by Chloe Cox
“This is mine,” he said, his voice low. “You will take care of it. You will honor it. Do you understand?”
Simone nodded. She understood. She understood more than Holt did.
There were so many things neither of them could say. So many things that stood between them right now. All they had left was this.
He looked at her, his eyes hard and savage, and then turned. She heard him opening one of the toy chests in the corner of the room, heard him rummage around. When he came back there was no hesitation. With practiced precision, Holt squeezed one nipple, then the other, hardening them into little peaks.
Then he attached the nipple clamps.
Simone gasped. The pressure was the edge of perfect, just this side of the pain that morphed into pleasure, a direct electrical line to her clit.
And as soon as it hit, her mind cleared. And she knew. She knew she wanted to tell Holt the truth. She wanted to tell him the rest.
And she couldn’t.
Holt hooked his arm under her right knee and lifted her leg up over his shoulder, spreading her wide and pulling her pelvis forward. She groaned, the movement jiggling her breasts, the clamps doing the rest. He supported her weight as he placed his free thumb against her mouth and said, “Wet it.”
Simone’s tongue came out to caress the pad of his tongue.
His nostrils flared as he blew out a hard breath.
With his slicked thumb, Holt drew a circle over Simone’s clit. She was already swollen and wanting. The slightest bit of pressure made her cry out, her head bumping back against the padded cross.
Heat curled through her body as Holt continued to circle slowly.
“Please,” Simone whined. It was not a dignified sound. She just couldn’t help it.
She twisted her hips, trying to get that finger inside of her.
“Apologize,” Holt said.
Simone shook her head. This was too much. She wanted to tell him everything and still know that he would defend her, the way he had with Cave. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t tell him why she hadn’t stood up for herself.
“Please,” she begged again.
Holt stopped. He removed his finger, removed his hand. Simone wanted to scream in frustration.
“I gave you an order,” he said.
And he slid a finger inside her. He knew just the right ways to press inside her to make her spine arch, and she yanked against the restraints, trying to pull herself closer.
“Holt, please,” she said. “I need to—”
Holt let go of her. No thumb on her clit, no finger inside.
The orgasm she’d been edging toward halted.
Denial was agonizing. Simone wanted to grind herself against Holt and he just wouldn’t let her, because he was holding her so firmly, and she was tied up.
She had no choice but to submit.
“Apologize,” he said.
“Yes sir,” she whispered. “I’m sorry, sir.”
Holt tugged lightly on a nipple clamp. She shut her teeth against a cry, savoring the sensation of sweet pain lancing through her whole body. That pain was calming.
“Again,” he said.
Was she sorry?
Holt didn’t think that Simone deserved to put up with the likes of Cave Johnson. He thought that she should be proud of herself, because everybody made mistakes.
Holt didn’t know about her worst mistake.
No one did. No one but Alan Crennel.
Simone looked up into the gray eyes of the only man who’d ever made her feel loved.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Holt stared hard into her eyes, the muscle on the side of his jaw working. He swallowed, his eyes never leaving hers. Just like he had the last time he had her on this cross, when he’d kissed her and told her he loved her. This time he took her face in his hand, squeezing her cheeks, his eyes boring into hers.
“Again,” he rasped.
Simone said, “I’m sorry.”
He shifted her weight, and his belt jangled. His zipper fell. The hard nudge against her cunt was no longer the width of a finger, but much wider, and so firm. It was velvet stretched over steel. His cock was right there…and he wasn’t going inside of her.
He was staring at her. His eyes hungry, fiery. Animal. Simone remembered this. Just like this. Just before he kissed her, the last time she’d been on this cross.
Then he covered her mouth with his hand and drove into her with all the force of his frustration.
That single stroke was enough to push her over the edge. He pounded into her, forcing her to look into his eyes, and that was how she came—with Holt moving inside her, their gazes locked together, and the apology still lingering on her unkissed lips.
15
Holt had had better mornings.
Mrs. Greenfield, the woman in the red clapboard house whose grandson had run a drug ring out of her toolshed, had been calling his office. That itself was unusual. Mrs. Greenfield was technically a target of the investigation. Usually targets didn’t make several polite phone calls to the investigating officer.
But what sent it right over into bizarro territory was that she was calling to invite him over. Holt knew her lawyer wouldn’t like that. But he also had an old lady who kept asking him—very, very politely, the kind of polite that made you feel like a monster if you ignored it—to come over and have some tea.
Tea.
Well, he’d gone to tea. His boss, US Attorney Rich Carlinson, would have his ass if he didn’t. It was basically free evidence. And it wasn’t like Holt was immune to the power of a church lady with tea and biscuits.
As soon as he’d walked in the door he’d known it was wrong. He hadn’t known why, exactly. But something in his gut churned at the sight of those biscuits, so carefully made, resting on a good china plate on a spotless table. All around him were tiny little figurines and cross-stitch patterns and things made out of lace. It was like a craft store had exploded in the woman’s kitchen.
And then there was Mrs. Greenfield herself. Sweet, nervous. Bags under her eyes. Holt realized she wasn’t as old as he’d thought. She’d just been aged by worry.
When Mrs. Greenfield brought out the photo album, he’d just been confused. Holt realized his guard had been up the whole time. On some level, Holt had expected Mrs. Greenfield to plead her case. Those biscuits wouldn’t be free. She’d be trying to get off the hook, just like everyone else.
But she hadn’t said a damn thing about her own involvement, her own charges. Nothing about herself. She’d just brought out that photo album and asked him to look at pictures of her grandson.
The grandson Holt had been mentally referring to as “scumbag.” That grandson. Only here he was in a baseball uniform, missing one of his front teeth, smiling. Another one he was hugging his grandmother in front of a birthday cake. It was at this point that Holt had put his hand on hers, before she turned another page, and explained, as best he could, that none of this would make a difference.
“I can’t bring this in a court of law,” he’d said, as gently as he could. Gentle didn’t come easy for him. “None of this will change the case against you.”
Mrs. Greenfield just shook her head, like it didn’t matter. And it didn’t, to her. She just wanted Holt to look at pictures of her grandson.
She wanted him to see her grandson.
Holt struggled. This was the boy who would grow into a young man that would poison people. He hadn’t discriminated with who he’d sold to. He’d hurt people. And yet here was his grandmother, just trying to get a stranger to see the good in him.
What was that like? To love someone so much that it didn’t matter what they did? That it wasn’t that you didn’t see the bad in them, it was that it was just overpowered by that love?
Holt had never had that in his life. The kind of love that always tried to understand. His own mother hadn’t been anything like Mrs. Greenfield, and the places he’d bounced around to when that didn’t work out weren’t an
ything like this house, either. So he was skeptical.
But he’d looked through every damn photo. And he’d done it knowing he was going to have to help put the woman feeding him biscuits in jail.
Maybe that’s why, by the time he left, he was in a bad mood. It was definitely why he’d driven around all the usual haunts until he’d found Alphonse. It was also maybe why he’d been a little short with his confidential informant once he’d found him.
“Jesus Christ, man, what the hell?” Alphonse said, dusting his jacket off. Holt had pulled him into an alley, behind a dumpster and out of sight, without a lot of ceremony.
“You want it to look like you’re getting arrested, or like you’re talking to a cop?” Holt said.
“You don’t have to be rude about it,” Alphonse said. The man had a point. He was Holt’s favorite CI because he always had a quiet dignity about him, and he was as good as he could be. Alphonse would never hurt a fly. He just liked his “habit,” as he called it. Holt always made sure the guy had somewhere to sleep and something to eat, but he hadn’t been able to convince him to try for anything better.
“You’re right,” Holt said. “I’m sorry. But I need something.”
“Yeah, so do I.”
“I’m not kidding, Al,” Holt said. “And you know you need to get off of that stuff.”
Alphonse shrugged. To each his own.
“Whatever, man,” he said. “I like it. What do you want?”
Holt curled his lip, bile rising in his throat when he even thought about the prick’s name.
“I need more on Crennel,” he said.
Alphonse shook his head. “Nope. No. Not going there again, man. I gave you plenty of info last time, good info. Why haven’t you taken him down?”
This was what made Holt really angry. A tip about drugs in a club like Crennel’s from a CI should be more than enough to get a warrant. Raid the place. End it.
But not for Alan Crennel. No. Holt’s boss had all but said the man must be protected. A DA didn’t come out and say judges were on the take, but if they weren’t, they were scared of the man. They would need more than a tip from a CI to get the warrant they needed.
“I need names,” Holt said. “People I can talk to.”
“Do I look like I can afford a membership at a sex club?” Alphonse asked. “Even a sketchy one? Besides, those people are creepy, man. Last time I asked questions they got weird with me. I mean, shit, kind of obvious I’m not asking for me, right? I don’t like the vibe.”
Holt studied his CI’s face. He wasn’t lying. He was afraid.
He let him go, and turned away so the smaller man wouldn’t have to see his fury. There was something wrong. Holt got angry about stuff he saw on the job, because he was human. But he was always able to channel it.
This time was different.
He couldn’t stop thinking about Simone.
He’d tried, but she was always there, in the background. He never could let her go. Maybe that was why he’d sat with Mrs. Greenfield all morning, look through those damn photo albums, trying to atone for the wrong person. Because that last scene at the club, after he’d thrown out Cave Johnson, he hadn’t been able to tell Simone that he understood. That he wanted to understand, anyway. That he was sorry.
Because that would violate their arrangement. The arrangement she needed because of the way he’d broken up with her. Holt had done that. The memory still hurt him, physically, right in the center of his chest. But now it was more than just hurt; it was anger. Anger at himself. He’d been so certain when he broke up with her. Such a self-righteous disciplinarian. But he hadn’t listened. He hadn’t been as understanding as Mrs. Greenfield, and Simone hadn’t even hurt anyone but herself that night.
Goddamn that night.
Holt closed his fists until it hurt. The memory of Simone, drunk, trying to get him into a scene…knowing it wasn’t about BDSM that time, it was about self-loathing…knowing she wasn’t in control of herself…
For the first time in his adult life, Holt had been truly scared. Because the woman he loved had been hurting herself, and he didn’t know how to stop it.
And now there was Crennel’s club, where there were drugs. Mostly coke, but also heroin, pills. Whatever. And that meant there were other subs out there, people in the same position Simone had been in, but with no one to look out for them.
“Fuck!” he shouted, and he turned around and punched the dumpster.
“Jesus!” Alphonse said, jumping back. There was a fist-sized dent in the side of the thing now. “You ok?”
“No,” Holt said, rubbing his fist. “But I will be.”
As soon as he got back to his car, he got out the notes he’d made from his meeting with Mrs. Greenfield and ripped them clean to shreds.
He had someone more important to worry about. And he had a plan.
The copy of B that landed on Simone’s desk blotter was literally hot off the press. Well, the physical heat was probably because the envelope had been sitting in the sun, realistically, but the date on the cover said it was the issue for next week, so it must have just gotten printed. Simone’s jaw dropped at the headline next to the picture of a local New Orleans model. “Drinking, Domination, and Drama: Dueling Deviants.”
That was objectively terrible, even by tabloid standards. And then under that, “Inside the kinky rivalry between two exclusive New Orleans sex clubs.”
Goddammit. It might be easier to take if whoever wrote that ridiculous headline hadn’t clearly enjoyed it so much.
“Maybe we can spin this,” Michelle said with false brightness. She’d obviously already read the article, and her attempts at turning saccharine sweet meant that it was bad. Whatever the article said was terrible.
Even knowing it was coming, nothing could have braced Simone for the moment she started reading. It took her several tries to get through the first paragraphs because the tightly formatted columns looked like total jumbled nonsense to her. Not conducive to hate-reading. Not at all.
And oh man, did she hate it.
“This is all about Crennel,” Simone said. She had many more things to say—most of them expletives—but she thought that she was going to projectile vomit if she didn’t seal her lips tightly. She had been right. Crennel had gotten to Cave Johnson way before she had.
Stupid Cave had written this article as though Sinsations and Club Volare were on equal footing—two competing brands, like Coke and Pepsi. Except that Coke and Pepsi were colored sugar water, whereas Club Volare was a safe home-like environment for people to get their kink on and Sinsations was a pile of dog poop that insulted your mother if you walked too close to it.
Actually, that was unkind to dogs.
Cave had also used exactly zero of Simone’s enthusiastic quotes. He’d described the club in exacting detail, sure, focusing on the lurid uses of whips and flails, but the only quotes he included came from Alan freaking Crennel.
Seeing his name would have been bad enough if Simone hadn’t woken up that morning to yet another text message from Crennel, directed from yet another burner phone number.
There was increasing urgency to his ominous texts.
You want to talk to me.
You’ll regret ignoring me.
Call me back.
I’m waiting.
And now this—this violation of her job, and the public relations she’d been organizing in order to redeem help the club that saved her life. Crennel was everywhere.
He was so much more pervasive than dog crap.
“No.” Simone stood and tossed the magazine to her desk. “No way. We’re not doing this anymore.”
“I’ve already canceled the thank-you flowers we’d arranged to send to Cave after the article published,” Michelle said.
“Thanks,” she said, but that wasn’t what she meant.
Holt wanted Simone to stand up for herself? All right.
She was going to give Alan Crennel a piece of her mind.
16
Funny how muscle memory worked. Simone could barely see through the red haze of anger in her vision, and she still managed to get to Crennel’s crappy little sex-warren that he tried to pass off as a legitimate BDSM club. Sinsations was in a large house in a pleasant neighborhood, so not, technically, a warren—the only thing marking it as different were the cars parked in the yard. No room for formal parking on his lot, so Crennel just made do, and somehow got away with it. Just like he got away with everything else.
There was nothing wrong with the house, and nothing necessarily wrong with parking on the lawn either; lots of BDSM clubs started out in someone’s house because it was sometimes hard to convince vanilla people to lease property to a kinky club. It was part of the territory.
The problem was what was rotting inside those walls. It was the people, not the setting, that turned everything terrible.
Just the sight of the place was enough to make her hair curl, and she had the limpest, most boring yellow hair ever, which resisted being styled the way that cats avoided getting baths.
She parked on the opposite side of the street, as far away from Sinsations as she could get without losing sight of it, and clenched her hands on the steering wheel while she came up with a plan.
Crennel was in there somewhere.
The guy who was harassing her with threatening text messages.
The guy who represented her real rock bottom.
Worst of all, the guy who’d stolen her PR.
She was still figuring out what to actually do about any of that when someone emerged from Sinsations. Not Crennel, thankfully—the urge to accelerate and introduce his face to her bumper would have been much too tempting. This was a woman a little bit younger than Simone, but that’s not what attracted Simone’s attention. It was the body language. The way her head was bent. The way she looked around, worried anyone might see her. The way her arms were wrapped around her.
A lot like Simone had probably looked on that one night so long ago.
She gripped the steering wheel even tighter.