by Rita Lawless
“I want to see something,” she said. “I’ll be right back.” She headed back into the building as Titan called for her to stop. The women at the door didn’t question her as she breezed by. Just the same, she said, “Bathroom?” One of them pointed to a door near the stairs.
April bypassed it as she entered the main room. The sounds of spanking once again assaulted her ears. She searched the crowd until she saw what she wanted. Tom and his friend were headed out the back door, toward the hard-core room.
***
Three days later, April wondered what was going on in the investigation. She hadn’t heard from Threadway since the night of the party. She had hoped he’d come in at some point and talk to her, let her know how his discussion went with his suspect. But he hadn’t come in the shop or called.
Foot traffic in the store had been pretty good on Monday, but April had spent much of Tuesday wondering how she could build up her customer base. She had designed a few ads she could place on websites, mostly blogs that featured book reviews.
Monday night, she’d tried to talk Titan into coming out of the closet, so to speak, and doing a book signing at the store. He’d told her if it were up to him he would do it in a heartbeat. But he knew his publishers did not want him outing himself, at least not yet.
“Talk to them,” she’d said. “I know you’d draw a big crowd, because your books are so hot.”
“Stop trying to butter me up,” he’d said before he’d kissed her. They’d stayed at his house since Saturday evening, and she’d loved every minute of it. Cooking breakfast in his huge kitchen Sunday morning had been so much fun. So had making love on the kitchen table. That had been incredibly sensual. He hadn’t spanked her since the party, which was fine with her. The number of spankings she’d received since she’d met him had meant a very sore bottom, and she was happy for a reprieve, for a while anyway.
April didn’t plan on telling him that she needed something like this in order to keep the store in the black. There were a few other Denver authors that she might be able to approach to see if she could talk them into a signing.
As Tuesday afternoon wore on, April took a tour of the store. The fact that more books were going out than coming in left blanks in the stock. She needed to pull out what few tomes she had in the storeroom and put them in their place. She didn’t have a lot of stock in reserve, but she had enough to fill in the holes.
Looking at the depleted shelves made her wonder what Titan had planned for the weekend. Would he want to go with her to garage and estate sales to see if she could replenish her stock that way?
It would be fun. Maybe they could find items at the sales that could be used for spankings. After all, he was the one who said he could find a spanking implement in any room in the house.
She was about to call him when the bell over the door rang. She looked up, hoping to see him enter. Barring Titan, Threadway would be the next person she wanted to talk to, to see what the status was on the investigation.
But she saw not one, but two customers. Carol was coming inside, and she was smiling up at Tom, who held a big sack of books. “This nice young man helped me to bring in my trades,” Carol said with a smile.
Tom had never been in the store before, so April was pretty shocked to see him. “He’s a nice man, isn’t he?” she said as Tom placed the books on the counter.
“Very.” Carol winked at April. “I’m going to shop while you tally up my trades. See you in a bit.”
The woman took off for the back of the store, and April turned her attention to Tom.
“How are you?” he greeted her.
“Okay.” Things felt a little strange right now, given the fact that their relationship was now pretty much over. “How are you?”
“Doing okay,” he responded. “I was in this neck of the woods and wanted to drop by and tell you how happy I am for you and Titan.”
Heat crept up her cheeks. “I’m sorry, Tom. I feel like…”
He held up his hand. “Don’t apologize. Obviously there was something between the two of you that didn’t exist between us. You can’t explain things like that. It just happens.”
Suddenly she didn’t feel so bad, but she still laughed nervously. “You’re right, you can’t control it. Still, I feel a little… I’m not sure what word to use.”
“Ask your boyfriend,” he said with a laugh. “After all, he’s the writer. He would be able to come up with words on the spur of the moment.”
All traces of nerves disappeared. Tom was being so nice, that she knew he was genuinely happy for her.
He leaned on the counter and winked at her. “However, I wish I’d known you would have gone to something like the spanking party. I would have taken you.”
April felt another blush rushing up her cheeks. “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but it took Titan to get me to something like that.”
This time, Tom didn’t look so happy, but it passed quickly, and he smiled again. “Everybody has buttons that can be pushed to move them outside their comfort zone. I’m just sorry that I didn’t figure yours out.”
“Thank you,” she said, because saying, ‘I’m sorry, too,’ would give him the idea that she was sorry, when in fact, she wasn’t. She was very happy with the man in her life.
“I did want to say one thing.” He gave her the evil glare, one that he’d given her when he was about to deliver a really good spanking. “If the two of you don’t work out, come back to me.” Without waiting for an answer he left.
Something told April it wasn’t so much a request as it was a demand. It wouldn’t happen though. Even if she and Titan didn’t work out, she wouldn’t be going back to Tom. There was a reason she hadn’t trusted Tom to take her further in their relationship. She just hadn’t put her finger on it yet.
Tom had been gone about ten minutes when Carol came to the counter, her arms loaded with books. April had just finished her trade-ins, and looked up as the woman pointed to a mystery novel on the counter. “You should read this one,” Carol said as she tapped the book. “In it, a writer knows he’s going to be murdered, and he writes clues to his killer’s identity in his newest novel. I thought it was brilliant.”
April’s eyes widened as an idea flashed through her mind. Virginia was not the sweet, innocent person April had thought she’d been. According to Threadway, she’d been taking part in a blackmail scheme. Maybe she’d written something that gave a clue to her killer. She’d have to discuss it with Titan tonight, see what he thought of the idea.
After Carol left, there were no other customers; and the second she locked the door, her cell phone rang. She wasn’t surprised to see Titan’s number in the ID window.
“You’re right on time,” she said with a laugh.
“I didn’t want to call while you were working,” he replied. “I’m making Chinese food tonight, and I forgot to check the soy sauce situation before I went to the store. I’m low. Can you get some on your way home?”
The word home warmed her soul. “I can do that. Anything else we need?”
“Nope. Just hurry home. I’m starved.”
She thought about him as she drove to the store, as she shopped and as she made her way to his house. She wanted to stay with him full time, and not have his house, or her house, just their house. But it wasn’t something she should bring up. She would wait for him to approach the subject, but when he did, she would make sure her feelings were well known.
April wanted to be his woman, and his woman only.
Once she was parked in the garage, she made her way to the house, carrying the one item she’d bought at the store. The enticing smell of Chinese food wafted toward her as she entered the house.
“Smells delicious,” she said as she came into the kitchen. He wore jeans and a tee shirt. “Are you sure you didn’t order in, transfer the food to dishes and throw away the cartons so I wouldn’t know you didn’t cook?”
“You caught me,” he said with a laugh. He put his arm ar
ound her neck and pulled her close, kissing her deeply. April moaned softly as his tongue pushed into her mouth.
“You taste incredible,” she said when he broke the kiss. “You’ve been sampling your food.”
“I have.” He kissed her forehead. “I had a great day. I wrote almost three thousand words, and that’s an accomplishment. To celebrate, we’re going to eat, relax with some TV, and then I’m going to take you over my knee and give you a good, hard spanking. I think you’ve had enough time to recover from all the spankings you received at the party, and before.”
April tried to hide her enthusiasm by saying, “Are you sure? The spanking at the party was hard, and I had quite a few before then.”
“You can’t fool me,” he said with a laugh. “You want it as much as I do.”
She giggled, and settled her head on his shoulder. “You’re right, I do.”
He gave her one more kiss, and then they filled their plates. As they ate, he told her about the latest twist in his book, where Brandon’s new love interest was a member of the royal family, a low member, true, but still a princess.
“It’s been interesting,” he said. “She’s a real brat and he’s going to give it to her good. At first, she’s pissed, but after that, she loves it, just like you do.”
April toyed with an egg roll. “It sounds like you did some good work today.” She cleared her throat and asked him about going shopping with her over the weekend so she could find stock for her store.
“Sounds like a plan,” he said. “I love garage sales. I find things at them that give me ideas for my writing.”
April laughed. “After all, you can come up with words on the spur of the moment.”
“What?” He paused with a fork halfway to his mouth. “Where did that come from?”
“Tom came into the store today, and he said that since you were a writer, you were good at coming up with words at the spur of the moment.”
He put the fork on his plate, and he frowned. She could tell that he was pissed. “Why did you tell him I was a writer?”
April said, “Um, I didn’t. He already knew.”
Titan shook his head. “April, the only person who knew, besides you, was Virginia. Remember, Tom thought I was a lawyer, and I didn’t dissuade him of that idea because I wanted to keep my writing persona a secret.”
Dread climbed into her stomach. She put down her fork. “That means…” she looked at Titan.
“Virginia told him,” he said. “And for her to tell him that, he had to be close to her.”
Chapter Fourteen
“Are you sure you never let it slip?” Threadway sounded skeptical, as if they’d just told him they’d seen the Loch Ness Monster in Titan’s bathtub.
“Trust me, I’ve guarded this secret religiously,” Titan said. “My publisher wanted my identity kept secret. I was very surprised when they told Virginia and asked me to help her with research on a project. We got to be friends after that, but she was the only person around who knew it.”
Threadway leaned back against the sofa. He’d come over when they’d called, refusing at first until Titan told him there was leftover Chinese food he could have.
“What did Rogers find out in Montana?” April asked.
“Not a damn thing,” Threadway said after he’d swallowed half an egg roll. “The service was small and it was just family, so unless her Aunt LouLou killed her, the trip was a bust.”
He started eating again, and April sighed. Why wasn’t he giving them any information? “What about the blond?”
The detective clicked his tongue over his teeth. April got the feeling he was trying to decide on what, or how much, to tell them.
“Come on, detective,” April said. “Please don’t keep us in suspense.”
She felt a little silly right now anyway, because she’d told him about Carol’s idea about the writer identifying his killer in one of his books, and Threadway had just smiled and asked if she was a code-breaker.
“In fictional books, it’s easy to solve a murder because a writer has already plotted it out,” Threadway had said. “In real life, it’s not so easy. I can have someone who is good at codes read her latest book, but the chance of it helping us solve the murder is slim to none.”
“What about the blond?” she asked. “You never even told us his name.”
“No, I didn’t,” Threadway said. “I talked to him.” There was another pause. “According to him, he was one of Virginia’s blackmail victims. She had a partner, he said, a male partner.”
“Tom,” April whispered.
“You don’t know that,” Titan said.
April thought about it for a minute. “What was she doing at Charlie’s that night?”
“According to my former suspect, they were meeting to discuss money.”
“So she wasn’t meeting a potential Dom.”
Threadway wiped his mouth. “No.”
“But the info on the computer about her meeting a man…” As soon as she said it, she saw where they’d all made a mistake. Virginia wouldn’t be meeting the blond for the first time at the party, because she’d already met him. This had to have been someone else she was planning on meeting. But for what? Sex? Blackmail?
The ideas made her mind spin. The three of them were silent for a few moments. April wasn’t sure exactly what to say next, so she was happy when Threadway filled the silence.
“Your friend Tom is a viable candidate for Virginia’s partner,” the detective said. “The blond is a Dom, and has been with the couple you saw him with Saturday for many years. They are well off, and they keep him in style. But he has a—fetish. He likes for a man to take him and choke him while he comes.”
April’s mouth dropped open just as Titan said, “Erotic asphyxiation.”
“He said that Virginia contacted him and said she had a video. He said Virginia wasn’t in the room while the sex was taking place, just him and the man, who wore a mask. The blond didn’t know he was being taped.”
More silence, this time broken by Titan. “It fits with what you found in Virginia’s house, doesn’t it? Harder core things that people would be embarrassed to have revealed.”
Threadway nodded. “In this case, the man’s rich patrons would probably cut him off if they knew he liked to bend over once in a while.”
“This pisses me off,” April said.
Titan put his hand on her arm. “You’re taking it personally. Remember, people have secrets. But they don’t generally use them to make money.”
She thought about it for a few minutes. “How did the blond make contact with his unknown sex partner?”
“The Internet,” Threadway said, as if it were a given. “Chat rooms and message boards put people together.”
“Can you trace it?” she asked, hopefully.
“Back to Virginia’s IP, yes.”
“So it’s a dead end.”
For a minute, she thought Threadway was going to say yes. But then he smiled. “Not necessarily. No one knows about what we found except the two of you. If you go to Charlie’s, and talk to Tom, you might just happen to drop the little nugget that we found a lot of blackmail material, and that we’re going back to see what else we might have missed. If Tom is our guy, he might get nervous and go to Virginia’s house to see what he can find.”
It was a good idea, but April still had a little trouble thinking of Tom, the man she’d trusted, as being a murderer. If they really were extorting money from people, what could have come between them to turn Tom into a killer?
“These are people I know,” she said, surprised she’d spoken the words out loud. “They don’t kill people.”
“Or extort money?” Threadway was taking another egg roll off the plate. “April, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but your words are naïve. Lots of people do things to get money out of people, and more people than you think would resort to killing someone when they are threatened.”
She knew that he was telling the truth, but
she guessed she just didn’t want to believe it.
“We can go to Charlie’s tonight,” Titan said.
“No, give it until Friday night,” Threadway said. “If he is our guy, I’d like to give him a few days to relax, think he got away with it. I haven’t talked to him except for right after Virginia’s death, and I don’t plan on going there this week. That would put him on his guard. I want him lulled into a false sense of security.”
They ate a little more, and talked about general events. After Threadway had left, April was happy that he hadn’t stayed to watch Titan spank her pussy. He was right when he said it would be wrong for it to happen, with the investigation still happening.
After they’d cleaned the kitchen, they retired to the den. April snuggled into Titan’s arms as he turned on the TV. The scenario was not one she’d ever foreseen in her future, but it felt right, warm and cozy.
“Are you going to spank me tonight?” she asked while he channel surfed.
“No.” He kissed the top of her head. “You’re not getting it again until Friday night. I just can’t decide whether to do you in the main room, or use one of the smaller ones and ask Tom if he wants to watch.”
He tightened his free arm around her. “But I’ll figure it out before then, and you won’t find out what I decide until we get there.”
***
The week passed quickly. True to his word, Titan didn’t spank her at all, although they made sweet love a few nights. He teased her mercilessly while they did, rubbing his hand over her ass as if he intended to deliver a sharp smack, but backing off at the last second and giving her a light tap.
It kept her on the edge, and she found it highly erotic. Now that Friday was here, she wanted to know what he had planned. Threadway had called the night before, and Titan had put the phone on speaker so she could hear. The detective’s instructions were clear. Let Tom know the cops had let slip they’d found the items in Virginia’s house, and that they were going back to search for more.
