Maid for Spanking (3 page)

Other than being relieved to
learn Colleen did in fact work for the maid service and hadn’t been a spy hired
by one of his competitors looking to get their hands on the new video game he
was designing, he hadn’t given her much thought since retreating into his
office. Okay, that wasn’t entirely true. With her pouty lips, long blond hair
and curvy figure, Colleen was difficult to get out of his head, and he’d ended
up spending more time thinking of his new maid than writing game code. Once or
twice, he’d almost left his office to get a cup of coffee he didn’t want just
to watch her work.

Since he had a ton of work to
do on the computer program, he’d resisted the urge and put thoughts of the
pretty Colleen out of his head. He was just trying to figure out why the recent
code he’d written was so screwed up when she’d started vacuuming.

He’d only gone into the
living room to ask her to vacuum later, but then she’d started shooting off her
mouth, and the next thing he knew, he’d grabbed her arm and upended her over
the couch for a good, sound spanking.

For the record, he didn’t
usually make a habit out of spanking women. He’d never put
a
women
over his knee in his life until his ex-girlfriend Amanda had asked
him to tan her ass. Amanda had liked being spanked for being a “bad girl,” and
would turn into a brat whenever she wanted him to do it. He’d felt a little
weird about doing it at first, but when he saw how much it turned her
on,
he’d definitely gotten into the role as disciplinarian.
Which, okay, had turned him on. That still didn’t give him a free pass to spank
his new maid, even if she had acted like a brat. Because while administering a
few smacks to the seat of Colleen’s tight jeans might have been enjoyable for
him, Steve doubted his new maid had found it acceptable. Which meant he’d
probably have to break in a whole new cleaning woman tomorrow.
If the company even sent another maid.
He might end up
cleaning his own damn house.

Chapter Two

Colleen had fully intended to
go back to the office that afternoon and tell her boss Brenda exactly what
Steven Hughes had done, but when she arrived at the cleaning company offices,
the woman had already left to go pick up her daughter from soccer practice.

Then again, maybe it was good
thing Brenda wasn’t there. Colleen wasn’t sure she could take the embarrassment
of actually explaining the whole humiliating episode. What if Brenda didn’t
believe her? Or worse, what if she did, and it got out to the rest of the
maids? Colleen would never live it down. But she had to say something because
there was no way she could go back and clean that man’s house again. Maybe she
could tell Brenda there was a personality conflict and that she couldn’t work
for Hughes anymore. Brenda would reassign Hughes to one of the other girls,
right?

She was sitting in the break room
sipping coffee and mulling it over when Kristy and two of the other maids
walked in.

Her friend sat down across
from her. “So, how was your first day?”

Colleen didn’t answer right
away. The thought she’d had when she first got to Hughes’ place about Kristy
and the other women setting her up popped into her head again. Maybe she’d been
more right than she knew when she’d secretly accused her first solo assignment
of being an initiation. That would explain the spanking. Sororities did it,
right? Maybe cleaning companies did, too.

She groaned inwardly. What
was she saying? Kristy was her best friend. She wouldn’t do something like that
to her. Besides, You’ve Got it Maid was a reputable, highly respected company.

She chewed on her lower lip.
She wanted to tell Kristy about what had happened, but couldn’t do it in front
of the other maids.

“It went fine, I guess,” she
said.

Mia, a tall, athletic redhead
walked over to the counter and poured herself a cup of coffee. “What did you
think of Steven Hughes?”

Colleen shrugged choosing her
words carefully. “He’s nice enough, I suppose.”
 

“You suppose?” Kristy looked
at her as if she’d lost her mind. “Colleen, the guy is absolutely gorgeous. Not
to mention filthy rich. And the last time I checked, he was extremely single.”

That he was single certainly
didn’t come as a surprise. The guy was sort of lacking in social skills. “I
don’t wonder why. The guy has some serious control issues.”

Lauren, a dark-haired woman
with big, brown eyes, laughed. “What gave it away? Was it the fact that he
wanted you to straighten the tassels on the rug after you vacuumed? Or that he
wanted the wine glasses he never uses cleaned every day?”

“No, no, no.” Mia sat down in
the only other empty chair at the table. “I bet it was his thing about the
streaks on his sixty-inch plasma television screen. Am I right?”

Colleen made a face. “All of
the above. You left out the most important rule, though.
Never,
ever to go into his inner sanctum.
All the other stuff just makes him
seem like a freak, but that rule about the room being off limits is beyond
weird. What’s up with that, anyway?”

“Mia thinks he makes porn
movies in there,” Lauren said.

Mia snorted. “It’s better
than your theory.” She looked at Colleen. “Lauren thinks he’s some kind of spy
like James Bond, and that’s where he communicates with his super-secret
headquarters. Oh, and that there’s a secret passage in the room that leads to his
own private Batcave.”

Kristy grinned. “You’ve gotta
admit, he does have the whole Clark-Kent thing going on. I could totally see
him as the superhero-type for sure.”

Colleen laughed. She serious
doubted Steven Hughes made porno movies or had a secret identity. It would take
him fifteen minutes just to make sure the Batarang on his utility belt was
straight.

“Superman has a Fortress of
Solitude, not a Batcave,” she corrected.

“Same thing. I wonder if he
really needs those glasses or if he only wears them because he thinks they make
him look smarter,” Kristy mused.

Lauren propped her chin on
her hand and sighed. “He does have the dreamiest blue eyes, doesn’t he?”

His eyes
were pretty dreamy
,
Colleen had to admit
. What the hell? The guy was still a
jerk, no matter how electric his eyes were. Or how damn sexy that scruff on his
jaw was.

“Since you seem to have such
a crush on him, what do you say we switch?” she said to Lauren. “I’ll take one
of your clients and you take Clark Kent.”

Lauren’s big eyes went wide.
“Oh, I couldn’t. I cleaned his house once before and…well, let’s just say the
whole thing was very embarrassing.”

Colleen looked at the other
girl sharply. Had Hughes spanked Lauren, too? It made sense, she thought,
remembering how easily he’d upended her over the back of the couch that
afternoon. If Hughes had spanked her, he’d probably spanked the other maids,
too. She wanted to ask, but if she did, that would mean admitting she’d gotten one,
too. There was no way was she going to do that.

Mia lifted a brow. “Well,
aren’t you going to tell Colleen what happened?”

Lauren blushed. “It was
humiliating, really. I was vacuuming the area rug in the living room when I
noticed the bag needed to be changed. Of course, Steven Hughes had to pick that
exact moment to walk in, which got me all flustered and I ended up dumping
everything in the canister on the rug.”

Colleen held her breath.
“What did he do?”

“He was really nice about the
whole thing, actually,” the dark-haired woman said. “He told me it wasn’t a big
deal and not to worry about it. He even helped me put a new bag in. But I hated
looking like such an idiot in front of him. I mean, he’s so perfect, and I came
off like a clumsy goof.”

Colleen stared at her in
disbelief. “That’s it?”

Maybe Lauren was too embarrassed
to admit that he had really spanked her. After all, she was.

“Yeah. I didn’t mean to imply
he went ballistic or anything. It was just that I was so embarrassed I could
never go back there again.” Lauren smiled. “Oh, and you want to know the cutest
part? Gina, the girl who cleaned his place after me, said he went out and
bought one of those super expensive bagless vacuums. That was really nice of him.”

Colleen frowned. Nice was
definitely not the word she’d use to describe Hughes. Lauren had dumped a whole
vacuum bag all over his carpet, and all he’d done was help her clean it up. Colleen
had made a little noise while cleaning the living room—just like Hughes
had told her to do—and she’d gotten spanked for it. That only confirmed
how much of a jerk he was.

The reminder of how he’d
treated her was enough to make Colleen change her minds about telling Brenda.
When she came into work the next morning, she was going to tell her boss
everything, no matter how embarrassing it was, and demand a new assignment.

* * * * *

When she got to work the
following day, however, Brenda wasn’t in yet. Colleen tried to delay as long as
she could, but after an hour, she couldn’t stall any longer. All the other
maids had already left, and Caroline, the woman at the dispatch desk kept looking
at her oddly. Even if Brenda came in now, there was no one left to send to Hughes’
place anyway. She either had to go clean his house, or quit.

Crap
.

Grabbing the keys to the
minivan off the hook, she told Caroline she was leaving and headed over to
Hughes’ place.

Once in his driveway, she
didn’t get out of the minivan right away, but sat there staring at the house.
There were two ways she could approach this. She could either act as if nothing
had happened, or she could confront Hughes about the spanking. While having it
out with the jerk would definitely be more gratifying, pretending the spanking
hadn’t happened at all was probably the smarter choice. Especially since she
intended to talk to Brenda about changing assignments anyway. Of course, if
Hughes brought it up, then all bets were off.

More confident now that she
had a plan, Colleen marched up the front steps and rang the doorbell. When he
didn’t answer, she rang again, more impatiently this time.
Still
no answer.
Guess he wasn’t home. She almost laughed in relief. She’d
spent half the morning worrying about seeing him, and he wasn’t even there.

Telling herself to be
grateful for small favors, Colleen let herself in, then walked over to the
alarm on the wall and entered the security code. She’d never used a security
system before, so she was a little worried she’d do something wrong and the
cops would come bursting thought the door at any moment. Since they didn’t, she
must have done it right.

Eager to be done and out of
there before Hughes came home, Colleen got right to work. She vacuumed the area
rug in the living room,
then
quickly dusted the
television and other electronic equipment before going upstairs to clean the
master bedroom.

It was just impressive as the
rest of the house, and bigger than any Colleen had ever seen. She couldn’t help
but be a little envious as she took in the huge king-sized bed and vaulted
ceiling. The adjoining bathroom was just as lavish. God, she’d love to have
that spa tub and walk-in shower in her apartment. Then again, the shower was
bigger than her whole bathroom, so neither would probably fit.

Though the master suite was
beautiful, it lacked the same personal touches as the rest of the rooms in the
house. There were no photos of family or friends. No mementos from his past
lying around. That was weird. Maybe Lauren was right and Hughes was a secret
agent. It was far-fetched, but it would certainly explain why he didn’t have
any of the usual mementos.

Colleen almost laughed at how
ridiculous that sounded. The real reason was probably much more boring. Maybe Hughes
didn’t like clutter. Or maybe he didn’t have a lot of happy memories he wanted
to display. Maybe he had a lot of things he’d rather forget. That was too bad.
It almost made her feel sorry for him.

She had every intention of
cleaning the kitchen next, but when she went back downstairs, she found herself
drawn to the living room and the door to the inner sanctum. Since Hughes was
out, it would be the perfect opportunity to sneak a quick peak inside.
 
Providing he didn’t keep it locked.

Knowing she shouldn’t, but
unable to help herself, Colleen grasped the knob and slowly turned it. Heart
pounding, she cautiously pushed open the door.

Colleen didn’t know what
she’d expected to find, but it wasn’t a home office. Then again, maybe computer
room would be more appropriate. After all, most people didn’t have half a dozen
computers in their home office, especially ones with huge flat-screen monitors.
Even more strange, every computer was turned on and running at the same time,
some kind of code scrolling across the screen. Huh. Maybe Lauren was right
about him being a secret agent.

She glanced over her
shoulder, listening to make sure Hughes wasn’t going to make a surprise
appearance before stepping inside to take a closer look. It wasn’t coordinates
for an enemy hideout or an encrypted message about his next mission, should he
choose to accept it. Which meant it probably wouldn’t self-destruct after she
read it, thank goodness. It was C++, a computer language she was familiar with.