by BJ Wane
Piper remained silent, hoping she hadn’t screwed up too bad, but when Pasquino turned those icy blue eyes on her, she couldn’t help but lean against Ian for support. She’d be an idiot not to fear this man.
“A little discipline then, since I don’t allow insubordination from any woman.” Pasquino handed a round leather paddle to Brody, adding, “Five swats.”
Brody almost smiled. He knew Piper’s body well enough to see the signs of her arousal, even though they were still subtle. If she responded to the paddle as eagerly as she had his belt, especially if he was right and she was excited about the exhibitionism, this could turn out very good for her.
“I’ll hold her.” Ian quickly took Piper’s arm and bent her over his, leaning over her and whispering quickly, “Think of the dock,” before reaching behind her and swatting her ass hard.
Piper would be forever grateful to Ian for that suggestion and that warm up, both working to send her senses reeling with anticipated pleasure instead of dread. Blocking out the sight of all the feet in front of her, she clutched Ian’s arm wrapped around her waist as she felt Brody move closer, his hip against hers a reassuring brace.
The snap of leather against skin was loud, the pain sharp, the pleasure exquisite and Piper didn’t even try to struggle against any of it. Even though she probably should, considering the circumstances, but she couldn’t bring herself to give Pasquino that satisfaction nor did she think she could act well enough to be convincing. She had been counting on her response to both Brody and Ian to help her through whatever happened tonight, and her body didn’t betray her. Ian helped her through the next swat by using his free hand to softly knead the breast the other man had abused, rasping his thumb over her nipple just as softly. The contrast between the comforting caress of her breast and the sharp pain on her ass worked to send her arousal higher, every stroke of his thumb over her nipple and every stinging snap of leather on her ass sent sparks of pleasure to her pussy until she was struggling to hold back, fighting the urge to beg for more in front of these strangers. She instinctively knew Pasquino wouldn’t be pleased if she found pleasure in her punishment and she didn’t want to rile him or keep him focused on her. By the time Brody landed the fifth and final stroke, her ass was on fire, her buttocks felt puffy and warm and she knew her slit was glistening damply, proof that her punishment had turned her on instead of debasing her and she could only hope he didn’t notice.
Brody had no trouble noticing the telltale signs of her arousal and tried to keep his body in front of her hips as much as possible without seeming suspiciously over protective. Ian wasted no time lifting her up, her face as red as her buttocks as she faced them, her eyes downcast demurely. “I think she’s properly chastised and now she needs to see to us. If you gentlemen will excuse us?”
Brody took her arm and led her away quickly. Piper could feel the gazes of all those people on her bare, red ass, but the only one that bothered her was Pasquino’s.
“Put it aside and concentrate on us,” Brody told her as he found an empty chair and sat down before motioning her to kneel in front of him. Releasing his cock, confident Ian would be vigilant while Piper went down on him, he leaned forward and asked her, “Can you make it look good or do you need some incentive?”
“You’ve already given me all the incentive I need and you know it.” Grasping his cock, she had no trouble bending and taking him in her mouth, no trouble enjoying the taste of him again, no trouble showing anyone who was watching that she could be amendable for the right man. Tuning out the room in general, she concentrated on stroking every inch of his rigid length, laving over his smooth crown, swallowing his seeping fluid all while her hand cupped his sac and rolled his balls. When she felt Ian caressing her sore buttocks, she moaned around the hard flesh filling her mouth and pushed back against his hand for more of whatever he wanted to give.
Her ass was warm, and when Ian dipped lower and ran a finger up her slit, he found her pussy just as warm. This was the last time, he swore, that he was taking an assignment that involved anything sexual. His restraint this past week was going to take weeks to get over, but when he tried to think of which former lover he wanted to contact first for a round of uncomplicated, hard and kinky sex, the only face that popped up was Haley’s. Swearing again, he slammed the door on that thought all together and concentrated on watching the room in general while helping Piper put on a convincing show for Pasquino.
Brody also kept a trained eye on the room while trying to look totally engrossed in his blowjob, and he had managed to do that until Piper started swirling her tongue under the edge of his head, stroking over and over that sensitive area until his balls drew up and he felt his climax pushing for release. “Piper,” he groaned with a tug on her hair, “pull back or I’ll come in your mouth.”
Brody’s warning only inflamed her more and when Ian finally slipped his teasing finger inside her and unerringly found her clit, it took all of her efforts to continue sucking Brody’s climax from him as her own burst with lightening bright ecstasy that robbed her of everything but the pleasure consuming her and the spewing cock in her mouth.
When Brody came to his senses, he saw a look of puzzlement and concern on Ian’s face as he looked across the room. “What’s wrong?” he asked quietly as he stood and then helped Piper to her feet, barely resisting the urge to cover her breasts again.
“Pasquino doesn’t look too steady on his feet.”
Pasquino was swaying slightly, his eyes blinking slowly as if he was tired. A woman had her arm wrapped around his waist as he leaned on her and let her take him down the hall to one of the private rooms after Carlos had gone over and spoke quietly to him, got a vigorous shake of Pasquino’s head to his concern, then stepped back with a shrug. Brody watched the woman close the door behind them, presumably going in to help him sleep it off. He hadn’t noticed how many drinks Pasquino had, so maybe he had just over indulged, but something was nagging at him.
“What’re you thinking?” Ian asked. No one else seemed overly concerned with their hosts’ departure, but it seemed odd that Pasquino wouldn’t want to stay front and center if he was hoping Sandoval, as owner of the Empire, would show up and at least try to have security boot him out.
“I’m not sure,” he murmured. “What’s odd about that?” Brody asked Carlos when he joined them a few minutes later.
“I’ve seen him escape his parties for privacy several times, but never with just one woman, and I’ve never seen him drunk or take drugs. He prides himself on staying in control.”
Brody looked around the room again, noted that everyone was still partying, then cursed when he spotted the absence of the bartender from behind the bar. “Something’s up. Stay put,” he ordered Piper as he pushed her into the chair he had just vacated, his tone hard.
Piper wasn’t dumb enough to argue and watched the three of them move swiftly down the hall as she adjusted her top and covered herself.
Antony Pasquino remembered where he had seen the black haired, green eyed woman before just as the escort who had been his constant companion tonight lowered him onto the bed. Two weeks ago, one of the investigators he had researching every nook and cranny of Sandoval’s past for any clue that would help him find the man came across a picture of Sandoval’s mistress, a mistress he already knew about and had discarded as possible leverage since she had been dead for years. But he had never seen Christine Winter’s picture until two weeks ago and he now realized the woman in the other room was the spitting image of her. It couldn’t be coincidence, he thought as he laid down and cursed the fuzziness clouding his head. He had Sandoval’s fucking daughter right under his nose and didn’t realize it.
“Just give me a minute and I’ll be out,” he slurred. Blinking bleary eyes, he looked up at the woman leaning over him and never had a chance to feel fear as she said quietly, “Sandoval says ‘go to hell’,” then plunged the small dagger hidden under the pillow into the base of his skull, cutting his brain stem and
killing him instantly. Moving quickly, she slipped into the closet where she found the hidden door unlocked like she was told it would be and was running towards her escape, the assassination taking less than one minute to complete.
“God damn it,” Brody swore as they spotted Pasquino lying motionless on the bed, his eyes glazed open in a death stare, no sign of the woman who had just killed him. Striding to the closet, he swore again as he turned to Ian and Carlos. “I thought this door was supposed to be locked tonight.”
“Obviously, an employee made sure it was unlocked, probably the same one who’s been feeding Sandoval information about both the casino and Pasquino these past years.” Ian was just as angry as Brody that they hadn’t stopped this assassination and lost the chance to question Pasquino about his buyers.
Carlos closed his phone and shook his head as they looked at him expectantly. “Gone before our people got to the garage exit. The bartender just left, probably with the woman stowing away in the trunk and, since he was an employee, wasn’t stopped.”
“Sandoval’s behind this, I know he is. I’ll be right back.”
Piper could tell by Brody’s face that something was wrong. Rising, she looked up into his angry face, asking simply, “What?”
“Pasquino’s dead, assassinated,” he said brusquely, needing her to get down to their room before the troops got here and detained everyone for questioning. “Run upstairs and slip on your jeans fast and go back to our room. I’ll be there as soon as I can, but it’ll be a few hours. Wait for me, Piper,” he instructed her sternly, remembering the last time this had happened and how she had disappeared on him.
Piper simply nodded her head and got out of there as quickly as possible, not wanting to be interrogated along with the rest of Pasquino’s guests. She wasn’t upset about the drug lord’s death, in fact she was relieved, but as she entered their room a few minutes later with tears pouring down her face, she realized that Charles was indeed dead, had been dead all this time, and the small iota of hope she had unknowingly embraced, was gone. Which meant the only connection she had with Brody was also gone. Coward that she was, she wasn’t willing to stick around and face another inevitable rejection from him. He had a job to finish and probably another one waiting for him and she had a home, business and friends she wanted to return to.
Somehow, Brody wasn’t surprised to return to his room five hours later and find Piper gone. Despite the anger and disappointment he felt, he was too tired to try to track her down now. At least this time he knew where she was headed and it wouldn’t take him six months to find her. He and Ian had time to get a few hours shut eye before they were heading out to join the team Carlos was putting together to raid Pasquino’s holdings. Now that he was gone, word would spread quickly and those loyal to him will take what they can and split without giving the man who was their boss a second thought. If they wanted to gather any evidence at all, they had to move fast. Falling face first on the bed, his mind, however, wasn’t on the upcoming op, but on a small, black haired, green eyed woman who had him tied up in knots since the moment he met her and trying to figure out what he was going to do about it. One thing was for certain, he wasn’t going to wait another five years before figuring it out.
“Wonder what’s going on,” Ian said as they stepped out of the elevator on the ground floor and saw a crowd of people gathered around the front of the casino the next day. “The last thing we need is a delay in getting out of here. I, for one, am ready to put this place at my back.”
“I thought you liked the crowds, noise and activity.” Ian hadn’t said much when they discovered Piper gone, then again, he hadn’t been obsessed with the woman like Brody had.
“I do, or did. Hell, this case has me so fucked up I don’t know what I like anymore.”
Brody smiled at his frustration, suspecting it was Haley who had his friend so confused. He could sympathize with him on that score. Prepared to shove their way through the crowd, both of them were shocked to see Charles Sandoval break through upon spotting them. Flanked by two suits who looked like the lawyer type, he walked right up to them and stuck out his hand.
“Agents Pearce, MacGregor. It’s good to see you again.”
Pushing seventy, Piper’s surrogate father had aged well in the past five years. His full head of hair was now completely grey and new lines creased his face, but otherwise he looked hale and robust. “How long have you known?” Brody asked him after he shook his hand. No point in being uncivil, at least not yet.
“I figured it out the night someone tried to kill me. Where’s my daughter?” Charles asked abruptly, his need to see Piper and assure himself she was all right his top priority.
“Piper left sometime last night, I assume to go back to Missouri. We need to talk. Now.” Brody didn’t have time to play nice. He had to get Charles where he knew he couldn’t take off again, at least until they had time to question him.
“Am I under arrest?” Charles asked him calmly knowing full well they didn’t have enough on him to do so.
“You’re wanted for questioning on a number of matters at this time.”
“Then questions can wait. I’ll speak with you, however, privately.”
“Charles, I have to advise you against that,” the suit to his left said, scowling at him in disapproval.
“Fine,” Charles answered coolly, “you’ve advised me. Agent MacGregor, if you’d like to speak with my attorney’s, feel free to do so. Pearce, we can talk in my office.”
“How do you know you still have an office?” Brody asked him as they left the others and Charles led him to a private elevator.
“I know.” They took the elevator to the second floor where the business offices were and Charles stepped into his office as if he owned the place, which he still did, thank God. Per his instructions from the private plane he had chartered first thing this morning upon getting word that Pasquino was dead, his office was cleaned and aired out, his desk neat and ready for him to resume his seat behind it. Instead, he walked to the bank of windows that overlooked the strip and gazed out at the sights he had missed so much, but not as much as he had missed Piper.
Getting a new identity and living off the money he had stashed in a Swiss bank account under a dummy corporation had been no hardship and neither had spending the last five years living peacefully on a tropical island and traveling throughout Europe whenever he wanted a change of scenery. What had been hard was leaving Piper, having no contact with her, especially right after he realized just how much he loved her. And harder still had been the terror that filled him when he learned by sheer luck that Pasquino had been shown a picture of Christine and knowing it was only a matter of time before he discovered she had left a daughter behind.
“Talk Sandoval,” Brody snapped when the man just stood with his back to him without saying a word. “I don’t have much time.”
“I know.” Heaving a sigh, he turned to face the man he had taken a huge chance on to keep Piper safe. “I wanted to thank you, personally, for looking out for Piper, not just in these past few days, but the past five years.”
“How did you know?” Brody wasn’t surprised by his knowledge of the tabs he had kept on Piper, just curious about how he knew.
“Your face when you heard her and saw her that night. It was more than surprise at seeing her there, it was pure terror for her, the same as I felt. I suspected from your behavior when you returned from your trip to her graduation that something happened between you two, something that made you think of her as more than just a nice kid whose father you thought was a crook. I banked on it.”
Brody wasn’t about to explain what happened between him and Piper back then or now. Let him wonder, he thought irritably, just as she wondered what had happened to him. “What do you mean, you banked on it?” And just that quickly the light bulb went off in his head making him swear a blue streak as he visibly struggled to keep from jumping across that desk and plowing his fist into the man’s face. “It was you,” he
accused him with cold fury. “You’re responsible for her going missing and returning in the state she was in. What the fuck were you thinking?!”
Charles closed his eyes to briefly block out the fury on Brody’s face before sucking it up and facing him head on again. “I was desperate. I don’t expect you to understand how a parent feels when they know their child is in danger, the fear and desperation that make you do the unthinkable if it means keeping her safe.”
“Piper’s not your daughter,” he threw at him coldly as he remembered all the times she had looked at him with uncertainty and fear over her memory loss.
“The hell she’s not,” he snapped back, just as furious now as Brody was. “I may have been too wrapped up in this place,” he said, waving his arm in a wide arc, “to realize it until it was almost too late, but that girl is my daughter in every way except biologically, and I don’t give a rat’s ass who planted the seed. She took her first steps into my arms, called me daddy and it was me her mother trusted to take care of her. I was there when he wasn’t and that’s all that matters.”
“You weren’t there these past five years,” Brody reminded him.
“I know,” he admitted more calmly. “And that was my fault. I’m not about to confess to you about anything, I just wanted you to know that everything I did, from hiding out all this time to orchestrating her disappearance in a gamble that you’d run to her rescue and stay until she was safe was because she means more to me than anyone else in this world. There is nothing I wouldn’t do for her. I was hoping she’d still be here so I could tell her myself.”
