by Maren Smith
Which was a pity, because if anyone deserved firing it absolutely was the tiny slip of a blonde scurrying along at his heels. What was she, all of twelve years old? Grimsley scowled. She had to be at least eighteen, otherwise Marshall would never have employed her. But she couldn’t possibly have hit her final growth spurt yet—she was barely five feet tall and that included the mini mountain of blonde curls pinned in a haphazard bun on top of her head. Sloppy wisps and cowlicks were sticking out all over the place. It hardly looked tamed, much less brushed—just looking at it drove Grimsley crazy and that was just her hair! He had enough to worry about with bombs and bomb squads, police and K-9 units, and mafia assassins running amok in his tidy little corner of Ohio, the last thing he wanted to deal with was a woman overburdened with questionable morals and a chaotic coiffeur.
He’d just got done telling everyone that he wasn’t going to spend his time blistering bottoms, too. And yet, heaven help him, that’s where his instinct was telling him this ought to go. If ever one of his guest Maids had been caught spying through cracked doors—and on the Master of the Masters, no less—a spanking was the least she’d have to fear. But again, that was a guest. An employee would have been fired, but he couldn’t do that, and back around he went in that endless circle of could-have, would-haves until he landed unerringly on annoyed.
And not just minorly annoyed, Grimsley was fucking annoyed. As far as he was concerned, this girl hadn’t earned either his time or his attention, much less his discipline. And yet, into his lap was exactly where Marshall had seen fit to dump her. Like it or not, she was his responsibility, at least until the police went home.
As much as he hated the situation now, at least he could see light at the end of this cluster-fuck of a tunnel.
He reached his office and stopped, fishing his master keycard from his inner vest pocket. Which was as close as he got to opening the door before Eden plowed straight into him. What she’d been looking at, he didn’t know, but it wasn’t him or where she was going. At full-steam ahead, she crashed into his back, knocking him face-first into his own door.
Grimsley wasn’t annoyed anymore. He snapped around on his heel, frown deepening and resenting like hell being made the unwilling party in her impromptu Three Stooges routine.
Her eyes grew huge. They were also the bluest he’d ever seen. “I’m so terribly sorry!” she squeaked. “I-I-I didn’t mean…”
He didn’t care. He was done.
Unlocking his office door, Grimsley caught the scruff of her shirt and hauled her inside. He marched her to stand in the nearest corner, something that he had never done once in the whole of his career with a fellow employee.
“Nose to the wall,” he ordered. “Don’t you dare move from that spot.”
Without waiting to see if she would obey, he left her there. The only place he had to go for privacy was the adjacent bathroom. It took all his will to shut the door softly. Hands braced on either side of the sink, he took a deep breath, then let it out again. In, then out. Opening his eyes, he looked at his reflection in the mirror. He didn’t have the patience for this. He didn’t like submissives who did nothing but chase the high of that next hot bottom. But he was stuck.
He was also a professional.
Digging deep for patience, he adjusted his uniform, straightened his collar and tugged at the black of his coat sleeves, then bent to wash his hands. When at last he left the bathroom, he did so calm, cool and collected, the way a proper Victorian butler should be.
Eden was still in the corner where he’d put her. That actually surprised him a little, since in his experience, submissives who cared for nothing but chasing that next spanking rarely overlooked an opportunity to disobey. But all right. Good. It showed she had a little common sense and perhaps even an innate desire to please. Time would have to tell.
Crossing the room to his desk, he adjusted the long tails of his uniform and sat down on the front edge. Laying his switch across his thighs, he clasped it in both hands. “Come, Eden. Stand before me.”
Her head was bowed. She touched her hands to her face, but it wasn’t until she turned to obey him that he saw the watery glint in her eyes and realized she’d been crying.
Those were genuine tears.
Like the internal snap and twang of some great rubber band, Grimsley felt the reverberating hum of something—some dark and massive thing that had lain dormant within him for so long now that he could not readily identify it—awaken. A wave of prickling nerves rolled up his back, through his chest and down his arms into his fingers, abruptly stilling the restless way he kept gripping at the switch he held. He almost shivered. A lesser man might have, but all Grimsley did was watch as she crept in tiny steps to stand before him.
She kept her head bowed, as if she couldn’t bear the shame even to look at him. Sniffling, picking at the cuticle of one finger until it reddened, she was every inch of her the picture of remorse. Startled as he was by this, he was still wondering how much of this was genuine when she at last raised her head and asked, “Before you start yelling at me, can I say just one small thing first?”
Frowning, Grimsley tapped his thumb against his switch. Any Dominant who could not get his point across any way other than by raising his voice was, in his opinion, a poor excuse for a Dominant. “I don’t yell at anyone.”
“Before you get mad at me, then.”
He was already that, but he gestured for her to proceed.
She looked at him with those wide, blue eyes of hers, her face an open mask of such sadness and regret, and yet to have her suddenly clasp her hands and drop to her knees right there at his feet was the last thing he expected. Shocked as he was, he almost stood up, but that long-dormant thing inside of him reacted first. It seized him, locking into every tense and startled inch of him, holding him captive while she damn near burst into tears.
“I am so, so sorry!” Eden cried. “I know you won’t believe me, but I didn’t mean for any of this to happen! I’m not a nosy person; really, I’m not. I just wanted to apologize and see if we could start over. Because, you see, I want this job so badly. I’ve never wanted any job like I’ve wanted this one. If you could just please—”
“Hush,” he said, the softest command. It shook him like thunder.
Eden not only snapped her mouth shut, she covered it with both hands and dropped all the way to the floor to sit on her heels. She gazed up at him with great, tear-filled eyes. Grimsley stared back, every inch of him humming, damn near shaking.
He dared not trust himself to react. He could not remember when any woman had, of her own volition, prostrated herself before him. He couldn’t remember when anyone had clasped their hands to him and pleaded. His Maids usually ran one of two gambits—either they were service driven and never deliberately misbehaved, or they were mischief driven. A frown of displeasure was discipline enough for the former; demerits and the threat of having to service any Dom who asked in the Rainbow Room kept the latter in line. And although it wasn’t uncommon to hear pleading while he rolled up his sleeve and readied his switch, no one got down on their knees.
Not like this girl did, with her hands clasped and her blue eyes pleading and her bottom lip trembling in a way that sent zinging shocks straight through the core of him and down into his cock.
“Stand,” he ordered, rising now himself. He should put distance between them, but his feet rooted him where he was.
Unclasping her hands, she balanced herself before rising, and God help him if she didn’t look right at home with her face mere inches from his pelvis. She licked her lips—God. Help. Him—and stood.
“Look at me,” he said, when she didn’t right away.
There was no guile in her eyes. She was sad, worried, and genuinely seemed sorry. Studying her carefully, Grimsley slipped closer. He searched her face for the slightest tell-tale glimmer of excitement, eagerness, or lust, the slightest hint that she might be getting off on the idea of being in trouble.
There was non
e.
His cock tightened. He wanted to recoil, but his body wouldn’t let him, and when he at last managed to speak, he hardly recognized the hoarseness of his voice. “If you ever violate the rules of this household or embarrass me like that again, when next you enter my office you will do so with your panties in your hand. I promise, you won’t leave again without receiving one hell of a reason to cry. Do you understand me?”
She nodded gratefully. “You won’t ever have to see me in here again, I swear.”
“See that I don’t.” He snapped his switch out, pointing to the door in dismissal. “Pick up a pager in Wardrobe when you get your uniforms and return to the conference room. If you’re not there in twenty minutes, I will have your hide.”
She fled from him, running all the way out into the hall.
“Close the door!” he barked after her.
She dashed back, grabbed the door, closed it, opened it again long enough to stammer a shaky, “Thank you so much. You won’t be sorry. I’m so very sorry.”
“Keep your mouth shut about things that don’t concern you!” he commanded.
“Yes, Sir!” She shut the door again, and this time it did not re-open.
Sir. She’d called him Sir, without any prompting or provocation. His skin tingled. His pulse pounded. The switch in his hand felt electrified for use and all Grimsley could do was stand there, every inch of him singing with an awareness he had not felt for any submissive, not in a very long time. He looked down at the unmistakable jut of the erection now tenting the front of his trousers. For the life of him, he didn’t know whether to be grateful now that Eden had been given to him…
Or terrified.
“All right, so that section is complete,” Mrs. Hardwick announced from the front of the conference room. When she turned the page in the book from which she was reading, seated among all the other newly hired and now fully-costumed submissives, Eden turned her page too. Resting one hand on the table, the other she returned to clutch the pager she held secreted in her lap. Terrified she might not notice if it went off, she couldn’t stop checking the display, but it remained black and she remained unsummoned.
“So,” Mrs. Hardwick continued. “We’ve covered the rules regarding anonymity, gags, how to identify and gain consent in all its various forms, including dubious and non-consent. Let’s go on to how we might identify unsafe play and what sorts of activities you can expect to see take place here at the Castle.”
“God,” muttered the woman with honey-streaked hair sitting beside her. “Somebody shoot me now. Can this get any more boring?”
Flashing a shy smile, Eden pulled her book a little closer to her and tried to concentrate. Not that there was likely to be a pop-quiz or anything. Most of what they had covered this morning was self-explanatory, common-sense type stuff, and the only test she was aware of was the one scheduled to follow that afternoon’s first-aid and CPR certification. All of which they needed to have before they could be turned loose to wander among the Castle guests.
“My first week here, before I discovered I was more dominant than submissive, I was stationed in the Medical wing where I got to play patient to any guest who wanted to be a Doctor. Over the course of that week, I had my temperature taken rectally twenty-seven times, my boobs checked for lumps, my ass spanked forty times, my lady bits examined, my hoo-haw stretched open with a speculum, and that didn’t include the three times my ‘doctors’ determined I required something a little more… in-depth and hands-on. No exaggeration,” she said, holding up one fist and measuring her hand halfway between the widest part of her thumb and wrist. “One guy got his hand all the way in me up to—”
“Um,” said a submissive man, hesitantly raising his hand. “We don’t have to do that, though… right?”
It was hard to tell if Mrs. Hardwick’s answering smile was more gentle or predatory. “Don’t worry. The Castle does not charge for either icepacks or excessive use of anal lubrication. You’re welcome.”
Someone laughed, although that cut off abruptly when the door opened and an unsmiling Master Butler strode in. Eden felt it in the pit of her stomach when his stony gaze lit on her. Jaw clenching once, he beckoned her to him.
Eden got up. Wobbling a little on the high heels of her Little Maid shoes, she gathered her rule book and employee manual, the map she had been given, plus her short stack of extra uniforms, and the folder with her keycard and room assignment. Fumbling not to drop anything, she hurried around the table to where he stood impatiently waiting.
“Should I adjourn for lunch?” Mrs. Hardwick asked. “Or wait for Miss Eden to return?”
“She will not be back today,” Master Grimsley said curtly. “Marshall has placed her upon assignment.”
“On assign—” The headmistress caught herself. Her brows beetled, but after a quick glanced around the table at the other listening new-hires, she said, “We haven’t done the CPR certification yet.”
“I will catch her up on anything she misses in my office later tonight. I have a copy of the curriculum. I’ll see that she does not fall behind.”
“Yes, Sir,” Mrs. Hardwick said. It was probably a trick of Eden’s imagination that made her want to read the look the head housekeeper shot her as a pitying one.
She followed the Master Butler out into the hallway, every step of the way telling her bottom to stop that dreadful crawling because she hadn’t done a single thing wrong. And yet, the minute the door shut behind them, Grimsley rounded on her. “I have been summoning you steadily for the last twenty-two minutes. Why have you not answered your pager?”
Startled, Eden thrust her silent pager at him. “I-I-I…”
He took one look at it, then his jaw clenched once and, turning the device over in his hand, he showed her where the power button was and pressed it. The tiny window display lit up, and then the whole thing began to buzz.
“Oh,” Eden said when he handed it back to her. She’d never felt more stupid. “I’m sorry.”
He wasn’t just irritated with her, now he was exasperated too. The harder she tried not to make mistakes, the worse she was screwing up. How could he not help but think her an idiot with everything that had happened together. It was right there, as plain as the frown he leveled on her when he said, “Follow me, girl. We’re late.” His dark gaze flicked up and down her. “At least you’re properly dressed.”
That was a matter of perspective. The Little Maid uniform they’d given her barely covered anything. The skimpy black skirt was barely more than a bib over lacy white ruffles, neither of which were quite long enough to cover her black lace panties. Her garters were showing, so was the lowest-most curve of her bottom, and her heels were an inch too high. She more wobbled than walked, and all she could feel with each step was how bouncy her breasts were and how perilously close they were to falling right out over the top of her corset.
Her breasts barely qualified as a C-cup, but she had never jiggled so impressively with every step she took in her li—
Staring down at her own chest, Eden didn’t notice Grimsley had stopped walking until she collided into him. Again. “Oh, my God!” She almost fell off her heels but for his lightning reflexes. He caught her arm, steadying her. “I’m sorry!”
Tipping his head back, Grimsley breathed in, cutting her protests in half as he visibly struggled for patience.
“I’m sorry!” Eden wailed, appalled with herself.
With a slow blink, the Master Butler turned to fix her with the darkest glare. Crooking his finger, he beckoned and, wilting, Eden crept a step closer. “Pay attention,” he growled.
“Okay,” she whispered.
He arched both eyebrows as he repeated the command, only in a slightly different way, “Focus.”
She did. Which was when she noticed he had a raw cut on the side of his neck, just above his collar line and held together with butterfly closures. Eden hesitantly pointed. “What happened to your neck?”
His frown deepened. “Is my neck the curr
ent topic of conversation?”
“No.” Eden forced her eyes back to his. She fidgeted with her fingers. “Are… are you all right?”
His chest and shoulders swelled as he took a deep, presumably calming breath. “I got clawed when a submissive had a panic attack. Are you done asking questions that have nothing to do with you?”
“Yes.” Eden bit her bottom lip. “I’m sorry.”
“Stop saying that.”
She rolled her lips and didn’t say anything at all. Tucking her head, she gazed up at him through her lashes, wishing more than anything that she could just start this day over. What was wrong with her? If she had to screw up, why did it always have to be in front of this man, the one person she ought to be trying the hardest not to make mistakes around?
Pulling open the door, Grimsley held it for her as Eden crossed the threshold into the middle of a silent meeting. The big boss was there, Master Marshall, seated at a huge desk that was more than twice the size of Grimsley’s. On the visiting side with her back to the door, sat a woman on a red-cushioned chair. Although she cocked an ear when the door bumped closed behind Grimsley, she did not turn around. Jackson, the Castle’s chief of security was standing beside her. Although he’d been smiling when she first came in, that smile dimmed when he saw Eden.
She couldn’t blame him. He thought she was an eavesdropping busybody.
Standing to the side and a little behind Jackson, his assessing gaze even harder than the chief of security’s, was a dark and brooding man Eden didn’t yet know.
“Now that everyone’s here,” Marshall announced, standing up, “Eden, you’ve already met Master Jackson. This is Master Nelson and my cousin, Grace. Grace, this is Eden.”
