THE FIRST SIN (24 page)

“She needs a good fucking after that, but one will be enough.”

“Leave your pants on,” Cabot said, apparently to Donovan. “It will cause the slave more pain and make for increased punishment as the roughness of your clothing rubs against her wounds.”

“She definitely deserves that after being so disobedient,” Donovan said, with what sounded to me like a forced chuckle.

“When you are finished, bring her to Moose and Duke,” Cabot said.

I was going to throw up.

Strong laughed or made some kind of asinine comment before the door slammed shut.

Silence.

Donovan’s big arms were suddenly around me, and then I was standing, holding onto him. “Signal-jammers on,” he whispered.

“I hate this job sometimes.” My voice came out cracked as I spoke against his shirt.

He kissed the top of my head. “I’m so goddamned sorry, Lexi. I wanted to beat the shit out of every one of them. You don’t know how hard it was not to.”

‘Tell me about it.” I gave a harsh laugh. “I was fantasizing about feeding chunks of Cabot to the sharks. Well, the blender, actually.”

Instead of laughing, Donovan sighed and held me tighter.

“What do we do now?”

I leaned fully into him. I really needed the warmth and comfort of him right then. Not only was the pain worse than when I’d been whipped, but my legs wobbled so much I could barely stand.

“We do what we have to.” I sighed. “We pretend you’re taking me like he told you to, and I scream.” Donovan sighed.

Then I scowled. “I know where his office is, and I’m going to get what we came here for.”

April l3

Saturday late night

I’d thought the whipping was painful, but the caning made the whipping seem like a few light caresses in comparison. Same plan as last week. After the pretend sex, with me screaming my head off, Donovan went to find Cabot to keep him occupied. I’d hurry upstairs, pick the office lock, and download every bit of information on Cabot’s hard drive. The outfit I had on now—I couldn’t believe I was actually leaving the room with this on. The dungeon room’s closet was filled with the raunchiest clothing—if you could call it clothing—that I’d ever seen. What I’d picked out was the best—and it sure wasn’t much.

Several thin strips of leather made up the “bra.” The strips spread in an array from round pieces of leather that barely covered my nipples. More strips crisscrossed above the array. Pasties would probably have covered more than the spots of leather over my nipples.

The matching thong had the same kind of strips of leather at the top, then crisscrossed so low it barely, barely covered the important parts below.

And this was the best I could do?

Better than the bras that circled the breasts and let them all hang out. I put my stilettos on to add to the look. I hadn’t seen anyone barefoot in this place.

If I walked out dressed in my evening clothes, someone was bound to notice.

Blending in was on the menu.

I just hoped some Dom wouldn’t ignore protocol and try to put me on his menu like these other men had. Before I left the room, I removed my collar and hurried to take out a pinpoint of an injection needle to knock out the guard at the top of the stairs.

Martinez was damned useful when it came to coming up with the coolest stuff.

Hiding the thing was almost impossible. There was barely enough material to my thong, just below my mound, to arrange it along the edge. Jeez, I hoped it didn’t slip so that I ended up knocking myself out.

Every movement I made while dressing, then walking, was so painful my eyes stung. Once I put it back on, my collar seemed to choke me as I walked out of the room. Suddenly my stilettos weren’t as easy to walk in, as I winced with every step.

I’d thought it before and I could imagine myself doing it repeatedly—if I had the chance to shove that cane up Cabot’s ass, I’d ram it through his guts and into his throat. When I got close to the dance floor with all the slaves humping poles, two men urged me to get on stage. But I showed them my cane marks, and told them my Sire was waiting and would cane me again if I didn’t hurry to the ladies’ room and get back to him as soon as I could. The Doms checked out my backside, where the huge blood-streaked welts were, and shook their heads when they saw what Cabot had done to me.

“You’re ruined for tonight, babe.” one of the guys said I ground my teeth and kept my gaze lowered. The way air touched my breasts, waist, pelvis, and backside, I felt like I was wearing nothing but the stilettos and collar. Might as well have been naked, but at least it was something. I suppose.

It seemed like a journey and a half before I reached the sweeping marble staircase that so did not go with this sex pit.

With a casual look beneath my lashes it didn’t seem likeanyone noticed me by the stairs. I started up, hoping with each step no one would stop me. I was mostly silent, but the pounding music covered up any noise until I reached the halfway point that was the crossover area from one version of hell to another. On my way up I pressed the stud for the signal-jammers.

Relief caused the tenseness in my chest to relax for a moment when I reached the top and I smiled when the bald bouncer/guard came up to me, arms crossed and a mean look on his badass face.

My smile was sweet and oh-so-innocent as I moved close to him. “I’m trying to find the ladies’ room.” I brushed my fingers over my breasts and down to my thong. “This outfit is chafing me. I think I have it on wrong.” His gaze followed my movements, and even though his expression didn’t change, the bulge in his pants sure did. “Maybe you can help me,” I said as I got him to look at my face while I slipped the minuscule injection needle from my thong.

I leaned close to him. “I mean, with this outfit.” His scowl turned into a grin as I took one of his hands and placed it on my breast. “Right here is where I need help.” At the same time I jabbed the tiny syringe into his thigh. He blinked. Confusion clouded his features and his hand dropped away from my breast. I ran my finger down the middle of his chest straight to his cock, which I cupped and squeezed. “You’re going to stay right here and do your job. You never saw me and never will. I’m invisible to you,” I whispered near his ear.

He looked around and frowned, like he didn’t know where my voice had come from.

I allowed myself a little smile of victory as I stuffed the syringe into his pocket. He could wonder where it came from later, and no one would be able to break down the elements that made up the potion. In fifteen minutes it would turn to water.

Our medical lab, and Martinez, were brilliant. Chopin flowed from the invisible speakers as I glanced at my surroundings. The three cameras had to be scrambled by the signal-jammers. Now to get into Cabot’s office.

Damn, his lock was tough. I kept feeling like something was crawling up my spine as I struggled with unlocking it. The tumblers finally clicked. There.

Not so bad. The signal-jammers had taken care of any kind of alarm RED

had encountered in the past. I was safe. After I locked the door behind me I took a quick look around like I had in Strong’s office. At least there were a couple of doors in here, probably leading to a closet and a storage area, where I could hide if I heard a key in the lock. No time to worry about that now.

I unhooked my collar and pulled out the copying device, and hurried to slip the connection into the computer’s port. The end of the device blinked. It was downloading.

Hurry, hurry, hurry.

A feeling like centipedes crawling over my skin had me straightening.

Not good.

Something wasn’t right.

It felt like the centipedes now tickled the back of my neck and crawled into my hair and over my scalp. Call it cop-sense or whatever, but I had no doubts at all.

I was being watched.

No. Oh, no.

The cameras in the room looked functional and were aimed at me. What about the signal-jammers? One of the two doors burst open, and three men armed with AK-47s rushed through.

AK-47s? What the—

And they had their weapons trained on me.

Three on one.

My heart raced and adrenaline made my skin vibrate. “Uh, hi?” I said as I fumbled with the collar that I was still holding. “I’m just looking for Master Cabot.”

Like reading Braille, my fingers were moving over the collar as I spoke. I had to find and press the button to call in RED, because in that moment I knew there would be no way to get my butt out of this mess. Was it this stud? No, that was the camera. Damnit, why didn’t I pay better attention? Talk about sex with Donovan scrambling my brains.

How about—

“Don’t move, lady,” one of the men growled. I caught my breath and stilled as three more men burst into Cabot’s office from the foyer.

I was so screwed.

There were half a dozen men pointing their handguns and rifles at me.

Then Cabot walked past the men who had come through the door of his office.

Deadly. The only thing that could be said about his expression.

The centipedes I’d felt earlier now scrambled up my throat. From behind Cabot, Donovan was shoved into the room, three weapons aimed at his head.

Donovan’s expression was total fury. His hands were cuffed behind his back.

Oh, yeah. We were good and screwed.

Ice in Cabot’s eyes sent a chill straight through me. His cold voice stabbed my chest like icicles.

“Come here, slave Alexi.” Cabot’s stare was so intense, and the cold that encased me so frigid, that I wanted to rub my arms. “Come to me. Now.”

I stayed behind the desk, pushing every damned stud on the collar while I stared at him. I could swear it was the one to the right—

“I tire of waiting.” Cabot glanced at one of the men, who had a vicious smile on his face. A smile that made me shudder. “Get her, Danny,” Cabot said to the man. Two steps and the man had the barrel of his Beretta pressed against my temple.

Steady, Steele. Steady. I swallowed. Nothing was ever hopeless. Breathe.

“You know I don’t actually plan to kill you, slave Alexi.” Cabot gave a smile reserved for his clients. “I have a much better use for you in mind.”

Funny how my hands remained steady as I clenched the collar, despite the fact that six guns pinned me down. Peel the stud off, idiot. I popped off the stud.

Donovan looked like he was going to come unglued, even though he had three handguns pressed to the back of his head and he was cuffed.

“Do not screw with me.” Cabot held his hands loosely at his sides. He made a quick scan of the room, meeting the eyes of every man pointing a gun at me.

“Don’t shoot her. I’ll deal with this bitch.”

The man with the vicious smile grabbed my arm and jerked me from behind the desk. I stumbled sideways in my heels and dropped the collar.

When I wasn’t behind the desk any more, Cabot studied me as I took step after step toward him in my stiletto heels. I didn’t wobble. I didn’t tremble as I reached Cabot, maybe a foot in front of him.

“The moment you picked that lock, I was notified.” He smirked. “Your scramblers didn’t work on all of my equipment. Oh, yes, we have the technology to recognize signal scramblers. We have technology you’d never dream of.” Yeah, whatever.

One of his hands flexed. He was getting ready to punch me and I could tell he was looking forward to it. But he kept his voice steady. “No doubt you managed to obtain the information about the merchandise shipment on Thursday. You cost me tens of thousands of dollars.”

“A little slow on the uptake, Cabot?” I was inches from him now and gave him a smirk.

Cabot’s face flushed red as he drove his fist toward me. My moves were smooth and automatic from my twentythree years of jujitsu training.

One twist of his arm, one sweep of my foot, and he was on his back. His head hit the carpeted floor with a loud thump. He shouted and started to get up. I jabbed my high heel straight at his throat.

The SOB was faster than I expected, and my heel hit his collarbone instead.

Cabot grabbed my opposite ankle. I lost my footing and he jerked me off my feet.

My teeth clinked as I hit the floor. I automatically rolled to the side. Where he had caned me stung like crazy, and it only pissed me off more.

Cabot lunged for me and grasped my neck. He gave a shout that was almost a scream as I shot my knee up, barely missing his groin but hitting the inside of his thigh. I twisted and flipped him over my head. I was on my back and started to roll to my feet when I heard several sharp clicks close enough that my skin crawled. I went still and raised my eyes. Six guns were trained on me.

Again.

My heart raced as I looked up into the calm faces of men who had no compunctions about killing.

Like me.

The sudden burn and flash of pain caught me off guard as I was yanked to my feet by my hair. Cabot swung me around to face him.

Pain burst in my head as he slammed his fist into the side of my skull. Skin split and blood started dripping down my face.

I tried to defend myself, to fight back, but two men grabbed my arms and kept me in place as Cabot attacked me. A kick to my belly.

Another powerful kick. This one into my solar plexus. Black spots moved in and out as I choked and went limp while the men held me from behind.

The ringing in my ears made it hard to hear, but I caught the words, “Release her,” from Cabot.

As soon as the men let go, my knees gave out and I dropped to the floor.

My sight blurred and my muscles fought me as I tried to get up.

You’ve been through worse, Lexi. Get up. I started to push myself up just enough to lunge for his ankles.

Cabot’s face was bloody, bruised from what I’d done to him. Red stains streaked his beige Armani suit. He knelt, grasped me by my throat, and dug his fingers in. “Who. Do. You. Work. For?”

I struggled to take a breath. “Fuck. You.” Vaguely I was aware of Donovan fighting, even with his hands cuffed. Blood was in my eyes from the cut at the side of my head, and I could barely see. My muscles wouldn’t cooperate enough for me to struggle against the two men pressing my shoulders to the floor.