God, sometimes Mason really hated this job. He loved the power and the money, but could really do without the bullshit, which included working for a man who was seriously beneath his intellectual level. The sooner William was gone, the sooner Mason would be closer to his professional goal.
He stood, walked over to his door, and locked it. When he returned to his desk, he dug into his briefcase for the cell phone given to him, and called the untraceable number saved on it. It stopped ringing after the second time it sounded, but no one spoke on the other end.
“He knows something,” Mason said in way of greeting. He didn’t like that things had come to this, but failure was not an option for him.
“We know he does,” the man he’d only met once replied. “Find out what.”
“He’s not talking.” Mason sighed as he pinched the bridge of his nose. No, William wasn’t talking yet, but he would. Mason was sure of it. “Did you take care of Carl?”
“Carl O’Brian is as good as dead.”
“Not good enough.”
“Don’t worry. Carl O’Brian will be found at the bottom of a ravine. There will be no more interference by him.”
At least one loose end had been severed. Maybe it had been a good idea to make a deal with the devil after all. “Good.”
Mason ended the call and collapsed into his chair. Oh, yeah. Legality was definitely a frame of mind.
Chapter Six
Sex was a complicated thing. Or so Shelby had discovered the moment she let Mason take her, seduce her, Friday night. Before she’d ever heard his name, her sex life was practically nonexistent. Not that she enjoyed it being like that. But prior to Mason mastering her body, what little sex she had engaged in had been nice. It wasn’t as if she had difficulty climaxing or that sex in general hadn’t been pleasant on those few occasions. Shelby wrinkled her nose as she took a sip of her coffee, and it wasn’t because of the brew. Nice. Pleasant. It was as if she’d been describing an evening with an okay book, not scratching a sexual itch. What woman her age thought of getting laid in those terms?
Obviously, one did. Her.
The only thing that had bothered Shelby about sex in her past was the frequency not the…what? Quality? She sighed. Thinking of it like that didn’t seem fair either. Nor did it help her ire any.
Words like nice and pleasant could in no way be mixed into the erotic tidal wave that was Mason. He was all-consuming, every touch—both gentle and hard—had demanded a response from her, and her body wouldn’t deny him. He’d taken what he wanted while giving her more than she’d ever gotten from a lover. He wasn’t her lover, though. He was a person of interest in the case she and the rest of her FBI team was assisting the SEC on. She’d do well not to forget that.
Though forgetting wasn’t the problem. Thoughts of Mason Showalter had consumed her to the point her body had hummed in remembrance of the heights of passion he’d shown her. Then reality would douse her like ice water being thrown in her face, and in its wake was guilt for not telling her boss and the rest of her team she’d actually had sex with Mason. The guilt would quickly vanish—after all Rick had all but ordered her to do the deed with Mason—leaving her swimming in her thoughts of that brown-haired, brown-eyed man. The cycle had been vicious, taunting her while she was at work, heating her in the middle of the night while sleep eluded her. She couldn’t get away from images of him. She’d cursed him for being so sexy and herself for not trying harder to ignore the memories haunting her. And when he wasn’t invading her thoughts while she was at home, she was looking up BDSM.
She’d learned a lot thanks to Google. Most just compounded her questions rather than answering them. Oh, she’d gained knowledge, but any extrapolation formed more uncertainty. One such example was subspace, as he’d called it. Now she understood what it was. She’d practically blacked out after reaching an amazing orgasm and had this almost surreal feeling of peace. Knowing what it was didn’t help her. Being in that state made her too vulnerable, more so than at any other time, which was saying a lot. She had to do her best to make sure it didn’t happen again. She couldn’t afford any states of near unconsciousness in the future.
However, said opportunity was based on a rather large assumption at this point because she hadn’t even spoken to him since she saw him on Friday.
Not. One. Word.
This past week she’d met with her team every day on the status of the investigation, though there hadn’t been much in the way of progress. Jerome Parker and his SEC team were knee-deep in Fieldstein and Baxter financial reports. The focus had been on the Culpeper Hedge Fund, but they were looking at everything. As for her development with Mason, what else could she report? She hadn’t had any opportunity to get intel from him. If she hadn’t already sacrificed enough for this case, she’d feel as if she wasn’t pulling her weight, but that didn’t answer that lingering question. Why hadn’t he contacted her? She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. She should be happy. Should.
She wasn’t. Was he not as affected by her as she was him? She already knew the answer to that. Why would he be? He was used to this lifestyle, had probably spanked, and screwed, hundreds of women over the years. She wasn’t anything special to him, just another woman who wanted to explore her submissive side. The fact that Mason wasn’t
