“I can remind them of their own vulnerability at the same time that I gift my favorite subordinate Dom with a partner suitable to his tastes. That will make them believe that Travis is still one of mine. I can tell them that Travis has had such trouble finding a sexual partner, and having to keep his cover as an FBI agent has made it difficult for him to pursue his more sadistic and dominant traits.” Milan smiled at Travis and then let his gaze slide over to Ollie. That was not a subtle expression.
“The more broken I am, the more it shows that you’re ruthless and dangerous,” Ollie said.
Milan tilted his head to the side. “And the more precarious my position if they find this house. Having a broken and abused police officer in my home would likely lead to some legal difficulties, which is why Greyson would feel so overconfident.”
“You assume,” Travis said. “Bringing the trouble here puts a lot of civilians in the middle.”
“And it allows us to use my guards. If it makes you feel any better, I have emergency exit plans for all but my most ardent and experienced subs. The ones here for vacation will be gone the moment Greyson’s men show their faces.”
“It’d be better to meet him on his territory.”
A sub walked in with a tea tray, and a second one followed with a tray strapped to her stomach. Her arms were bound behind her back, but she followed the first servant with the cookies and treats.
“You have lost this debate, so don’t ruin tea with pointless argument. I will not send you to the city alone, and for you to take that action would signal that something was wrong.” Milan watched as the dark-haired man poured tea and then slipped to his knees to offer Milan a cup. After accepting it, Milan brought it up to his lips and moaned in pleasure. “Perfect, my pet.” The sub ducked his head and rose before taking a few cookies off the woman’s tray and putting them on a plate. Then he went to his knees in front of Milan again.
Ollie had once been to a tea ceremony, and this reminded him of that. The sub rose and knelt with fluid motions that spoke of experience—a lot of experience. And Milan gave the man all his attention for the moment. Travis leaned back, his gaze scanning the room. Ollie had the feeling he was familiar with the ritual. When the sub finished serving Milan, he turned his attention to Travis. Travis accepted first the tea and then the cookies with the same sort of careful attention Milan had paid. One of the cookies had a broken edge, and Travis pointed it out with a disappointed tone. The sub put his forehead on the floor in apology, and when Travis forgave him, the sub kissed both his shoes before standing and choosing a more appropriate treat.
The sub finished and moved toward Ollie, but before Ollie could completely freak the fuck out, Milan said, “Stop.” The sub froze as though unable to move.
Milan turned toward Ollie. “If you are to play your part, you should be at your master’s feet.”
Travis sat up straighter, and Ollie felt a wave of fear rush through him. However, he’d never let fear keep him from doing his job. “Good idea,” Ollie said, and his voice trembled a little.
When he stood, Travis shifted forward, and Ollie thought he might stand. He didn’t. “I don’t think this is a good idea,” Travis said.
“Our detective can afford to look ill at ease since his part in this ruse is the unwilling victim,” Milan said. “You cannot afford to let your cover slip. You need to find your dominant energy and at least pretend to enjoy your gift.”
Ollie went to his knees next to Travis. The man hadn’t relaxed at all. When Ollie rested against his leg, he could feel Travis’s muscles shivering slightly.
“This is a monumentally bad idea,” Travis said softly, but he picked up his tea and leaned back.
“No, trying to take over my empire is a bad idea. You need the practice.” Milan dismissed the two subs with a nod. “So, does this mean I will have to take over your Dom duties when it comes to putting stripes on our boy?”
“What?” Travis’s tone was sharp.
“He is a kidnap victim. Surely he would have a few marks,” Milan said in an overly innocent voice.
Travis’s leg bounced a little, like he had too much energy to fit under his skin.
Ollie wrapped his hand around Travis’s calf. “He’s right. I should have marks. If I don’t, they’ll wonder why you two are trying to protect me.”
Travis snorted and looked at Milan. “Trust me, at least one of us is not trying to protect you.”
“As a cop, I don’t need protection. I need to do my job,” Ollie said firmly. Travis looked down at him, and then Travis was up and storming away so fast Ollie fell to one side. Ollie scrambled to his feet, but he was too late. Travis was already gone.
Ollie thought about chasing him down and asking what his problem was, but Milan called him. “Let him be. He needs to work through his own emotions before he can come back to you.”
“I should…” Ollie had no idea how to finish that sentence.
Milan graced him with a small smile. “You have a difficult road, Detective. It’s time for you to get in the right space to perform your part. I am sorry that Travis’s attitude prevents you from going back to the training cage. That would be the quickest way to get you ready for the pending visit of your former coworkers.”
Ollie shivered at the thought of that small and heavily guarded cage.
“Come,” Milan repeated, and he held out his hand. With no real choice if he wanted this mission to succeed, Ollie moved toward him.
“I’m not doing anything sexual with you,” he warned.
Milan laughed. “Oh, you are a sweetie. Don’t worry—I know you’re not mine. Besides, with my testicles removed, I am impossibly slow to react. It takes a master to get me to come. Now Travis?” Milan groaned in pleasure. “That man does have talents. When I’d make him ride me, his control was delicious.”
Ollie was so surprised he knelt too fast and rapped his knees against the hardwood floors.
Milan picked up a cookie and broke off a bit. He held it to Ollie’s lips, and Ollie let Milan feed him. While he might be uncomfortable as hell, he did enjoy the idea that this plan could end with Greyson and Huda rotting in prison. Now that would be a thing of beauty.
Chapter Eighteen
“We should get you marked up,” Milan commented. Ollie clenched his teeth and fought down the panic that rolled through him for a half second. It made sense. It did. Good undercover work included establishing a logical backstory, and logically Milan and Travis should have beaten and whipped Ollie to break him. It was logical. But fear still twisted in Ollie’s stomach.
“Okay,” Ollie agreed. “How do you want to do this?” If Milan planned to put Ollie in cuffs and have guards drag him, that might be easier.
“No need to put off to later what can be done now.” Milan stood, and Ollie scrambled to his feet. Pausing, Milan gave him a weary look. “The grace lessons have clearly failed.”
Ollie crossed his arms. “I’m not interested in being graceful for you.”
“No doubt.” Milan stared at him for an uncomfortably long time before striding out of the room with a simple, “Come.”
They walked through corridors that went from grand and wide to narrower and far plainer. Double doors with ornate carvings gave way to single raised-panel ones. Ollie could tell the unseen rooms were smaller because the doors were much closer together. Finally Milan turned a knob, and Ollie looked through the opening to see a functional dungeon.
Milan walked right in, but Ollie hesitated near the doorjamb. In the middle of the room sat a black-leather-and-dark-wood spanking bench. Near the window in back was a gyno-style bondage chair with padded leg restraints designed to open wide, and a suspension harness hung from the corner. But Ollie dismissed all that quickly. He focused his attention on the wall.
Rubber and suede floggers, leather quirts, electrical wands, two nine-tail cats, and a range of paddles all hung on their hooks above restraints and heavy drawers with locks that held Lord knew what. Ollie’s interest kept drifting back to the paddles—studded ones, leather ones, wooden. One looked antique with faded paint and edges worn smooth and round. Another had a long, wicked-looking narrow surface, as if a paddle and a single-tail whip had babies.
“You like?” Milan asked, his voice mild.
Ollie grabbed the door frame and cleared his throat. “It’s a little stereotypical.”
When Milan turned around, he was smiling. “That it is. I prefer to think of movies and vids imitating me. I have had more than one movie producer locked into a cage somewhere on the grounds. And at least one landed in this room on multiple occasions. She was such a naughty thing.” Milan walked over to the wall and ran his hand along the top of the drawers. “Feel free to choose whichever implement calls to you.”
“None,” Ollie said.
Milan raised an eyebrow. Without a word, he accused Ollie of lying. He was even partially right, because Ollie was curious. Whips scared the shit out of him, but paddling sounded… “Interesting” was the best word he could come up with, but the rolling tingles that ran through his body required a stronger term. Despite that, Ollie couldn’t imagine standing still while Milan swung at him.
After an awkward silence, Ollie amended his answer. “I’m not interested in submitting right now.”
“But you need marks, yes?”
Ollie nodded. “Yes.”
“Then let us not delay. I can promise you that I will make this as quick and impersonal as possible. If it makes you feel better, I can even ensure you do not enjoy it.” Milan grimaced. “Although truly, forcing a submissive to enjoy physical contact is only a problem when one has lost all touch with one’s true nature.”
“Or when one is trying to respect the concept of consent,” Travis said from behind Ollie. Surprise made Ollie jump forward—into the room—before he spun around. Travis stood there with a thunderous expression. “You don’t touch him, Milan.”
Milan lifted his chin. “The marks are for his protection as much as ours. Having our cover questioned would be dangerous for us all.”
Travis took a step inside, and Ollie pressed his back against the wall to get out of the way. “You don’t touch him,” Travis repeated slower. Danger gathered around Travis like storm clouds.
“Well, someone is feeling possessive.” Milan had a sharp edge to his voice, and Travis’s back went stiff.
“Every mark you put on him, I will put three on you. So go play with your subs.”
“Yes, my subs.” Milan sounded thoughtful. “Exactly how did you know we’d come back here?”
“Dan told me.”
Milan narrowed his eyes. “Now I remember why I disliked having you live in this house. Entirely too many of the staff fell in love with you and all that overly masculine energy of yours. A good castration would take care of that.”
Travis didn’t answer, and since he’d moved into the room, Ollie had a nice view of the man’s wide back and nothing else. Whatever Milan saw in Travis’s expression, it must have convinced him to yield gracefully.
“I will leave you two alone.” Milan gave a half bow that was almost mocking and then left, his shoulder brushing against Travis’s.
Once Milan shut the door, Travis turned around. “Are you okay?”
Ollie nodded. He wasn’t great, and standing in this room was practically giving him hives, but nothing new was wrong with him. “He’s right that I’m too unmarked to pass as a captive.”
Travis rubbed his hand over his face. “I know.” He didn’t say anything else. After a few minutes, he walked over to the window and looked out the darkly tinted glass. “We need to talk about this before we do anything.”
Ollie chuckled. “Talking. I’m starting to think you aren’t much of a shade Dom.” He meant the words as a joke, but when Travis turned, the man’s face was graveyard serious.
“If we were in a relationship, I would be a shade Dom. I would know every twitch of your body better than you do, and I would enjoy playing with every reaction. You’d give up your safe word, not because I wanted to hurt you, but because I planned to drive you so far into an endorphin reaction that you couldn’t use it even if you were in serious trouble.” With every sentence, Travis stalked closer, and Ollie’s mouth went dry as Travis closed the distance between them.
“I would push you and sometimes make you do things you didn’t like because I wanted you to feel the complete surrender. When I’m with a sexual partner, I’m a complete shade Dom. I would do a lot of things differently if you were my sub and not my work partner on this operation.” Travis stopped a foot from Ollie, and the energy between them was like a physical bond growing more and more taut.
Ollie gave a weak laugh. “And we’d be having sex.” Ghost hands whispered over his hips as he remembered sex with Travis. He wanted that more than was healthy, and Travis’s insistence on being responsible was making the desire even more intense. Ollie had thought of shade Doms as irresponsible, but Travis was hitting Ollie’s kink for maturity and respect in a lover.
Travis turned toward the spanking bench. “Not necessarily. Milan is as dominant as they come, but he has sex with very few of his clients. The pleasure of knowing that someone has turned themselves over to me is enough. Sex is a nice bonus when it happens.”
Ollie knew a lot of people who separated their power dynamic from their sex lives, but he expected shade Doms to be more demanding about their subs meeting all their needs.
“Do we want to put marks on you or come up with a story about why you are unmarked?” Travis asked, his voice oddly devoid of emotion.
“It makes more sense that I’d be bruised and marked. I can’t see the bad guys buying this story any other way.” Ollie shifted his weight and tried to avoid looking at all the whips.
“There are always options.”
“And this is the best option,” Ollie said firmly as he forced himself to look at the wall of whips. Desire and fear mingled in his stomach. “Just don’t ask me which one I want.”
Travis snorted, which made his opinion on Milan’s question rather obvious. “If it’s too much, tell me, and I’ll stop. This is two partners working together, and we’re equals in this, okay?”
“Yeah, I’ll just be the naked equal,” Ollie said as he toed off his shoes.