Natural Law(48)

Violet looked down. He had put fresh strawberries along the side of the pancakes, and cut them so they looked like rosebuds, using their green tops as a frame of greenery. Humor struggled with her attempt to make a serious point. “You are seriously cute,” she informed him.

He smiled. “Same goes, sugar.” He feathered his hand across her cheek, and she pressed into his touch.

Mac didn’t have the heart, or perhaps the bravery, to tell her he’d never seen her look so appealing, sitting there at his table in just his shirt, looking ill as a hornet. But he could see in her face she needed him to back off. And though he didn’t want to be more than ten feet from her today, he understood how important it was not to crowd at a time like this. “Can’t blame a big male chauvinist pig for wanting to protect you.” She snorted. “It wouldn’t matter if I was a female bodybuilder, you’d want to protect me, keep me out of danger. You were seething with it when you walked into the emergency room yesterday, like you wanted to shake me for daring to have a job that took me out of the kitchen and the bedroom.”

His jaw flexed, and some of that anger swelled to the surface. “Well, I did want to shake you. I don’t want you in danger, ever.” His hand closed over hers. “Look at you.

You weigh nothing, you’re like a miniature doll.”

“A doll that can bring you to your knees and make you beg,” she reminded him with a challenging fire in her eyes.

“Want to try arm wrestling?”

“I’d win, because I’d order you to let me win.” His grin was quick. “That’s what you think, sugar. And you don’t strike me as the cheating kind.”

“I’ll stay right here,” she promised. “I’ll even make you dinner, use my formidable culinary skills. Popcorn and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. We can rent a movie, and I can moan occasionally to get sympathy from you. And I have Boscoe.” He had gotten up early and retrieved her beagle, so now the short-legged hound was beneath the table, responding to her ear fondling with a happy grin.

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He hesitated, and she saw the truth of it. “You’re going out tonight, on assignment.

I’ll meet you at The Zone, then.”

“This isn’t your case, Violet.”

“You said yourself, being with a Mistress will get you better access to the other players there. Now that I know that, we can do better mixing and mingling, give you that choice.” She caught her fingers in his shirt, drew him close. “Besides which, you’re mine, and I don’t want anyone else touching what’s mine. Understand?” He brushed his lips over hers. Pleased to see the spark back in her eyes, he cursed the fact he had to get back to work, especially since his cock responded as eagerly as Boscoe to the sharp command.

“Yes, Mistress.” He gave her a deeper kiss, enjoyed the way her hand curled into his shirt, dug in. It was difficult to break the contact, raise his head. “But you can take the night off. I am scoping out the gym angle today. That’s why I may be late. I’m going to hit a couple of them this evening, during the prime times. Why don’t you go see your Mom for a few hours? You talked to her last night, but I’m sure she’d want to see you, and you said she’s only an hour away.”

She looked at him, hard. “You’re not lying to me.”

“No, I’m not,” he said firmly. “And I never will.” Though if he told the total truth, he didn’t want her even the short distance away at her mother’s. He wanted her tucked safe and sound into his house tonight, watching old movies and waiting for him to come home. Ruefully, he realized she was right about him. When it came to his woman, his Mistress, he was a sexist pig.

* * * * *

“Top Form is a workout club owned and run by two of your Mistresses, Tamara and Kiera Whitmeyer. Five of the female Doms from The Zone have memberships there.” Consuela handed him the printout. “Two more, Lisbeth Holmes and Marguerite Perruquet, had a temporary guest membership. One of the male Doms, Tyler Winterman, also has a membership there, if that’s relevant. However, only one of your vics had a membership, and it was only a temporary guest membership he used once.

The hunch’s got a good feel to it, but there’s not a strong evidence connection.” Mac studied the paper. “She could have staked out the parking lot at the workout clubs of the others rather than getting a membership. Even followed them to a bar to make the contact. It’s going to be one of these. I can feel it.”

“Well, make it come together soon,” Consuela glanced over at the pin-up board.

“I’m getting real tired of the visuals around this place.

“Now this is of particular interest,” she pulled out a sheet. “This Marguerite Perruquet had a brother kill himself at age fourteen. The investigating officer said he 169



Joey W. Hill

picked up some serious undercurrents at the house. If he had to guess, he would have said the boy had been sexually molested by the father. Never could prove anything, though. From what we got from The Zone staff, Marguerite prefers younger men.”

“She’s symbolically punishing the brother?” Suarez raised a brow. “That seems fucked up.”

“Unless she blames him for leaving her alone with the father, because maybe he turned to her after the boy died. I’m going to go sign up for a guest pass at Top Form this afternoon,” Mac said. “I’m with Connie. I’d sure like to nail whoever our murderess is before I’m standing over more of her work. Here’s another interesting coincidence.” Mac pointed to the timeline. “Marguerite’s guest membership coincides with the time frame in which Rodriguez was murdered, the one vic who did have a membership to Top Form.”

“But no correlation on the others, though admittedly the gym that Turner belonged to doesn’t keep any type of records on guest memberships.” Consuela ran a hand over her tired features, reminding Mac that she’d been busting her ass on the research end of this case as many nights as he’d worked the field angle.

“You okay, Con?”

“Yeah.” She studied the murder pictures. “You know, Mac, they didn’t deserve to die like this, but I got to admit, I don’t totally disagree with Suarez. It’s a dangerous thing to give someone this much control over you. A guy has to have something wrong with him. It’s like some type of weird Mommie Dearest complex. And don’t even get me started on the women who like to be tied up. Hundreds of years to get men not to treat us like house pets, and you’ve got a bunch of idiot bitches begging to be tied up and beaten.”

“I don’t know, Connie,” Suarez flashed her a grin from his desk. “I kind of like the idea of you in thigh high boots with a whip.”

She shook her head. “Dominatrixes, my ass. Probably just feminists who get off on beating men the way we’ve been beaten down all these years. Still sick, but at least I can understand that better. It’s the subs I don’t understand.” Because she was trying to understand the politics of it, and there were no politics to it, Mac knew. It was about trust and power exchanges, not political correctness.

Submission was the offered gift. In a way, it was not much different from marriage, two people submitting to one another’s will, open to the give and take that led to unity, a complete opening of the heart to one another. Pain and relinquishing control could break down the walls even faster, make a person realize what it was he really needed, without all the fog that political baggage could bring into a relationship.

Consuela cocked a brow. “Mac, you with us?”

“Mmm.”

“I think you’ve been immersed in this stuff way too much. Go out, go see a ball game. Hit on some gorgeous woman and have her blow you off.” 170



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“Classy,” Mac chuckled, shaking his head. “How about you do the same, Con? Go home, have your husband go down on you a few times, if you can keep the kids out of the room long enough.”

Suarez hooted with laughter. Mac snatched up his files and narrowly dodged the stapler Consuela slung his way. Grinning, he retreated to the conference room, enjoying the stream of creative Cuban epithets following him, and the more relaxed expression on his co-worker’s face. A few moments later, he heard them return to debating the pros and cons of the S&M lifestyle and blocked it out, focusing on the information in front of him.

An hour later, he looked up to see Darla leaning in the doorway.

“I hear you’re headed for the gym. You think you should take some backup?” He shook his head. “I’m just scoping it, see if I pick up a scent. I’ll check in with you at nine, let you know if I’m hitting The Zone tonight, though I doubt it. Violet will be incommunicado today, but she should be back in the game in a day or so.”

“Is she doing okay?”

He nodded. He wanted to say more, extract some further promises from Sergeant Rowe to keep Violet’s identity secret, even if it cost him his life. No matter how he had accepted it, he could not tolerate the idea of her being exposed to the type of thinking he’d just heard, even though rationally he knew she was an adult and likely had heard it before. As he had, countless times. Like kids hidden in a closet, hearing what other kids really thought of them.