One For The Team Read online

  “So, I guess it’s my turn now,” Slice said, striding towards her, sliding his underwear off and kicking it into the pile with his shirt and pants.

  Stella groaned and opened her eyes. “Yes, Mr. Taylor. You were wonderful, but please, give me a moment to collect myself.”

  Slice scowled down at her. “You said you were going to liberate me.”

  “Yes, I did, but—”

  “Then do it. Now, Stella.”

  “Mr. Taylor — your tone — it’s most brash and completely out of order.”

  Slice reached down and tweaked her nipple with his finger and thumb. Hard.

  She cried out at the sharp pain.

  Slice continued to stare down at her with an impatient glare.

  She sighed and stood up, then eyed him from head to toe. “Seriously, you’re like a petulant child,” she complained, rubbing her nipple. She paused and seemed to be thinking about how to proceed. Eventually, she said, “Very well. We shall begin. I have something I just know you’ll enjoy. Wait here.”

  She turned and strolled off into the adjoining bedroom. When she returned moments later, he was disappointed to see she’d put on a bra and panties. She was holding a riding crop and wearing a salacious smile. “I was going to begin with my hands,” she said, approaching Slice and swinging the crop from where it was looped around her wrist, “but I think something a little stronger is called for. Don’t you?”

  Slice held her gaze with a casual stare of his own. “Whatever you think is best.” He shrugged. “I’m easy.”

  “Excellent. Now, please, turn around and bend over, Mr. Taylor, and grip your ankles, if you don’t mind?”

  Slice complied, and Stella admired the finely rounded shape of his muscled backside. “That’s it, push back at the knees, legs nice and straight. Excellent!”

  Slice could feel the blood rushing to his head. He became aware of how quiet the room was. They were too high up to hear any traffic noise, and there wasn’t even the sound of a clock ticking. All he could hear was Stella’s short, panting breaths. He peeked through the gap in his legs and saw an upside down Stella start to swing the crop through the air. She looked comfortable with the weapon, and she held it in what was obviously a well-practiced grip.

  The leather crop twirled above her head, hissing through the air as she inched slowly towards him. He braced himself for the sting. But none came. There was a sudden loud crack that filled the entire room as she hit the back of the straight-backed chair sitting nearby. Stella laughed, swinging the crop around her head again. “Just teasing, Mr. Taylor, just teasing. The next one will be on target.”

  She swung again, and the crop hurtled towards Slice’s ass. At the last moment, he rolled forward in a smooth movement that took him out of range, and the crop hissed through the empty space where his skin should have been. Slice jumped to his feet. He turned and gauged the distance between himself and the wide-eyed, open-mouthed Stella, and before she could blink, he ripped the crop from her hand, picked her up, and threw her over his shoulder.

  “That’s enough of your games, Stella. Now it’s time to play.” He carried his helpless prisoner to the bedroom and plopped her unceremoniously on the bed.

  “What, what are you doing?” she gasped. “This is supposed to be a training session!”

  “It is.” Slice grinned sardonically. “But not for me. For you.”

  He fell upon her, pinning her wrists together with one of his hands and pulling the bra from her breasts. He lunged at her, taking her nipple and half her breast into his mouth, and sucked so hard she squealed. Then he attacked her other breast, catching the nipple in his mouth and teasing her with his teeth.

  Stella began to moan. She tried to struggle, but Slice was too strong, and she realized she was completely at his mercy. Stella tried desperately to squeeze her thighs together and regain control, but he pushed himself between her thighs, spreading her legs wide, and Stella knew it was game over.

  At some point, she gave up struggling and let herself be swept away by Slice’s lovemaking. She reached her hands around his shoulders, pulling him closer and sinking her nails deep into his skin. Blood trickled down his arms and back, but that didn’t stop the furious coupling. They orgasmed together, Stella screaming into his shoulder.

  After a few minutes, Slice got up and stood looking down at her. “You delivered on your promise. I’m feeling quite liberated.” He winked.

  “That was amazing.” Stella licked her lips.

  Slice headed back out to the other room, picked up his jeans off the floor, and pulled them on. His cell rang as he was picking up his shirt, and he fished it out of his pocket.

  “Where are you?” Zach asked.

  “I’m just finishing up that jewelry store deal.”

  “Did we get the contract?”

  Slice looked at Stella through the bedroom doorway. She lay on her back, humming a soft tune under her breath and staring off into space with a languid, content look on her smiling face.

  Slice grinned. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure we got it.”

  “Good job,” Zach said.

  Chapter Eight

  The photograph of Avalon Rossi holding Dr. Phillips’ stumpy member in her right hand went up for auction with a starting price of $1000, and it caused quite a sensation on the HynotizedSluts.com subscription website. Phillips was bombarded with requests for more photographs of the attractive young assistant district attorney, with some bidders offering double the price to see her in an even greater state of undress.

  Phillips chuckled when he read the messages from the site members, convinced that he had struck a goldmine with Avalon. He looked at the picture in question and admired his own photographic skills. It showed Avalon and himself in his office. She was sitting up straight in the patient’s chair with her eyes closed, smiling, and he had unbuttoned her blouse and flipped both her breasts out of her bra. The doctor congratulated himself on what he thought was a particularly artistic touch. He had intended to just stand next to Avalon with his dick hanging out of his fly, but just before he pressed the camera’s remote button, he ordered her to take it in her hand and squeeze. To his utter surprise and delight, Avalon had reached out and wrapped her fingers around him in a tight grip. He had been tempted to go further, but he didn’t want to push his luck. He and Avalon had made great progress with his own special brand of combined hypnotism and acupuncture therapy, but she wasn’t quite ready to go all the way. Not yet. Phillips chuckled again, checked his calendar for Avalon’s next appointment, and rubbed his hands in anticipation.

  The round-faced fifty-year-old psychoanalyst with a bald head and Fu Manchu mustache had been attracted to Avalon immediately. Her slim waist, long legs, and ample breasts almost made him salivate with desire, and by the time they’d finished their first session, he was determined to have her.

  Avalon had come to him with a minor complaint: a recurring bad dream from her childhood, which in his professional opinion was completely harmless. She was dreaming of the night her parents got into a fight and her mother left the house screaming. Avalon harbored guilt that somehow it was all her fault. She had a latent need for perfection, especially when it came to her personality and professional performance, and was of the opinion that if the dream went away, then she would be a lot better at her job. Phillips thought it was all poppycock, but he did his best to fuel her anxiety and ensure that she kept coming back to him.

  At first, he’d suggested daily sessions, eager to get to work, but she refused. Her position as assistant district attorney was one of great political sensitivity, and she had to be discreet; she’d asked that he keep her therapy as secret as possible. Of course, he had agreed; the fewer people who knew about their meetings, the quicker he could control Avalon and begin manipulating her sexual preferences. They’d settled on two-hour bi-weekly sessions, and she insisted on paying cash at each session. She didn’t want any overeager courtroom hack sniffing around her financial records and discovering that th
e up-and-coming legal star of the Los Angeles County Court system was secretly seeing a shrink.

  Phillips had smarted at the word, but he let it pass. If things went the way he planned, he would not be shrinking; he would be growing. He had chuckled at his own crappy joke and begun their first session with a normal bout of perfectly innocent acupuncture with a hint of hypnosis, just to test her susceptibility to the treatment. He’d been overjoyed at her reaction. Almost immediately, Avalon had become pliant to a degree that surprised him; he could hardly wait to put her under full hypnosis. It was ironic, he had written in his notes, that the patients who tried the hardest to improve quickly were always the most vulnerable. It was as if they were trying to prove something to themselves, and their therapist was nothing more than a coincidental bystander in the process.

  He was so excited about his new patient that he’d very nearly begun Avalon’s cognitive manipulation with a huge mistake. Phillips used a form of the ancient oriental healing art of acupuncture that was effectively banned in western culture and could only be found in the most primitive Third World countries, but Avalon was in no position to know that. Like most patients, she went to her therapist brimming with trust, and it never occurred to her that her doctor would use her for his own morally corrupt practices. He had begun the hypnosis as usual: lighting scented candles and playing soft and rhythmic recordings of the ocean.

  “How are you feeling, Avalon?” Phillips asked.

  “Okay,” she replied. Her eyes were closed, and she was already drowsy from the acupuncture.

  “Are you warm enough?” he asked, his voice calm and low.

  “Yes, it feels nice, like I’m on a beach.”

  Phillips could hardly contain himself. Without knowing it, Avalon had just provided him with an opening to the next level of her consciousness. He followed her cue. “The beach, yes. It’s nice, isn’t it? But perhaps a little too warm?”

  “Yes,” Avalon replied. She wiped a sleepy hand across her brow.

  “Perhaps you have too many clothes on. Wouldn’t it be nice to take off your blouse and feel the cool sea breeze on your skin?” Phillips leaned forwards, trying to hide the excitement in his voice.

  “Yes,” Avalon said again and began unbuttoning her blouse. “The breeze… nice.”

  “Feel the nice breeze on your skin, your neck, your arms, your breasts…” He stopped, fearing he had gone too far. He watched her intently, expecting Avalon to sense some inner conflict and wake up. But she didn’t, and instead, undid all the buttons and opened the front of her blouse. Phillips’ eyes went wide at his first view of Avalon’s plump, ripe breasts.

  “That’s good, Avalon, that’s very good. Please continue.” Phillips licked his lips, his pants becoming uncomfortable.

  “The breeze on my breasts. Feels good.” She was about to take off her blouse when her expression changed suddenly. A dark frown crossed her face.

  Phillips held his breath.

  “No. Not my breasts. Zach’s. They belong to Zach.” She started doing the buttons back up.

  “Fuck!” Phillips swore quietly. Avalon had told him about her boyfriend in their initial doctor-patient interview, but the therapist hadn’t realized how much influence this Zach guy had over her. Phillips’ brow furrowed with concern. The boyfriend could prove to be a severe stumbling block in his plans to possess Avalon. He would have to change his strategy and turn her against the boyfriend before he could continue. Phillips ended the session, bringing Avalon gently back to reality and telling her that he was enormously satisfied with her progress. They arranged the next appointment, and he shook her hand as she left his office. Inside, he was fuming. Whoever this Zach guy was, he would have to go.

  *

  That evening, following her second appointment with Dr. Phillips, Avalon arrived home feeling tired and irritable. All she could think about was getting herself a glass of wine and then taking a long, hot shower. She couldn’t shake the feeling of having forgotten something important, but as hard as she tried, she couldn’t figure out what. She sipped her Cabernet and tried to clear her mind. It had to be the therapy, she thought. It was bound to create some emotional turmoil in her, but she could work through that. She just needed to give Dr. Phillips time to do his thing.

  Feeling a little better for the wine, Avalon went to the bathroom and began to undress. Two of her buttons were in the wrong holes. For a moment, she stared down at the buttons. Then she shook her head and continued to strip. Five minutes later, she was standing under a soothing jet of hot water and had forgotten all about the buttons.

  *

  Just before she dropped off, a scene came into her head. She was on a beach and the sun was beating down on her relentlessly. She was too warm. Avalon began to undress, taking off her blouse, and the cool breeze from off the surf was refreshing on her skin. And then a voice was talking to her, telling her to remove her bra, to take off all her clothes. The voice wanted her bare, buck naked. Avalon stirred in her sleep; she knew that voice from somewhere, but in her dream, she could not see the speaker. She began to tremble, feeling uncomfortable, afraid even. On the sand, she saw a shadow approaching her from behind… a shadow that was vaguely familiar. But before she could see who it was, she drifted away and had no more dreams that night.

  Chapter Nine

  Zach entered the Chinese restaurant in downtown Tucson and gave the place a casual once-over, counting the empty booths and tables as he made his way to the bar. He sat down and waited for someone to come, but it was still too early for lunch and the help was probably in the back somewhere.

  To the left, an open doorway led through to the kitchen, and the fragrance of herbs and spices made his stomach rumble. But he wasn’t here to eat. Zach looked at his reflection in the wall-to-wall mirror behind the bar. The doctor had shaved part of his head, and a crisscross pattern of surgical tape ran front to back across his skull, covering the deep gouge made by Baker’s bullet. Cable had said he looked like the Last Mohican. Zach had said that if Cable didn’t shut the fuck up, he’d be the Last Apache.

  Five minutes later, when no one had emerged from the kitchen, he rapped on the bar and called out, “Hey, anyone? What does a guy have to do to get a beer in this joint?”

  A man’s face, gray and wrinkled, appeared in the doorway. Watery eyes fixed on Zach and the face frowned, then disappeared again. Moments later, a young Asian woman wearing a flowered dress strolled from the kitchen and smiled at Zach, showing perfect white teeth.

  “Food not ready yet,” she said in a singsong lilt. “Half-hour, we serve lunch, okay? You want drink and wait or come back?”

  “A beer would be good,” Zach said. “But I’m not here to eat. I need to talk to the guy who witnessed the shooting in the alley a few days ago. Is he around?”

  “You cop?” she asked, her smile shrinking.

  “Nope. Private Investigator.” He handed her his ID.

  She held it close to her face, squinting as if she’d forgotten her glasses, and her lips moved silently as she read every word. When she had finished, she looked into Zach’s face with her eyebrows raised. “Sure no cop?”

  “No cop.” Zach smiled.

  “I go look for Sun Shi. You wait.” She opened a bottle of Bud and placed it with a coaster on the bar.

  Zach enjoyed the wasp-like curve of her waist and the swish of the silk dress as she went back in the direction of the kitchen. He took a swig of beer from the bottle, and the bitter taste hit the back of his throat like a welcome cold shower. Three days of hospital food and herbal tea was a sure way to kill every taste bud known to man. He swallowed, suppressed a burp, then took another mouthful. Faint music began to play from the restaurant’s hidden speakers. It sounded the same as the music he’d heard in every Chinese restaurant he’d ever visited.

  His phone rang, and when he looked at the caller ID, he frowned. He’d spoken to Avalon the night before, and he suspected this call would just be more of the same. Zach drank his beer and let th
e phone ring. Eventually, it stopped. He felt bad about not picking up, but he’d have felt worse telling the woman he loved another pack of lies. He wanted to tell Avalon the truth, but right now, he wasn’t sure what that was.

  The detectives in the hospital had planted the first doubts in his mind. After their initial run-in with Cable, they’d settled down and been cool about the whole thing. They took his statement and asked what had happened with Baker in the alley. Zach answered truthfully, to the best of his knowledge. In his opinion, lying to anyone in an open-and-shut case like Baker’s was like throwing boomerangs into a strong wind; they always came back and whacked you in the ass.

  It was all routine, the detectives had assured him. Simply a matter of ironing out the paperwork — crossing the I’s and dotting the T’s, as Detective Brody said with a grin. Besides, they had a witness that said Baker fired first.

  That had made Zach sit up in his bed. He had no recollection of anyone else being in the alley; he couldn’t even recall firing his weapon or hitting the ground. It was all a dark blur in his mind. That didn’t bother the cops at all. As far as they were concerned, Baker was a low-life drug dealer who’d jumped bail and crossed state lines into Arizona.

  ZSI had been hired to track him down and had all the papers and permits to show that the operation was strictly legit. Zach had killed Baker in self-defense, and the eyewitness was the icing on the cake. Case closed. But not for Zach. Not after the detectives casually informed him that the dead man had been shot in the back. It was likely, they said, that he’d winged Baker in the shoulder first, and the impact had spun him neatly around for Zach’s second bullet to hit him in the spine. That explanation might have suited the detectives, but it didn’t sit right with Zach. It was too easy, trite; the detectives were being far too complacent.

  Which was why he was sitting at an empty bar in a Chinese restaurant, waiting to speak to Sun Shi.

  It was also the reason he’d lied to Avalon the night before, downplaying how seriously he’d been hurt and spinning her a story about remaining in Tucson a few more days to “tie up loose ends,” without giving her any specific details. Zach knew his girlfriend well enough to know she’d be on a plane to Tucson at that very moment if she knew the facts. But no matter how well-intended her intervention might be, right now, it was something Zach could do without. He needed to prove the facts to himself first. Only then could he face Avalon, and himself, with a clear conscience. Sun Shi had told the police he’d been in the alley smoking a cigarette when the shoot-out took place. Zach needed to talk to him; he needed to know everything the man saw.