by Maren Smith
He had no idea why Eric had opted to seat himself on Sandy’s other side, legs crossed, as relaxed as relaxed could be.
“Shall we get started?” Seating himself, now Marshall did smile as he pulled the stack of nearly stolen files toward him.
Reeve fought not to fidget. His file was among them, he knew, because he’d seen it. His was, in fact, the only master’s file that she’d taken. All the rest were employed submissives, and it hadn’t taken more than a glance at who they were before he realized why she’d focused on those specific employees. All of them were Littles, and all of them had very young-seeming faces.
“My, my,” Marshall noted, coming to the same conclusion. “Well, we can’t really say we’re surprised, though, can we?”
“You shouldn’t,” Sandy said in a tone that held absolutely zero remorse. “You’re a monster.”
Reeve stopped just before he could roll his eyes. What he couldn’t stop was how fast his hand shot out and took a pinching hold of her ear, bringing Sandy right to the very edge of her seat in an instant wincing… well, not quite apology, but one more outburst like that, and Reeve knew he could get her there. “Watch your mouth and your tone, or you’re going to find out just how many privileges you still have and just how fast I can revoke them.”
Her wince faltered and she glared at him. “Or what, you’re going to take away my keycard?”
Eric and Marshall tsked in unison. Reeve took a moment to remind himself how much he liked her sass before dragging her off her chair by her ear and putting her on her knees. Eric removed her chair altogether, leaving her nothing to go back to. He waited until Eric was reseated before claiming his own chair. Then, and only then, did he release Sandy’s ear.
“Move from that spot,” he warned, “speak disrespectfully one more time, and you’ll go through the rest of this interrogation bare-ass naked.”
Rubbing her ear, she opened her mouth.
“Try me,” he promised.
Thinking better of whatever tickled the tip of her tongue, Sandy closed her mouth. She didn’t exactly get apologetic, but her shoulders did deflate just a bit. Reeve rolled his shoulders, popping his neck in an effort to relax.
Thinking her subdued, Marshall tried again. “You’re wrong—”
“The hell I am!” Her head snapped up. When Eric and Marshall tsked again, she ignored them both. “I know exactly what I—no. No!”
She grabbed the front of her borrowed t-shirt, but Reeve had hold of it now too. A vanilla woman would have hit him. She’d have spat in his face, ripped the blanket out of his grasp and laughed, “Dream on, you misogynistic ass!”
A vanilla woman never would have got on her knees in the first place.
But Sandy wasn’t vanilla. She was submissive through and through, even when—like now—she was trying so hard not to be. And God, if that didn’t make his cock twitch. It was like the file room all over again, when he’d been trying so hard to hold on to his anger and betrayal and all he could feel instead was the blistering surge of raw wanting stampeding in his veins.
“Let go,” Reeve warned.
Her green eyes pleaded with him to relent.
“Let. Go,” he repeated, merciless.
She flexed her fingers once, then grudgingly let herself be stripped of her shirt. A bright pink flushed her face, spreading all the way down onto her breasts as he bared her right down to the tattered remnants of her Little Red Riding Hood costume. It was little better than a skirt around her waist now, and he didn’t even allow her that. Her shoulders hunched as he stripped her naked, just like he’d threatened. He even took away her shoes, leaving her with nothing but her own hands now to cover herself.
Across the desk, Marshall watched it all, his head slowly canting to one side. Seated on Sandy’s other side, Eric’s answering smile and arched eyebrows were silently saying, Told you.
Reeve pretended not to notice. He had to. If he paused to think about what he was doing or what this might look like, his common sense might take over and then he’d have to stop. He didn’t want to stop. He wanted to do exactly what he did do, which was to wad the shirt up and toss it far enough out of her reach that she couldn’t help but mourn what her mouth had cost her.
Reeve sat down again, elbows on his knees as he brought himself closer to her level. With her on her knees, he was still over her, but that suited him. Dominants weren’t any better than submissives. They weren’t worth more, and neither were submissives somehow magically worth less. But he was her dominant… for at least another ten minutes or so. And she was his submissive. She was also in trouble, so frankly, he should sit higher. “Hands on your knees,” he said, robbing her of her very last cover.
Flushing miserably, Sandy lowered her hands.
“Look at me.” When she did, he upgraded his threat, “Move from that spot or speak disrespectfully again, and you will spend the rest of this meeting with your hands on your ankles, your pussy on display, and a ginger plug in your ass. Try me,” he finished, when her jaw dropped. Her eyes filled with horror, but her nipples budded into peaks. That might have been due to the coolness of the room, or it might have been the threat. Reeve ignored it either way and motioned for Marshall to proceed.
“All right,” Marshall said, clearing his throat. “Perhaps we should start with the easiest issue to clear and then we can go from there.” Turning in his chair, he paused with a hand on his desk to look at Reeve, and then Sandy, and then he stood up. Without another word, he left his office, but was gone only a moment before he returned again. “While we wait, do you mind if I ask a question?”
“Yes,” Reeve said, cutting the question off because he was pretty sure he already knew what it was.
Accepting that refusal, Marshall returned to his seat. He shifted once, then changed his mind. “You know, I’m going to ask it anyway. Miss Ebelson, have you ever been in the scene before? I mean, I know what your application says, but obviously that isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on. You’ve pretty much proved that by this morning’s actions alone.”
She pressed her lips together until Reeve nudged her knee with his boot. “A submissive answers when a master asks her a question.”
“I don’t think I know what that means,” she muttered, striving to keep her tone neutral while her expression held nothing but mutiny.
“Which part?” Marshall countered. “The part where I called you a liar, or is it the definition of the word ‘scene’ that’s throwing you?”
“Watch it,” Reeve warned when her mouth shot open. Her eyes still flashed, but she thought better of it.
“Scene,” she replied, short but respectful.
“By ‘scene’ I mean this thing we do.” Marshall swept the room with an all-encompassing shrug. “It’s everything you’re trying to condemn us for.”
“I’m condemning you for what you ought to be condemned for,” she shot angrily back, then quickly caught herself and amended, “With all due respect.”
Saying that didn’t make it respectful, but Reeve didn’t enforce his threatened punishment. Yet. Mostly because of all the questions he’d expected, this was the one he most wanted to hear her answer.
“Go ahead,” Marshall challenged. “Say it. I want to see if you ca—”
She almost came up off her knees to shout at him. “You’re peddling children!”
One had to hand it to her. She was naked, she was kneeling on the floor, and she was absolutely wrong, and still Sandy wasn’t backing down. Because she thought she was right, Reeve realized, which didn’t make anything magically better, but it was hard not to admire her for that kind of courage.
Getting up from his desk, Marshall brought one of the manila files around to her side. He opened it to the photo of the employee’s driver’s license. “Do you see this?”
Sandy barely looked at it. “One would hardly expect you to write ‘this girl is twelve’ across her file. I never said you were stupid, but neither am I. It’s a fake.”
“A fake,” Marshall echoed, not at all happy.
Her chin hiked. “People fake I.D.s all the time.”
Swiveling, he gathered a handful of the files she’d tried to steal, holding them up for her to see. “All of them?”
“Every damn one.”
“Watch your mouth,” Reeve warned, only to have her turn on him next.
“Says a man who uses ‘fuck’ like it’s the only adjective he knows.”
Reeve stood up and moved his chair.
“No, wait,” she said, eyes widening as she recognized her mistake. “Wait, wait, wait!”
Not fucking likely.
“Wait. Please?” She clasped her hands as if in prayer, pleading up at him with a look of such cringing hopefulness that it was hard not to find it adorable. God, he could spend the rest of his life staring down at her, on her knees before him, pleading.
“Ginger root?” Marshall asked.
“Yes, please,” Reeve replied, loving how every nuance of her hopefulness immediately crashed back into despair.
“I’ll go get it,” Eric said, heaving out of his chair. He laughed when she turned her pleading gaze on him next. “Don’t look at me. You’ve worked hard for this.”
“It’s not fair!” she spat, glaring at all of them. “You can’t do this!”
“Well, of course we can,” Marshall gently chided. “We shouldn’t, but we can. And frankly, what else should you expect from dishonest, foul-mouthed, I.D. forging, child-peddling, misogynistic assholes? Those kinds of people don’t play fair. They also don’t call the police. If I were you right now, I’d be seriously concerned about my well-being.” He paused, then arched an eyebrow. “I might even be frightened.”
“I’m not frightened of you,” she countered before he could draw another breath.
“Are you afraid of him?” Marshall asked, flicking a glance at Reeve.
Reeve bristled before he realized what Marshall was really saying.
Sandy must have realized it too. She hesitated, but ultimately shook her head. “No. I’m not.”
“Good. I don’t want you to be. Whether you believe us or not, we’re not in the habit of hurting people. Quite the opposite, in fact.”
A knock stopped Sandy from speaking. She must have thought it was Eric returning with the ginger root. Reeve saw the tiny squirm she couldn’t quite hide and she immediately ducked her head, refusing to watch as Jackson opened the door.
“Amanda, honey,” Marshall greeted, his tone and expression both brightening. “Come on in. I want you to meet Sandy.”
Edging no more than a single step over the threshold, Amanda looked from Jackson, to Reeve, to Marshall, and then to Sandy, and finally back to Marshall again. “Whatever it is, I swear I had no part in it.”
All three dominants dropped the stern from their expressions.
“You’re not in trouble,” Marshall assured her, even as Jackson caught her elbow and drew her into the room.
She came, but only because Jackson caught her elbow and robbed her of the choice. Even as he drew her in, she turned to keep her butt out of his swatting reach. “I’m on assignment, ask anyone. This is the first time I’ve left his side in two days, in fact. Honest to God, I haven’t instigated anything in two weeks.”
Casting Marshall a withering frown, Sandy said, “Yeah, nobody’s scared of you here.”
With a single finger, Reeve gave her a disciplinary tap on the head. “It’s called having a healthy respect for authority. You should really try it some time.”
“Amanda.” Marshall’s tone dropped into notes of grim disapproval. “The only person in trouble in this room is Sandy.”
Far from convinced, the girl took a hesitant step closer. “Okay.”
“She invaded your privacy,” Marshall said, holding up her employee file. “Would you please tell Sandy how old you really are.”
Amanda blinked twice before understanding suddenly flooded her. “Oh my God,” she said, almost under her breath. “I am so sick of this. Every week.” Storming across the room, she snatched her file when Marshall held it up and quickly flipped it open. “That’s me,” she said, waving her I.D. photo in front of Sandy’s nose. She also waved it to the room as a whole. “I’m twenty-four.”
“She’s seen it already,” Marshall said, helpfully. “She thinks it’s fake and you’re twelve.”
“Twelve?” Frustration incarnate, Amanda not only threw her hands up, she threw her folder. It flipped clean over Marshall’s desk, spilling papers everywhere. “Every single week, this happens. First time I’ve been called to Spanky’s office for it, but damn—”
Reeve startled. Jackson’s eyebrow shot toward his hair line and, seated behind Reeve, Marshall straightened.
“Spanky?” On the surface, he managed to sound amused, but there was a note of danger underlying that word and it was a note Amanda heard. “They call me ‘Spanky’?”
“Uh,” she said. “I-I mean, um… I mean—”
Reeve bit the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. Jackson had been around long enough and was on good enough terms with the Master of the Masters, he didn’t bother. He threw back his head, turning around as if not seeing him was as good as not hearing it.
“N-not… to your face,” she hedged, then threw up a hand in reclaimed frustration. “That’s not the issue, anyway. The issue is, I’ve been betrayed by Miss Goody Two-Shoes, here.”
Reeve lost his sense of humor. “Hey, now…”
“No!” She turned on him. “Don’t ‘hey now’ me. ‘Hey now’ her!”
Still on her knees, Sandy stared at her. Beneath her startlement and surprise, for the first time, Reeve thought he glimpsed a flicker of uncertainty. “B-but… you look so—”
“Young?” Amanda demanded. “Oh my God! Like I didn’t know that? Like I don’t get approached almost every single day by some well-meaning person concerned for me? Like I don’t get asked at least once a week, “Do my parents know where I am and what I’m doing?” She turned on Sandy again. “Do your parents know where you are? Do they know you’re on your knees in a room full of people, all starkers with your big ol’ titties hanging out, and a pink ass because someone likes a little slappy with her tickle? How come it’s okay for you, but not for me?”
Sandy’s mouth gaped, but Reeve could see her thinking. He could see the rising flush of embarrassment darkening her skin, her mortification growing as she remembered everything they had done last night. Every ‘slappy’, every ‘tickle’. Every slick drop of sexual lubrication her body had shed as he’d fucked her with his fingers, and his cock, and then shoved a thumb up her ass while he ‘forced’ her to suck his friend. Because he was her Master, and she was his willing little cock-sheath, who’d had no idea until she came here just how much she loved being ‘used’.
“That’s enough,” Reeve said, stepping between the two women. Amanda didn’t back down any easier than Sandy did.
“Yeah, it is enough,” she said, stomping around Reeve to stab a finger in his flinching submissive’s face. “Whatever concerns you had for my safety, you should have brought to me. But you didn’t. You didn’t even bother to talk to me first. You just thought you knew best, so you went behind my back, you violated my privacy, and I guess you expect me to thank you for it.” Throwing up her hands in an exaggerated shrug, Amanda said, “Fine. Thank you. Thank you so very much. Can I fucking go now? Daddy’s waiting for me.”
The room was silent. No one was laughing, or even smiling now.
“Yes, you may,” Marshall said.
Maybe it was good for Sandy to see how much her inappropriate actions had bothered the one they’d been intended to help, but if he could have, Reeve would have shielded her from the worst of Amanda’s parting glare. Whatever Sandy’s thoughts were just then, she flinched from it as if she’d been physically struck.
Everyone was quiet long after Amanda had gone.
“Well,” Marshall said, breaking it at last. He twisted around far enough to se
lect the next file in the stack and checked the name. “Do you want to talk to Chrissy next?”
Shaking her head, Sandy kept her gaze glued to her lap. Her hands held one another in a death grip. Were they the only two people in the room, Reeve would have pulled her up off her knees and into his embrace. But they weren’t alone, and as much as she needed comfort to offset the sharpness of the reaction she obviously had not been expecting from her ‘twelve’ year old, she also needed to feel the full impact of the consequence her actions had wrought.
Marshall must have disagreed. Pushing off the edge of his desk and giving a quick tug at the legs of his pants, he lowered himself to sit cross-legged on the floor before her. “Miss Ebelson.” He waggled a finger in the direction of his own face. “Right here, please.”
Shoulders sagging, she stifled a sigh and looked at him. Unshed tears lurked along lashes grown damp from holding them back. That hit Reeve the hardest. Tears from the sexual torment he was inflicting on her… that was one thing. But this, it was gut wrenching.
“This town doesn’t like us,” Marshall said. “Nobody there knows what we do, but none of that matters. It doesn’t matter that we donate heavily to local community causes or that, when it comes to commerce and tourism, we have put Granger on the map. In fact, it doesn’t matter that every single thing we do here is done with the consent of participating adults. It only seems to matter what the gossips say.” Marshall caught her chin when she again dropped her gaze to her lap. “You’re not the first person to sneak in here under false pretenses. You’re not the first one to try to take us down from the inside.” He paused. Tone lightening somewhat, he admitted, “You are the first to steal a keycard, break into multiple offices, destroy two file cabinets and make off with a handful of employee records. I’ll give you credit for that.”
If anything, her shoulders sagged further. “I didn’t make it out the door of the file room, much less the Castle. You have me on tape. You don’t even need to lecture me. Just call the police and have me arrested. It would be less painful.”