Justine, Adken, Florida
“No, Mr. Yawas, that was not a rhetorical question.” Justine LaPorte narrowed her eyes, pinning her subject to the chair. “It was an actual inquiry that deserves careful deliberation and a considered response. Something I find myself wondering if you’ll be able to achieve given your current attitude.” Head pounding, she refused to allow anything other than disdain to show in her expression. In negotiations like this, admitting discomfort or even any emotion could prove to be a death knell for a continued productive conversation. Been doing this job a long damn time. She denied herself a glance at the clock, trusting her gut, which told her they’d reached the four-hour mark a while ago. Maybe too long. “Which means—” She casually gathered up the papers and images in front of her, tucked them inside a yellow-edged folder, and straightened the corners until things lined up exactly. “You need some time to think.”
She stood and thudded her fist against the solid metal door, ignoring Yawas’ sputtering behind her. They’ve got to know I won’t back down. He spit out a name, and she nearly paused, but when he didn’t follow with anything else, she held firm and, once the door was opened, stalked through it, listening to the clunk as it set back into place.
Greg Anderson stared at her as she entered the observation room, his sharp gaze missing nothing. She hated him sometimes. Her counterpart on the anti-trafficking task force wielded the same authority as Justine, but his tactics couldn’t have been more different. Where Justine evoked cautious respect from her colleagues, Greg Anderson left behind the stench of fear, perhaps especially when it was unnecessary.
“Yawas is a dead end.” Anderson shoved a handful of folders into a box, careless with what amounted to hundreds of hours of labor to piece together the things they knew so far. Justine shook her head, carefully stacking the folders on her side of the table into color-coded columns she then tucked into one legal-sized box. “You knew it when you walked in there. Pretty sure you didn’t have to make me wait out here half a day before you cut him loose.”
“I didn’t cut him loose.” Justine gestured to the screens, showing Yawas still cuffed and chained to the table. “He’s being detained another seventy-two hours on obstruction charges. I’ll be back here day after tomorrow, giving him forty-eight before I peck away at his battle armor again.” She shrugged. “He knows what I need. The only challenge will be if I can extract it before the window closes on when the information can be used.” She fit the lid of the box into place and draped her jacket across it, hooking her computer bag and purse strap over her shoulder. “I’m going home for now. You can either show back up tomorrow for a rehearsal of the next talk with Yawas, or I’ll know you aren’t interested in this takedown.”
Without waiting for Greg to finish spitting out whatever complaint he’d been storing up, she opened the door, held it with one heel as she lifted the box, and pivoted through the opening. She used the subterranean tunnel connecting the justice center with the jail and made her way to her office at the back of the building. The small window set in the outside wall was triple-paned detonation-proof glass, which distorted everything, but it afforded her a view of the nearby forest instead of concrete and glass.
Dumping the box along the wall, she toed open the bottom drawer of the desk and deposited the computer bag inside. That same toe tapped the drawer shut, and a slide of her finger locked the desk. She picked up the jacket, swished it through the air with a flourish, and slipped her arms through the fabric. A tug of the collar, and she grabbed her purse, ready to head out the door and to her home as advertised.
Where she’d go later was a different beast altogether.
***
Eyes safely closed behind the satin blindfold, Justine let her focus drift. The effortless way her body took in each breath was mesmerizing, how the muscles of her chest and back worked in seamless coordination. She listened to the rushing sounds within her own head, the quiet symphony of blood pounding and air cascading through her nostrils, drowning out any external distractions. Heat bloomed across her upper back, traveling side to side along her skin, then encircling her throat as it moved up to her face.
A tap against the side of her head was a well-known signal, one ingrained enough to pull her from the soothing quiet. Justine lifted her chin in response and clenched her lids closed tightly as the blindfold slipped free of her head, care taken so the ribbons didn’t tangle in her hair.
“You are doing very well.” The smooth praise reached her ears as fingers pinched her chin hard, yanking her forwards. She kept her balance with effort, remaining in the awkward position the hand had placed her—bent at the waist, chin lifted so the skin of her throat stretched taut. With her wrists and forearms bound together behind her back, Justine’s muscles protested the new pose. “I’m proud of you.”
She consciously smoothed her features, brows retreating to their normal neutral place, mouth closed as best she could, with the corners tipped up in a slightly positive expression. As blank and open as she could be. The hand reappeared at her chin, this time the grip gentle instead of brutal, and Justine had to fight to keep the dispassionate expression in place. Cold leather settled between her legs, and she rose a little, more an instinctive flexing of her thigh muscles than an intentional creating of space. The shoe-covered foot swept side to side, nudging her knees wider than before. She lost the sense of ease the steady focus on her breathing had provided, instead paying brief flurries of attention to all the places her body hurt. Knees, the outside of each thigh, her hips as they pivoted into a new position, shoulders from being held immobile for this length of time—however long that was. She stilled the instinct to shake the idea from her head, shoving it aside as she tried to find the place of gentle peace again.
Fingers danced the length of her arms, each miniscule easing of the bindings an unwelcome reminder that the serenity she’d found was ever fleeting. Tiny tugs at the end of each finger presaged the slow degloving that left her skin bare to the air, goose bumps chasing the worn leather. Her hands and wrists were chafed in turn, each arm carefully returned to a more natural position along her sides as the massaging touch moved to her shoulders. Weight landed on her upper back and neck, realigning her torso with the floor, easing the pressure on her hips. The harness holding the ball gag loosened, fingers teasing around her mouth to retrieve the device while a soft terrycloth towel was used to wipe her chin, cheeks, throat, and chest free from saliva that had spilled over.
A cushion whooshed out air nearby as someone sat, and Justine, so accustomed to the routine by now, anticipated the touch that would urge her slump to the side, resting her cheek against a fabric-clad thigh. A soft blanket settled over her shoulders, and as heat pooled against her skin, Justine slowly relaxed. A moment later, the hand grazed over the top of her head and gently removed the tie holding the tight braid, then stroked down the fall of hair. Some set of minutes later, Justine finally blinked her eyes open for the first time. The soothing cadence of fingers threading through her hair didn’t change or falter, but she knew her partner was fully cognizant of her progress rising through the levels back to complete awareness.
She wrapped her fingers around his ankle, as clear an indication she was ready to move things along to the culmination as his signal earlier about the blindfold.
“Justine, you went really deep tonight.”
She nodded, cheek rubbing against the expensive fabric of his suit pants.
“These cases are killing you a little inside.”
She couldn’t argue, not when the truth of his statement was something she witnessed in her mirror every day. Each of the latest rounds of trafficking busts was worse than the previous ones. The victims a little younger, a little more damaged, and way too often, a little too dead.
“It had been too long.” Damn. Her admission came out hoarse, rusty as a gate no one bothered to maintain. “It was good.” She took a deep breath and snuggled a little tighter against his leg. “Thank you, Sir.”
“It’s my honor as always, Justine.” His fingers sank into her hair and gripped, turning her face up so their gazes clashed. “It would please me if you called more often.”
She schooled her features as the gentle scold lashed like a whip. “My joy is to please, Sir.” Not please him, specifically, although he’d been her first choice of a top when she’d realized where her car was aimed. Leaving the office, she’d turned the opposite way from the route that would take her home, only realizing it a few minutes into the drive. Sometimes the subconscious response is right. She’d sleep well for the few hours remaining tonight and be back in the office tomorrow with a vengeance. Justine gave her shoulders and arms a subtle stretch, arching her neck the slightest amount, the twinges from muscles and ligaments soothing, not painful. “You’re very good at your job.”
Greg Anderson smiled at her. “I’m good at all my jobs, Justine.”
She smiled back and straightened, pulling away from his touch in preparation for rising from the floor. Time to get the hell out of Dodge, she thought, and inclined her head in acknowledgment of his words.
“We both are.”