by Maren Smith
“Never do it again?” Wendy breathed, her eyes every bit as wide as the maid’s. Twin spots of color on her cheeks showed her guilty interest. Possibly even her arousal.
“—for you to work harder at not getting caught,” the maid emphasized. When she giggled, so did Wendy. “I better go. I’m not supposed to talk to the guests. But you know,” she dipped her head in close to both Wendy and Sandy. “You can change programs any time you want to. I’m in the Little Maid program. You should check it out.”
With a final nod, the maid quickly schooled her features and continued her tour through the crowd, offering pastries to those who beckoned.
“I won’t look anywhere near that good in that outfit,” Wendy said wistfully, admiring the maid’s hiply swing as she walked away.
Sandy doubted she would either. It took a slim woman with great legs to pull off that short of a skirt, never mind the boobs to pull off that low-cut top.
A flash of movement caught the corner of Sandy’s eye. It was a subtle thing, little more than a man in black formal wear pushing through the crowd. Even as Sandy saw it happen, she didn’t think much of it. Not until he attached himself to the shy kitty-girl, standing alone and uncomfortable with her uneaten pastry still in her hand. She was every bit the picture of a wallflower, dressed in tabby-cat ears and a fluffy tabby-striped tail. The tail of her leash dangled from her collar. Thick black and grey striped pads protected her knees, although she was standing, not crawling. Her mittens made her hands look more like paws. She was doing her best not to get them dirty as she eventually maneuvered the pastry she’d taken from the Little Maid to her mouth and took a bite. Which was when the man stepped ever so smoothly right up to her and took control of her leash.
Pastry half in and half out of her mouth, the kitten’s eyes got huge. Whatever he said to her made them go even bigger as he stroked his hand up the length of her leash to take a firm hold of her collar. He pulled her in close to him, angling his head as he spoke to her. She nodded once, and then again. When he took the napkin and uneaten portion of pastry away from her, she didn’t argue.
“Spit,” he said, and Sandy only knew that because she guessed. They were both too far away for her to hear for sure, but he did say something as he held that napkin up under her mouth, and the kitten did obediently, blushing the whole time, empty her unchewed bite onto it. Licking her lips once as he wadded the two halves within the napkin, she clasped her paws and waited to be commanded.
“Good girl,” the man said, still too far away for her to hear him, but this time Sandy read his lips. It wasn’t hard; they were just two little words, after all. Letting her leash slide easily over his shoulder as he turned around, the man then led the kitten away.
And she willingly went with him, too. Her eyes were still wide; her hands were still clasped. She was probably a little shell-shocked, but she wasn’t fighting it, and suddenly Sandy noticed similar transactions happening all around her. There were so many people. They were milling so close together and it happened so subtlety that if one wasn’t looking, one never would have noticed when that tall elegant-looking woman, with her golden hair piled in curls so high upon her head, stepped directly in between a man in short pants and the Wonderland Alice he was talking to, neatly severing their conversation as she took his hand and with a single short phrase, led him away too. She took him out through a different door than the man and his kitten, and the guards whose job it had been up until now to keep everyone in this room, opened the door for her and let them leave with little more than a nod of acknowledgement.
“I think something’s happening,” Sandy said, and then jumped, startled because instead of grabbing Wendy’s arm to alert her to the matches being made all around them, she accidently latched onto a man’s coat sleeve instead. “I’m so terribly sorry,” she blurted, snatching back her hand.
The man smiled at her, but already he was inserting himself between Wendy and herself. He turned his back to her and, just like the kitten’s, Wendy’s eyes got huge. The man was handsome and extremely fit, especially for someone of his age, which seemed the same as Wendy’s—about in his fifties. His dark brown hair was flecked through with bits of grey. So was his neatly trimmed mustache, and he had laugh lines around his eyes too, although the smile he leveled on Wendy was more like a stern warning.
“I’ve found you,” he said in a voice rich as slow, southern molasses.
“Uh,” she said.
“Don’t you ‘uh’ me.” He lowered his head, pinning her with a look that sent shivers all the way through Wendy and into Sandy. “My dear, we agreed you were to meet me back at the room over an hour ago and instead I find you here. This is not our room, is it?”
“Uh…” Wendy squeaked, for the first time since Sandy had met her, completely lost for words. “Um…”
He held out his arm. “Come along, darling. Say goodbye to your friend. Before we do anything else, I think you and I and my sturdy leather paddle need to have a long and thorough conversation on exactly how this weekend is going to go.”
Blinking rapidly, the corner of Wendy’s mouth beginning to twitch, she looked from him to Sandy and back to him again. Although he was dressed like a gentleman of leisure, Sandy’s bottom positively crawled at the thought of what a man with his broad hands and a leather paddle could do to anyone’s behind. And yet, Wendy quickly took his arm.
“Wow!” she mouthed back at Sandy as he led her away. The last thing Sandy heard from either of them before the milling of the thinning crowd swallowed them from view was Wendy’s slightly nervous giggle as she inquired, “So… we’re married? What does that entail, um… exactly?”
Holy Hannah. Sandy caught her own hands because she didn’t have anyone else and right now she needed to grab something. It was happening. They were being matched up. The online brochure had said she would be partnered to a dominant, but it hadn’t said how. Apparently, they were already supposed to be acting out their roles.
Holy Hannah, Sandy thought again, rapidly smoothing her hands down her corseted stomach. Clutching the folds of her dress, she turned in a full circle, terrified she would find some unknown man in formal attire sneaking up behind her. She didn’t know if she ought to be more disappointed or relieved that nobody in this room full of people seemed on their way to get her.
Get her. Like a hound bearing down on a well-chewed ball, or a stick or, Sandy swallowed hard, some poor hapless squirrel in a green velvet dress who had entirely too much imagination for her own good.
“Stop it,” she hissed at herself. I am a professional. I am undercover, and I am—
“Look what we have here, Eric,” a deep voice drawled, and Sandy jerked around, her feet rooting instantly to the floor when she came face to incredibly handsome face with a man at least a full foot taller than herself. “I think someone here has just realized she’s in way over her head.”
His brown hair was cut precision short, his equally brown stare belied the amusement his tone was trying to convey. Those eyes were stern, and locked on her. Like a predator.
Entirely too much imagination, she tried to scold herself, but that didn’t change how he was circling her, hands clasped behind his back, every inch of him both a gentleman and a shark, all blended up together in the same dark suit. He wasn’t alone, either. No sooner had Sandy’s brain registered what this first man had said, then did another startle the hell out of her all over again. Now she had two of them, circling her in opposite directions until she didn’t know which way to turn or who to keep in her sight. Apart from lighter hair, blue eyes instead of brown and a leaner, more chiseled jaw, the second man looked strikingly similar to the first. The two might be brothers.
“I think you’re right, Reeve,” the blond man, Eric, said. “I also think we have an obligation here.”
“To save her?” the sterner man, Reeve, asked.
“To show her how deeply she can drown,” Eric wolfishly replied.
Tickling tendrils of dread shivered
all the way up through her legs and into her spine. She couldn’t stop herself from shuddering any more than she could stop those sparkling threads of absolute delight from following in its shivering wake. Her nipples tightened, because… yeah, everyone’s nipples tightened when they panicked. A flood of welcoming warmth overflowed her womb, spilling down between her clenched thighs and dampening the gusset of her panties. Nothing like that had ever happened to her before.
I am so, so screwed, Sandy thought, and shuddered again.
* * *
Eric had been his best friend for years and the truth was, he’d always had a way with words. But Reeve really wished he hadn’t said that last part out loud. Sandy looked ready to bolt. But then, she ought to be scared. Reeve had given the army two tours of his life, both of them in combat conditions in Afghanistan and Iraq. He’d escorted more than one reporter through military zones, and he’d taken part in a raid to rescue another when he got his stupid ass captured and damn near beheaded. He was very well acquainted with what reporters were like and he wasn’t shy about saying he didn’t like them. It was beyond his understanding why anyone would risk their life in order to catch the worst ‘true-face-of-war’ pictures they could find. Judging by what Reeve had seen on that idiot’s camera, he’d been successful too. Not everyone was cut out to be a soldier, and Reeve knew that. Truly, he did. But it took a special breed of person to stand idly by, snapping photographs while an entire family was butchered with machetes. And yeah, it was hard to know exactly what he could have done without becoming a victim himself, but Reeve still found it hard to have respect, not just for that past journalist, who had bawled all the way through his own rescue, but also the so-called reporter quaking in front of him now.
“I… I’m sorry,” she said, her voice so trembling and small that he had to lean in just to hear it.
“Are you?” Reeve countered, continuing his lazy circle around her. “I wonder what for?”
“She must have a guilty conscience,” Eric suggested, also circling. She was turning with them, trying so hard to keep them both in view. “People rarely apologize unless they know they’ve done wrong.”
Sandy shook her head. “I haven’t done anything.”
Oh, but she had, and he knew it. So did Eric. By nightfall, everyone within the chain of command here would know it, too, and they would be on their guard, watching for her. Not that there was anything in or on Castle grounds that was illegal. Immoral, maybe, depending on who did the judging. But leave it to a vanilla to come waltzing into his home, magnifying glass out and ready to start casting her unasked-for opinions all over everyone and every act she saw.
That’s what irritated him the most. This was his home; this was not just a job. This was his way of life. He enjoyed beating ass. He liked to tie women up, bite, pinch, slap, pull hair, and fuck hard, both for punishment as well as for pleasure. He liked to make a woman come, over and over again until they were too weak even to cry out. He liked to take them right to pleasure’s razor-sharp edge and not let them come, over and over until they were heaving in their bonds and sobbing with need. He did not like being judged for it and anyone who did that, in his opinion, was a hypocrite. Nobody’s sex life was pure missionary all the time. Those who condemned porn almost always watched it. Those who snuck their way into his house on false pretenses, hoping to catch them all in some dirty little act—perhaps even to snap photographs to print in her paper later on—well, that person not only deserved to get the shit scared out of her, but she deserved to get sued beyond all financial recovery. She and the paper she worked for.
“You don’t think you’ve done anything wrong,” Reeve echoed, keeping his tone light and playful. It took everything he had. He didn’t like liars, and she was telling a whopper right to his face. Those nervous hands of hers betrayed her guilt. She kept catching at her fingers, twisting and wringing them. The more he circled, the tighter she squeezed. “You know what happens to little girls who lie, don’t you?”
“They get put over Daddy’s knee and spanked,” Eric leaned in behind her to answer, whispering ‘Daddy’ and ‘spanked’ with silken emphasis in her ear.
Sandy jerked away from him, one hand dashing up to scrub at her ear. Faster than Reeve could blink, the nervous submissive vanished, leaving an angry one behind. Rounding on Eric, she knuckled her hands into her hips. “Well, thank God I’m not a little girl, then! Daddy, my ass. Tell me, is there a consequence for jackasses who like to bully the people they’re supposed to be showing a good time? Bend over, buster, maybe I ought to spank you two instead!”
The transformation was as startling as it was oddly glorious. Reeve stopped circling. For a moment, he just stared. So did Eric.
As if suddenly realizing what she’d done, twin spots of bright color flooded Sandy’s cheeks. “Um…” She cleared her throat, bravado visibly crumbling. In a very small voice, she tried again, “I, uh… I mean, yes, um, please, Daddy. Uh…” She winced. “May I have another?”
That was almost as startling as the original transformation had been. Something lit the back of Eric’s eyes. Had she not been staring right at him, he might have smiled. Reeve didn’t have that obstacle, but he schooled his features not to give in to the urge. He also had to lock down that instinctive, ‘you did not just threaten to spank me’ response that rolled through every muscle he had, until it was all he could do not to yank her down across his hip right there in the middle of the ballroom and light a fire under her skirts the likes of which she would not soon—if ever—forget.
Damn it. She had sass in her, too. He’d always been a sucker for a lady with sass.
Eric was the first to recover. “I’m sorry, did someone just forget their role?”
Those twin spots of color grew rapidly, turning her entire face the same shade as her hair. “Well,” she hedged, “you were coming on a little strong.”
She shot embarrassed looks around them, as if afraid someone else might be listening in. Perhaps even judging her, which was ironic, but unlikely. All the other new arrivals had been claimed by their masters or, in two cases, submissives, and led away to begin their fantasy vacations. Those still lingering were Castle staff and extras—guests who knew the game and were tickled enough by the trickery to want to play along. Which was awesome, considering the only incentive offered was a free chocolate from Master Parker’s submissive, Sinclair, who owned and operated the resident sweet shop, Maybe’s Candies. Nobody was paying Sandy any attention at all right now. They were too busy laughing, talking and making the most of the snacks still left on the buffet before the maids cleared it away.
“I came on a little strong,” Eric echoed to Reeve, and this time the smile he offered was absolutely genuine. He was amused, but it was the kind of amusement that could be dangerous to a submissive’s sitting abilities if she didn’t tread very carefully. “Maybe we should start over.”
“Yeah.” Sandy nodded.
Oh, how his palm was itching. Reeve wanted to grab her. He could already see Sandy’s green eyes widening as he slid his hand up the back of her neck to take firm hold of her hair. He’d pull her head back, so all she could see was him. And then he’d inch in closer, so that all she could feel was the impending threat of his hard body against all the soft and quivering parts of hers. But even as his hand twitched to reach, something stopped him. Something didn’t feel right.
She wasn’t picking up on Eric’s verbal ‘I’m going to spank you’ cues. She wasn’t backing down to Reeve’s frown. Because she was vanilla, one half of his brain reasoned. She was a vanilla reporter who was doing what every reporter he’d ever come in contact with overseas had done, which was anything it took to get the fucking story. She wasn’t picking up on the cues because she wasn’t playing the game.
She’d sent in an application marked in ways guaranteed to get her assigned as the submissive to a master, but she didn’t truly know what that meant.
She’d set herself up as a submissive, but she didn’t understand h
er part in that role. She didn’t understand the game, because absolutely it was one, and every person who’d ever come to the Castle knew instinctively how to play it. Even those who claimed this as their chosen lifestyle knew, whether they chose to acknowledge it or not. Dominance and submission was a game because there were rules, codes of conduct, expected behaviors that both sides instinctively exuded, and there were times when it should be played and there were times when it should not.
This was that latter moment, and yet Reeve’s belly flushed warmer, sending twitchy signals all down the length of his stirring cock. The confines of his pants grew tighter. He hadn’t expected that reaction with Sandy, and he honestly didn’t welcome it. But more than just the sass, Reeve was attracted to newness and right now, Sandy was exuding nothing but the virginal newness of a woman asking to be taught how to submit.
Eric hadn’t picked up on that yet. He was still waffling back and forth between dangerous and amusement. “Maybe we should introduce ourselves properly.”
He wanted to spank her.
Reeve’s gut reacted, but it was a reaction of pure jealousy. He’d never felt that with any woman he’d ever shared with his best friend before, but when Eric reached for her, pure jealousy drove him to catch hold of her first. He even managed to catch her by the hand, instead of her hair. The result was the same, however. Her attention locked on him from the moment his fingers took hold of hers.
“Allow me. This is Master Eric,” he said, introducing the other man first, if only to salve his guilt for feeling any kind of jealousy at all. It was as misplaced as it was unnoticed.
Oblivious to Reeve’s inner conflict, Eric tipped an imaginary hat. “He’s Master Reeve and we are your assigned hosts for the weekend.”