Authors: Marcia James
AtHerCommand
An Ellora’s Cave Romantica Publication
At Her Command
ISBN #1-4199-0704-2
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
At Her Command Copyright© 2006 Marcia James
Edited by Mary Moran.
Cover art by Lissa Waitley.
Electronic book Publication: August 2006
The terms Romantica® and Quickies® are
registered trademarks of Ellora’s Cave Publishing.
With the exception of quotes used in reviews,
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This book is a work of fiction and any
resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely
coincidental. The characters are productions of the authors’ imagination and
used fictitiously.
At Her Command
Marcia James
Trademarks Acknowledgement
The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark
owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:
7-Eleven: 7-Eleven, Inc.
Animal Planet
: Discovery Channel, Inc.
Baskin-Robbins: Baskin-Robbins, Incorporated
Ben Gay: Pfizer, Inc.
Betty Ford Center: Eisenhower Medical Clinic
Bic: Bic Corporation
Budweiser: Anheuser-Busch, Incorporated
Burger King: Burger King Brands, Inc.
Cadillac: General Motors Corporation
Casablanca:
Turner Entertainment Co.
Catholic University: Catholic University of America, The Not
For Profit Corporation D.C.
Chippendales: Chippendales USA, LLC
Coke: The Coca-Cola Company Corporation
Coors: Coors Global Properties, Inc.
Cornell University: Cornell University Educational Corporation
New York
Federal Express: Federal Express Corporation
Ford: Ford Motor Company
Formica: The Diller Corporation
Fortune 500: Time, Inc.
Frederick’s Of Hollywood: Frederick’s of Hollywood, Inc.
Glock: Glock, Inc.
Godiva: Godiva Brands, Inc.
Gone With The Wind
: Turner Entertainment Co.
GQ (Gentlemen’s Quarterly):
Advance Magazine
Publishers, Inc.
Happy Days
: Paramount Pictures Corporation
Heinz 57: H.J. Heinz Company
House Beautiful
: Hearst Corporation
Honda: Honda Motor Co.
Jaguar: Jaguar Cars Limited Corporation
Jeep Cherokee: DaimlerChrysler Corporation
Krispy Kreme: HDN Development Corporation
Marlboros: Philip Morris Inc.
McDonald’s: McDonald’s Corporation
Mercedes: DaimlerChrysler AG Corporation
Mini: Rover Group Limited
Oscar: Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Corporation
Penthouse
: General Media Communications, Inc.
Ralph Lauren: Polo Ralph Lauren USA Holding Inc.
Ravens: Baltimore Ravens Limited Partnership
Redskins: Pro Football, Inc.
Shelby Mustang: Ford Motor Company
Star Trek
: Paramount Pictures Corporation
Starbucks: Starbucks U.S. Brands
Styrofoam: Dow Chemical Company
Taco Bell: Taco Bell Corp.
The Washington Post
: Washington Post Company
Velcro: Velcro Industries B.V. Limited Liability Company
Viagra: Pfizer, Inc.
Victoria’s Secret: V Secret Catalogue, Inc.
Volkswagen: Volkswagen Aktiengesellschaft
World Wrestling Entertainment: World Wrestling
Entertainment, Inc.
Chapter One
“Men pay me to dominate them.”
The sentence hung in the air as Agent Dominique “Domino”
Petracelli waited for the young woman to elaborate. Tori Preston, the witness
offering testimony in the cold, sterile Drug Enforcement Administration
interview room, fiddled with the buttons on her Ralph Lauren shirt and ran her
hands down the pleats of her khaki walking shorts.
Domino stared at the wholesome-looking girl who was holding
a roomful of seasoned agents enthralled with her words. This was her main
witness? A sex club worker? With all the drug cases crossing her boss’s desk,
how had Domino lucked into being lead operative on this one?
“Some want to be humiliated, others want pain…you know,
whippings and stuff,” Tori continued.
As the only other woman in the narrow, gray-walled room,
Domino watched the blue-eyed blonde glance around as though daring the male
agents to criticize her. Four of the six guys in attendance weren’t even
involved in this case. But word of Tori’s profession had spread like a computer
virus and the men had dropped by to check out the dominatrix.
“Not your typical part-time job, but it pays my tuition.”
Tori folded her arms over her chest. “I’m only a year away from my master’s
degree and the job pays great.”
“Getting an MA in S and M?” Agent Gus Meyers added his two
cents to the interview and drew a laugh from his male buddies.
Domino frowned. The man was always a smart-ass and one of
her least favorite coworkers. Unfortunately, Meyers was her partner on this
investigation. With her eye on a soon-to-be-available assistant director job,
Dom wasn’t in any position to turn down assignments. She sighed. Maybe this
would be an open-and-shut case. Yeah, and maybe she’d win the lottery and marry
Mel Gibson.
“My degree is in physical therapy,” Tori stated with cool
pride.
“Perfect major.” Meyers smirked. “When I was shot last year,
the therapists seemed to love torturing me.”
“Enough.” Sam Lowery, director of the DEA’s Virginia field
office and Domino’s supervisor, silenced any follow-up remarks. The male
snickering died as well.
Domino glanced at her boss, who occupied the uncomfortable
metal chair next to hers. With his receding hairline and tortoise-shell
glasses, Sam looked more like an accountant than the multi-decorated ex-Marine
who’d stormed up the career ladder since joining the DEA. He might appear
mild-mannered, but his staff knew better than to piss him off. Dom both admired
and hoped to emulate her boss, especially his rapid professional advancement.
As glad as she was for his presence however, Dom had to regain control of the
interview.
“Let’s go back to the beginning,” Domino suggested. She
scanned the notes she’d made on her yellow legal pad. “You say the Xecutive
Branch sex club is distributing large amounts of cocaine and maybe other
drugs?”
“Yes.” Tori directed her answer to Dom, ignoring the rest of
the agents. “For the past two years, I’ve heard things that made me suspicious,
but Saturday night something happened that convinced me. You see, the club has
this main supply closet where employees can get anything they might need for a
session–-riding crops, nipple clamps, whatever.”
A snort of laughter from one of the men interrupted Tori’s
explanation. Sam glared around the room until all of his agents had received
the warning loud and clear. Dom motioned for Tori to continue.
“Well, that night I needed an extra large, um, vibrator, and
the supply closet was out. So I went to the storage area at the back of the
building and asked Benny, one of the bouncers, which box held the sex toys. He
took me over to a stack of boxes, but before he could open one, Clyde—that’s
Victor’s head guy—stopped him.”
“Victor would be the club’s owner, Victor Xavier?” Domino
verified, glancing at her notes again. “And Clyde is Clyde Salvi, the club’s
manager?”
“Yes,” Tori shivered. “Clyde bit Benny’s head off and told
me to get back to my room, that he’d make sure I got what I needed. I left but
I was worried about Benny, since he’s not too bright you see, and I didn’t want
him to get in any trouble because of me.” She licked her lips nervously.
“Clyde’s real mean. So I snuck back in and hid behind some sets.”
“Sets?” Domino paused in her note-taking to look at the
young woman.
“Movie sets, for the porn flicks they do,” Tori explained.
Domino nodded, and the girl continued. “Clyde was really yelling at Benny,
calling him awful names and stuff. Then he said, ‘You idiot! Those are the
drug-filled dildos for the New York shipment. What if that bitch had opened the
damn thing to put in a battery and discovered the cocaine?’”
“They’re smuggling cocaine in dildos?” Jerry Goldsmith, one
of the younger agents, seemed stunned by the idea.
“Well, they’re actually vibrators, and there’s a large
battery compartment in them,” Tori said.
“I wouldn’t know,” Goldsmith mumbled, blushing to the roots
of his dark hair.
Domino stifled a laugh, feeling a camaraderie with her
coworker. It was nice to know she wasn’t the only one in the room uncomfortable
with the sex talk. At thirty-one, Dom wasn’t inexperienced in the horizontal
boogie, just not too adept at it. And if there was one thing she hated, it was
doing a lukewarm job, whether it was in the office or between the sheets.
Dominatrixes, dildos and drugs. Damn, why couldn’t she have pulled a nice,
non-sexual case like taking down a Colombian drug lord?
“Okay, Ms. Preston.” Dom refocused the group. “So you
overheard Clyde talking about drug shipments two days ago, and that’s why you
came to us?”
“No…that is, something else happened Saturday night.” Tori
gripped her hands together on the scarred table, her knuckles turning white
from the strain. “You see, I went back to my room, you know, where I meet with
my clients, and—” her voice broke “—and Jason could tell something was wrong—”
“Jason?” Domino asked.
“One of my regulars, who…well, we’d become friends.” Tori’s
eyes filled with tears. “I ended up telling him about the drugs. And then he
told me he was a cop—”
“Metro, Virginia or Maryland?” Dom interrupted.
“Jason said he was a D.C. cop. And he told me it was time
for me to quit…that he’d handle everything.”
Tori was crying now, getting the words out between sobs.
Domino wished there were tissues to offer the girl but the stark,
winter-chilled room—usually a venue for junkies and pushers—was bare of all
amenities. Besides the table and chairs, the room held only the stale scent of
tobacco and sweat.
One of the agents made a derogatory comment under his breath
about meddling cops, but Tori didn’t appear to notice. The territorial
attitudes of D.C.’s federal and local law enforcement groups were legendary.
The different organizations rarely worked well together despite public lip service
to the clear logic of interagency cooperation. The DEA was designed to fight
the war on drugs so Domino understood her fellow agent’s irritation. The cop
should have turned over the information to the DEA instead of investigating the
drugs himself.
“Jason said to tell Victor my mother was sick and I had to
go back to Pennsylvania to help out,” Tori explained. “So when I came to work
Sunday night…last night, I gave notice.”
Sam handed Tori his handkerchief, which she accepted with a
watery smile. After blowing her nose, she spoke again.
“Then I saw in the paper this morning that Jason was…found
in the Potomac.” Tori’s red eyes met Dom’s across the table. “The paper said he
was high on drugs and must have fallen into the river late Saturday night and
drowned.”
“Shit.”
Domino wasn’t sure which of the men in the room had spit out
the curse but it fit her sentiments exactly. The cop may have overstepped his
jurisdiction but he was still a brother…one of the good guys.
“The paper didn’t mention he was a cop,” Tori said.
“The Metro PD’s probably holding on to that info right now
while they investigate his murder,” Sam surmised.
“So I came here to get you to arrest the bastards who killed
Jason Walters.” Tori sat straighter in her chair. “I couldn’t go to the cops since
all sorts of D.C. government types come to the club. One of my regulars is a
D.C. councilman. I didn’t know who to trust.”
“You made the right decision,” Domino told the girl, whose
determination had wiped the innocent coed look off her face. What would it be
like to be so blonde and petite, Dom wondered. Unlike Tori, she came from
Italian stock, a family known for its tall, dark, well-developed women. But
despite having a body that drew its share of wolf whistles, Domino had never
been as comfortable with her sexuality as this preppy dominatrix.
“It was a smart decision, Ms. Preston,” Sam agreed. “Until
we know who’s involved, you could be signing your death warrant if you confide
in the local police.” He scrubbed his hands over his face in a world-weary
gesture Domino had seen before. “When the police reconstruct Jason’s last
twenty-four hours though, they’ll follow the path to your door. For your own
safety, don’t tell the police about the drugs yet. We’ll bring them in on our
investigation when the time is right. Understand?”
Domino noticed the steely look that hardened Tori’s eyes as
she nodded. She has backbone, Dom thought, which probably proved useful in the
girl’s part-time dominatrix job.
“Jason was a good man.” Tori tightly grasped her hands together
on the table. “I want to see Victor and Clyde pay.”
“You have my word my office will turn the full force of our
investigative power on this case, Ms. Preston,” Sam assured her.
Domino experienced a strong sense of foreboding. Her job was
everything to her, but just what did her boss have in mind?
“The first step,” Sam explained, “is to place one of our
agents on the club’s staff. Do you feel up to training your replacement before
you leave for Pennsylvania?”
“My replacement?” Tori looked confused.
“I have the perfect dominatrix to take your place at the
club,” Sam said. Smiling, he looked straight at Domino.
* * * * *
Detective Dalton “Bull” Cutter sat slumped on the leather
couch, drinking his third beer and staring into the eyes of a large Siamese.
Chi, the sleek, blue-eyed tomcat, could have been fashioned from marble for all
his stillness and unblinking gaze. Despite the open can of gourmet cat food
Dalton had placed on the kitchen floor, the animal sat on the coffee table
directly in front of him as though demanding an explanation.
“Jason’s not coming back, big guy.”
Dalton’s voice sounded rusty so he tried to clear his
throat. But there was a lump he just couldn’t wash down with the Budweiser. His
eyes burned from lack of sleep and he wished he could find a way to turn off
his brain. One thought kept repeating in his head—Jason Walters, his partner
and best friend, was dead.
Twenty-four hours had passed since he’d received the call
Sunday night…heard his captain break the news, but the pain was still fresh and
razor-sharp.
Dalton resisted tossing his beer bottle against the wall of
Jason’s living room…his living room, he corrected. Jason, orphaned at an early
age, had named his partner his beneficiary, a little fact Dalton had learned
from a lawyer today. The cozy Cape Cod home complete with cat now belonged to
him. He’d give a billion Cape Cods for the chance to go back in time.
“It should have been me.”
Chi leaned forward as if to make out the muttered words.
Instead of continuing the one-sided conversation, Dalton let his head fall back
on the couch and his eyes shut. That night two months ago played like a movie
behind his closed lids.
* * * * *
“Hey, Dalton, heard about your spanking-new assignment.”
Laughing, Jason walked into Dalton’s apartment with a six-pack of cold beer and
a couple of pizza boxes. “Maybe we should change your nickname from ‘Bull’ to
‘Mouse’.”
Several inches shorter than Dalton and leaner, Jason looked
more like a college fraternity pledge than a cop. While Dalton knew his partner
took a lot of ribbing about his boyish good looks, he trusted the steel-nerved
Jason with his life.
“Very funny. Besides it’s not definite yet,” Dalton
grumbled, unwilling to think about the possible undercover job. Assigned to the
Metro Police Department’s Special Investigations team, Jason and he worked
whenever and wherever needed. They’d been involved in everything from homicide
to vice cases. It certainly kept the job from becoming routine.
Recently the Metro PD had received a tip that underage girls—runaways
who’d come to the nation’s capital to escape the real and imagined horrors of
their lives—were working at the Xecutive Branch sex club. Dalton had heard
through the grapevine his name had been suggested for the undercover role of a
sex club client—a damn submissive wimp who got off on pain and humiliation.
Shit.
Probably retribution for some of the
hot-dogging he’d done recently. Maybe he shouldn’t have been quite so
disrespectful to the police chief when he was being chewed out for wrecking his
third unmarked in a month.
Grabbing two beers, Jason put the rest in the fridge. While
Dalton watched, his friend made himself at home, opening kitchen cabinets,
getting out bags of chips and placing them on top of the pizza boxes. Balancing
the items, he carried them to Dalton’s secondhand kitchen table. Unlike Jason’s
sunny home, there weren’t many cheery spots in Dalton’s apartment. The
breakfast nook with its bay window was the best bet.
“I hear Captain Bennett thinks you’re the right man for the
job.” Jason laughed at his partner’s glare.
Dalton cursed fluently. “Yeah, I’m six-four and wear a size
forty-six jacket, but I’m the perfect choice to go undercover as a bondage and
discipline junkie?”