Page 14 of Used

I lose all sense of time. Everything is sensation. The terrible throbbing in my ass, my quivering leg muscles, my shaking chest, my weeping eyes. And past that, his strong arms and the warm male scent of his body. His low voice soothes me, as does his warm breath against my face. As I melt into the mattress, I feel like I’m floating.

I’m not crying anymore, but not because I’ve regained control. I’m detached and weightless. Occasionally I shiver until he stands and puts the blanket over me.

“Are you going?” I ask when he doesn’t lie back down after covering me. It’s been a long time since I was caught in Scott Patrick’s gravitational pull, but I clearly am.

“To the kitchen. To get you some water.” He walks out and comes back a few minutes later.

I take the glass and drink greedily. I’m so thirsty. When the glass is empty I hold it out unsteadily.

“More?” he asks.

“No.”

He starts to walk away.

“Trick?”

He turns back, his eyes a blue-green that reminds me of the sea. “Yeah?”

“So do I owe you five hundred dollars?” I try to inject bitterness into my voice, but don’t manage it. My tone is more curious than furious.

He shrugs.

“Compared to other girls, did I break quicker? Or more slowly?” Why this matters to me, I have no idea. Maybe because I was a competitive athlete. Maybe because when we were together I’d wanted him to experiment on me sexually and always wondered whether I could’ve held my own during wild, kinky sex with him.

“I wouldn’t know.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve never punished a girl before.”

My head raises to look more closely at him. “Come on. You’ve spanked plenty of women.”

“Yes. Many.” He takes a breath and shrugs. “But not like that.”

I tilt my head. “Really?”

He nods and starts to leave again. And again, I can’t let him go.

“What happens now? Next, I mean.”

“Just go to sleep. We’ll talk later.”

I put the washcloth on the nightstand, then lie on my side. He stops in the doorway, watching me silently. I pull a pillow over and rest my head on it and close my eyes, so I don’t have to watch him leave.

Chapter 3

Trick

I start digging, which is something I’m good at. Milt Schager is a thirty-five-year-old special agent with the Boston field office of the FBI. Clean-cut, square-jawed, with medium brown hair and eyes, he’s nothing special to look at. I don’t recognize him, so I wonder why he’s gone off the reservation with his op. There are a plenty of cops and feds I’ve pissed off so severely that they’d probably happily lie or plant evidence to put me in jail, but going the drugging route is way out there. Did Schager transfer in from the 1950s CIA? Been reading too much Robert Ludlum?

I send a coded message to C, a heads-up that the feds are getting aggressive.

My gaze shifts to the guest room door. Could Laurelyn have completely made up the FBI story? Maybe she was trying to drug me herself? Looking for revenge for something? There’s nothing in our history to warrant it, but C Crue deals in drugs and her little sister’s got a drug problem. Could she blame me for it?

Because it’s not like the FBI to use a civilian in such a dangerous sting. And sending one in with no wire and no backup? That’s crazy. There’s still the possibility she’s an undercover agent herself, but I’ve kept tabs. Could that really have slipped by me?

If she is an agent, she’ll have to lie about what happened tonight. I can’t see a special agent from the FBI copping to being spanked into submission by a C Crue member. And she gave up a supervising agent’s name and the fact that there was an operation. That’s off too. In no way did Laurelyn act like a fed when I punished her. Wouldn’t she have identified herself before I broke her? Then again, maybe she’s that good at undercover work.