Across town, Storm Kelly gripped the post of the bed as he stood at the end of it. His body pulsed in rhythm as Nina’s mouth moved over him, and he grunted loudly. Reaching out with his other hand, he grabbed her hair at the base of her head as she knelt before him.
The action was almost painful for Nina, but not quite, and she moaned loudly from her kneeling position. She loved it when he pulled her hair, there was something very primal and sexy about it, and it turned her on. It also told her that he was close, so she stepped up her game, taking him as deep as she could and sucking firmly.
“Ah, fuck,” he whispered as a shudder ran through him. His whole body tightened for a long, delectable moment and then relaxed. Eyes closed, he felt her release him, and then she planted a few soft kisses on his manhood as she looked up at him adoringly. He let go of the fistful of her hair and gently massaged her scalp as he smiled down at her. “You have been such a good girl tonight,” he said, quietly panting.
Nina beamed with satisfaction, but said nothing as she looked up at him submissively. She was completely naked and tethered to the bed by a wide leather cuff at her ankle. The cuff was attached to a long thin chain that was bound to the post of the bed at the other end. Her hands were secured behind her back by a small measure of rope, and she had been this way for about three or four hours as Storm did as he pleased with her. She was totally at his command and she loved it.
Storm bent and gently grasped her shoulders, helping her to her feet. Then he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her deeply, tasting his own salty flavor on her tongue.
“Turn around,” he said. And when she complied he went about untying her wrists. “Time for bed.”
Once her hands were free, Nina turned to look at him. “May I go to the bathroom before bed, Master?” she asked softly, rubbing her wrist.
He smiled at her. “Of course,” he answered. He took the small key from the nightstand and bent to unlock the clasp on the thick leather cuff. Then he stood and looked down at her. “Run along,” he whispered. Nina smiled at him and turned to leave the room. And Storm reached out and gently pinched her backside. He smiled as she giggled and rushed out.
He slid the cuff and its chain under the bed and out of sight. He had found that it saved a lot of time if he simply left the device attached to their bed instead of removing it and putting it away each time. He liked the convenience of having it already in place and ready to go on a whim. And Nina actually seemed to love being in sex slave mode. He knew it was one of her favorite scenes. The smile that crossed her lips anytime he pulled that cuff out made him rock hard.
Storm smiled as he replaced the small key to its ornate little box on the dresser. Then he climbed between the sheets and waited for her to come back. If anyone had told him months ago when he had first met her in a biker bar in Benton that Nina Fitz would become the perfect submissive for him, he never would have believed it. But it was true. For someone who had never done the BDSM thing before, Nina had taken to it like a fish to water, and for all of her sassy bravado outside of the bedroom, Storm believed that she was a natural submissive. Or maybe it was more accurate to say that she was incredibly curious and eager to learn. She seemed to enjoy trying new things, and she was good about telling Storm what things she liked and what things she was uncomfortable with, which he loved. She had even surprised him by researching the lifestyle online and asking him questions about anything she didn’t understand. He loved her curiosity, and her willingness to trust him.
Storm and his cousin, Payne, had both been dabbling in the BDSM world since they were old enough to drink legally. In fact, that was how they had celebrated their twenty-first birthdays. Their parents had thrown them a joint birthday party since they were only a few weeks apart in age, and after the official family festivities were over, he and Payne had used their newly minted legitimate IDs, and their birthday money, and bought their way into an underground BDSM club they’d heard about. It had been the beginning of over a decade of exploration and discovery for each of them, and he and his cousin had both become skilled and proficient Doms in that time. It was a “hobby” that had cemented their already tight bond.
Nina made her way back to the bedroom, quietly closing the door behind her, and then crossed the room to the dresser. Opening a drawer, she pulled out a short silk nightgown and began to put it on.
“Don’t do that,” Storm said with quiet authority, and she stopped immediately and looked at him. “You know I like to feel your skin against mine.”
Nina quickly folded the gown and returned it to the drawer. She wasn’t a real fan of sleeping in the nude, but it was something Storm sometimes insisted on, so she complied, and then turned to face him.
“May I get into bed now, Master?” she asked.
Storm chuckled at her. Then he stared at her for a long moment, letting his eyes roam slowly over her beautiful body, admiring the curve of her breasts and hips, and the manicured dusting of red hair on her mound. Crooking his finger at her, he silently beckoned her to him, and she walked to the side of the bed.
“Sit down,” he said, looking into her eyes, and Nina climbed onto the bed and sat facing him. He took her hand in his. “You’re enjoying this TPE game?” he asked quietly, referring to the Total Power Exchange they had been playing with since he got home from work. In fact, they had been playing with TPE for over a week now since she had been so curious about it. She silently nodded her head at his question.
She had learned about it during her research online and began asking lots of questions, so Storm figured the best way to explain was to simply show her what it meant to give him all of the power in their relationship. They had agreed to a two-week run, and so far she seemed to be enjoying it, although they’d had a few minor adjustments for the first couple of days. She’d had trouble with the little things, like asking his permission to do absolutely everything, or walking two steps behind him when they went out, and being sure not to begin eating until after he had taken his first bite. Or even remembering to place things where he wanted them in their house. Basically, conforming to his desires 24/7 and giving no thought to her own. She hadn’t seemed discouraged though, and Storm had been surprised at her willingness to keep going. But TPE had never been his thing. Not for an extended period of time anyway, and certainly not 24/7.
“Well, I’m glad you’re enjoying it. But I told you when we started this, Nina. I don’t want a mindless slave. That has never been my scene of choice, and I certainly don’t want to have to micromanage your every move,” he said, continuing to hold her gaze. “That is not the kind of Dom I am, and that is not how I want to spend my time. I love the fact that you are sassy, opinionated and independent, baby. That’s what drew me to you in the first place, and you know that. Now, I love the fact that you want to learn, okay? And I am more than happy to teach you and to help you explore full submission. But I don’t want a robot. I just want you to submit to me sexually. However, whenever and wherever I want you, no questions asked. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” she nodded.
“Okay. Then we’ll continue with the TPE for the rest of this two week period. But then after that time we’re going to talk about how you feel about it. And if it turns out that this is something you feel you need as a sub … then we’ll talk about how we can work it into our lives. But if we go that route, I want you to understand that it’s not going to look exactly like these two weeks have been, alright?”
Nina stared at him in surprise. “You would do that for me?” she asked. “If I wanted TPE all the time?”
Storm frowned slightly as he looked at her. “Why would you think I wouldn’t do that for you?”
Nina shrugged her shoulders, unsure of how to answer his question. What was she supposed to tell him? That she was surprised he would be willing to alter his whole lifestyle for her because she had no clue how he felt about her? She knew that wasn’t entirely true - Storm cared about her, of that she was certain. And she knew that he actually seemed to enjoy taking care of her and always making sure she was safe. But she also knew that was just part of the whole Dom thing. What she didn’t know was whether or not he loved her. They had been together for several months now. He had even moved in with her. They had a great relationship full of laughter and honesty and trust, not to mention the best sex she’d ever had in her life. But in all this time, he had never said those three little words to her, and even though Nina suspected that he loved her … she was getting to the point where she needed to hear it.
“Nina, when you said that you wanted to explore this lifestyle, I took on the responsibility of being your Dom,” Storm said, lightly squeezing her hand. “That means it’s my responsibility to take care of you. That doesn’t just mean looking after your safety and wellbeing, baby, that also means making you happy and seeing to your needs - emotional as well as sexual. So if you discover that total power exchange is what you need to be fulfilled as a submissive, then I’m willing to do that. Or at least, some form of that. But it won’t be as strict as these two weeks have been. I don’t like being called Master; I don’t want to be your Master. I want to be your Dominant. To me, there is a difference; just like there’s a difference between a slave and a submissive, and I don’t want a slave. But I want to be with you,” he said, caressing her face as he stared into her eyes. “So if this is what you need, we’ll find a way to make it work for both of us. Okay?”
Nina smiled at him. Maybe he did love her. “Okay.”
His hand slipped from her face into her hair as he cradled the back of her head and gently pulled her to him, giving her a tender kiss.
“Let’s go to bed,” he said.
She climbed over him and slipped beneath the covers, settling into him. And before he could reach for the lamp, she asked, “Will we be in scene when we have dinner with your family this week?”
Storm rolled his eyes. He had forgotten about that damned birthday dinner. What he wouldn’t give to be anywhere else. Not that he didn’t love his family, because he did. But he didn’t want to have to put on a fake smile and celebrate his father’s birthday. He was certain a tense time would be had by all.
“No. That dinner will be stressful enough without you trying to remember the rules. And besides that … what we do sexually in the privacy of our own home should remain in the privacy of our own home. Unless we’re at a BDSM club, or event or something,” he said. “Okay?”
“Okay.”
“God, I don’t want to go to this thing,” he said. “It’s bad enough when I’m able to defend myself, you know? But walking in there knowing that I just have to take whatever he says to me and not say a word. Only my mother can guilt me into agreeing to that shit,” he mumbled.
“Maybe it won’t be that bad, sugar,” Nina said, lightly running her hand over his chest. “At least your siblings are in the same boat.”
“Oh, yeah. She made sure to tie all of our tongues,” he said with a sardonic smirk. “Should be a hell of a fun evening.”
“You could always try ignoring him, and just concentrating on enjoying everyone else’s company,” Nina suggested.
Storm smiled and squeezed her gently to him, kissing her forehead. “Promise me that if you see me getting heated at some shit that’s come out of his mouth, you’ll help me to remember to hold my tongue,” he said.
“I promise.”
“Thank you,” he said, kissing her forehead once more. Then he reached over and turned off the light.
*
The Logan case puzzled Levi all night long, and the next morning as well. He simply couldn’t reconcile the state of the living room and study with the apparent suicide of William Logan. It didn’t make any sense. It was almost like two separate events. Those two rooms - and only those two rooms - had been ransacked, as though someone were frantically hunting for something in particular. Something specific. An item of great importance. Whether or not it had been located and removed from the house was a mystery. But so was the death of the home’s owner. Why had William Logan killed himself, and did it have anything to do with what whoever tossed the house had been looking for? Logic dictated that it must, but Levi couldn’t figure out how.
If Mr. Logan had been murdered, the ransacking of the house would make some kind of sense then, and Levi’s gut was telling him that’s how these puzzle pieces had to fit together. But that’s not what the evidence from last night was showing him. William Logan shot himself. That much was pretty certain, wasn’t it?
He spent the entire morning working on this new case, looking into William Logan’s businesses and his financial records, speaking with a few of his business associates. He also spoke to some of the man’s family members hoping to get some insight into the Logans’ marriage. He learned that Kylee Logan hadn’t been entirely truthful with him last night when she said that they were happy. According to Mr. Logan’s brother, William and Kylee Logan argued constantly, about everything from his businesses to raising their daughter. He even claimed that William had confided in him that his wife had been unfaithful. He couldn’t give Levi a name of the boyfriend, but he stated that William had been to see a divorce attorney just three days prior to the suicide, but the papers hadn’t been filed yet. He gave Levi the name of the attorney he said his brother had used, and Levi planned to look into it before he spoke with Kylee Logan again.
In late afternoon, Levi got to work on his other cases, breaking two of them wide open, so to speak. The theft of the equipment at the local gym was traced back to a disgruntled former employee, while the robbery at the Lakeshore address turned out not to be a robbery at all, and the husband had simply given several pieces of the wife’s jewelry to his pregnant girlfriend. So, besides being the one who had to inform the wife of her husband’s infidelity, all things considered, it was a pretty good day.
When he got back to the station after delivering that happy news, he ran right into Ethan Kelly, who was coming out of the locker room, and the look on his face instantly told Levi that Marina’s brother was pissed.
“What’s up, Kelly?” he asked.
“Nothing. It’s just starting off to be one of those days, already. And my shift just started,” Ethan replied. Levi could hear the frustration in his voice.
“Anything I can do to help?”
“Not unless you can catch whoever splattered red paint all over the outside of my place last night,” Ethan exclaimed, stopping to look Levi in the eye.
“Someone vandalized your apartment?” Levi asked, frowning at him. He knew that Ethan lived in one of the lower units of a large home that had been converted into four separate apartments where each had its own entrance.
“Yeah, you could say that! Red paint was just thrown all over the front of my place; it looks like blood! And it’s deliberate, Hawks, it had to be. Mine was the only unit hit,” he said angrily.
“Like someone knew exactly who they were targeting,” Levi said.
“Exactly!”
“You and Heather are okay though, right? I mean … you didn’t confront whoever did this, did you?”
“I wish like hell that I had, but no! We never heard a sound last night or this morning. Didn’t even see it until I went out to get the mail this afternoon before we came in for our shift.”
“Are you filing a report?”
“Hell yeah, I’m filing a report,” Ethan said angrily.
“You got any ideas about who might want to mess with you?” Levi asked him.
“No. None,” he stated. And as Levi watched, a small frown suddenly crossed Ethan’s brow.
“What is it?”
“Well … it’s just that this is not the only weird thing that’s happened lately,” Ethan answered.
“It’s not?” Levi asked, frowning at him.
“No,” Ethan said, looking away as his mind mulled over the strange events of the past few days. “I was talking to Mom yesterday on the phone, and she told me that there was some vandalism out at their place. They got up the other morning and someone had taken a ball bat to their mailbox or something. Completely destroyed it and the old wicker rocking chair that sat on the porch.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, but Dad dismissed it as the neighborhood kids and let it go, even though Mom was pretty freaked out about it. And now that I think about it … you know, Nate said that Colin and Spencer’s car windows were broken out two days ago,” Ethan said, referring to his cousins. Colin Kelly worked as an Eastwood County Sheriff’s Deputy while Spencer was one of their fellow officers on the Eastwood police force. “You know they both stay in my Uncle Mitch’s old house over on Hawthorn, just down the road from where Storm and Nina live.”
“Yeah, I knew that,” Levi said. “So both their cars were hit?”
“Somebody just came up in the driveway with a bat or a crowbar or something and went to town on both cars. Knocked out the windows and smashed the lights,” Ethan said.
“You’re shitting me?”
“No. Nate told me this just yesterday. And I meant to ask Spence about it at shift change last night, but I just got busy and forgot,” he said. “Look, I’m no detective, Hawks. I will gladly leave that to you and Stormy. But thinking about it all together like this, it almost feels personal, you know?”
“Yeah, I can see how it might,” Levi said distractedly as his mind began to work. “Hey, do you know if Spence and Colin filed a police report about what happened?” he asked.
“I don’t know for sure, but I can’t imagine that they wouldn’t,” Ethan said. “Listen, I gotta get to work, man.”
“Okay, I’ll catch you later,” Levi said, stepping aside.
“Hey, Hawks,” Ethan said as he started for the door. “Are you going to look into this or do I need to go through the proper channels?”
Levi smiled at him. “Yeah, go ahead and file a proper report. But you know me … I can’t resist a good mystery.”
“Alright, man. Let me know if you turn up anything,” Ethan called over his shoulder as he headed out to begin his shift.
Levi turned and started down the hall, his mind working a mile a minute on all this new information. One act of vandalism was unfortunate, two was an annoyance. But three? And all on the same family? In the same short time period? That had to be significant, didn’t it? He shook his head with a slight laugh, rolling his eyes at himself. His thoughts were so clogged with the new case he’d caught the night before, not to mention the still unsolved matter of the strange break-in at Marina’s store, that he was very aware Ethan’s tale could all just be a random coincidence, and his overworked mind was simply attempting to connect dots that weren’t really there. More than likely it was all totally random, and Eastwood merely had a new crime spree of vandalism going around.
He would have to check with dispatch and see if they had taken many vandalism calls in the last week or so, just for the sake of his own curiosity, seeing as how this wasn’t actually his case. But for now, he did have a job to get back to.
He made his way back to the detective’s bullpen and over to his desk. And just as he sat down, his lieutenant dropped a file on his desk in front of him.
“What’s this?” he asked, picking up the file folder and then looking up at his supervisor.
“It’s your new case, since you just cleared two others,” Lieutenant Andre answered. “Plus, I figured you would want it.”
Levi frowned at him and opened up the file. Then his eyebrows shot up in surprise as he read over the particulars, and he looked at his lieutenant again.
“This just happened?”
“Owner just called it in not twenty minutes ago. Seems the store is closed on Mondays, and there are no motion sensors inside the place, so … no one noticed a thing until he went to open up this afternoon,” Andre said. “There should be some uniforms and an evidence tech down there already.”
Levi got to his feet without another word and grabbed his jacket, eager to see this crime scene.
About fifteen minutes later, he walked into the video rental store and looked around, taking it all in and making mental comparisons. There were two uniform cops already there, and one was speaking with the owner while the other was watching the evidence techs do their thing. Levi stepped further in and continued to look around, studying the place. The hole in the back wall was about two feet in diameter, and there was rubble and debris all around the floor where the perps had tunneled their way into the place, going right through the concrete wall. Just like the break-in at the pawn shop in Benton a couple of nights ago, and the one at Marina’s shop two months before.
The first thing that ran through Levi’s head was the fact that, just like at Marina’s dog bakery and at the pawn shop, the perps had chosen a place that the public ran through at a rate of hundreds per week, rendering fingerprinting virtually useless. It was part of the reason they had gotten nowhere after the incident at Marina’s shop. Aside from the debris itself, there simply hadn’t been much to go on, and the only thing they were able to determine is that the perps had tunneled into the building by using sledgehammers. Levi squinted his eyes as he wondered if the boys in Benton had determined the same thing. He was going to have to contact the Benton PD and see if they could compare notes.
“Detective!”
He looked up to see Jim Calvin, one of the uniformed officers waving him over, and Levi walked over to them.
“This is Mr. Jacobson,” Officer Calvin said. “He’s the owner of the store here, and he called in the robbery about an hour or so ago.”
“Hello. I’m Detective Levi Hawks,” he said, introducing himself to the store owner. “Can you tell me what was stolen from your store, sir?”
“You mean besides the cash in the registers?” the man said with a disgusted scowl on his face.
“How much cash did they get?” Levi asked.
“Somewhere in the neighborhood of four thousand dollars,” the man replied.
“Anything else?”
“Well, yeah. They made off with more than a hundred DVDs and games. They completely cleaned out the candy section over there. And did you see what they did to my wall?” the man asked, his voice raised in frustration.
“Yes, sir. I did. It’s a unique mode of entry, that’s for sure,” Levi told him. He wasn’t going to tell him that his wasn’t the first break in of this type in Eastwood. He was sure the rumors would get around soon enough, even though they had managed to keep the details of the sledgehammer entry out of the news.
He spoke with the store owner for a little while longer, taking notes and observing the evidence technicians as they worked. And he wasn’t surprised when they confirmed that the wall did indeed appear to have been tunneled through with sledgehammers, just like last time. And Levi had a sinking feeling in his gut that this crime spree was just getting started. To him it felt like these first few hits were just the preamble. Just little tests to work out the bugs in their system, and he wondered how long it would be before whoever was doing this moved on to bigger scores, like consumer loan places, or even banks. In his mind, it wasn’t a far stretch, and he only hoped that they could find whoever was behind this before that happened.
*
The table was piled high with DVDs and video games. And the candy. So much candy, and they sat around the table munching on Sugar Babies and Mike & Ikes as they talked. Mama was in the other room, and he could hear the TV blaring as she watched one of those romantic comedy chick flicks they had picked up.
“It’s a damn shame we can’t deal with the man directly,” he said, trying to drown out the music from the television. “Would you turn that shit down! I can’t hear myself think,” he yelled into the other room, addressing his mother.
“That’s alright. As long as we deal with it, it don’t make no difference who takes the hit,” his older brother said. “We can’t get to the man himself, we’ll dole out his punishment on his kin. Those are the rules where we come from. The code our family has always lived by.”
“And lucky for us there are so many of them fuckers out there to mess with,” his little brother laughed, and he couldn’t help but laugh with him.
“You think this is a joke?” his older brother said loudly, suddenly glaring at both of them. “Is this funny to you two? Just some kind of game? Our Daddy is dead! Laugh about that. Go ahead, I dare you!”
“I … I …” his little brother stammered.
“Well … we didn’t mean no disrespect …”
“We got a job to do,” their brother yelled, cutting him off as he continued to look them both in the eyes. “And a score to settle! And don’t you ever let me catch either one of you forgetting it! That bastard threw our Daddy in jail and then left him there to rot. Then he couldn’t get out of this town fast enough. But that don’t mean shit to me, ‘cause he’s still got people here … folks he cares about. And we are going to torture and destroy them, one at a time, until he is as miserable and alone as our father was!”
“Ya’ll listen to your big brother,” their mother said as she entered the kitchen. “He’s the head of this family now, and he’s doing just what your Daddy would’a wanted.”