“The definition of normal is a matter of societal perception, Sergeant. All I can tell you is that if we’re talking about consenting adults, I consider them normal. If one person is taking advantage of another, tearing down their self-esteem, controlling the other person’s life because of their own lack of confidence or hurting them in anger, that’s when I step in and say it’s not normal or at least not healthy.”
Regan didn’t respond right away. Rubbing her lower lip with her forefinger, she pictured the reason why they were there talking about all of this to begin with. She pictured two men butchered in their own beds. “And when the dominant person takes the discipline into the realm of murder?”
Doctor Molvado closed her eyes briefly and shuddered. “Now, we’re definitely talking about the abnormal, Sergeant Malloy. There are sadomasochists who take their fetish to an extreme, both the killers and sometimes, unbelievably, the victims. We’re talking about psychopaths and sociopaths and suicidal depression.” She pierced Regan with a knowing gaze. “We’re talking about serial killers. You’ll have to go somewhere else for insight into those types of people, I’m afraid. Sexual gratification based on death is one fetish I don’t handle.”
****
“What part of ‘no fucking way are we yielding on this point’ didn’t you understand when I said it the first time five minutes ago, Bill?” Kyle kept his tone deceptively mild, although he knew neither Bill Schwartzkopf nor his young associate was fooled by it.
He was doing some hard bargaining today, and because his client held the stronger position in the dispute, he knew he was going to prevail. It was merely a matter of how much posturing his opponent wanted to do before capitulating. Given that the associate watching it all was very pretty, he bet Schwartzkopf was going to play macho for a while longer yet.
Kyle didn’t care. He was feeling remarkably relaxed today. He had slept long and soundly the previous night, which was unusual for him. The stress of his job tended to make it hard to fall asleep and invaded his dreams once he did. Last night had been different, though. Once the delectable and disturbing Regan Malloy left his condo, he had drifted off with the bone-deep relaxation that comes from a powerful orgasm. Sleeping on his stomach to ease the sting of his abused ass hadn’t bothered him, either.
As he waited for his opponent to consider his response, Kyle shifted in his seat ever so slightly so that it wouldn’t seem as if he were nervous. His backside was still sore, not surprising after the two beatings he had received the day before. The first one had been understandable, he was looking into Jazz’s murder. He had to pretend to be one of those guys who liked being dominated by a woman. That had been acceptable even though he became aroused during the experience. He attributed it to the presence of a woman he desired.
What happened in his condo, however, was tougher to explain or accept. He had wanted Regan, that much was clear and not surprising given how attractive and sexy she was. Grabbing her and kissing her had been perfectly like him. Allowing her to get the upper hand and keep it had not. Why had he done it? Why had he let her bend him over his kitchen counter and strike him with a wooden spoon? How humiliating and how arousing. The orgasm she gave him afterward had been the most satisfying he’d had outside of a woman.
The thing that bothered him most was the way the pain inflicted by Regan made him hard. It still did as he sat in a conference room, negotiating a settlement with strangers. He kept his chair shoved under the table so his erection wouldn’t be noticed. He wouldn’t have ever thought he was the kind of man who enjoyed feeling pain, yet there was no denying it aroused him. There was no denying, either, that the pain also had a calming effect on him. He felt more confident and more centered today than he typically did.
It was almost frightening. Perhaps he and Jazz had more in common than he would ever have imagined.
“I need to confer with my client, Ramsey,” Schwartzkopf finally said gruffly.
“Feel free.” Kyle gestured toward a phone at the far end of the conference room. “I’ll give you some privacy.”
He waited until the two other lawyers stood up to go to the phone before he pushed back his chair and got up. With their backs turned, they couldn’t see how his pants tented, and he quickly slipped out and into the men’s room nearby. He had to do something about his hard-on, so he went into one of the stalls.
Although he was alone, he felt perverted unzipping his pants and freeing his straining cock. He clasped the hard flesh and pulled up, sending a satisfying jolt of pleasure through his body. It was tempting, very tempting, to stroke himself to orgasm. He didn’t do it, though. Something stopped him, something more than mere propriety. It was hardly mature or classy to jerk-off at work. No, it was a feeling of guilt that staid his hand. He wasn’t supposed to control his body. That was Regan’s job.
“Fuck that,” he muttered under his breath. He was his own man, in charge of his life, including when he came and when he didn’t. Still, he turned and sat on the toilet, intending not to jerk off, but to piss his erection away. As he pushed down on the rod, he heard the door to the bathroom open.
“Kyle, are you in here?” a familiar male voice called out.
“Yeah, Dan,” he replied, feeling self-conscious. Men weren’t supposed to talk to each other in the bathroom, especially when one of them had his hand wrapped around his dick.
“Your secretary asked me to look for you because you have a visitor. Some cop named Malloy.”
Kyle’s body shuddered violently as the climax ripped through him. His cock pulsed in his hand as hot cum spurted out. Surprised at his body’s instant reaction, he struggled to suppress the moan of pure pleasure begging to pass his lips.
“Kyle?” His colleague was still waiting for a reply, damn it.
“Yeah, okay. Be right there.” Kyle’s voice sounded strangled, although given that he was sitting in a stall, he hoped the other guy would attribute it to something else.
“I’ll let your secretary know.”
Kyle waited until his body had emptied itself before he stood up on shaky legs. He cleaned himself off both in the stall and at the sink, glad to see he hadn’t actually stained his clothing. The look in his eye, however, as he splashed cold water on his face, didn’t please him. He looked like a guy who had just had a good fuck. Maybe it was all in his mind, but it bothered him how out of control he was, so he left the men’s room with a scowl on his face and loaded for bear.
What the hell was Regan Malloy doing coming to his office anyway, and what kind of hold did she have over him to make him react so strongly to simply hearing her name? This wasn’t like him. He had to get a grip on himself and her.
He was a take-charge kind of guy, after all. Sure, he liked it when a woman was a bit aggressive in bed. What guy didn’t? Most porn fantasies were based on the idea of a woman who was enthusiastic about sex. That didn’t mean he was going to be some woman’s lap dog or punching bag.
Chapter Six
Kyle’s full head of steam dissipated in an instant when he rounded the hall corner and saw Regan standing by the window of the reception area. She had her back to him, but he knew it was her, of course. She was unmistakable to him even in a blazer and dark slacks. Because she hadn’t heard or seen him, he stopped to let himself stare and want. God, how he wanted. His body stirred to life, as if he hadn’t come only moments earlier.
“Sorry to stop by without warning,” she said, still looking out the window.
He stepped closer to her with his brows knitted. “How did you know I was standing here?”
She turned guileless eyes on him and shrugged. “I’m a cop. Do you have time to talk?”
“Sure.” He didn’t really, but he also didn’t care if he left Schwartzkopf waiting. “Let’s go into my office.”
Leading the way, he stepped aside to let her pass and enter the spacious corner room he had earned for himself. Regan looked around curiously as she had at his condo, taking in her surroundings, and he took a measure of pride in having an impressive space to show her. In this regard, he was clearly the kind of man he intended to be. As for the type of man he was with Regan…
“Please have a seat,” he said, pushing aside his sexual concerns.
“Thanks, but I’m a little keyed up. I’m in a pacing kind of mood, if you don’t mind.”
Kyle leaned against the closed door and folded his arms across his chest, deciding it would look silly if he tried to cover his growing erection. “As you wish.”
She glanced at him. “As I wish.” She ran an obviously agitated hand through her hair and walked the width of the room. “I wish I hadn’t been the one assigned to your friend’s murder.”
Kyle stood away from the door. His focus shifted from the woman he craved to his grief. “Have you made progress on the case?”
She stopped and looked at him. “No, shit, sorry. I didn’t mean to get your hopes up.”
“Oh, that’s okay.” He let out a loud breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. In a perverse way, he was glad to hear it. When Regan solved the case, would she stop seeing him? He didn’t think he wanted that even as he didn’t think he wanted to become more involved with her. He needed time, and the murder was a link to this woman that bought him that time. “May I ask why you’re here, then?”
“Yeah, that’s a fair question.” She nodded but didn’t answer right away. For a few seconds, she stared back at him with a pensive thought.
“And?” he prodded.
“And I’m trying to find the right way to say it.” With hands clasped behind her back, she rocked on her feet in an uncertain way that wasn’t like the woman he was coming to know. “I’m sorry, I guess is what I’ve come to say.”
“Sorry about what?”
She looked down at her feet and grimaced. “About last night.”
Ah. So, he wasn’t the only one who was feeling conflicted about what they had done. “Which part exactly are you apologizing for?” He needed to know if she felt bad about being intimate with him or the way in which it happened. He wanted her, and he hoped she wanted him back, however they might decide to run their relationship.
Her gaze popped up, and her spine visibly straightened, as if she were forcing herself to tackle a difficulty with courage. “The part where I abused you. The part where I took advantage of your grief over your friend’s death, and,” she licked her lips, “and any vulnerability you might have in addition to that.”
“I see.”
Kyle mulled over her choice of words for a moment, trying to understand what she was saying. There was some odd subtext to the apology that confused him. He closed the gap between them and stopped in front of her. With her only two feet from him, the pull of her was strong and distracting. His hands itched with the desire to grab her by the waist and pull her against his newly throbbing erection.
He didn’t give into the impulse, however. He knew he shouldn’t. Hadn’t she said she was in control and that he could only do what she said he could and when she said he could do it? Why he should allow her such control over him, he couldn’t say. He only knew that in showing the restraint, he felt strong and strangely proud of himself.
“Actually,” he confessed, “I don’t see. What happened last night was not abuse, at least not from my perspective.”
Regan gave him what he perceived as a pitying smile. “I can imagine that it wasn’t. The problem is that I took advantage of your perspective.”
He shook his head. “You’re really confusing me now.”
“Yeah, okay, I know I’m making a hash of this, but I’m trying to be sensitive to your feelings, and well, to be honest, sensitive is not my strong suit.”
Kyle smiled at the admission. He couldn’t help himself. He hadn’t known Regan Malloy long, but what he knew told him she wasn’t big on the touchy-feely stuff. It was fine by him because her aggressiveness was a big part of what he found attractive about her, perverse as that might be. Still, she seemed uncomfortable, and he didn’t want her feeling bad, so he pushed her to be more blunt. “Don’t worry about my feelings. I’m a big boy, Regan. You can tell me straight out what’s bothering you.”
She studied him and gauged his sincerity, he supposed. “Fine. The thing is, I just came from talking to a Doctor Molvado. Does her name mean anything to you?”
He frowned. “No, why?”
“Because Mr. Bennington used her as a therapist. She specializes in fetishes. I thought maybe he’d mentioned her to you, but then, that’s pretty stupid of me to think given how you knew nothing about his predilections.”
“No, he never mentioned it to me. Did you learn anything helpful?”
“Only generally with respect to what might lead men and women into the Femdom lifestyle.”
“Is that why you’re apologizing?” he asked with sudden clarity.
“Yes,” she admitted on a puff of breath. Her green eyes bore into his, and he could see the guilt in them. He wanted to kiss it away, yet dared not. He knew she would rebuff him. “She said it’s possible that men who seek out punishment from women are reliving an abusive childhood.”
“Ah, and you think I let you bend me over a counter and paddle my ass until my cock nearly burst through my pants because I was abused as a child.”
Regan’s gaze dropped. “Listening to the doctor, I realized I may have taken an unconscionable advantage over you. It certainly explained why an otherwise strong, assertive man would allow himself to be dominated by a woman.”
He moved closer, just enough to satisfy his growing urge to be pressed against her. “Maybe it’s a simple matter of your being physically stronger than I am.”
She still didn’t look at him, although her eyes shifted to the far end of his office. “Well, I’m pretty sure I could take you in a fight, but that’s training.” Her gaze shot to his, and the look was like a sucker punch to his gut. His cock pulled and strained like a stallion desperate to jump a fence and cover a mare. God, how he wanted this woman. “The problem is that you didn’t put up a fight at all. You didn’t even say the safeword.”
“I came up with that word to satisfy your concerns. I warned you I would never use it.”