Chasing Chelsea (Masters of the Castle)

by Maren Smith

  Finding a chair at one of only two unoccupied tables left in the hall, she both ate and perused the want ads. She circled three potential jobs—delivery driver for a local Chinese restaurant, receptionist for a veterinary office and line work in a pillow factory. She was in the process of looking over a fourth option—welder for an oil company, will train, no experience required—when suddenly a man beside her asked, “Is this seat taken?”

  Unaware that anyone had approached, Chelsea jumped. Were it not for the corset already restricting her breathing, she might have gasped, and then gasped again when she realized that the man standing beside her, a tray of food in his hands, was the same leather-clad Greek god she had quite literally run into in the hallway earlier. He was even more gorgeous now, although she couldn’t for the life of her think how such a thing could be possible. “Uh,” she stammered.

  He grinned, dark eyes richly amused, white teeth so perfect and straight behind lips that seemed custom-made for kissing. “Is that a yes?”

  She shook herself, pulling her scattered thoughts together enough to wave him in. “Sure. Yes, um…if you want. Yeah.” God, shut up already. Blushing furiously, she snapped her mouth closed before she could make any bigger a fool of herself.

  The entire table with five other chairs was open, but he selected the seat right next to her and placed his tray on the table. Veal Parmesan, garlic bread, three green beans—his own passing nod at nutrition. They were such kindred spirits. She melted inside.

  “Thank you.” He smiled at her again and snapped his napkin out across his lap. “For a moment, I thought I might have to eat standing up—something I delight in seeing from my submissives.” He winked at her. “Nowhere near as funny when it’s me. I’d hear no end of the teasing.” That knowing smile of his slowly broadened, then he stretched out his hand. “Master Kade, at your very humble service.”

  When she hesitated to take it, he stretched a little farther and caught her fingers. Instead of shaking, he brought her hand to his perfect lips (Oh please, just get over it already!) and brushed a sultry kiss into the cup of her palm.

  Her whole hand tingled, and the sensation spread outward, moving through her on a wave of overwhelming heat. She was smitten, but not so much so that she couldn’t recognize a practiced pick-up line when she heard it. “Yeah, I’ll bet you are.”

  “You’ll bet I’m at your service?” he asked, amused. “Or that I’m humble?”

  “Both.”

  Chuckling, Kade released her hand. “I see someone’s warned you about me. Let me guess. I’m a devil, a rogue, a dangerous man to play with.”

  “A wolf,” she corrected.

  “As in, ‘Big Bad’?” he teased. “All the better to see you, hear you…eat you.”

  She melted even more. “That’s the one.”

  His smile turned every bit as toothy as the wolfish image he was successfully evoking. Her chest tightened, her breasts feeling suddenly swollen, heavy and hot. She could practically feel him nibbling at her from here.

  Master Kade eased back in his chair. “Be careful with that paper,” he said as he picked up his fork. “If Grimsley catches you with it out of the media room, you’ll be catching a taste of his switch.”

  Chelsea stole a quick glance around the crowded dining room, but no one was bearing rapidly down on her, not with switch in hand or otherwise. Quickly folding the newspaper, she tucked it into her lap out of sight under the table.

  “Interesting,” Kade mused, taking a bite of veal. “And here I was, hoping a spanking was what you were angling for.”

  “Why would I do that?” she asked, startling all over again.

  The dark, gorgeous hunk of man eating next to her flashed a speculative glance. “Are you saying you came here expecting not to be spanked? Unusual behavior for a submissive.”

  That heat inside her kicked up another notch when he looked her over. He made no effort to hide it when he looked right at her breasts. They were heaving, rising and falling faster than normal because she just couldn’t control her breathing. “Maybe I’m not a normal submissive.”

  He chuckled, stabbed up all three green beans and ate them. “There’s no such animal as ‘normal’ when it comes to BDSM. All submissives are different, both in what they want and what they need. You might be new, but that doesn’t mean I can’t figure you out.”

  “New to the Castle, you mean?”

  “The Castle’s just a venue. Venues change all the time. No, I mean, new to the scene.” He leaned in close to her, his dark eyes locked with hers, his smile mesmerizing as in the low, silken tones of a lover, he said, “Your inexperience is showing, Red. I can see it.” He smiled. “I can smell it. You’re young in a way that has nothing to do with age. Innocent. Unexplored. Your eyes, the way you’re looking at me says you don’t know who you are at your core and I find that…very arousing.” He winked. “Intellectually, I mean.”

  Like hell.

  When he leaned back in his chair, taking away with him the subtle spice of his cologne, Chelsea had to fight not to lean back in to him. She smothered her rising sense of loss. She ought to get up and walk away. Now, while she still could. He was doing such terrible, awful, seductive things to her. He felt…dangerous. Every bit the big bad wolf that Selena had named him.

  “What about it, Red?” he asked, setting his fork aside, his dark eyes seeing so deeply into her that she could feel the invasion all the way down to her toes. “Have you ever been spanked before?”

  Her bottom crawled, instantly reliving the sensation of Master Marshall’s hand, both the smack and that half-second afterward when his touch had lingered on her flesh. She squirmed, fighting the breathlessness that squeezed at her throat when she tried to answer. “Of course I have. Today, in fact. In Master Marshall’s office.”

  “That wasn’t a spanking.” He leaned in close all over again, amusement dancing in those dark eyes. He was so close now, he could have kissed her. She looked at his lips. “That was a swat.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I asked. I asked a lot of things…Beth.”

  That other woman’s name was like a splash of icy water. “Don’t call me that.”

  “My apologies…Chelsea, then.”

  Her insides shivered at the way he purred her name.

  “I am a man full of questions,” he said, still purring in a way that made her shiver all over again. “Do you know what I’m wondering now?”

  She couldn’t stop looking at his lips. Wetting her own, she shook her head.

  He smiled. “Do you honestly not know the difference between a spanking and a swat, or did you just lie to me? I am seriously interested in discovering the answer to that.”

  In that strangely unsettling moment, in the smallest, traitorous corner of her mind, Chelsea found herself wondering if Kade’s hand on her bottom would feel the same way that Master Marshall’s had. Just the thought of it made the tingling inside her shift wildly, focusing in in key places—her nipples, her clit, her entire pussy all the way up to her burning, tightening womb.

  He really was dangerous. She had to get out of here before she did something really, really stupid…like lean in and kiss him. Or volunteer to find out what a spanking from him would feel like. Just the thought of his hand on her bottom was enough to make her squiggle—a little orgasmic thrill that raced up her spine and shivered her in her seat.

  He noticed it too. Smiling, he tipped his head, as if he could see the next shiver building up inside her.

  She jumped up from her chair so fast she crashed into someone just behind her and nearly knocked them both down.

  “Oh my goodness!” Selena laughed, grabbing Chelsea’s arm. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m sorry!” Chelsea dropped to the ground to gather the newspaper she’d dropped. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to do that!”

  “I’m fine,” Selena assured. “You didn’t hurt me at all, I promise.” No longer in her civilian clothes, the bouncy blonde was no
w entirely garbed in a revealing little girl dress. It was princess pink and cut so low at the neckline and so high in the skirt that glimpses of pink areolae could be seen at one end and frilly pink and white panties at the other. Her hair was done up in pigtails and tied with white ribbons with long tips that caressed her shoulders. Her beaming smile bounced from Chelsea to the man beside her. In a singsong voice, she cooed, “Hello, Master Kade.”

  “No greeting kiss?” Although he retained his smile, it seemed a little diminished now that Selena was here. If the “little” girl noticed, she didn’t let it bother her.

  “Not for you,” she said cheerfully. “Not if I value my hiney. All my kisses belong to Daddy now.”

  “Marriage will do that,” Kade said wryly.

  “Wait until it happens to you.”

  “Bite your tongue, young lady. I’m a free spirit.”

  “You’re something, all right.”

  “I’d spank you for that, but I happen to know you like it too much.”

  “Lucky for me, Daddy knows it too.” Weaving her arm through Chelsea’s, Selena turned to her. “Some of us girls are going skinny dipping in the south pond tonight. Wanna come?”

  Leaning back in his seat, Master Kade’s immediate tsk dissolved into a rueful chuckle.

  Selena ignored him. “Come on,” she cajoled. “It’ll be fun and it’s only for us girls. No one else is allowed, I promise. What’s your room number? I’ll swing by about nine tonight and we can all go out together.”

  Chelsea looked at Kade.

  “Oh don’t worry about him.” Selena waved a hand in his general direction. “By nine, that old horn dog will be tongue deep in his third or fourth floozy of the night. He won’t even spare us a thought.”

  Kade laughed again, although with significantly less amusement. “This old horn dog is one more insult away from teaching you a very sound lesson across my knee.”

  “This isn’t a scene,” Selena replied, still sweet. “It’s the dining room.”

  “It’s whatever I say it is,” he corrected, but stopped abruptly when Selena began quacking her fingers.

  “He’s so cute when he gets all threatening,” she said to Chelsea, and not once did she ever look concerned, not even when he stood up.

  Chelsea flushed, feeling the sudden sternness of his expression in every quivering inch of her. Liquid warmth tickled unexpectedly along the folds of her sex, feeling for all the world like the flicking lick of an experienced tongue. His tongue…She flushed even hotter.

  “Say you’ll come,” Selena begged, catching Chelsea’s arm and hugging it close when all Chelsea wanted in that moment was to flee.

  Tongue deep…floozy of the night…third or fourth…Seriously? Why was she this turned on? Her stomach twisted and churned.

  “Sure,” she heard herself say. “Why not?”

  She had no desire to go skinny dipping—

  Third or fourth…

  —but at this point, for all that she had résumés to draft (did the Castle even have mail service?), if she went back to her room right now, she knew she’d end up spending the night thinking about wolfish smiles, spiced cologne and Kade’s deep purring voice asking over and over again about her spanking preferences.

  Hugging the newspaper tight across her stomach, Chelsea squeezed, but that fluttering deep inside refused to still. Especially when she thought about Kade and tongues and his tongue in particular, because it wasn’t some faceless floozy that she kept imaging, lying on her back with legs splayed apart. Oh no, it was she, moaning and writhing, arching up while his perfect lips worked their way down her body to where the tickling heat of her own arousal kept licking at her labia.

  “Yeah,” Chelsea said weakly. “Yeah, I’ll be there.”

  Selena beamed.

  She had no idea what Kade did. Afraid of what she might do or say next—he was so damned dangerous—it was all she could do to walk away without looking like she was running.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Trying to stop Selena was like trying to stop the wind from blowing, the sun from setting and nine o’clock from coming. Chelsea was organizing the meager contents of her Wal-Mart bag (all of which had been relocated from the hallway where she’d spilled them, into a fancy, new Castle souvenir bag and left for her on the foot of her bed) when Selena’s knock rapped out ‘Shave and a Haircut’ at ten minutes ahead of the hour. When Chelsea opened the door, she found herself staring first at the minuscule slave-girl outfit Selena held stretched out to her and then at the irrepressible blonde herself, dressed in an identical costume.

  “You’re joking, right?”

  “Oh, you know you want to wear it.” Selena breezed in past Chelsea, bringing both costume and conversation out of the public hallway into the privacy of her resort room. She went straight to the single window, pushing the curtains wide open to look outside. “Wow, look at the view!”

  “It’s a giant marble ass,” Chelsea said dryly and closed the door.

  “True, but if you look past the statue, you can almost see the garden. See the lights out there? It’s hard to tell at night, but I think that’s the hedge maze.”

  Joining her at the window, Chelsea obligingly looked for the maze. In order to see anything, however, one had to duck low enough to see between the statue’s legs and she had a good idea what she looked like while doing it. “All I see is the giant ass.”

  “It’s a very manly ass.”

  “With a very big strap-on right behind it.”

  “Ooo,” Selena giggled, craning to see to the left. “Kinky.”

  “To be honest, I’ve seen worse.” Since she’d been here, in fact. Some of it in the last hour, like the man in the fox costume having very public and furry sex with a girl dressed only in striped body paint. She’d never seen—hell, she’d never heard of anything like that before. Shaking her head, Chelsea closed the curtain only to have that skimpy slave outfit thrust out at her again. She took a step back, holding up both hands. “No, thank you.”

  “It’s easier to get in and out of this than what you’re currently wearing. Trust me, I’ve tried.” Selena held up her arms, pivoting to show off her own costume. “See? Everything stays covered and you have to admit, I’m sexy as hell.”

  Little more than twin bibs covered her hips in front and back. Both were tied together at the sides. A single sash barely wide enough to cover her nipples wrapped up her body from the front bib, around her neck and back to the bib again. Her nearly nude breasts spilled out on both sides of that sash and her minuscule skirt flared out when she spun, flashing glimpses of the fleshy curves of her buttocks.

  “Maybe I shouldn’t go,” Chelsea hedged.

  “Oh come on, you’ll thank me later.” Catching her shoulders, Selena turned her around to get at the laces that ran up her back. “I’ve been coming here for years and have tried just about everything. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s this: you’re not going to discover anything about your secret-most desires by sitting in your room. I get it, you know. I do. This boyfriend of yours—”

  “Ex, I think now.”

  “Whatever. He messed up. Whether he realizes it or not, he definitely messed up. You’re here; he’s not. It wasn’t fair of him to set up all this and then leave you to come alone when it’s obviously not your thing. You were sort of along for the ride, but I’ll bet you never would have come at all if some part of you didn’t find something intriguing about the Castle.”

  Chelsea didn’t think she’d moved, but she must have stiffened because Selena stopped tugging and jerking at her laces and paused long enough to rest her chin on Chelsea’s shoulder.

  “It’s okay. I know what it feels like to have all that confusion deep down inside of you that just…just needs. But, as awkward as you feel right now, here without him, you’re not going to find your something hiding in this room. You’ve got to get out. Talk to people. Explore your feelings, mingle and experience the things you see. That’s how I met my Daddy.” Smi
ling, Selena resumed tugging at the laces until she got the dress loose enough to pull it up over Chelsea’s head. “You’ll find someone too, eventually. And trust me, you’ve got a special someone out there who would never let you come to a place like this all by yourself.”

  “It wasn’t his fault.” Chelsea felt a little silly trying to defend someone she didn’t even know. She tried to turn around, but Selena wasn’t done stripping her. She gave the dress an irreverent toss onto the bed, and followed it a few minutes later with the corset.

  “Funny, isn’t it?” Selena said. “How some people seem to think they have the right to tell someone else how they should or shouldn’t feel. You’re the only one who can do that, honey. Not your ex. Not your family or friends. And certainly not anyone else you might meet in the scene, although some of them will try. People tend to have this attitude that if it doesn’t fit in with what they know, then it’s wrong. But this thing we do, it has so many different levels and flavors to it. Most don’t realize just how varied BDSM can be, including those of us who have played in the scene for years. We tend to specialize, you see. We gravitate toward the things that attract us and then we think we’ve seen everything, so we stop looking. I don’t think it’s possible to ever really see everything, and I’ve been coming here for years, like I said. Still, every single time I’m here, I see something new. Today for instance, I saw this woman in body paints being the zebra-kitty filling in a Fox and Hound sandwich.”

  “There was a hound, too?”

  “Disney would be appalled,” Selena said, laughing along with her. “She had this whole line of furries waiting to take their turn. One of them was dressed up like a Minotaur. Oh. My. God.” Selena fanned her face. “That man was longer than his loincloth.”