by Maren Smith
Having her bend over in front of him like that didn't hurt, either. It hadn't even been intentional. Having worked in a place where submissives made a practice out of looking for good reasons to bend over, Dominick prided himself on being able to tell at a glance when feminine wiles were employed by sheer accident or by carefully crafted design. Maddy was a sheer accident kind of girl. He liked that.
He liked the way her face turned that brilliant shade of hot pink while she'd stammered over calling him 'Master'. She hadn't been able to hold his gaze while she'd said it, either. She'd dropped her eyes to her lap and her face had gone even redder, but she had done it and he really liked that. All he could think about now was how fiercely she might blush if forced to say that while bound naked upon his bed, wrists cuffed to the headboard and ankles on a spreader bar—or cuffed to the headboard along with her wrists. Yeah, that was how he wanted plump, shy, stammering Maddy—ass arched up off the mattress, every inch of her laid sexually bare to his scrutiny and his touch… and his use.
A hungry stir of interest was already turning the crotch of his jeans into an uncomfortably tight prison, and she'd only offered that bent-over view for half a second. Already it was burned into his memory—round, curvy nether cheeks, fully fleshed out in denim and decorated by scrolls of colored thread and sequins on the pockets. It had been all he could do not to lay his hands on her right then and there, squeezing, kneading. Owning.
He'd have to watch that instinct before it got him into trouble. He'd been at the Castle too long. Unlike there, where consent was pretty well implied right from moment of arrival (not to mention carefully guarded by the constant availability of a universal, show-stopping safeword), this was the real world. Safewords weren't universal here. There were no ever-present security stations or microphones or hidden speakers in the walls, with a rapid-fire response unit never more than three minutes away. Here, proper social dictates were guarded by sexual harassment lawsuits, and while La Isla del Paraíso might very well be the base of a BDSM vacation resort, it wasn't open yet. He'd have to watch himself until he got back into the swing of how men were supposed to behave in public.
Maddy was probably vanilla. Wouldn't that be just his luck? Of the fifteen people on this plane (apart from himself, the pilots and staff), already Dominick could tell he was the kinkiest bastard here. Everyone else was either an accountant, a lawyer, an investor, or… he stifled a soft laugh… a journalist.
Yeah, Maddy was probably vanilla. That meant he'd need to keep his hands to himself. What a pity. It had been such a long time since he'd last had so attractive a plaything—blonde hair, green eyes, a little heavier than most but who wore her curves in the most mouth-watering places. He loved a woman with curves. Skinny had its place, he supposed, but give him a real woman, one with scars and stretchmarks and a little meat on her frame. Give him something he could grip and really wrap his arms around, without having to worry about snapping her right up the middle. Give him something he could pound into without butting up against hard, unyielding bone. He gave the bruises; he didn't like wearing them and, in particular, he really didn't like wearing them on his pubis.
Maddy, on the other hand… Dominick quickly averted his eyes before the image of her, naked in his bed, her legs spread wide and her pelvic cradle decorated with the kind of bruises he loved to give, could seat itself any more firmly in his mind. He hadn't yet been able to banish the last one.
Or the one before that. God, that moment on the last plane when she'd turned around to look at him between the crack in the seats and he saw her face for the first time. Eyes red-rimmed and nose flushed from crying, still with tears hovering along her lashes and her makeup tracking black streaks down her cheeks. The only thing that would have made that image any better would have been if she were on her knees with his hands locked in her hair, makeup smeared and tears flooding her eyes because she was choking on his cock.
Yeah, the little honey sitting so innocent of the direction his thoughts were determined to wander was just his type.
He stole a look at her hands. No ring.
Perfect. Still, just to be safe…
"Is this your first time to the Caribbean?" he asked.
"Yes, actually." Her hands fluttered like nervous butterflies, settling briefly over her stomach—as if to still its quivering by pressing in—before flitting away and folding in feigned demureness in her lap.
"I'll bet you always wanted to go, though."
She glanced at him, her blush deepening before she laughed. "Not really. Why would you say that?"
"I had a fifty-fifty chance of being right. When it comes to the Caribbean, people have either always wanted to go or never thought twice about it. So, literally, only the job brings you to the islands?"
She tsked, shaking her head once. "I guess I'm a work-a-day kind of girl."
He tsked back at her. "One of the most romantic locations on the face of the planet and here you are, all by your lonesome?"
She averted her eyes, but not before her blush elevated from one charming shade of acute embarrassment to the next. Her fingers twitched, clasping one another just a little tighter. "Yup," she managed, that single word seemingly escaping her too-tight throat with effort.
"I'm not sure how this place works, but at the Castle you'd have been matched with a Dom before you ever set foot from your house. He—or she—would have been carefully picked for you using the answers supplied by you on your admission questionnaire."
"You're assuming I'm submissive," she countered, fixing her eyes on the window, that rosy pinkness high on her cheeks. Her wide eyes were much too bright; her breasts, twin plump handfuls his palms itched to take hold of, rose and fell to the shallow breaths that came just a little too fast. That color on her cheeks deepened another shade when he laughed at her.
"Go ahead, try and tell me you're dominant." He fixed her with a smile of mock-severity, loving how the color on her cheeks deepened another shade. It was the only answer he needed; she was not vanilla. "But before you do, you should know that where I come from, liars are promptly put across the knee and spanked."
She looked at his knees and her hands tightened on one another so hard that her knuckles whitened. For a second, she seemed to forget how to breathe. Oh no. His little Miss Maddy was no vanilla. She was no Dominant, either. He'd bet his left testicle on that, and he never bet to lose.
Her gaze flicked back to his, her eyes so green, innocent and wide. A careless man could lose himself in eyes like those. Dominick wasn't a careless man, but in that frozen half-second of time, he found himself wishing for a straight-backed chair just so he could spill her down across his lap and hold her, the plump flesh of her jean-clad bottom cringing in anticipation of that moment when he would bare her, the playful stitching on her back pockets like twin targets beckoning him to strike.
His palm really was itching now.
"Have you ever been to a dungeon before?"
Her breath seemed to catch all over again. She shook her head.
"Would you like a Dominant?" he asked, feeling every inch the lion moving in for the kill. "Someone to help guide you through the labyrinth of pleasure you're sure to find once we land on the Island?"
Her mouth opened, and Dominick's gaze dropped to the natural fullness of her lips. She looked good without lipstick, and off went his imagination again, dropping Maddy to her knees right there between his thighs, in the tight space between his seat and the one directly ahead of him, hands weaving into the flow of her golden hair as he unfastened his pants and gave those perfect, unpainted lips of hers something more than peanuts to nibble.
"I…" she started, but before she could answer, the seat in front of him suddenly rocked and a redhead popped up into view.
"I thought I recognized that voice!" the woman declared, her perfectly made-up lips erupting into a self-satisfied grin. "Dungeon Master Dominick! Rita said she was going to bring someone from the Castle in to help train her staff. She never said it would be
you!"
The intrusion was another startling reminder that this was not the Castle. Although a private jet, this was still a public place, and one filled to the brim with eavesdroppers, at least one of whom didn't think a damn thing about interrupting what Dominick considered a scene in negotiation.
He turned on the redhead but immediately checked the terseness of his response when recognition struck him. Off the top of his head, he couldn't remember exactly when or where he'd seen her (apart from the obvious—she'd been in his dungeon, probably even under his care at some point), but something of forgotten import kept tugging at the back of his mind.
Oh hell, he nearly blurted aloud when it came to him. "Lady Tee," he greeted, and only just kept from banging his head against the back of his chair. He hid his aggravation, letting it express itself only in the faint clench of his jaw before he forced himself to relax and then smile. "How are you doing?"
"It's Tessa out in the real world, honey," she said, folding her arms upon the high back of her seat. "Not that I'm not thrilled to see you again, but I was rather hoping they'd send Master Kade."
"He wanted to come, actually," Dominick admitted. "Unfortunately, his presence was… specifically discouraged."
"Aw!" Tessa pouted. "Whatever for?"
"Something about a past dalliance with the wife and daughter of a certain prominent investor," he drawled.
"Oh!" Tessa giggled, twirling a lose lock of hair around her finger and throwing up a one-shouldered shrug. "Well, my husband's not here this time."
"Your boyfriend is," drawled the unseen occupant of the chair beside hers.
"We talked about this," she sang at him, careful not to let her tone fall into snotty decibels, her eyes never once leaving Dominick's. Wrinkling her nose, she confided, "I'm trying to arrange a sandwich."
Not with me, Dominick thought. Not if he had anything to say about it.
Beside him, Maddy retreated from the conversation as far as her chair would allow. She turned her face back to the window. Her smile was gone now, though her blush had not diminished. If anything, she seemed even more embarrassed, though not in a happy way like before. Trapped between him and the window, she wrung her hands.
No, Dominick realized. Not her hands. Her finger. The third finger of her left hand, to be specific. There wasn't a ring there now, but he was willing to bet an entire week's paycheck that there had been one at one time.
"Excuse me," the male attendant said, coming back down the aisle. "We're about to take off. I'll need you to sit down and put on your seatbelt so we can get underway."
Tessa turned on the attendant, but then she looked at Dominick and checked whatever unkind remark lurked there at the edge of her lips. She smiled instead. "Sure. Be happy to." Glancing back at Dominick, she winked. "If you find yourself needing a submissive at the Island, I hope you'll think of me."
"Of course." Were she not the wife of a major investor (both here and at the Castle), he would have been tempted to say something a whole lot more heartfelt and significantly less kind. A moment later, Maddy stood up and, impending takeoff or not, excused herself to the bathroom. Her smile, when she scooted past him, was more of a grimace.
The faint scent of baby-powder followed in the wake of her leaving, haunting him as he relived everything she had said and, more importantly, what she had been about to say before their conversation had been interrupted. Had she or had she not been on the verge of agreeing to a Dominant during her stay at the resort? How close was he to getting her to agree to let him be that Dominant? He wasn't without wit and had even been known to be charming, when the situation warranted. As soon as she came back to her seat, he was going to employ every bit of charm he possessed toward banishing whatever had inspired that unhappy embarrassment and refilling every curvy inch of her, from the tips of her toes to the golden roots of her hair, with nipple-tightening, belly-quivering, cheek-reddening sexual embarrassment, exactly like the way Maddy had been before Tessa stood up.
Except that Maddy didn't come back to her seat, and neither of the two stewards responsible for the care and comfort of the jet's passengers seemed to notice. It was a twenty minute flight from takeoff in Nassau to the gentle bump of their descending touchdown on La Isla del Paraíso, and Maddy spent every minute of it hiding in the bathroom.
Shit.
CHAPTER FOUR
It was a small airport, manned by three jets identical to the one they had arrived on and only a single runway, flanked on all sides by the sparkling blue ocean. Warm and humid, the air smelled of both salt and sand, and every breath Dominick took as he disembarked, was laden with the mingling perfumes of tropical flowers and jungle-thick plants.
Rita Moberly was standing at the airport arrival gate, waiting to welcome them in. A distinguished woman, she was no less handsome for her sixty-plus years and held herself with a regal air, despite the limp that made the silver-handled cane she leaned upon a necessary fashion accessory. Her short, curly hair remained more blonde than silver, and her blue eyes, as she swept the disembarking group, were sharp as a hawk's, especially when they came to rest on Dominick.
Although long accustomed to being judged by his appearance, it had been a while since he'd last felt like such a prized piece of beef. When he saw the blatant calculation with which she looked him over, and the subsequent gleam of approval that lit her otherwise strictly-business-like features, he returned the favor, giving her every bit of that perusal in return. She might be in her sixties, but that was a sixteen-year-old's blush that put a splash of color back in her elegantly made-up face before she looked away.
Dominick smirked. He wasn't God for nothing.
"Welcome to the Island's command center," Rita greeted, once everyone was off the plane and gathered around her at the entry gate. "I know many of you have had long flights and are eager for a few hours of rest and relaxation. Others, Mr. Nabito—" she acknowledged the politician, who offered a polite nod in turn, "—would no doubt like to get started right away. So while we go over the necessary financial minutiae of running the business, I would like to invite the rest of you to a lovely breakfast, with a floor show similar to those that will be shown once the resort is operational. Afterwards, you'll be shown to your rooms and later we'll get started with the tours."
Behind her, the glass door swung open and a dark-skinned man gestured for them to come inside.
"This is Emil, my chief officer," Rita introduced. "He will be your guide for the tour and is happy to answer any questions you might have. Again, welcome to the Island. We consider this to be our practice run before we open next month, so please make use of all the amenities you like and enjoy your stay. Emil."
With a nod, she gathered Nabito and his retinue, along with two of the lawyers and one accountant, and the rest she turned over to her chief executive officer.
It was a much smaller group of individuals left standing on the tarmac. Tessa was one, Dominick noted, as was her boyfriend, a slightly shorter, brown-haired man dressed in a loud yellow and orange Hawaiian shirt and khaki shorts. Of the lawyers and accountants, there were two other women, co-workers who stuck close together, whispering and pointing out at the ocean where glimpses of long docks and several startlingly realistic pirate-era Galleons could be seen. Apart from the boyfriend and Dominick, only two other men rounded out their group of ten. And, of course, there was Maddy. The last to disembark, apparently she had to be rousted from the bathroom. Apart from the initial moment when she stepped out of the plane and their eyes met, she avoided looking at him. Once she was down on the tarmac, she found a quiet spot on the far side of the group to stand and wait. Out of the corner of his eye, Dominick thought he saw Tessa glance her way, then sniff and fold her arms around her boyfriend's.
Emil waited until Rita and the others had vanished into the airport, and then he began his address. "Welcome to the Island of Paradise. What you are looking at here is the command center of our resort. This is where our future guests will check in, be sorted into
whichever program they like—pirate or colonist—before boarding a boat to carry them to their destination of choice. Unlike at the Castle," he said, casting Dominick a nod of acknowledgement, "our guests are free to arrive and depart all day long, with upwards of twenty flights in and out throughout the day and ships that depart on the hour, every hour, starting at seven in the morning until ten o'clock each night. Ideally, no guest will remain on this island longer than the time it takes to sort them into their respective programs. All the amenities you'll see outside of the airport are geared towards the employees who live here. Right." Emil clapped his hands and briskly rubbed them together. "Let's get started. Please leave all your carry-on bags here and they'll be taken to your rooms along with your luggage. Breakfast…" He waved toward the airport, "is right this way."
Although not yet in operation, the main hub of the resort was already a bustle of activity with half a dozen porters filing out to take care of both plane and luggage, costumed pirates and the blue and white uniforms of Victorian-era American naval officers intermingling amongst the Galleon ships down at the docks, and a minor army of landscapers wandering the tropical grounds. For the first time, Dominick understood what it was like for a new guest just arriving at the Castle. It was a lot to take in. The airport connected to the command center through a wide glass hallway that allowed for a much better view of the ships in the harbor and, in the very distance, the bluish smudge of land that was their next island destination. It was hard to judge how far away it was, but squinting, and shielding his eyes from the glare of sun on water, Dominick thought he could make out the heavy growth of trees. It couldn't have been more than ten miles, at most.
"That's Fleetwater Colony," Emil said. "Once you eat and rest, we'll be headed there first."
The glass hallway emptied into a large admissions area, the entire center of which was an indoor arboretum, completely enclosed by alternating glass and wire cages that were filled with tropical trees and plants, and several colorful species of bird that seemed free to come and go at will through an open ceiling. Multiple feeding stations made sure more came than went, and none seemed to find any threat at all in the people who stopped by the glass to gander at them.