Lexi Blake - Dungeon Royale

His blood chilled. He looked to Ian. He’s here, Damon mouthed. He let his eyes find Penelope.

Tag nodded shortly and proved how much he’d changed, how much he understood exactly what Damon was feeling. Most agents would have immediately started looking for Baz, but Ian strode to Penelope, taking her hand and speaking quietly to her. Within seconds, Tag had all of the Cash siblings under cover.

“No, you don’t care about her at all.” Baz’s voice was a silky evil over the line.

Where was the blighter? Damon looked around him. He could be anywhere, likely in one of the buildings surrounding them. “Why don’t you come down here and talk to me? This doesn’t have to be bad between us. Taggart is gone. Just you and me. We’ll talk this out.”

A low chuckle filled his ear. “Talk is all you ever wanted to do. Offer me something better, Damon.”

“We’ll go somewhere private.” He would promise the bastard just about anything to get in the same small space with him. He needed to get him somewhere he couldn’t run from. He needed to even the odds. “We’re close to any number of hotels. Meet me at one.”

“If only I thought you were serious, but I’m not a fool. Enjoy your whore tonight. I’ll be thinking of you. I’ve got to get out of here. I had to kill someone to get a good seat to this show. God, I hate the elderly. But then I pretended it was your girl when I was strangling her to death. Good night, Damon.”

The line went dead, and Damon cursed. He looked around but there was no way to know which building Baz was playing his murderous games in. He hated this feeling. Weak. Stupid. Vulnerable.

There was nothing to do except plan for their next meeting when Baz would again have the upper hand.

He strode to the car. There wasn’t anything he could do here either. Penelope’s home was gone, and he had next to nothing to offer her.

“Damon?” She got out of the car and rushed to him, throwing her arms around him.

He pushed her back. “Get in the car.”

“He’s here, isn’t he?” She didn’t fight him, simply got back into the car that Tag had already turned on, ready to get them all away from here.

Damon knew he should get in the front seat, but she moved over and put her hand out, willing him to come to her. There were tears in her eyes.

Now would be the perfect moment to show her how cold he was, to prove he didn’t really give a damn about her. That he had nothing to offer her. He was cold and dead inside.

Except he wasn’t when it came to her. She’d lost her home and he did have something to give her. He got into the backseat, gathering her close. “Go ahead and cry, love. It’s all right now.”

She wept into his shoulder, moving so she was in his lap as if she couldn’t stand to be even that far from him.

His arms tightened, and he realized Baz might be right. She just might be the death of him.

Penny looked out over the dungeon and was deeply thankful that she seemed to have found her sea legs. The entire ballroom had been transformed into a massive play area. There were St. Andrew’s Crosses along the walls, areas with spanking benches, and a couple of spots for master riggers to help with suspension play. Several subs had been intricately tied up in Shibari designs and placed on display in the bar area.

A couple of big dungeon monitors stood by the lifts and stairs. The rules were very plain. No intoxicated play. Jake Dean stood by the lifts. Apparently he’d been pressed into security duty. He looked big and slightly mean despite the fact that he was wearing a sunny yellow polo shirt and khaki pants. He’d already tossed two men out, his eyes lit with a certain glee. The rules of the dungeon and play spaces below had been explained in the meet and greet. Two drinks allowed in the bars inside the dungeon. Anyone attempting to get around it would be escorted to the non-play area of the ship.

“Are you all right, darling?” Damon eased up behind her, his hands finding her hips and sliding around her waist. He put his head close to hers, his mouth against her ear. “If you’re sick, this is over.”

She had to fight the urge to groan and roll her eyes. Her Dom was the touchiest thing. Over the last forty-eight hours, he’d found roughly four hundred reasons to end the op. First, he’d worried about her mental state after the fire. He’d held her the whole night, but in the morning claimed she wasn’t rested enough and they would have to cancel. She’d simply hauled her bags down to the car and then gotten her bum spanked for carrying her own luggage.

Then he’d claimed they’d lost her papers. She’d easily found them in his laptop bag.

As the boat had rolled out of Dover, past the glorious white cliffs and pebbled beaches, she’d discovered that being on a massive floating ship didn’t particularly agree with her stomach. At the first sign of nausea, she could have sworn she’d seen Damon jump up and down with joy.

Luckily Charlotte had gotten her some Dramamine, and she’d been perfectly fit for the meet and greet.

“I’m fine, Master.” She put her hands over his. He really was a foolish man. But he seemed to be right about a few things. They didn’t work together well since Damon seemed to find it impossible to think about anything except ways to get her off the boat. “What did you find out about the couple below us?”

Though they’d checked the room for bugs twice already, Damon preferred to whisper in crowded rooms, somehow thinking Baz was everywhere at once. They’d spent the day checking out the ten names Chelsea and Adam had targeted as their best bets to meet Walter Bennett. Six had connections to known Collective companies—although Damon insisted there were likely many more they didn’t know about. One was a reporter who had written a lengthy magazine article about Nature’s Core. Two had recently been in places that hosted Nature’s Core rallies.

And one Chelsea had just said was obviously something called a skank-ho and was likely a criminal who should be shoved off the boat. Chelsea had offered to do it herself. Penny discounted contestant number ten because she’d seen her put her hand on Simon’s ass as he instructed her on how to do the rumba. Chelsea had a bit of a vindictive streak.

She’d read everything she could on Bennett, had tried to memorize his face, but he could have undergone plastic surgery. She looked over the crowd, wondering which of these men were waiting to take Bennett’s place.

Damon’s hand traced her curves and ran back up to her breasts that seemed barely encased in a too-tight corset. His words whispered against her ear. “I discovered that Tiffani Hall enjoys large anal plugs and apparently likes very much to play the pony to her Master’s rider. There was absolutely nothing there past sex toys and an inordinate amount of cherry flavored lube. I stole a tube. She won’t miss it. Do you like cherry? God knows I do. You still have one, you know. I’m going to take that cherry. You’re almost ready for me.”

His hand ran down to her backside, cupping her cheek and reminding her that he’d been prepping her for that bit of play. Anal sex. He seemed a bit obsessed with it.

“That sounds like fun, Master. Can you be serious for a minute?”

“I am serious. I’m seriously thinking about fucking your tight arse. I’m trying not to be serious about the rest of it because it’s likely to end in violent death. Both of ours, most probably. So I would like to spend my last days with my cock in your arse.”

He was making her insane. He’d taken the tactic of shutting her out of the professional part of their relationship. She’d returned from a class he’d sent her to only to discover the entire crew had gotten together to discuss logistics without her. When she’d confronted him about it, he’d just kissed her and tossed her on the bed and explained that it had been “organic,” and then she hadn’t been able to think about anything but the way he was devouring her pussy.

“Damon, please, you can’t shut me out of this.”

“I’m not shutting you out.” He licked the shell of her ear. “This is your job, love. You’re here to give me cover. That’s all. We could break up, you know. You could stomp off and throw that collar you’re wearing in my face and everyone would believe it. The way you frown at me all the time has given me a bad reputation. Charlotte heard someone talking about the sweet-faced sub and her mean Master. I’m the mean Master.”

“I’m not taking off my collar, Damon.”

“Then you have to put up with this.” He gripped her hips, rubbing his erection against her bum.

Yes, she’d rapidly learned that being Master Damon’s submissive meant taking Master Damon’s cock at least three times a day. The man was utterly insatiable, and he didn’t seem to care that they might not be alone when he got it in his head to have her. On the long drive from London to Dover, he’d hiked up her skirt and screwed her in the backseat while the Taggarts argued about whether or not they should bring someone named Phoebe back a Harry Potter souvenir.

“Who are our targets?” There was no point in arguing with him. At least he’d shoved aside the arctic treatment she’d gotten before. She preferred perpetually horny, pessimistic Damon to the cold, distant Dom.

“I told you. I’m targeting that pretty hole of yours.”

“Damon, please.”

He smacked her left cheek hard, his brows furrowing. “What did you say?”

There were certain things he insisted on. He would let her get away with a lot, but he had his own protocol. “Master.”

“Better.” He sighed and drew her back into his arms. “You’re turning into a workaholic.”

“How can I since you never let me work?”

“Fine.” He swept her hair aside and went back to nibbling on her ear. “Do you see the girl in the black corset?”

“Seriously?” That described almost everyone.

“The one with dark hair and the blue stiletto boots that she can’t bloody well walk in.”

Ah, yes. She’d noted the woman as well. She seemed a bit out of place. “The reporter, right?”

“Yes.” He let his hands delve into her corset, pulling on her breasts so he could play with her nipples. “The Dom is her boyfriend. He hasn’t got a clue. If that bastard’s ever wielded a flogger, I’ll eat my own shorts.”

“You don’t wear shorts.”

He chuckled a little. “That’s because I want to be able to fuck you at any given moment, love.” He sighed. “Fine. You seemed determined to take something fun and make it into a drudgery.”

How had he ever gotten his double 0 status? “We do have a job to do. What’s the Dom’s name again?”

“Robert Tilman. Chelsea can’t find a connection with anyone in The Collective or Nature’s Core for him. As far as we can tell, they’ve been living together for over a year. They fight a lot if their e-mail and text conversations are any indication. They’ve only just joined a club in London. The Cave. It’s a touristy piece of shite. I wouldn’t even call it a starter club.”

She stared at Robert for a moment and had to admit, Damon was right. He looked uncomfortable. Most of the couples around them seemed deeply at ease with their roles, while Robert and his sub kept switching positions and trying to find where they should be. The reporter, whose name was Candice Jones, kept tugging at her knickers, which were oddly conservative given that many of the subs were naked.

As she stood and watched with Damon, Candice reached up and tugged on her Dom’s hand, pulling him down and frowning his way.

If she did that to Damon in a dungeon, he would put her over his knee before she could take another breath, but Robert just shook his head at whatever she was saying. She’d seen the expression on Robert’s face a million times. It was the same slightly constipated look that her sister’s husband had when he was trying to please her and couldn’t figure out how.

It was not an expression she would expect to see on a Dom.

“They’re pretending.”

“Very good, love.” His fingers twisted her nipples to that sweet spot just before pain, the exact amount of pressure it took to get her pussy nice and wet, and her blood flowing through her veins with a pulsing rhythm. She was rapidly becoming addicted to Damon’s brand of dominance. It was a sweet combination of discipline and indulgence.

What would she do if he followed through with his threats to give her up at the end of their operation? She’d become suspicious that his constant desire had something to do with having her as many times as he could before he let her go.