Seducing Sandy

by Maren Smith

  Tsking, Marshall let go of her chin. His hand dropped to his lap and he sat back. Looking up at Reeve, he shrugged. “I’ve got nothing. You?”

  Only about a hundred little things that he would dearly have loved to say, just not in front of anyone but her. Reeve wasn’t a huggy-feely person. He didn’t bandy about his private business to people who weren’t involved, and in the mood she was in now, she’d probably take every soft, soul-weakening thing he had to say and use it like a club against him anyway.

  And yet, if he backed out of this conversation now he could all but guarantee Marshall’s next move would be to call the police. Sandy would be arrested, hauled off in handcuffs, and that would be the last he ever saw of her.

  “I forgot the condom,” he said, because it was the only thing he could think of. It wouldn’t absolve her of all she’d done, but it did re-align Marshall’s priorities.

  “Tell me you’re joking,” Marshall said, more astonished than angry.

  Sandy, on the other hand, was annoyed. “Why do you keep bringing that up? Stop acting like I’m diseased. I got tested like everybody else. You ought to know,” she told Marshall. “You got the report along with all my other application requirements. I—”

  “It’s not what you might have that concerns us,” Marshall snapped back. “It’s what he might have. He isn’t the one who’s been celibate since his divorce.”

  Standing, Marshall stormed back around his desk. He paused at the window to think before coming to a reluctant decision. “Okay.” He returned to his desk, where he braced his hands, leaning instead of sitting. “Instead of having you arrested or suing every pair of pants you will ever own right off you, I am going to make you a very rare offer. The Castle will provide you with a doctor and pay for all medical costs associated with four rounds of STD testing at thirty and sixty days, three months and six months, respectively. In exchange, we expect you to reimburse us for all damages. In addition, I am going to draw up a confidentiality contract, which you will sign, restricting you from publishing or even speaking about anything you did or saw during your time here. And if you set foot on Castle property again, I will have you arrested. Do we understand one another?”

  Sandy blinked, eyes narrowing with mistrust. “You’re going to let me just walk out of here? B-but… no one just walks out of here.”

  “How would you know?” Marshall countered.

  “My boss told me about the others, about Daniel Webber and… and…”

  “Daniel Webber took nude photographs of some of our more high-publicity guests and sold them to several magazines and national newspapers, which was a complete violation of both my guests’ privacy and common decency. In contrast, you took a handful of employee files, damaged some property, and had your health put in jeopardy by one of my masters.” Gathering up the files, Marshall tapped them into order and dropped the lot on a corner of his desk to be re-filed later. “To be honest, the only reason I’m extending this offer is because Bill Morris told me you’re one of the hardest-working people he’s ever known. And although he doesn’t understand why you set your sights on this place, I consider letting you go as my chance to return a personal favor.”

  For the second time, her jaw dropped. “What?”

  “Oh, yes.” Marshall nodded. “We talked about you at length the night before he provided you with the complimentary stay I sent him. I knew exactly who you were before you ever climbed aboard my bus.”

  “All this time, you all knew?” Eyes narrowing even further, she turned her glare on Reeve next. “You were playing me from the start!”

  “Don’t look at me like that,” he warned, bristling instantly. “You’ve got no business passing judgment after the way you’ve behaved.”

  “The way I’ve behaved?” Her face flushed red and in a rush of mortification and movement, Sandy jerked up off her knees. “What if I’d been right?” she snapped. “This would be a completely different scenario if I’d been right!”

  “You weren’t right,” Reeve snapped back. “You weren’t even close. You didn’t do any research. You didn’t follow any tips. You didn’t do anything except imagine the worst possible scenario and then look for whatever you could to make us guilty of it! That’s not journalism, Sandy. That’s persecution.”

  She flinched back, mouth snapping open, then closed again without a word. Reeve felt that final snap of separation between them.

  “Draw up your contract,” she finally said to Marshall, her gaze still locked on Reeve, her voice shaking almost as badly as the rest of her. “I’ll sign whatever you want me to.”

  She grabbed her things off Marshall’s desk—her laptop case, her luggage, even her camera. Reeve wanted to catch her hand when she stormed past him to whip the shirt he’d taken from her off the floor. He actually reached for her while she threw herself angrily into it, but he stopped just before they touched. She would only have yanked herself out of reach again anyway, but that was a hollow excuse and he knew it. She wasn’t just walking out of this room. She was walking out of his life, and if he let her go that easily, he knew he’d regret it.

  And still he stood, following with nothing but his eyes as she marched to the door. Doms didn’t chase after submissives, and they didn’t show their weaknesses in front of other doms. They were strong, they were authoritative, they were damn near inhuman about it, and what business did Sandy have being angry at him when she was the one who was wrong?

  “I’d like to leave now,” Sandy told Jackson, who had made no move to open the door. Hugging her laptop to her chest like a shield, her chin hiked high, she waited to be allowed to leave.

  Jackson looked at him, but Reeve only waved her off. “Let her go. She’s good at running away.”

  Both Jackson and Marshall looked at him for that, but neither of them gave him the censure he knew that comment deserved. Sandy stiffened, but when Jackson got the door, she plowed straight through it and down the hall.

  She’d made her choice; he’d made his. There was no point in following her anyway.

  So why was his chest strangling him? He could barely make himself breathe and his heart kept thundering under his ribs, pounding so furiously that he could feel the echoes of it reverberating down his legs, growing alongside the intensifying urge to run after her.

  Doms didn’t run after anyone.

  His lungs weren’t inflating. He couldn’t breathe. The lack of air throbbed at his temples.

  “Well, that was messy,” Marshall said once the door was closed.

  “Every time I think I’ve got this security gig down, a submissive finds the cracks in the system,” Jackson muttered, crossing the room to drop into Eric’s empty chair.

  “Maybe we should upgrade to eye scanners or fingerprint keypads.”

  “Great. They’ll be plucking out eyeballs and chopping off thumbs next. I’m not working that detail.”

  She was getting away.

  No way was he going to run after her. No way was he going to show Marshall and Jackson that he’d let a client get this far up under his skin. He wasn’t any good for Sandy; she sure as hell wasn’t any good for him. He could already feel the explosion that would happen the minute he caught up with her and grabbed her by the arm… and what? Shook her? Spanked her? Slammed her up against the nearest wall and kissed her until they both felt every bit as consumed as he felt each time her lips softened under his?

  He had to let her go. He’d never be able to trust another thing she said to him, ever. He’d always be wondering what she was hiding, and there’d never be another tender moment that passed between them when he didn’t also wonder if she had an ulterior motive lurking way down under the soft moans and seductive sighs she was destroying him with.

  He had to let her go. That was the way of this place. Submissives came and went, and he’d never once stood in the middle of Marshall’s office, desperately trying not to chase one down and… again, what? Profess his undying love? To a pain in the ass journalist? After less than t
wo days?

  “Pain in the ass,” Jackson said, as if he could read Reeve’s mind.

  Condescending motherfucker.

  “She might be a pain in the ass,” Reeve snapped, rounding on both of them with fists clenched, “but she’s my pain in the ass!”

  And if he let her leave right now, she was going to take a piece of him with her that he might never get back again.

  He’d care about who saw him running through the halls like a love-struck idiot later. Throwing open the door, Reeve shoved past Eric, who was only just returning with peeled ginger root in hand, and raced to catch up with his pissed off submissive.

  Eric blinked after him, then blinked at Marshall and Jackson. “What’d I miss?”

  Chapter 14

  Fucking woman, wait!”

  But Sandy didn’t wait. If anything, she quickened her step, practically running to get under the shadow of the portcullis, not because that offered some magical avenue of escape from Reeve, who was half sliding, half running across the courtyard to catch up, but because she was freezing out here and she’d been too angry to stop and put clothes on first. Her Security t-shirt offered no protection against the winter wind. The temperature had dropped again and the bottoms of her feet were so cold it felt as if she were walking on needles. Her teeth chattered. Her goosebumps had goosebumps. As if that wasn’t enough, no sooner had she ducked under the dubious shelter of the open drawbridge gate than did the heavens open up under the weight of another winter storm. Fat, fluffy snowflakes rode the wind, swirling around her bare legs, tangling in her hair and eyelashes while she shed her shirt so she’d have something other than ice to stand on while she dug real clothes out of her luggage.

  “Sandy!” Reeve barked, closing the distance fast. “I said stop!”

  She gave up arguing with the stuck zipper, whipped around and, without a word, slugged him in the chest just as soon as he was close enough. Her knuckles popped. Hugging her hand, Sandy spun around. Limited by how much ground the t-shirt covered, she tried to walk it off. Excellent advice for a twisted ankle; not so great for cold, aching knuckles.

  More surprised than injured, Reeve recovered first. “Okay.” He kept his tone calm despite the flare of warning that lit his eyes. “I’ll give you that as a freebie, but I really don’t recommend you do that again. I will hit back, and that’s a promise.”

  Whipping around, she promptly slugged him again. Hard enough this time to knock him back half a step.

  He made a visible effort to restrain himself. “Okay, that’s two—”

  She reared back and would have hit him again, this time as hard as all her useless rage and frustration would allow, but he grabbed her arm. Using her strength against her, he spun her around. Her back slammed up against his chest. Keeping a tight grip on her offending hand, his other arm wrapped her waist like a steel band, locking her down. To anyone else, such a hold might have been mistaken for a hug, but Sandy knew it for what it was. Reeve was using his body the same way he’d have used any other physical restraint in this place. It was effective, too. But worse than that, for just a split second, it actually felt good to be held by him.

  How pathetic was that? After all she’d tried to do, there was no way someone like Reeve would want to give her comfort. And once she got this place behind her, no one would ever comfort her in this uniquely overwhelming way again.

  Sagging in his embrace, Sandy gave in to the wall of misery as it came crashing down inside her. She bawled. It wasn’t quiet or pretty, but she was too crushed to care. The only good thing about it happening outside, underneath the portcullis between the white-blanketed courtyard and the ice-covered drawbridge, was that no one else was crazy enough to be out in this weather to see it. Only Reeve, and she’d be damned if he didn’t let go of her wrist to fold both his arms around her. He held her fiercely close, the heat of his steady breaths stirring her hair as he rocked her.

  Rocked her. Just as if he actually meant it. God, he was good at his job.

  He didn’t say a word and he didn’t let her go, not until her tears slowed to trickles and her keening wails to ragged hiccups. He waited until she was all cried out before he pulled her luggage to him and one-handedly wrestled her zipper unstuck. He let go of her then, but only so he could help her get dressed.

  She felt every bit a Little all over again, slipping her feet into the pants he held, letting him pull a shirt and then a sweater over her head and arms. He even zipped her into her coat, then bent to rub her feet and toes before tugging on two pairs of socks and tying her shoes for her. She stood with him kneeling at her feet, watching as he tugged the laces to tighten her sneakers, then made the bows. He did it all without talking and without smiling. At least until the very end, when at last he had her dressed and there was nothing else for either of them to do except step away from one another and say goodbye.

  He didn’t move. She didn’t want to, either.

  “When Marshall gave me the assignment,” he said at last, “and I found out what you were, I wasn’t happy. You’re not the first journalist I’ve ever had to babysit. I actually did a lot of that during my tour in the war.” He was quiet a moment, preferring to look at her shoes instead of her. “You are the first one I’ve ever known who actually tried to use your job in a way that helped someone else. I mean, you did it wrong. There’s no question about that, but… you were right about one thing.” For the first time, he looked at her. “If you had been right, I would hope you would be the kind of person who would want to do something to help a child who was being hurt.”

  That made Sandy want to cry all over again. “When I was a little girl, do you know what I wanted to be more than anything else in the world when I grew up?”

  He didn’t answer. He simply watched her and waited.

  “Lois Lane.” Sandy couldn’t help but smile. Brittle as she was, she thought she might crack under the strain. “I wanted to be the girl who got the story. And my mom, she was so proud of me when I graduated that she got me a scrapbook so I would have a place to put all the important articles that I was sure to write. She died two years ago, and do you know how many articles are in my scrapbook? Not one.” Her faltering smile turned even more brittle. “I haven’t published one thing worth saving.”

  He drew a breath, as if about to argue, but she cut him off. As long as they were being honest, she might as well bare her blackened soul. “You were right too, you know. Everything you said upstairs, it was the absolute truth. I didn’t do my due diligence before I came here. I wasn’t trying to help anybody but myself.” She shrugged and shook her head, and her voice cracked. “I just wanted a story, Reeve.”

  Refusing to cry in front of him, Sandy slung her briefcase over her shoulder, picked up her things and started walking. She only slipped once on the drawbridge. As blurry as everything was through the tears, she was really rather proud of herself for that. She almost made it to the other side before she heard Reeve call out, “The buses aren’t due for several hours.”

  That was okay. She kept going. It was only ten or so miles back to Granger. The walk would do her good.

  She was halfway down the winding road to the first set of gates when she heard the purr of a car engine coming down the road behind her. She didn’t look. It was either security coming to see what the hell she was doing, trudging through the snow all the way out here, or it was Reeve.

  Yup, it was Reeve. She would have cringed, but what few tears she had cried before it got too cold for it had frozen on her skin and now, even after she’d brushed them off, her face felt stiff.

  “Get in,” he said, cracking his window just far enough for her to hear the blast of the heater going inside. As soon as he was alongside her, he parked, popped the trunk and got out.

  There was something to be said for having the gumption to finish a self-flagellating walk once she’d started it, but there was also something to be said for just how cold it was. When Reeve took her bags, she relinquished them without an argument and
trudged her way around to the passenger side while he loaded them into the back.

  The heater felt heavenly. Knowing she ought to be punished, the whole way back to town, she tried not to enjoy it. He had a nice car. Jet black outside, a deep scarlet red with a cloth interior. Roomy. A BMW with all the little luxuries like heated seats that burned up through her pants to warm her butt and the backs of her thighs. It was just on the verge of too warm but she didn’t turn it off. She’d have turned it up, in fact, if only she could. The way she felt right now, at the very least a hot butt was what she deserved.

  “You can drop me off at the bus stop,” she half-heartedly tried to convince him, but he wasn’t having it.

  “How many miles is your house from the bus depot?”

  “Two or three,” she admitted.

  It was five, as it turned out. She knew because not only did Reeve set the speedometer to clock it, but as he parked in front of her house, he made a point of frowning at it before frowning at her. She hadn’t even given him her address; he hadn’t asked for it, either.

  “Stalker,” she accused, and got out of the car.

  He popped the trunk again. “You’re not the only one capable of snooping in someone else’s file.”

  She took her bags as he handed them to her, but if she was hoping for a quick get-away, that was dashed when she tried to step around him and walk away.

  He caught her arm instead. “Hold up.”

  She did, all the while hoping he wasn’t going to try to kiss her. As bad as it already was, a kiss would only make things that much harder.

  Tugging his wallet out of his coat, he fished a business card out of a sleeve and asked for a pen. She only had half a dozen in her briefcase. Telling herself the disappointment curdling her insides wasn’t at all due to not getting kissed, she waited while he copied a number from his cellphone onto the back.

  “Here,” he said, handing her the card once he was done.

  He had the penmanship of a doctor; that was the first thing she noticed. The second was the name he’d scrawled above the phone number.