Chapter One

Paul opened his eyes to a sore neck, a dull headache, and a vision he had dreamed about for years. Ma’ra stood over him, her black merc gear bulging in all the right female places.

Her shoulder-length red hair was released from bondage, allowed to curl free in its natural windblown look. Her large bust was almost within range of his mouth and tongue. The front of her shirt gaped, allowing a tantalizing glimpse of the heaven that awaited him.

Paul cast his eyes down, reluctantly, away from the healthy show of cleavage. Seated as she was, he couldn’t see her ass, and he felt a keen disappointment. The imitation leather pants cupped her cheeks in a way that had every man pant and want to grab the flesh encased in her uniform.

Paul recalled the first day her younger cousin, Elise, had introduced them. Paul had known Elise had a childish crush on him. Even at twenty-three Elise was more girl than woman. He had been humoring the kid, not wanting to upset or offend her by being vocal in his non-sexual interest in her.

Aside from his desire to not upset her, his work often brought him into contact with Elise, a legal transcriptionist. Until he had been introduced to Ma’ra, there seemed no point in being rude to the girl or more firm than necessary.
Yet the instant he had seen Ma’ra he had wanted to bed her.

Badly.

With Elise hovering over them, laughing and chatting, he had never had a chance. Elise with her clingy, adoring looks had obviously staked a claim—no matter how false—and Ma’ra had set off for parts mostly unknown quickly afterwards.

Which left him with his erotic thoughts, his cheap escorts, and law enforcement partners.

And his dreams.

His highly erotic, XXX-rated dreams.

Frowning, feeling a pang as Ma’ra sat down next to him on the bed, Paul tried to get his wits in order. Not only shouldn’t Ma’ra be here on the bed with him, but he was supposed to be on assignment.

Assignment!

The word reverberated around his skull, causing the dull ache to recede and the memory of the pub, the sting, the undercover assignment he had been cultivating for over the last six months all came clearly rushing back into focus.

Damnation!

Squinting, wanting to focus his groggy attention, he remembered how tonight was supposed to be the start of the end. For months he and the Force had been carefully laying the groundwork, faking his court-martialing for corruption, his lavish lifestyle and his integration into the seedy underworld. For more than six months he had been living a constant lie, determined to get every thought away from Ma’ra and bury himself in his work.

He had been doing splendidly until tonight. Tonight the plan had been for him to be contacted outside the bar by the network he wanted to infiltrate. Instead, he had been dumbfounded to have Ma’ra stick a tazer in his neck.

He had been astonished to see her on that dilapidated street, creeping up behind him. He hadn’t been as inebriated as he had been acting. Most of the alcohol had been slipped down his sleeve in the old sleight-of-hand maneuver he had perfected, but also he had taken a shot to dull the effect of the small amount of liquor he had to consume. He might smell drunk and appear drunk, but his head had been perfectly clear.
He had been so stunned by Ma’ra’s surprise appearance he hadn’t hesitated to enter her cruiser. He hadn’t wanted to draw attention to himself, but more, he hadn’t wanted to draw unneeded attention to Ma’ra.

Sitting upright, he gasped as his hands clanged against the metal frame of the bed.

“What the hell!” he exclaimed, completely astounded to see a pair of manacles surrounding his wrists.

Pulling at them, unbelieving, he turned back to the redhaired witch on his bed. Looking about the room, he realized it wasn’t his bed, this wasn’t even his quarters!

“Where the hell am I and what do you think you’re doing?”

He gazed at Ma’ra as she stood, brushing imaginary lint from her imitation leather pants.

“I brought you here to get a few answers.”

Paul raised an eyebrow and lay back in the bed. No way was Ma’ra going to get a rise out of him.

“You been reading my diary, Ma’ra? You must have skimmed the best and kinkiest parts. It’s supposed to be you chained to the bed, not me. Word activated, I assume?”
Paul grinned. The flush creeping over Ma’ra’s features, the flush of what he knew to be part embarrassment, but also part arousal, made him hot.

When she nodded, he knew it was in response to his latter question, not the former baiting.

“I’m not here to fulfill your kinky fantasies, Paul. I’m here to get Elise’s money back. She informed me on my return how low you’ve sunk. How you’ve been court- martialed for corruption, how you stole all her credits and have been living the high life. And no, I didn’t instantly believe her, but she showed me the press releases and her e-bank statements. One massive withdrawal of all her funds. So I’ll leave you to think about how to explain all that to me, and when I come back you’d better be ready to return her money, or you’ll regret it.”

Paul raised his eyebrow in the mocking manner he knew steamed her.

“Going to torture me, darling?”

“If I need to. “ She replied smartly enough to make him laugh. “You’re the one who brought up sexual fantasies. I bet you never thought you’d be the one losing control. I’ll make you beg for release, until you’ll be ready to give me anything, let alone returning the credits you stole from Elise.”

Her throaty, husky promise to make him beg made his laugh die in his throat. That was the voice he’d dreamed of, fantasized about, jerked off to more times than he could count.

Before he could think of a witty reply, a fantastic come-back, she turned, swung her luscious ass, and walked out of the room.

Paul sat back and breathed deeply. Closing his eyes, he thought of the small tidbits of information Elise had let drop now and then about her older cousin. Ma’ra had turned thirty earlier in the year, the perfect age for his own thirty-six years. Mentally filtering through all his information, he remembered Elise mentioning how Ma’ra often kept the same three or four passwords.

“Oh, she never had the best of memories, keeps the same couple and just rotates through them. That way she always can guess what her password is, even if she can’t remember it.”

Twisting his head so his voice would carry the word clearly to the manacles, he tried his hardest to remember the three words Elise had listed off to him.

“Shakespeare,” he said clearly, waiting.

Nothing happened. Paul frowned, disgruntled. The famous playwright, a favorite read they both shared, was the one that came to mind the easiest. They both had a weakness for the tragedies the man had written many centuries ago. He frowned again, racking his brain. Suddenly he remembered something both Elise and Ma’ra had told him back on their first meeting.

“Pathetic but true,” she had smiled as she said to him. “My first lover bought violets for me on one of our initial dates. I’ve had a weakness for them ever since.”

“Violets” he said clearly, his voice ringing with his conviction.

The manacles shuddered and opened, releasing his arms.

Paul sat up in the bed, feeling more comfortable than he had in ages. Picking up the heavy metal cuffs, he held them in his hands, testing their weight. Ma’ra would never believe he would work them off, let alone turn the tables on her.

The surprise he could envision on her face, quickly followed by the mental image of him snapping the manacles over her wrists and binding her to the bed, had his erection lengthening like never before. Ma’ra manacled to the bed. Completely at his mercy. Open to his every desire and fantasy.

Paul shifted as his pants became way too tight.

Even the thought that he had unknowingly warned her of what would now be coming had him growing harder. He had told her how he had fantasized about their positions being reversed, fantasized about it on more than one occasion.

The heat simmering in his blood at finally being able to bring this particular fantasy to life had him groaning at the pressure now building in his cock.

Smiling his joy, he crawled off the bed. He needed to think of something else or he would come in his pants before Ma’ra returned. Standing, stretching his legs, he brought the cuffs near his mouth.

He needed to change the lock word—a simple enough task—and hopefully good enough to get his mind out of his pants and return some of his blood back into his brain and away from his erection.

The cuffs were standard issue. Many mercs, and everyone on the Force, knew how to use them.

Paul grinned. He could cuff her and have his wicked way with her, let his fantasies come true. She had called him kinky? She had no idea just how kinky he could be.
But what to change the lock word to?

Paul wrinkled his brow in thought. Something she would never think to say, some word he could pleasure her through and never have either of them cry out.

His face lightened, his smile came back. He had the perfect word.

“Lock word change to…” he started in a clear voice, certain of what he was doing.
In the empty bedroom, he stated the one four-letter word he felt certain neither of them would utter.

That done, he dropped the manacles onto the bed. Paul turned around and began to search the room. He wanted to be fully prepared when she came back, not only to manacle her to the sturdy bed, but also to start his “kinky” fantasies.