Sweet Sinclair (Masters of the Castle) (14 page)

The first time Sinclair awoke, the sun wasn’t yet up, a hot mouth was brushing soft kisses up the back of her shoulder, and Parker’s heavy arm around her waist was pulling her in to snuggle against him. He’d already worked one hand down between her legs, gently awaking all her tender nerve endings one scintillating stroke at a time. Finally, he rolled her onto her back and rose above her, his erection brushing at her belly and then lower down as he settled between her thighs.

“Good morning, sweetness,” he murmured, sliding into her slow and deep.

“Good morning, handsome.” Sinclair wrapped her arms and legs around him so she could hold him just as close as he could come.

The second time she awoke, the sun was high, the day was well on its way and she was the only occupant in Parker’s massive four-poster bed. Indeed, she was the only occupant in the whole of his apartment, but as she wandered it, she found two things: on a plate on the kitchen counter, in front of the stool where she had eaten the night before, Sinclair found the collar Parker had given her—heavy and black, the thick austerity of the leather at complete odds with the soft padding inside, and that pretty golden locket with its fond inscription.

Next to it was a folded note card. It read:
Leave the collar here. The next time you wear it, I want to put it on you and I don’t ever want you to take it off. If you aren’t ready to make this commitment, I’ll understand. Either way, look out the window behind you.

Making her way across the living room, Sinclair parted the drapes far enough to peek outside. Directly below her, the cement patio was a flutter of busy activity. Three rows of nine kitchen staff were throwing themselves into energetic jumping jacks while Cook Connie strolled up and down between them, a very lethal-looking cane held behind her back. She was barking out a rhythmic, “Hup! Hup! Hup!” to help them keep in time.

Beyond them, down the winding gravel path that led back to the employee’s parking lot, amidst a wholly different flutter of activity, she saw Parker, supervising as her car was unloaded from the flatbed off a city tow truck.

“Get on up, you lazy bitches!” Cook Connie bellowed. “Put some bounce in it! Two demerits, Martin! Don’t think for a second, I haven’t noticed you half-assing it! Dana! You keep your eyes straight ahead or you’ll finish this routine with my boot up your butt! I’ve half a mind to cane the whole lot of you and start over from scratch! Hup! Hup! Hup, God damn it!”

Her car was resting on all four flat tires on the pavement now, and there was more than just Parker out there surrounding it. Two men were making slow circles from bumper to bumper, taking in the damage that had been done. One was Marshall, even from here he was easy to recognize; she had no idea who the other was, but when he squatted down to get a better look at the keying damage, Sinclair raced from the window. She ran back to the bedroom, throwing herself into her clothes in record time.

Back through the Castle, she ran, ducking other guests until she found the ballrooms. From there, she managed to trace her way back to the kitchen where Cook
Connie had allowed some of her bitches back inside to start on the lunch menu. An unlucky four—two men and two women—remained out on the patio with the irritable Castle chef. Bent over with their hands gripping their own ankles, not one of them so much as glanced her way when Sinclair dashed outside.

Taking up her position behind them and running that lethal cane through her fingers, Cook Connie paused long enough to give her a look. “You left my kitchen a mess.”

“I’m very sorry.” Sinclair edged past her. “We were just so tired last night.”

“A mess,” Cook Connie repeated, unmoved.

“I’ll clean it up today, I promise.” With nothing between her and the path now, Sinclair backed rapidly down it. “I’ll do it on my hands and knees. With a toothbrush!”

“You’d better!” the Castle chef shouted after her, and the first whippy ‘thh-whhup’ of the cane and the masculine grunt it inspired—growled out through gritted teeth, with five more just like it following in swift succession—pursued Sinclair at a dead run all the way to the parking lot.

The group around her car had grown to include a woman in a tightly-cinched black corset and gauzy skirt so transparent that it amplified rather than hid her bikini thong and thigh-high leather boots. With her, was an entourage of bucket and sponge-wielding boy toys—some were trim, some heavy, one was eighty if he was a day, another looked as if he might be a professional body builder; but all were dressed in identical pairs of the skimpiest bright orange shorts ever to be seen outside of a Hooters… and on men.

“I want every last speck of spray paint gone off this car,” Parker told the woman.

“You heard the man,” she told her entourage, and while some quickly set her up in day-spa comfort on a supervisory lawn chair, administering mani - and pedicures, cold drinks and a temple massage, the rest wasted no time at all getting wet and dirty by soaping down her car.

“What’s going on?” she asked, breathless from her run.

Holding out his arm, Parker beckoned her to tuck herself into his side. “Nothing, really. At the Saturday morning meeting, someone mentioned setting up a car wash, and I said I knew the perfect one to start with. Next thing any of us knew—” He gestured to her car. “—here we were.”

Her car was thoroughly buried in suds and busily scrubbing boy toys
, some of whom were tackling the dirt, while others went after the paint specifically with little cans of Goof Off. Already the word “slut” and most of the spouting penises had come off, turning the soap and the water spilling down onto the pavement around her car a dull shade of red.

Touched, Sinclair wrapped her arms around Parker’s waist. “Thank you.” It didn’t make anything better, but for the moment, she felt like it did.

“Thank Master Marshall,” he corrected. “He’s the one who paid for your towing. And later on, after you’ve thought about it and if it’s something you want to agree to, we have a whole busload of people ready to descend upon your shop and help you move.”

Sinclair turned to Master Marshall. “I-I don’t have a place to go yet. I haven’t even looked at what’s available, but I don’t think I can stay here.”

“Here as in, here?” Master Marshall pointedly asked. “Or here as in, Granger?”

Sinclair looked up at Parker again. He was looking down at her, his eyes shuttered and his smile understanding. He felt tense against her. Blushing, she glanced away only to find herself staring at the car-washing boy toys. “I confess, I’ve never been anyplace even remotely like your Castle before. But,” she turned shyly back to Parker, “I don’t have a problem with anything I’ve seen or done here.”

Pulling her closer, Parker’s smile and eyes both warmed.

“In that case
…” Master Marshall turned around. “In light of yesterday’s success and the fact that you are now searching out new venues for your business, perhaps you’d consider moving Maybe’s Candy to the Castle. Your clientele would be strictly limited to guests only and online sales, but Cook Connie has agreed to give you access to her third kitchen, and if you need helpers, I am willing to allocate a helper or two until you are in a position to pay their salaries. I’m thinking we can turn that storage room just off the kitchens into your new shop. Master Parker will give you the full tour. When you’ve decided, either way, come to my office. I’ll have your check ready and we can go over any questions you might have after you attend orientation.”

“Thank you,” she said honestly. She almost wanted to cry. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Don’t say anything until Master Parker has given you the full tour and a rundown of the rules. You might find this all more than you want to tackle, although I hope not. All everyone is talking about this morning is where can they get more of those truffles. Half the nursery is in high-sugar meltdown, and most of the nobility are weighing the cause of continuing to eat their candy against the consequence of having to loosen their corset stays.” A ghost of a smile curving his lips, Master Marshall shook his head. “Let me know what you decide.”

When he started
back to the Castle, the other Master stepped in long enough to tell Parker, “I can fix those scratches. It’ll take time and the whole thing will have to be repainted afterwards, but it’s not that complicated. Put a naked girl on each hood and I’m sure I’ll have all the help I could ever need, and then some.”

“Thanks, Alan.” Parker shook his hand, and the olive-skinned Master tossed her a wink before following Master Marshall back down the path toward the Castle.

Standing side by side, Parker and Sinclair watched as her car was washed, rinsed, soaped up and washed all over again.

“Are…
are you sure about this?” she finally asked. “Don’t you think this is moving a little fast?”

“You’re right,” he deadpanned. “It’s only been a year. We really should slow down.”

She smacked his stomach with the backs of her fingers, laughing. “That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

“I know I don’t want to let you go,” he replied. “That’s what I know. So, to me this is a solution worth talking about.” He slipped his hand into hers, giving her fingers a gentle squeeze. “Come on.”

Sinclair turned, following him back down the path to the Castle’s kitchen entrance. “Where are we going?”

“To check out the store room
and, on the off chance that you might not want to commute every day back and forth from town or—my preference—move in with me, I’ll show you some of the empty employee apartments. And then—” wrapping his arm around her neck, Parker drew her in to murmur, “—then I’m going to show you exactly what happens to little girls who think it’s okay to smack their masters.”

Was it his tone or his words? Sinclair didn’t know, but it stole her breath away. She curled into him as they walked, her fingers tracing a coy path down his chest, from his bare skin to the black leather of his Dom vest, all the way down to his belt. She stopped there, not quite brave enough and very aware that they were in public for her to want to go any further. “What else do you want to show me, Captain Tight Pants?”

“Sweetness,” he chuckled. “You’re going to have to wait to find out, but I’m happy to give you hint—I’ve already put a glass dildo in the fridge for later.”

Sinclair definitely stopped breathing then. Her eyes got huge. Her body shivered in the most delicious, trepidatious way. “In the
fridge?”

“We’ll graduate our way slowly up to real ice.”

“
Ice
?”

He laughed again, his arm unsnaking from around her waist as his hand dropped to boldly cup her bottom instead. Nowhere near as concerned about being in public as she was, he turned to face her.

“Trust me,” he said, dipping down to catch her lips in a kiss that made her stomach blossom with heat and her toes curl.

Sinclair melted against him, more than happy to burn in the fire he kindled. She’d always known there was something wrong with him.

Thank goodness, it wasn’t anything bad.

The End

WOULD YOU LIKE A FREE SPANKING STORY

ON YOUR KINDLE EVERY MONTH?

That's right.  FREE.   And we're not talking about some short “throw-away.”   Every month, Blushing Books gives our customers a novella-length story (typically five chapters and at least 15,000 words) completely free.   You can always download our current month's story at our website, located at
http://www.blushingbooks.com
.

But we're offering an additional service for Kindle customers - we'll send the monthly free story directly to your Kindle device.  You don't need to do anything, pay anything or remember anything.  Every month, a free story will just magically appear.

1.  Email us at
[email protected]
, and put FREE KINDLE STORY in the subject line of your email.

2.  In the body of your email, you will need to provide your KINDLE's email address.  Your Kindle email will end with @kindle.com.   If you do not know your Kindle email, you need to log on to your Amazon account and find it under "manage my Kindle."

3. You’ll also need to add
[email protected]
to your permitted email list on Amazon (otherwise your Kindle will not accept email from us.)   If you don’t do this step, you will not get the story.  This is also found under the "manage my Kindle" section of your Amazon account.

Once we get an email from you, you'll be added to our free monthly story list.  You'll receive one free story per month - but nothing else, no advertising, spam or any other unwanted content.    And remember, if you prefer, you can always get the free story at
www.blushingbooks.com
.

“Hi, I'm Maren. I'm 30, married to a wonderful, dominant man, and have five four–legged children: two dogs and three cats. I love strong, authoritative men–men who are both ready and willing to leave the lady of their choosing red–bottomed and weeping and for her own good. Writing has given me the wonderful freedom to explore my spanking side without feeling 'weird.' Even better, with the invention of the Internet, I can write what I love and know it will be appreciated by people with the same interest
s
.”

CONNECT WITH MAREN SMITH

Blog:
http://badgirlscorner.wordpress.com

Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/maren.smith.10

Email:
[email protected]

A MESSAGE TO MY READERS

If you enjoyed reading Sweet Sinclair, I would appreciate it if you would help others enjoy this book, too.

Recommend it: 
Please help others find this book by recommending it on readers' groups and discussion boards. 

Review it:
Reviews help authors a great deal, particularly on Amazon.  Please tell others why you liked this book at Amazon, Goodreads, Barnes and Noble, and / or Blushing Books.