by Maren Smith
“Cry and fuss all you want,” Kade said, and a slow shiver raced through her when she heard the click as he unbuckled his belt, followed by the hiss as he pulled the leather free. “Do not reach back and keep your feet on the floor. If you kick in a way that interferes with my swing or my aim, I will not tie you down, but I will get a cane off the wall. Are we clear?”
“Yes, sir.” She gripped the far edge of the bench and braced her forehead against the stiff black padding, stubbornly determined not to let go. She both felt and heard it when Kade took up his position to her left, more beside than behind her.
“First, we’re going to take care of the misunderstanding, because really, that’s all this was, wasn’t it?”
She was about to answer, when that belt came whipping down, laving a snap of sheer pain all across the lower swells of her buttocks.
“Ha!” Chelsea gasped, and quickly grabbed the table. She almost reached back. It was instinctive and desperate, but she locked her fingers until the edge of the table bit into the soft padding of her inner knuckles.
“You misunderstood the meaning of the bracelets, that’s all.”
A second snap lay another sharp line of pain directly above the first. Her toes scraped the floor in her fight not to kick. He’d said it was going to hurt. He’d told her that right from the very start. It’s what she deserved.
No, it wasn’t. But, it was what she needed. She gasped for breath, a flood of hot tears stinging her eyes.
“Did you think I was leading you out of the masquerade or that those men had been sent to bring you to me?”
She panted, hugging on tight to the table to keep from reaching back, palm up, to protect her stinging bottom from more of his belt. “I thought it was you.”
Another stroke, the force and pain of which drove her right up against the bench. She forgot about not kicking. Her feet scrambled, her knees cracking into the solid lower side of the equipment. She struggled to rein herself in, but it hurt. Oh, how it hurt!
“I will always identify myself so you will always know who you’re with.” Twin lashes, both biting in low and overlapping, kicking the hurt up to levels impossible to endure. It wasn’t just pain now, it was fire, throbbing in under her skin until she could hear it, whining like she was whining as she fought to maintain her position. The pounding of her blood in her temples kept aching time with the pulse in her bottom.
“This is a misunderstanding we will never have again, isn’t it?”
“Yes!” she shouted, everything disappearing beneath the instant snap and fire of his lashing belt. It bit into her, three times in rapid succession. The first stroke brought her dancing onto her toes. The next two left her writhing, bucking and grinding her hips against the edge of the padded bench in a helplessly lewd display. She sucked for air, but it felt so heavy and thick and hot, it was choking her.
“It was just a misunderstanding,” Kade said, his voice so soothing and so at odds with the whipping pain of his belt. “And misunderstandings can always be forgiven, can’t they?”
The very next snap struck low, laving fire right across the tender crease that separated her wounded bottom from her cringing thighs. For the first time, Chelsea let go of the bench. Her hands flew back as far as her hips before she caught herself. She couldn’t take another stroke there. She grabbed the bench again, her sweaty palms squeaking as they slid across the leather padding. She couldn’t. She just couldn’t. She burst into tears, loud braying sobs that rocked her entire body with the force of her remorse.
His hand came to rest on her back, burning in between her shoulders. “Can’t they?” he asked again, and Chelsea nodded. “Everyone makes mistakes. You came to the masquerade to meet me, you were expecting me to find you, so you left with someone you thought was me. And when you knew you were someplace you didn’t want to be, you did exactly what you were supposed to do: you called your safeword.”
Writhing, unable to hold still for all that throbbing agony chewing her up from behind, Chelsea sobbed.
“I’m not angry,” he continued, his hand rubbing soft circles between her heaving shoulders. “I’m not disappointed, and I don’t want you to beat yourself up over this anymore. Is that clear?”
She sucked and gasped, her nose running, her body sweating. Sniffling, praying it was over, she nodded. “Yes, sir.”
He did not spank her again. Instead, he bent, pressing a light kiss upon the curve of her shoulder before, very softly, his voice nothing but gentleness and sympathy, he said, “I asked whether you knew you were not responsible for what happened here tonight and you lied to me. I could see it in your eyes and in your body posture. You looked right at me and you lied. Didn’t you?”
Her bottom was blazing. Her stomach felt as if it were gripped in an icy fist.
Not needing an answer, he bent to kiss her shoulder again, and then he stood up.
“I’m sorry,” she wept, dissolving into a fresh new wave of tears and wails. “I’m sorry!”
Stepping back into position to her left, Kade ran the length of his belt through his hand, wrapping the buckle around his other palm to shorten the reach.
“Please!” she sobbed, but he drew back his arm anyway, and then he swung.
He hadn’t been spanking her hard before, but Chelsea only knew that because he was now, and difference in the bite of each stroke felt as if he were skinning her alive.
“Do. Not,” he said, his strong voice rising above her shouting wails, the belt wrapping her bottom in fresh, hellish agony with each new word. “Lie. To me. Again.”
It was done.
She had lived through it, though she had no idea how. She was burning so hot, drowning in both pain and sweat. Pools of it made loud squeaks everywhere she rubbed, writhing on the bench, hurting too much not to move and yet so exhausted she couldn’t get up. Kade had to help her, folding her in his arms while she wept.
She had no idea how long they stood there. Kade let her cry until there wasn’t a drop of moisture left anywhere inside, and when there was nothing left but hiccups and shaky gasps, he brushed the sweaty strands of her hair back from her forehead and kissed the top of her head. He stroked her back, and with each pass of his hands, it seemed as if he was caressing the guilt and misery right out of her. The pain remained, that fiery throb that only grew hotter and hotter in those first moments after the spanking ended. It grew so hot, maybe it burned the guilt away. She felt better. She didn’t know how that could be possible, but she did. She felt…new.
“Feel better?” he asked, combing his fingers down through her hair.
She was so tired. Nodding felt like a monumental effort.
“Are you ready to go back to the masquerade?” Another long slow stroke of his hand stroked from the top of her head to the small of her back, lingering mere inches above the worst of the throbbing ache.
She tried not to groan. “Do we have to?”
He checked his watch. “Just for a little while. There’s something I need to see and it’s going to happen soon. So, how about this: you come back to the masquerade with me. We’ll share a dance, enjoy the punch until someone decides to spike it, and a little later on, when the pain in your bottom has settled into a nice, hot glow, I’ll take you out into the side garden, back you up against a quiet wall and just…screw both our brains out. How’s that sound?”
She snorted against his shoulder.
“I’m thinking we could take the next three hours and completely rewrite the Kama Sutra.”
Her laugh was more of a groan. “I’m so sore.”
He tsked, but there wasn’t a whole lot of sympathy in it. “I guarantee it’s going to hurt a whole lot more when I dig my fingers into your ass, wrap your legs around my neck and eat until you can’t breathe for screaming.”
Chelsea stared at him, not completely sure she could breathe now as it was.
He nodded back toward the stairs. “Come on, baby. Time to show your master what a good little submissive you really are.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The band, for all its modern and electric instruments, was dressed up like an 1800s orchestra. When Kade and Chelsea re-joined the masquerade, a lively punked-out line dance was playing all the way down through two of the three adjoined ballrooms. With three long rows of men squared off against an equal number of women, everyone was laughing, hopping and dancing to steps that hadn’t been enjoyed by modern folk since the invention of renaissance fairs.
Beside her, Kade checked his watch and then checked the front of the room where, on the dais, the Lord of the Castle was dancing outside of the line with his lovely Lady. Kaylee looked radiant, and he must have set his usual ass tendencies aside, because whatever he said as they came together, doe-si-doeing one another in graceful, regal splendor, made Kaylee blush and laugh. They made a cute couple, really. Poor girl. She must not know what a monumental jerk that Master Marshall could be.
Drawing Chelsea through the crowd, Kade found a nice out of the way spot between the lines of dancers and the raucous band. Half tucked behind a stone pillar swathed in drapes of red and gold, they had an unobstructed view of the stage. Kade checked his watch again.
“What are we waiting for?” she asked, leaning over so she could check the time too.
He smirked, pointing to the stage. “You’ll see in…five…four…three…”
As if on cue, the band suddenly fell silent and the lights dimmed, all except for the ones trained on the stage, keeping Master Marshall and his lady fully illuminated.
“Two…” Kade whispered, folding his arms around her while the surrounding dancers paused in confusion, some casting curious glances to the extinguished ceiling lights, while others looked to the silent band. Gradually everyone turned to the well-lit stage.
“One,” Kade finished softly and kissed her on the shoulder, his lips covering the same mark where he’d bit her earlier. She shivered. Kisses like that could be so devastating.
Hushed whispers rippled through the crowd as costumed men and women strained to see what was happening. Suddenly the focus of so much scrutiny, Kaylee seemed just as perplexed as the rest. She gathered her skirts and might have left the stage completely had Marshall not caught her wrist.
He held her gaze only a moment before reaching into his vest pocket and lowering himself to one knee.
“He’s been carrying that damn thing around for months,” Kade murmured behind Chelsea’s ear. “God only knows what he’s been waiting for.”
From this distance, the ring was little more than a sparkle under the lights, but the pose left no doubt as to the question softly being asked. Kaylee stood in the center of the stage, her arms folded across her chest, one hand pressed in hard across her mouth. Chelsea couldn’t see her tears, but they must have been falling because she hastily dashed her wrist across her eyes, half laughing in embarrassment as she tried to hide it.
“Maybe he was waiting for the right time,” Chelsea whispered, as helpless to look away as everyone else in the room.
“There’s no such thing,” Kade said, watching her rather than the stage.
The crowd erupted in applause the minute the Master’s lady began to nod and reached for the ring.
“Yeah, that wasn’t at all pessimistic.” Chelsea whapped Kade on the arm and hoped that would be enough to distract him from her own weepy eyes. She was such a girl. Weddings and engagements…they did it to her every time.
He chuckled. “I’ll try harder next time. Do you want some punch? Something to nosh? A small handful of soft, absorbable tissues, maybe?”
“You’re impossible,” she said and rolled her eyes, but only because she didn’t dare tell him how badly she was falling for him. She didn’t want to know what sarcastic thing he’d have to say about that.
He gave her a look, pointed to a spot on the floor directly between her feet and then pointed at her. He didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to. ‘Stay’ was all over that smiling, warning look he gave her.
“Woof,” she said obediently, and smiled as he walked away.
The lights came back on and the band started up as if they’d never stopped. Laughing, happy guests rushed to fall back into step with those few people interspersed along the dance lines that seemed to know all the steps. The music was catchy and the dance didn’t seem that complicated, yet Chelsea wasn’t the only sitting it out. The ballroom was half-filled with wallflowers—two of which she recognized from clear across the room.
Big as he was, even in costume and with a mask on, Chelsea knew Jackson the minute her eyes skimmed over him. The diminutive blonde in his arms took her a minute, but the process of elimination made her identity overwhelmingly clear. It was Sara. Thank God, they were finally talking. Maybe not so much with their mouths, but that communication was happening was clear, even from here. Tucked up in the shadows behind a cloth-draped pillar, with her back to Jackson’s front, they were swaying to the music. His arms were around her and she was hugging them in place.
They looked…like two people in love, relaxed with one another, content to simply watch the room…at least until Jackson’s hands unfolded, slipping down from around her waist to caress and then cup her womb. Sara twisted back her face to gaze up at him. In the next instant, she’d turned to throw her arms around his broad shoulders and he had positively swallowed her up in his embrace.
Chelsea stopped watching then. Though in a very public room, what they were doing just felt too…private to spy on. She hoped everything worked out for them.
Up on the stage, Master Marshall had disregarded the music entirely. He and his lady were slow dancing, hip to hip and heart to heart. Kaylee looked very happy, though now and then, she still wiped at her eyes. Chelsea smiled for them. Master Marshall really was a jerk, but in that moment, she envied Kaylee.
“I saw him first, you know.”
Glancing around in surprise, Chelsea came face to face with the same sour blonde she’d been bumping into all over the Castle. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.” Hands on hips, the blonde stepped aggressively right up to her and poked her in the chest. “I’ve been pretty damned patient, but I’ve only got two days left and a helluva lot of world left for him to rock. Time for you—” She thumped Chelsea again, this time with two fingers instead of one. “—to get your big ol’ amazon man-hands off him and let someone else ride the roller coaster for a while.”
Chelsea covered her chest where the blonde had poked her, shocked that anyone in this litigious age would be so stupid as to lay hands on another person, especially in a room full of potential witnesses. “You mean…Kade?”
“No, I mean Master Kade. Resident man-candy. Finger-lickin’ good. For a good time, call…” The blonde spread her arms, a silent ta-dah that left Chelsea free to fill in the blank. “It’s not only written on the public bathroom walls, it’s practically in the brochure. All the girls on the Castle’s forum talk about how great he is. He’s the biggest reason I came here in the first place, so stop hogging my sure thing or I’m gonna put some real hurt on your scrawny—” She thumped Chelsea again, hard enough to leave a dull pulse of pain on her chest. “—bean-pole—” Another thump, this one knocking Chelsea back a step, although by now her initial shock was giving way to irritation. “—ass!”
“Hey!” Kade came shoving through the crowd, both the punch glasses he carried in one hand and the plate of finger foods in his other seemingly forgotten as he bore down on them. “If you’ve got something to say, you can damn well say it to me!”
When the blonde woman turned to him, her sour expression gave way to an instantly sultry smile. “Hey, baby.”
That thin thread of irritation, which had only just begun to wind itself through Chelsea, survived the smile, but exploded at ‘hey baby’ into the hottest flare of uncontainable anger she had ever felt. It hit her right between the eyes, hard as a bullet, turning everything in the entire room a rich shade of blood red. Funny, she’d always thought that just an expression. But no, her e
ars rang, her head raged—a strange and heavy buzzing that burst out at her nape and crawled right up under her scalp—and before she even realized she was about to, Chelsea had the blonde by the shoulder and was whipping her around.
“Don’t you ‘hey baby’ him,” she said hotly. “This is my roller coaster and I’ll get off it when I damn well please!”
“Get off me!” The blonde slapped, but Chelsea slugged.
Every last one of her knuckles popped on contact but, with a sound somewhere between a squish and a crunch (both gratifyingly accentuated by the blonde’s pained shout), she broke the other woman’s nose.
Damn, that felt good.
Shit, that hurt!
Chelsea grabbed her wrist, pain shooting like a spike up her arm, all but bending her double.
The blonde grabbed her nose, shouting as blood poured between her fingers and spewed off her lips.
Kade dropped both the punches and the plate and leapt to catch the blonde just as her knees gave out. She fell, even with his gravity-slowing assistance, flat on her fanny. Rocking, she clutched her face and wailed, “U brogah by dose! U bidgh!”
Straightening, Chelsea stopped cradling her wounded wrist long enough to storm up to Kade. He dropped the blonde, his face a mask of wariness as he faced her.
“Did you fuck her?” she asked, straight up and to the point, delivered the same way she deserved to have the answer given.
Something that might have been regret moved across his features. The barest of cringes.
“Yes,” he said, offering neither excuses nor apologies.
“Before or after you fucked me?”
Again that flicker. Definitely a cringe. “Before.”
It didn’t matter. It surprised her a little to realize that, but she honestly didn’t care what—or even who—he did before she’d met him. “You never promised me anything.”
He looked at her, that wariness flickering into guarded surprise.
“We both know exactly what this is.” Stepping around the fallen blonde, deftly avoiding two clumsily vengeful kicks, she caught Kade by the scruff of his shirt and pulled him down to her passionate kiss. Her wrist was killing her, radiating dull pulses of pain all the way up her arm, but not enough to make her want to stop. One kiss became two, then three, then more than she could drag a thought together to count. She loved kissing him. She loved the heat of him, the way his hunger matched her own and how his hands snaked around her waist and then, despite being in a ballroom full of people, down to grab her ass. He lifted, squeezed, made all that diminishing fire from her spanking come roaring back to pain-filled life and darn near killed her in the heat, but she loved that too.
