Page 138 of At Her Pleasure
“Eh, you don’t need more pussy anyway. It’s obvious you’re fucking her.” Hector grinned. “Or rather, she’s fucking you.”
Mick shrugged. “She likes her pleasures, and has no interest in anything beyond that. Once she’s done, honest-to-God, she tells me to shut the fuck up, bring her a drink and leave her alone. No cuddling, no clingy emotions.”
“Women. Heaven and hell.” Hector sent Cyn’s ass a speculative look. “I should offer up my services.”
“Good luck. She fucks me when we have time to kill. She says I’m better than her vibrator, but she prefers higher class cock when she’s at home.”
They’d reached the warehouse door. As they entered, the smell of cleaning products touched Mick’s nose. They would have hosed everyone down and made them presentable for the buyer. He’d seen it all before, but Cyn hadn’t.
She was one of the toughest women he’d met, but he knew other things about her. Hang in there, baby. Be Kat Greenwood. Don’t be Cynbad Marigold.
Afterwards, he’d let her rage, take it out on his flesh. Or throw up and he’d help her scrub this filth off of her. Whatever she needed.
Then he’d be out of her life.
She’d said she wanted him to come back to her whenever he could, but after seeing this, would she feel the same? Could he come to her, knowing she’d seen it? The invitation and promise were there, but he couldn’t wash off that stain. Not as long as he needed the camouflage it provided.
He could tell himself he’d come to her years down the road, when he couldn’t do this anymore. But that day would never come.
The day they killed him was the day he’d stop.
Inside the warehouse were conveyors and big dumpsters, offices and other trappings to maintain appearances. Hector went behind one of the dumpsters and opened a door marked Supply Closet. Inside, it looked like one, shelves stocked with toilet paper, office supplies, and small machine parts. Tubs of peppermint candy.
At the rear was a bolted door. Mick assumed the shelf next to it could be pushed in place to cover it. Using a ring of keys hung on the wall, Hector opened the door.
The back of the warehouse was a false wall. Someone observant might note the difference in outer and inner dimensions, but since they put effort into the scrap metal business cover and didn’t exactly get drop-in business, it was more likely to be overlooked.
The space held a handful of cells. Men were separated from older women, and attractive young women and teenagers of both sexes were separated from the rest. That group huddled in the back of their cells, taking advantage of what little shadows were there, because they’d been stripped naked, probably right before this meeting. Their hair had been brushed, but the girls wore no makeup. Their value had to be confirmed without concealment.
“Get up and present yourselves,” Hector commanded in Spanish. Two of the armed men had accompanied him here, and they fanned out to either side of him, reinforcement of the order.
It didn’t seem needed. The young women and teenagers scrambled to obey even faster than the rest, lining up in three rows, the middle one two steps off center from the front and back rows, so no one was hidden. Backs straight, hands at their sides, eyes down.
It mocked the true joy of a submissive, presenting themselves for a loving Dominant. Kat—because he knew it was better to think of her as that person right now—took in the sight, her face a blank wall. Mick was ready to say something to nudge her into action, but before he could, she paced closer to the cell holding the sex trade candidates. Her green eyes marked each teenager or young woman, noting their attributes, the way they stood.
“All of you. Eyes up. On me. Let me see what’s going on in those pretty heads.”
Most complied, though some seemed to struggle with it. At least one girl’s eyes burned with hatred.
“We’ve had to work on her,” Hector said, as if he anticipated Kat’s displeasure.
Kat shrugged. “There are always buyers who like the ones who fight. If I’m good at my job, I match her to the right one and make more money.”
Keeping the same gradual, unhurried pace, Kat moved to the men’s and older women’s cells, continuing to examine them the way Rodriguez and his men expected. She commanded a few to demonstrate their physical ability by performing push-ups or some jumping jacks. One or two she had turn around to see them from all sides.
Mick moved in lockstep with her, two steps to her right, so she knew he was with her. He noted a half dozen small rooms along the far wall. Places to take individual prisoners for various types of “conditioning.” Several were equipped with cots.
Kat would have noted that, too, but she was studying the male prisoners. “My main interest is in the younger ones,” she said casually, “but I have a client in California who could use two dozen workers. He overworked his last group, didn’t hydrate or feed them properly. Fortunately, he has more money than sense.”
“Our favorite kind of buyer,” Rodriguez noted.
“Puta.” A man in the front of the cell spat through the bars, the saliva splattering the toe of Kat’s shoe.
“No, mijo,” an older woman cried out. The women around her clutched her arms, shushing her with anxious looks toward the dispassionate jailors.
Kat merely raised a brow. But Hector stepped up to the bars, drew his gun, and fired a bullet into the man’s head.
It happened in a blink, but as Hector was moving, so was Mick, already closing the distance between him and Cyn. Before the shot stopped echoing through the warehouse, he’d pulled her behind him.