Cuffed & Collared Read online

  No, she couldn’t quite imagine herself doing it. That is, until another image came to mind. Kyle Ramsey, a man in need of a good spanking in her estimation. He was too arrogant and handsome for his own good, or hers. And gorgeous was only the half of it.

  There was something intoxicating about that man. She had sat and interviewed him like she would any other witness, and yet all she really wanted to do was toss her notepad and pen away, strip off her clothes, and straddle his body. She had been so wet when she returned to the station that she changed into spare panties and jeans she kept in her locker.

  Thinking about him again was having the same effect, which was really gross considering her father was sitting only a few feet away. She gulped down the rest of her food, telling herself that chopsticks in no way represented a Freudian cock before she answered her father’s question.

  “I have no idea, but JoJo uncovered the best lead we have. Both victims belonged to a club that caters to this type of fetish. I already interviewed the woman who runs it in connection with the first murder and came up with nothing helpful. This time, I’m going in strong and hard. It’s got to be the connection we’re looking for. For all we know, the killer works there.”

  “Sounds about right. You want some ice cream?” he asked as she started clearing the empty boxes and left-over food.

  “No, thanks,” she said with a smile.

  “You’re too skinny, you know.”

  “I have to be to chase punks,” was her teasing reply. “I’m going to dump these in the kitchen before heading up. Do you need anything, Pops?”

  “Nothing, thanks, darlin’.”

  “See you tomorrow, then.” She pressed a quick kiss on her father’s head when she passed him.

  It wasn’t cool, living above her father in Charlestown, her old Boston neighborhood. She had grown up in the duplex, although in a small room in the downstairs apartment where her father stilled resided. Now she occupied the rental part that had helped her parents make the mortgage payments for many years. Not that she was technically a tenant, because her father refused to accept rent. He didn’t need it, he said, and she knew it was true. Her mother’s life insurance policy had paid off the last of the home debt.

  No, there was nothing fun or sexy about where she lived, and bringing guys home was always tricky. What a good thing it was, then, that she had so little time for what amounted to a pathetic love life. Being a cop was her first and only love, anyway, the one thing she had wanted since she was a little girl.

  As an only child, she had been the center of her parents’ world, and she had worshipped her father. She still did. Her mother’s sister had lived a block away with her cop husband and their three boys. Daire, Ronan, and Finn had treated her as not just an honorary sister but an honorary brother, too. Aunt Sheila and Uncle Rory were gone, cut down in a double murder that still remained unsolved despite her cousins’ efforts. Ronan and Finn had started their own families, albeit a hair unconventional ones. Daire still rattled around in his boyhood home, so Regan didn’t feel terribly odd living above her father.

  Helping her father to get along, now that her mother was no longer around to do it, was no great hardship. It was more than duty. It was devotion, and if at the age of thirty, she was beginning to feel the lack of a husband and children, she only had to remind herself of how getting home at ten o’clock was not an unusual occurrence in her life. There wasn’t time for love and family.

  There was time for sex, though, she reminded herself as she stripped off her clothes, washed her face, and brushed her teeth. There were enough nights when she went home with a guy or brought one back with her to keep her itch scratched. She had even had several relationships, although work had always strangled them dead. It didn’t matter. None of those nice, young men had really satisfied her. There was always something lacking, although she couldn’t really say what it was.

  Sitting on the edge of her bed, Regan opened the bottom drawer of her night stand. Here was where she kept those men that truly satisfied her. They had beautiful faces and perfect bodies and were absolutely silent. She picked up her tablet, an expensive treat that allowed her to see thousands of men at the mere touch of buttons. She pulled up a relatively new image of a beefy blond lying naked on the beach. She hummed her approval and dipped one hand down her stomach to the junction of her thighs.

  As late as it was, Regan wanted to take her time. She studied the model and let her fingers play lightly on the outside of her panties. They were already wet, because she was wet. It seemed as if she had been wet the entire day. She made lazy circles with her middle finger, pushing it just a tad between the slick folds.

  She let her fantasy begin, imagining that she was touching not herself but the man in the picture. With her eyes half-closed, she could hear the sound of the ocean crashing against the shore and smell the salt water. In her mind, she was there, lying next to him, the sand rough against her skin. She started with his hair, she always started there, grasping and tugging the blond locks. Blond. She loved blond. It was rare and beautiful. You could get a man’s attention by anchoring your fingers through the strands and yanking back to make him look you in the eye. She imagined her fantasy man doing just that, giving her a look of invitation when his gaze met hers.

  Yet there was only so much fun to be had with hair, so her fingers disentangled themselves, slid around his jaw and down his neck to his pecs. She liked a smooth, rock-hard chest and ran the pads of her fingertips back and forth across it, the skin slick from suntan lotion. It was silly for men to have nipples, of course, but they were there, so why not play with them? A caress, a tweak, a nip with her teeth. She loved the look on a man’s face when he realized she could arouse him with his nipples. Pressing her finger in to flick at her clit, she imagined she was doing just that.

  Regan’s breath sped up, and her own breasts tingled with anticipation. Her legs moved restlessly with mounting need. Not yet, it was happening too fast, although there was a limit to teasing herself. She dug her finger in deeper, still separated from her sensitive nub by the layer of cotton, and picked up the pace. In her mind, her hand was on the move down, down, over the abs. Nice but not overly exciting. The good stuff was still to come.

  The pubic hair, blond like the head—she liked her men natural—was crisp. She gave it a quick tug and smiled when the man winced. And now she was where she wanted to be, stroking the long, thick cock while massaging the satiny balls. The cock started out soft, so she squeezed and tugged until it sprang up hard and ready for her. The turgid flesh pulsed in her hand as if it were breathing on its own.

  Regan moaned and thrust her hips in imitation of the movement of the man’s rod. Her fingers slid up and under the waistband of her panties, the desire to touch her own flesh too strong to resist. Oh, yes, she was slick and hot, and her clit welcomed the assault. It begged for more, for harder, for faster. She wasn’t going to deny herself much longer, but she still had more to conjure in her fantasy to make it good.

  What should it be? Should she suck the tempting cock into her mouth? Should she straddle his prone body and take him inside her cunt? Regan looked at the man’s face for inspiration, and damn, it changed. It was no longer the no name stranger, but Kyle Ramsey, and he was wearing that condemning look he had when he accused her of botching the investigation.

  “Uh!” she cried out as much from the jolt of pleasure tearing through her as from the sense of outrage that this man should invade her private fantasy.

  And yet, the image didn’t fade. Dropping the tablet, Regan sunk into her pillows with her eyes closed. The beach scene was gone from her mind. She was back in the Bennington apartment glaring at Kyle. He was challenging her with his eyes, and she was furious with him.

  Her fingers picked up their pace.

  The man needed a lesson. He needed to show respect. Without further thought, she grabbed his arm and shoved him around, pressing him against the dining table. His gasp of surprise elicited a satisfying grin fr
om her. She noticed as well that he wasn’t fighting her. He wasn’t trying to use his superior strength to stop her from controlling him. It was because he knew he’d been bad, she thought with glee. He knew he needed to be punished.

  Her fingers were drenched now with her own juices. They were slipping around her clit, sending sharp jolts of pleasure shooting up her abdomen.

  She lifted the end of his suit jacket, sorry she hadn’t yanked it off him. No matter, she merely wished it and all his other clothes away. Naked, he was as perfect as any of the younger men she ogled in her magazines, with rippling muscles down his back, a high, tight ass, and thick, corded legs. His balls, hanging long and loose, peeked out from between his thighs.

  She was desperate to get her hands on him. “You’ve been a bad boy, Kyle, haven’t you,” she taunted.

  “Yes,” he hissed out.

  She brought the flat of her hand down squarely on his ass. “Yes, what?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” She could hear the excitement in his voice. He wanted this, and she would give it to him.

  Regan’s back arched as she pictured smacking him again. His buttocks quivered against the strike, and he breathed out a low gasp. But he didn’t move. He didn’t try to avoid her harsh touch. He bore it all with respectful courage. Her flesh tingled, in her palm and between her legs. She did it again and again. The only sounds were her flesh meeting his and their harsh breathing. They were in sync, in and out, faster and faster, as Regan spanked Kyle over and over, her fingers gyrating wildly against her clit, the tension mounting until…

  With a final jerk of her hips, Regan exploded in climax, every muscle in her body twitching. She whimpered her pleasure, biting her lower lip as her back arched off the bed. Her fingers played out the orgasm until her sensitive folds cried for her to stop. She lay spent, satisfied, and a little disturbed.

  Holy shit, maybe she did understand this kind of kink, after all.

  ****

  Regan slurped down a heavy dose of her morning coffee, ignoring the burning of her tongue. The cool of the fall had set in enough to switch over to the hot stuff. “You want to say that again, please, Lieutenant?”

  “What part of ‘get inside that club’ didn’t you understand, Sergeant?” Lieutenant Fuller was a no-nonsense kind of guy, good at his job, and decent to work under. He gave Regan his “I mean business” look.

  She couldn’t blame the guy for his lack of patience this morning. As JoJo had related it, the mayor had sent the shit rolling downward early in the morning. It had bounced off Commissioner Finnegan, beaned Captain Maher as she walked into work, and now it sat square in the middle of the lieutenant’s office. Apparently the idea that wealthy, powerful men, even those with a weird sex life, were being targeted potentially by a serial killer was giving the higher-ups fits. They wanted the Morales and Bennington murders solved immediately, as in yesterday.

  Regan squirmed at the idea of what she was about to have to do to shovel the shit out of her way. “You do know, LT, that there are only two kinds of people at that club, masochistic men and the women who work them over.”

  “I get that point, Malloy,” the man snapped back. “But as this club is the only known common denominator for the two victims, it makes sense for someone to go undercover and see what she can turn up. If nothing else, it will give you a better sense of this subculture, and if no one at the club is involved, then maybe you’ll gain useful information that will help you find leads elsewhere.”

  Regan took another gulp of her coffee before responding. “It does make the most sense. I interviewed the proprietor after the Morales murder, and she was eager to be helpful. The last thing she wants is for the police to start hassling her. What she does is barely legal.” She grimaced. “The idea of paddling strangers while rigged up as some sadistic Playboy Bunny is still hard to imagine.”

  “If you’re uncomfortable with the assignment, Malloy, you can always have Mathers go in instead. You’re the lead investigator, after all. However you want to play it is fine with me.”

  Regan’s partner choked on a mouthful of her Coke. JoJo was a diet Coke drinker twenty-four/seven regardless of the weather. She looked back at Regan with pleading eyes. Regan shook her head with a smile. “No, that’s okay. Detective Mathers is a married woman. I think this is best handled by me.”

  “Fine,” Fuller replied.

  “What if the club’s owner is the killer?” JoJo threw out, looking relaxed now that she was off the hook.

  “I don’t think she is,” Regan said. “Because I remember she’s left-handed and the coroner said the throats were slit by a right-handed person.

  JoJo dismissed that observation with a wave of her hand. “Everybody watches TV these days. If I were a left-handed killer, I’d deliberately use my right hand to throw the police off the scent.”

  “Let’s hope the killer hasn’t seen the same shows as you,” Regan replied with a frown. “Anyway, I have to figure all the women working there are going to tumble to who I am pretty quick. The best I can hope for is to flush the killer out by my very presence.”

  “You’re probably right,” the lieutenant agreed. “But we have to try. If we are dealing with a serial killer, and I’m still not convinced of that yet, then two dead men in two weeks is pretty quick work. Either she’s been killing for a while across the country without anyone figuring out the pattern, or she’s new and escalating far faster than the average psycho. However it may be, if she’s picked our city to make a stand, we have to bring her down, hopefully before she kills again.”

  “We’ll do our best, sir,” Regan assured her boss.

  “I know you will, and to help out on the psychological side, I want Mathers to find us an expert in this area.”

  “You want an FBI profiler, LT?” JoJo asked.

  The guy shook his head. “No, I mean someone, a psychologist maybe, who has a handle on this whole Femdom thing. We need to know what was going on inside the victims’ heads and the killer’s.”

  Regan winced at the idea. She wasn’t sure she ever wanted to know, especially after her bedtime equivalent of warm milk the previous night. The memory of it made her flare up with unwanted heat and longing. If she wasn’t careful, she’d end up with more wet panties. Time for a figurative cold shower. Time for a visit to Club Nemesis.

  ****

  “I don’t like this idea at all.” Veronica Pugh had an unfortunate name, but she was a striking, almost elegant, woman, and Regan imagined she still turned men’s heads even pushing sixty.

  “I understand your reluctance, Ms. Pugh, and believe me I’m not too keen on the idea myself. However, this is the best strategy we have right now, and I’m sure you’ll agree it beats all hell out of another one of your clients getting murdered.”

  From where she sat behind her desk, Veronica frowned. “You’re right, of course, and I suppose if I don’t agree, you’ll be all over this place driving business away and generally making my life hell.”

  Regan cocked her head a bit. “Well, you do tend to skirt the law a tad.”

  “This is not prostitution. There’s no sex involved, and if what we do here is illegal, then you better lock up every parent who spanks their child.”

  “We actually do lock some of those people up. Besides, if it’s that benign, then you should have no problem with my playing at being, what do you call it, a Mistress?”

  “Hey, being a Mistress isn’t as easy as you think. The reason it is benign is because my women are highly trained professionals. They know how to chastise their clients without hurting them. I’m concerned about the liability of having a novice operate here.”

  “Don’t worry about that. I’m a cop. Restraining people without doing serious damage is part of my training, too. I know how to pull my punches.”

  “Huh!” Veronica seemed less than convinced, but she really had no choice, and she was a smart enough business person to realize it. “I can’t guarantee your cover won’t be blown. It’s hard to keep secret
s around here, and pretty much every professional in this scene knows each other.”

  “I understand,” Regan assured her. “I can be your cousin from Paducah if you want. I need to spend some time checking out both the women and their clients.”

  “None of my gals is a killer.”

  “You know them all so well? They’ve all been close friends of yours for years?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I get it. Mistresses come and Mistresses go, so you’ll check everyone out—discreetly?” When Regan nodded, the other woman continued. “You’ll need a name and an outfit. We’ll go next door to my adult toy shop for the clothes. I assume the police department will reimburse me for the costs.”

  “Yes,” Regan confirmed in a neutral tone, although she was already cringing at the thought of filling out the requisition papers.

  “What are you going to call yourself?”

  “Mistress Regan?” she offered.

  Veronica shrugged. “Mistress Regan it is.”

  Within a few minutes, a reluctant Regan stood in Veronica’s naughty shop, and the older woman was rummaging through the racks of clothes she kept on the back wall to outfit the new Mistress Regan.

  “With your hair, you could get away with red, but I think basic black will suit you just as well.” So saying, Veronica held up a black leather dress. The thing was more laces than material, leaving the front, back, and sides exposed. There were even laces on the sleeves. It didn’t take much imagination to realize quite a lot of Regan would be exposed. The get-up was clearly designed to entice a man.

  “If I’m supposed to be dominant, how come I’m dressed for his pleasure? Shouldn’t I try to remind him of his mother or something?”

  Veronica rolled her eyes. “You know nothing about this.”

  “That’s true. Educate me.” Regan folded her arms across her chest.

  “You’re dressed to excite him, because this is about his fantasy, not yours. Our clients want strong and sexy women to dominate them. They come in here during or after busy days where they’re often responsible for other people, other people’s money, and sometimes other people’s very lives. They have to make hard decisions and deal with tremendous stress. All they want is some time when they don’t have to be the strong one. They’re looking for absolution, if you will, but they don’t want it from someone who looks like their mother—mostly,” she conceded. “Besides, they’re going to be either naked or stripped down to their skivvies. Humiliation is part of the scene for them.”