Committed (7 page)

Damien paced down the hall away from the library, blowing out a breath.

He needed to get a grip.

One play session with a woman he’d barely met shouldn’t have shredded his control, but he was one breath away from dragging her off to his suite to chain her to the wall for a weekend. Or maybe a week.

“Sir?”

Damien turned around and almost knocked over a tiny slip of a woman wearing only fishnets and leather cuffs with the silver emblem of a House Surrender slave.

“Yes?” he growled.

“You said you wanted to be notified when your phone rang.” She produced his work phone, which he’d left to be watched in case of emergencies in what passed for an office.

“Fuck my luck.” He grabbed the phone and stepped into an alcove.

Phones were not allowed out of personal rooms for reasons of privacy. A photo snapped of the wrong person at the wrong moment could damage a career. If Dom Yamamoto had his way, phones wouldn’t be allowed on the premises at all, but there were exceptions to all rules.

This was one of them.

Damien’s voice mail chimed and the one voice he didn’t want to hear started speaking.

“Damien, it’s Gio. Huck Finn is moving up the timetable a week. I need you here yesterday, and I just found out now. Call me when you get this.”

Project Huck Finn was a go?

For a moment the world stopped spinning, his heart stilled, and nothing moved.

The mission he’d been working for years to make happen was about to go down. Countless murdered souls would find rest, and he would have some measure of satisfaction in slapping the cuffs on the worst criminal to step foot in Chicago in decades.

He’d spent nights pacing his office, trying to figure out a way to hang all the crimes they knew Emilio Molina had committed around his neck.

Damien could finally tell the families of Agents Wedell and Marlowe that the scum who’d killed their children was behind bars.

It was his career’s work, wrapped up in one mission.

A woman’s too-loud, cackling laugh brought the world crashing back in around him.

He had a switch in bottom mode still flying high from their scene, a play space to clean up, and obligations to his partner. She’d told him her aftercare needs were important. Hell, she’d seemed ready to walk away if he wasn’t able to provide the kind of post-play care she needed, but he simply could not provide it. Gio would need him at their staging point immediately. There might not even be time to go home, much less bring his Rapunzel off the post–play high.

He turned toward the slave waiting to be dismissed and blew out a breath. This fucking sucked. Guilt settled around his shoulders as the plan formed in his mind.

“Okay, listen to me very carefully.”

She nodded.

“I need Dom Yamamoto. Tell him it’s an emergency in my suite. I’m also going to need my car brought around immediately. Got that?”

The girl nodded again and he had to wonder if there were springs in her neck. She looked more like a damn bobblehead than a person. The house slaves were highly trained, but all spark of personality seemed to have been snuffed out, as if they looked to Yamamoto to give them an identity.

“Can you repeat that back to me?”

She rattled the list off almost verbatim.

“Good.”

Damien stepped into the hall and stared at the large, wooden double door to the library. His rope still hung on the handle.

God, he wanted to spend the rest of the night with her wrapped around him, golden hair spread across his chest, watching her smile for no reason whatsoever. She was a burning flame, a unique flower, a precious gem, and he was leaving her. If he didn’t go now, a drug dealer personally responsible for at least two dozen deaths could escape. Damien’s gratification came second to the good he stood for.

So he did one of the hardest things he’d ever done.

Damien turned and headed for the stairs, taking them two at a time up to his suite on the top floor. Her infectious laugh followed him, beckoning him to return, but he couldn’t. If it were any other mission, he might be persuaded to put it off, to stay a bit longer. But not Huck Finn. It was too personal.

His toy bag would have to be packed up by someone else, which irritated him, but more than that, he was leaving a beautiful, willing, enticing woman. It killed him.

“Sir?” a wavering voice called from the doorway to his suite.

“Not taking any play partners,” he called out, without looking over his shoulder. Yamamoto often sent single females to him when they hadn’t found another partner for the weekend.

“Dom Yamamoto sent me.”

“Where is he?” Damien paused long enough to glance over his shoulder. The woman was vaguely familiar, probably one of the slaves who had been around for quite a while.

“He can’t come to see you. A new girl redded out of a scene and there was an accident. He said he would come up here as soon as he could, but he didn’t think it would be fast enough.” The woman was poised, despite wearing only the tiniest of panties and a transparent shirt-dress thing.

Calling red was when the submissive used their safe word for stop. It was especially bad if there was also an accident. Given the nature of what they did here, that could be extremely dangerous.

“Fuck my life.” Damien groaned and rubbed his face.

What should he do?

The only thing he could.

“Wait right there.” He headed across to a small desk, and jotted down two notes.

His note to Yamamoto was little more than bullet points. The other dom would understand. Of all Damien’s kink friends, Yamamoto was the only one who understood his job and what he did. But then, that was probably because Yamamoto was in deep with another agency, the CIA. Damien had met Yamamoto when the DEA muscled in on an operation and insisted they do a joint job, which had involved a sting operation where the target had an extensive home dungeon. Damien knew the moment he saw Yamamoto who and what he was. His history was tattooed on his body; he wore his dominance like a garment. The man was more complex than probably even Damien knew.

The note to Rapunzel was more difficult to write. He stared at the blank square of paper, considering his words. How to relate all that he wanted to say in just a few sentences?

Damien did his best, then handed both to the woman.

“The car downstairs?” he asked.

“It’s being refueled, but should be ready when you are. Anything else, sir?”

“No, that’s it. Thanks.” He gathered his duffel and glanced around the room he’d spent almost no time in, which was a shame. Yamamoto knew how to host.

Damien departed, feeling a weight on his shoulders that counterbalanced the electric charge in his veins.

Mission Huck Finn was a go. It was the culmination of years of work, and it looked like it would be successful. If only his personal life wasn’t about to go to hell.

Poppy sat up and glanced around her at the grand library and its kinky trappings.

Where the hell was he?

She threw the blanket back and swung her rubbery legs over the side. Despite three orgasms, she was still aroused, though she didn’t think her body could handle any more. She would be tender and sore for a week at least, but it was worth it.

The marks were faint. She traced the thin red lines of the rubber flogger with her fingers, twisting to see them better. There were a few puckered scratches from the knife, but nothing that broke the skin. The rope had left impressions on her skin, but they were beginning to fade. They were probably her favorite markings, and she would mourn their loss.

The worst marks seemed to be on her wrists, where they’d been bound during sex. There wasn’t so much as a single permanent mark on her, but her arms felt as if she had weights attached to them. Maybe he’d kiss them and make them better. She giggled at the idea, still giddy on endorphins and the highs of subspace.

Poppy’s stomach growled again. She hoped he came back with food soon. There was no telling how long they’d cuddled and snoozed after the last round of sex. If she hadn’t been famished, with her tummy rumbling so loudly, she was willing to bet they would still be intertwined.

The library doors creaked open across the room.

Oh thank God, food
.

Poppy hurriedly got back in the bed, fluffed the pillows, and sat back against the headboard, pulling the comforter up to her shoulders. A chill had set in as time passed. Maybe they needed to move to the fireplace—or better yet, her room. Would he want to play again? She hoped the answer was yes. He’d given her what she’d wanted and more.

A man of the wrong ethnicity rounded the bookshelves and approached the bed.

What the fuck?

“Um, this is a closed scene, sir.” If the man standing at the foot of the bed didn’t own the sheets she was lying on, she’d have told him to hit the road. Though she hadn’t exchanged more than a handful of words with the dynamic Dom Yamamoto, he had presided over the meals and
delivered a brief opening address to the retreat attendees. He was every bit as striking as the pictures on the website made him out to be.

“I do apologize, and offer you my humblest regrets.” He inclined his head and his dark curtain of hair fell forward.

Dom Yamamoto was known for his mannerisms and dramatics. In a world of daisies, he was the orchid. Even now, he wore dark-red leather pants and a Japanese silk robe.

Under normal circumstances, Poppy might be excited by his attention, but not tonight. He wasn’t her sir for the night.

“What’s going on? Where’s …”

She didn’t even know his name to ask about him.

Dom Yamamoto circled the bed and held a note toward her.

Poppy stared at his offering for a moment. What was this? High school? She got enough of this at work. She took the note, dread pooling in her stomach.

Poppy skimmed the rest of the note, which wasn’t much. Something had come up and he had to leave. Blah blah blah. He hadn’t even offered her the courtesy of a face-to-face good-bye.

“Please leave,” she said, without looking at Yamamoto. All the giddy happiness blossoming in her chest withered.

“Poppy, may I address you by your given name?” Yamamoto even spoke in a refined manner, almost with an accent.

“If you’d like.” She scooted to the edge of the bed, taking the sheet with her. Yamamoto followed as she went on a search for her play bag, which had a change of clothes in it. At least her walk of shame wouldn’t have to be a nude dash.

“Poppy, he had to go. This is no game, I promise you.”

“I’m sure.” She found the bag at the foot of the bed. She realized she had never done a walk of shame before, so this was a weekend of firsts.

“Do you need anything? I was informed you might require additional aftercare. I’m at your disposal.”

She whirled to face the man, shuffling back a few steps when she realized how close he
was. Though his reputation was flawless, she didn’t know him. He was a stranger. Aftercare was special.

Tremors shook her body, but she sucked in a deep breath and wrapped the sheet tighter around her.

“Poppy?” In a warped way, it was nice that Yamamoto was trying to ensure everyone was happy and cared for, but it didn’t change the fact that Poppy felt used. Used and discarded because “something came up.”

She shook her head. “Look, I get that you’re taking care of your customers, but I don’t need you. I don’t know you. I want space and to be left alone, please.”

Yamamoto studied her for a moment. “Please take a moment to think about your actions right now. You’ve experienced a heightened emotional and physical state. Your body chemistry is changing right now—”

“Leave me the fuck alone,” she shouted, and then clapped a hand over her mouth. She rarely cussed outside of a scene, and was never rude.

He studied her in silence for a moment before producing a slip of paper. “Please keep this. It has his phone number on it, and I know he would like you to check in with him so he can make sure you’re okay.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to yell. I’ll think about calling him. Now, please leave so I can get dressed.” She snatched the crumpled piece of paper from his fingertips.

She was breaking, falling apart. Tears pricked her eyes. Her nerves screamed and her chest felt empty, as if something had been ripped from her. But he’d never been hers, not really. It still didn’t change the emotional connection they’d shared. For him, it might be easy to drop everything and leave, but not for her. The subdrop from this would be shattering.

Yamamoto watched her for a moment longer, the corners of his mouth slightly downturned. He clearly didn’t like her choices, but she couldn’t muster the energy to care, as long as he left. He shifted his weight and a muscle below his eye twitched, but whatever he was thinking never left his lips.

Poppy watched the man turn and glide away from her. There was no other word for how he moved. She held her breath and waited for the door to click shut before sinking onto the bed. Her sobs were deep and strong enough to make her body shudder.

Damn that man
.

Damn him
.

Poppy dug a lighter out of her bag, usually reserved for lighting candles. She held the
note to the flame and watched the paper crinkle, turn to black and ashy scraps.

She didn’t need him.

Men came and went. He’d just used the express lane.

Damien downed his third cup of coffee and resisted the urge to leap up and pace. Huck Finn was too important to miss a single detail, but he was so full of energy he couldn’t stay still.

The joint task force for the mission was comprised of the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Toronto Drug Enforcement Unit, and Chicago police. Everyone gathered at the mobile–staging center, a large trailer with workstations and a very cramped meeting space. Everyone wanted a piece of this pie. If Huck Finn went down next weekend as planned, there might easily be twice as many officers, with two more departments involved and four times the suits.