Saving Sara (Masters of the Castle)

by Maren Smith

“Who was that?” Sara asked.

  A flicker of annoyance pulled at the corner of his mouth. He ignored the question entirely. “Get my bag, the dress box and my belt from the bathroom. We’re leaving.”

  “What?” Startled, at first Sara didn’t move. “Where are we going?”

  “Somewhere we won’t be disturbed.”

  * * * * *

  “Welcome to your new home sweet away-from-home,” Jackson said, as he unlocked the cabin door and pushed it open. He stepped inside. Rustic, but clean. The sort of two-room log cabin one would expect to find in a pioneer museum. The only modern convenience was the bathroom, tucked just off the kitchen area, and the light switch tucked discretely between two log beams. He flicked it and all the old oil lanterns turned electric lanterns that were hanging around the room came to soft-glowing life. “What do you think?”

  “It’s very remote,” Sara hedged, inching into the doorway, but she did not come inside.

  Modern clothing wasn’t allowed anywhere outside of the private rooms at the Castle. Not even for employees. Especially not for employees. Being on vacation meant that, for the first time in well over a year, Jackson wasn’t wearing his usual security guard ensemble. Sara had opted for the royal package, and so he added a purple bracelet to his white one and donned the garb of a Lord: black breeches and knee-boots, white shirt and vest. He hated the coats—damn things never fit right on him. He’d left his tossed over the now-empty dress box he’d brought Sara.

  She was wearing his gift, and damn, she wore it well. But then, Sara was the kind of woman who could rock a gunny sack. But then also, he wasn’t exactly unbiased, and this dress was about as far from a gunny sack as anyone could wear. The bodice was very thin, with short, off-the-shoulder sleeves. She wore a thin chemise to protect her skin from the tight bands of her corset, a lovely creation of white lace and narrow baby-blue pin-striping that really bought out the blue of her eyes. It also plumped her breasts right to the verge of popping free of the lacy top. He loved the exaggerated hourglass curve of her body. He loved the fact that the skirt was an independent piece, held in place by a series of ribbon ties that would allow for its solitary removal whenever the desire took him.

  The desire had actually taken him before he’d ever left his apartment. But for today at least, her body was for him and him alone. He didn’t want to share even the sight of her with anyone he didn’t have to.

  As they hiked the half-mile distance along the trail, out to the edge of the property where towering trees sheltered a sparse line of log cabins just like this one from all the rest of the world, the urge to reach out and tug away the ties that concealed her from him had grown restlessly stronger. What man wanted to watch the sexy sway of a full-bell skirt when he could have been watching the naked strut and wobble of a woman’s soft, round bottom instead? Oh, the temptation. But he’d fought it back and swallowed it, because eventually, he knew, this moment was going to come. This moment, when they were absolutely—well, almost—alone and there were no more distractions and nothing else to do but seduce one another with their mouths and hands, and this, the tango entwinement of this dance of dominance and submission they shared.

  “Is this all part of the Castle?” Sara asked, still hovering in the doorway.

  “Yes.” Jackson pointed up at one lantern. “Do you see that little black circle in the base? That’s a camera. There are microphones scattered inside and in certain places around the grounds. If you say the Castle safeword, two members of my security team will put down their coffees, leap up from their chairs and race one another to see who gets to you first. I’ll be mocked until the day I die, but you’ll be perfectly safe.”

  Not looking particularly impressed, Sara turned and glanced back the way they’d come. It wasn’t very far away, but no trace of the Castle could be seen through the trees.

  “No,” Jackson said, smiling. “Not from there.” He stepped back out the door and pointed to the left. “This is one of four cabins. Our closest neighbor (if there’s anybody actually over there) is about twenty yards that way. The other two are evenly-spaced to our right. And the security cabin is this way.” When he stepped off the porch, she trailed him to the corner of the cabin and followed his pointing finger with her eyes. No trace of that cabin could be seen either. “It’s about thirty yards that way. It won’t take two minutes for them to get to you.”

  “There’s a lot of switches out here,” she said, looking around.

  Jackson’s smile grew. “All the better to beat you with, my dear.”

  Look who was the Big Bad Wolf now. Ha, small wonder Parker liked this place. The look Sara gave him was nothing short of exquisite: nine parts wanting, one part trepidation. Maybe with a smidgen of reserve thrown in, although that probably had more to do with her than it did with him. Like her clothes, he was about to strip her of that.

  And then she did it, a quick fold of her arms across her chest, not blocking his view of her breasts so much as a practiced move meant to hide the fact that she was clasping one hand over the scar that crawled up her neck. Suddenly, it clicked for him. The reason for her increasing nervousness had nothing at all to do with the remoteness of the cabin, the isolation or the distance between her and possible help. Instead, it had to do with the lighting and how much of her he could now see. She didn’t have the atmospheric gloom of certain Castle rooms to help her pretend her imperfections didn’t exist.

  It sucked the sexiness and fun right out of the situation.

  She rubbed her skin, looking everywhere but at him.

  “Stop that,” Jackson told her, the words coming out harsher than he meant them to.

  “I’m not doing anything.” She still didn’t look at him, but she must have known what he meant, because on her next rub, she hooked the edge of her sleeve with her thumb and managed to pull it up over her shoulder in an attempt to cover up.

  Jackson was not smiling now. He took an abrupt step into her immediate space, startling her just enough to jerk her gaze back to his. She blushed, but she wasn’t smiling either. And when all he did was tip his head to one side, she lowered her hands, clasping and unclasping her fingers in a nervous, guilty rhythm.

  It was that guilt that fixed her fate. If she had reacted with confusion or embarrassment, perhaps he would have dug deeper for patience. But he’d given her three warnings in the last twenty-four hours. Three. And he was a man who didn’t like to give the same command twice.

  He locked his fingers in the sleeve of her dress and ripped it right off her gown. It tore along the seam of her flimsy bodice as easily as stripper clothes. If he couldn’t keep her from trying to hide behind it, then she wouldn’t be allowed to keep it. That was just that plain.

  Sara jumped, gasping and staring at him wide-eyed as he wadded the torn cloth up and stuffed it into his pocket. Then he turned his attention to ripping off the other sleeve. She wasn’t scarred on that side of her body, but he had a point to make and he wanted to be sure she heard it loud and clear.

  “Say your safeword,” he told her, “and I’ll take you back to the Castle. You can sit in your room until the buses come tomorrow and comfort yourself any way you can.”

  He saw the breath she took—that hard suck that made the swells of her breasts rise and catch.

  “Or?” she whispered.

  “Or you can go inside, and I’ll warn you right now, baby, I am all done telling you not to do something just so you can ignore me.”

  The whole way out here, he’d been anticipating sex and fun and soft spanking games. Apparently, she needed something more serious. Was it just her scars driving this, or did she need something he wasn’t giving her? What was he missing? “Why are you pushing me, Sara? Aren’t two serious spankings in two days enough? Do you really want me to give you another?”

  Was it his imagination or was that guilt he could see flashing across her face? Her breathing was a little faster now, and she wouldn’t look at him directly. She was topping from below. He tsked, sh
aking his head. God, he hated when subs did that, and under any other circumstance, his usual remedy involved doing the exact opposite of what they wanted. Sassy subbies, who liked to tease and bait their way from one spanking to the next, spent the day writing lines in the detention hall. Pain sluts who manipulated in order to test their limits ended up washing dishes in Connie’s kitchen all through the late-night dinner rushes.

  Jackson did not accept manipulation well, but this felt different. Sara hated disciplinary spankings. That she was trying to back him into delivering her third in less than two days made no sense to him. He was missing something. He had to be.

  “Go,” he told her, hands on his hips now. “Whatever you’re going to do, best get to it.”

  She hesitated, but in those few seconds just before she turned away, he thought he saw relief cloud over the guilt. She folded her arms across her chest, hugging herself nervously, but it was still the cabin she went to, not the Castle.

  Jackson turned slowly, staring up at the treetops, surrounded by an ocean of switches he didn’t feel right putting to use. He couldn’t do nothing either. He’d been stupid enough to issue an ultimatum—submit to him for real this time or go. She had chosen submission, and just like that, his ultimatum became her test. If he did nothing, then she would leave here believing his entire interaction with her had been nothing more than an old friend doing his job and there wasn’t a damn thing he’d be able to say to undo that kind of damage when it was over.

  Jackson turned, making another full circle, staring up at the trees. He wanted Sara with a depth of feeling he’d never experienced with anyone else. He was completely overwhelmed by his inability to convince her of that.

  He had to do something.

  He’d never seen anyone use a switch on Sara before, but she liked sting over thud and switches certainly fit that bill. Used lightly, that kind of whipping could be very erotic, but right now erotic wasn’t the message he wanted to send. If she were deliberately backing him into this corner as a way of testing his mettle, he’d show no mercy and he certainly wouldn’t use a switch to correct her. But if this were subconscious, a flash of insecurity expressing itself in half-thought out ways, then correction was absolutely required but he could get away without the severity.

  A flutter of movement at the corner of his eye made him turn again. Sara hadn’t come out of the cabin. It was just the breeze billowing through the plant life, rippling the tall weeds, making heavy flowers and leafy green stalks bow around him. Most he couldn’t recognize. He knew enough about plants to distinguish a tulip from a rose, but there were neither of those here. Still, through the brush and grass, deep in the shadows, he began to pick out a familiar leaf configuration. It looked like a peppermint plant, but he’d brushed up against enough of these as a kid to have the subtle differences permanently embedded in his mind.

  It was an innocuous plant, thin and delicate, with soft almost fuzzy-looking leaves sparsely layered in even pairs all the way down the long stalks. The bane of his wild childhood, it ranked right up there next to poison oak and itching ivy on his list of things to avoid, and yet it was not located out here by accident. Parker had planted them around each and every cabin. Submissives either loved the sensation or hated it, as Parker was fond of saying. But even for those who loved it, the experience was nothing short of torturous, with stinging, tingling, burning after-effects that lasted for hours. A delicate plant, it could be made into the most hellish of floggers and it was very well-deserving of its name.

  It was called stinging nettle, and Jackson didn’t know if Sara had ever felt its sinister bite before.

  But she was about to.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  What was she doing?

  Sara stood in front of the cold fireplace, staring straight ahead at the mantel and wringing each of her fingers one at a time. Why was she pushing him? There was a tiny block of ice growing inside her. A scary thing to feel, she was trying not to look at it too closely. She’d tried to cover her shoulders back at the hotel when he’d first pulled this beautiful costume out of the dress box he’d brought her. He’d told her no back then, and then he’d told her no again when, as he’d insisted on dressing her himself, she’d tried to cover herself a second time. Why couldn’t she just stop? It was like there was a gremlin need crouched inside her, driving her to do exactly what she knew he didn’t want. Trying to resist it was a pain too physical to ignore; giving in—that cold block inside her grew icy spines—felt ten times worse.

  What was taking Jackson so long? He’d been outside for what felt like hours now. Was he angry with her? He’d sounded that way when he’d told her to go. He’d looked it, too. Maybe he was giving up. Her eyes stung at the thought, but the tears refused to come. She really couldn’t blame him if he did. How many times did he have to tell her to do or not to do the same damn thing?

  You’re better than that. That’s what he’d told her yesterday, and in a way he’d been right. She was better, or at least she had been once upon a time. Once, she never would have forced a Dom to give the same command twice. She’d always followed the leads they’d given her. She’d loved the feeling, the freedom inherent in the scintillation of yielding. The desires of her play partners had always been her desires, too, at least for the evening. Once upon a time, the command to submit could have made her panties so wet they dripped. A slap on the ass, the grip of restraints, a fist in her hair and a man’s low growl in her ear could have brought her right to the edge of coming. Wax play could send her soaring over that edge; now, she couldn’t even stomach being in the same room with a lit candle. And fire play…? The massaging warmth of the fleshing wand, the intensity of the flash cotton, the suction of the cups…

  Once upon a time.

  Once.

  But now…she shuddered. Her hand slapped up to cover the scars on her bare shoulder. She gripped, digging her fingers in to that hated mar of skin hard enough to make it hurt, and at last the tears burning at her eyes and nose began to form and then to fall.

  God, she was a mess. Small wonder Robert had thrown up his hands and walked away. Jackson was probably knee-deep in regret right now, wishing he’d never asked her to stay another day. That’s why he was taking so long. He was trying to find a way of telling her he’d changed him mind probably without trying to hurt her.

  That block of ice spread up into her chest, squeezing in at her ribs until it hurt to breathe. She flattened both hands against her breastbone, pressing back at it. That hurt, too, but that at least was physical and real. Real pains were a hell of a lot easier to cope with than the intangible ones.

  Struggling to catch her breath, Sara didn’t realize the cabin door had opened until she heard the first heavy tromp of Jackson’s boots as he crossed the threshold. She stopped, all the fine hairs prickling at her nape, rising to stand on end. She made herself grow quiet and still and stared into the hearth while she waited for him to tell her he couldn’t do this. She was determined that, in this at least, she wasn’t going to make him tell her twice.

  For a long time, Jackson didn’t say anything. She could feel his eyes boring in between her shoulder blades until the air all around her grew crushing with the weight of unspoken disappointment. The door closed softly. When he moved closer, even his footsteps sounded disappointed and that made it so much harder to turn around and face him. After only a few steps, he stopped again. The silence that fell crashing down between them felt crushingly impossible to bear.

  She broke first, asking, “Do you want me to leave?”

  “No,” he said, startling Sara when she heard the slight tremor in his voice. “No,” he said again, harder this time—snapped it really—anger swiftly rising up to replace the tremor she could find no trace of now. “No, I don’t want you to leave! What part of today or any of yesterday said I don’t want you?”

  Every nerve in her body jumped when a storm of hard tromps suddenly brought him right to her. She froze, unable to pull away or stop her own rampant tr
embling. He grabbed her shoulder and yanked her around.

  “Look at me. Look at me! How many times do I have to say that, Sara?”

  She stared up into his angry face, her eyes huge.

  “Do you really think a few scars matter to me?” he demanded.

  When he pulled her in closer, she shrank back, unable to keep from flinching when he cupped the side of her neck. The heat of his palm burned at the puckered twist of her ruined skin.

  “Stop that, God damn it!” Swearing viciously, Jackson turned and stalked away, but only a handful of steps. Stabbing his fingers through his short black hair, he turned and came storming back so ferociously that she nearly tripped over the hearth in her haste to back away. She didn’t know why she was retreating. She wasn’t afraid of him, not really. Not even when he grabbed her by the throat and together they crashed into the wall.

  “It was an accident, and it was three fucking years ago,” he growled, giving her a surprisingly gentle shake. “How fucking dare you let it define you.”

  Sara gasped, but he had already shifted his grip, releasing her throat to hook his fingers in the lacings of her corset. He yanked, breaking laces and popping seams before brute strength finally ripped the stiff cloth open. He bared her chest and most of her round breasts, and finally managed to shove her top down around her waist. The heat of his hand found the worst of her old wounds, covering the mottled flesh of her side, his fingers splaying out across her ribs to encompass as much scar tissue as he could.

  “I don’t care about this,” he told her, his angry face filling her eyes. It was all she could see. Hot as a brand, his hand moved down her side, touching all the places she wished she never had, starting at her shoulder and ending at her hip. “I don’t care about any of this. This is what I care about, damn it!” He tapped two fingers into her chest just above her heart. “And about this!” He reached up to press those same two fingers against the center of her forehead, pressing in as if he could touch her brain. “And, God damn it, Sara, I care about this.”