Flames (A Special Agent Novel Book 3)

by C. P. Mandara

  "How will we get in, if most people have to wait years for an invite? I hear you ask. It's a good question. We're going in by way of your talents, as it happens. Most of the subs don't want a lot of pain. Those that do are highly sought after. James and I get to tag along by bringing you, and boy are we going to have lots of fun with you. You wouldn't believe what they'll pay to watch a woman suffer the torments of hell. That side of things is probably Adamantine's best earner, although it isn't talked about much. Those who need to know, know, and that's the way they like to keep it. We'll give them a rather tame demonstration first, and if they like what they see, they'll invite us down below." My fingertips had now found Lois's smooth, silken mound, and I couldn't help but look up in surprise. Firstly, she wasn't wearing any panties, and secondly, she'd kept it shaven. Who was she trying to impress? This was obviously my lucky day.

  As soon as she'd finished her mouthful of food, she was about to protest loudly to all and sundry, but I had another forkful ready for her. Closing her mouth in protest, she glared at me. My fingers delved a little deeper into her jeans, searching for her clit, and when I found it, I rubbed my fingers gently against it. She moaned, and that was all the opening I needed. Shoving another mouthful inside her, in more ways than one, I continued to torment her.

  “So, James is probably right, you should quit while you’re ahead. By taking you there, we’ll hope to lure the real Adie out with both your presence and mine, but that by no means guarantees he’ll turn up. If he does, you basically know what to expect next.” Lois turned her head away the next time I came at her with the fork, and I shot straight past her. The beef headed straight towards the floor, and I was rather lucky I didn’t follow it.

  “Won’t the real Alain be pissed if he finds out there’s an imposter?” Lois managed to spit out. As I was still lurching around all over the place, James answered for me.

  “That’s what we’re hoping. We’re not exactly sure why he’s disappeared off the grid, but I daresay he has his reasons. Lucky for us he did, or you probably wouldn’t have made it out of Carte Blanche alive. The real Alain is nowhere near as sloppy as Adie.” James’s eyes twinkled.

  "I resent that remark," I said, immediately affronted. "I wasn't sloppy on purpose. We needed to allow Lois to escape, and I enabled her to do that." Sitting up stiffly, I narrowed my eyes at James.

  "You were sloppy. Not only did Lois escape, but she managed to hi-jack your gun and get a syringe to your neck. No way in hell would that have happened to me." James pursed his lips, trying his best to retain a serious look.

  I sat there, staring at him in silence for a few seconds. It was clear the man wanted an argument. I wasn't going to give it to him. Finally, I said, "Yes, well, we can't all be perfect, can we?" If I was a little curt, that was his problem.

  "You can pull out, too, Adie. If Alain gets hold of you, there's no telling what he'll do."

  "I'm well aware of that, James." To piss him off, my fingers dived a little deeper into Lois's jeans, and she gasped as her hips bucked forwards. That wiped the smile off his face.

  “Will you stop…” Lois didn’t get a chance to finish that sentence. Another mouthful of potatoes came her way. That was the trouble with talking, you had to open your mouth.

  When she glared at me, I glared right back. “You even think of spitting that out at me, and I’ll spend the evening spanking you.” When she opened her mouth to protest, I added, “Really fucking hard.” Her jaw closed with a snap. “Sensible choice. Your ass will be sore enough, tomorrow. Take my word for it.” My fingers began to move a little faster. It wasn’t the easiest of positions to work, but I’d had a lot of experience with women over the years, and if I wanted to make her come like this, I could. It was actually quite tempting. The expression on James’s face would be priceless.

  As if he’d read my mind, he suddenly stood up and began clearing everyone’s plates away.

  “Anyone going to help me wash up or are you just going to sit there staring into each other’s eyes?” James didn’t wait for our reply. He marched straight towards the sink and began to turn the cold tap on full force.

  Meanwhile, Lois looked at me, and I mean really looked at me. She was trying to decide how much she wanted to have an orgasm and whether it would be worth the price she would have to pay to get one. Just sit still and keep your legs open, woman, I thought. It wouldn’t be long before she was past the point of no return, and her steel-eyes had already turned a deliciously smoky hue in colour. Just sit still a few more seconds.

  All of a sudden, Lois stood upright, bent over and smashed her hands against her backside. The cable ties popped open on the first attempt, and I backed away before she got a chance to wrap her hands around me again.

  "If you want to play dirty, I'm happy to oblige," she purred, and the woman began walking towards me with purpose. I backed up into the kitchen and bumped into James, who was now loading up the dishwasher.

  Raising an eyebrow, he shook his head. “You have no idea how to handle that woman.”

  I disagreed. “Oh, I have every idea how to handle her, she just needs to be tied up and deposited in my bedroom first.”

  James found this rather amusing. “Good luck with that,” was all he said, as he continued what he was doing.

  "Adie if you are not out of this room in the next ten seconds I am going to break your neck." Lois began advancing towards me, and the look in her eye was not a pleasant one. If I was going into a hand-to-hand fight with her, I reckoned I had a fifty-fifty chance of survival. Usually, I'd have gone with those odds, but with James watching, I decided to be a little more cautious.

  "You needn't worry – washing dishes is not my thing. You be a good girl and help James. By the way, your fly is still undone." Making a hasty retreat, I headed straight for my room. Tomorrow was going to be a very long day, but there was an excellent chance I'd manage to get in Lois's pants by the end of it, whether she wanted me to or not. Besides, I had an inkling the woman protested too much. At the very least I'd get to see her crawling around naked, and the thought was a sweet one indeed.

  Chapter Seventeen – Lois

  Oh, what difference a day makes. One day you're in the wilds of the English countryside, in a beautiful thatched cottage, with nothing but butterflies outside for company. In the next, I found myself whisked away in an aeroplane to Lyon, France. The jet was a small Boeing 737, carrying two hundred passengers, and someone, somewhere, had managed to snag us some business-seats. We were sat in a row of three, and obviously, they'd given me the middle seat. Lucky me.

  “So what am I supposed to do when we get there again?” I asked. No one had told me anything more than that which I’d learned last night, and the details had been on the thin side. Reaching for my cup and saucer, I took a slow sip of my steaming hot coffee and awaited my answer patiently.

  "Look pretty and get naked if we manage to get a spot." Adie put his hand on my thigh and gave me a wink. I slapped it away.

  "If we draw Alain out, what then?" If I wasn't allowed any clothes, concealing weapons wasn't going to be an option. Hopefully, no one was relying on me to strangle anyone because that hadn't worked out too well last time I'd tried it.

  “We’ll try and kill him by any means possible. The plan is to stick together. We’ll both pose as your dominants, giving all the bystanders one heck of a show as we enter, and that should create enough interest to get tongues wagging. We need the word to spread quickly.” James was a little more forthcoming than Adie, but I didn’t particularly like what I was hearing.

  “Please don’t tell me that what I think is going to happen, is actually going to happen," I whispered, the insides of my stomach now churning and twisting once again. This morning I'd woken up feeling like a million dollars, with most of the nausea and cramps behind me, and now this. I had an awful suspicion that I was not going to like this at all.

  “Still time to back out, Lois.” There was James, always looking out for me. One day I might
pay attention to him, but that day wasn’t today.

  “I can handle the pair of you with my eyes closed and my hands tied behind my back.” Looking pointedly at Adie as I said it, I blew him a kiss. Grabbing my coffee once more, in case he thought to retaliate, I cuddled it close to me.

  “I don’t remember you closing your eyes last night, Lois,” Adie purred. “I remember all these little mewls and whimpers, though.”

  “Now, now, children. Behave. We have work to do.” James sat there, completely at ease, in another one of his white shirts, and began thumbing through a black notebook. I couldn’t help but wonder if he had hundreds of women stored up in the thing. Trying to surreptitiously glance over my shoulder, to see if I could gain an inkling as to what it was about, James just tilted the book away from me. That only made me more curious. It didn’t help that the short flight was dreadfully boring. Although it was only an hour or so, there was nothing to do but sit about, sip coffee, and read the in-flight magazine, which I’d already done. This left me mostly free to figure out how to get the book out of James’s hands and read a least a couple of sentences before he managed to get it back again. In the end, I settled on a snatch and grab plan of attack. Pretending to focus on Adie, all I did was suddenly turn around and wrench the book out of his fingers. It was so easy, I was almost disappointed. My estimation of James’s skills took a sudden nose-dive.

  “Took you long enough.” James looked at me with his tongue firmly in his cheek. Uh oh, what had I done now? “That there is your cover story for this evening’s assignment. You need to familiarise yourself with it quickly. It’s fairly similar to the one you had at Carte Blanche, but there are a few subtle differences. Adie can stick with his. We’ll just have to hope that the real Alain takes the bait.”

  Turning to look at Adie, I found him happily skimming through a Top Gear magazine without a care in the world. If he was nervous about tonight, it wasn’t showing. I hoped to hell I looked as calm as he did because I was feeling anything but. Loading myself up with caffeine probably wasn’t going to do me any favours either, but it was comforting, and I needed a pick-me-up. Flicking through the cover ID I’d just been given, I did my best to memorise all of the details. When I’d got to the end of the section, I turned the page just to make sure I hadn’t missed anything, and sure enough, there was a section entitled ‘Scene.’ Closing my eyes, I wasn’t sure I wanted to read this. If what I suspected was going to go down this evening, wouldn’t I be best left in the dark? Closing the book for a minute, I took a deep, shaky breath, and wondered what I should do.

  “Read it.” James’s voice at my ear made me jump, and I spilled a drop of coffee over my tray table. Swiping it up with my fingertip, I sucked it into my mouth and slowly turned to face him.

  “Don’t think those little tricks will work with me, sweetheart. Adie’s the one fawning over you, try him out for size.” Thankfully his voice was low enough that Adie didn’t hear. “Now read it. That’s what you’re getting yourself into this evening, and that’s tame compared to the rest of it.”

  I swallowed. I already knew what was behind those pages. I just didn’t want to read it in black and white.

  “I didn’t think you were able to go anywhere near Alain. Why are you coming along?” I whispered. The book was now shaking in my hands.

  “It’s too late to worry about that now. The job needs to be finished one way or another.” James looked resigned to his fate. I was just plain scared.

  "What will he do to you if he sees you?" I desperately wanted to know what James had done to Alain, but I already knew there was no point in asking. If James wanted to tell me, he would, and if he didn't, no amount of questions would wriggle that information out of him.

  “He’ll probably kill me on sight. If he’s spoken to his father recently, he’ll do the same to you, and Adie, well, he’s a foregone conclusion.

  “Is there any chance of us making it out of this mess alive?” The pages of the book blurred in front of me as I realised that not only had I managed to screw up my own life, but now I had several others who were probably going to go down with me. That was a whole other world of guilt that I couldn’t deal with right now.

  “There’s always a chance, Lois. We might be the underdogs, but I wouldn’t want to underestimate us, either. We just need to be at the top of our game.” No pressure then. If I made a slip up with James watching every move I made, he’d never let me forget it – especially if he was dead. Ahem. This time I already knew I was in too deep, and it probably wouldn’t be long before I was in way over my head.

  Les Catacombes Adamantines was on the outskirts of Lyon, and it didn't open its doors until ten pm. Even this late hour was too early for most of the clientele, who didn't usually show up until after midnight. The helpful receptionist told us this as she guided us through the rooms on offer in lieu of our ‘big show' this evening. I, for one, couldn't stop thinking about it. I was about to have sex with two men at once, both of whom I was half in love with, in front of a bloody crowd. The thought made me sick to my stomach, but it also aroused me like mad. Butterflies coiled like loaded springs in my stomach, but there was no time for second thoughts or doubts now. We were here, and we were doing this.

  Adie and I had gone shopping this afternoon. Although I would be naked for most of my time there, I was allowed to make my grand entrance in a dress, and James had decided we needed something special. I protested, of course, saying I was perfectly capable of purchasing a dress on my own, but James had decided it would be better if Adie tagged along. Whether that was because he just wanted rid of him, or whether it was because he didn't trust me to come back with something nice was anybody's guess – but it had annoyed me no end, and I went out with a face like thunder. Strangely enough, though, traversing the streets of Lyon with Adie had been a rather fun experience. To temper my bad mood, he had taken me out for a three-course meal in some charming little French bistro, where we drank several glasses of incredibly good Bordeaux, over a generous serving of Chateau Briand. During all this, somehow Adie managed to keep his hands to himself, was incredibly charming, funny, and attentive, and hugely entertaining. That might have had something to do with the wine, but when we actually went looking for dresses, several hours later, my mood had lightened considerably.

  Adie seemed to know exactly where to go, finding the most incredible designer boutiques, and he looked the part in his dark black jeans, polo shirt, and sunglasses. The saleswomen fawned over him, and by default, fawned over me. Row after row of dresses were paraded out in front of us, and it was our job to pick something suitable. I immediately felt overwhelmed with the task at hand, but Adie treated it much like he did everything else – a game – and responded accordingly.

  “Not exciting enough, too much, too pink, too frilly,” these were just some of the comments Adie was throwing at the garments that were walking our way. He was conversing fluently with the sales lady in French, and his language skills and intonation far surpassed my own. His delightful accent and the after effects of the wine began unravelling some knots in my stomach. “Come on, Lois. Don’t make me do all the hard work. Speak up when you find something you like. If we go home empty handed, James will kill me.” He wasn’t joking. James had given us strict instructions, and neither of us wanted to risk failure.

  When Adie had finally narrowed it down to seven or eight dresses, I was ushered behind the black velvet drapes of the changing rooms by the sales lady, stripped virtually naked (thankfully I'd had the foresight to buy some panties at the airport), and zipped into some of the most incredible gowns I'd ever laid eyes on. The dresses fit me like a glove, and I was given a pair of heels to show them off to their best advantage. Parading them in front of Adie made me feel like a million dollars, mostly because he couldn't hide his enthusiasm. I was fairly blushing under his praise, and feeling like the lead in Pretty Woman. It was an experience everyone should have at least once in their lifetime.

  The final dress to come out
was one the sales lady had insisted I leave until last. Every time I had reached for it, she simply waggled her finger and said, "Non, non, non." In the end, I wondered if she'd let me try it on at all, but when we'd exhausted all the other dresses, keeping two firm favourites as lead contenders, she finally helped me into the last one. It was stunning. There was simply no other word to describe it. It was one-shouldered, and made of layers upon layers of thick, luxurious, red duchess satin. This sat atop yards of black tulle that floated around me in all directions, and to keep with this theme, layers of black lace had been patterned around the dress and bodice at discreet intervals. Looking in the mirror at myself, I simply stared in astonishment. The garment emphasized my tiny waist, and the sexy cut of the bodice left most of my arms and upper torso on display. This meant I could move reasonably freely. It was a dress that screamed ‘excitement,' and I wondered what Adie would make of it. It amused me to realise that if he didn't like it, I wouldn't buy it. I don't think I could blame that thought on the wine, either.

  Walking out into the centre of the shop, I stopped in front of him and did a little twirl, curtseying at the end of it. Crossing my fingers that he would feel the same way about it that I did, I just sat there and waited. He took so long to say anything that for a moment I was afraid he thought it was awful.