Chasing Chelsea (Masters of the Castle)

by Maren Smith

  Selena beamed. “Hamburgers are very nutritious.”

  “There’s not a vegetable on that plate.”

  “Potatoes are vegetables.”

  “Not when they’re fried.”

  “That’s what the lettuce is for?” Selena batted her baby blues and stole a fry.

  Emerson caught her wrist before she could get it to her mouth and then took the fry from her. Their eyes held—at least the attention was off Chelsea. Selena started to smile as Emerson held up the fry and, when she opened her mouth, he placed it between her lips.

  “Thank you, Daddy,” she purred.

  “Mm hm. It definitely won’t be a good girl spanking.”

  Selena giggled. “Maybe I don’t want a good girl spanking.”

  “Be careful what you wish for.”

  Movement from the corner of her eye caught Chelsea’s attention—a French fry dabbed in a tiny bit of ketchup dangled from Kade’s fingertips.

  “Open,” he murmured, holding it level not far from her lips.

  That slow flush of heat burned its way up from her belly into her cheeks. Chelsea tried to take it from him, but he deftly avoided her fingers.

  “No,” Kade tsked. “That’s not the game. Tonight you eat from your Master’s fingers alone.”

  “You’re not my Master.” The rebuke came out too breathless to be taken seriously. She wanted to be offended, but she just couldn’t summon the conviction.

  “Tonight I am.” Once more, he brought the fry to her lips. “Open.”

  She should refuse. She should get up and walk out. Save herself from the inevitable agony of giving in to his seduction.

  She didn’t.

  She opened her mouth instead and Kade put the fry inside. His thumb brushed her bottom lip; she chewed, tingling everywhere. It was the best fry she’d ever had.

  “Good girl,” he murmured. They could just as well have been the only people in the room. He caressed her bottom now, boldly elevating the tingle until it consumed her. “Why are you trembling?”

  “I’m not trembling.”

  His smile became feral. “Liar. You keep doing that. I think you must want me to spank you, to help release the naughty submissive inside. I’ll bet you purr like a kitten.” His feral smile became even more so. “A kitten in a Castle full of bulls.”

  What was wrong with her that she should find that so sexy?

  He held up a sliver of red onion next.

  “Bite,” he said.

  “I don’t like o—”

  He clapped his hand over her mouth. “Ah-ah,” he cautioned, then pointed to the ceiling. “Be careful of the ‘o’ word.”

  She glanced at the ceiling, unable to see where those speakers might be hidden, then looked at him again. That little bite of onion suspended between his fingers beckoned to be tasted. She understood exactly how Adam must have felt, standing in the Garden of Eden, staring down Eve and her apple. “I don’t like those,” she lied, her mouth already watering, though not for food.

  “Neither do a lot of people, but I plan on kissing you senseless later on and I quite selfishly want to make sure I’m the only one who does.”

  “It’ll take more than a bite of O to make that one unkissable,” the longhaired man said as he gently wiped Hannah’s mouth while she chewed. He looked at Kade—a lot of the Masters were; curiosity on some faces, speculation on others.

  “Bite,” Kade told her again, and Chelsea opened her mouth. He fed her only a small sliver before taking one himself and rewarded her obedience while she chewed by giving first one bottom cheek and then the other a massaging squeeze. His fingers slipped beneath the elastic guard of her “It ain’t gonna spank itself” panties, oh so casually skimming up and down along the crack of her ass while he watched her, waiting for the protests she just couldn’t bring herself to utter.

  “I think I could watch you eat all night,” he said, assembling the hamburger with his free hand and giving her the first bite.

  Something, a daub of ketchup maybe, remained on her lip. She started to wipe it away, but he quickly dropped the burger to catch her wrist. Then he caught her jaw and the next thing she knew, he had her mouth angled to him. He licked whatever it was from her lips and she was so startled that she swallowed everything. That was when he kissed her. Not once, not twice, but over and over again. He consumed her, his grip on her jaw nowhere near firm enough to keep her from pulling away, but Chelsea didn’t even try. His fingers in her panties pushed under her, cupping right over her anus, and she gasped at the thrill so explicit a touch evoked.

  That gasp was all the invitation he needed. His tongue swept in.

  He was so dangerous.

  Bite him, her brain insisted. But her muscles locked, forbidding her any defense, and his cupping hand moved again, pushing all the way under her now, finding the core of her heat and slick arousal.

  She was so wet.

  Her heart was a thundering storm, beating in her temples and battering her ribs.

  The pounding, it was all she could hear—that, and Kade’s heady growl as he devoured her.

  Someone laughed, a throaty chuckle that cut through the storm. “Now that’s more like it. Dinner and a show.”

  She had to stop this, but Chelsea simply didn’t have the will. Her trembling legs squeezed together, trying to trap his stroking hand between her thighs. Her hips rocked back, helping his fingertips find and impale her, and from further down the table, Selena laughed, a husky sound. “See, you do belong here.”

  Those words crashed over her like cutting shards of ice. And yet here she sat, grinding helplessly on Kade’s lap, whimpering in soft breathless gasps with his fingers inside her for the second time in as many nights.

  All she’d wanted was to hide out here for just a few days while she saved money and got her life back together…

  Chelsea jerked out of the kiss, tearing her mouth from his and covering her tingling lips with a disbelieving hand. He didn’t need her lips to continue the kiss. Kade’s open mouth descended, locking on the tip of one breast right through the thin cloth of her baby-doll dress, and that hungry suckling nip was enough to make the heat and sparks in her belly leap all the way down to her sex. She caught her breath, both grinding and groaning. He had fingers in her panties and fingers on her other nipple and his hot, hot mouth was suckling and nipping, teasing and tormenting until every sense was spinning wildly and she didn’t even care that she was in a room full of people.

  She was in a room full of people.

  What was wrong with her?

  Chelsea shoved Kade back so hard she fell off his lap, hitting the table and jostling every place setting on it. He tried to catch her, but she panicked, knowing if he got his hands on her she’d melt and give in and maybe never be strong enough to break free of his alluring touch again. She leapt off his lap so completely that her panties tore, right down the seams just like they’d no doubt been made to do.

  “Whoa!” The Dom at her back tried to catch her too, or maybe he was only trying to shield his submissive from accidentally getting hit. Chelsea didn’t know, but she jerked away from him now too, slapping and shoving at Kade’s hands until he held them up in complete surrender.

  “Okay, Red,” he said, soft and soothing. “Shh, shh. It’s all right.”

  Except that it wasn’t. She staggered back from the table, her lips swollen and burning from his kisses. Her breasts ached; one wet, swollen, well-suckled nipple had come right out over the top of her bodice. She cupped it behind a shaking hand, searching the faces of all the people staring—some startled, some amused, the Master of the Castle darkly speculative—back at her.

  “Oh my God,” she mewed. She was depraved. She wanted to be here. She wanted to curl back up on Kade’s lap and, in spite of the public audience, let him kiss her senseless all over again.

  “It’s okay.” Kade stood, his hands still raised as if that could possibly make him less threatening. “Let’s go into the next room. We’ll talk.”
>
  The next room? Where they would be alone together? Chelsea backed from him. She shook her head, knowing exactly what she would do trapped in a room alone with him. Already her fingers itched to run through his short, dark hair. To pull his head down and bring his mouth back to hers, or to her aching nipples, or lower still, to where her pussy pulsed and throbbed, needing.

  She was in a castle full of dominants and submissives. Full of spankings and orgies, and people who dressed up like slaves and babies and furries, and where women were held captive in stocks while men took what they wanted, however they wanted it, and where she had to sit on the lap of this man—this gorgeous Greek god of a man—while he fed her from his fingers as if she were some precious, treasured pet, and…and…

  And she liked it. She liked every bit of it.

  What was wrong with her? She was depraved, that’s what.

  Tears flooding her eyes, she bolted from the table.

  “Red!” Kade called after her, but she didn’t stop. Out of the dining room and down the hall, she ran, crashing into groups and people as she went because she just couldn’t see through her tears.

  “Hey!” a woman snapped after her, but Chelsea didn’t stop. She charged up the stairs, grabbing at the rail because her legs barely held her. They kept trying to buckle, feeling boneless, but she still didn’t stop. Not until she reached her room. She looked back then, certain she would find Kade right behind her, hands still held up in the air so he could calm and sooth her, but he wasn’t. She was alone in a dark hallway, lit only by flickering electric torches that looked almost like the real things.

  Falling into her room, she pushed on the spring-loaded door to make it close faster. And once she was safe, she burst into tears.

  She went straight to the bathroom, tearing the babydoll dress off her as she went, and got in the shower. She scrubbed until her skin felt raw and all those lingering tingles could now more accurately be called pain. Then she took the showerhead down off the wall and buried her face against the cold tiles while she held the pulse of the punishing spray between her legs. She kept it there until her wayward body seized unmercifully and the bathroom rang with her shouts, and she lied to herself. She told herself that she’d been alone too long. That it could have been any normal guy holding her, touching her the way she’d been touched tonight. That it wasn’t Kade or his kinky caresses and spank-like love pats that kept doing this to her.

  She refused to be depraved.

  * * * * *

  Kade sat at the silent table for several long minutes after Chelsea had gone, surrounded by his friends and their submissives, and was quietly annoyed. He had the hard-on of the century straining against the front of his breeches and damn if it didn’t hurt. His body ached for release. Jackson and Sam were both grinning at him. For the next week, at least, the teasing was going to be unmerciful.

  “That’s twice she’s done that to me,” he said mildly, wadding up his napkin and throwing it down on his plate. Inside, he felt anything but mild. He tried not to let his annoyance show, but twice in two days…that was enough to chap anyone’s ass.

  He shoved his chair back—the urge to go after her waged a mighty war with his pride; women chased him, damn it, not the other way around—but before he could take a step, Marshall stopped him. “I will fire you in a New York minute if you push that girl. I do not want that drama in my Castle. This is a fun vacation destination. Not a place women come to get their hearts broken.”

  For the second time, Kade threw up his hands in surrender. “I’m not chasing after her. I’m just leaving.”

  “If she calls the Castle safeword one time, just once because you won’t leave her alone…”

  Kade pulled a Jackson. When he turned briefly back toward his friends, he pasted on his best devil-may-care smile. “I have no intention of pursuing anyone tonight, least of all Selena’s contrary little friend.”

  Judging by the look Master Marshall wore, he didn’t believe him, but Kade didn’t care. He shoved through the door and let his feet carry him the hell away from there.

  He went to his sanctuary, the wood and leather crafting room. His home away from home. The one place he went whenever he wanted to think or, like now, lick his wounds. Admittedly, it was only his pride she’d injured, but when a man took a hit to his sexual prowess, sometimes it was the simple pleasures that made the most sense.

  What the hell was wrong with him? Better yet, what was wrong with her? This was twice now that she should have fallen into his arms (and stayed there). Never once had it taken more than a smile and come-hither groping to make a woman ready, willing and eager to tumble into his bed. This was starting to get frustrating.

  Kade took a tool bag from one of half a dozen identical cubbies, found a length of leather and then a chair at a worn table from which to work: sketching out a quick pattern, measuring the leather, cutting the length…

  If she thought he was going to chase her, she could think again. There were plenty of other women here, good-looking women—many more beautiful than that redheaded siren upstairs. He could have any one of them, hell, all of them if he wanted. What was so special about Red? He ought to just cut her loose and find someone else to enjoy. Except that he’d never, ever had to cut anyone loose before and he didn’t want anyone else. Not that he particularly wanted Red, he told himself firmly. She was a challenge. Maybe that was the appeal. She wasn’t like any woman he’d set his sights on before. She was…

  Hell, he had no idea what she was. Difficult, came directly to mind, but maybe that was because his approach was wrong. What was it that she needed that he wasn’t giving her? Was it the illusion of commitment? Hell, he could give her that. He was good at illusions, just so long as she got back on the bus and went home at the end of her stay.

  His hands went through the calming motions, turning out a set of leather restraints with very little thought. A thick black belt with a matching pair of wrist cuffs that attached via evenly spaced D-rings. He stitched soft faux fur on the inside, but made the restraints sturdy. Sturdy enough to hold even a chronic runner like Red. And by the time he was ready to put on the finishing buckle touches, his determination was bolstered. He was going to have her in these bonds before her stay was up. He knew it even if she didn’t.

  Linking the straps, Kade ran the set through his hands, trying to imagine how it would feel to have her in them—naked, of course…or maybe not. Half the fun was in stripping her himself, laying her bare one article of clothing after another, giving her plenty of time to anticipate that moment when he would strip her of her last barrier and leave her completely exposed. Maybe he’d use his knife and cut the clothes away, baring her long, lean body to the sensual caresses of his hands and his mouth inch by seductive inch… and then he’d put her over his knee and paddle her soundly for putting him through this aggravation.

  Selecting another piece of leather from the ready stock, Kade began to craft a paddle, nothing too big, something small that could be used intimately while he held her across his knee. He sketched out a quick pattern, then grabbed up his mallet and stamping tool. He took his time, beating out a satisfying pattern, something intricate, something uniquely Red—roses, beautiful roses that were as complicated and as attractive as she was. He wrapped them with barbed-wire thorns. As much as she prickled him, he was going to enjoy using this to prickle her right back. Before he was through, she would know—as he painted the pale summits of her bottom a bright hot shade of pink—by whom she had been claimed.

  Claimed, but not kept.

  Kade never kept anyone. He was strictly catch and release, and Red was no exception to that personal rule.

  He rolled his shoulders, shedding his aggravation one pound of the mallet at a time until the roses were done. He began to cut, taking his time there too, wanting a versatile piece not much longer or wider than his hand. He could practically feel her lying across his lap, the pale nates of her bottom quivering with dread. When she was a good girl, he’d use it lightl
y. He’d make it feel good for her, spanking in that soft, fun, playful way that would leave her moaning and squirming and writhing. She’d beg him not to stop while her pussy—that beautiful, wet, responsive little pussy of hers—grew ready for him and those nether lips swelled and glistened, begging for his touch.

  And when she was a bad girl…well, he knew how to wield it that way too. He wouldn’t make her squirm then, oh no; he’d make her dance, thrash, throw back her head and send all those long red strands of hair flying around them both. He might just have to anchor her on his lap by fisting all that long, gorgeous hair. He’d wrap his palm around it, tangle himself in it and paddle her fiercely until her whole body at last surrendered to him and she was sobbing with remorse. The end result would still be the same. Her pussy would still weep for him. Those nether lips would still swell, still glisten, just like his fingers would glisten because he already knew he’d never be able to keep himself from touching her, finger fucking her even as he spanked, heightening her pleasure between rounds of sharp pain until she was so helplessly, hopelessly his that running again would be the last thing she wanted to do.

  “Master Kade?”

  Lost as he was in the intensity of his thoughts, Kade hadn’t heard the workroom door open or the plump little blonde enter until she spoke. She was cute, dressed in the white drape of a Gorean slave outfit that barely covered all the right parts of her. She wasn’t the woman he would have preferred to see creeping timidly up beside him, but she was here and judging by that flush on her cheeks she was what Red wasn’t: present and willing.

  For the second time that night, Kade pulled a Jackson. He made himself smile. “Hello, darling.” He looked pointedly at her collar. “Does your master know where you are?”

  Her blush deepened and she dropped her eyes, her fingers fiddling guiltily at the hem of her too-short skirt. “He wasn’t feeling well. He went back to the room.”

  “That’s too bad. What’s his name?”

  “Master Drake, while we’re here.” She moved close enough to touch his arm, walking her fingers from his leather wristband to his shoulder.