen, and for half a second Jess considered answering. Cass could probably get her out of this god awful date—yeah, it was just drinks after work. Late drinks after work; but weird hours were one of the pitfalls of working in the forensics department of the NYPD.

  Instead of answering, Jess rolled her eyes and dropped the phone back into her purse. If she did answer, she’d probably just be met with a lecture on the dangers of Internet dating. “It’s just my sister,” Jess said to Connor, the boring banker.

  He droned on for another minute or so before Jess heard another buzz from her purse. Relief flooded through her at the prospect of a message—the best gift her sister could give her on this date. “I’m sorry,” she held up another finger. “Let me check this message—it might be something important.”

  She hit a button and Cass’s voice was low; nearly a whisper. “Jessie. You’re in the frame.” Jess’s eyebrows scrunched together and she strained to hear the rest of the message. In the background, she could swear she heard her own voice: “It’s just my sister.” A seagull or some other warbled sounds along with what was … a man’s voice? Then the line went dead.

  Weirdest. Sister. Ever, Jess thought with a sigh. At least she was with a man; for all Jess knew, her sister was a thirty-something virgin.

  Clearing her throat, she met the guy’s eyes across from her. They were wide and green, and though he was attractive, he really just did nothing for her. Nothing with a capital N.

  “Oh, no!” Jess raised her voice, jumping to her feet. “I have to go … my sister’s boyfriend just broke up with her and she really needs to talk. You understand, right?”

  He jumped to his feet as well, doing that polite half-stand thing guys do when a girl leaves a table. “Here, let me pay and walk you home.”

  She waved him off. “No, no. You stay and finish your beer. I’ll text you tomorrow.” Yanking her purse off the back of the chair, Jess tucked her phone back inside. Her jacket was slung through the slats on the chair as well, and when she grabbed it, the chair teetered, cracking against the hardwood floor as she tried to push her arms through her sleeves. Unsuccessfully so, of course. Jess’s head fell into her hands. She just wanted to curl under the table and die.

  A handful of servers rushed over, one helping her into the jacket while the others pulled the chair back into place. Jeez, such a fuss over one fallen chair. The one waiter held the shoulders of the fabric while she fumbled her clumsy arms into it, and Jess flashed him a grateful smile over her shoulder. He nodded, his hands clasped behind him and sort of did an odd bow type of thing. Giving her date a quick final wave, Jess rushed out of the bar.

  Brooklyn was finally cooling off from the brutal summer everyone had endured, and though a bit of humidity still weighed in the air, it was a welcome reprieve from the oppressive summer. She breathed in deep, looking into the night sky. “Thank you, Cass,” she said aloud and headed down Atlantic Avenue for home.

  Diving a hand into her purse, Jess dug around for her phone to listen to that weird message one more time. Beneath her fingers, she felt her wallet, a pack of gum, some receipts—but no phone. She froze, checking each pocket and spreading her purse wide, then looking inside.

  Son of a bitch. Her phone was gone.

  Standing there in the middle of the avenue, she realized there was hardly anyone else on the street. One drunk couple staggered in the opposite direction, grasping onto each other for balance. Four legs were more secure than two, it seemed.

  An eerie hold seized Jess’s chest as she moved forward in the direction of her apartment once more. She listened closely as the faintest footsteps clopped behind her. They were quiet and she could just barely hear them.

  Jess froze, taking a moment to grab a piece of gum from her purse, listening as she stopped. Silence. No more footsteps. As inconspicuously as she could, she snuck a glance behind her. A streetlamp by a corner building cast a deep, long shadow on the north side of the street. Squinting, she could just barely make out the shadow of a figure leaning against the side of the lamppost.

  Jess inhaled deeply—cigarette smoke. Menthols.

  A sick feeling rose in her throat as she chewed her gum nervously, walking once more.

  Again—footsteps.

  With a glance over her shoulder, she saw that the shadow was now walking, only this time not nearly as quietly or slowly. He knew she had seen him.

  Glancing from side to side, she saw that there was no one else around. Very few cars were on the road and there were zero cabs. She didn’t have her phone with her to call a car service or even 911 if needed. Jess gulped. She was utterly and totally up shit creek.

  Without giving any indication of where she was going, she pivoted. Turning as she swiftly loped across the street, she didn’t see anyone following anymore. Not a single person. Not a single shadow. But the footsteps had been there. She had heard him, seen him … felt him.

  Three blocks. She only had three sleepy blocks and then she’d be home safe and realize this had all just been the result of too many late night horror movie marathons.

  1

  “Cassandra …”

  William Holtz rubbed at the wrinkles along his aging brow. His hair was almost entirely white, and Cass had no doubt she could lay claim to at least a few of those gray hairs. “We’ve been through this. You are not in charge of setting up trials. We have sales teams who go around finding hospitals willing to participate—”

  “Fine. I respect that my job is to create the drugs. But, sir, please … look at the studies that have come out of Canada. This drug is a miracle worker with heart disease. With a little funding, this could be the medicine that puts us—”

  Holtz snatched the paper from her hands, dropping it in the out-box teetering on the edge of his desk. “I’ll send your research to the sales team.”

  Cassandra pressed her lips together and took a deep breath. Rage filled her, heating to a boiling point like a too-full teakettle. She took a second breath, inhaling deeply through her nose and releasing it slowly on a count to five … just as she’d been taught to do when that temper of hers would flare. “Thank you, sir. But with all due respect, we both know they’re just going to sit on it—”

  “Well, Cass, they know the market research. They know the trials that are highest in media priority, and at the moment, heart disease isn’t it. That’s what they’re paid for—to follow the trends and find what will gain the most sales and funding.”

  Cass’s heart sank and her stomach lurched with the imminent failure. She needed this to be le
galized. Needed it to be readily available to anyone with a prescription pad handy—then maybe she’d be free of this burden. A simple law of supply and demand … if it was readily available, nobody would pressure her to bring the goods in illegally.

  “That’ll be all, Cassandra,” he said with a dismissive wave of his hand. She pushed off the arms of her chair, heat flooding her chest along with just enough courage to be brave for a few more seconds. And a few seconds was all she needed, right?

  “When I joined this company, it was to make a difference.” Snatching her research from his out-box, she slapped it onto the desk in front of him once more, pointing to it with a stiff finger. “And this can make a difference.”

  She pushed off his desk, ignoring her name being called from behind her, and slammed the door on her way out. In a huff, she fell into her cubicle chair, opening her work e-mail. Well, crap. That probably could have been handled better. She dropped her head into her hands, resting her elbows on her desk. So much for what she’d been taught, remaining calm. Being in charge—dominating a room requires that you keep your cool. An emotional reaction is never a reaction based out of dominance. Her master’s voice echoed in her mind and Cass hated that dropped feeling in the pit of her stomach. If he had seen her in there, he would have been disappointed. Being in control of a situation means being in control of your own anger—and she had lost that control.

  “Hey, Cass … Cass? Cassandra!”

  She shook herself from her daze, her mother’s pearls clicking with the movement. Oh, boy. She had done such a good job at zoning out Holtz, she hadn’t noticed her colleague calling out to her. She looked up to catch Zooey’s eyes on her, her eyebrows furrowed.

  “You all right over there?” Zooey asked.

  “I’m great. Just tired.” She offered her a shaky smile. “Holtz’s being a grade-A jerk, of course.”

  Zooey snickered and resumed typing, clicking the keyboard. “As if that’s anything new.” She pushed her plastic, black-rimmed glasses higher onto her nose, her eyes flickering to Cass’s, narrowed in thought. Cass shifted her weight in the desk chair, suddenly feeling as though everything about her was a flashing, warning sign. Her skin was too tight, her makeup too heavy, the pearls she wore every day quickly turning into dozens of boulders bogging her down. She pressed a hand against her cardigan, feeling the weight of the skeleton key she wore beneath her shirt every day on a thin silver chain.

  “You sure that’s it?” Zooey repeated. “You don’t seem like yourself these days.”

  After a pause, Cass nodded. “I’m fine. Just stayed up too late reading.” Her throat was tight as the lie slipped out. When did she get so good at lying? She smoothed her lab coat with a sweaty palm as she stood, empty coffee mug in the other hand. “Need a refill?” She wiggled the cup and Zooey shook her head no, her gaze returning to the computer screen.

  Just as she stood to make her way down the hall to her private lab, there was a ding from the elevators. Through the glass partition she saw Dr. Brown step off the elevator and into their little lobby. A smile spread across her face. “Dr. Brown!” Cass moved to the front desk, buzzing him through the front doors. “What are you doing here?” she asked, tucking her iPad under her arm.

  He smiled back at her, his clean-cut hair recently trimmed around his ears. “Oh, you know me.” He grinned. “Any excuse to come talk to a couple of pretty ladies.” He shot a wink to Zooey, who blushed, giving him a small wave. The two held eye contact for a heady moment before Zooey ducked her head back to the computer screen.

  Cass rolled her eyes. The clean-cut doctor was probably every woman’s ideal man. He was the boy next door: wholesome, or at least seemingly so. He probably spent weekends mowing his lawn and watching football games. “Cute,” she said and raised an eyebrow. “Now, what can I really do for you?”

  He laughed and dipped a hand into the front pocket of his trousers. “Dr. Moore and I ran out of samples. We have a few uninsured clients we wanted to make sure can get some meds. Can we get a few more samples? Just until Marcy comes back with the next shipment.” He held up two hands in a Boy Scouts’ honor sort of promise.

  Cass walked off to the side to a small storage center, unlocking it with her master key. “Of course. How is Dr. Moore doing?”

  “He’s great. I heard you two had a meeting about some new Canadian drug, right?”

  Cass froze, looking over her shoulder for any sign of Holtz. “Informally, yes,” she said quietly. She handed him a plastic bag of samples. “There you go.” She did her best to offer him a smile, though it wobbled right along with her stomach.

  “Thanks, Cass,” he said and moved for the door, pausing, hand hovering at the doorknob. Flicking a glance over her shoulder to Zooey, he lowered his voice to a whisper. “Hey, if you ever want to do lunch or something,” he flicked a hand into his lapel pocket, pulling out a business card, and handed it to her, “let me know, okay?”

  She nodded, unsure of how long she stood there looking at his card. Was he asking her out? “Um, sure. Thanks.” Thanks? She was a moron.

  He smiled one more time before popping onto the elevator with a final wave.

  As Cass strolled back to her desk, she turned the card over in her hands. Call me was scribbled on the back, with Richard Brown’s initials signed after. She slid the card into her top drawer, slamming it shut a little too loudly, and Zooey caught her eyes with a raised brow.

  Cass ignored her and slipped down the hall into her lab. Her personal space, where she would immerse herself in the latest chemical compounds. Sitting down, she pushed aside a microscope, turned her iPad on, and flipped open the e-mail account that had been specifically made just for her master. Her stomach tightened as she saw his return address in bold print in her in-box. It was the only return address ever in this mailbox, but all the same, flutters of anxiety and longing never failed to surface with each new correspondence.

  A trembling finger hovered over the screen and Cass paused for all of a second before she clicked open the new e-mail. It wasn’t a long e-mail by the standards he had set, but even his words typed out were demanding. Bold. And sent shockwaves through her body.

  Cassandra,

  Did I not ask you to clean your plate this morning? Did I not say to you that you must finish every morsel of scrambled egg white and grapefruit I set out for you?

  Cassandra froze—she had finished her entire breakfast. That was one of the basics, even though she gritted her teeth at every ridiculous rule he created. Rule number one in Master’s home was to finish all meals. A nervous warmth spread through her core and she hugged her arms into her torso, setting the iPad on the table in front of her. She certainly didn’t like disappointing him—and yet those punishments. Those delicious punishments. Her eyes fluttered closed and she ran a finger over the tender flesh around her wrists where she had been bound to his bed a mere nine hours earlier. There was a dampness between her legs that hadn’t been there moments before and a tiny whimper escaped her lips at the recollection.

  A door shut somewhere down the hall and Cass’s eyes snapped back open. Jeez. She needed to get a grip; the office wasn’t the place for fantasies. Which, considering this man owned the dang office building she worked in, made it that much more difficult to keep her fantasies in check. Everything here was a reminder of the man she loved.

  She knew she should shut down the iPad. Read the rest of the e-mail over her lunch break. But as always with this man, reason and logic took a backseat to desire. With a quick glance over her shoulder, she leaned in, opening an image attachment. She wet her lips, readying her throbbing body for some sort of naughty depiction of that chiseled body sitting in his private penthouse office, his hard cock in hand. Instead, the image was of her breakfast: two minuscule remnants of egg white and some juice from the grapefruit were all that was on the plate. She practically had to squint even to see what he was talking about.

  Rosa sent me this image of your breakfast. Does this look like every mo
rsel to you? If a fork will not pick up the last crumbs, I expect you to lick your plate clean with that skillful tongue of yours. While I am disappointed that you failed in such a simple task, I do look forward to having you over my knee, watching your skin redden beneath my flattened palm. As you did finish the majority of your breakfast, your punishment will not be grave. However, since I have other plans for your lesson this evening at the masquerade, I will be collecting you for lunch today at noon sharp, when you will receive your punishment.

  Your assignment, to be finished before the end of day, is to send me a description of what you would do to me if our situations were reversed. What would you do—make me do, ask of me, and do for me if I was your submissive and you my dominant? I want details with none of that frilly “down there” shit. Be bold. Be graphic. For this assignment, since you are the dominant in the scenario, there is no punishment. Just pure fantasy. I want to know it all. And I want to help make your fantasies reality.

  Until noon,

  Master

  Oh, God. He was coming for her at noon? She shifted her glance to the clock. That was in less than fifteen minutes. And there wasn’t a doubt in her mind that during the hour lunch break, very little time would be spent eating. Her chest heaved with an excited breath. God, she wanted him. Every night. Her body craved his; even pressed flush against him, it was never enough.

  Was he saying that the roles would be reversed tonight? Would he actually allow her to dominate him? When they had discussed the possibility of her being a dominant, not a submissive, she’d actually laughed in his face—but his had remained perfectly stoic. Sure, she wasn’t exactly taking to the submissive lifestyle easily, but that didn’t automatically mean she was a dominant. Did it? She enjoyed the punishments that were on the lighter side: being tied up, blindfolds, spanking. It was the ball gags, nipple clamps, and ordering her around in her daily life that she took issue with. Honestly; who makes someone lick every damn crumb from a plate? The thought was ludicrous. She wouldn’t make a three-year-old do that, let alone a thirty-three-year-old!