Diva's, Merlin's, and the Roundtable were his favorites. They were also the upper-scale, more expensive BDSM clubs on the eastern seaboard and just happened to operate in the same general vicinity of Atlanta.

Morganna didn't confine herself to the BDSM clubs until she began working with Joe's team. She played a very careful game of a woman hovering on the edge of submission. Or one fighting her Domme tendencies. Morganna was a dare to every male Dominant in those clubs.

Clint watched Morganna keep a careful distance from him as Merino and the others provided the details of the case. And through it, he learned that Morganna was the bait.

Several of the Doms who inhabited the clubs were sniffing around her. She hadn't settled on a lover yet, hadn't used the private rooms, other than Craig's for meetings, and she played the untouchable challenge. Eager to step into the lifestyle of a sexual submissive, but unwilling to settle on one man to do so.

She kept a close eye on the dealers suspected of handling the drug, as well as informing Merino and his men if any of the women acted drugged or seemed to need help leaving.

In the months Morganna had been working with the team, two women had disappeared, turning up days later, dead. Several more had been rescued from their fate by the team's intervention, with only three arrests, and those just here lately.

So far, Morganna had been personally responsible for the arrests of the three men suspected of drugging and kidnapping the women and was now on the lookout for their supplier.

"They've targeted the BDSM community because of the more unrestrained sexual atmosphere and the participants' general secretiveness about the double lives they lead," Joe finished up. "If we could get the group drugging and raping these women here, then we could find the location of the lab or labs being used."

"The Fuentes Cartel created the drug." Morganna spoke up then. "Their stronghold was destroyed last year, but we suspect several of the family members survived. We do know from the intel we've received that the cartel is fractured now and only one lab is currently working. The drug hasn't hit the streets yet; so far, it's just being used for the underground rape videos and, we suspect, is being perfected."

Clint stared back at her, hiding the shock he could feel racing through his system as he watched her. She was speaking of the Fuentes Cartel as though they were your regular, run-of-the-mill drug runners.

They were killers. And the thought of them targeting Morganna had the blood freezing in Clint's veins.

"Do you have idea what you're getting into here?" he ground out. "Any idea just how fucking dangerous the Fuentes people could be?"

She stared back at him calmly. "This drug has to be destroyed, Clint."

"Not by you." God, she had no idea what she was getting into. "Not if Fuentes is involved."

"Fuentes' survival or lack thereof isn't the problem. The supplier and the source are. We can get the suppliers if we get a strong enough Dom in to appear determined to tame the shrew no matter the cost or moral objection." Joe cast a smug look toward Morganna. "So far, we haven't found one. Morganna isn't the easiest woman to work with."

Clint watched her expression closely. Of course she wasn't, and he would have killed any of the four men if they had convinced her to do what would have been required. If he didn't kill them anyway for involving her.

"Are you aware of what they're asking you to do?" he asked her furiously.

She shrugged mockingly. "I'm just waiting on them to present a viable candidate."

The challenge she was presenting to the Dominants within the club was bad enough. Some of them had fewer scruples than an alley cat. But even worse, she was daring some bastard to attempt to drug her, to force her into submission.

Clint had followed the news reports of the women who had been drugged. Those fo

und dead as well as those who'd survived. They had presented a challenge. Women who didn't bow to the submissive lifestyle but who enjoyed watching from the sidelines and socializing within the fringe clubs such as Masters provided.

And Morganna was just waiting for Joe to find a viable candidate to push the bastards into drugging her?

Clint's outraged anger edged higher.

"And you think you could handle working with, a full Dom?" He shook his head. "You can't keep from arguing over a damned grocery list. There's no way in hell you can pull it off."

"Of course I can." She waved the furious retort away with a graceful flip of her hand. "I can be a very good actress when I need to be."

"You've lost your ever-lovin' mind." He stared back at her. His southern drawl had slowly eased over the years of learning other languages, being in other nations, but at times of stress it slipped out. And his stress level was nearing stroke stage.

"For God's sake, Morganna, the private rooms are just for the more extreme acts. I know you're not blind." And that wasn't even counting the underground club-the sexual extremities there had been known to make even him uncomfortable.

"Stop acting like an outraged father." She stared back at him defiantly. "I don't have to ask your permission to do this."

His fists clenched in an effort to control himself, to hold back the lust and the anger and the driving need to protect her. Even if that protection was from herself. Or him.

"Most of our agency Doms won't fool with her past the first hour," Merino snickered as he sat down. "Morganna has a bad habit of trying to tell them how to do their jobs. I believe she even informed one of them that her vibrator was more fun to play with."