Without a Net (20 page)

“Yep. She was a field agent for a lot of years, so she’ll put in a good word with psych and legal. They’ll still try to string me up by my balls.” Travis shrugged, and Ollie got the impression the departments hadn’t been fans even before this disaster. “We should talk about how we handle things between us. I promise I will keep my distance.” As if to prove his willingness to stay away, Travis backed up several steps.

“I wish you wouldn’t. Greyson will expect me to belong to someone, and I am more comfortable with you in that role.” Ollie understood Milan, but that didn’t mean he forgave the man. Milan had manipulated both of them and had subjected Ollie to a truth Ollie hadn’t been prepared for. And yes, Travis had driven that point home, because the sex with him had been the best of Ollie’s life. The desire for more still haunted Ollie, and he had never expected to feel that way about anything related to shade.

“If I’m playing your owner…” Travis grimaced as he let his words trail off. Ollie got it. Travis would have to use him…hurt him.

“You have to dominate me. I get it. I’m consenting right up front.”

“I’m not sure I can after what happened.”

Ollie took a deep breath. Backing off and agreeing would be easier, but the idea of someone else taking control scared the shit out of him. “The only other option is to allow Milan to dominate me, and I do have problems with that. You didn’t rape me, but in some ways, Milan did.”

Travis rubbed a hand over his face. “Christ, nothing like laying the guilt on thick.”

“Rape is taking away a person’s choice. He took most of my choices away, and while I could have used my hands to fight you or try to signal my feelings, I didn’t. I was getting good information by listening to your conversations, so I didn’t want to lose that source of information.” Ollie almost admitted his own attraction, but he wasn’t prepared to talk about that.

Travis froze, and then he lowered his hand enough to stare at Ollie incredulously. “Are you telling me that you allowed me to…” Travis waved a hand in the air. “You let me do that so you could get information for your case?” When Ollie didn’t answer, Travis sat on the chair behind him. “Hell, you have bigger balls than Milan.”

“He’s castrated, so I’m not sure that’s a compliment.”

“Oh, it is. Milan doesn’t need the balls between his legs. He’s got metaphorical ones that would choke a horse, but he lost his throne to you. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, were you seriously more focused on information than trying to stop me?”

Ollie shrugged.

“I’ve been out of the loop too long, because I had forgotten how absolutely terrifying shade subs could be. It’s like riding a roller coaster without a lap bar.”

Ollie wanted to deny that he was a shade sub, but he couldn’t forget how hard he’d gotten when Travis controlled him. Part of that had been Ollie’s need to find an ally after all the abuse. He knew that. But he had reacted. And worse, he still was reacting. Every time Travis turned on that dominant energy, Ollie felt the attraction. Now that he knew Travis was a good guy, Ollie couldn’t turn off his soul-deep desire.

He ached to get pinned to the bed and feel Travis’s hands holding him down without the fear lurking in the background. But he also respected the hell out of Travis. The man wasn’t hiding his culpability. He stood up and took responsibility, even when he had a damn good excuse for what he did.

“There is one small difficulty,” Ollie said. If he didn’t admit this next thing, it would create a problem later when he got hard during the op.

“Oh?”

“I’m going to embarrass myself if you’re dominating me.”

“Embarrass?” Travis stopped, and it was almost comical how the realization flashed across his face. His expression turned more sympathetic. “Detective, I’ve been dominating subs for a lot of years. Milan taught me how to manipulate people’s physical reactions like musical instruments. If I couldn’t get your body to react, I’d feel pretty useless. I’ll channel my inner ego and chalk it up to my awesomeness as a Dom, so don’t worry about me getting the wrong idea.” Travis gave huff of laughter that made it pretty clear he didn’t take himself too seriously.

Ollie didn’t say anything, but he was fairly sure Travis already had the wrong idea, because Ollie’s interest went beyond what Travis could do to his body. Ollie had regretted that Travis had a wife back before Travis had turned on his dominant energy or pinned Ollie to the bed. There was an honesty and a goodness to Travis that attracted Ollie, and now that Ollie knew the wife wasn’t a wife, he was finding excuses to avoid throwing himself at Travis. Hopefully his inappropriate feelings didn’t cause a problem with the operation. If the FBI’s psych department decided to pull Ollie out, he was going to find some psychologist and make him or her pay. Slowly. And painfully.

Chapter Seventeen

“That went better than I expected,” Travis said as he came out of the holograph room. Ollie had been sitting on the floor trying to rediscover some sort of comfort with wearing clothes, and he stood when Travis appeared.

“Are they giving the operation a green light?” Ollie had expected someone to point out that he was a cop and a damaged one at that. They didn’t let local cops in on FBI cases.

“After issuing the appropriate threats? Yep. They’re sending Darla down so we can brief her, and she’ll be the back-end support. We’ll have point.”

That shocked Ollie. “They aren’t complaining about having a local law-enforcement organization involved in a federal case?”

Travis grimaced. “I think they’re hoping that if we treat you well, you won’t sue or press charges.”

“I told your psych department—the only person I hold totally responsible is Captain Greyson. Any extra anger I harbor is directed right at Milan, who I still think is manipulative and possibly psychotic.”

There was a moment where it looked like Travis might say something, but he cleared his throat and appeared to emotionally shift into another gear. “I understand why you’re angry, because this was the most outrageous thing I’ve ever known Milan to do.”

Ollie could almost taste Travis’s desire to apologize again, but he kept his word and kept his guilt to himself. As much as Ollie appreciated the effort, he wished the undercurrent didn’t exist at all. Travis was the only person who didn’t carry blame here, and Ollie included himself in that assessment. Now that he knew the truth, he couldn’t stop thinking about all the ways he could have signaled his unwillingness to have sex. It wasn’t like his hands had been restrained. And that led to thoughts that he was being unreasonably harsh on himself, which led to worries that he was psychologically less than healthy, which brought him back to anger at Milan and Captain Greyson, and the whole cycle began again.

“What do we do now?” Ollie shifted his weight from one foot to another.

“I should talk to Milan about what he’s done. We have to figure out how to use this stupidity of his to our advantage.”

“Is that smart?”

“Milan has good intentions even if his arrogance leads him to make disastrous decisions. We’re safe.” Travis looked at Ollie and waited. Time dragged on, and Ollie wanted to crawl out of his own skin. He didn’t know what Travis wanted from him, and that was the most uncomfortable feeling in the world. He felt like a balloon that was stretching and stretching until the rubber started to fail and white streaks appeared in the color.

“Do you want to come?” Travis asked.

Ollie blew out a breath, and suddenly the world was back to normal. Travis was trying to give him space to ask for things for himself. That made sense. “Yeah. I would. Can I tell him what I think of him?” he asked. His guts tangled, and he got a strange weakness at the very thought.

“Yep,” Travis agreed. “You can even listen in while I give him another piece of my mind.”

“I don’t need defending.”

Travis started down the hall toward the main stairs. “I’m going to point out that he put me in a shitty position. Legal doesn’t exactly like me to begin with, but I think I broke our new lawyer. The man was literally speechless when he came on the line. I’ve never seen a lawyer lose all ability to form words. I thought he might stroke out right there on the hologram.”

“Will this hurt your career?” Ollie asked. Focusing on Travis was a lot easier than thinking about where his own career was going. Undercover work at a shade club had led to more grief than he could handle, so he wasn’t sure how he’d take it if any cop found out what he’d done. Even if he transferred to a clean department—homicide or cold cases—he would never escape this story. Every partner he had would hear the tale of his infamous work as a shade sub.

They were at the bottom of the stairs and in a great hall before Travis answered. “My career is solid. I’ve got a lot of awards to balance out the black marks on my record. I suspect my partner is going to request a new assignment two seconds after this mission is over, but we’ve been together for six months, so we’re up in the rotation pretty soon anyway. I don’t keep partners around for long.”

That surprised Ollie. Travis and Darla had played husband and wife so easily Ollie had thought they were a permanent partnership. Clearly not. He felt a weird flash of glee that not only was Darla not Travis’s wife, but she wasn’t even important enough for him to call her a real partner. Travis pushed open a set of double doors and walked into a formal sitting room. Milan sat on a couch with a paper spread over his lap and a sub kneeling at his side.

“There you are. I’ve ordered afternoon tea,” Milan announced.

“That’s how you’re going to play this?” Travis asked. He sat across from Milan.

Milan almost smiled. “I’m not sure how else you would like to handle this. Would you rather have coffee?” He studied Ollie. “Do take a seat, Detective. I promise not to bite.” He patted the seat next to him.

Ollie ignored the invitation and sat on an overstuffed chair between the two couches. Travis nodded at him, and Milan rolled his eyes.

“I assume tea is acceptable with you, Detective.”

“I’d rather have some honest conversation.”

“Well, I do like that—right to the point.” Milan folded his paper and tossed it at the coffee table. “Gary, go find Will and tell him I want you to work on kneeling.”

The sub stood. “Yes, Master,” he said, but he gave Milan a longing look before he padded out of the room, his bare feet silent on the hardwood floors.

“I still plan to arrest you and testify against you,” Travis warned.

“And I still plan to have my lawyers eviscerate you on the stand, and that’s assuming the case even gets that far. I do have friends in low places.” Milan waved a hand as if he could wave off the legal problems.

Ollie hated people who acted like they were above the law, and that aggravation made him want to call Milan a dozen different names.

“Let’s get this plan going,” Travis said. “If you believed your organization under attack, you’d call in your big guns.”

Milan studied Travis for a moment before answering. “Which I assume includes you.”

“Hell, yes. I’m a fed, so my badge will trump most cops’. So, let’s keep the story as close to the truth as possible. You called me in after you identified Robertson as an undercover cop and realized you had too much trouble to handle.”

“So my contribution is that I knew to call you?” Milan leaned back. “That makes me appear rather ineffectual.”

“Christ, you don’t have to prove yourself. You’re the big boss. The organization is designed to protect the guy at the top. I figure you would send me after Huda’s crew, so when I harass them, Greyson will come out of the woodwork confronting me with the evidence about you kidnapping Robertson. I can get him on record saying he knew about the kidnapping.”

“Wait, doesn’t that leave you working alone in the city?” Ollie asked.

“I’ll have plenty of backup,” Travis said easily.

“And no one with you. You said you didn’t want Darla on the front lines, and I don’t see a role for me if you’re in the city putting the pressure on them.” Ollie looked toward Milan, trying to judge whether some support would be forthcoming from that corner.

“Personally, I am more concerned about your willingness to present me as a weak and ineffectual leader who makes mistakes like kidnapping a police detective.”

“Your ego isn’t in play here.” The muscle on the side of Travis’s jaw was bulging.

“No, but I have run this organization for decades. I have a reputation for bringing the most recalcitrant of submissives to heel and training the most hardheaded of Doms.” Milan gave Travis a cold stare when he made the last comment. “And yet you want them to believe that overnight I went from a competent, dangerous man to an idiot. That’s not logical.”

“These guys aren’t exactly a brain trust,” Travis countered.

“No, he’s right,” Ollie said. “That doesn’t sound logical, and Greyson is playing this pretty damn smart.”

“He is,” Milan agreed. Ollie couldn’t help feeling a little discomfort at the idea of being on the same side as Milan.

“So what would you suggest?” Travis asked.

Milan’s smile turned lethal, and a shiver went up Ollie’s spine. “I suggest,” Milan said in a soft and deadly cold voice, “that we tell them that I intentionally took their detective. If they attempted to play games, I would steal the pieces. I will then promise to take the next police officer who targets me and do the same. I will threaten to kidnap Greyson himself and put him through training that will break his spirit and leave him crawling on the floor. That will keep them focused on me.”

Travis sucked in a quick breath that was impossibly loud in the quiet room. “You want to use yourself as bait?”

“I am the distraction, not the bait,” Milan corrected him.

Travis was already shaking his head. “No. You’re the one who said these guys are smart. They’d never believe you were stupid enough to take a cop.”

“I had identified his backup, neutralized his surveillance. Taking Sunshine was easy. None of that requires stupidity—it requires arrogance. And in case you have forgotten, I have arrogance enough for any ten men. They will believe it after meeting me.”

“They’ll believe you kidnapped a cop? Just to prove a point?”