Slave to Love (14 page)

Yeah, she conceded. This could be a fun fantasy. Far better than any she'd entertained in her mind over the past year. Last night with costumes.

She smiled, settling into her role. “I'll be your pleasure slave tonight, McGraw,” she purred into his ear, “and I'll do anything you say while we're in the club.”

His arms tightened around her. “Anything?”

She lapped at his earlobe. “Anything at all, Sir,” she whispered. She painted her tongue provocatively down his cheek and over his lips, then gave him a long, wet kiss.

He groaned. “Baby, let's skip the club and go straight home.”

“Nuh-uh-uh,” she murmured, pulling away and wagging a finger at him, “I said in the club. Don't forget, at home you're sleeping on the couch.”

***

All right, so she didn't have the slave attitude down perfectly. But judging by the hard-on she'd given Mick before thoroughly dousing his hopes, she was close enough for police work. She suppressed a smirk. Hell, he hadn't even made her walk three paces behind him when they'd headed for the club's entrance.

She signed the membership form Mick put in front of her, then looked around as he exchanged words with the elaborately tattooed woman taking money at the door. Surreptitiously, Caro craned her neck to get a glimpse inside.

There was a man standing at the door watching her. He was tall and good-looking. Dark. Long black hair pulled back in a ponytail. Native American, maybe. Or Hispanic, like Julio. The well-fitting black T-shirt under his crossed arms had BRIMSTONE SECURITY emblazoned across it in red. Another of Cody's men? She gave him a tentative smile.

He raked an impassive gaze over her, taking in her collar with its leash attached to Mick's latigo. His gaze shifted over her shoulder. She turned to find Mick glaring at her.

“You like him?” he growled.

Her lips parted. “Wha—?”

“Maybe I'll give you to him. Teach you a lesson about flirting with other men.”

For a moment she was stunned speechless. He couldn't possibly be— She came to with a start.
The job
. He was playing his part and she was about to blow it. Already.

“I'm sorry,” she said in a rush, laying her hands on his chest in a conciliatory gesture. “Please don't— I won't do it again. I promise.” She knew better than to deny his accusation. Sir was always right. “Please, Mick.” She looked up at him supplicating.

“Please,
Sir
,” he corrected, and wound his hand around the chain of the leash, hauling her throat tight against the back of it. “In that case, you can choose your punishment inside.”

She lifted her lips and kissed him. “You choose, Sir,” she said breathlessly, and could see he was pleased with the suggestion. She assumed it was because they'd managed so neatly to create a scene in front of a whole crowd of people, drawing immediate attention to themselves.

That's what she thought, anyway, right up until he led her into the club and she saw the full extent of its offerings.

Chapter 8

Mick watched knowingly as Caro came to a screeching halt just inside the door to Brimstone's main bar area. If he hadn't anticipated her reaction, one of them would be flat on their face on the floor. Having a woman captive on a leash might be a turn-on, but it could also be hazardous to your health if you weren't careful.

The large, dark room was packed with club members outfitted in the usual leather, latex and spandex fetish wear, along with less adventurous suits, jeans and dresses. People danced to the loud, steady beat of hard techno-rock music. Wait-slaves in skin-tight hot pants and halter tops glided through the crowd with trays of drinks, serving customers who stood at dime-sized tables scattered around the huge area.

Mick grabbed a full shot glass off a passing tray, flicking a ten onto it so the wait-slave's initial protest turned into a flirtatious smile. He downed the drink in a single gulp and replaced the glass, deliberately ignoring her come-on. The raw taste of tequila burned down his throat to settle in a comforting coil of fire in the pit of his stomach.

This was it.
Showtime
.

The club's main light source was a kinky slide show being projected onto the long white wall opposite the bar. Translucent oil blobs and colorful photos flashed rhythmically onto the bare skin of several men and women who stood shackled by wrists and ankles to that same wall. The men had all been stripped of their shirts, their pants lowered to their ankles. One woman's back was to the room, her conservative business skirt hiked up around her waist, revealing long legs in seamed stockings. Her round, white bottom was bisected by a red thong and garter belt. She struggled against her bonds, writhing in a futile attempt to shake loose her skirt.

Mick moved behind Caro and slid his arms around her waist, already feeling a spurt of excitement. He imagined her up against that wall, lifting her skirt...

“Is that the punishment you'd like?” he murmured in her ear. “Or perhaps you'd prefer the cages?”

He directed her gaze to two women and a man held prisoner in narrow metal cages suspended a couple of feet above the packed wooden dance floor. The man's hands were tied to the bars behind his back, and one of the women's were handcuffed above her head to her cage's ceiling. The other woman swayed to the pulsing music while a couple of men outside her cage fondled her breasts. She didn't seem to mind, but Mick felt Caro's quick intake of breath as she watched one of them slip his hand under the woman's blouse.

He felt her swallow twice, then she turned in his arms. “Regular customers?” she asked.

“Oh, yeah,” he guessed, based on their uninhibited behavior.

For the second time in as many days he saw her visibly gather her wits and pretend a worldliness he knew she didn't possess. She leaned up and pressed a kiss on his jaw. “Put me in one of those cages,” she whispered sweetly, “and you're a dead man.”

She lowered her lashes in perfect imitation of a demure slave, and he had to restrain himself from smiling. His new partner really had a lot to learn about challenging him.

“I suppose I could save your punishment for later, when we get back home,” he offered. A slight narrowing of her eyes belied the accepting downward tilt of her head. “In the meantime, why don't I show you the rest of the club?”

“You've been here before?”

“On occasion,” he said, not wanting to get into explanations, though it should come as no great surprise to her that he’d been here many times over the years, starting back when he was on patrol with the LAPD. He'd warned her he liked his sex edgy, even if he'd gone easy on her last night. “For what it's worth, this is the first time I've been here wearing anything but jeans.”

“I wondered why we didn't have to stand in that long line.”

“One of the benefits of a lifetime membership.” He jerked his thumb toward the back of the room to forestall any more of the questions he saw brewing in her eyes. “Come on.”

He hadn't quite decided how to play his role of domination tonight—seductive or arrogant. His first instinct was to make the game stimulating and amusing for them both, which meant the seductive option. Besides, he was already playing arrogant to the max at the station. It would be nice to unleash his more relaxed side and enjoy himself with his lover after hours.

But that wasn’t the purpose of this expedition. Somewhere out there lurked the man he was hunting, and he was only here to lure his prey into the open. So, for now, Mick opted for high visibility.

He grasped the leash on Caro’s collar and backed away from her into the crowd, allowing the links to slide through his fingers at a measured rate. A bit like letting out the line on a fish you wanted to play for a while before reeling in.

To his mild surprise, she didn't fight it. Instead, she followed him like a Thoroughbred on a lead, sleek and sure-footed, coming willingly because she adored the rider, relished the hard ride ahead, and craved the sweet treat he'd offer after putting her through her paces.

It was an intense feeling.

She walked slowly enough that the short section of leash stretched taut between them, forcing him to tug her into obedience. Yet the look in her eyes said she had no intention of denying him anything he might ask of her. She was merely provoking.

Damn, she excited him.

She might try to convince herself she was only playing a part for the job, but he knew better. He'd long ago recognized something in this woman that answered when he called, something down and dirty, that aroused him to the core.

She also aroused every other man they passed in their dance of domination. And he knew with chilling certainty she would arouse the killer, as well.

He smiled. A hard, masterful smile. And pulled her through the staring crowd that parted for him, towing her toward the next level of her initiation into the shadow world of erotic fantasy.

The back rooms.

Suddenly there was a commotion at the other end of the bar. Two amazon-like wait-slaves captured a man from the dance floor and hauled him to the wall of shackles. There, he was met by a woman Mick recognized as the club's head dominatrix. She cracked her fat whip and the man fell to his knees in front of her.

“What's going on?” Caro whispered.

“Sacrifice.”

It's what Brimstone was known for, the “gimmick” that distinguished it from a half-dozen other private fetish clubs sprinkled around L.A.. Members never knew when they'd be singled out for special treatment by the club's elite employees.

The dominatrix popped her whip again, and planted her thigh-high platform boots on the wooden planks before her victim. A spotlight snapped on, licking the two with flames of red-orange light. Mick couldn't hear her command, but the man did; he hurriedly tore his shirt from his body and placed it at her feet, leaving his designer tie hanging incongruously around his bare neck. At another barked command, he scrambled to his feet and banked himself against the wall to be shackled hand and foot by assisting wait-slaves as the dominatrix looked imperiously down her nose at him.

Mick felt Caro's breasts press up against his back as she peeked out from around his shoulder. Her fingers gripped his arm and she murmured, “How can they get away with that?”

“Private club. Everyone signs a waiver, just like you did.” He wedged past a clump of people to give her a better view.

“I did?”

The dominatrix exchanged her whip for a short quirt, and touched it to the man's chin, lifting it as she inspected him like a butterfly pinned to a frame. Flipping aside his tie, she slowly trailed the tip of the quirt down his neck and naked chest, over the crotch of his slacks, down one inner thigh and up the other to the juncture of his legs, where she let it linger in a slow caress.

“What waiver?”

Sweat broke out on the man's forehead and trickled down his temple in a glimmering orange trail. The dominatrix tossed her head and the wait-slaves jumped to her command, unbuckling the man's belt and lowering his trousers to his knees. Mick felt more than heard Caro's gasp when she realized the man was quite enjoying his predicament.

“The membership form you signed when we came in. You gave your consent to all the club's various...entertainments.”

Having seen enough, Mick turned toward the back rooms.

Her face paled. “You're serious?”

“Don't worry, there are strict rules enforced here.” He started moving, weaving through the on-lookers. “No full nudity, no actual sex, only club employees are allowed to discipline customers. And they know how to spot willing sacrifices.”

“Can they be bribed?” she asked, and for a moment he wondered if she was worried about his intentions, or whether she contemplated doing some bribing herself.

“No,” he lied, just in case.

Her hand tightened on his arm. “Look, there's Jeff Cody.”

She nodded at the bar, where Mick spotted the LAPD detective, dressed in ripped blue jeans and a dot.com T-shirt, leaning casually against a pillar and sipping a beer. His gaze swept over them, with an infinitesimal pause of acknowledgment.

“Good to know. Wonder who else is here?”

Cody had said he'd have at least one more person on the inside, but Mick knew he was having a difficult time convincing his captain to lend out so many officers to another jurisdiction's operation. Especially one that Mick McGraw was in charge of. It wasn't the same captain as when Mick had been forced to leave his patrol job over there, but he'd no doubt read the file. Mick made a mental note to see that Cody got a good share of the spotlight when this case busted open. For sticking with him. Loyalty was a rare thing in his life.

“So, where does that bloodthirsty guy, Jakob Robbins, do his thing?” Caro asked, interrupting his stalk down memory lane, pulling him back to the reason they were there.

Mick shot her a grimace. “Back room.”

A rare shudder traced itself down his spine. He freely admitted he enjoyed a lot of the exotic sexual stuff that went on in places like this, but there was nothing sensual about cutting a woman or spilling her blood.

Hell, he'd just have to get over it. As he'd had to do with so many things lately, down to breaking every damned one of his strict personal rules. He glanced at Caro as she perused the shadows of the club. His affair with this woman being right up there on the list.

Shit. At least he could marginally justify his entanglement with Caro. Deep down, he'd always known this part of his plan wouldn't have a prayer of succeeding if he and the woman he picked didn't become lovers. And he'd deliberately chosen Caro because of that. He'd known damn well he'd end up in bed with her—cop, partner and all. To be honest, he’d known it since the first time he saw her a year ago. He'd wanted her, badly, even if he would never acknowledge it aloud.

No, sleeping with Caro had nothing to do with the fact that he’d do anything in his power to see the bastard they were chasing rot in hell....

He shook off a spurt of guilt for enmeshing her in this dangerous game, and headed for the far corner of the club.

Because he
would
do anything to trap the fucker. Including a foray into the back room to check out the vampiric Jakob Robbins, the only name currently on the official PPD list of suspects.

“This way,” he said to Caro, and held aside a thick velvet curtain which hung in front of an unobtrusive opening in the back wall. “Welcome to the seraglio.”

***

Mick slid into the dark, den-like room, pulling Caro in after him, and waited for their eyes to adjust to the dimness. The hard techno-rock of the main club receded, replaced by the soft plucking strains of some delicate Middle Eastern instrument. On the round center stage, a dungeon master stood, slowly stripping the clothes off a female club member who was tied to a post.

The knee-high raised stage glowed in eerie purple light. Swirling tendrils of an orchid-scented, smoke-like fog spilled from openings in the stage walls and crept along the floor, twining among patrons who reclined on large Turkish pillows strewn on the carpet. Several of the people were clad only in their underwear, no doubt former victims of the dungeon master's attentions. A row of clothes hung from illuminated pegs on the wall.

Mick squinted, searching out the low tables he knew were arrayed along the edges of the seraglio, and seeking to locate the hidden doors leading to a couple of other, similar rooms. He took Caro's hand and moved toward a set of empty pillows on the other side.