by Maren Smith
Disappointed, Sinclair went back to work. She put her three buffet tables at the head of the room between the right and left entrances and with the deafening clatter of chairs being set up all around her, she tried to envision what three rounds of three hundred people were going to look and sound like in this room.
“Overwhelmed yet?” Parker asked, while transferring all her bags from the stack on the floor to the tops of the nearest table.
“I’m getting there,” she joked, unobtrusively moving around him to fetch her personal bag before he accidentally found it. If only there weren’t so many people in here. If only she were brave enough to just make a joke, show him some of what she’d bought, maybe strike a sexy pose and ask him how the nipple clamps went on. That old familiar heat wound through her. No. No, she didn’t think she could do any of that. She ended up unpacking tablecloths instead, praying all the while that her face would stop burning.
When the last table was situated and the last chair was tucked up neatly against it, their maid and butler helpers quietly dispersed, leaving Parker and Sinclair finally alone to finish putting up the decorations by themselves. This was the moment Sinclair had been waiting all night for, and yet, it didn’t make it any easier to broach the unbroachable topic of what she’d found on the internet last night and what she’d spent all those quiet hours in her bed nerving herself up to say. The reality of having to say, “I really like you, so please show me some of the kinky stuff you’re into so I’ll know if I can handle it or not,” remained unpleasantly too awkward to risk.
They worked companionably side by side in a silence that was broken only when she gave directions and he took them. They covered all the tables with the deep red tablecloths, then the smaller lacy white ones, which they turned diagonally across the tops. They set out the centerpieces, each table receiving a tall crystal vase for the roses set to be delivered Valentine’s morning, followed by two sets of the votive crystal glasses evenly spaced to either side. Parker followed her down the long rows, dropping candles into each as soon as she’d placed them. The tables looked perfect when they were done, but Sinclair was no closer to sidling up to Parker and asking in low and sultry tones if he’d like to help her model her nipple clamps.
“Drapes next?” Parker finally asked, and back to work they went.
The walls were all dark grey stone, but there was a narrow trim of real wood that ran just under the ceiling all the way around the room. With the help of a pair of sturdy step ladders, Parker and Sinclair worked their way around the room, hanging drapes in alternating colors of red, pink and white, Grecian style. There simply wasn’t enough cloth to cover all the stones, but the colors ended up accentuating those thin strips that remained and the effect of the electric torchlight in the dips and shadows of the drapes actually turned the hall into something theatrically beautiful. It was better than she’d hoped for. She took pictures with her cellphone while Parker walked through the hall, picking up discarded plastic packaging and empty store bags. For her first try, she was really rather proud of how this had turned out.
And then she heard it, the heavy crumple of an anonymous paper bag being picked up and opened. Oh God, he’d found the Crystal Dolphin’s sack. He was holding it. He was looking right at the contents inside. Then he raised his head and looked at her.
Sinclair shot across the room, bumping into one of the food tables with her hip in her haste to snatch the bag back out of his hands. He let it go without comment, watching as she wadded up the bundle as if it were garbage. She blushed furiously, feeling every inch the guilty teenager as she tried, belatedly, to hide the whole damn thing behind her back.
Neither one of them said a word. They just stared at one another and Sinclair blushed even hotter. “It’s nothing,” she finally managed. “These aren’t part of the decorations.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Parker said mildly, his face inscrutable. “I’m far more skilled with those kinds of decorations than what we’ve been doing all night.”
If he’d smiled as he said that, she might have relaxed a little. But he didn’t, and so she didn’t. She shifted back a step, sliding around the end of the table in a vain attempt to get something safe between them. Suddenly, the room felt far too small and intimate. Unfortunately, when she tried to back away, Parker began to stalk her.
“Is there something you want to ask me, Sinclair?” he asked, closing every inch of distance even as she made it.
“No.” Miserable, she tried again to back away. This wasn’t happening at all like she’d hoped it would. It wasn’t sexy. It wasn’t funny. He wasn’t even smiling. Rather, he was intense, focused as he pursued her one step at a time down the entire length of that table until all she wanted to do was drop everything and just run. Fat lot of good that would do. Unless she ran right into Jackson, she was pretty much stuck here.
“Sinclair,” he pressed.
“It’s nothing,” she insisted. “I-I-I… I just… I thought…”
“What?”
Put on the spot, her whole body burning with the heat of her embarrassment, she huffed a laugh that both wasn’t funny and was barely louder than a puff of frustrated breath. She looked at the floor, the table, the drapes they’d spent all night hanging up, because all of that minutia was infinitely easier than having to meet Parker eye-to-eye. “I thought… maybe y-you could show me… whatever it is you like so much about this… stuff.”
Parker didn’t move. He stood before her as stiff as a soldier, his expression offering absolutely no hint at all to what he was feeling, but he didn’t look disappointed or angry or censuring. “Did someone put you up to this?”
His soft voice was as gentle and as reassuring now as it had ever been. For a moment, it was as if they were back in her candy shop, talking seriously a moment as they sometimes did about things that were far and away and had nothing to do with nipple clamps, or faux fur paddles or—God—anal kits.
The paper bag behind her back crinkled as her arms tightened. “No,” she said, shaking her head once. “No one said anything to me at all. I just thought… I…”
He caught her chin when she tried to look away and searched her face. “Have you ever played before?”
She shook her head again. “I’ve never even looked at things like this before,” she admitted.
“But you went out today and you bought those things,” he guessed. “Why would you do that?”
At the moment, she was having a hard time remembering the reasons herself. “Because I like you,” she said, somewhat pathetically. “If this is what you like, I just thought, shouldn’t I at least try it? But then I got here and there were all those people, and I didn’t know how to say anything, so…” She let her voice trail away. She wished she could see what he was thinking. “I guess I thought you might laugh at me.”
“Do I look like I’m laughing?”
“No, but you don’t look happy either. I’m sorry if I made a mistake.”
He actually looked surprised at that, his fingers on her chin tightening before he abruptly let her go. For a moment, she thought he was going to walk out of the room, simply leaving her standing there, but he didn’t. He went straight to the far left doors and locked them. When he glanced back at her, a surge of indecipherable thoughts moved through the shadows of his eyes. Across the room, the flickering of electronic torchlight cast him in dancing darkness, blending the black of his leathers with the black of the windowless room. For all the bright decoration they’d just spent all night hanging, an icy chill danced seductively up her spine.
Parker started back across the room. She backed up a step, but it wasn’t her he was coming to. He walked right past her, heading for the far right doors. He locked those too, and finished his circuit at the giant double doors that linked this ballroom with the next. The heavy whump they made when he swung each door closed sounded so… final. And the clatter of locking bolts sliding home made her shiver.
It had been such a massive room just a few moments
ago. Now, as Parker came back to stand before her once more, suddenly it all felt far too small.
“Are you afraid of me, sweetness?” he asked.
Sinclair shook her head, but she was shaking again. She didn’t know when that had started exactly, sometime during those long few minutes when she realized he intended to lock them in together… and all the rest of the Castle out. “No. I trust you.”
And that was true. She did trust him. Not once in all the months she had known him, flirted with him, laughed and daydreamed about him, had she ever glimpsed a single strange or scary vibe from him. Even when she first saw him walk into the dining hall, dressed all in black leather with Marshall calling him “Master,” had she been afraid. Startled, yes. Intrigued… okay, maybe. Attracted, hell yes. But not afraid. Never that.
“Do you really?”
She nodded.
“Enough to give yourself to me?”
Her heart gave a single thundering beat and then stopped. Everything in that second fell absolutely still. She forgot how to breathe. She forgot how to blink. “Give myself?” she stammered.
“All of you. Every part. Anything I want. Nobody else matters; it’s just you and me here. Give yourself to me for one hour. I promise—” His dark eyes warming a little as he reached up to brush the rough pad of his thumb over the curve of her cheek. “—I will not hurt you. I won’t violate you or take things further than you are willing to go. If you trust me, sweetness, and if you truly do want to know what it is that I like about this… stuff, then give yourself to me and let me show you.”
None of this was happening like she’d imagined when she’d been lying in her bed late last night, her body throbbing to be touched and her mind reeling from all the erotic, exotic things she’d just seen online. And yet, when Parker held out his hand, it felt easily like the most natural thing in the world to pass him her bag of scandalous things.
“Okay.” She trembled, but not because she was scared. She’d never done anything like this before in her life, but she took a step closer and she gave herself over into his unfamiliar care. And in that moment, it felt exhilarating.
Chapter SIX
Parker was in a dream. He had to be; it was the only thing that made all this make sense. How many times had he fantasized about this very thing—well, okay, he’d imagined some pretty hot things, but never this exact scenario. Still, how many times had he envisioned the beautiful, sweet Sinclair placing herself in his hands, letting him do whatever he desired? More times than he could honestly count. How many times had he thought he’d ever get the chance to do this in real life? Never in his wildest dreams. Yet, here she was. In the trembling flesh. Standing with a mix of eagerness and uncertainty crawling over every nervous inch of her while he unpacked her meager bag of hastily acquired toys.
All in all, it was very cute. He never would have chosen this collar to use on Sinclair, however. It was cheaply made, unpadded and with rough edges. The sort of thing one would expect to find in adult novelty shops with the sort of shoddy restraints that a stubborn submissive in a hardcore scene could break right out of. He preferred to buy his restraints from an experienced leatherworker, and the same went for his collars. He had ones with padding on the inside to protect her soft skin from chaffing.
“Very pretty,” he said, holding up the nipple clamps. They were little more than eye candy and likely wouldn’t stay in place if he gave anything more than a light tug, but they made him smile.
“Thanks,” she said, clearly embarrassed.
He liked how her blush deepened when he told her, “I’m going to enjoy watching you model these for me.”
She didn’t say anything, but her breathing quickened just a bit and through the thin fabric of her plain white shirt, it was impossible not to notice how the twin peaks of her nipples stiffened into view.
He placed the clamps on the table beside the collar and pulled the paddle out of the bag. He had absolutely no intention of using this, either. Admittedly, the idea of taking Sinclair into his arms and across his knees was a mouth-watering temptation not worth the strain of resisting, especially if she shared the desire, but her first spanking from him was not going to be with a poorly constructed play paddle and it would not be given with anything but his hand. His bare hand on her bare bottom; nothing would feel better than that.
This last package, however, he arched a brow and looked at her. She turned as red as her hair, and that flush extended all the way down into the neckline of her shirt.
“I broke the package,” she hedged, pointing to the flimsy hook on the top of the box.
“I’m sure the store had tape. They could have fixed it.”
“To be honest,” she said. “I forgot tape even existed. I just wanted to get out of there at that point.”
“Ah.” Parker set the assortment of anal plugs on the table with the rest of her toys. He tsked, as if he truly hated to have to do it. “You’re going to model these for me too. It would be a pity to send you home without the whole “stuff” experience.”
She had her hands squeezed so tight together, her knuckles had whitened.
“Look at me, Sinclair.”
This, the way she moved right now, this was like his dreams—hesitant, but not in a frightened or unwilling way. She was shy, uncertain of what to expect, but ready to follow him into her first gentle experiment. That in and of itself was as beautiful as the rest of her.
She faced him slowly, and when she shyly met his eyes, she offered a tremulous smile.
“Red,” he told her.
That already shaky smile wavered. “What does that mean?”
“It’s your safeword. Do you know what a safeword is?” When Sinclair shook her head, he said, “When you give yourself to me, I am going to be in charge, but you will hold the power to stop me if you need to. In the vanilla world, no means no. In this one, it means anything but. Your safeword protects you in ways no other word can.”
Eyebrows quirking, Sinclair tried to laugh. It was every bit as shaky as her smile a moment before. “I don’t understand. Why would I say no? Why wouldn’t you stop?”
“Sweetness, I am going to make you scream ‘no’ and ‘stop’ and ‘please, dear God, enough’ at least once tonight. If I can’t do that, then I am not doing my job. I am going to arouse you, overwhelm you with sensations and feelings you may not be prepared for. I am going to take you on a journey that spans the highest, hottest peaks and the lowest, darkest valleys. Are you afraid of me?”
“You already asked that,” she said, weakly, her voice trembling now too.
“I am going to ask again, and again and again, if necessary. What is your safeword?”
“Red.”
“Good girl. Had you gone through orientation, you’d also know the Castle has a different safeword, one that is wired into our security system and which, when uttered, will bring the whole of Castle security racing to your aid. For right here and now, between you and me, you don’t need to know it.”
She blinked twice. “W-why not?”
“Because I will always stop at ‘red’ and you aren’t going to play with anyone else here. I am placing you under my protection. That means if anyone—man, woman, Master, security guard, Marshall himself—approaches you for any reason, you don’t go with them, you don’t agree to any requests, you tell them to talk to me. Do you trust me to watch out for you?”
“I-I t-trust you, Parker.”
“Good girl. Now say it again, this time without stuttering.”
He both saw and heard her swallow. There was a tiny pulse beating hard beneath the pale surface of her neck. He resisted the urge to reach out and caress it, kiss it. There would be time for that later. For now, this was too important.
“I trust you,” she repeated, a little stronger.
“As of this moment, you will address me as Master Parker. Say it.”
“Master Parker.” She stammered there too, her inexperienced lips finding the title awkward, maybe even embarrassin
g. The corners of her mouth quirked into a smile.
“Say it again.”
“Master Parker,” she said, stronger this time, but still smiling in that shy, embarrassed way.
Her whole body jumped and that smile abruptly vanished when he seized the back of her neck. He jerked her deep into his personal space, pulling her so close she accidentally stepped on his toes trying to reclaim her balance. Her hands slapped up against his chest, landing half on leather and half on his bare flesh. Startled as she was, she didn’t apologize and she didn’t move her hands. She just stared at him with those huge, green eyes of hers.
“Again,” he commanded.
Her compliance was as instantaneous as it was laced through with a healthy aphrodisiac of respect. “Master P—”
He kissed her, and it was not gentle. It was the kind of kiss he’d longed to give her for over a year. It was hungry, conquering. He swept past her trembling lips and invaded her body, drinking in her startled, mewling squeak as he stabbed into her, thrusting with his tongue the way he’d much prefer someday to thrust in other ways. She tasted just as sweet as he’d always imagined, and when he folded his arms around her, pulling her in even closer, Sinclair melted against him.
“Master,” she whispered, breathless when their mouths once more parted.
Absolutely beautiful.
“Kneel.”
She slid down him, her lovely face turned up as she dropped to her knees right at the ends of his shoes. Her hand stayed on his leg, her hot little palm burning right through his leathers into the flesh of his thigh.
“I am not going to have sex with you tonight,” Parker said, and damn if those weren’t the hardest words to ever force their way out of his mouth.
She was still flying, still gazing up at him with kiss-swollen lips and half-glazed eyes. It took a moment before she realized what those words meant, but he knew when it finally did because the naked disappointment that moved over her face was heartrending.