by Maren Smith
* * * * *
"There's a client waiting for you in the number five private room," Ethan said, falling into step beside Dominick practically from the moment he stepped off the bottom dungeon step.
Let her wait. Although his eyes slid toward the wing of private dungeon rooms, Dominick knew better than to say that out loud. Or any of the other ungracious thoughts currently wending through his mind when he considered what the hell to do with his latest submissive. "Anything going on?"
"Nope," Ethan said. "All's quiet on the home front."
A laughable comment at best. Dominick's Dungeon was now (and had been from the moment its conception became a reality) the most popular of all the Castle programs, and that included their infamous annual 'Deer' Hunt. Always open, there was never an hour of the day or night in which it was completely void of guests. Even now, during the lunch hour when the dining hall was filling up for Cook Connie's noon buffet, and St. Castle's schoolboys and girls were adjourning to the library and the gardens for sack lunches and recess, and the Littles in the Nursery and the puppies and kittens in the mosh pit were being put in their cribs and kennels for naptime—even now, the Dungeon lights were down, the dark-rave, high-energy music was blaring over hidden speakers, dungeon monitors were circling, and the crowd was active.
Roughly the size of three school gymnasiums all linked together, everywhere he looked he could see station after station in use. Lines were forming at the bondage and spanking benches, most of the crosses, and the hoist. Even the stripper poles were busy. This was Dominick's domain. He'd built this place. He'd drawn up the specs for it in the initial building plans. Every station was where it was because he'd put it there, first in plans and then in fact. For four years, he'd worked here, ate here, sometimes slept here. He'd dominated more women (and men) than he cared to remember. He'd created welts here, bruises and scars. He'd both shed and soothed tears. Not for newbies; no one ever assigned them here. Kaylee had been his first, but she was the anomaly. No, his preferred prey had always been the highly experienced. The pain sluts and scene whores. The ones who took and took and took. The ones who never suspected they had a limit… until he helped them find it, leading them through every dark shadow of physical and mental hell, and leaving them exhausted to fly in the euphoria of subspace.
So, this was what it felt like when it got old. Kade had tried to explain it to him once. Dominick hadn't understood it then, but he did now.
"Here," Ethan said, holding up a familiar black and red strip of leather and cloth. "She wants you to wear a blindfold."
Stopping mid-step, Dominick turned and looked at him. "Are you saying Marshall assigned me a submissive role?"
Ethan, both long-time dungeon monitor and friend, arched both eyebrows. "Not that I know of. I'm pretty sure she's submissive. If I had to guess, I'm thinking you're about to get a marriage proposal."
"Oh God!" Dominick swore and turned all the way around, stabbing his fingers through his dark hair.
"I'm only guessing," Ethan continued. "But when a woman says she just wants a few minutes to talk to a certain Master, you know it's not going to be about the weather. She said ten minutes, tops, but that she's afraid if you look at her, she won't be able to say what she needs to."
Swearing again, Dominick braced his hands on his hips and glared across the dungeon. By sheer happenstance, he found himself staring at the number five cell. Only the faintest glow of light could be seen through the barred window, high in the closed door. He didn't know who she was, but already he hated every minute he was about to spend with her. Grabbing the blindfold from Ethan's outstretched hand, Dominick crossed the Dungeon proper.
"In ten minutes exactly, I want someone at that door ready to take over for me," he ordered.
"Let her down gently." Ethan shrugged when Dominick shot him a sour frown. "I don't know. She seems nice enough. She might even be pretty," he added, "if she lost a little weight."
For the second time, Dominick stopped frozen in his tracks. He turned, fixing his dark stare on his friend, and Ethan stopped, too.
"What?" Ethan asked.
"Is she blonde?"
Eyebrows arching all over again, Ethan cautiously said, "Yes. Why?"
Dominick's gaze snapped back to the number five cell's closed door. That didn't mean anything. Blonde women were scattered like Pringles all over the Castle. Bigger blonde women were a little rarer, but even so, they came in all shapes and sizes here. It couldn't be her.
His heartbeat quickened. He wet his suddenly too dry lips. "Do you know her name?"
"Uh…" Ethan searched his memory. "Something French, I think."
"Spanish." His mouth ran every bit as dry as his lips and when Ethan only blinked, he repeated, "La Isla. It's Spanish."
"Okay." Unsure what to make of Dominick's change in behavior, the dungeon monitor asked, "Do you know her?"
"I don't know." Swiping a hand across his lips, self-consciously smoothing down both mustache and the beard that framed his mouth, Dominick walked closer. With every step, he ordered himself not to get his hopes up. Maddy wouldn't have come here… would she? No, not when a letter or an email or even a phone call would have sufficed… right? It was someone else, some half-forgotten assignment from his past. Someone he had shown his devil to and who now carried a flame long after he'd walked away without a second thought.
Reaching the door, Dominick held back just far enough not to look in. He tried to steady his breathing, slow his thumping heart, quiet the quivering in his guts. It wasn't her. It wasn't.
He stole a quick peek through the window in the door.
She was wearing the full-length, dour black uniform of a service maid, complete with floor-length apron and one of the false collars meant to keep her safe from the advances of other Dominants. Her back was to him, arms folded tight across her chest as she gnawed nervously at her thumbnail. Waves of long blonde hair flowed in familiar tendrils out from under the frill of her white mobcap. It hid all but the absolute curve of her cheek, but he knew that cheek like he knew her hair. He knew the dip of her waist, the curve of her hip, the way she shifted from one foot to the other before she dropped her arms to hug her stomach, silencing unruly butterflies of her own.
Maddy. All the air whooshed out of him. He almost laughed. For a moment, he thought his knees would drop him there in front of Ethan, the door and anyone in the Dungeon proper who happened to be looking his way. What a sight that would have been: the Dungeon Master, Master Gaoler, one of the most sought-after sadists to work at the Castle—ever—brought to his knees by a submissive.
"Are you all right?" Ethan asked, no longer cautious, but now seeming truly concerned.
Flinging open the door, Dominick charged into the fully stocked dungeon cell. He was halfway to her before she had turned around.
"You're not wearing your blind—"
He reached her, his hands catching her by her beautifully blushing cheeks before she could finish. His kiss silenced the rest. It stiffened her, but only until it melted her again. It stole the solidity right out of her knees, but the steal of his arms as he wrapped them around her, kept her from falling. He tangled his fingers in the cascading fall of her soft hair. He lost himself in her taste, her feel, her smell.
"I wish I'd called," she blurted, in that brief moment between frantic kisses.
So did he. No time for regrets now. Filling his hands with the luscious swells of her bottom, Dominick swept her off her feet.
"I tried to." She clung to his shoulders as he turned them both toward the twin-sized cot of bed in the corner. "I really did. I don't know how many emails I started—"
"But never finished," he agreed, setting her down again only when he reached the foot of the cot.
"Emil wouldn't give me your cell number—"
"Fucking employee/guest outside fraternization restrictions." Turning her by her shoulders, Dominick grabbed the lacings that fastened her into that ugly dress. It would have taken less than two minutes
to untie her completely. Two minutes was one hundred and fifteen seconds too damned long. The new buckle of his belt—which he'd bought to replace the one he ruined trying to sharpen that spear—doubled as a quick-release bondage blade. Unclipping it, he sliced right up the back of her dress.
She gasped, startled when he yanked the fabric down over her round shoulders, undressing her only far enough to free the bounty of her breasts and pinning her arms in the tangle of half-removed cloth. She tried to turn; but planting his hand between her shoulder blades, he pushed her down, not just to her knees, but bent her all the way over the edge of the cot. He grabbed her hips, shoving up yards of black skirt and crisp white underskirt, and when he encountered the double-reinforced seam of her full-length bloomers, two hard yanks ripped right through the pristine crotch. There was no prettier sight, as far as he was concerned, than the one he stole of her plump, pink sex. He touched, cupping the fleshy folds.
She groaned.
He did, too. Already his fingers were dipping into moisture, hot and slick, turning the outer folds slippery with need.
"This is crazy," she gasped.
The height was off. A pillow quickly stuffed under her hips fixed that.
"Crazy." He lost two buttons trying to get his leather britches open.
"It wasn't even five days."
"Four days, nineteen hours, thirty-six minutes, give or take a few seconds." Catching the throbbing length of his stiff as fuck cock in one hand, Dominick caught her by the flowing tangles of wavy hair. "But who's counting?"
"Plus three weeks."
"Three weeks, two days, one hour and twenty-two minutes since I left the Island." He fit himself to the heated well of her slit.
"But who's counting?" She arched back, fighting to spread her legs to give him greater access and to impale herself upon his jutting cock.
He didn't want her open; he wanted her tight. His thighs captured hers, framing her legs to keep them together. A quick swat to each buttock promptly settled her back down.
"Wait—"
Not fucking likely. He pushed, driving himself in slow enough to savor the heat that engulfed him, but fast enough and hard enough to get all the way in. He closed his eyes. They both groaned, a low and hungry sound.
"What are we doing?" she moaned. "It's happening too fast. Where can this go?"
Burning his lips on the trail of kisses he laid from her shoulder to the shell of her ear, Dominick couldn't help but laugh. Soft and breathless, it nevertheless shuddered through them both on tiny waves of friction.
"If you're a good girl," he murmured, flicking at her lobe with his tongue, "straight to my bed. If you're a naughty one…" with another low chuckle, he began to move, "who's got time for beds?"
EPILOGUE
Dominick snapped his fingers, and suddenly that moment Maddy had been dreading ever since he first told her they would be doing this, arrived. She stared at the massage table directly in front of her, just so she wouldn't have to see the crowd of watching, whispering onlookers that filled the 101 room. Her hands tightened on her robe. She hated public displays. She doubted there would ever be a time when she would come to like them, though she had learned to tolerate them. Once a year, in fact. Every fifth of April, when it came time to celebrate the anniversary of the day they had met.
"Five feet is more than you'll ever need," Dominick told the audience, holding up the length of chain as he ran it through his fingers. "Much like lubricant, I'd rather use too much than be caught with too little." While the audience laughed, he held the chain up higher. "You want to use brand new—never used—galvanized chain with quarter-inch links. Run your fingers over each and every one, discarding any length with any kind of imperfection. Disinfect the entire chain with rubbing alcohol before each and every use, and make sure, as I said, that you have plenty of lube."
At last ready to bring her into the demonstration, he glanced up and his dark eyes caught hers. Would there ever be a time when her silly heart did not flutter this wildly just because he looked at her? It had been eight years now, so probably not.
His gaze travelled from her hands, gripping so tightly on the fold of her bathrobe, all the way up to her face. The corner of his mouth quirked even as his eyes narrowed. Snapping his fingers, he pointed to the table and this time, Maddy knew better than to ignore it.
Her heart leapt into her throat, but she still shed her robe. It fell from her curves, puddling in soft terrycloth folds around her feet. She tried to pretend they were the only two people in the room as she got up onto the massage table. After eight years, she knew this position well: Hands above her head, because he loved looking at her breasts when she did that, knees bent and legs open with her feet planted as far apart as the width of the table would allow.
The chain clinked a familiar warning just before he draped the entire chilly length over her stomach. She sucked in a startled breath, goosebumps breaking out all across her skin.
Jerk, she thought fondly. The look she gave him said as much.
Grinning, he pretended not to notice as he popped the top on a bottle of lube. "The key to this is patience, practice, and lots and lots of lube. I know I said that already. It's so important, I'll probably repeat it half a dozen times more." Claiming one end of the chain, he saturated every bit of it, spreading the slickness over each link. "Go slowly. Insert one link at a time to avoid pinching. Don't be afraid to work her up a little before you begin; not only is that what Hitachi wands are for, but you'll be giving her a one of a kind experience the likes of which she'll never forget. She'll quake; she'll cum; longer and harder than she's ever done before. Do it right, and she just might even squirt."
Breathe, just breathe, Maddy told herself as her face began to heat and burn.
"What do you think, Maddy mine?" Dominick asked, stepping up to the table at her hip. The tarp he'd laid down before the show started crinkled under his big feet. "Are we feeling multi-orgasmic today?"
When he laid his hand on her stomach, her nipples pebbled and her goosebumps developed goosebumps. He touched his other between her legs, and the heat in her face became a bonfire consumption of both embarrassment and wanting.
"Is baby getting wet for Daddy?" he asked, when he already knew damn well that she was. With his fingertips and the first two cool chain links, he caressed up and down along her slit, coaxing her to open and give all her seeping wetness to him.
Breathe in…
Maddy tried to fix her eyes on the ceiling, but she was eight years too far gone for that. His dark eyes pulled her—
Breathe out…
—catching her inexorably within their depths, binding her to him.
"Ready?" he asked, but that wasn't what he really wanted to say. She could see it, there in the black of his eyes as he gazed down at her: I love you, Maddy mine.
And to think, from the unlikely beginning of two strangers on a plane, all of this had been sparked—eight strong years of togetherness, two boys (five and three) both of whom stood a spitting image of their father, and the love affair of a lifetime.
She melted.
The End
Maren Smith
“For me, romance and kink have always gone hand in hand. I love strong, authoritative men—men who are both ready, willing and able to leave the lady of their choosing red–bottomed and weeping for her own good. Writing has given me the wonderful freedom to explore my kinky side without feeling ‘weird’. Even better, with the invention of the Internet, I can write what I love and know it will be appreciated by people with the same interests. Although I’ve been writing spanking romances for more than twenty years, it’s only been in the last five that I’ve truly broken out of my self-imposed shell to explore the other aspects of my submissive nature. Fortunate enough to have married my Dominant, I am a wife, author, Little and submissive for the love of my life. Between that and my membership at three of my local Dungeons, there are very, very few things that I write about that I haven’t tried at least once.”
CONNECT WITH MAREN SMITH
Blog: http://badgirlscorner.wordpress.com
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Email: [email protected]
A MESSAGE TO MY READERS
If you enjoyed reading “Maddy Mine”, I would appreciate it if you would help others enjoy this book, too.
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OTHER BOOKS BY MAREN SMITH
Have Paddle, Will Travel, Corbin’s Bend Season 2, Book 7
Last Dance for Cadence, Corbin's Bend Season 1, Book 8
How to Live Without a Man
Something Has to Give
B-Flick
Bippity-Boppity-Boo
Black Sheep
Daughter of the Strong
The Diva
Enemies
The Great Prank
Jinxie’s Orchids
Katy Run Away
Kindred Spirits
Life After Rachel
The Locket
The Miner’s Wife
Mistress
Morogh the Demon
Mountain Man
My Lady Robin Hood
The Next Ex
Saga: Constance’s Story
Spanking Tails I thru X
The Suffragettes
Treasure
Varden’s Lady
Masters of the Castle Series:
Holding Hannah (Book One)
Kaylee’s Keeper (Book Two)
Saving Sara (Book Three)
Sweet Sinclair (Book Four)
Chasing Chelsea (Book Five)
Owning O
Ana Adored: Mistress of the Castle (editor)
