Masters of the Castle: Witness Protection Program

by Maren Smith

  As soon as they picked up their drinks and a paper bag, they turned to leave. As unobtrusively as she could, Tasha slid out of her seat and followed them.

  Chapter 11

  Eamon had gone straight down to the Dungeon after his illuminating early lunch with Dominick but to his absolute fury, Tasha had vanished. He’d waited for a while, growing more and more frustrated, until he’d decided he couldn’t stand just sitting around any longer and gone to look for her. She wasn’t in the dorm—wasn’t anywhere on the second floor, for that matter—nor had he found her in the restaurant or the Rainbow Room, where a bunch of Little Maids were currently playing Twister amidst squeals of laughter.

  Ordinarily, he would have stayed a moment to watch but right now he had only one thing—one woman—on his mind.

  Where the fuck is she?

  He stalked through the opulent foyer, past Maybe’s Candies, the art gallery and the gift shop, his focus zooming in on any girl dressed in a maid’s costume.

  One such figure was currently heading out toward the gardens and Eamon picked up his pace. As soon as he grew closer, he knew. He’d recognize that ass anywhere, and a single glance at her streaked hair confirmed it. Tasha.

  The moment he was within reaching distance, he grabbed her arm, spinning her around.

  She let out a startled yelp. “Eamon!”

  Remembering she had no idea about what he and Dominick had discussed, and no reason to think he might be angry, he took a deep breath and gave her his most disarming smile. “Hey, baby. What are you up to?”

  She glanced over her shoulder. “Um, I was just…”

  He followed her gaze to where two men were strolling in the distance.

  “I’ve been looking all over for you,” he said. “When I woke up and you weren’t there, I figured you’d gone down to roll call.”

  “I did,” she said. “And then I went back down into the Dungeon. Master Dominick told me it was your day off.”

  “It is,” he said, not missing the way she kept looking over her shoulder. She seemed breathless, almost desperate. Why? “Are you on duty now?”

  Her teeth sank into her plump lower lip. “Not officially. That is, I haven’t been assigned anywhere.”

  “Good. You’re coming with me then.”

  “But—”

  “No buts. I want to talk to you.” Amongst other things, he thought ruefully, his body once again reacting to her mere presence.

  “What about?” she said nervously, hesitating for a moment before following him. She had to quicken her steps to keep up as he strode back down the foyer.

  “Last night, for one thing.”

  “What’s there to talk about?” She gave a nervous giggle. “We had fun. That’s all, right?”

  He shot her a sideways glance, wondering whether she was lying to him even now. Was that really all it had been for her, a casual fuck? Somehow he didn’t think so.

  “If you say so,” he said coolly, holding open the door to the Dungeon. “Ladies first.”

  “Wh-why are we going down here?” she said, obviously intimidated. Good. Maybe she’d be more likely to talk.

  “Why not?” he countered, watching her careful descent. It had to be murder on the feet to trot around in those heels all day. “Don’t you like it?”

  “It’s not that. It’s just… I feel like I spend almost all my time here.”

  He chuckled. “Welcome to my world. In here.” He opened a door to one of the play rooms and motioned for her to enter. “Feel free to take your shoes off, if you like.”

  She slipped them off with an audible sound of relief. “Thank you, Sir.” Considerably shorter in bare feet, she stood in front of him, anxiously tugging at the hem of her skirt. “Am… am I in trouble?”

  “Now why would you think that?”

  “I don’t know. Because I didn’t come straight back down here after lunch?”

  She looked so small and vulnerable, almost dejected, that he had to force himself not to pull her into his arms. “Were you ordered to?” he said instead.

  “No.”

  “No, Sir,” he reminded her gently.

  “No, Sir.”

  “Then no, you’re not in trouble.”

  Her brows drew together in obvious confusion. “Then what do you want to talk to me about?”

  Good question. I want you to tell me whether you really are a complete newbie to the lifestyle. Whether you even had an interest in BDSM before coming here. If not, I want to know how the hell you came to be here—as an employee, no less. I have so many fucking questions, I don’t even know where to begin.

  Instead, he ran a hand over his head and said, “Did you have fun last night?”

  A mischievous glint appeared in her dark eyes. “Wasn’t it obvious?”

  “Well, you certainly gave that impression. But I wanted to make sure. I also wanted to apologize.”

  “For what?”

  “Conking out on you so soon. I had planned to give you a proper session but I was just so tired.”

  “That’s okay,” she said quickly. “I was tired too.”

  “How about I make up for it now?”

  “What?”

  He deliberately took a step closer, making his presence felt even though he wasn’t quite touching her. “Come on,” he said, keeping his tone light and playful, “don’t pretend you haven’t been thinking about it. A proper, real session. Just you and me, and a whole room full of implements. What do you say?”

  Eamon was well aware that he had a reputation amongst the Castle staff as a skilled player. Any real new hire would have found that out pretty quickly. And any genuine painslut would be already taking her clothes off and listing her hard limits. Especially one he’d already fucked twice.

  Tasha was doing no such thing. Instead she was staring up at him, the panic obvious in her eyes. The last kernel of doubt he’d had that she was a complete novice evaporated in that instant and he had to bite back a sudden surge of anger and disappointment.

  “What’s the matter, don’t you want to?” he said in a low voice. “I’ll even let you pick your favorite toys.”

  She continued to gaze up at him helplessly. “All right,” she said eventually. Her voice was barely a whisper.

  Fuck. Even now, faced with a full session in the Dungeon, alone with him, with every chance to open up and admit she was lying, she was calling his bluff instead. Why was that?

  “All right.” He fought to keep his tone casual. “It’s confession time. What do you prefer? Stingy or thuddy? Blindfolds? Ropes? Electricity? If you want needles, we should probably go to the medical play area.”

  “Needles?” she squeaked. Then, obviously pulling herself together, “No, that’s okay. We can play right here.”

  “Very well.” He moved to one of the cupboards and began rifling through the play equipment. And even though this was absolutely not what he’d planned, even though he’d hoped she’d open up and confess everything, especially after their shared night of intimacy, a part of him was immensely aroused at the idea of tying her up and inflicting intense physical sensations—both pain and pleasure—on her gorgeous naked body.

  He tried not to think about the fact that this could very well be the first and last time he’d be giving her a full session. Or what Marshall—or even Dominick—would say if they could see him now. By rights, he should be interrogating her further without laying a single finger on her and, if she refused to talk, he should be escorting her up to Marshall’s office himself. That, ostensibly, would be the end of it.

  But, as always seemed to happen around her, his gut instinct was taking over and he found himself thinking about the way she’d reacted to the belt. How fucking soaked she’d been afterward. If she wasn’t at least something of a painslut, he was King Kong. And maybe a little carefully delivered pain and intimidation would, wonder of wonders, lead to a confession after all. Albeit under duress.

  Biting back a smile, he made his selection and laid everything
down on the table beside the St. Andrew’s Cross. He could feel her eyes on him and knew before he’d even turned around that she was simply standing there, staring at him and the toys he’d so carefully set out.

  He was right.

  “You should be naked by now,” he said gruffly.

  “Oh. Of course.” Flushing, she began to unbutton her uniform with trembling fingers.

  “Any hard limits I should know about?” he asked, feeling a combination of pity for her obvious predicament and a jolt of desire as she bared her sumptuous tits.

  “Um. Not that I can think of right now, no.”

  Another dead giveaway. Everyone had limits. The most experienced masochist he knew, who could take the cane at full force without batting an eyelash and enjoyed having her labia sewn together, hated being tickled so much that the mere threat of it was basically enough for her to safeword.

  He continued to watch her, his hard-on increasing with every new item of clothing that slipped to the floor, until she stood before him completely naked. She couldn’t meet his eyes.

  Hardly surprising.

  “Over there,” he said, directing her to the cross. “Remember your safeword?”

  “Purple,” she whispered.

  “Good girl.”

  Once she was standing in front of the heavy wooden frame, she glanced back at him, obviously unsure as to what to do.

  “Position yourself,” he said, “with your back to me.” She turned to face the shiny black X and he moved up behind her, crowding her with his considerably bigger body. Taking her slender wrist, he lifted it to one of the dangling cuffs and buckled the fur-lined leather around it, then did the same to her other one.

  Her scent, a mixture of arousal, trepidation, and a faint lingering hint of the spicy perfume she favored, made his mouth go dry and he forced himself to concentrate.

  “Just beautiful,” he said, taking a step back and admiring the way her waist tapered out to that plump, heart-shaped ass. “Relax, and don’t forget to breathe.”

  She made a noise which sounded like a strangled sob and he put his mouth close to her ear. “What was that?” he said gently.

  There was a long pause. “N-nothing, Sir.”

  “Spread your feet a little wider apart. Or would you like me to restrain your ankles, too?”

  She shook her head even as she shuffled to obey.

  Unable to resist, he slid his palm between her lightly spread thighs, his cock jerking in his pants in response to her low moan. “You’re wet already,” he murmured, “and you’re going to be absolutely fucking dripping by the time we’re done here.” His middle fingertip found her clit and he gave it a few feather-light strokes before he forced himself to stop and move over to the table. “I think we’ll start with the flogger.”

  It was a common misconception amongst newbies and vanillas that the flogger was one of the harsher implements when, in fact, it could be anything but, especially when it was a heavy one with thick falls like the one he was now picking up. His test was immediately rewarded when she gave a squeak of dismay. Deciding to show, rather than tell her, he brought it to her skin and allowed the soft leather strands to caress first her back, then her ass.

  Tasha shivered and he could see the goosebumps forming on her arms. Good sign.

  “As we’ve already established, it’s been a while since your last proper session, so I’ll start slowly,” he said, waiting for her to correct him.

  She didn’t.

  Anger warred with frustration, disappointment and groin-aching lust inside him and he took a step back and raised the flogger, willing himself to remain calm and concentrate. Even though he topped people for a living, it was different with her. There was something there, some deep, mysterious emotional connection, and that it had to be with Tasha, of all people, the girl who had somehow conned her way into the Castle and lied to him and everybody he cared about, made his blood boil. He was tempted to lay into her immediately, bring that flogger down across her soft, pale flesh as hard as he could without warning, but he forced himself to start slowly, with gentle, thumping whacks across the fullest part of her butt.

  Because, despite his anger, another part of him still wanted to believe that she was a good person, that it had all been a huge misunderstanding rather than outright dishonesty.

  She jumped at the first stroke but let out a low moan almost immediately when they kept coming and she no doubt realized he wasn’t actually hitting hard enough to really hurt her. The falls covered almost her entire ass each time, and she soon began to wriggle and push her butt out as if asking for more.

  All in good time, sweetheart, he thought grimly, ignoring his pounding cock and putting just a tiny bit more strength into each stroke. I’ll get you to open up to me—one way or another—if it kills me.

  Tasha had looped the chains attaching her cuffs to the cross around her hands and was holding on to them for dear life.

  How had this happened? She’d been so close to getting Carmen and company alone, a mere few minutes away from her first real shot at finding William, and then Eamon had found her and…

  He knows. She’d always thought he suspected she wasn’t telling the truth, but then, when he’d pushed her into this session like he was doing her a favor, she’d realized he must have found out. God only knew how.

  And ironically, she’d wanted so much to tell him then, to confess everything about William and how she’d followed Carmen before begging Eamon to help her, to forgive her—but she had held back. The fear that he would do neither, that he would simply march her upstairs and see to it that she was immediately ejected from the Castle was too great.

  Now she was naked, cuffed to a huge, padded cross, and terrified.

  Breathe, she told herself. Just breathe. It was easier said than done, however, especially when the thick, heavy whacks of the flogger began to get just a little bit harder. Her initial panic when he’d mentioned what he’d be using on her had subsided with the first stroke and now, as the warm tingling in her buttocks began to increase and spread to other parts of her body, she found herself arching her back, pushing her ass out, almost as if she wanted more.

  To her absolute astonishment, it didn’t hurt all that much. Nowhere near as much as the belt, anyway. Even when the strokes got harder and harder, the sensation was so full, so… thuddy… it felt more like a deep tissue massage than a whipping.

  Tasha closed her eyes and let all the sensations wash over her, her pussy throbbing in time to each rhythmic thwack of the flogger across her ass.

  When Master Eamon changed his aim and swept it across the backs of her thighs, the shock and sudden sting brought her up to her tiptoes with a startled yelp.

  “I thought that would wake you up,” he said with a chuckle. “You going to sleep on me?”

  “No, Sir!” she protested, wincing when he caught her thighs again.

  “Good.” He moved to the side table but she didn’t dare turn her head to see what he was doing. “I think that’s enough of a warm-up, don’t you?”

  Actually, Tasha wouldn’t have minded if he’d gone on using the flogger forever. “Mmn,” she said non-committally.

  There was that dark, sexy chuckle again. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  The deep state of relaxation the flogger had lulled her into was rapidly disappearing as she tried not to think about all the evil-looking things he’d laid out on the table beside them.

  If he knew she was completely inexperienced, as she was now certain, surely he would go easy on her? She tried to ignore the nagging voice which told her that, actually, he would now have every reason to be angry—and to try to get the truth out of her using any one of those instruments of torture.

  All too soon, she felt him move back to his former position behind her. She squeezed her eyes even more tightly shut, wondering why the insistent thump in her clit hadn’t lessened.

  Something cool caressed her buttocks but she didn’t have time to even try to work out what it wa
s before Master Eamon brought it down, hard, with a strange thwicking sound. The blazing sting was in such sharp contrast to the flogger that she threw her head back and howled.

  “I do love the carpet beater,” he said conversationally. “Very underrated—and unappreciated—if you ask me.”

  Another thwick brought a second flash of fire, then another, then another.

  “Please,” she finally cried out, writhing her hips, trying unsuccessfully to avoid the blows, “please stop!”

  “Stop is not a safeword,” he countered, delivering another stroke.

  Purple. It was on the tip of her tongue but something was preventing her from saying it aloud even as he whacked her ass again.

  “Breathe,” he said. “Focus.”

  “I can’t,” she whimpered.

  “You can, and you will.” He moved until he was standing right behind her; she could feel the heat of his body prickling over her skin, smell his delicious, masculine scent. “Focus… here.”

  His hand slid between her thighs and she let out a moan at the sudden intense pleasure. When his fingertip found the hard bundle of nerves at the apex of her pussy, she responded with a warm, wet gush.

  “Fuck, you’re dripping,” he said, his voice ragged.

  Tasha wanted to tell him it was because of him, because he had only to look at her or speak to her and she was helplessly turned on, but even as she thought it, she wondered if it was the complete truth. She hadn’t been this wet when they’d started, and she’d already spent several minutes in his company by that point.

  Surely she wasn’t like the other women here who got off on pain? Surely not?

  “Want me to continue?” he said gruffly, his fingertip circling her swollen clit with slow, relentless pressure.

  “Yes,” she gasped. “Oh yes, please.”

  “Good.” To her horror, he withdrew his hand, stepped back, and delivered another stinging swat to her already blazing ass.

  “How many times do I have to remind you to address me properly?” he scolded, giving her three strokes all in the same spot on her right buttock.

  Tasha howled, her pelvis bumping the padded cross in her attempt to move away from the source of her agony.