Page 3 of Take the Sub and Run

Andrei studied where she’d stopped, and smirked. There was a convenient doorway recess just to her right.

With quick, light steps, Andrei came up behind her as she peered at her phone screen. She stiffened a mere second before he grabbed her—those danger-sensing hind-brain instincts finally coming online.

It seemed…improbable that an associate of Colette’s would be this unaware. Which meant, it might be a ruse.

Andrei spun her around and shoved her back into the recess all in one move, using more force than necessary in anticipation of this being a ruse and her counter-attacking.

Her phone fell with a clatter as her back hit the door, her eyes wide behind the white carnival mask. He pressed her wrists to the door on either side of her head.

That wasn’t exactly a regulation hold, but then again, he wasn’t technically on the job right now, and he didn’t want to treat her like a suspect. He wanted to treat her like prey.

Their gazes met and something lurched inside him at that wide blue gaze.

“Hello, Sofie.”

“I… How do you know my… Who are you?” She couldn’t seem to settle on which question to ask.

How did he know her name?

Because Landon had warned him Colette had an accomplice. Andrei had gone looking for said accomplice, at first eyeing the security guards and catering staff…and then he’d seen her.

It had been rather easy to spot the woman muttering to herself. The odd behavior was explainable if you assumed she had an earpiece in to communicate with her accomplice, the same way Andrei could communicate with Landon. Except Andrei had turned his earpiece down so Landon’s conversation with his runaway lover wouldn’t distract him.

Sofie hadn’t been hard to pinpoint, and now she looked so deliciously flustered, he couldn’t help playing with her.

“Are you a bad girl who was planning on stealing something?”

He’d meant it as a taunt, and expected her to respond with outrage or a verbal jab of her own.

But Sofie made a soft, needy noise, her gaze first going wide, then dropping.

Ah. Interesting.

Maybe all high-end thieves were secretly subs. Colette certainly was, though she’d hidden her submissive needs well in the beginning.

Thievery, any crime really, was a high-stress job, and BDSM was a good outlet for stress relief. Many of the Doms he knew, including himself, were secretly video game nerds, so sure, why wouldn’t most cat burglars be sexual submissives.

“I asked you a question.” He sunk some warning into his tone.

“If I was, it would be foolish to tell you.” Her accent said she was Dutch, and the pragmatic, quintessentially Dutch statement confirmed it.

She wasn’t wrong. It would be foolish because despite the fact that he was out of his jurisdiction, he technically had a duty to report any crime he had direct knowledge of.

Then again, there were some things Interpol just didn’t need to know. Like how he was about to treat this criminal like a naughty girl rather than following law enforcement protocols when interacting with a suspect.

“True. But when I ask a question, I expect you to answer.” He slid her wrists over her head, holding them with one hand so he could pinch her chin with the other. He forced her face up with a quick jerk, wanting to shock her.

Her soft lips parted on a gasp, and he could see the tip of her pink tongue.

He nearly drowned in a flash flood of need. The need to possess her, to dominate her until she revealed every secret and shadowed corner of her soul.

“And if I don’t?” Again, her words weren’t a taunt, instead bluntly delivered.

“Then I’ll take you someplace and…convince you…to answer.”

“Like with a spanking?” she whispered.

God, he loved subs.

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