Chapter 21

Her butt was on fire and she loved it.

The skin from the top of her ass down to her upper thighs felt raw. It was worst on the lower curves of her bottom and the very tops of her thighs—her sit spot. Not only was the surface sting lingering, but the deeper heat pulsed in time with her heartbeat.

Something thick, cool, and slick pressed against her rear entrance. It had to be a plug.

Colette strained up, wanting it inside her. Her arm muscles were starting to ache, and her face felt heavy from being almost upside down.

"This isn't a little plug," Landon warned.

"Good. I need…" She shook her head, liking the way her hair lashed against her arms.

"No, don't stop. Tell me what you need."

"I need to be filled and fucked. I need to be used and abused. I want everything to hurt the way my ass does."

"Are you asking for a full-body flogging?"

Earlier, she'd wanted that very thing, but now that didn't sound right. Wasn't enough.

Again, her hair lashed her arms she shook her head. "I want…" The tempting pressure of the plug against her anus was making it hard to think.

Frustrated, she switched to French, pouring out her need and desperation.

"Too fast," he said, "and my French is fucking shit."

"Please." Everything she'd said could be summed up with that one word.

"You said a hell of a lot more than please."

"But that's the only important part."

The plug pressed down, indenting her anus for a second before the muscle gave. It felt deliciously thick as it sank into her, opening her wide. She was stretched and full, her breathing shallow. Oh god it was still coming, stretching her wider.

"Widest part is holding you open," he murmured. "How does it feel?"

"Thick. There was a moment when I thought it would never stop getting bigger."

The hand not holding the plug traced the line of her spine to the nape of her neck. He pressed his fingers over the collar she still wore. His collar.

"Next time I'll get a butt plug harness and a thick plug with a fat neck. Maybe it won't even be a plug, but a dildo."

He completely withdrew the plug, and the sensations from the removal had her shivering. When it wasn't immediately thrust back in, she started to worry that she hadn't taken it well. That he didn't think she could handle it.

"Master Landon, please I want?—"

The plug penetrated her once more, faster this time. Her anus fluttered around it, trying to clench down, but it was too thick.

"I know what you want. And what we both need."

He pressed the plug all the way in, and her body closed around the narrower, if not exactly narrow, neck.

Strong hands gripped her ass cheeks, kneading the tender flesh.

"How does that feel?"

"Good, Master Landon. I feel full."

He guided her off his lap, helping her slide to the floor between his feet until she was kneeling facing him.

"Toes on the floor," he commanded.

Colette leaned forward and repositioned her feet, toes and balls of her feet now braced on the floor.

"Sit back."

She obeyed, her heels digging painfully into her abused bottom. She hissed out a breath.

Landon notched his hand under her chin, tipping her face up.

Colette fastened her gaze on his chin, her lashes half lowered. His thumb played with her lower lip, pulling it down.

"Now that you've been spanked and plugged, you're going to be my good girl."

His thumb pressed into her mouth and she sucked, suddenly ravenous for something far thicker than his thumb.

"You're going answer some questions."

She didn't want to answer questions about her past experiences as a sub. Anything she said might color or change what he chose to do to her. She didn't want this to be about her.

Colette wanted to be the canvas upon which he painted his dominance and perversity. She wanted to know the darkest core of him, and feel it against her flesh.

Landon reached down and cupped her breasts, thumbs working her tight nipples. Pleasure zinged through her, making a direct connection between her breasts and pussy.

"Where did you get the diamond?"

She barely heard him, the pleasure of being played with stealing her focus. She wanted him to pinch her nipples. Clamp them so hard she cried. Soothe them with his tongue after perpetrating abuse.

"Who did you steal it from, my pretty Thief?"

The word thief shocked her like a live wire. Colette blinking, replaying the questions he'd just asked.

He wasn't questioning her about her past or her submission. This wasn't her Dom asking questions.

This was an Interpol interrogation.

Hurt and bright anger flooded her. She sucked in air, knocking his hands away from her breasts.

"You fucking asshole," she snarled.

"Colette." The word lashed like a whip.

She scrambled to her feet, swallowing against the tightness in her throat and forcing the hurt down. Anger was her only possible shield.

Landon rose slowly, his big body straightening. He was still fully clothed, shoes on, while she was naked save for the collar he'd put around her neck and the plug he'd shoved into her ass.

"Tell me what's wrong," he commanded.

"What's wrong is that you're a fucking asshole!"

"Undoubtedly, but watch your mouth."

She hated that part of her mewed in need at his words and her stomach cramped with not just anger but anxiety. She wasn't being a good submissive right now, and the disapproval in his tone made her want to kneel and apologize.

"I can't believe you'd stoop so low," she snapped, desperately focusing on her anger.

"What the fuck are you even talking about?" A minute ago he'd been flat and controlled, now emotion leaked into his words.

"You're using the scene to question me. You're using my submission against me!"

For a moment his expression shifted. Guilt? Concern? She wasn't sure what it was, but it was there and gone.

He snorted in derision. "Don't like it when it happens to you?"

"What are you talking about?"

"When we first met, you asked me to dinner. You were going to fuck me for information. Or maybe fuck me so I wouldn't suspect you."

Colette reeled back. Was that what he'd thought all these years?

Why wouldn't he? a logical voice in the back of her mind asked.

"That was never my plan," she countered.

"Fuck off with that." His eyes were obsidian. This wasn't the same man she'd thrown herself against earlier because he seemed like the only safe shelter in the storm of her life. Wasn't the man who'd held her and taken care of her.

"That dinner, and going to the hotel room, those were never part of my plan," she said. "If I had known meeting you would…"

She swallowed, shook her head. "If I'd thought dinner would turn in to more, I wouldn't have worn that bracelet. I didn't have time to store…"

She trailed off once more, realizing she was in danger of an overt admission of guilt.

Landon blinked, his expression uncertain—brows lowered, lips parted.

She slashed a hand through the air. "I don't care if you believe me, because even if I had planned to seduce you, that wouldn't justify this." She clawed at the space between them.

There was more she wanted to say, but she was choking on the repressed need to cry. Her anger-shield was cracked and crumbling. It wouldn't hold much longer.

Time to leave.

Colette turned on her heel and marched towards the connecting door.

She made it three steps.

Landon caught her around the waist, hauling her off her feet. Her breath escaped in a whoosh.

Landon held her aloft, careful of her injured side, and backed up. She shouted and pounded on his forearm, feet flailing in the air.

He tossed her onto the bed, her body bouncing, hair in her face. Colette lay there, stunned and at war with herself over how to react to the manhandling. She could, maybe even should, fight. But she wanted to give in to his control of her body and this situation.

Landon stood beside the bed, a towering presence that loomed over her. He half-climbed onto the bed, putting one knee between her thighs. Hands gripped her wrists, forcing them above her head and pinning them to the mattress.

Remembered terror stole her breath, making her flush cold when a moment ago she'd been burning hot. She stopped breathing, stopped thinking.

She was blind to reality, the ceiling above her not that of a foreman's office in an old London warehouse, but an elegant bedroom in a mansion near the Russian border.

No. Please no.

Landon leaned down, his face mere inches from hers, and that was enough to break the spell, yanking her out of the past and into this moment.

She sucked in air as if she'd just clawed her way to the surface after almost drowning.

Remembered terror no longer locked her body, but she was trembling.

Landon's lip had been pulled up in the start of a sneer, but now he frowned, gaze moving over her face feature by feature.

"Please…" she whispered, words barely audible. "Don't hold me down like this."

Landon surged to his feet, letting go of her and stepping back, his eyes narrowed. She could see him thinking, assessing.

Colette sat up, gasping as she put weight on her ass. Even against the soft mattress the pressure made fresh pain throb through her. The plug was thick inside her.

She wanted to slip to her knees. To sink back into subspace where she didn't have to think. Where she was completely safe.

"Is that one of your hard limits?" he finally asked. "Being on your back on a bed?"

Colette couldn't look at him. "It sounds ridiculous when you say it."

"You don't have to justify your limits, but I need to know what they are."

Colette realized that for Landon, they were still in the scene. She hadn't used her safe word—she'd called him an asshole and backed away, neither of which officially ended it. She should use the safe word now.

Instead, Colette hugged herself. "I guess it is a hard limit," she agreed softly. "But it's new. I didn't realize how bad it would be…"

She hoped he'd jump in, save her from any more explaining, but he merely watched her with a quiet readiness. She really should use her safe word to end not only the scene but this conversation.

She couldn't do it.

Nothing had changed as far as her needs. The spanking had been glorious and she'd feel it for days, but instead of satisfying her, it had only amped up her craving.

"You stopped breathing for a minute," Landon said softly. "That's more than just a hard limit, that's remembered trauma."

She could make something up, could prevaricate and keep her secrets. But she was so tired of trying to hold it all in.

Colette raised her head, holding his gaze. "I don't want to be helpless on my back because that's how Damien had me chained up when he used the knife."

* * *

He saw it in his mind's eye—a terrified, naked Colette chained and helpless on a bed, screaming as a knife was methodically dragged down her side.

White-hot rage punched through Landon's system. The adrenaline dump as his body readied to fight made him almost light-headed.

Except there was no one to fight. The enemy, the man who'd hurt her, wasn't here.

"This Damien fucker, that's who hurt you?"

She nodded once.

Landon stalked across the room, crouched so he wouldn't loom over her, and gently took her hands in his. Her fingers were cold.

He wanted to wrap her soft, naked body in a blanket and hold her on his lap until the sun rose, but the rage coursing through him made his muscles shake. Gentle would have to come later.

"Give me his full name, now." He could be in Russia by mid-afternoon tomorrow.

"I gave you information on him and his people. I gave you everything you need to arrest them."

"Colette, look at me." Her gaze snapped to his. "I don't care about his people, or taking down some organized crime group. I care about killing the man who hurt you."

The words were spoken before he could stop them, before he could think through what he was saying.

Was he seriously planning to fly to Russia and murder the man who hurt her?

Yes, he was.

But he couldn't do that. He was a fucking Interpol agent, and before that he'd been a cop. He couldn't murder someone.

No matter how much he wanted to.

He took a deep breath, wrestling down the killing rage.

Colette's gaze held his, her eyes soft, mouth slightly parted. "You want to protect me?"

She sounded hopeful, and his stomach clenched. He stood and rubbed his face with one hand, breaking both physical, and eye, contact.

"Of course I fucking do, it's my job."

He was full of horse shite as his father would say. It wasn't his assignment to protect her that had him plotting a murder. That explanation was a thin shield between himself and the truth about his feelings for her.

He cared about her, more than he should. More than was smart or sane. The rage he felt was born of soul-deep fear of her being hurt or killed.

Colette's features were twisted with pain, and the moment he looked at her, she looked away. He wanted to take it back, tell her that he'd protect her even if it wasn't his job. That his job wasn't the reason he'd been seriously contemplating committing premeditated murder a second ago. But he wasn't ready for that, not when part of him still believed it was all just a game to her. Admittedly a game with some real consequences, a game she'd apparently almost lost, but still a game.

The hurt on her face tore at him, so he tried to bring the conversation back to facts and information. "How did you end up chained to some Bratva asshole's bed?"

Her head snapped up; her eyes bright with anger.

Good. Pissed at him was far better than that blind, blank look that had stamped her features when he pinned her.

Colette snatched a pillow, holding it against her front with one arm as she jumped to her feet.

Landon swallowed the command for her to drop the pillow. She may not have used her safe word, but the scene was over.

Wasn't it?

Intellectually he knew it was, but years as a Dom had him conditioned to never abandon his responsibility to control the situation, and the sub, until a scene was officially over, and nothing they'd done or said formally ended it.

"Are you asking me what I did to deserve it?" she purred, a slight smile curving her lips. She sounded and looked mildly amused.

Fucking hell she was pissed.

"No." He shook his head decisively. "There's nothing you could do or say that would justify unlawful restraint and assault."

The amused mask dropped, her nose wrinkling in a sneer, but it looked forced, like she was holding onto her anger with both hands. Her throat worked as she swallowed.

"What I'm trying to ask is how you met the fucker, and how…" He stopped, snorting and shaking his head. "How he caught you, because fuck knows I never could."

Her lips twitched, but only for a second. "Why don't you ask, Landon?"

"I did just fucking ask. How about you answer a god-damned question for once." Familiar irritation with her prevarication was easier to deal with than fear for her safety.

"No, I mean ask what you really want to know. You're wondering if I tried to seduce him as part of my plan to steal something, and he figured out my plan. Seducing information out of men is something you think I'd do since, apparently, I tried that with you."

That wasn't what he was wondering at all. His imagination was still on overdrive, now serving up images of her being stuffed in the trunk of a car or kidnapped from her bed. Each scenario he pictured was worse than the last.

Landon shoved his hands through his hair. "What matters as far as ensuring your personal safety is?—"

She jerked as if he'd struck her. "My safety. Of course, it's your job to protect me, and you always do your job."

Still holding the pillow against her front, she marched towards the connecting door. This time Landon didn't grab her, but he did follow her into her room. She snatched up her discarded pajamas, but to his surprise marched to the other door, slamming it open and stalking out into the hall.

He followed her, stopping short when she dropped the pillow and disappeared into the bathroom.

Further down the hall, several people including Andrei were standing outside a playroom. They were all turned to watch this little drama unfold.

What else did he do to her?

He felt sick with fear for her, and nearly blind with rage aimed towards the man who'd hurt her. Landon rolled his shoulders and shook out his arms as if he could shed some of the emotion roiling through him.

Colette was whip-smart, capable, and clever. She could out think most people, including him and every other LEO he'd talked to when trying to build a case to arrest her over the years. She always had a back-up plan, an explanation, a way out of any situation.

Something had gone badly wrong for her to end up captive and helpless. So wrong that she'd come running to him for help and safety. He hadn't forgotten what she'd said—that sleeping in a room beside his was the safest she'd felt.

He'd assumed, hell Interpol had assumed, that she'd stolen something, almost gotten caught—or at least was identified as the thief—and the people she'd stolen from were coming after her either to get back the item or to make an example of her that they weren't to be fucked with.

She'd never tried to hide the fact that she was using Interpol to solve her problem. Fuck, she'd even come with a massive diamond bribe in order to get him to dance to her tune.

It hadn't occurred to him that there was a more visceral and personal element to her need for protection.

The bathroom door jerked open, breaking him out of his dark, spiraling thoughts.

"Since you're so worried about doing your job, tell me, Landon—" Something glinted in Colette's hand, catching the light from the bathroom as she raised her arm. "—was this part of your job?"

She threw the butt plug at his head.

Landon ducked, then whipped around to look at the dent it had made in the wall.

"Did you just throw a butt plug at me?"

A bark of laughter sounded from down the hall, but Landon ignored their audience.

"Oui." Colette smiled sweetly. "Parce que tu es un fils de pute."

That he understood. Yes, because you're a son of a bitch.

"Tonight, this scene, has nothing to do with my job."

"Really? You spanked me, plugged my ass, made sure I was deep in my submission, and then questioned me."

"The fact that you're still withholding information is fucking stupid. Especially if this Damien guy made it personal." He stepped close. "And it is personal for him, isn't it? He's not just pissed you stole something, he wants to…hurt you."

She smiled, but her eyes were haunted. "He wants to do more than just hurt me."

The words were like a punch to the gut, even though it wasn't unexpected.

"Then answer my fucking questions. Let me protect you."

"Ah yes, protecting me. Your job. How noble of you to go so far as to be my Dom so you could get information out of me…in order to protect me."

"That wasn't…"

Except that was exactly what he'd done, and it hadn't occurred to him how fucked up it was. There was supposed to be a clear line between their interactions as protected witness and agent, and their Dom/sub scene.

But that line was blurry for him, and he'd just made it worse.

"I shouldn't have—" Landon started, but Colette held up a hand, cutting him off.

"Let me make it simple for you. Don't ever touch me again."

Landon stared at her, a hollow feeling opening up behind his ribs.

Colette reached under her hair, and a second later the collar came loose. His hands curled into fists.

She bounced the collar on her palm. "Oh, one more thing. Rembrandt."

Colette dropped the collar at his feet, shot him a hard smile, and walked away, disappearing into her room.

Landon stared at the bathroom door, mind momentarily blank.

Moving on instinct, he picked up the plug, which smelled like the toy cleaning soap they kept in the bathroom, and then the collar. His throat worked as he remembered the way she'd looked bent over his knee, butt red from a spanking, ass plugged.

But even that erection-inducing image was nothing compared to what it had been like to see her wearing his collar.

And now she'd safe worded out, removed her collar, and told him never to touch her again.

How the fuck had everything gone so wrong?