by Paige Tyler
Like most games, the program was complex, and though she hated to admit it, damn creative. From what she could tell, it looked like Call of Duty meets World of Warcraft with a few zombies tossed in for good measure. There were a few mistakes in the code here and there, but overall, it was pretty clean. She wasn’t a die-hard gamer, but this one looked like it’d be fun to play.
“What the hell are you doing in here?”
Colleen whirled around. Hughes stood in the doorway, a pissed-off look on his handsome face.
Crap.
“I-I’m sorry, Mr. Hughes,” she stammered. “I thought I heard a noise in here and came to check it out.”
Okay, that sounded lame. From the way his brows drew together, he clearly must have thought so, too.
“That’s bullshit.” Hughes strode into the room. “You were in here snooping around.”
“I was not snooping.” Well, maybe a little bit. “Look, I was just curious, that’s all. I’m sorry, okay? I’ll leave.”
Colleen tried to brush past him, but Hughes caught her arm. His blue eyes glinted. “Not so fast. I warned you not to come in here, and you deliberately did it anyway. You don’t think you can just walk out of here after doing something like that, do you?”
Her pulse began to pound. If he gave her a few smacks on the ass for making too much noise while he worked, there was no telling how hard he’d spank her for sneaking into his secret room.
“You’re insane if you think I’m going to let you spank me again,” she told him.
For one long moment, Hughes stood towering over her while she glared up at him defiantly. Then his mouth quirked.
“Actually,” he drawled. “I was just going to toss you out and call the cleaning company to have you replaced. But, now that you mention it, I think a spanking would be more effective.”
“Don’t you dare!”
But Hughes wasn’t listening. Taking a seat on the closest chair, he gave her arm a tug that sent her sprawling over his knee.
Colleen lay there stunned, her hair hanging down to the floor, her ass up in the air. Being bent over the back of the couch had been embarrassing enough, but this position was humiliating. And to make it worse, she’d worn shorts today instead of jeans.
Face red, she beat at his muscular leg with her fist. “Let me up, dammit.”
But Hughes only tightened his hold on her. “Not until you learn your lesson.”
What was she, a child? “I already said I was sorry. What more do you want?”
“For a start? A sincere apology.”
Did he have any idea how hard it was to have a conversation while she was draped over his lap? She looked over her shoulder at him. “I don’t know what the big deal is. So, you’re designing a video game. Big deal. It’s not like I’m going to post it on Facebook.”
“Good to know. But you’re still getting a spanking.”
She opened her mouth to tell him what a bastard he was, but the only thing that came out was a squeal as his hand connected with her ass. Ouch!
“I’m going to—owwww!—report you for this!”
“Go ahead. And I’ll tell them how I found you snooping around my house.”
He punctuated the words with a flurry of hard smack that made her yelp. She’d thought the spanking he’d given her over her jeans had stung, but that was nothing compared this. She had no idea he was so strong. Or that his hands were so big.
“I’m sorry, okay?” she said.
“That sounded a little more genuine,” he said, but it didn’t stop him from giving her another smack.
“Owwww!” she cried. “Then let me up, you jerk!”
“Not yet.” He gave her several more sharp smacks on each cheek. “If you expect me to give you free roam of my house, I have to be able to trust that you stick to cleaning won’t go snooping around in places you shouldn’t.”
Colleen opened her mouth to tell him she had no intention of coming back to clean his damn house, only to squeal as he brought his hand down her upturned ass. He moved back and forth from one side to the other, peppering her entire bottom with hard spanks until she thought her ass was on fire. It was even worse when his hand connected with the bit of skin left exposed where her shorts had ridden up from all her squirming. If it didn’t sting so much, she’d be mortified.
“Stop, please!” she begged, then quickly added, “I swear I’ll never come in this room again!”
Colleen didn’t know if it was the entreaty in her voice that made Hughes give in to her request, or whether he finally believed her, but right then she didn’t care. All that mattered was that he wasn’t spanking her anymore.
A moment later, she found herself on her feet in front of him. Colleen glared down at him as she reached back to cup her throbbing ass cheeks. He might look mild mannered in those sexy glasses, but he was a complete brute.
“I meant what I said.” He got to his feet, forcing her to look up at him. “I don’t want you coming back in this room again.”
God, he was arrogant. “Why would I? There’s nothing in here to see except the stupid video game you’re designing. And I’m here to tell you—it’s not all that. I mean, sure it could be, if it wasn’t so screwed up.”
His eyes narrowed. “What do you mean, screwed up?”
Colleen didn’t know why she even cared. She pointed at a string of code on the monitor closest to them.
“See that line there? There are so many errors in it that it’ll probably lock up the game when you try to run it. And this one here,” she gestured to another string of code. “Unless you really intend for your hero to have baby blue combat boots, you might want to change it. But hey, I’m just the maid. What would I know?”
Giving him a smug look, Colleen turned and walked out, still rubbing her ass cheeks.
Chapter Three
Steve’s first thought was to go after Colleen and ask how she’d known there were errors in his game code. But by the time he recovered from the shock of discovering his maid could read C++ computer language, she’d gotten in her company minivan and sped out of the driveway.
Shit.
He walked back into his computer room and stare at the monitors. As much as he hated to admit it, he sucked at writing code. Well, not coming up with it, but the minutiae that came with it. He could come up with cool creatures, create kickass action sequences, even develop creative storylines to support the games, but when it came to typing, his head moved faster than his fingers. Always had. Which was he was also crappy at proofreading. Clearly, Colleen didn’t have that problem.
What the hell was he saying? If she was any good at programming, she wouldn’t be working as a maid.
Unless she was spying for that son of a bitch Ed Fulton. Hiring someone to steal his new video game was exactly something his former business partner would do. And what better thief than a sexy blonde with legs that seemed to go on for miles? Yeah, Steve had noticed. She’d been kicking her legs so much while he spanked her, how could he not?
Groaning, he took off his glasses and tossed them on the desk so he could pinch the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. Spanking Colleen once had been beyond stupid, but doing it again had been a real bonehead move. He honestly hadn’t intended to do it. He was simply going to call the cleaning company and report her. But after she’d suggested it, he couldn’t get her over his knee fast enough.
What the hell was it about her that made him lose all reason? As furious as he’d been to find Colleen in here, part of him had actually been secretly thrilled she’d given him an excuse to spank her again. Having her draped over his knee with her long legs outstretched and her tight little ass high in the air while he carried on a conversation with her had been hard as hell. He’d been this close from running his hand up the back of her legs and caressing her derriere. His cock went hard at the memory.
Ignoring his hard-on, he put on his glasses and focused on the computer monitor in front of him. Unfortunately, there was no way to tell if
Colleen had downloaded anything. And short of frisking her, there was no way to know if she’d had a flash drive on her. That mental image had him stiff as a freaking board again, and he groaned.
Ah, hell.
Maybe he was being paranoid. Maybe Colleen was exactly what she appeared to be—a maid. But as Steve looked at the error in the string of code she’d pointed out—damn, the hero was wearing baby blue combat boots—he knew something about that just didn’t add up. When she came tomorrow, he was going to confront her about it. And this time, he wasn’t going to spank her, no matter how much he might want to.
* * * * *
Colleen was surprised at how understanding Brenda had been when she’d explained she couldn’t work for Steven Hughes anymore. Colleen was afraid she might have to tell her boss about the spanking—that would have been beyond humiliating—but after hearing she and Hughes had rubbed each other the wrong way and that it had resulted in an argument, Brenda agreed it would be better if someone else cleaned his house.
That someone else turned out to be Kristy, poor girl. Colleen wondered if she should warn her friend about Hughes’ apparent newfound proclivity for putting the maids who worked for him over his knee, but decided against it. All the other maids had worked for him before, including Kristy, and none of them had ever had a problem with him. Colleen wondered what the heck made her so special.
She sighed as she picked up a delicate figurine of a ballerina and carefully wiped it with a damp cloth. She’d been assigned to a nice older couple with a house ten times too big for them. They didn’t use most of the rooms, but the ones they did were filled with more knickknacks than she’d ever seen. Quite a change from Steven Hughes’ home.
Against her will, her thoughts strayed back to yesterday afternoon when he’d found her in his computer room. The memory of being over his knee was so vivid she actually blushed. Almost absently, she reached back to rub her ass through her shorts. She still couldn’t believe how much her derriere had stung from that spanking. She’d fidgeted so much in the seat on the way back to the cleaning company she could barely drive. She didn’t even want to think about how much more it would have stung if he had spanked her on the bare bottom.
Her color deepened. Where in the world had that thought come from?
She hastily reached out to run her cloth over the built-in bookcase beside the fireplace, and knocked over the potted plant on the shelf. Dirt spilled everywhere, including on the plush white carpet. Thank God the owners weren’t home to see the mess.
“Dammit.”
Kneeling down, she quickly scooped the dirt back into the flower pot. If she’d done this in Steven Hughes’ house, he would have put her over his knee for sure. The thought of another spanking made her pulse skip a beat, and she hurriedly banished the image from her mind.
Or tried to, anyway.
But the more she tried not to think about it, the more vivid it became. In her mind, she pictured Hughes striding into the room to tower over her, his blue eyes glinting as he reached for her arm and hauled her to her feet. She would try to hang back, but it would be useless. He was much stronger than she was. In moments, she would be face down over his knee with her bottom sticking up in the air.
Kneeling there in the pristine living room, Colleen could almost feel Hughes’ strong hand smacking against her ass cheeks as he scolded her for not paying attention to what she’d been doing. Over and over his hand would come down, first on one cheek, then the other until she was squirming and kicking in protest. She would plead with him to stop, first cursing him, then bargaining with him.
But she knew he wouldn’t stop until he was sure she’d learned her lesson. In fact, he’d spank her even harder. Her entire bottom would be blazing with heat. Even then, he probably wouldn’t be convinced she’d been punished enough. Before she realized what he was doing, he’d yank down her shorts and panties and start in on her bare ass.
That thought brought a fresh rush of hot color to her cheeks. What the hell?
Colleen dumped the rest of the dirt back into the flowerpot with hands that were suddenly trembling. As she got to her feet, she was shocked to realize there was a familiar and insistent tingle between her thighs.
She had to be imagining it. There was no way she could possibly be turned on by the thought of getting spanked.
Ignoring it, Colleen determinedly went back to cleaning. But as she vacuumed the carpet and dusted the furniture, all she could think about was getting spanked by the insufferable Steven Hughes.
It was the same when she got to her next house. As she moved from room to room cleaning, she couldn’t keep herself from imagining Hughes spanking her for her transgressions. Everything from leaving streaks on the television screen to missing dust bunnies under the couch.
While searching for those very dust bunnies in the living room, she pictured herself bent over the back of the couch, her shorts and panties down around her ankles as he spanked her, telling her the entire time she needed to pay more attention to her work. In the dining room, she imagined him putting her over his knee as he sat on of the ornate chairs so he could redden her bare ass. This time, it was because she hadn’t dusted the glasses in the kitchen to his satisfaction. By the time she got to the bedroom, her imagination was running so wild it was all she could do not to slide her hand inside her panties and touch herself.
Colleen clenched the dust cloth in her hands. In the mirror over the sideboard, her face was as flushed as if she’d just run a race. Or been draped over Steven Hughes’ strong thighs and spanked.
She groaned. Thank God, she’d gotten out of his house when she did. While she liked to think the fantasies she’d had were the product of an overactive imagination and hours of mindless cleaning, she wasn’t so.
* * * * *
Back at her apartment that night, she still couldn’t banish the handsome computer programmer from her thoughts. What was the matter with her? Hughes might be handsome, but she had already established that he was a jerk, so why the hell was she so damn fascinated with him and his stupid spankings.
Stripping off clothes, she tossed them into the hamper, then padded barefoot into the bathroom. She hoped a long, hot shower would get her mind off him, but it didn’t. If anything, her thoughts only got more X-rated.
Swearing under her breath, she climbed out of the shower and wrapped herself in a terrycloth robe. She’d just finished drying her hair when the doorbell rang. Tying the belt on her robe more tightly, she checked her reflection to make sure she was decent, then padded back into the bedroom and down the hall to the entryway. She opened the door without looking through the peephole, then immediately wished she hadn’t. Steven Hughes stood on her doorstep, all six-foot-four rock-solid inches of him.
“What the hell do you want?” she demanded.
He gave her a sheepish look. “Can I come in?”
“No.” She glared at him. “How did you find out where I live? What did you do, hack into the cleaning company’s computer?”
“Kristy gave me your address.”
Colleen gritted her teeth. She was going to kill her friend.
“Can I come in?” he asked again, then added, “I just want to talk.”
When she didn’t invite him in, he let out a sigh. “You have every right to be pissed at me. I should never have spanked you like I did. I was a complete jerk, and I’m sorry.”
“Yes, you were,” she agreed. “And now that we both agree on that, you can leave.”
She started to close the door, but he put his hand against it, holding it open.
“There’s something else I want to talk to you about, and I’d really rather not do it in the hallway. It will only take a minute. I promise.”
Colleen chewed on her lower lip. She should slam the door in his face, but dammit, she was curious about what he had to say. She nodded and took a step back, opening the door wider. If he were anyone else, she would have played hostess and invited him to sit on the couch, then asked if he wanted
something to drink. But because he was who he was, she decided it was better if they talked right there in the entryway.
She closed the door and folded her arms. “Well?”
“What do you know about programming video games?”
“If you’re asking if I’ve ever programmed one, the answer is no. Why?”
“But you are a computer programmer, right?”
“Yes.”
“Ever hear of a guy named Ed Fulton?”
“No.” She frowned. “What’s with the twenty questions?”
“I’m trying to figure out what you were doing in my computer room yesterday.”
That again. “I wasn’t doing anything. You made such a big deal about not going in there that my curiosity got the better of me. You were out, so I thought I’d take a quick peek and see what was in there.” She shrugged. “I thought maybe you were a superhero and that was your Batcave or something. Though now that I think about it, Fortress of Solitude might be more appropriate.”
Hughes stared at her for a moment, then chuckled. “A superhero, huh?”
“It was either that or James Bond.”
He studied her. “So, you really don’t know Ed Fulton?”
“No, I really don’t know Ed Fulton. Who is he?”
“It’s not important.”
She doubted that, but she wouldn’t push. “Is there anything else you wanted to know?”
“Actually, there is,” he said. “What do you think about coming to work for me?”
Colleen blinked. For one crazy minute she thought he was going to ask her out on a date. Right. Like she’d ever consider going out with him.
“Doing what?”
“Debugging my program.” He gave her a lopsided grin. “You might not have noticed, but I could use someone to help me clean up my code.”
She’d noticed. “You’re joking, right? You can’t possibly think I’d come to work for you after the way you treated me.”
