Cuffed & Collared (6 page)

Ramsey’s eyes showed his shock at her appearance. He watched her walk toward him with wariness. She found the look satisfying. She also appreciated the vision the rest of his body presented her. Dressed, the man was physically impressive. Naked, the man was magnificent, and he wasn’t even completely naked. But what she could see caused the anger to take a back seat to desire.

Long and lean, every muscle in his body was well-developed and clearly delineated. His corded forearms strained against his restraint, a sign of his agitation, she assumed. She liked the idea that her presence unnerved him. His skin glowed a healthy amber color under the soft lights of the room, and there was a slight sheen to his chest, as if he had broken out in a sweat. Even better. Best of all, though, was how his shorts tented in front, telling her he had conflicted feelings about the circumstances.

Good. So she wasn’t the only one who suffered from an inappropriate case of the hots.

As she walked toward him, he struggled to stand. She realized, with a quick appraisal of his bindings, that he could and decided she better take charge of the situation and keep him in his place. If anyone other than Veronica was watching, she needed to act the part of a real Dominatrix, and besides, the condescending bastard deserved it. She quickened her pace and, placing the ball of one foot at the back of his closest knee, pushed him down again before he could get all the way up.

With a grunt, Kyle slammed to the floor. “Son-of-a-bitch!”

“I didn’t give you permission to stand, boy-o,” Regan said in her best imitation of her father. When he whipped his head around and looked like he was going to argue with her, she made another preemptive strike by squatting down beside him and grabbing a fistful of hair. “You weren’t planning on speaking where you?” She tugged a little, just enough to get his attention. “Because I didn’t give you permission to speak, either, boy-o.”

“My name is Kyle,” he said through gritted teeth. The look in his eyes was murderous, but they didn’t stay focused on hers for long. Instead, they flicked to her cleavage in typical male knee-jerk reaction.

“Like what you see?” she asked in a purring tone that was meant to bait. “Of course, you do.”

With her free hand, she reached over and gripped his rigid cock through his shorts. The quick intake of his breath encouraged her to squeeze the thick, hard length all the way up to the tip. It felt good in her hand, and she could only imagine how good it would feel inside her, filling her completely, rubbing against her sensitive tissues, sending her up and over into ecstasy.

Regan almost moaned at the thought, but she didn’t. She couldn’t let Kyle see how much he affected her. It was her job to dominate him, and if he was going to be stupid and arrogant enough to put himself into this situation, she was going to make damn sure he appreciated the seriousness of it.

“I asked you a question. You will speak when spoken to.” To emphasize her words, she tugged again on his hair and dug her fake claws into his cock.

This time, Kyle hissed in obvious pain. The sound gave Regan a thrill, and she grinned at him. “Careful how you answer me, boy-o. Remember, this is what you wanted.”

She meant it as an admonition that he apparently had come to this club to search for answers to his friend’s murder and therefore couldn’t complain about her treatment of him. If he wanted to keep his connection to the killing secret from the potential murderer, he had to play along with Mistress Regan. She could see by his expression the moment he understood her meaning. Good, she did like a smart man.

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied carefully.

For a few seconds, he held her gaze before lowering his eyes in a submissive fashion. He wasn’t fooling her, however. She knew he was putting on an act by the hard set of his jaw and his fixed stare. His smooth, gleaming chest rose and fell just a little too hard for a relaxed person.

Nevertheless, and this was the interesting part, his erection remained hard and hot in her hand. Before standing up again, Regan gave the delicious member a teasing stroke. Kyle moaned and closed his eyes, his body leaning into her grip. The blatant request jolted her, because it suddenly occurred to her that she had crossed a line. She was a cop not a Dominatrix, and besides, this was not a massage parlor. She wasn’t supposed to be jerking him off, even if it were for her pleasure as well as his.

Regan let go of Kyle and pushed back from him, teetering on her high heels. Running her fingers through her hair, she pulled herself together and recaptured her professional detachment. She was letting it get personal, and that was the biggest mistake a cop could make. She was on the job and needed to remember that fact even when faced with a temptation as great as Kyle Ramsey was proving to be.

She gave the man a stern look, something lost on him because he was still staring at the floor, and laid out the rules the way Veronica had taught her. “I am Mistress Regan. You will call me that or simply Mistress or ma’am, as you did. You will not speak unless I ask a direct question or give you specific permission to ask a question of your own. Is that clear?”

There was a distinct pause before he replied in a low voice tinged with both passion and sarcasm. “Yes,
Mistress
.”

She let the show of ego slide. If this was his first time as a submissive male, he must find the scene more than a little unnerving. She did, and this was only a show for whoever might be watching. It wasn’t as if she were going to learn anything useful from the man. At least, she didn’t think so. Perhaps he knew more than he had let on the previous night.

“Good,” she continued. “Now, you’re here to be chastised by me. I get to decide how and when and for how long your punishment occurs. That is my job, not yours. You have no power here and no responsibility, so you can relax, let go.”

She was going on a gut level again, mimicking the idea behind Club Nemesis as told to her by Veronica. As she spoke, she paced back and forth in front of Kyle with her hands resting on her hips. The soft leather of her dress was like butter to her fingertips, and the roughness of her fishnet stockings rubbed against her inner thighs with each step. The combination of soothing and agitating left her hot and wet.

“However,” she went on, determined to ignore her burgeoning lust. “Because this is all for your benefit, we don’t want you to endure more than you’re able to. Therefore, you’re going to give me a word, something unusual, something you wouldn’t ordinarily say even when extremely stressed. When you say this word, I’ll know you really want me to stop.”

Long seconds ticked by without a response. Regan stopped her pacing and with legs braced apart, she stood in front of her
client
waiting for an answer. Slowly, ever so slowly, Kyle lifted his eyes from the floor. They traveled up the length of her body starting with her pointy-toed boots and pausing at her breasts before reaching her eyes. There was insolent admiration in his gaze and more, a challenge. He ran his tongue across his lower lip in blatant sexual interest. “Yellow. That’s the word I choose, Mistress Regan, although I promise you you’ll never hear me say it.”

Regan ignored the thrill she felt at his use of her name and worked to make her tone match his confident one. “Really? Well, we’ll see about that, won’t we?”

Turning on one heel, she walked to the wall where the various instruments of punishment hung. She made sure to put a lot of swing in her hips and dangled a forefinger from her mouth as she contemplated her choices. She angled her body, too, so that Kyle had a good view of her provocative pose.

“Hmm,” she murmured, as if to herself. “So many possibilities.” She pulled her finger from her mouth and caressed a riding crop with the wet digit. “This might be interesting.” She shook her head. “No, not this time. It would be too harsh for a virgin.” She tossed a smirk at Kyle over her shoulder and grinned widely when she saw the scowl on his face.

Turning back to the wall again, she made her selection based on what she’d found to her liking during her compressed lessons from Veronica. The short, flexible strap was only a little wider than a man’s belt, and when she slapped it against her own thigh, it made a satisfying crack without yielding more than a nasty sting. It would do nicely.

Regan played out the trip back to Kyle, sauntering and swaying her hips suggestively, letting the strap hang loose by her side. His eyes flicked back and forth between her face and the method of punishment, as if he were gauging her seriousness. Perhaps he thought she was merely going to pretend to hit, because, after all, she was a cop, not a true Dominatrix. If that were so, he was in for a surprise. She was working undercover and had to be convincing.

Kyle Ramsey was about to get a real taste of being dominated by a woman. The knowledge that it might very well be his first time was exhilarating. Regan liked the idea of being the first woman to bring this otherwise alpha male to heel, and her feelings about what she was going to do both surprised and frightened her. She had never been one of those cops who got carried away with her power, beating suspects and throwing her weight around gratuitously. This was different, however. She wasn’t sure why. She just knew it was.

In one respect, though, it was the same as the power she wielded as a cop. It came with responsibility. Because she effectively controlled Kyle at this moment, she owed him a duty of care. She had to be very careful to protect him from herself as well as any other dangers that might be lurking in this strange environment. So she needed to exercise restraint. Her fingers gripped the leather strap with sudden nervousness. Could she do it? There was only one way to find out.

“Eyes down, boy-o,” she commanded as she came to stand beside him.

He hesitated long enough to convey to her that he wasn’t afraid, and that he was only doing it because he chose to. She admired his bravura the same way she admired how his cock still stood at attention and the way his magnificent muscles flexed against his restraints. She raised the strap and slid it gently across his back like a caress and watched how those same muscles shimmied in response to the unexpected touch. He had been bracing for a blow, probably, and now he would get it.

Without warning, Regan straitened her arm and brought the strap singing down across Kyle’s taut ass. He grunted and jerked, the only signs he gave of the assault. Two more strokes elicited more of the same, but the fourth time she smacked him, she saw his fingers grip his tether in white-knuckle fashion. By the fifth stroke, his grunt had morphed into more of an exclamation of pain.

Regan held the strap in check. She was starting to pant, more from excitement than exertion. As much as she hated to admit it, even to herself, this was the most fun she had ever had on an undercover assignment, or on any assignment for that matter. Still, she was there because of two gruesome murders, not to play, and as much as it pleased her to also take the arrogant Kyle Ramsey down a peg, there was that pesky sense of duty to adhere to.

“Is there something you want to say to me?” she asked. Now was the time for him to stop this pointless game they were playing. He would save himself from a beating, and she could get on with her investigation. They had done enough to satisfy the curious.

Kyle shook his head once in an almost violent move. “No, ma’am.” Like her, he was breathing hard.

Okay, then. If that was the way he wanted it, then that was the way it was going to be. Regan resumed the punishment.

Chapter Four

“So, Dad, you’re coming to back to school night, right?”

Kyle stuck the phone in the crook of his shoulder in order to turn the salmon fillets while talking to his daughter. It was almost nine, the usual time for him to get home from work even when he didn’t spend a large chunk of his day in a sex club. But he hated being a clichéd divorced man living off of take out. He cooked for himself almost every night that he didn’t go out on a date or with friends.

“Of course, I am, Emma. Have I ever missed a back to school night?” It was a point of pride to him that he never allowed work to interfere with being a good father. It was especially true now that he and Julie had split up.

“No-o,” the twelve-year old replied. She didn’t sound convinced, however, and he supposed it was simply par for the course with an adolescent. Nine-year old Stephanie was more trusting.

Satisfied that the fish was cooking properly, he put the phone back into his hand. He turned around without thinking and leaned against the countertop of his kitchen. The sting of the hard granite against his still sore ass caused him to gasp and pull away immediately.

“Dad, are you okay?”

“Yeah, sure,” he fumbled to reply, walking farther into the room. Not that the movement was much better. He was wearing worn jeans, but the fabric still rubbed his sensitive flesh in a painful way. And yet the pain had the strangest effect on his cock. It sprang to life immediately as it had been doing all day, and as it pressed against his the rough denim, his dick produced a pain of a different kind.

Kyle closed his eyes to savor the feeling before he remembered who he was talking to and how inappropriate it was to be sporting a hard-on when talking to one’s daughter. Clearing the passion from his throat, he struggled to remember what they were talking about. School, right.

“Look, Emma, I love meeting your new teachers and seeing what you’ll be doing all year.” Christ, that was rather a lie. Although he took an avid interest in his daughters’ education, sitting in classrooms with other parents never appealed to him. Besides, Emma’s new school had been Julie’s choice. He’d wanted his alma mater, but Julie had had her way, as usual. His ex-wife had always been demanding in a passive sort of way, except in the bedroom. There she had been wholly passive, if not indifferent. Not that it mattered anymore, and not that his poor sex life with her mother was anything involving Emma.

“Besides,” he continued, “I have you girls that weekend. I’ll ask Mom if you and Stephie can stay Thursday night, too. After back to school night’s over, we’ll pick up Stephie and get ice cream before coming here.”