The Firm Hand of the Law Page 10

  “No!” Lily felt tears springing to her eyes. She just wanted it to be over. It wasn’t fun anymore, if it had ever been fun at all. This was trouble, real trouble that really hurt. Her bottom was hot and stinging and felt as though a whole hive of bees had been unleashed upon it. “I’m sorry,” she sniffed.

  “This time, you count properly,” he said, starting all over from the beginning just as he had promised.

  “One,” she gasped tearfully. The searing stroke burned atop all the others just long enough for another one to land. “Two,” she said, trying to stop her voice from cracking. The last thing she wanted to do was cry in front of him.

  “You’re my girl now,” he said, his voice firm as he brought the belt down yet again. “And I am not going to tolerate any of your disobedience, your insolence, or your criminal tendencies, you understand? You stay on the straight and narrow from here on out, or you go over my knee.”

  She didn’t have anything to say to him, aside from a sniffled. “Three.”

  He paused for a moment and walked around her, letting her bottom burn all on its own. Lily kept her head down, unwilling to see that hard look in his eyes. The next slap came almost carelessly, delivered diagonally across both cheeks. The tail end of the belt wrapped around her cheek and landed with extra momentum, stinging her upper thigh in a way that made her jolt and buck.

  “Count it.”

  “Four,” she whimpered. So far there had been a total of twelve strokes, probably more than he’d intended to give, but no fewer than she’d gone out of her way to deserve. She was fervently wishing she hadn’t joked about the third stroke, and that she hadn’t shoplifted that stuff, and that she hadn’t given the assistant attitude, and really, that she hadn’t gotten up that morning at all. Her regret was complete.

  “Last two,” he said.

  The words were probably supposed to provide some kind of hope, but the prospect of two more strokes of his belt made her tremble.

  “Please…” She just barely whispered the word.

  “What was that?”

  She couldn’t bring herself to beg for mercy. Judging by his tone, it wasn’t likely to work anyway. Another stroke of the belt was snapped across her bottom before she could make up her mind whether to say something or not, and her pleading words turned to just one: “Five.”

  Gareth delivered the sixth stroke dead across the center of her cheeks, as hard as any that had gone before it. It burst across her strapped bottom with the fury of an exploding sun, making her shriek the final word. “Six!”

  He dropped the belt and gathered her up into a hug. Lily’s sob of relief surprised her almost as much as the warmth and comfort of his arms did. She wanted to hate him for what he’d done, tying and strapping her until tears came to her eyes, but all she could do was bury her face in his neck and sob apologies.

  “Shh,” he said, stroking down her back and then gently down over her bottom. “It’s okay.”

  “It’s not okay,” she mumbled tearfully. How could it be okay when her whole body seemed to be aching with the consequences of her action?

  “Hey.” He leaned back, put two fingers under her chin, and lifted her head up “It’s over. You’re forgiven.” He smiled and his gaze softened. She felt his forgiveness, but it wasn’t as easy as that. Her bottom was stinging and aching as it never had before, and the memory of his stern presence stalking around her, delivering ruthless discipline, had not yet faded.

  Gareth let her recover quietly, holding her close as he unlaced the silk around her wrists and freed her.

  When she could talk without sniffling, she asked the question that had been playing on her mind. “Were you going to give me that many in the beginning?”

  “Actually, I was going to give you six of the best,” he said, stroking her bottom tenderly. “But you wanted to play at the wrong time.”

  She lowered her eyes again, not wanting to remember what he’d looked like, not wanting to remember how it had felt when she’d displeased him. That had been the worst part of it, not the slapping of the leather, but the heavy sense of disapproval. Lily didn’t know when she’d started caring what Gareth thought. What she did know was that she was in deeper than she’d ever wanted to be. It was one thing to stay with a cop. It was something completely different to be falling for one—and one who spanked her at that.

  “I don’t think you’ll do that again, will you?”

  Lily shook her head a little. That had been a very bad idea. She would not do that again. Maybe a variant thereof, but certainly not that.

  Gareth pressed his lips to her cheeks where a few stray tears had trickled. “I hope you won’t make me do that again.”

  “I didn’t make you do a damn thing,” Lily argued reflexively.

  “You know what I mean,” he said, his tone getting all lecture-y again. “If you deserve a spanking, you’re going to get one.”

  There was no point being angry at him. She had gone out of her way to get into trouble, and for no discernible reason at all. She didn’t need to steal, she’d wanted to steal. And now that her butt was burning and probably bruised, she felt better. Gareth seemed to understand what she needed better than she did; apparently that was a damn good spanking more often than not.

  Blushing at the revelation, she buried her face in his chest and let him comfort her with soft rubbing strokes to her very sore, very naughty bottom.

  Chapter Nine

  After the spanking and the counting and the undeniable enforcement of Gareth’s authority, Lily laid low for a few days. She was being good, but she was also trying to work out her next move. The larger problem was still in play—Jasper and his treachery.

  The Brannigan way of dealing with things was as biblical as it was simple: an eye for an eye. He was not going to get away with what he’d done, and Lily was determined to get her revenge regardless of what the police were doing. As a lifelong member of a criminal syndicate, she knew all too well that bad guys didn’t always get punished, especially not ones who could afford lawyers. Jasper was probably never going to see the inside of a cell, but that didn’t mean he was going to get away with arson.

  The good thing about going after Jasper Woodcock was that he was not hard to find. He ran several shady businesses, but his favorite among them was an adult studio known as Paramor Pictures. Word on the street was that he spent pretty much all his time there.

  Lily made her way to the lot by bus, where she discovered that there was basically no security. Paramor Pictures was a retrofitted warehouse around which pretty girls in various states of undress sashayed about the place. Lily didn’t quite fit in, but only because she was fully clothed. She rectified that by removing her jeans, which made her look the equal of most any woman in the place. The plan was to get in, take revenge, and be gone before anyone knew that she was there. It was bold, but Brannigans were bold, and it would send a message. A message that nobody was untouchable, not even smooth-talking maniacs.

  The first thing to do was to get a sense of the lay of the land. Lily made her way through the corridors decorated with X-rated images of some of Paramor’s starlets. The girls were gorgeous. They’d almost certainly find work in other places once Paramor was gone.

  A label on a door stopped her in her tracks: WOODCOCK

  The label on the door proclaimed Jasper’s last name boldly. She could hear him inside, his distinctive voice grunting curse words in a fashion which strongly indicated he was in the middle of something distasteful.

  She reached into her bra and fingered the pack of matches she’d brought with her. Something was going to burn. Not the whole place. That would be excessive and possibly dangerous. This visit was a test run. This was where she took something important to Jasper and destroyed it. Something he’d miss when it was gone. Something to put him on his toes and let him know that she was coming for him personally.

  Lily was staring at the door malevolently when it was wrenched open and Jasper came storming out.

  �
��Jasmine!” he boomed. “Where’s Jasmine? Whoa!” He stopped and stared at Lily. “Brannigan!”

  “Yes,” Lily said, drawing herself up to her full height. “Me.”

  “Come to kill me?” He laughed. Jasper was a handsome man. In some bizarre act of cosmic malevolence, he had been blessed with near movie star good looks in addition to the soul of a daemon. He was well aware of his appearance and put every effort into maintaining it, down to manicures and brow shaping. But his debonair aspect did not fool Lily in the slightest. She knew exactly what Jasper was; being good looking didn’t change his essential personality. He was a hunter and an apex predator, not of animals, but of men. There were stories which made her stomach churn to think about. She pushed them away in favor of feeding the beast of anger dwelling in her gut.

  “The killing comes later,” Lily deadpanned. Laying eyes on him was making her angry. The slick bastard standing in front of her was responsible for every misfortune which had come her way in recent times.

  “Oh, I’d simply love to see you try.” The way he said it strongly implied that he genuinely would enjoy that. He was twisted, a man who enjoyed violence for violence’s sake. She would have done well to stay away from him, but her anger would not let her.

  “Where are your pants, Brannigan? You need a job?” He leered at her. “Now that the bar is gone, I guess you’re going to have to do something to pay the bills.”

  Standing in her panties, Lily couldn’t exactly pretend that she wasn’t there to audition. The disguise had become a liability. It was impossible to be taken seriously without pants on, a fact which both worked in her favor and against her at the self-same time. He was too busy looking at her legs and crotch to be suspicious of her true intentions.

  “I always knew I’d have you,” he said, smirking. “I admit, I didn’t think it would be like this.”

  Lily opened her mouth to make a blunt reply, but was interrupted by the shrill tones of another woman.

  “Jas! Jas! Where’s my money?” A hot blonde came tottering over, still smeared in fluids from a session. She seemed not to notice her musky sheen, nor the stench of dried semen which surrounded her. Lily recoiled instinctively as she approached, giving her the floor. Jasper didn’t seem much more impressed, but his attention was taken by the demanding harridan, who clearly was not going to go away until she got her money.

  In the distraction, someone in high heels and very little clothing looped an arm around Lily’s and pulled her away from the danger zone. There was significant strength in the arm, more than Lily expected from the average woman. Closer inspection revealed that it was not an average woman. It was a man in full drag, a giant auburn wig flowing over his broad shoulders, framing a face so well made up that it really did look feminine if one didn’t spend too long looking at the nose and chin.

  “You’re Lily Brannigan,” he said in a voice more suited to a plumber than a performer.

  “Yeah.”

  “You need to get out of here. Now. It’s not safe.”

  “Who are you?”

  The man did not reply. He took out a phone and made a call, an impressive task given the two inch long nails glued to each of his fingers. “Gareth? I’ve got your girl down here at the studio.”

  Lily swore ferociously. Of all the luck, to run into a cross-dressing porn star who knew Gareth. She must have been cursed to have luck that bad.

  “Gareth is going to come get you,” the man informed her. “He’s not happy.”

  “Of course he fucking isn’t! Why the hell did you do that?”

  “Be quiet and wait.”

  “Fuck you. Who the hell are you?”

  The conversation went on that way for a few minutes, but she was no closer to an answer by the time she was taken outside the lot and delivered sans pants to Gareth’s car. He’d wasted no time in getting there, that was for sure. Instinct told her he’d probably been out looking for her already. Oddly, he didn’t seem as angry as she thought he would be. Something was going on. She just didn’t know what.

  “You’re planning on selling your body now?” Gareth asked the question as he followed her in the door to his ridiculously perfect house.

  “No,” she said. “It’s… I had a friend there.”

  “Oh you do. A friend who wants you to take your pants off when you visit?”

  “I wasn’t there to have sex, I promise.”

  “Oh I believe you,” he said. “But you’re going to have to do a much better job of telling me what you were doing there.

  “It had to do with what happened to my bar.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t want to say.”

  “Why not? I thought you were going to help this investigation.”

  “I am, but there’s some things I have to do for myself first.”

  “Those things being getting half naked and putting yourself in harm’s way.”

  “I just wanted to… do something.” She gritted her teeth. “I wanted to…” The words wouldn’t come out, but she was shaking with anger. She wanted to destroy Jasper. Not take him to court. Not send him to jail. She wanted to take everything he had ever loved and crush it. Her next breath came in a sobbing gasp as she burst into tears of rage and frustration, emotion she hadn’t fully expressed until that moment.

  “Come here.” He pulled her into his arms and held her close as she sobbed ugly tears into his shirt. “Listen,” he said, “I know exactly why you were there. Jasper Woodcock.”

  Lily pulled away and looked at him askance. “You know about Jasper?”

  “Of course we know about Jasper.”

  “Then why haven’t you arrested him?”

  “Because Jasper isn’t who we want,” Gareth explained. “There are much bigger targets.”

  “You have people around him, don’t you?” Lily sniffed. “The queen who pulled me out of there. She was one of yours.”

  “Yes,” Gareth said. “We have a lot of people working this case.”

  “So… you… you let… did you…” she squinted her eyes at him in sudden suspicion. “Did you know he was going to have the bar burned down?”

  Gareth looked at her wordlessly. She felt her heart sink into the open hole in the pit of her stomach. “You knew,” she said, whispering the words hoarsely. “That was why you insisted on going out to dinner that night. That’s why you weren’t even… you fucking knew!” She shouted the word at him and beat her fists against his chest.

  “We couldn’t stop him without tipping our hand,” he said, grabbing her wrists. “I’m sorry, Lily. I really am.”

  “You let him take everything from me!” The sense of betrayal was overwhelming.

  “I’m sorry, Lily,” Gareth repeated. “I truly am. If there was another way…”

  “There was another way!” she shrieked. “You could have called the fire department. You could have arrested him. You could have taken him to jail! That’s what you’re supposed to do, remember? You’re supposed to put bad guys in jail, not let them burn down my fucking house!”

  Her rage was all consuming. She had nothing and nobody. There wasn’t a single soul on the planet who was on her side. Even Gareth was playing games, using her, lying to her.

  “Calm down.”

  Those two little words were more inflammatory than a barrel of gasoline. Lily erupted into a rage which sent her beyond words and into the realm of incoherent screaming. Gareth had her in his grasp, but that didn’t do anything to stop her. Nothing stopped her except, eventually, herself. She had screamed and cried herself hoarse by the time she calmed down, a weeping mess in Gareth’s arms. He was still holding her, comforting her, being there though he was just as much a villain as Jasper.

  “Get off me.” She pulled away. He let her go, keeping a careful watch on her.

  “I am not going to help you,” she said, her voice shaking. “I am not going to stay here. I’m going.”

  “No you’re not.” He was so calm in the face of her rage. “I know you�
��re angry. I know you’re upset. But you’re going to stay here, and when you’re ready, we’re going to talk.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about. You lied to me. You let him take everything from me. And then you took me to the mall and thought some clothes might make up for it. You think I’m a fucking idiot, some stupid little girl you can spank and punish and use. You’re wrong. You’re going to regret this!”

  “I already do.”

  His reply was so solemn it stopped her in her tracks. “What do you mean?”

  “I regret all of this,” he said. “When this started, it was just another case. But it’s more than that now. You and I are more than that.”

  “No,” she said bitterly. “We’re not. Not anymore.”

  Chapter Ten

  Lily was not going to forgive him easily. Gareth knew that. He had known it all along, but personal feelings couldn’t be allowed to get in the way of catching the bad guys and closing the case. It was all so simple when he thought about it that way, but the reality was nothing was simple. The line between good guy and bad guy was blurred. He was feeling every inch the bad guy as day after day he looked into her tearful eyes and saw her pain, pain he knew he was at least partially responsible for.

  She was making frequent attempts to get out of the house of course. He didn’t know where she was planning on going or what she was planning on doing when she got there, but it didn’t matter. She was grounded, locked down for her own safety, which only served to anger her more.

  “Let me out!” She screamed the words at him in a hoarse whisper. She’d lost her voice completely on the evening she discovered what was really going on, and it still hadn’t returned because every time they got into a discussion of any kind, she’d wind herself up so much she’d hurt it all over again. Gareth had never heard such vehement expletives strung together in such creative ways before.