Saving Sara (Masters of the Castle)

by Maren Smith

He was laughing at her.

  Sara lost it. She knew she was out of line and yet there was no holding back. As satisfying as it would have been to slug him one, she burst into tears instead and reached across the table. Flinging the pasta plate, she sent shrimp and noodles flying everywhere and the empty plate whipping over the kitchen half-wall. It shattered somewhere between the stove and the sink.

  It was the most childish and useless thing she’d ever done. Hugging herself, she spun and stormed off down the hallway.

  “Sara,” he called. Now he wasn’t just laughing at her, he was rolling his eyes, too. She could hear it in his voice. She stormed faster, knowing he was following. Ducking into the bathroom, she slammed and locked the door, and then she stood there, trapped in a room without exits, feeling more stupid than she had ever felt in her life. It was an awful feeling, and it only got worse when she heard his deep and heartfelt sigh from the opposite side of the door.

  “Sara, baby.” He knocked lightly twice. “Open up.”

  Grabbing a towel from the rack, she slumped down on the side of the tub, buried her face in the soft terrycloth and just bawled.

  She couldn’t even put her finger on exactly why. She wanted to be mad, because being mad seemed so much more admirable and in control than what she actually thought this was—a pity party. Being mad was better than being pathetic. Why did she have to run into Robert today? She’d been just fine in the dining hall, right up until Robert came up behind her and touched her arm. It wasn’t until she’d looked up at him that she’d felt it, that splintering, crackling sensation that had raced through her guts just as if they were composed of breaking glass.

  “You look good,” he’d said. Like they were old friends, coming together for the first time in ages. “My sub and I are doing a scene in the Rainbow Room later tonight. Want to play with us?”

  So. Eight months together, five living in the same apartment, and that’s how easily she had been replaced. But then, she wasn’t exactly a victim in this, was she? That she hadn’t, in fact, wanted to participate in Robert’s scene had sliced through her like a blade. What kind of person came to a place like the Castle with one man, broke up with him, immediately jumped into bed with another and over the course of one day, never spared so much as a single thought for her original lover until she came face to face with him? What kind of woman did that?

  That Robert had done the exact same thing seemed only a symptom of the real problem. He was with another submissive, yes. He was having a good time, true. But when he’d run into her in the dining hall, she’d seen the way his eyes had lit with…obligation, yes, that’s what it had been. He’d asked because he’d felt obligated to say something. The only real emotion she’d seen from him had come in that instant when Jackson pushed himself between them. He’d gotten angry then, yes—not because he’d wanted her, but because the dominant in him didn’t like taking orders from someone else.

  That was all the emotion she had been worth. Then it had been just like the hallway outside Master Marshall’s office all over again: he’d walked away from her all over again. It had been easy for him. She was easy to walk away from.

  She rocked, muffling her sobs in the hand towel, completely unaware that Jackson had left until she heard him come back again. He said not a word, but the doorknob rattled once and a metallic pop and clatter preceded the whir of an electric screwdriver. The plink of first one screw, and then another, hit the stone floor on either this side of the door or the other; she couldn’t tell. The whole door gave a muted thud against the frame before her half of the doorknob simply popped off. It hit the stone tiles in two pieces, the knob roll-wobbling a neat half-circle toward the sink while the hand plate rolled end over end to become lost behind the toilet.

  Still crouched on one knee, Jackson pushed open the door and looked in at her. He was still smiling, but the look he wore was one of quiet resignation and apology. Putting the screwdriver down, he came into the bathroom and sat on the edge of the tub beside her.

  He studied her a moment, then softly, playfully, bumped his shoulder to hers. They looked at each other, neither one moving, right up until she heaved a shaky breath and then crumpled all over again. She didn’t have the words to try and express how she felt, but then, he didn’t seem to need them.

  “Ah, come here.” He pulled her onto his lap, wrapping her in his strong arms. Robbed of her towel, she let his shoulder muffle her sobs and absorb her tears.

  “He didn’t want me,” she wept.

  “Oh honey.” He stroked her back, rocking her as he pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “You can’t make a man out of an idiot. And if you've shed all these tears for him, then I really am going to spank you, because he isn’t worth a one of them.”

  “Apparently, I’m not worth them either,” she said bitterly.

  The hand smoothing down her back paused to cup her hip. “Go ahead. Test me, baby. Say that again.”

  “Why shouldn’t I say it when it’s the truth?”

  “Because it’s not.”

  She stared at his shirt collar, too afraid to look up. “How do you know?” she whispered.

  Jackson was silent for so long she thought he might not answer at all. “Because,” he said gruffly. “You’re my friend, and I made it my business to know.”

  * * * * *

  The sun peeked its shining face over the stone sill of Jackson’s bedroom window at just past 6 a.m. Sara was awake to see the room lighten, but she didn’t watch it rise.

  Jackson was awake, too, but he didn’t watch it, either. He was too busy doing what he’d pretty much been doing off and on all night long. As the sunlit line of amber began to chase the shadows up the wall, he shifted her thighs until they were hooked over his shoulders. Burying his face between them, his hot mouth licked and kissed her flesh in ways that made her whole body shake. He took his time, as if they had all the time in the world. He made her come. He made her weep from it, and he wore them both out. Again and again he used his hands and mouth and his wonderful, beautiful cock, until exhaustion refused to let it rise again and they collapsed, sweating, sated, dozing in and out until the sun had climbed so far over the Castle that it wasn’t in the window anymore.

  They lay together, not speaking, his fingers tracing the curves of her arm while in the very distance she became aware of the grinding, crackling crunch of the bus coming up the gravel drive. Closing her eyes, Sara rolled over. Putting her back to the window, she buried her face in Jackson’s chest and pretended to be asleep.

  Jackson pretended to believe her and he made no move to wake her when a polite knock rapped once at his door.

  The new day’s clients disembarked and those who had run out of time climbed onboard. Eventually the bus rolled away again.

  Curling into him, Sara burrowed just a little bit closer.

  Around her, his arms held on just a little tighter.

  For the first time all night, they both slept.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Her dress was gone. Piece by piece he’d torn it from her, leaving her in nothing more than her corset, panties and thigh-high stockings, with a little lacy garter that tied around her left thigh. The sexiness was somewhat robbed by the ripple of skin it crowned, but Jackson didn’t seem to care. He came up behind her as she stood in front of the full-length mirror hanging on his bedroom door—her morning penance—and touched her. His shirt was white, his pants, black. He looked every bit like the royalty he pretended to be.

  “What do you say?” he reminded, as his hands settled on her hips.

  “I’m beautiful,” she dutifully repeated. Funny, how she didn’t feel half as sick to her stomach as she thought she would. It had to be because of his hands, smoothing so warm and gentle down both sides of her to caress her thighs, the scarred and unscarred alike.

  “Again,” he said, dropping a heated kiss upon the slope of her shoulder.

  “I’m beautiful.” Her breath hitched when his hands squeezed her and then began to rov
e upward. His arms wrapped her as one journeyed to her stomach, his fingers fanning outward as if feeling for that tangle of heated nerves tying themselves into knots just under his palm. His other hand slipped around her thigh and up into the valley between. He cupped her and then he gripped, digging possessive fingers in and bringing her all the way back against him.

  “Again.” His voice deepened, roughened. His teeth lay a trail of seductive nips across the back of her nape to her other shoulder. He dropped another kiss, this time directly on the worst patch of shoulder scars.

  “I—” Her throat tightened, refusing to let anything more pass.

  His cupping hand squeezed again, then released to lay a soft warning spank—a pat, really—across the curve of her pussy where panty met gusset. “Say it.

  “I’m beautiful,” she moaned, unable to keep herself from squirming when he rewarded her with another kiss, another rub.

  “Good girl.” His breath steamed the line of her neck up to the shell of her ear. His eyes found hers in the mirror and he smiled an instant before she both felt and saw his tongue flick at the oh-so sensitive lobe of her ear. And then the heat of his mouth closed on it and if it weren’t for his arms around her, her knees would have dropped her straight to the floor. Her eyes closed against her will. Her breath shuddered out of her on one long, trembling wave. Every inch of her cringed inward and yet arched back against him.

  “Beautiful,” he rumbled, slipping his fingers around the edge of her gusset to touch her, bare skin to bare, slick, already-dripping-wet skin. That made him laugh, a low-rolling chuckle that shivered her so deliciously.

  She widened her legs, making it easier for him to slip those stroking, fondling fingers inside her, but he didn’t. After only a brief massage, he withdrew from her panties, gave her another of those soft pats that nevertheless shot all the way through her, and then released her.

  “Let’s go.”

  Her legs felt rubbery and weak, and her breathing wasn’t quite right. She stared at his retreating reflection, need aching in all the right parts of her, unable to believe that he could so nonchalantly leave her like this.

  “Go?” she echoed, incredulous when she realized he was heading for the front door, not the bedroom. “Where…?”

  “Breakfast,” he called back cheerfully. “Man cannot live on pussy alone. Ha! Much as I’d love to try. Come on.” Opening the door, he tucked himself up against the wall and held it for her. His was a devilish smile, full of all the darkly amused nuances that made her toes want to curl. “If you’re a good girl, I might let you come sometime before nightfall. And if you’re a very good girl, I’ll let you wear my collar while you do it.”

  A trill of tiny orgasm-like shocks sizzled in all those parts of her that he had just touched. On shaky legs, her body tingling, her sex pulsing, Sara went to him.

  He offered up his arm for her to lean upon when they reached the stairs, and down he led her, heading unerringly for the main dining hall. They were no more than a step or two inside when Jackson suddenly bristled, turned her and abruptly marched her right back out again.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked as he hustled her down the hall.

  “Nothing,” he lied, glancing back over his shoulder. “Just a change of plans.”

  He pulled her around the corner just as the dining hall door swung open, but he steered her through a service door and down another hall before she could see who emerged. Sara thought she already knew who it was and so said nothing, keeping her suspicions to herself. At that moment, she really didn’t want to see Robert either.

  They took their breakfast in the staff breakroom instead. It was round and windowless, furnished by twin picnic tables and a smattering of plastic chairs, and was attached to both the main dining hall via a locked door and the kitchen via a swinging one. The muffled clatter and scrape of hundreds of dishes being rinsed, washed, stirred and shuffled from surface to surface warred with the muted roar of laughter and conversation taking place among the clients in the other room. It wasn’t quiet, but it did offer privacy and direct access to the kitchen, which Jackson took full advantage of immediately upon seating her at one of the picnic tables. Stepping into the kitchen, he crooked his finger, gave someone a pointed look and then came back to the table to pull up a seat next to Sara.

  A moment later, Cook Connie slapped the swinging kitchen door open. Short and stocky, her dark curly hair pulled back under her sanitary hairnet, she marched into the room, her back as stiff as a queen’s, high spots of color painting her cheeks. The look she stabbed into Jackson said she didn’t take well to being summoned.

  Jackson took one look at it and immediately cast the smile he couldn’t quite hide down at his lap. “Oh my,” he murmured, and Sara didn’t think he was talking to her when he added, “We are close, aren’t we?”

  Stopping just out of his arm’s reach, Connie folded her arms across her chest and then stood there. “I’m busy,” she said shortly. “What do you want?”

  “Seafood alfredo, please,” Jackson told her, and to Sara added, “I’ve been trying all week to get some of this. She makes the best in the world, I guarantee it.”

  “It’s also only served on Friday and Saturday nights,” Connie said, making no effort to be either patient or polite. “This is Sunday. I know you’re probably puffing for your little chickadee, so I’ll pretend like you don’t already know today’s menu by heart.”

  Jackson arched both eyebrows. “Be careful,” he warned her, his smile dimming slightly.

  Connie shifted from one foot to the other, uncrossed her arms and knuckled her fists into her hips instead. “Of what?” she demanded. “You? Little man, I took your measure the first day you waltzed into this place. You think you know me? You think you can make me submit? Supper and Show my ass!” In a blink, the look in her dark eyes turned all Domme, enraged and dangerous. “Step into my kitchen, bitch. We’ll see who bends who over the counter!”

  Snapping around on her heels, she stalked back to the kitchen.

  “How long before the alfredo’s ready?” Jackson called after her.

  “Five fucking days!” she bellowed back, slamming the swinging kitchen door open, and vanished inside.

  “What the hell was that?” Sara said, staring wide-eyed at the still swinging door.

  Tsking, Jackson dug into his britches pockets. “That, baby, is a woman on the edge. She’s very close.” He dug his cellphone out of from his back pants pocket.

  “Close to what?” Sara asked, and then took startled note of the cellphone. “Hey, I thought those didn't work anywhere but the front room.”

  He held up one finger. “Hey,” he greeted whomever he’d called. “I need a back-up for Connie…Yeah, it’s that time of year again…I don’t know. She’s been peculiar for a couple of days now. I don’t think she’s going to let me do it…Yeah.” He laughed, leaning back in his chair, one arm coming to rest on the table beside him. “Yeah, sure.” He clicked his phone shut. “Joy. We get to hold the fort.”

  Sara watched him put the phone back into his pocket. He was still smiling, but it had changed somehow. “Why do you do that?”

  “What?”

  “Smile like that when you don’t mean it.”

  Jackson looked at her. “What makes you think I don’t mean it?”

  “Your mouth is smiling but your eyes aren’t.”

  His head tipped slightly. His eyes narrowed, a calculating stare that she was coming to recognize. Once upon a time, she remembered loving that look back when she used to watch him scene with the other girls at the Shadowbrook Den. It was an unconscious expression, one that meant he was trying to figure out what to do next to whomever he was partnered to—how to treat her, what level to take things to, how hard and fast he should push. Her stomach tightened with the most delicious trepidation, until he smiled again but only with his lips. His eyes remained detached.

  “I’m the head of Castle security, Sara. I’m the first to arrive when a scene goes wro
ng and I’m the last to leave. I’m the shoulder battered submissives cry on when they relate what went wrong. I’m the one who listens and counsels when a Dom spills his or her frustrations because they didn’t achieve the results they expected. This is real life BDSM in a fantasy setting. Nothing we do here can exist in the world outside these walls, and yet all the same rules apply. You can’t just throw two strangers together and expect everything to fall into place if they can’t communicate what they want and need. So when communication fails and catastrophe follows, someone has to be there to pat the shoulders, soothe the feathers, and speak those tender words of comfort. I have to smile, Sara. I have to be friendly and approachable, because it’s my job.”

  A sudden slam of dishes and shouting from the kitchen startled them both. Jackson jerked around in his chair. “And there’s the break,” he said, just before launching to his feet and hurrying for the kitchen.

  “What’s going on?” Sara jumped up, too. She would have followed, but he pointed back at her. That was it, just a sit-and-stay gesture of his finger, and then he disappeared into the kitchen after Connie.

  Sara didn’t sit back down, but she did hesitate. She hovered between their two chairs, listening to the sounds of silence interspersed with muffled conversation that periodically escalated into teary-sounding female shouting: “This is my place…I don’t have to calm down. You calm down! Better yet, get out!...I said, get out!...I don’t care how big you are, little man! You lay one hand on me, I’ll bust your head wide open!”

  Another crash of pots and scattering utensils startled Sara all over again. She was still considering whether or not she ought to venture into the kitchen and see if Jackson needed help when the door to the main dining hall swung open. An older butler swept into the room. Back stiff, shoulders back, hands clasped upon the length of a lithesome switch, he strode swiftly toward the kitchen.

  “Excuse me,” he said as he passed her, but that was all. He’d barely even looked at her.