He set a hard pace, traversing her body with the tail of the flogger, smacking her from shoulders to the tender backs of her knees and everywhere in between. Odalia clung to the cross for dear life, determined to not move an inch. Because when she let go—the scene was done.
“Let go, bébé,” Jacques whispered.
“No. Don’t want to,” she mumbled. The play with Jacques was good, but there was still too much tension coiled tight within her, too much energy.
He gathered her hair off her neck and face. Sweat beaded her brow, making little tendrils stick to her skin. Despite the cool February air, the interior of the club was warm.
“You’re exhausted and pushin’ yourself. I’m going to pull out that whip if you think you want to keep going.” Jacques spoke with a slow, sweet drawl that belied the lightning speed with which he could react. If need be.
She hated the whip. Or more accurately, hated how he used the whip.
Odalia pried one hand then the other off the wood. Her fingers remained painfully curled. He turned her to face him, taking her hands in his and massaging them, working the stiffness out. She stared at a point on his chest.
Her former patrol partner and best friend, Mathieu Mouton, had a voodoo queen for a grandmère. Odalia had been adopted into their family that first year. She’d asked Grandmère for a gris-gris especially for Jacques.
While Odalia was a police officer, Jacques was a bounty hunter. She worried about him at times going after people so desperate to get away from the law and the consequences of their actions.
When she’d given him the leather necklace he’d stared at it for a few moments, running his fingers over the little pouch that contained the elements of the blessing before putting it on without a comment. She didn’t know how it worked, just that her old partner wore one all the time. It gave her some peace of mind to know he had it with him. Besides, Jacques was a traiteur, which combined faith and herbal remedies into a time-honored practice.
“Come here.” Jacques pulled her against him, hugging her to his chest.
She buried her face against him, breathing the scent of him in. He always smelled of herbs, more often than not the ones he used to cure her headaches.
The dungeon was quiet. A few people moved around, but the play had stopped and the music was off. Odalia had known they would only have a limited amount of time to use the club after she went off duty, she just hadn’t realized how fast it would pass. She clung to Jacques, allowing him to be her strength.
Her body shook and she trembled.
“Shh, I’ve got you,” he whispered.
He guided her to a small sofa placed up against the wall and sat down. She curled up, mostly in his lap, and let him hold her. She was both wired and exhausted at the same time. Add to it the fuzzy warmth of post-play endorphins and she didn’t know what she wanted. Well, there was one thing she always desired and that was Jacques.
She slid her hand between them and palmed his cock. He grunted and his body tensed.
“You want to earn a caning across your shoulders? I can add to this bruise.” He pressed his thumb to the sore spot and she hissed.
“No.” She winced and wiggled her shoulder.
“Then don’t tempt the beast.”
Odalia sat up and stretched. Her bare breasts felt heavy, her nipples tight peaks. “You aren’t tempted?”
“You know the rules.” His voice was rough.
The club had a no sex policy, at least in the main dungeon. If you rented one of the adjoining rooms, what happened behind closed doors wasn’t anyone’s business.
Odalia wrapped her arms around his neck, nuzzling his neck and pressing little kisses to the tendon that stood out as a sign of how much he was holding back.
“Want to go home? I can tempt the beast a whole lot more.”
She wasn’t ready to sleep, didn’t want to lay awake, thinking about work or her best friend. The world was an evil place sometimes. For now she wanted to lose herself in something beautiful, like the man who made her heart sing and her body swoon.
Jacques closed his eyes, inhaling a deep breath and steeled his will against what he wanted to do, which was bend Odalia over the couch and fuck her until she screamed. It was against club rules, and on top of that, the staff were very politely picking up around them, careful to not disrupt their aftercare.
He nodded at one of the slave girls tip-toeing around picking up trash.
“Come on, it’s time to go.” He patted Odalia’s hip.
She groaned and flopped against his chest. “Do we have to?”
“Yes. Get up. Come on.”
Odalia stood, glaring at him. He merely smiled and grabbed her tunic-dress from the top of their bags and held it out to her. She stuck her arms through the holes and he tugged it down around her thighs.
“Do you want your pants?”
“No.” She stuck her feet in a pair of fuzzy house boots and wrapped her coat around her. She looked ready for one of her modeling gigs.
He gathered up the rest of their gear, stacking her play bag on top of his. Bending was a chore. His dick was so hard it was uncomfortable, but that’s how it was when they played. It was sexual, humbling and empowering.
Odalia was a rare breed of woman, one that didn’t come around just any day of the year. Some of his friends said Jacques was crazy for collaring a submissive he hadn’t played with extensively. Except he’d known the first time he put his hands on her that there was something unique about the way they were together. Not only did the chemistry rate off the charts, but she got the rest of his life that no other woman had.
“Come on, let’s go home.” He wrapped his free arm around her waist, drawing her to his side and placed a kiss on her temple.
She showed the rest of the world the tough-as-nails cop, but she let him see past that, to the woman underneath. He hadn’t learned all her secrets yet, but he was a patient man.
They strolled out of the club, nodding their farewells to the sleepy staff packing it up for the night.
“It feels like the Fuck Valentine’s party was ages ago,” she mumbled as they stepped out into the crisp, early morning hours.
“You’ve been working since then, bébé.” He didn’t like her working twenty-four hour shifts. It seemed counter-productive to have officers out there with little-to-no sleep, looking for the bad guys, but he didn’t make the rules. He just broke them.
Odalia yawned, her breath creating a puff of smoke. He wanted her badly, but it was more important she rest. His needs could wait, even if he didn’t like it.
His Jeep was parked at the very back of the small parking lot, bordered on three sides by brick buildings that were warehouses, save for the one on the right that held all manner of sinful secrets. He put their bags in the back seat and walked Odalia around to the passenger side of the truck. She might be more than capable of doing for herself, but he still liked to care for her. Even in the small gestures.
Odalia turned toward him, pressing against his chest, her head tilted back. Her lips were glossy, swollen still from his rough treatment. “I want you now. I don’t want to wait.”
There were several very good reasons why they should get in the Jeep and drive home, but he couldn’t think of any of them.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. All coherent thought flew out of the window. The lady wanted him, and he wasn’t about to tell her no.
He walked her back until he had her pressed up against the Jeep. She wrapped her leg around his and groaned into his mouth. He turned her, pushing her up onto the hood. She laughed, kicking one leg up to caress him, despite the fuzzy boots.
“You really don’t know how to behave, do you?” He ran his hands over her ass, still warm from their play.
“Sure I do,” she said over her shoulder with a grin.
He pulled her panties down with one hand and retrieved a condom from his pocket with the other. This wasn’t the
first time they’d left the club and needed to find release. It was just the first time they would use the parking lot.
He rolled the condom on and thrust into her, sliding deep into her slick channel. She groaned and pushed back, impaling herself on his length. He gripped her hips and rocked into her, stroking her.
He slapped her ass as he thrust and she laughed. He grinned, drunk on their energy. Jacques reached around her and stroked her clit as he thrust. She came with a muffled squeak, face buried in the crook of her arm, braced on the Jeep. He thrust and came with a groan. He withdrew from her and pulled her panties back up.
“I’m going to catch my breath,” Odalia said.
Jacques tucked himself back in his clothes for the moment and went to the backseat, digging out a package of wipes. Once they were sufficiently cleaned up, he handed Odalia into the Jeep, tucking a fuzzy blanket around her to keep her warm. Chances were she’d fall asleep while they drove, which was probably for the best.
He got in the driver’s side and started the Jeep.
“I don’t want to go home yet,” Odalia said into the silence. “Can we get breakfast?”
It was pushing four in the morning. But she had to eat and he didn’t want to cook.
“Fine, but we’re going out to Julio’s. This time of the morning, they’re the only ones who can do grits right.”
“It’s so far out though,” she groaned.
“Yeah, well, if we’re not going home, we’re going there.” He accelerated out of the driveway and onto the empty street.
“Fine.” Odalia sighed and reached into the back seat. She pulled on more appropriate dining clothing, including a pair of real shoes and not those silly fuzzy boots she liked so much.
Jacques hummed along to the radio, though he wasn’t really paying attention to the music. It was hard to focus on anything when she was still wound so tightly that the energy coming off her set his teeth on edge.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.
She flopped in her seat, staring out the window. “We don’t know how many teenagers these creeps have taken.”
“How many do you know of?” The case was all over the news, but it was different hearing about it from her.
“Seven to nine. But how many runaways or homeless teens could be in the mix, too? They’re taking from wealthy neighborhoods to low-income. The only common ground is that they’re all between thirteen and fifteen with brown hair. Race doesn’t matter. Gender isn’t a factor. They’re just gone before anyone sees anything.”
He tightened his grip on the wheel, and nodded. Cases with children were the worst.
They lapsed into silence and a few minutes later, Odalia snored gently, her forehead resting against the window. He shook his head and turned the radio down a little so as to not bother her.
Being in love with Odalia was a tricky place to be. He’d accepted that he loved the fiery little cop the day she nervously introduced him to the Mouton family. Her relatives had been wiped out by Katrina, so the surrogate family was every bit as important as her blood relations. In turn, he’d realized he wanted to be part of her life. Of the family. Even if it meant getting Mathieu Mouton as a pseudo brother-in-law.
Odalia was possibly the single most capable woman he’d ever had the honor of being with. There were days when he didn’t like her job, the hours she put in or how she was treated by the male officers. But he couldn’t deny that being a cop was what she wanted. Loving her meant not standing in her way when she put her life on the line.
He’d come to grips with it. He just didn’t have the words to tell her. Yet.
Jacques pulled into the old diner. A gas station had been built almost up against the side of the restaurant, while on the other side a strip of run-down storefronts sat dark. Things would liven up in a few hours. The sky was already lightening to gray with the approaching dawn.
He parked in front of the diner and nudged Odalia.
“Hey bébé, wake up. We’re here.” He rubbed her back and she groaned, rousing slowly.
She sat up, blinking and glancing around them. She had a red mark on her forehead from leaning against the window.
“Oh, okay,” she mumbled, rubbing her neck.
He got out and met her on the other side of the Jeep. They walked into the diner, hand-in-hand. He glanced around to see if any of the other Bayou Hunters were there, but the team that went out last night must have gotten lucky and nabbed their marks early.
They were seated in a booth next to the windows. He stretched his legs out, caging Odalia’s across from him. She leaned her calf against his as she flipped through the menu. Unlike her, he had the laminated paged memorized and didn’t need to even order. The waitresses just knew him on sight.
Odalia placed her order when the waitress appeared with his decaf coffee and they settled in to wait.
“What’s the latest on the SWAT openings?” He held his breath.
“Nothing so far.” She threw her straw wrapper on the table and scowled at it. “I feel like these continuing internal investigations are going to hurt my chances. They keep saying they just need more information about Chuck, but it feels like a witch hunt.”
Two months prior, a former boyfriend and cop had attempted to blackmail Odalia. They’d never quite settled on what Chuck wanted from Odalia, but regardless, it hadn’t worked out in the man’s favor. He’d wound up charged with a string of crimes. In the process, he’d created drama for Odalia.
She blew out a breath. “Whatever, if I make it I make it. I’d just like to do something besides patrol, and I think I’d do well in SWAT, even if it’s harder.”
He nodded. She couldn’t take out a man his size in a straight-on fight, but Odalia was tricky. She had street smarts and a scrappy backbone. He didn’t doubt she could hold her own if she made SWAT, but it didn’t mean he wanted to see her in that much danger.
“Enough about me. What about you? What do you have going on this week?”
He shrugged. “Nothing besides grabbing a few bail jumpers.”
“Were you going to go out to your grandmother’s?”
“Possibly.” He made trips up the bayou to the backwater community his family had once lived in. Whenever he went, he packed a case of his remedies and made some rounds. The people out there were too poor for insurance or a real doctor. They couldn’t even pay him, unless it was to give him food or more herbs. It was a shame he couldn’t make a living as a traiteur. The people needed another option, but it just wasn’t viable.
“If you do, I’d like to go with you.” Odalia drew patterns in the condensation on her glass.
“Alright. Oh, I might go take photos at this street fair that’s happening down on Royal.” Anything that happened down in that area was sure to be entertaining.
Their food was delivered, cutting off any interest in conversation. They tucked into their meal, devouring it. He’d never seen a woman eat as much as Odalia, but then again, most women he knew weren’t the adrenaline junky variety.
Jacques became aware that Odalia had stopped eating and was staring intently out of the windows toward the gas station. He glanced up, taking in the creased brow, the pursed lips.
“Something wrong?” he asked.
“Maybe. I’ll be right back.” She slid out of the booth.
“You done?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, I’ll be out in a minute.” He glanced over his shoulder, but couldn’t see much beyond an ice cream truck that had stopped at an air pumping station that sat at the curb between the two establishments.
Why did he have a feeling Odalia was about to get into trouble?
Oh, right. Because it was her job to ferret it out.
chapter Two
Pursuit
Odalia stepped out into the dim morning light. The sun had begun to paint the horizon a beautiful golden hue, with shots of pink and orange shooting through the clouds. She glanced at her wa
tch and groaned when she saw the time. She needed to get home and crawl into bed.
She should turn around and get in the Jeep.
Except she kept putting one foot in front of the other.
She’d noticed a man and a woman, white, probably in their late thirties or forties, airing up the tires of their ice cream truck. It was one of those large, white vans that had the sliding glass doors on the side, a door at the back and the cab doors. The exterior was covered in time-worn stickers of all the kinds of ice cream they carried.
As for why she was going out there, Odalia couldn’t say. Sometimes she just got these hunches and had to follow them through. Or maybe she just wanted to help them out. She was too tired to really think it through.
The man noticed her first. He stood from where he was trying to attach the hose to the tires. He had the kind of weather beaten face that led Odalia to think he was younger than he appeared. He was thin, maybe a drug user or just fallen on hard times. He wore dirty overalls and a rolled up plaid shirt underneath with a plain, red baseball cap over his shaggy hair.
“Hey, do you guys need a hand?” Odalia threw a smile in for good measure.
“No, ma’am, we’re doing just fine,” the man said.
The woman leaned out of the back door, her eyes wide. Her hair was a wild rats nest of tangles. “Get rid of her, John. We don’t need no help.”
People like this could pass the health code to drive an ice cream truck? No. No they couldn’t.
“That’s what I was saying, Clair,” John snapped.
“Don’t you talk back to me.” Clair descended the three stairs, her hands balled into fists.
“Alright, alright.” Odalia held up her hands. The two continued to snipe at each other, ignoring her presence. The last thing she wanted to deal with was a domestic dispute when she was off duty. “I just wanted to offer. I’m a police officer. If...”
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