He was there, making her ride him still, keeping her at a pace that drew it out even longer, and the flashes behind her lids were like watching a never-ending ribbon of stained glass shatter before the power of a blinding sun. He increased the pace, brought her down hard on him now, and bringing his hips into it, so all she felt was that thud of impact, over and over, merging with her heartbeat, pulling everything loose in her. She shrieked as he leaned forward, caught one quivering breast in his teeth, bit down on the nipple and suckled hard, sliding his hands around her waist and hips now, seating him in her firmly and deep, changing the angle so he was rubbing against that incredible spot, giving the orgasm she thought was on its descent a new power that snatched her up and roared her over another pinnacle. She screamed with the pleasurable agony of it, only able to move in incremental amounts on his hard length, still pulsing, unspent within her. She milked him with her convulsing muscles, tugged on his hair, dug her nails in and used her teeth on his neck, just below his ear. It was excruciating to move upon him now, every motion like touching the most sensitive of harps, her body making plaintive notes for him, wanting something from him to give the song its meaning.
"Mistress," he growled. "May I come for you?"
She was enough of a Mistress that she waited a full minute as he kept up the rhythm, and his breath grew clogged and desperate, their gazes holding , sweat slick on both of their bodies.
"Mackenzie," she whispered. "On my command. This pussy is yours and it demands your seed."
She tightened her muscles on him and worked him in those tiny movements. One, two, three...
"Obey your Mistress, Mackenzie. Come for me. Now."
Though the stimulus of everything else could do it, she knew that it was her words that pulled him over, more than her head, mouth or pussy did. He stiffened in shock, his hands digging into her waist in a moment of delicious, bruising lack of control, and then his hips were lifting her off the chair as he drove her up, making her hold on as he bucked beneath her, groaning and then growling, shouting his release, unable to maintain control any longer before the power of the whispered command, proof of her hold over him. Violet felt his warm juices spurt into her, and she cried out at the renewed sensation, held his head close, his rough jaw scraping her breasts as he clung to her, rammed into her until the last drop was gone. Until their desires were, for the moment, sated.
When she regained some sense of her surroundings, everything around her looked hazy, surreal. She had to blink to bring it all back into focus. She was wrapped around him, arms and legs tight around his body, her head resting on his shoulder, lips pressed to that round curve that led to the hard biceps. He held her close, his arms all the way around her so his fingertips were at her ribs, just below her breasts, putting her in a cocoon of his strength, his heart thundering against hers.
"Are we dead?" She managed at last, and his chuckle trembled through her body, shook them both.
"If that's dying, sugar, everyone would line up to self-terminate." His hand touched her face, her hair, seeking, and she managed to lift her head, though she was grateful to lean the weight of her cheek in his palm. "God, you're the most gorgeous thing I've ever seen," he muttered. His lips pressed against her cheek, and when she closed her eyes, his voice resonated through her head, her heart. "You're so small," he said softly. "And yet, you're the most formidable woman I've ever met."
There was a pause, his voice dropping even lower, and she kept her eyes closed, willing him to open to her, say what was inside his soul.
"I want to hide you somewhere safe, and at the very same time I would give anything to just kneel at your feet, brush my mouth along your thighs, remind you I'm there to service you however you want me." His voice was wondering. "Mouth, tongue, cock." He touched her face, parting them so their eyes were able to meet. "Heart, soul, mind. It seems I've been wanting that for such a long time." He swallowed. "And you're right. It was the job. Sometimes you get so dirty, you don't believe you can have something so fine. I really didn't believe I'd ever find it, a woman who could get past all of that. I didn't even know I'd given up on it." He shook his head. "I can't go further than that. I don't know how to say what I'm trying to say."
Beautiful, she thought. He was perfectly beautiful. Perfect and beautiful.
She kept rolling it through her mind as she laid her head back down on his shoulder, until she was murmuring it like a quiet lullaby. It took her into a post-coital doze she could not stave off with his hand stroking her head, his body rocking her to sleep.
*
When she woke, she was in her bed, still naked, and he was spooned behind her, keeping her warm. His even breathing told her he slept. She was glad for it. For the time to slowly turn over in his embrace, look into his face, etched by the dim buffet lamp light spilling in from the hallway, and lay her palm over his chest.
Everything moved too fast, and this should seem so, but every moment with him felt dipped in molasses, something outside of time, and something she could call back and savor at length whenever, however long she chose to do so.
"Mackenzie Nighthorse," she murmured.
His eyes opened, that beautiful color that was not gray or pale blue, but simply silver. She'd always preferred silver to gold, the clean purity of it, the lack of ostentatious pretension that clung to gold. He lifted his hand to trace her cheek, rub his thumb against her full bottom lip. She bit him gently and he smiled, a slow, sleepy expression that made her heart do a slow roll in her chest.
She settled her cheek on his chest, listening to the slow thud of his heart beneath her ear while he stroked her hair from her temple, smoothing it down the side of her skull, curling it over her ear, rubbing her ear between his fingertips as he did so. It was an incredible feeling, that gentle stroking and fondling together, a non-sexual touch that was as intimate as a sexual one, and she felt herself drifting, her weight melting into him, as if she were a snake lying on a sun-baked rock, absorbing the sensations to the point that all of her became liquid, formless, so relaxed were all her muscles.
"You don't like men touching you, do you?" she said softly. "That's a boundary. When Mark had you in his mouth, your cock was responding, but every other part of you was resisting. It helped break you down as fast as anything else. "
It was a long pause, but at last he nodded against the crown of her head.
"Say it for me, Mackenzie," she whispered. "Trust me to want you, no matter what."
"I prefer not to have men touch me, Mistress. If that doesn't offend or displease you."
"Manners. I like that. It doesn't. And I'll let you in on a little secret." She tipped her head up, tapped his chin. "I'm not wild about having other women touch you, either. "
"I'm willing to make the most monumental of sacrifices to keep you happy."
She was beginning to adore the many versions of that smile he possessed. This one had a rakish, teasing quality to it.
"I want something, Mac," she said.
"Anything, Mistress."
"No. I'm...I'm not asking it that way." She hesitated. "It's been a long, long time since I've asked this of anyone. It's like you said. You learn to let the club scene be enough, but even when you get the guts to take it out of the club, it's still... the focus. I want..." She stopped, shook her head. "I'm afraid to tell you what I want."
"Then let me take the risk," he said, lifting up on one elbow and turning her onto her back so she was looking up into his face. "I want to see you, Violet. Enjoy your company. Not just for sex, not just for D/s play. I want to go out to dinner. I want to see movies with you that we'll both like or hate, or argue about it afterwards over coffee. I want to have you over with my friends to watch a football game, and I want to take you and your beagle out for walks on the beach."
"How did you...how'd you know I have a dog?"
His eyes twinkled at her. "The pictures on the bureau. Water bowl and leash in the laundry room gave it away, too, though I had a bad moment thinking they were
for me."
She snorted. "Detective. Forgot."
"Shield, real gun and everything."
The smile died from her eyes, and she reached up to cup his jaw. "You're sure."
He pressed a kiss into her palm. "I'm sure. I like you, Violet. You turn me on in a million different ways, but I want more. Every time I'm around you, I want more. If you're offering the chance of all, I'm game. Let's go for it." He gave a half chuckle. "Though it's a scarier thought than anything I've ever faced on the job."
She didn't have to ask him why. Because the job couldn't break your heart, not if you learned how to detach yourself at the right moments. There was no detachment to this, not if they wanted the full prize.
"Nevertheless," his eyes glowed in the dark, making her tingle in warm places. "You've invited me in, and the only way to shut me back out is to tell me to get out. And I might need to remind you, I'm not the type of sub who always obeys his Mistress."
But he was hers. For the time being, he was hers.
She slid out of bed for a minute, went and switched off the light in the hallway. She came back into his arms in the protective anonymity of darkness.
"You said," she paused, searching for the right words, "you didn't know you'd given up on finding it. There was more than that. Tell me what else was in your heart. I know you said you couldn't, but I want you to try. For me."
His face was a quiet silhouette in darkness for several moments, his hand lying on her stomach, the fingers moving in an absent caress. "I don't know," he said at last. "I've tried all sorts of rationalizations, but I just have two things in my gut that I know for sure. That I have to be a cop, and that I've been looking for something in a woman all my life... I didn't figure out the submissive part of it until about ten years ago. Didn't accept it at first, but even after I did, I knew there was something more. Sort of like it was the means, but not the end. There was something about it just out of reach, like that climax that goes only so high, so that you know something's missing. Something I didn't know..."
Her breath clogged in her throat. He chuckled, but it was a strangled, nervous sound. "Forget it, I--"
She found his face in the dark, touched him with insistent urgency. "Mackenzie, I order you to say what you were about to say. Now. I mean it."
His body moved into hers, a man so large he filled her bed, his eyes burning with desire. "It was something I didn't know, didn't understand. Not until I met you. I was looking for you. My Mistress. Mine," he said fiercely. "It's you. You're the beginning and the end of it all for me. The reason for it. I know it doesn't make sense after less than a week. But I know it. I just do."
She brought her hand to his neck, drew him down to her. He could have closed the distance himself, but in this moment she knew he would wait for her to do it, to show that she accepted his admission. Because it was his nature to wait for her bidding. Not any woman's bidding. Hers.
But once she gave him that acceptance, the rebellious sub she knew took over. He yanked her up to him, brought his mouth hard down on hers, his other hand cradling the back of her head, holding her tight against him, letting her feel his need and strength, what he could offer her, what he was offering. Her body gave up its own strength, let him hold her, consume her, and it wasn't until she felt his lips move to her cheeks that she realized that they were wet with her tears.
Her eyes had adjusted so she could see his startled expression in the dim light, and she smiled at him. "Did you think you were the only one affected by what's between us?" she asked thickly, reaching up to touch his face with trembling fingers. "I've never been as terrified or happy or...anything, as I've been since I met you."
"You broke me down. I told myself that I couldn't afford you."
"So leave." She smiled as he snorted.
"I can't." There was a long pause, but she could feel him gathering his thoughts, so she stayed still against him, waiting.
"It was never supposed to be about... what's between you and me. You were right. I knew what I was, but I didn't believe it, not all the way down to my soul. I was afraid to, because I thought it was about strength and power."
"It isn't."
"I know. I just don't know what it's about now, but I guess it doesn't matter."
"It matters. And I know what it's about, Mac." She brought her lips to his. "It's about surrender. For both of us."
Chapter 16
He stayed to make her breakfast. And to give her information. While she watched him make muffins from the scratch materials in her kitchen, he told her about his case. She had heard about the two murdered men, but he gave her a high level of detail so she could offer her opinion, complimenting her instincts in a way she could not miss or deny being flattered by.
"You're moving in the same circles as the murderess," he explained, "and you're trained. The more you know, the more likely you'll remember something you saw, or you'll see something that will help. " He hesitated. "I brought pictures of the victims. I thought you might want to take a closer look, see if you remembered them."
She examined them, the family-provided photos next to the gruesome remains of those smiling portraits. "They must have come on different nights from me." She tapped Rodriguez's face. "This one is familiar, but I didn't know him at The Zone. Most of us have a regular schedule when we go, and those of us with day jobs can't come as often or stay as late. Did they have memberships in other clubs?"
"None in common except The Zone."
"Well, why even have that commonality?"
"She wants the top of the line, the ones who are obsessively careful and well established. She's saying something by killing them."
"Well, if that's the case, and she's as smart as you say, I'm willing to bet she finds her mark at The Zone, but she approaches them and picks them up elsewhere, so she's never seen with them at the place that they had in common." Violet slid the photos back in the envelope.
"Possible," he agreed, rising to put the case file away. "It's an angle we're investigating now."
Violet rubbed her stomach, eyed the steaming blueberry muffins. Her brow drew down over her forehead.
"I don't have fresh blueberries."
"No, you don't. You do have some raisins that look about two years old. I pitched them before you poison yourself."
"Did you bring a toothbrush in one of those grocery bags, too?" She asked archly.
Mac grinned, bent down and kissed her cheek, didn't appear at all surprised when she turned and bit his throat. "A good slave is always well prepared."
"Smooth talker."
When he went back to the sink, she indulged herself in breaking off a piece. "You're dangerous to have around, Nighthorse. I'm going to have to spend all my time in the gym."
"You can work out with me, sugar. I'll keep you in shape."
She rolled her eyes at him, then abruptly sat up straight in her chair. "Mac, that's it. The gym. That's where I saw Rodriguez. The guys who visit the clubs like The Zone, particularly subs, they're workout-aholics. Maybe...what if your perp scopes them out at The Zone, notes the bag they carry in and out of the club? It's what most of us use to bring our change of clothes. Most of them have the logo of whatever the fitness club is. All she'd have to do is notice that, get herself a guest membership to that gym, stake out the parking lot a few days, show up on a night he's there.
"A guest membership is just a slip of paper, with no name on it," she continued, thinking hard, "So it gives her an excellent cover. She initiates a contact, gets to know him, lets him know by the vibes she's a Dom, wires into that part of him, wins his trust and--"
"Bingo," Mac said softly. "She has her victim, without ever having been seen together at The Zone, where she first selected him. Possibly not even the same place as the other vics, if they all had different workout memberships. And a gym is a meat market. Defenses are down, open to physical contact and stimulation."
He pursed his lips, nodded, pulled out his cell phone, dialed. "Consuela. Mac. Do me a favo
r, sugar. See if the workout clubs of our bondage vics keep any kind of guest membership rosters, and if there's any record of our victims visiting there with a guest in the past couple months. I've got a good tip. I think it will pan out." His eyes shifted to Violet, who picked up her orange juice, set it back down. "Just leave what you find on my voice mail. Appreciate it."
He disconnected, studied Violet who was staring moodily now at her plate. "What's bothering you, sugar?" he reached out, covered her hand on the table.
"Her." She shook her head. "I'm sorry. I'm going to sound stupid and naive, and I'm not."
"No, you're not," he agreed. "So nothing you're going to say is going to sound that way. Tell me."
Violet rose, went to her window, stared out through the sheer panel. "It offends me," she said at last. "Deeply. I... To be given the trust of a sub... every Mistress, every Master longs for that. It's a gift beyond comprehension to the vanilla world. Maybe even to subs. From what you told me, this isn't a random one night fuck, two people just living on the edge. She chooses a careful sub, a person who lives his life in a moral, responsible way. She wins his trust, builds that bond. She likely achieves that gift. And I think that's when she does it. That horrifies me." She turned to face him, raised her chin. "Now you can tell me I'm being too sensitive, too green."
He shook his head. "I've worked on this case for over two months. When I leave you, I go to the station, stare at the pictures, try to connect the dots and sack out in the break room. I'm pouring my soul into this one. For the same reason you feel as you do now. I understand the deep breach, the line she's broken, and it hits very close to home. It was a bond of trust, and that trust should never be betrayed."