“Then let’s go sit down somewhere.”
“I can’t sit down in this thing.” She frowned and motioned to the corset. “I can barely go to the toilet.
Damn
.”
“What?”
“Now I have to pee.” She sighed. She handed Hanson the leash. “I’ll meet you out front.”
“Man, this is off the hook,” Griggs whispered. “But I thought the women would be, you know, hotter.”
Hanson eyed him with a frown.
“I mean, some of them are attractive, but it ain’t like the porn on the Web.”
“Nothing ever is,” Hanson said.
“Gee left you two on your own?” Dante was standing behind them.
“Don’t worry,” Hanson said, smiling politely. “We’ll try not to embarrass ourselves before she gets back.”
Griggs craned his head to get a better look at two women chained face-to-face on a small platform.
“What is that he’s hitting them with?” Griggs asked.
“That?” Dante chuckled. “That’s a flogger.”
“I thought you used whips?”
“Nah—” Dante shook his head. “Very few people actually use whips. They take a great deal of skill—and practice—to use properly. You can cut someone to the bone with a whip if you don’t know what you’re doing.”
The two women were kissing each other as the man circled them, flogging each back in turn. Griggs yanked the leash out of Hanson’s hand and took a step closer to the scene.
“You’ve known Gina a long time?” Hanson asked.
“About ten years, I guess,” Dante said. “I felt bad when she was outted.”
“She says you all abandoned her,” Hanson said evenly, watching his reaction.
“People were scared. Myself included. I teach middle school. Do you know how fast I’d lose my job if anybody found out what my wife and I do here?”
“I can imagine. What’s your real opinion on Quinn?”
“You mean, now that Gee’s not around?” Dante flashed a grin, then sobered and shrugged. “He’s a twisted fucker, I’ll say that.”
“But his relationship with Gee,” Hanson said, trying to sound off hand when he really felt sick with jealousy just saying the man’s name. “She was his slave, right?”
Dante slanted his eyes, as if weighing his words.
“Gina and Quinn were . . . legendary. Or notorious, depending on who you ask.”
“How so?”
Dante smiled a little, almost wistfully.
“Everything in the dungeon would come to a complete stop whenever they played. People just watched them. You couldn’t help it.”
“Sure,” Hanson said. “She’s a knock-out.”
“Yes, she is.” Dante laughed. “But it was more than that. The two of them together. They danced on the edge.”
“What does that mean?”
Dante shrugged.
“They played hard, at a level most people just don’t.”
Hanson didn’t like the sound of that.
“You mean they did risky stuff? Isn’t all this risky?”
“Hell, crossing the street is risky. Everything has some element of risk in it. But yeah, they pushed it further. Some people, they scared the shit out of. Other people admired them for doing what they didn’t have the nerve to do.”
Dante must have sensed his discomfort, or worried that he’d said too much. Though Hanson was sure the man had no way of knowing his relationship with Gina was anything more than professional.
“But I think it was also their chemistry. You could just feel the energy, the heat, between them.” Dante laughed. “And Quinn is a natural showman. Very theatrical. It was something to see them play.”
Hanson wished he hadn’t asked. He looked around the room and imagined Gina, naked, bound to one of the crosses . . .
“What about Maggie?” He roused himself with difficulty. “Does he have the same heat when he plays with her?”
“No.” Dante didn’t even have to think about it.
“Would Maggie lie for him?”
Dante peered at him, eyebrows raised.
“Why are you asking? Is he a suspect?”
“Should he be?”
Dante said nothing for a moment.
“I just can’t imagine anyone capable of that kind of violence. Goddess knows, Cassandra could drive anyone to it. But as far as I know, he’d never had a beef with Dragon, not really.”
“What does ‘not really’ mean?”
“Dragon backed Cassandra’s old club. Loans that Cassandra never repaid, of course.”
“How would that affect Dragon’s relationship with Quinn?”
“I don’t know that it did. I’m just saying there was a lot of history. Cassandra didn’t just mismanage her club; she almost cost Quinn his business. I think he was relieved, in a way, when the Lair closed. There was nothing else to keep him tied to her.”
“Quinn ever have any issues with Robyn—I mean, Kitty?”
“Nah, he and Kitty patched it up a long time ago.”
“Patched up what?”
Dante sighed and ran his hands through his hair.
“Oh, he helped set up this kidnapping thing for her a while back. It didn’t go well, she got upset—”
“Kitty was
that
girl?”
“Yeah, but she eventually calmed down. A lot of newbies get what we call ‘sub frenzy’—they want to do it all, right away. Kitty was going too far, too fast.”
“Neither of them held a grudge?”
“No, I don’t think so. They weren’t exactly close anymore, but—speak of the devil.”
Dante was staring at the door, and Hanson looked, too.
Quinn stood there with Maggie on his arm. He was wearing a pinstripe suit over a black shirt and red silk tie. Maggie was in a leather halter, miniskirt, and dangerous fuck-me shoes.
“Where’s Griggs?” Gina demanded, suddenly appearing beside Hanson. “You were supposed to be keeping an eye on him—”
“Chill, mama,” Griggs said, sauntering up. “I was just getting a closer look at something going on over there in the corner. Did you know you can get not one but two whole fists into a woman’s—”
“Yes, I know.” Gina frowned. She was staring at Quinn. “I think we’ve seen all there is to see here.”
Hanson could feel the anxiety rolling off of her like waves. It suddenly made him angry. What kind of hold did Quinn have on her, that she reacted this way just at the sight of him?
“Are we really done or are you just afraid of watching Quinn with Maggie?”
She turned to glare at him, grabbing up Griggs’s leash.
“Green is not a good color on you, Hanson.”
She strode toward the door, pulling Griggs along behind her.
“Bella rosso,”
Quinn was purring as Hanson caught up. “You look positively ravishing. And good enough to eat.”
He clicked his teeth together.
She didn’t flinch.
“I’m not on your plate anymore.”
“Ah, but
bella rosso
. . .” Quinn leaned in close to Gina, lowering his voice so that Hanson couldn’t catch the words.
As he watched, Quinn reached out, trailing his fingertips lightly across Gina’s bare collarbone, and picked up the medallion around her neck. The very sight of his fingertips so close to her skin made something in Hanson’s head explode.
“You’d better enjoy your freedom while you still can,” Hanson said, stepping between them. “There aren’t any safewords in prison.”
“I’m very hurt, Detective Hanson,” Quinn said, putting a hand to his heart. “I don’t think you like me.”
“I think you’re a pompous little shit. You may even be a murderer—”
“Hanson—” Gina put a hand on his arm, but he shook it off.
“Why would I kill anybody?” Quinn asked. “I’m a very selfish man. I don’t do anything unless there’s something in it for me.”
“Maybe you killed Roger because you were afraid he was gonna give Cassandra money to reopen her club—”
“That’s got nothing to do with me.”
His smug little smile again.
“The old club was in both your names; she ruined you financially. You’ve been trying to distance yourself from any association with Cassandra to save your own reputation—”
“That may be true. But that’s a pathetic motive for murder.”
“So what about Robyn?” Hanson smiled nastily.
“Kitty, you mean? What about her?” Quinn looked at Gina. “I think your boy here is out of control,
bella
. Maybe he should be the one on the leash.”
“Robyn was the one from that gangbang that went bad. I bet that really pissed you off, didn’t it? Ruined your reputation?”
“Actually, it probably helped my reputation,” Quinn said, as if sharing a confidence. “Air of danger and all that. But she dropped the charges.”
“Maybe you still held a grudge.”
“Half the people here saw us play a dozen times after that,” Quinn said, finally showing some impatience. “
Bella,
call off your dog. This is getting tiresome.”
Quinn took Maggie by the hand and led her off into the dungeon.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Gina hissed.
“Me? What the hell is wrong with you?” Hanson shot back. “He’s got half a dozen motives—”
“Hey, hey!” Griggs stepped between them. “If you two are gonna fight, can we take it outside? I’d like to get out of this freakin’ collar. It chafes.”
It was a silent drive except for Griggs’s blabbering, but Hanson was still too angry to hear any of it. All he could hear was blood pounding through his ears. He didn’t dare speak to Gina until they dropped Griggs at his apartment.
When he parked in front of her house, he still wasn’t sure he could manage a conversation. He’d been in a state of constant tension since the moment he saw her again, and now realized his own stupidity in thinking he could handle this.
“What did you think you were gonna accomplish by provoking him like that?”
“
Him?
You mean Quinn? Funny how you don’t like saying his name. Why is that?”
She got out of the car and slammed the door. Hanson got out and followed her.
“Are you still seeing him?” That was the question driving spikes into his guts. “Are you?”
He caught the door before she could close it and pushed his way in.
“No! Not that it’s any of your business!”
“It
is
my business if you’re screwing up my investigation!” He grabbed her arm.
“Fuck the investigation.” Gina laughed bitterly, jerking away. “You’ve been pissed ever since you saw that damned photo—”
“I’ll bet he took a lot more than just that one, too.”
“Oh, he took plenty of photos! I have a whole box full. You want to see those, too?”
Suddenly Hanson could see the way she looked when he fucked her, recognized the surrender in that beautiful up-turned face; it was the same expression she wore in that photograph.
“He fucked me, too; before, during, and after that photo shoot,” she said slyly. “The best fucking I ever had, no contest.”
“Shut up.” She was deliberately trying to hurt him now, another side of her he’d never seen.
“He enjoyed knowing that his cum was leaking out of me as I posed for him—”
“Stop it!”
“Oh, come on, baby.” She chuckled darkly in her dirty bedroom voice. Suddenly her long velvet skirt puddled around her feet. “You’re just dying to know all about it, aren’t you?”
She took a step closer and began unhooking the corset.
“You want to see the photos where his cock is halfway down my throat? Or the ones where he pissed all over me?”
“That’s disgusting—” His voice was suddenly thick with longing.
She dropped the corset to the floor and stood before him, naked except for the medallion and her thigh-high boots.
“Sure, that’s why you got a hard-on, just like you do now,” Gina said. She spread her arms, putting herself on display. “Is this what you want? You think you’re man enough to just take it?”
“Whore,” he hissed.
She brought her hand smartly across his face.
He stood there, feeling the heat spread across his cheek. Without thinking, he had her by the shoulders.
“Get off me—”
She twisted but couldn’t break away. She tried to bring her knee into his crotch, but he was already pushing her down.
“I make you angry, and suddenly you think you’re man enough to fuck me?” She hit him again, this time a fist against his temple. “Stupid bastard, didn’t momma tell you never to hit a girl?”
One of his hands grabbed at her hair, twisting it into a long rope around his fist, and forced her to the floor.