Jake stared at Coleson for a moment, that close to quitting anyway, but cutting his own throat would accomplish nothing.

“Oh, don’t worry, I’m not quitting,” Jake said, showing a smile again. “I want to be right here when they kick you out on your ass. That’s a show I’d be willing to pay money to see.”

When Coleson’s lips peeled back from his teeth to show a silent snarl, Jake turned and walked out of the office leaving the door open behind him. He very much felt like snarling himself, but held back on the urge until he was out of the office entirely.

“Well?” Ennie asked as soon as Jake came out into the corridor, Tandro’s expression almost as intense as hers. “Did you find out where Tain is?”

“Coleson refused to talk about Tain except to tell me that she quit,” Jake answered, frustration beginning to fill him. “Since we already know she isn’t at her apartment or with any of her friends, I don’t know where the hell she is.”

“Can we help you look for her, my friend?” Tandro asked, the calm in his voice acting as an aid to settle Jake down. “I don’t know how much help I would be, but Ennie knows her way around almost as well as you do.”

“I appreciate the offer, but you two have your own plans to take care of,” Jake said with a sincere smile. Ennie meant to take the training she’d missed from a private source, and Tandro would do the same. Then the two were going back to Oliven to help Gordi abolish slavery, an end they were both determined to accomplish.

“Do you think you’ll find her if you search?” Ennie asked, sympathy clear in her eyes. “If you need professional help, I’d be more than willing to hire some private detectives.” “If I decide I need the help I’ll let you know,” Jake assured her, then they all left the headquarters building in silence. Once outside they separated, Tandro and Ennie on their way back to her house, Jake to his own apartment. Tandro had looked uncomfortable in the clothes Ennie had bought for him, but Jake knew the man would get used to wearing more than a body cloth. Most planets weren’t as warm as Oliven…

Once in his apartment, Jake threw himself into a chair and began to brood.

He’d already tried to trace Tain’s movements, but the woman had obviously covered her tracks to make sure no one followed her. If only she was less of a professional, less able to disappear without a trace…

A picture of Tain formed in front of Jake’s inner eye, Tain the way he’d seen her so often during their time on Oliven. Her beautiful brown hair fell in gentle waves and framed her lovely face and blue eyes, leading his own eye down to the teasing view of that vest. Every now and then the vest had parted to show glimpses of her large and rounded breasts, and that skirt thing had framed her private parts with the promise of an even better view if she moved wrong.

“Or moved right, depending on your point of view,” Jake murmured, falling into a waking dream. In the dream she stood waiting while he walked over to her, his hands going to her face before he leaned down to kiss her softly. Her lips were like a magnet to the iron in his blood, and that blood began to thunder around inside him as his hands moved down and started to take off her vest. She made no effort to stop him, of course, so those incredible breasts were bared to his sight in no more than a brief moment.

“You’ve now run away from me twice,” Jake murmured as he caressed her with both hands, hating that she refused to respond in any way to the touch. “At first I thought it was because you hated me, but if you hated me you wouldn’t have run. You would have told me exactly how you felt, and then you would have turned and walked away. Why did you run?”

“That’s my business,” she answered, looking through rather than at him. “Why are you wasting time?”

Jake knew she meant the way he was touching her. He’d forgotten the point for a time, but it had come back to him that female agents were taught a way to sublimate their physical responses if that kind of thing became necessary. Tain wasn’t letting herself respond to him, which wasn’t at all the same as being uninterested.

“You’re right, I am wasting time,” he agreed, then reached down and removed her skirt before taking her wrist and pulling her after him. She wouldn’t have followed on her own, of course, but being his slave gave him all the choices. He’d made some mistakes with her, but sometimes a mistake can still be very satisfying.

“You were a very bad girl and caused me an endless amount of worry, and now you’re going to be punished for that,” Jake said as he led her to the chair, sat, and then pulled her over his lap. “I think you know you deserve what you’re about to get, but you don’t yet regret having earned it. That lack, however, is about to be remedied.”

The way Tain moved just a little showed how unhappy she was to be in that position, but she wasn’t allowed to do anything but accept what was done to her. Not having to hold her down let Jake use both hands to put the insertion into her round little bottom, and when she gasped he smiled. All the training in the universe couldn’t keep her from responding once that insertion was in place.

But first there was a punishment to be given her. Jake picked up the thin, narrow wooden paddle, and once his hand was wrapped comfortably around the handle he began to spank Tain. One stroke and she made a sound in her throat as she fought not to squirm. Two strokes and the sound was repeated as she continued to resist moving. The third stroke drew a slightly louder sound from her, but it wasn’t until the fifth stroke that she lost the battle to lie still. Her pretty bottom was starting to turn pink, and Jake was only just beginning to warm up—so to speak.

After ten strokes Tain was moving in desperation as she half whimpered and half moaned. Jake watched the squirming as he applied that paddle to her bottom over and over, memory of how worried he’d been about her adding to the strength of his arm. It had taken her two days to get back to the base, and if she’d passed out from blood loss at any point she could have died.

Tain was kicking and howling, her bottom red and tender-looking when Jake came back to himself. He’d been so furious over almost losing her that the paddling had been a bit harder than he’d originally intended. There was no question that she deserved to be punished, but he wanted her able to respond to what came next. If he gave her too much pain, her response would be less than what he wanted it to be.

So he gave her only three more strokes of the paddle, each stroke making her jump and yell and writhe. When he put the paddle aside and urged her to her feet, he felt nothing of a sense of not having done a proper job. After all, tomorrow was another day and so was the day after. It would take more than a few days for his anger to disappear, and Tain, being responsible for the anger, would also be responsible for easing the emotion.

Once Jake got to his feet, he picked Tain up in his arms and carried her to the bed. She was crying, of course, but that was only to be expected. He put her down and then followed, letting her raise her aching bottom off the bed while he leaned over those breasts and began to kiss and lick them. Tain’s breath came in gasps almost as soon as he started, but when he began to kiss his way down her body she also began to moan.

Her knees were spread nice and wide, and when he began to lick her lowest softness her moans turned downright frantic. She probably would have been begging him to ease her if she’d been permitted to speak, but slaves did only what their owners allowed. Jake made her writhe and squirm for quite some time before he straightened and began to take off his body cloth. He would have enjoyed feeling her hands on his own body while he took pleasure from hers, but letting her touch him would have interfered with the rest of her punishment. Jake knew she wanted to touch him, but she hadn’t earned the right to do that.