Three-Part Harmony

by Angel Payne

  “Don’t get settled, brat.”

  Crap.

  Note to self: make other plans. Once you figure out what they are.

  David shifted his hands to her face, which caused the blanket to drop. He kissed her once more, demanding deeper access to her mouth, before stepping back and giving her body a long, assessing study. That, along with the fresh flare of air-co on her skin, caused a top-to-toe shiver; only this time, the chill wasn’t entirely awful. The strange mixture of icy and expectation got even worse as he tilted his head with purpose.

  “Step into my parlor, darling; then present yourself on all fours for your spanking.”

  She followed the direction he’d angled his head to an area of the floor on the other side of the bed. There, he’d spread several towels, which glowed brighter than the sand on the beach outside due to the unrelenting light from a couple of readjusted floor lamps.

  “Into the spotlight,” he ordered. “I’m not a hide-in-the-dark Dom. I want to see every stripe of my handiwork on your skin.”

  As if to give her a preview, he smacked her firmly across both ass cheeks, giving her body another one-two punch of flames and icicles. The sensations kept up their duel as she stepped to the towels, and he followed right behind.

  “Down on the floor,” he directed. “Hands and knees. Point your gaze down and spread your legs a little farther than your shoulders. Are my instructions clear, my dear?”

  “Yes, Sir.” This time, she gave the answer without hesitation. As she lowered to the floor, she tried to dissect why. Going through that crap in the shower had been humiliating and hard, but now she began to understand David’s purpose in it. She’d been a solid brick of defiance—but he needed her to be putty, ready to place her soft core in his strong hands. Ready to show him she really was sorry for defying his directions…and ready to atone for it.

  She was certainly putty now. And if her pussy had been ignited in the process, then it was a win-win for everyone, right?

  “Excellent,” he said as soon she was on all fours. He raked a hand down her back, dipped it lower until he pushed a finger inside her again. “And just as I thought, soaking wet again.”

  Her heart thudded harder as his voice went low and gruff. “Oh, Little D, taming the fire in your clit is going to be fun.”

  He punctuated that by landing two more swats on her ass—take-no-prisoners blows that made her gasp with shock. A couple more followed, then two more after that. The entire time, he thrust his finger inside her, a steady rhythm that made her walls tremble and her core ache. By the time he stopped the beating and pulled out his finger, Dasha was shaking and sweaty. Only by force of will did she maintain her position, though she was pulled from it by David’s hand at her scalp, bringing her head up. Something hovered in her vision. His finger, soaked with her juices.

  “Open up, sweetheart. Suck it. Taste the honey of your sweet little cunt.”

  As she took his finger, the tangy taste of her arousal filled her mouth, her senses.

  “Good girl.” He shoved three more fingers into her mouth.

  She closed her eyes, letting her head shut off as her body sparked brighter in service to his invasion. He never altered his pace, just kept on thrusting in a perfect emulation of the next thing she was sure he’d put there. Sure enough, she felt him sliding into position in front of her. She breathed in the musky scent of his lust, could practically taste his erect length on her tongue, beaded with the salt of his sweat and the—

  Something flat, cold, and earthy replaced his fingers in her mouth.

  She jerked open her jaw. And her eyes. She blinked, stunned, at the tapered end of his black Prada belt.

  “Don’t stop now.” It was an unequivocal order; he backed it by digging his free hand into her hair. “And lick it good, darling. I want to see it wet with your spit before I use it on your ass.”

  The words coated her brain like sensual magma. Black. Dark. Inescapable. Dasha didn’t even stop to question the sanity of his command this time, just realized the vortex was no longer a choice—because every inch of her body trembled in need for it. She sucked in as much of the belt as she could, laving the luxurious leather, helping him prepare the instrument he’d be using on her flesh. That connection almost made her worship necessary…a consecration of her penance. And in the doing, her salvation.

  At last, he withdrew the belt from her mouth. As he glided the strip down her back, he braced one leg against her waist. His other thigh stayed in front of her, which brought his erection right up to her mouth.

  “You know what to do with that, sweetheart. Take a deep breath, because I’m going to fill up that sweet mouth with my cock.”

  Dasha dragged in air, but ended up gasping. For the first time, she realized the size of the flesh she was about to suck. David’s penis was like the rest of him: firm, lengthy, commanding. The veins stood out against the taut skin, all leading to the shiny head now pulsing at her lips. He was right. He would fill her, and more.

  As she opened her mouth and he slid in, she expected a shudder, a groan, normal “guy” stuff that happened in the position he was in. Instead, David only grunted once, then coolly delivered the first whack of the belt. The lash shocked like live fire, branding her skin. The blow was worse than any pain she’d ever felt from just his hand, and she choked from the surprise. She lost her grip on his cock, and he did respond now, firing a sharp growl.

  “We’re not getting off to a good start, are we?” His fingers coiled again into her hair with unbreachable command. “You’ll take my cock, and you’ll take your punishment, subbie, both right now, both with no more protests.”

  The rest of the world spiraled away as he sealed his domination. The belt turned her ass to throbbing heat. His cock seared the back of her throat. And she did take both for him, submitting in a silent haze, every moment worth it as delicious male rumbles now started emanating from him. His hand set her head into a forceful rhythm, each hard ram corresponding to another slap of the belt. Thought and logic fled. Every desire became his, turned over to pulling deeper, satisfied sounds from him with each brutal thrust and each resounding whack. It was indeed punishment, primeval, ruthless, and raw. Her mouth had never been sorer. Her ass had never been more inflamed. And her pussy had never been more ready to be filled.

  Suddenly, he flung the belt to the bed. He joined that hand to the other on her head and used it to jam himself deep down into her throat. “Swallow,” he directed in the moment before he spasmed and filled the air with his bellow, then her throat with his climax. His cum seared her, completed her, made her feel as powerful as standing on a stage before thousands. She was so wet now, shaking from the need for her own release. David knew that too. He slipped one hand from her scalp and ran it down her back, making several long swipes across the marks on her ass before sliding those fingers to her sex from behind.

  Dasha groaned from sheer pleasure. So did he. The invasion of his fingers made her body tighten, including her mouth around his cock. “Yes. Oh yes, sweet girl. You’re so beautiful like this…”

  That’s at least what she thought he said. Dasha couldn’t be sure. Her pussy throbbed so badly for his touch, it echoed through her whole being. Within seconds, the entire world seemed to pound…

  Wait. The pounding was real. It came from beyond the bedroom, at the suite’s front door. Somebody was apparently trying to beat the door in. Strident shouts followed.

  “David! David, dude, are you in there?”

  David stiffened. “What the hell?” His mutter reflected Dasha’s own bafflement. It was Raife, the tour’s dance lead. But he was the clean-living, early-morning-run-on-the-beach type. Why was he pulling a commando act on David’s suite door two hours before his alarm clock was set to chime?

  David sat back with a heavy sigh. Dasha did the same, flashing him a rueful stare. He leaned to her, on all fours himself now, and lifted gentle fingers to her chin. “Better stay here,” he instructed, pulling her forward for a lingeri
ng kiss. “But this isn’t over.”

  Dasha smiled against his lips. “Thank you, Sir.”

  “Thank you, pet.”

  She dealt with the half-dozen stomach flips that gave her while he rose and grabbed a black robe from a chair. He threw it on and cinched it, then disappeared into the suite’s living room. A few seconds later, Raife did another drum solo on the door, though she heard David interrupt the performance by wrenching the thing open.

  “Raife, what the f—”

  “Is Dasha with you?” A stampede of footsteps ensued. Raife didn’t arrive alone, not by a long shot. The stress in his voice was multiplied by the minicavalcade into the suite. Jeez, it sounded like the whole dance crew was with him.

  “Why would she be—”

  “Just tell us she’s with you!” The interjection came from Raife’s second in command, Mary. The girl was a diminutive blonde with a face that belonged in a Louisa May Alcott novel and a conquer-the-world attitude to match. “She’s not in her room, and she’s not with any of us, and—”

  “Shit,” said Raife. “This is so. Not. Good.”

  “Crap!” Mary cried. “Dasha. Oh God!” An outbreak of panic followed.

  “Whoa,” David yelled. “Everybody calm the hell down. What’s going on?”

  A long silence followed. Past the thudding of her heart, Dasha sensed them handing something to David. He let out a heavy grunt, shifted, then repeated the sound with harder emphasis. The room dipped to such stillness, he barely had to raise his voice when he spoke again.

  “Dasha, you’d better get out here.”

  She popped to her feet, despite the two weights of emotion that slammed. Panic came first. His summons had outed their relationship to the tour’s whole crew. The fear came fast after that. Whatever had caused him to take the risk was serious. Very serious.

  She frantically searched the bedroom. David’s tone hadn’t left room for dawdling, but she’d arrived here in nothing more than the cloak, which had no closures or fastenings. There wasn’t a second robe in the closet either. That left his open suitcase. She dived in, finally finding a clean pair of boxer briefs and a dark blue workout shirt. Without thinking about the sanity, or lack of, in the action, she threw them on. Then she took one steadying breath and left the bedroom.

  The breath was a wasted step. It got knocked out of her the next second. “Oh, thank God!” shrieked Mary, launching a full Wayne Gretzky on her. She’d barely finished the body check before the other dancers swarmed her.

  “Are you all right, Dasha?”

  “Did you get the message too?”

  “Who the hell is doing this?”

  “What if it’s one of us?”

  “Should we call the police?”

  The din got sliced by another arrival to the room. It was George, the show’s tech lead. The tension beneath his gray-tinged beard softened a little when he laid eyes on her, but only a little. He scanned the rest of the room, seeking David. When the two men locked gazes, their expressions darkened from intense to ominous.

  George glanced to the smartphone in David’s hand. Only then did Dasha realize everyone else had their phones out as well. Whatever the displays carried, it was critical to the point of dire. No one had noticed, let alone commented, on her David Pennington designer attire.

  “You got it too?” George asked.

  “Yeah,” David said, his voice tight. “I got it too.”

  “Got what?” She forced her mind out of its cocoon of blissful submission, back into the take-charge star everyone expected. “For God’s sake, David, what’s going on?”

  He answered by holding up his phone’s window. As soon as she read the message there, then gasped in shock, everyone else in the room held up their devices too.

  Every phone had been sent the same text.

  Dasha dies and delivers us all.

  Chapter Eight

  “Miss Moore, are you certain you don’t know of anyone who’d want you dead?”

  “No. For the thousandth time, no.”

  David clenched his teeth and his fists, also for the thousandth time. Special Agent Phelps, with his polished loafer braced on the table between him and Dasha, had David mentally reassociating the initials FBI into Fucking Batshit Idiots.

  The moron stood here treating her like the suspect instead of hunting down the lunatic who roamed loose after sending texts to all sixty members of the show’s cast and crew. Damn it, the psych-job was still free somewhere out there, no doubt dreaming up his next scheme to get close enough to—

  He had to force-feed the rest of that into his brain.

  Close enough to kill Dasha.

  It definitely wasn’t where he’d thought the morning would go. Not when he’d answered the door four hours ago, expecting to get rid of Raife as fast as possible and return to rewarding his girl for taking her punishment so well. A back-burnered plan for now…but absolutely still on the stove.

  “No pissed-off ex-lovers? A reporter or blogger you might have offended? Maybe some fan who’s been showing up at your stage door, begging for extra attention?”

  “That’s enough.” David pushed off the wall where he’d been standing sentry. “She’s told you everything she can.”

  “Which is a hell of a lot of nothing,” countered Phelps.

  “Which is where you guys come in to do your goddamn job.” He surged forward, sending the strongest back-off-fucker vibe of his life. “She’s been through enough already with this, and you assholes keep prodding her like a science experiment. You’re not gonna get a different answer, no matter how you rephrase the question. So lay off.”

  Wisely, Phelps eased his pose. That brought a modicum of satisfaction. But no more. For the last two hours, since making the call to the police, then watching them hook in the FBI due to Dasha’s high profile, he’d felt like a piece of the room’s wallpaper. Just there. Useless. Purposeless. And worst of all, powerless. This time, it wasn’t just about his recurring, brother-on-brother world war with Josh. Maybe because this time, it wasn’t just about their past personal baggage or future Pennington stock standings. This power suck had to do with Dasha. Silence wasn’t going to solve it. He had to do something. They had to do something.

  “Listen,” Phelps said, hands held up, “I’m just trying to be thorough.”

  “Great.” David didn’t waste effort on inflecting it with anything but rage. “Glad to hear it. Thorough would be tracking down the source phone of those texts. Thorough would be learning if there’s any credence to this shit, or if we’re just dealing with some fanboy whack job. Leave her the hell alone.”

  “Well said.”

  The commendation didn’t come from Phelps. David snapped his attention to the suite’s doorway and the stranger standing there. Everything in the guy’s tone said he was just another FBI jack-off, but everything in his appearance defied that order. From the neck up, he looked like a casting shot for some Peter Jackson fantasy epic. His dark brown hair tumbled well past his nape, and his formidable jaw sprouted a small forest of stubble. But from the top of his leather-jacketed shoulders to his Bauhaus T-shirt, black cargo pants, and heavy boots, he was complete modern Goth. The guy wouldn’t be making the cover of next month’s GQ; on the other hand, he probably didn’t give a fuck. Where he did narrow his focus made David victorious and furious at once. The guy honed his brilliant green eyes on Dasha and locked his gaze there.

  “We tracked the cell that sent the texts,” he said, again in that no-bullshit tone. Despite that very good update, David’s tension hovered right where it was, thanks to the way the guy didn’t waver his stare from D. Who the hell was he? Were they really letting G-men do the sword and dragons look now?

  “All right, so who is the scumbag?” David sat as he issued it, then scooped a fast, possessive arm around D’s shoulders. The guy tangled stares with him again, though he cranked down the temperature in those laser irises.

  “Untraceable so far,” he replied. “We found the device in a
trashcan at Miami International, in the Central Terminal. The number is registered as a corporate phone for an exports business out of Buenos Aires.”

  “Which tells us what?” Dasha asked. “Agent…ah…”

  “Moridian,” he supplied. “Special Agent Kress Moridian, undercover operations. I’m the lead on your case, Miss Moore. We’re not usually brought in for a case like this, but Miami PD made the call, based your high profile.”

  “It’s our case,” David injected. “I’m Miss Moore’s manager.” And a lot more, he said via the tight handshake he gave the agent. Moridian, huh? Hell, you really are a holy crusades rehash. “David,” he stated aloud. “David Pennington.”

  Moridian held his own on the handshake, but the bastard’s face took another bath in tenderness as he looked back to Dasha. “I apologize for taking so long to get here. I know you’ve been waiting to get back to your suite and your things, but we felt it important to track the source phone first.”

  “Of course,” Dasha replied. She colored a little at Moridian’s reference to her state, barefoot, disheveled, still dressed only in David’s shirt and boxers. David had basked in a mental fist-pump when she’d emerged in the stuff, sex-flushed and gorgeous, wrapped in the clothes of who’d made her that way. If it were up to him, she’d stay like that all day, broadcasting his claim on her to everyone. But right now, she needed the comfort of her own things on her and around her. And these pissants had kept her from getting to them for three hours now. Which was two and a half hours too long.

  “Can we get on with it?” he interjected, rising, then pulling Dasha up too. “She can at least get into her suite for a few minutes now, right?”

  “Of course,” Moridian responded, the picture of forced decorum. “And…refresh my memory…why wasn’t she in it to begin with?”

  This time, it was Dasha who bristled. “I was with Mr. Pennington. And that information needs to remain exclusive to your team, Agent Moridian.”