Chapter 5

The British Museum

Several years earlier

"Constable? I mean Detective Inspector?"

Landon turned from studying a section of the Parthenon Marbles to face the speaker.

A pretty young woman stood behind him, near the podium that explained the difference between frieze, metope, and pediment. She had long medium brown hair and big hazel eyes, magnified by dark-rimmed glasses, and held both a clipboard and what looked to be an entire ream of paper pressed to her chest. A museum ID was clipped to the bottom of her boxy jacket.

She'd spoken softly, as was fitting in a museum, especially this section of this museum. The Duveen Gallery was a long room with periodic benches and informational podiums marching down the center of the dramatically-lit space. The walls and floor were brown stone, several shades darker than the sculptured panels of mixed white, grey, and beige stone displayed on the walls. The center of the room was dark, while the walls were lit with gold-tone light probably meant to mimic the Mediterranean sun.

"Detective," he said, holding out his hand. "Detective Malik."

She shifted her clipboard and papers to her right arm, stuck out her left, realized her mistake, and tried to quickly shift everything to her other arm. Papers slid out of her grasp, hit the floor, and scattered.

"Oh no!" She crouched, grabbing at the fluttering pages.

"Here, let me help." Landon started gathering the furthest flung pages, working his way in.

He bent to grab one last piece at the same time she did, and their heads cracked together.

"Ow!" The woman grabbed her head with her right hand, overbalanced, and nearly toppled over onto her butt. Landon caught her by the elbow, steadying her.

She grabbed his elbow, their arms locked together, and looked at him, eyes blinking behind those big glasses.

A sizzling awareness hummed through him at the contact. They weren't even touching skin to skin, and yet he felt like he'd touched a live wire. Landon dropped one knee to the cold stone floor.

The woman inhaled, almost a gasp, and for a moment lost that wide-eyed, worried expression. She looked older, sharper somehow, and her gaze traced over his face.

The change had him frowning, until she licked her lips, drawing his attention to her mouth. She had a gorgeous mouth, with a deep V in her top lip. Cupid's bow, that's what it was called.

The woman ducked her head, hair falling forward to obscure her face. She grabbed the paper they'd both been going for, then took the haphazard stack from his hand.

"I'm sorry." Holding the papers to her chest with her left arm, the woman crawled across the floor to the closest bench.

Landon watched her ass as she crawled. He had a quick, vivid fantasy about what he could do to a nice juicy ass like that, and swallowed hard. He needed to make time to go to a club and scene.

Normally, Landon was king of compartmentalization and believed in a hard, decisive separation between work and personal. He would never let anyone he worked with know what he was into outside of work hours, and hid his status as a detective with London's Metropolitan Police Service from people at the club.

The woman sat back on her heels?—

Another vivid fantasy about her in that same position, but wearing a corset and collar, popped into his head in full high-def.

What the fuck was wrong with him? Maybe the stress of the case was getting to him.

—and started organizing and stacking the papers using the bench as a work surface.

Landon walked over and sat. Standing while she knelt like that was a bad idea.

He took a moment to study her, wondering why he was having such a strong reaction to her. Given his predilections, he'd always valued personality and kinks over looks when it came to his partners. He didn't know this woman, so it wasn't her personality that attracted him. Physically she was pretty, but unremarkable, except for that little dip in her top lip that he wanted to lick.

She had thick brows, partially hidden by the glasses, and a wide jaw that gave her a rectangular face. She wore black pants, a pale blue button-up shirt and a navy jacket. The clothes were almost unisex, though the pants had hugged her ass very nicely when she crawled. He leaned, trying to read her name tag, but the angle was wrong.

Finally, she tapped the stack of papers together, and then held them out to him.

"I'm sorry about that, Detective…" She looked chagrined.

He was fantasizing about her, and she'd forgotten his name. Humbling.

Landon took them, but set everything aside, offering his hand. "Detective Malik."

She slipped her hand into his.

Tension and awareness crackled through him, the feeling exponentially stronger with skin to skin contact.

The woman's gaze jumped up to his, her lips parted.

Chemistry. This was raw sexual chemistry.

Landon squeezed her hand gently, just to see what would happen.

She made a small sound—a sigh or a moan, he wasn't sure which word fit that sexy little noise—and lowered her gaze from his.

Need ripped through him. Not just desire, but need. The need to have this woman. To make her submit to him. And then when she was his, helpless by choice, he'd give her pain-laced pleasure so intense she'd scream and beg for more.

Fuck.

He was at work for fucking fuck's sake. Not only at work, he was currently working a case that was probably the scandal of the century.

An estimated five-hundred pieces had been stolen from the British Museum.

He looked around the Duveen Gallery again. An hour ago he'd had an argument with one of the museum directors in this very same room. Landon wanted the museum to re-authenticate all pieces currently on display, and the director acted like Landon asked him to shoot a member of the royal family. Once the director stormed off, Landon had stayed, letting the quiet awe of the gallery soothe him so he could get a handle on his frustration.

He doubted that the Parthenon Sculptures, which his grandfather still called the Elgin Marbles, had been stolen and replaced with replicas.

But right now, Landon had a duty to consider every worst-case scenario.

He needed to get back to work, not sitting here having Dom fantasies about the museum worker who'd brought him?—

He looked down at the papers.

—an inventory.

An inventory?

Landon slid his hand from hers, and snatched up the list.

"Is this an inventory?" He started flipping through pages, heart racing. "So there is a complete inventory."

When the museum quietly admitted they didn't actually know what was missing, because their collection was so vast it hadn't been catalogued, Landon had thought they were joking. Hoped they were joking.

"Actually, there's not." She rose from the floor and sat beside him on the bench. He had to check the urge to put his hands on her to help her up.

He frowned. "That's what the director told me… I still can't believe it."

"Neither can I," she admitted, glancing around guiltily. "I probably shouldn't say that."

It was after hours, and the museum was closed, but there were plenty of people, both staff and police, in the building. It had been several days since the theft was discovered, but everyone was still in crisis mode.

"Actually, a lot of the biggest, most famous museums don't have a comprehensive list of their own collections," the woman said.

Landon paused to consider the information. "Does that make this better or worse?"

"I'm not actually sure." Her lips twitched with a smile.

Wow, that was a hell of a smile.

Landon wasn't sure why he was sitting here having such a casual conversation with a woman whose name he didn't know. Maybe it was the atmosphere—two of them alone in this vast, dramatically lit room. Maybe it was that shockingly intense reaction he'd had when they touched.

"If there isn't a complete inventory, is this another partial one?" He pointed at the papers.

"Yes. Sort of." She pushed her glasses up. "It's the closest thing to comprehensive I think is possible." She leaned over and tapped the papers. "I got lists from every department, and not just their inventory lists, but repair lists, loan lists." She raised her shoulders in a fatalistic shrug. "I compiled it all."

"Thank you... I still don't know your name." Once more he held out his hand, wanting to see if those first touches had been flukes.

She studied his hand for a moment, and then one of her brows rose slightly, a knowing, interested expression crossing her face.

She grasped his hand.

Awareness tingled through him, and he watched the way she once more wet her lower lip with the tip of her tongue.

Not a fluke.

"What's your name?" His voice was lower, both in tone and volume, than it should have been given this was a professional situation, not a date or a pre-scene meeting.

She pulled her hand from his, looking at it before tucking it onto her lap. "Colette Beaumont."

* * *

"The clubs weren't intended to be a safe house." Rolf Pederson folded his arms across his leather-covered chest.

"I know that. You know that." Landon turned away from his laptop and tossed a handful of joggers into the open suitcase on the bed. "My boss may or may not know that. Either way, I have my orders."

"How long are you going to be here?" Rolf asked.

Landon rested an elbow on the top of his tall chest of drawers, where he'd placed the laptop so he could talk to Rolf while he packed. "I have no idea."

"Will you be heading the investigation into the information your witness provides?"

"She's not my witness."

Rolf's brows rose a fraction of an inch. For him it was a big reaction.

"She came to me because she thinks she can manipulate me the way she did before."

Rolf's brows rose further.

"Oh shut up, you twat." Landon jerked open a drawer and started pulling out underwear and socks.

A booming laugh made Landon turn back to the screen. Andrei had joined Rolf. Where Rolf was taciturn to the point of sometimes coming off as rude—at least in the vanilla world—Andrei was whip-smart and always had a cutting comment or sarcastic retort.

Like Landon, Andrei and Rolf were both Doms.

They were also, again like Landon, Interpol agents.

Rolf was dressed for the club in Dom leathers—black leather pants and a vest, while Andrei looked like he'd just stepped out of a high-level meeting in a dress shirt and tie, with his suit jacket hooked on one finger and draped over his shoulder.

"You are a twat," Andrei told Rolf. "And not the kind of twat I like to play with."

"Do you even know what that word means?" Rolf's expression was unreadable, but then again, it usually was. He could be pissed, or genuinely curious about Andrei's mastery of English.

"Do you? I may not have grown up speaking English, but I'm better at sounding like an actual human than you are, no matter what language." Andrei tossed his jacket somewhere off screen.

Rolf sighed and uncrossed his arms, the equivalent of someone else throwing their hands up in disgust and stalking out of the room.

Andrei grinned at the camera, and Landon felt his own lips twitch. Andrei loved needling Rolf.

It was odd, that both men's personalities and mannerisms in the vanilla world were the opposite of how they behaved as Doms.

Rolf was reserved and quiet, but when on the dungeon floor, he was fiery and intense.

Andrei was quick-witted and cutting, but when he was Master Andrei, he was stern and harsh.

"Why are you packing?" Andrei leaned towards the camera, his features looming large.

"I'm coming to London. I'll be staying in the club." Landon closed up the suitcase and started filling the duffle bag. "I'm bringing someone with me."

"Did you get fired?" Andrei asked.

"What? No. I didn't get fired."

"Are you sure? Because if you have time to spend all day at the club when it's not your week, then you don't have a job. I hate to be the one to have to explain it to you." Andrei pursed his lips. "Should I use smaller words? Explain it again."

"The woman he's bringing isn't his sub, she's a witness," Rolf explained.

"Fuck." Andrei sighed. "We're using our club as a safe house? Who would do that?"

"There's a place in America, in Texas, where that happens a lot," Rolf said.

"She's not a witness." Landon finished packing the duffle bag. "She's an informant." He quickly filled Andrei in on what had happened.

Andrei grinned. "She blackmailed Interpol? I like her already."

Landon plopped down on the end of his bed, facing the chest of drawers, and stared at his feet to hide his reaction to Andrei's words.

"She'd make a good Domme," Rolf said.

"No." Landon looked up. "She'll go in as a sub. Work in the bar. We're not giving her any authority, or freedom within the club."

"She's in that much danger?" Andrei asked, serious for once.

"No." Landon stood and moved his luggage off the bed. "I doubt she's in danger at all. If she was, she wouldn't have snuck out."

"I can't decide if this assignment means your boss hates you, or has incredible faith in you." Andrei loosened his tie and leaned back against the wall.

"Hates him," Rolf said.

"Very funny."

"I wasn't joking."

Landon looked up. Nope, Rolf wasn't joking. He rarely was. Andrei however, was grinning like an idiot.

"Shut up," Landon said to the other man.

Andrei chuckled, clapping a hand on Rolf's shoulder. "I hope this is all a long con, and you secretly have a dry sense of humor."

Rolf just looked at him, which made Andrei laugh harder. Landon too smiled, though Rolf's words made his gut tight. He could tell himself that this assignment was more about Colette—and wanting her someplace away from the NCB headquarters—than about him, but he was worried.

Anu wasn't on the Club Alibi task force. She'd been given some information on it—and therefore personal information about Landon himself—when the task force lead reached out and asked that Landon be allocated twenty-five percent to the inter-NCB initiative. He couldn't help but worry that this was a bad sign career-wise.

Then again, even if he'd been given this assignment in good faith, there was a high fucking likelihood that whatever game Colette was playing would cause this whole thing to blow up in his face.

"When will you get here?" Andrei asked. Tonight was the handoff—Rolf had been Dom in residence this past week, and Andrei was on next week. They had a fourth Dom who was…

Well.

"Tomorrow," Landon said. "Late afternoon."

"I'll move my flight."

Andrei pushed away from the wall. "We don't need you here to supervise."

"I'm a senior agent on the project." Rolf's words weren't meant as a taunt, but Landon had a funny feeling Andrei had taken them that way, based on the way the other man stiffened.

"You either think Landon and I are stupid or incapable. I assure you, I'm neither."

"No, I don't think that."

"Then go." Andrei gestured towards the door.

"No. This is an unexpected and unplanned use of our facility. I'll stay."

Landon had no interest in listening to them fight. "I'm going to go. I'll see you—" He didn't specific who he meant with the word "you" "—tomorrow."

"Good night, Agent Malik."

Andrei relaxed as he turned to the camera. "Can't wait to meet your girl, Landon."

Landon closed the computer with a snap.

Colette wasn't his girl.

But she was going to be his sub.