by Chelle Bliss
“We’ll meet later and go over the caseload and catch you up on everything,” Thomas told him while I went back to checking my email.
“I’m your man,” Bear said. “I’m going to go fuck around in my office for a bit before the afternoon meeting.”
“Glad you keep yourself busy,” I mumbled behind the screen.
“I’ll pretend to check my email just like you,” he shot back as he walked toward the doorway.
That was a lie. I never watched porn at work. Who needed porn when I had the real thing, my biggest fantasy, at home waiting for me?
“Fuck off.” I waved my hand to the hallway, essentially dismissing him. “You sure you want him in charge?” I asked Thomas.
“He’ll be fine.”
“I picked him to take my place. Fucker better be. Now, let’s talk about the case and how we’re going to get this motherfucker.”
We’d been brought in on a case where the FBI had hit a dead end. While they had to follow the law, we could skirt the edge and sometimes dip a toe over without many repercussions.
Since Thomas and I had both worked at the DEA and Sam had been a member of the FBI, we had contacts we often used in cases where we hit a roadblock, and they did the same when they needed a law or two broken.
They’d been tracking Matías Perez for three years and had no luck finding him before he had a chance to move on to his next destination. He was a known human trafficker, racking up more than ten thousand sales of individuals that he and his team had kidnapped all over the world in the last ten years.
Let that number sink in a bit…they’ve taken an average of one thousand people a year, at least the ones who made it to the sales floor, or three people per day. Each one, depending on condition, fetched between five thousand and ten thousand dollars each.
Ninety percent of their victims were women, often sold into sexual slavery in a country that wasn’t their own, making the possibility of escape more difficult. Many times, they were sold to dingy brothels where they would be used and abused until their bodies gave out or they succumbed to disease. Then they’d be replaced by a new victim, and the cycle would repeat. Most women ended up in Asia, where the prostitution laws were lax or the government turned a blind eye because of payoffs and corruption.
Believe it or not, human trafficking is a huge problem and way more pervasive than most people think. Somewhere around four million people are trapped in sexual exploitation worldwide, but it’s a fact that not many people like to talk about, especially politicians. It’s messy and certainly not sexy or headline-grabbing like most garbage that’s debated on cable news shows.
Matías was last spotted in Miami at the very same club I used to go to before I joined the DEA, where I learned what it meant to be a sexual dominant. My roots were there, but with Matías involved, I knew I couldn’t let my guard down, even with the people I’d trusted before.
“How far are you willing to take this?” Thomas asked.
The club in Miami—Taboo—was our starting point, but I didn’t have high hopes that it’d be the end of the case for us. He was probably on the move and his trail might have already gone cold, but I’d follow any lead I could until I either had nowhere else to go or caught the motherfucker.
“The question really is, how far do you want me to take this? Your sister is going to need to be involved on some level.”
He touched his fingertips together and placed them against his lips. His eyes roamed my face, pondering my statement. “We’ll have to play it by ear. I don’t want her involved if we can avoid it, and especially if she doesn’t want to be.”
“You know your sister doesn’t do anything she doesn’t want to do, and I’d never let anything happen to her.”
Thomas cocked his head, lifting an eyebrow. “Best-laid plans, my friend. Look what happened with Rebel.” He had a point.
“Yeah,” I said, but I’d kill any asshole that tried to lay a hand on my wife. I’d broken bones for lesser offenses, and I’d have no problem snuffing out any scumbag that meant her any harm.
“See what you can find out in Miami, and then we’ll decide how we want to move forward after that.”
I nodded because I couldn’t plan much further ahead than that. Not with Izzy involved in what could very well end up being a complete shitshow. I had a feeling that the next week of my life would try not only my patience, but my sanity.
Izzy
“Seriously, James, I have to pee,” I whined for the third time in ten minutes after he ignored me and told me to hold it. The man had the bladder of an elephant.
“We’re almost to civilization. Can’t you hold it a little longer?”
I gawked at him. Didn’t he understand the struggles of a woman after birthing numerous children and our inability to hold it? Lord help me if I had to sneeze; there’d be no stopping the floodgates from opening.
“How much longer?” I wiggled in my seat, moving back and forth, trying to seal up my girl bits and stop any leakage. “If you don’t stop soon, I’m going to ruin this pretty little car of yours.”
He floored the Challenger, putting every bit of the 707 horsepower to rocket us forward and closer to a bathroom quicker than if we’d had my Lexus RX. “Ten minutes. Tops.”
I figured my comment about ruining his precious car would get his ass in gear and us out of the goddamn Everglades faster. Anywhere else in Florida and I would’ve run into the woods and taken care of business. But in the Everglades, there was no way in hell I was getting out of the car. I’d lived in Florida long enough to know what was in the woods and lurking in the water, waiting for a tasty morsel like me to put my pants around my ankles and bend over, unable to run and an easy mark.
We pulled into a tiny gas station, and before the car had even stopped, I was out the door and running to grab the key that I knew would be attached to the dumbest piece of hillbilly trash the owner could find. Like anyone would want to steal the key to the bathroom in the middle of Where-The-Fuck-Am-I, Florida.
I squeezed my thighs together, walking like I did as a kid after holding it too long at school and trying to make it into the house before I peed my pants. James watched me from the car with a smug grin, and I glared at him, flipping him the middle finger before unlocking the rusted door on the side of the building.
I hovered over the toilet that looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in this decade and prayed that no tiny critters decided to make a surprise appearance. I hated being away from civilization and away from my slice of heaven that I called home. Being in the middle of Florida, where the alligators outnumbered the human population, creeped me out.
James owed me big for this. Not for spending time with his parents, but for sitting in a car for five hours listening to his music and having to pee for more hours than I cared to remember.
I didn’t even bother to try to wash my hands. The faucets were covered in a brown slime, and I couldn’t figure out if it was just dirt or… I didn’t even want to think about it. I grabbed a wad of toilet paper and turned the handle, throwing it on the bathroom floor on the way out since there was no trash can. I was sure it would still be there on our way back in a few days if I had to make another pit stop.
“All better?” he asked as I opened the car door.
“No,” I snarled. “Gimme a bottle of water and the sanitizer.”
He scrunched up his face, knowing my issue with filth, but he didn’t say another word as I poured the water over my hands and rubbed them together vigorously before dousing them in hand sanitizer and waving them around until they were moderately dry.
“Sorry about that.” He revved the engine as I folded my body into the seat that was about four inches too low for the heels I decided to wear.
“It’s fine. Are we almost to your parents’?”
“About thirty minutes away.”
“I’m sure they’re excited,” I told him because I knew the last time we left, his mother cried the entire morning and probably kept crying un
til she didn’t have another tear left to shed.
“My mom’s been cooking all day.”
The woman could give my mother a run for her money with the need to ply me with food. Her sole mission was to fatten me up and keep me healthy so I could raise her grandsons.
“I don’t know why they don’t move by us. The kids would love to have them around.”
I’d even love to have his parents around. I loved them from the moment I met them, when his mother wrapped me in an embrace and called me her daughter. I knew that meant something special to her since she’d lost her daughter so tragically.
“We’ll see. I think it would be good for them to be around the kids. I know they have to be lonely.”
I glanced out the window, watching the rows of pine trees give way to buildings and finally civilization. Well, it was the suburbs of Miami and total insanity. There wasn’t another soul for miles, and then…wham! Crazy-ass drivers and traffic out the ass.
“So why are we here?” I asked.
I’d been meaning to ask him since Friday night when he decided to torture me into submission. But it didn’t matter, I was going with him anyway. I knew it was work-related because I heard him on the phone with Thomas, but he hadn’t given me any details.
“Well.” He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. “We’re here to get some leads.”
I turned my body in the seat, wanting to see his face when he answered. “And you needed me because…?”
In all the years he’d owned ALFA PI, not once had he asked me to come along on a case or help in any way. So, that left one of two things, either he needed a girl to get the answer, or it involved sex and he knew I’d castrate him if he even thought about taking someone else along for the ride.
“I need you on this one. I need a submissive.”
I crossed my arms over my chest and narrowed my eyes. “A submissive or your submissive?” He had better answer that question the right way, or I’d flip my shit in a heartbeat.
“I need you and only you. I need the submissive who’ll kneel at my feet and do as I say without a fight.”
I cackled loudly because fight was my middle name. “Seriously? You want me to be that girl?”
“Sweetheart, you are that girl.”
“It’s been a long time since we’ve played, James.”
Too long in fact. Last weekend had made the yearning I had for his domination grow after such a long drought of normal, only mildly kinky sex.
“It’s not something you lose after a few months.” He glanced in my direction with his piercing eyes. “And it’s not something that can be faked with someone who isn’t mine.”
I never thought I’d like being called his. It made it seem like he was invoking territorial rights over me, but it always made my pussy throb and got my heart pumping.
“So we’re going to a sex club in Miami?”
He nodded and gripped the steering wheel a little tighter, adjusting his body in the seat.
Fuck yeah. I was all in, baby. There was something about seeing James in the inner workings of a dungeon that got my pulse racing faster than the car we’d been sitting in.
The man had it.
He had the commanding spirit and the best qualities of the dirtiest master, with just the perfect amount of iron fist and soft love. There was no one else I’d ever let control me but him.
It wasn’t like I’d gone looking for a sexual dominant, but I’d sure as hell found one.
We kept it in the bedroom, though, especially as the boys have grown older. The last thing I wanted them to think was that they could boss a woman around and get whatever they wanted. We kept our kink in the bedroom, or if I was lucky, at the club, and we remained completely fifty-fifty partners when we weren’t getting our freak on.
“It’s where I first honed my craft.”
“So I get to meet the people who started you on your course of perversion?” I was almost giddy at the thought of meeting James’s friends from back in the day.
Young James.
Hotter James.
And probably the world’s biggest tool.
“Babe, you wouldn’t love me without it.”
He was right. I loved him for his strength. If he were weak, we’d never have worked. I’d be wearing the pants, and it would have gotten old quick. I loved control, but sometimes I wanted someone else to take the reins and handle shit so I could take a freaking break.
“It won’t be easy for me to expose you to the group there.”
Expose? I mulled the word over a bit, wondering if he wanted me to get naked or if just the very thought of introducing me to his Dom friends in Miami didn’t sit well with him.
“I’ll be fine,” I reassured him, but I wasn’t sure it did the trick.
“The group at our club is more social and a hell of a lot friendlier.” I could feel his tension.
I reached across the console and placed my hand on his forearm. “I’ve dealt with pricks my whole life, James. I’m sure I can handle these guys.”
“You will go in there fully clothed in an outfit that I choose and wearing my chain and collar so they know you’re my property. There’s nothing more to discuss.”
I fingered the collar around my neck and remembered the day he gave it to me. That ceremony meant just as much as our wedding vows did in the church, but it had an entirely different meaning. Except the bit about obeying, but I doubted the church meant dropping to my knees and sucking him off when he commanded it.
“I’ll be what you want, when you need it,” I told him.
“We’ll talk about it tonight before we go to the club,” he said as we pulled into his parents’ driveway. “Right now, we have to spend some time with my parents before we ditch them for a few hours.” James turned to me, and my breath hitched because, well, my husband was hot as hell and he still yanked my chain. “Are you ready for this?”
“I was born ready,” I told him with a big smile. “I’m a Gallo.”
When James’s mother opened the door and caught sight of us, she squealed with delight. Mrs. Caldo was the cutest damn woman, besides my mom, of course, and she always made me feel right at home. “Isabella, I’ve missed you.” She pulled me into a bear hug, totally ignoring her son. Her hands squeezed my ass if she was assessing my squish factor. “You’re too thin. We must fix this.”
“Hey, Mama,” James said behind me, and I was sure he felt a little left out of our love fest. “Can I get one of those?” Thankfully, he grabbed my shoulders, moving me out of her arms so he could finally hug her.
“My bebé, of course.” She wrapped her arms around her son, looking so tiny against his wide frame.
There was something about seeing a man, namely, my man, loving on his mother. She grabbed his face and peppered his cheeks with kisses before she moved on to his nose and forehead like he was a little kid. “I’ve missed you, Jimmy. It’s been too long.”
I giggled softly at the nickname. It was my go-to one when I wanted to piss him off, but his mother used it regularly, and he never corrected her. He’d probably get a shoe upside the head if he did, because Mama Caldo didn’t play games. Sometimes she scared me, but I’d never admit it.
Mr. Caldo joined us outside and gave James a very firm and manly handshake before he turned his attention toward me. “Always so beautiful, Ms. Isabella.” The way my name rolled off his tongue, I almost wished James had that accent.
Almost.
“It’s so wonderful to see you again, Mr. Caldo,” I nodded and reached my hand out, but he pulled me forward and smashed my chest against his.
“Papi, please.”
“Papi,” I said with a hint of a laugh.
Mr. Caldo’s energy was contagious. I don’t know if it was his Cuban heritage or just his zest for life, but I always loved being around him. James’s mother was fun too, but she had the more serious personality like my mother. It must’ve been the Italian in her. But man, the Cuban and Italian mix in James made for a beast o
f a man.
James stood behind me with one eyebrow arched, watching his father get a little too handsy with me. “Pop, come on. She’s mine. You got yours.” James peeled his father’s hands away from my body and tucked me into his side.
They talked about us like they owned us. James kind of owned me, even though I pretended he didn’t. I wondered if it was the same way with his parents. The thought of it made me throw up a little in my mouth. I pushed the visual out of my mind, and I swallowed down my stomach acid.
“Thanks, Jimmy,” I said, pretending he’d saved me from his father. But it was harmless, and Mrs. Caldo practically molested me every time I visited too. I just learned they were handsy people and accepted it.
I loved being at his parents’ and being able to use that nickname without having to pay a penalty for it.
“Shall we?” Mr. Caldo said, motioning toward the house, which smelled like a little slice of heaven smack-dab in the middle of Miami.
James grabbed our suitcases while I followed his mother into the kitchen and took a seat at the island to watch her whip up another Cuban masterpiece.
James’s mother may have been Italian by birth, but growing up in Miami and later marrying into the Caldo family, led to her embracing their Cuban culture wholeheartedly.
She slid a glass of wine in front of me. “Relax a little,” she said. “I’m so glad you two came to visit. It’s been too long, hija.”
My insides warmed instantly as she called me daughter, and I sipped the wine slowly so I didn’t get knocked on my ass and become useless to James later. “We’ve missed you too.”
She stirred the beans, or frijoles, as she called them, slowly mixing them. “We’ve invited everyone over for dinner in a bit. I hope you don’t mind.”
I figured as much.
It was never just the four of us when we arrived. The entire extended Caldo family came out to gawk at their family member who married an Italian girl covered in tattoos and who didn’t speak a lick of Spanish. Mrs. Caldo had been honorary Cuban for so long, everyone had forgotten she was really Italian like me.
