They'd tried to send him on seduction training. They really had. Every time it had started, it had either ended because the trainer was doing a great job and they wound up just having sex without learning the seduction, or the trainer was doing an okay job and Kaito was uncomfortable and suddenly they kept wanting to hug him.

The final agent who'd signed him off as 'trained' had walked in, looked at him, said, "Think horny thoughts." And left.

But it seemed to have worked. His first mission went all right; just a straight 'get in, get laid, get out,' and while he hadn't been exactly prepared for it, the girl had been pretty, and really kinda nice. His second... Well, this was the second.

If someone found him before he got himself uncollared from the wall, he was going to be humiliated.

If someone didn't find him before he got sold and shipped off, he was going to be very upset.

His gaze slid across the concrete floor of the politician's little basement-dungeon, finding the pair of boots attached to legs like tree trunks, and wondered how long before Taka came back. He hoped a really, really long time. Trees-For-Legs might be glaring at him, but at least he wasn't getting touched.

Oh, sure, "go get blackmail material--remember to film it," sounded bad in the first place. It wasn't half as bad as fighting off hands on your skin and under your clothes and knowing you couldn't win. Not nearly as bad as being found out and sold off into human slavery. Taka had said something about genjutsu'ing compliance... Kaito didn't know if that was possible. He really didn't want to know if that was possible.

His gaze traveled up the tree-trunk legs to the barrel-sized torso and table-width shoulders.

The woman had a nice face. There was sympathy there, along with the glare. Maybe she'd try to hug him. He wasn't sure what he'd do then--his hands were bound with shackles and seals behind him. But at least she'd be over here, instead of over there...

And if she did come over here, he'd be in range of her, again.

He swallowed bile. She might not have liked hurting him, but she'd done it anyway. Her partner--thankfully gone, now--had been more enthusiastic. Only Taka's protests not to leave him scarred had kept him whole.

Resale price went down if the goods were damaged.

Apparently it didn't matter so much, though, if he had marks at wrist, ankles, and throat. Cuff-scars were, he'd been told, hot.