Federal Discipline Read online

  He felt her rebellion as she stiffened, and was forced to stifle a chuckle as he realized she seemed to have forgotten why she was being spanked in the first place. He had one very distractible brat over his knee, especially when it came to softer, more sensual touches.

  “You enjoy this!” She threw the accusation over her shoulder. It floated past the bouncing red rounds of her bottom and probably continued into the next apartment, but Jack wasn’t worried about that. He was interested in thoroughly spanking the lady across his lap.

  Her accusation wasn’t entirely baseless. He did enjoy spanking her. She had a very cute bottom, a bottom that was made to be spanked, really. He adored the way her cheeks bounced with each slap, a firm jiggle that was as alluring as it was endearing.

  “This is for your own good,” he assured her. “You’ll remember this next time you decide you’re going to disobey me.”

  “I didn’t disobey you.”

  “I told you to get some rest. You decided to burn the midnight oil and when that ran out, the wick at both ends.”

  “Your overuse of metaphor is offensive… ow!” Jamie squealed as Jack slapped her bottom with increased vigor.

  “You know what I mean, Jamie. But I’ll cut the metaphors and give it to you straight. Do as you’re told or I’ll spank your ass until you can’t sit.”

  He followed up the explanation with a volley of hard swats that made her skin glow bright red, and her shapely body sway back and forth across his lap. Jamie’s complaints almost drowned out the sound of flesh slapping flesh.

  From that intense crescendo he spanked progressively more softly until she was both sleepy and soaked. Ten minutes later, she was flopped against him, her thighs parted enough to reveal the soaked crotch of her panties. He couldn’t resist letting his fingers slide over the slick fabric, though there really was no disciplinary justification for it.

  Jamie responded with soft, soporific moans as he toyed with her pussy, petting her lips and clit over her panties, massaging the fabric against her wet slit. She came quietly, a shuddering climax that he could feel against his probing fingers. Then she fell asleep, still over his lap.

  He chuckled softly and eased her off his thighs and onto the bed, all without waking her up. Having a lady fall asleep under his fingers would normally be something of a blow to the ego, but in this case it was an expression of trust and relaxation that he found quite endearing. He made sure she was all tucked in and dropped a kiss on her sleeping brow.

  “Night, brat.”

  *****

  The next morning, Jamie wasn’t sure where she was. Then the memories of the previous night came flooding back. There was Jack, the spanking, the pentagram in the steam on the bathroom mirror. Suddenly, her concern seemed almost comical. She felt almost as though she’d been caught sharing a fear of ghosts or something equally juvenile.

  Putting a hand to her head, Jamie wished fervently she hadn’t called Jack. Now he was going to think she was all but afraid of the dark in addition to her other feminine weaknesses.

  “Idiot,” she lectured herself. “Just a smudge on a mirror.”

  A brisk knock on the door interrupted her self-loathing. “You up?” Jack’s brogue rumbled through the wood.

  “Yeah,” Jamie called out. “I’m up.”

  “Get dressed and let’s go.”

  Jamie scowled at the door. She did not particularly care for the way Jack so casually gave orders. Even simple ones like that grated. Still, there was no point arguing. When she sat up, she could feel the sting on cheeks that were no longer heated but somehow still tender from what had happened the night before.

  “God,” Jamie groaned to herself. It really couldn’t get any worse. The orders, the spanking, the proprietary way Jack treated her, as if he owned her. She wasn’t just Jack’s rookie, she was his goddamn pet.

  She grumbled to herself as she dressed, glad she’d had the foresight to pack professional clothing. There was something about pulling a pair of pantyhose on that reminded her she was an independent woman. She pulled her knee length skirt on, paired it with a blouse and a blazer and looked at herself in the en suite mirror. Good. She looked, well, she looked like she needed a good dose of mascara.

  Jamie wasn’t a huge fan of the paleness of her lashes. They made her look as though she didn’t have lashes at all. They made her look anemic and washed out.

  Grabbing mascara out of her bag, she applied several long swipes to both upper and lower lids. As her lashes darkened, she further felt like her old self. Or rather, she felt as though she were assuming her usual mask. Jack had thoroughly unmasked her the previous evening. He’d seen her vulnerable. He’d seen her scared. He’d already seen almost everything the good lord had given her. Jamie scowled at herself in the mirror, then laid another sweeping of mascara on, nice and thick.

  A rapping at the bedroom door made her jump, smudge a bit of mascara against the bridge of her nose, and swear.

  “Come on, we haven’t got all day!”

  “Five minutes,” Jamie shouted.

  “Two,” he rumbled in return.

  Glaring at herself in the mirror, Jamie took a deep breath. He was already being more insufferable than usual. If he thought last night meant that he had some claim to boss her around all the time… if he thought his jurisdiction was anything besides professional… he had another think coming.

  She took her time selecting a shade of lipstick from her case. There were only three options and one was a dark, dramatic night look, but she took several minutes regardless choosing between a pink with a peach base and a peach with a pink base.

  Jack was knocking on the door again before she so much as selected a lipstick brush with which to apply her chosen shade. She ignored his knocking, concentrating on dabbing color onto her lips, then sweeping back and forth along the curve.

  “Jamie.” He had opened the door and was standing in the bedroom. “Come on.”

  “Hey!” she said, indignant. “What if I was naked?”

  “I knocked first,” he pointed out. “You decided not to reply.”

  “I was putting my lipstick on. I can’t talk when I put my lipstick on,” Jamie said, scowling. “What’s the rush?”

  “We have a body.”

  Jamie dropped the lipstick brush and swore. “Why didn’t you say that at in the first place?”

  “Because I thought that telling you we needed to go would be enough information to let you know that we needed to go.” He was not looking impressed with her. In fact, he was looking most unimpressed. “I don’t have time to deal with bratty games this morning, Jamie. Now finish painting your face and let’s go.”

  Jamie nodded, abandoned the brush and mushed the stick of lipstick against her lips instead. Bold color blossomed, then was pursed, smacked and dabbed away with a bit of toilet paper.

  “Okay,” she said. “I’m ready.”

  Jack quirked a brow. “Forgetting something, agent?”

  Jamie looked in the mirror. Her make-up was a little rushed, but it was okay.

  “You’re not wearing shoes.”

  “Ohhh, right.” She blushed slightly and went to retrieve her shoes. Now completely dressed, she indicated she was ready to leave.

  “Badge, agent,” Jack drawled.

  “Fuck,” Jamie swore. She scrabbled in her bag for her badge, and for her purse, which she’d also almost forgotten.

  Jack looked on with a sort of semi-patient half-indulgence, as if he didn’t know whether to laugh or chew her out.

  “Come on.”

  Jamie followed him out to his car without any further argument. She was feeling quite foolish and more than a little hungry.

  “You want to get something to eat?” Jack seemed to read her mind with the question.

  “Uh, I guess,” Jamie said.

  “Breakfast takeaway all right?”

  “Sure.”

  They swung by a drive-through and consequently drove about the city chewing at hash browns and
bacon muffins and sipping at thermonuclear temperature coffee.

  “Tell me about this body,” Jamie said once she’d finished an altogether unhealthily greasy attempt at breakfast.

  Jack glanced across at her and flicked the indicator on for a left turn. “I don’t want you to panic, agent.”

  “I’m not going to panic,” she said, frowning. “Why would I panic?”

  “They found the body in your apartment.”

  A sudden ringing filled Jamie’s ears. She felt hollow. Things were getting cinematic again, the world unrolling around her like scenery from a spool. Cars. People. Buildings. None of them seemed quite real.

  “In my apartment?”

  “In your apartment,” Jack confirmed.

  “How… how was it found in my apartment? I mean… nobody should have been in there.”

  “Your superintendent decided to pay you a visit early this morning. Discovered the door open and a dead woman inside. Called the cops who turn called us after he mentioned we’d been in for the tapes.”

  “In my apartment?” Jamie repeated herself.

  “In your apartment,” Jack confirmed. “Are you going to be able to handle this, agent?”

  “Of course,” Jamie said, suddenly annoyed. “I can handle it. Is it messy?”

  “I haven’t heard,” Jack said. “But it’s personal, being in your place. I would have gone alone, but frankly, I’m not certain you’re safe…”

  Jamie bit her lip and counted to ten. It was so tempting to bite his head off, but there was little point to that. He’d probably just pull the car over and do something unspeakable to her.

  “… it’s just as well I took you home with me last night,” Jack continued.

  He was perhaps right, but Jamie didn’t want to hear that. She continued biting her lip as they drove the familiar roads to her place.

  “It was smart, actually,” Jack said, seeming not to notice her sudden silence. “We’d taken the tape from the security camera last night, remember? So anything our killer did after that point isn’t on tape. At least not on the building tapes. It’s almost as if he planned it that way.”

  The perpetrator was beginning to coalesce into a shadowy entity. Someone who killed for the same reason other people used post-it notes: to send a message.

  Drawing up to her building, Jamie screwed up her courage. She walked up the stairs, reminding herself to be calm and professional. She would not break down. She would not have hysterics. She would not be surprised or annoyed by all the authorities stamping around her place.

  The door to her apartment had yellow crime scene tape across it. She ducked under the tape and stepped inside. The place was familiar and yet, not. The victim immediately took center stage. Laid out on Jamie’s couch, she looked almost peaceful, save for the fact that she was very much dead. To Jamie’s consternation, the woman was young, slim and blonde. Not quite a dead ringer for herself, but a fairly close approximation.

  “Someone’s playing with us,” Jamie whispered under her breath. “This sick… this sick bastard is toying with us. With me.”

  “It looks that way,” Jack said. “It’s common for serial killers to create a dialog with investigators, to taunt them. It’s a game to them.”

  “What was the cause of death?”

  Unlike Mrs. Brampton, who had been stabbed, and Mr. Brampton who had been in the grip of some psychotic break and the victim before that, who appeared to have been killed in numerous ways, this victim did not have so much as a bruise upon her pale skin. Dressed in a white gown, she looked as though she was sleeping on the couch. The couch Jamie had once rather liked. The couch she was going to have to burn.

  “Cause of death not determined as yet,” Jack said. “There’s very little in the way of an obvious cause, so perhaps poison or an overdose of another kind. I don’t suppose you know this woman?”

  “No,” Jamie confirmed. “I don’t know any shoe-less waifs in the habit of turning up dead on my sofa.”

  She surprised herself with the callousness of her own reply. It didn’t at all reflect how she felt on the inside, sad for the young woman whose life had inexplicably terminated inside her apartment - and a little scared as to what that meant for her own life.

  “This changes things,” Jack said. “This is our second female victim, but the first victim who was not subjected to the sort of violence the other victims were. That tells us something.”

  “What does it tell us?”

  “It tells us that we’re dealing with someone not quite the right side of sane. Someone who treats some women with more care than men, perhaps feels less rage toward them - yet has no qualms about killing them to make a point.”

  “And that’s what this is, a point?”

  “This?” Jack said grimly. “This is the proverbial horse head in the bed. I think our killer might have developed a certain fascination with you, agent.”

  Every hair on the back of Jamie’s neck stood erect and a chill seemed to pass through the room. She felt the presence of something malignant. Something nasty, waiting for her in the unseen wings of the future.

  Chapter Eight

  Any day that started with a dead body in her lounge was probably not going to be a good day, Jamie figured. It did not improve when the tape recovered from the security camera turned out to be less than useless. It was six hours of static. Nothing more and nothing less. A frustrating discovery for Jamie and Jack alike. It seemed as though every lead they got terminated in a dead end.

  “I think I owe you an apology,” she said to Jack. “And a thank you.”

  They were standing in Jack’s office, door shut, blinds drawn so the room seemed to be in a kind of timeless twilight. She’d asked to go back to work, but now that she was at work, concentrating on the tasks at hand was… difficult, to put it mildly.

  “Hey,” Jack said, reaching out and drawing her into a hug that made her feel small and safe and vaguely unprofessional. “It’s okay to be upset.”

  “Is it?” Jamie asked the question to the hard line of his chest. “You didn’t want a female partner who was freaking out all the time.”

  “I didn’t want someone who couldn’t handle what we do. Nobody is going to be all right with having their personal space invaded by dead people.” His palm traced a soothing line up and down her back. “I’m going to take care of you, Jamie,” he promised softly. “No harm is going to come to you.”

  It was a promise he couldn’t really make, but she believed him. Standing there, her body pressed against his, she felt as if she were in the safest place in the world.

  He lowered his head, perhaps to press a kiss to the top of hers, but at the last moment she lifted her face and their mouths met. In a moment of madness, lips parted, tongues were engaged and before either of them truly knew what was happening, they were kissing with a mad, needful urgency that surpassed all other considerations.

  Jack’s hands left her back and roamed her body, one cupping her bottom, the other sliding up to caress her breast with a soft motion that stoked her desire all the more. She rode her hips forward against the thigh he had so obligingly pressed out, grinding herself against his leg with a wanton need. The button of her clit was fully engaged with the hard ridge of his muscle, so when he started to play his thumb across the ridge of her nipple and pull her bottom hard against him all whilst plundering her mouth in the most passionate kiss she had ever experienced – Jamie found herself rapidly approaching a very unprofessional peak.

  She didn’t care; couldn’t have stopped herself if she did. She rubbed herself against him like an animal in heat, chasing that climax that was building between her thighs. Jack knew precisely what she was doing, and he urged her on, pressing his fingers underneath her skirt. When his hand made contact with her pantyhose and her panties, and the pads of his agile digits began massaging the damp entrance of her pussy, she was forced to stuff her hand into her mouth to stop herself from crying out. He just felt so damn good, so masterful. His fing
ertips worked her pussy with a downright expert touch, pressing slick material against her tender lips, pulling it tighter against her clit until finally she came in his arms, panting her orgasm into his mouth as it shot through every part of her nervous system, leaving her both ecstatic and weak in his embrace.

  “Feel better?” He drawled the question down at her with a rakish smile that made her blush.

  “Yes, actually.” She did feel better. She felt a whole lot better. The concerns of the world, even the nasty ones involving random bodies, seemed much less intense now. “Thank you,” she said as she reluctantly stepped away from him and straightened her skirt.

  “So polite,” he smiled charmingly.

  Jamie made her mind up then and there. She was going to make love to Jack Harley. She was going to give herself to him as she had to no other. The long, thick ridge in his pants was testament to the fact that she would enjoy it immensely.

  “Would you… er… can I,” there was nothing charming or suave about the way she sort of gestured toward his crotch. “Relieve you?”

  “Oh my,” he chuckled, taking her by the hand and leading her back towards his desk. “You want to relieve me?”

  She nodded silently, suddenly feeling a little shy and nervous. He seemed to understand. He leaned back against his desk and pulled her between his legs. Wrapping his arms around her once again, he lowered his head to her ear and drawled a quiet question. “Would you like to relieve me with that cute mouth, or that wet pussy?”

  Jamie’s blush spread from her face to almost her entire body. “Umm.” She couldn’t quite manage an answer. All of a sudden she felt completely inept. He was the master, she was the eager, but inexperienced servant. She wasn’t actually a virgin, but it had been several years since her last boyfriend and she had sort of forgotten what sex felt like. Sort of. Somehow she doubted sex with Jack would be like sex with any other man anyway.

  “You want me to bend you over this desk and press my cock inside that tight pussy of yours? Or do you want to get underneath the desk and wrap your mouth around me?” He was speaking crudely, but somehow the brogue and the soft caress of his hands made the questions almost romantic.