by Maren Smith
Once the Castle's most infamous playboy, Kade's grin remained as lecherous as it was unrepentant. "You can still smell the g-string they came out of."
"Oh my God!" Miranda dropped the bills. Jumping up from the table, she ran for the adjacent bathroom to disinfect her hands. "Chelsea was supposed to have softened you!"
"It was her g-string," Kade called, as most around the table erupted into laughter.
Marshall cracked a smile, but that was all.
Dominick didn't do even that much. "Hell no," he repeated.
"We drew lots," Sam supplied. "You weren't here, so you got the short straw."
Frowning down the length of the table, Dominick said, "Jackson's not here, give it to him."
"Jackson stayed up all night with a sick baby," Marshall said. "He's exempt because family comes first. Everybody knows that."
"Fine, give it to Alan. He's not here either."
"No, he's not," Marshall calmly agreed. "What he is, is on vacation."
"Oh, big fat hairy deal," Dominick snapped, waving an irritated hand toward the bank of tall windows. His fingertips caught the morning sunlight streaming in. "He's probably across the field at O's."
"Picked up a packed lunch from Cook Connie just before the breakfast rush," Grimsley confirmed, giving the grey undervest of his butler's uniform a smart tug down over his trim waist.
"He had his bag with him," Parker supplied, with a wink and smile. "Again."
"He's on vacation," Marshall repeated over a sip of coffee. "Where he chooses to spend it is his own business. He's excused. You're not. If you don't want extra assignments, show up for a meeting once in a while."
"I had a client!" Dominick protested, no less irritated but now grasping at straws.
Marshall had no problem calling him on it, either.
"Your client left on the bus over an hour ago," he said, ice-blue victory eking into the chill of his steely eyes. "You had plenty of time to get here, had you been so inclined. The problem is, you weren't, and I'm tired of half-assed attendance at meetings I deem important enough to call. All that aside, Rita Moberly is a friend of mine. I owe her a favor, she's called it in, and so I've promised to send my best Master to help get her venture up and running at a professional level as fast as possible."
Nowhere near mollified, Dominick cast another hard look around the table, taking in the smiles and smirks on all those obviously thrilled not to have been saddled with the chore themselves. Crap. He stifled a disgruntled sigh. "What kind of venture?"
"Seriously." Kade bounced out of his chair to grab the envelope out from between the two men. "You have got to read this." He fished out a full-color brochure and slapped it on the table in front of Dominick. "You get to play pirate for a while."
Dominick took one look at the sixteenth-century Spanish Galleon in the main picture and exploded all over again. "I get seasick!"
"Man up." Kade slapped a pill box of Dramamine, also taken from the envelope, on the table next. "Nothing you ate will be the worst thing ever tossed into the ocean. Besides, while the rest of us are shoveling snow and de-icing the courtyard, you'll be lounging in the Caribbean sand! How can you not be excited about this?"
"You go," Dominick shot back.
His smile becoming a wince, Kade shrugged. "I wouldn't mind."
"Rita requested anyone but him," Miranda said, coming back from the bathroom, two extra wet wipes in hand with which to clean the money he'd given her. "Apparently, he bedded one investor's wife and another's daughter."
"Same investor," Marshall informed them.
"Same weekend," Kade added, his wince softening into a smile again. "In my defense, I thought they were sisters."
"How is that a defense?" Miranda scoffed.
Kade flung out both hands. "Hey, I have a weakness for redheads."
"You have a weakness for anything that moves," she shot back, laughing. "Including the family dog!"
"Hey, she came onto me!"
"She was an Irish Setter!"
"I told you I had a thing for redheads."
"You have your assignments," Marshall called over the top of everyone else's—including Kade's—laughter. "Let's get to it."
Laughter diminishing, Miranda and the other Masters got up, scooting their chairs in and filing from the room to continue Kade's good-natured ribbing somewhere else. Soon, Marshall and Dominick were the only two left at the table. Neither moved until the door bumped softly shut behind the last man out.
Gesturing to the nearest seat, Marshall waited until the frowning Dungeon Master gave in grudgingly and sat down. Scowling, shaking his head, he dumped the remaining contents of the envelope out onto the table next to the Dramamine and brochure. He picked up the airline ticket, frowned at the time of departure, dropped it distastefully, and picked up the brochure. His frown only deepened.
"This," he told Marshall, as their eyes met again, "was dirty pool."
"Who better than you should I send?" Marshall replied. "You've been here since before the first Castle stone was uprooted out of Scotland and shipped to us across the Pond. You've been involved in the implementation of every rule and edict. You know how to train dominants into being strong, consensual Masters. You know how to keep submissives safe. Rita wants to set up a vacation resort as close to ours as she can possibly make it and, in order to do that, she's going to need all the help we can give her if she's to navigate all the legal pitfalls waiting to ensnare an ordinary resort, not to mention one centered around BDSM. So," Marshall's tone dropped low and cajoling, "I'll ask again, who better than you should I send?"
Dominick wasn't impressed. "Someone who enjoys traveling. You're fucking with my routine."
"Just think," Marshall soothed, leaning back in his chair. "Instead of isolating yourself in the Dungeon, you'll have a whole island full of people to bend into your routines. Three, in fact, if I'm reading this right." Taking the brochure from Dominick, Marshall opened it and handed it back. He tapped the top, to the right of the crease. "Three islands."
He didn't want to go to one. To learn there were three did not make the venture any more appealing. "This is a BDSM resort?"
"A perpetual battle between the 'American navy' and the pirates of the Cove," Marshall said, pretty much echoing the spiel emblazoned across the front of the brochure. "Customers can pick whether they want to be pirates or civilians, with the threat of becoming 'captured' by the other side as a daily option. In addition to all the standard resort amenities, both sides have realistic replica ships of the age and offer mini cruises throughout the islands. You can lie in the sand all day, eating lobster and sipping Ti Punch, and then hit the Dungeons all night long."
Dominick's frown grew. "She serves alcohol at her BDSM dungeon resort?"
"One drink maximum each day; same as here. Plus, clients there are restricted from entering the Dungeon or participating in scene negotiations until the drink stamp changes color."
"Drink stamp?" Dominick turned the next page, reading the fine print now.
"Apparently, she's got a waterproof stamp that gradually changes color after an hour on the skin. Anyone who drinks gets stamped, and there's no way to make it disappear any faster than by time's measured passing." Marshall was quiet for a moment. "Or removing the skin, but I should think simply not drinking would be easier."
"One would think," Dominick muttered dryly. "Matters of consent get muddled enough without throwing fools and alcohol together."
"Which was pretty much the same objection you gave when we decided to bring a bar into the Castle. We haven't done that badly. With the proper instructor, she should be okay, too."
Slapping the brochure onto the table, Dominick glared at him. His fingers drummed once upon the colorful photo of the ship. "Do I have a choice in this?" he asked bluntly.
Marshall barely blinked. "None whatsoever."
His fingers drumming again, Dominick gathered up the scattered contents as well as the envelope they'd come in. "Fine. Stop blowing smok
e up my ass," he growled, launching to his feet. "I'm fucking going already."
* * * * *
Maddy Cameron came home from work two hours earlier than usual, excited to share her news. In less than two weeks, she would reach the halfway point in her four-year school plans, gaining her Associates, and already she had an internship lined up. True, she would be doing a lot of fetch and carry grunt work for the editor of the Morning Sun, a Podunk paper with a circulation of only about twenty-thousand, but still, it was a start and Maddy was thrilled. So thrilled that she jogged up the red brick walkway right past the unfamiliar Buick parked behind her husband's super-reliable Kia, hopped the front porch steps and had her key in the deadbolt before it registered that something was off. She looked back over her shoulder at the Buick for a long time, then she opened the door. That was when she got her second clue.
A long-stemmed line of alternating blood-red, soft pink, and snow-white roses trailed from the door into the living room, where a romantic meal for two was laid out on the coffee table, right down the middle of her good lace table runner. Brand new, tall white candles crowned the crystal candleholders her grandmother had gifted the day she and Virgil were married. An intimate scattering of china dishes were positioned between them, littered with fresh strawberries, crackers, and slivers of ripe brie cheese, caviar, and dipping chocolate.
"Oh," Maddy said, her hand resting lightly upon her chest. She was so touched that Virgil would do something like this so… unexpectedly. It wasn't their anniversary yet, not for another two months. But while something special like this struck her as a beautiful way to celebrate the news she had to share, how could Virgil have known about it already?
Which was when the shock and surprise wore off enough for her to notice the not-so-subtle signs that the food on those dishes had already been picked through. Those new candles were partially burned, trickles of dried wax bisecting both sticks all the way down to the crystal holders. A brown leather purse with fringes sat on the carpet at one end of the couch. A square of folded paper napkin had fallen on the floor beside it, a smear of lipstick darkening one corner. Cock-sucker red. Not her shade.
Her smile faded, and for a moment all Maddy could do was stand there. Her hand pressed harder and harder on her chest, needing that touch to keep her pounding heart from breaking straight through her ribs like an alien out of its human host.
"Oh, yes," a soft sigh drifted down the hallway from the bedroom she and Virgil shared. "There… right there, baby… oh my God, yes…"
All stability seeped from Maddy's legs as she turned from the living room to gaze in absolute disbelief down the unlit hallway. The bedroom door was cracked open. It felt as if she had left her heart lying in the entryway as she crept down the hall, past the bathroom and the spare bedroom where one day they had talked about having children, but which for now substituted as a place to store her crafts and his photo equipment, as well as all the other flotsam of their life which had no other set place of belonging in the house.
She was startled by how much her hand shook as she reached to push the door open that much wider. She was shaking all over, in fact. Strange, how she hadn't noticed that. Not until she saw the figures entwined on the bed.
She looked like a frog; that was the first ungracious thought Maddy had as she stood statue stiff, frozen and staring in the threshold. A skinny blonde frog with her knees drawn up and her legs spread so impossibly wide, biting on the back of one finger while Virgil licked and sucked and nibbled voraciously in between her thighs. He had his fingers inside her. Glistening slickness coated his hand—something Maddy could have gone the whole of her life without seeing and never once felt deprived.
She must have made a sound. She didn't think she had, but suddenly the blonde frog's eyes flew open wide. Seeing Maddy standing there, she grabbed Virgil's head with both hands and they both bolted upright.
"Shit," Virgil said, but not before she saw the most painful truth flash across his face. Before the guilt mirrored in his eyes, the emotion Maddy saw assail him first was nothing less than irritation. Not regret or sadness. Irritation. "It's not what it looks like," he tried to say, but Maddy wasn't so stunned that she didn't know in an instant exactly what this was. And just like that, her ten-month marriage was over.
Not right away, of course. No, it took another four months for it to give up hope and gasp out its final breath—four months of couple's counseling, of tears, of knowing every time he left the house or came home fifteen minutes late from work that it was because he might still be seeing the Frog. Four months of Virgil locking his phone against her and taking it with him everywhere, including into the bathroom. Of battered trust and blame and a biting insecurity so devastating that she couldn't stop herself from following him into night after night of yelling and screaming matches that inevitably resulted in their neighbors calling the police. And finally, at the very end, that last insurmountable straw when he'd looked at her across the counselor's desk and said the one thing she'd never expected him to say, the one thing she would never for as long as she lived forget or forgive him for: "Maybe if you'd take better care of how you look, I wouldn't have to cheat!"
Those words had cut so deeply, sometimes she could still feel them as if they were a physical blade slicing deep into her soul.
"Maybe," he'd thundered, his once handsome face contorting with revulsion, beating at her with tones of such contempt that he could not have inflicted more damage if he'd physically assaulted her, "Maybe if you didn't dress like a goddamn pig, or put on some makeup, or put the fucking cake down and picked up a damn carrot once in a while, I'd still feel something for you other than embarrassment and disgust!"
For the second time in her life, completely unable to move, Maddy had sat frozen, hugging her purse to her chest, the most ineffective of shields while Virgil shoved out of his seat to loom over her, stabbing at her with an accusatory finger. "Do I still love you?"
She still remembered the way his voice had boomed, making her whole body flinch.
"How the hell could I love any part of you?"
Making her bones shake.
Across the desk, the counselor raised both hands for peace, and yet it was the potted ficus bush beside her chair that whispered an intervening, "Excuse me…"
"How could anyone possibly love anything that looks like you?" Virgil attacked again, finally freeing her tears. They'd poured out of her like an unending monsoon rain.
"Excuse me…" The ficus brushed her shoulder, then shook her gently with a twiggy hand. "Excuse me. Ma'am?"
Maddy snapped awake mid-sob. She jerked upright in her chair, at once disoriented (she blinked several times at the back of the airline seat ahead before remembering where she was) and then horribly embarrassed because, as happened more often than not even now, four years after her divorce had been finalized, she'd awakened a crying, hiccupping, snot-filled, red-nosed mess.
The stewardess hovered over her, one gentle hand still on her shoulder and a mix of concern and sympathy in her brown eyes. Even knowing it wasn't the same woman, for a moment, Maddy couldn't stop herself from seeing the Frog.
Offering a wince of a smile, the stewardess asked, "Are you all right?"
"Oh." Scrubbing her hands across her eyes—the balls of her palms came away smeared with the mascara she'd forgotten she was wearing; great, now she looked like a raccoon—Maddy nodded. "Yes, thank you. I'm sorry. I'm fine."
Judging by her look, the stewardess harbored private doubts, but she nodded and moved on anyway, wading down the narrow aisle to attend what few other passengers occupied this puddle-jumper of a plane. It wasn't many. This was the red-eye, which left Maddy as one of only six people on a flight that could, at maximum efficiency, have held twenty. That was what she got for traveling on the cheap, but although Rita had offered to fly her from Miami to Nassau first-class, Maddy just hadn't felt right about accepting a completely free, all-expenses paid vacation in the Caribbean and up-charging her flight on someone else's
dime. Especially since it was a less than two-hour flight. She could endure anything—including coach on a crop-duster—for two hours.
She needed a tissue.
Sniffing, Maddy scrubbed at her eyes again. Twisting to see behind her chair, she spotted what might have been a closed bathroom door. Of course, it might also have been a closet. There weren't any signs. It was also an accordion door, which wouldn't afford anyone a lot of privacy. But then, people probably weren't expected to need to use the bathroom on such a short flight.
Maddy sniffed again, craning her head to see forward down the aisle, but the attendant had just ducked behind the farthest curtain to talk to the pilots. Desperation was an awful thing. She was seriously considering the pros and cons of using her sleeve when a fold of white handkerchief suddenly appeared around the back of her chair just over her left shoulder.
"Oh my God, thank you." She took it, snapping out the cloth before it dawned on her that was she was about to do to this very nice square of white linen would not be washed out before she had to return it. "Uh…"
"Blow," drawled the deep and honeyed, and somewhat amused voice directly behind her.
Her runny nose didn't give her a lot of options.
"I am so sorry," she apologized, and blew. It was neither a dainty, nor a ladylike sound. Her face turned hot, and then she just sat there, the wad of soiled cloth in her hands, dreading having to hand it back. "I don't suppose you'd give me your mailing address? I'll wash this and send it straight back, I swear."
Even more amused, the man behind her said, "Keep it. It's fine."
"Are you sure?"
"I wouldn't have said it, if I wasn't," he replied. "Men in my line of work should only ever say what they mean. To do otherwise is a waste of everyone's time and their breath. I don't waste my breath."
What an odd thing to say. Even odder, was the strange quivering that vibrated her insides when he said it.
Maddy had never been an easy-going, talk to strangers sort of girl, but he'd given her his handkerchief. Not wanting to be rude, she twisted around to look back at him through the crack between the airline seats. "What do you do?"