"You didn't need to be there!" he exclaimed, aware of the horror in his voice. "For God's sake, Morganna. Merino is going to get you killed."
She stared back at Clint in determination, defiant courage lighting her eyes. "I'm good at what I do."
He turned to Merino. "And what made you think you could place her in this kind of danger?" he snarled. "Reno will take you out for this, Joe, and you know it."
"Reno will accept it the same way you will-"
"Exactly, because I'm going to kill you first." Clint clenched his fists as he fought to restrain the need to kill the bastard now. "Slowly. Reno can have what's left."
Merino snorted mockingly. "Give it up, Clint. We approached you months ago about working this case because of your experience and your reputation on the BDSM scene.
You turned it down, so your opinion doesn't carry any weight here."
"I have a job, remember?" Clint pointed out sarcastically. "It does kind of require a steady amount of time."
Merino grimaced. "You're on leave for six more weeks," he pointed out. "We could wrap this up within that time with your help. Your reputation as a powerful Dom, combined with the reputation Craig has gained from chasing after Morganna this year, could give us the ace we need-"
"Forget it."
"Everyone knows her; they know you. Craig is considered new on the scene. He's barely been in a year-"
Clint swung his gaze to Morganna. "How long have you been involved in this?"
She lifted her chin, her eyes glittering in challenge. "The club scene, for more than three years now. The agency, six months."
Fuck. Fuck. "And I missed you at those clubs, how?" he demanded.
"I don't know." She shrugged her shoulders, crossing her arms beneath her breasts and drawing his gaze to the hard-tipped mounds. "I guess you just weren't at the right club at the right time, Clint. Or maybe you just weren't paying enough attention to me." Her eyes rounded in mock innocence. "I guess it could have been either one."
Either one? He turned from her slowly. He needed to kill; since he would never consider hurting so much as a hair on her head, that left Merino.
"Forget the insurance," Clint said softly. "I won't leave enough of you to bury."
Chapter 4
THE SETUP WAS ENOUGH TO make Clint clench his teeth and fight back an explosion he knew would land him in prison. Killing a cop was bad, even if the cop did deserve to die. And no one deserved it like Merino did.
Morganna had been working the case more than a year.
Fresh out of a Law Enforcement Academy that Clint hadn't even known she attended; hell, he'd thought she was in secretarial school. After graduation, she had gone to Joe and requested to be part of his task force. She knew the scene, knew the people, and she had the training he needed for an agent.
Clint was aware of the case. Two years ago, a new, specially synthesized date rape drug had come onto the market. A stimulant with the capabilities of rendering victims unable to remember anything but the haziest details while turning them into sex machines for hours at a time. It affected men and women; the powerful aphrodisiac also had the unfortunate side effect of killing the victim in many cases.
The sale of the drug had been controlled by the suppliers, resulting in the inability to identify where it had come from or who was using it. The majority of the women dosed with it disappeared for days at a time and, if they lived, turned up brutalized.
Many hadn't lived. But the videos made of their rapes had turned up to make millions on the black market. The sexual exploitation of those women was horrendous. Those who survived lived a waking nightmare of knowing the crimes committed against them were being sold, enjoyed. The resulting suicides hadn't been a surprise.
Not that women had been the only victims. There had been a few men, though those occasions weren't as numerous.
Clint managed to drag the details out of Merino once the other man understood that death was in his immediate future. Morganna's part in the case had been small. She had already been part of the club scene, evidently had been for years. She had been careful, though, staying home when Glint was in town or going to the less extreme clubs that he didn't associate with.
Diva's, Merlin's, and the Roundtable were his favorites. They were also the upper-scale, more expensive BDSM clubs on the eastern seaboard and just happened to operate in the same general vicinity of Atlanta.
Morganna didn't confine herself to the BDSM clubs until she began working with Joe's team. She played a very careful game of a woman hovering on the edge of submission. Or one fighting her Domme tendencies. Morganna was a dare to every male Dominant in those clubs.
Clint watched Morganna keep a careful distance from him as Merino and the others provided the details of the case. And through it, he learned that Morganna was the bait.
Several of the Doms who inhabited the clubs were sniffing around her. She hadn't settled on a lover yet, hadn't used the private rooms, other than Craig's for meetings, and she played the untouchable challenge. Eager to step into the lifestyle of a sexual submissive, but unwilling to settle on one man to do so.
She kept a close eye on the dealers suspected of handling the drug, as well as informing Merino and his men if any of the women acted drugged or seemed to need help leaving.
In the months Morganna had been working with the team, two women had disappeared, turning up days later, dead. Several more had been rescued from their fate by the team's intervention, with only three arrests, and those just here lately.
So far, Morganna had been personally responsible for the arrests of the three men suspected of drugging and kidnapping the women and was now on the lookout for their supplier.
"They've targeted the BDSM community because of the more unrestrained sexual atmosphere and the participants' general secretiveness about the double lives they lead," Joe finished up. "If we could get the group drugging and raping these women here, then we could find the location of the lab or labs being used."
"The Fuentes Cartel created the drug." Morganna spoke up then. "Their stronghold was destroyed last year, but we suspect several of the family members survived. We do know from the intel we've received that the cartel is fractured now and only one lab is currently working. The drug hasn't hit the streets yet; so far, it's just being used for the underground rape videos and, we suspect, is being perfected."
Clint stared back at her, hiding the shock he could feel racing through his system as he watched her. She was speaking of the Fuentes Cartel as though they were your regular, run-of-the-mill drug runners.
They were killers. And the thought of them targeting Morganna had the blood freezing in Clint's veins.
"Do you have idea what you're getting into here?" he ground out. "Any idea just how fucking dangerous the Fuentes people could be?"
She stared back at him calmly. "This drug has to be destroyed, Clint."
"Not by you." God, she had no idea what she was getting into. "Not if Fuentes is involved."
"Fuentes' survival or lack thereof isn't the problem. The supplier and the source are. We can get the suppliers if we get a strong enough Dom in to appear determined to tame the shrew no matter the cost or moral objection." Joe cast a smug look toward Morganna. "So far, we haven't found one. Morganna isn't the easiest woman to work with."
Clint watched her expression closely. Of course she wasn't, and he would have killed any of the four men if they had convinced her to do what would have been required. If he didn't kill them anyway for involving her.
"Are you aware of what they're asking you to do?" he asked her furiously.
She shrugged mockingly. "I'm just waiting on them to present a viable candidate."
The challenge she was presenting to the Dominants within the club was bad enough. Some of them had fewer scruples than an alley cat. But even worse, she was daring some bastard to attempt to drug her, to force her into submission.
Clint had followed the news reports of the women who had been drugged. Those fo
und dead as well as those who'd survived. They had presented a challenge. Women who didn't bow to the submissive lifestyle but who enjoyed watching from the sidelines and socializing within the fringe clubs such as Masters provided.
And Morganna was just waiting for Joe to find a viable candidate to push the bastards into drugging her?
Clint's outraged anger edged higher.
"And you think you could handle working with, a full Dom?" He shook his head. "You can't keep from arguing over a damned grocery list. There's no way in hell you can pull it off."
"Of course I can." She waved the furious retort away with a graceful flip of her hand. "I can be a very good actress when I need to be."
"You've lost your ever-lovin' mind." He stared back at her. His southern drawl had slowly eased over the years of learning other languages, being in other nations, but at times of stress it slipped out. And his stress level was nearing stroke stage.
"For God's sake, Morganna, the private rooms are just for the more extreme acts. I know you're not blind." And that wasn't even counting the underground club-the sexual extremities there had been known to make even him uncomfortable.
"Stop acting like an outraged father." She stared back at him defiantly. "I don't have to ask your permission to do this."
His fists clenched in an effort to control himself, to hold back the lust and the anger and the driving need to protect her. Even if that protection was from herself. Or him.
"Most of our agency Doms won't fool with her past the first hour," Merino snickered as he sat down. "Morganna has a bad habit of trying to tell them how to do their jobs. I believe she even informed one of them that her vibrator was more fun to play with."
Clint watched her face flush as she lifted her eyes, staring at the ceiling rather than the five men now currently discussing her sex life.
"A woman can't fake walking with a plug up her ass," Clint snapped then, seeing the shock as her eyes flew back to his. "Just as she can't fake her demeanor after leaving one of those rooms with a real Dom. Half the time, I've never used the room." He watched her closely as he delivered his next piece of information. "Have you ever fucked in the middle of a crowd, Morganna? Sat on your Dom's lap and had his cock slide up your pussy? That's what we're talking here. Not playtime, dammit."
He saw her flinch, then watched the heat that filled those dark stormy gray eyes. It turned her on, almost as much as it turned him on.
The agents watching them weren't unaffected.
Clint turned to Merino and glimpsed the lust in several of the agents' eyes. Some Doms shared their women easily and with pleasure. Clint wasn't willing to share this woman, but would Morganna's sexuality allow her to let another man touch her?
The need to know consumed Clint, even as the knowledge that he would kill the bastard who took her in front of him filled his mind.
Clint's gaze flew back to Morganna. She was watching him with dazed lust, the kind that filled a woman's eyes when her sexuality was at its peak, the need to be touched, taken, filling every particle of her mind.
And she needed. He knew she needed.
"Fine, you want to be my sub?" He narrowed his eyes as he watched her. "Let's see how submissive you can be. Come here." He lifted his hand, waving his fingers back toward himself in invitation.
Morganna arched her brow mockingly even as fluttering warnings of danger vibrated in her stomach. Clint was not a man to be played with when he had that look in his eyes. Cold ice-blue, like Alaskan waters, freezing her to the pit of her soul with trepidation.
He wouldn't hurt her ... well, not without pleasure being involved. But that look meant she was not going to like what was coming.
"I don't think so." She stood her ground, and so help her, if he got out of that chair and came after her, she was going to throw something at him.
Joe snorted from where he sat. "See what I mean? She's too confrontational to be a sub."
"Says who?"
"That would have earned you a ball gag," Clint said.
"You'd have to be willing to die to put it there first." She smiled with chilling politeness as he paced to the other side of the room, one hand rubbing at his neck as he glared back at her.
"You guys are taking this way too seriously." She shook her head as she stared back at them. "We've caught three of the dealers. Craig will score as soon as we get another Dom in."
"Until you get to the part where we can't find a Dom willing to work with you," Joe reminded her. "We haven't been able to find a suitable couple familiar to the scene, either. And whoever is supplying this shit seems to smell damned agents. Which leaves us where we are. We have two more months left to find a break in the case before we're going to be forced to abandon it."
Morganna clenched her teeth at the thought of that. "We have a list of suspected players-"
"Enough!" Clint's voice sliced through the room as she turned back to him. How did she know he would be the one to protest? "Just to begin with, the players would more likely put a bullet through your head. Hence tonight's attack. In case they didn't, though, just how the hell do you think you're going to fake disinterest in me?"
She let her gaze rove over his body this time. Her mouth watered at the sight of that bulge in the front of his jeans. She forced herself to move on, lifting her brow disdainfully as she reached his gaze once again.
"I should point out, Morganna, at this moment, you are showing anything but disinterest," Joe pointed out drolly. "Bang, baby, you're dead."
"Who says there can't be attraction? Just because a woman is reluctant doesn't mean she has to be uninterested," she snapped back at him. "You're trying to make this more complicated than what it is."
"We're trying to make this safe," Joe argued.
"I can't believe you're trying to argue with her." Clint shook his head in exasperation. "I learned better than that years ago. No, Morganna!" His voice sliced across the room, causing her lips to flatten in frustration as she glared back at him.
"Damn, she's not arguing with him," Craig muttered moments later. "He's good."
Satisfaction glittered in Clint's gaze. One of these days, she was going to learn to ignore that tone of voice.
"Our original problem hasn't been solved," Joe pointed out. "You're getting no place fast this way. No dealers means no suppliers. All we have are the three men we caught last week, none of whom seem to know shit about where the lab is located. All we have is this monster drug Fuentes created, and women who are going to keep dying while those fucking videos are going to keep selling."
"Your original idea is a good one." Clint clenched his teeth as he pushed his fingers through his hair. "Your problem is your female agent."
"That's your problem," she broke in.
"You're pushing me, Morganna," he said as she smiled innocently, batting her eyelashes just because she knew it pissed him off. She received a glare in return.
"I'm just waiting for words of wisdom to spout from your golden lips." She smiled innocently. "Figured you'd take offense."
He ignored her, turning to Joe instead. "They won't sell to someone they can't vet thoroughly. Your men are good men, but I'm betting they weren't a part of the scene before two years ago."
"Not in this area." Joe shook his head firmly. "We pulled several in from New York and one from California, though. They have solid reputations in the bondage community."
"But whoever is testing this drug here is damned careful," Clint pointed out. "You need someone he knows, someone he can vet easily. Someone known for his dominance as well as the fact that no one has ever said no to him. But also a male careful enough to want to dose his woman himself, to be sure she stays safe. Pull in a female agent strong enough to work the part, I'll work with her."
Morganna felt the slow, steady burn of betrayal begin to consume her. He wouldn't do this to her, surely?
"This is my assignment, Clint."
"You're not involved." The edge of command in his voice vibrated through the room. "I have six
weeks' leave. Pull her off the case and I'll work with you."
"You can't do that," she cried out painfully.
She turned to the agents she had worked with for the past year and with a sense of failure realized she had lost. "Do you really think you can find an agent experienced enough to say no to him?"
"Willing to fuck and willing to submit are two different things, as you point out, Morganna," Joe argued. "A man wanting submission is not going to settle for just a roll in the sheets. Especially a well-known Dom."
"Morganna, arguing over this isn't going to help," Clint replied in return. "They need a dependable Dom that fits into this area more than they need you at present. My terms are that you go off the case."
She blinked back at him in shock and pain. "You can keep using Craig to push for the drug." She turned to Joe for support. There was none. "He's been there long enough, Joe. Anyone who knows Clint knows he's a SEAL. They'll never go for it."
"Anyone who knows me knows a hell of a lot more about me than you do, Morganna," he pointed out, his voice soft. "I don't take no for an answer. It would be in my character to take what I want. However I had to."
"This is so bogus." She forced back her pain, her knowledge that she was losing, as she turned to Joe again. "You're going to go along with this, aren't you?"
It was there in their faces. They would hear any argument she had, but they had what they'd wanted all along, a local Dom they could trust.
Six months wasted, and this was what she had to show for it, Clint walking in and throwing her out.
She dropped her arms as she stared back at all of them, aware of Clint's waiting stillness, the tension that zapped around him.
"Morganna, it's better this way-" Joe met her gaze, his eyes narrowed, his expression thoughtful.
"Save the apologies," she snapped, catching the satisfaction that shimmered in Clint's eyes. "I've had enough of the five of you. I'm going home. I'll lodge my protest with the commander Monday morning."