Maid for Spanking (5 page)

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.”

He flushed beneath his tan. “I
really am sorry about that. I don’t know what came over me. I promise I won’t
do it again.”

“Why would you want to hire
your maid to do this when there are loads of companies out there that do this
stuff?”

“Because there are also loads
of people out there who would just as soon steal my game as look me in the
eye.” He paused. “I trust you.”

She frowned. “You don’t even
know me.”

He shrugged. “Ed Fulton
doesn’t know you, either. That’s good enough for me.”

That name again.

“I appreciate the offer, but
I already have a full-time job. I’m not interested in spending my nights or
weekends programming. I’ve done that before and I hated it.”

Hughes considered that. After
a moment, he nodded. “Okay, I can work with you on that. I know that the
cleaning company offers flexible hours to their employees. One of the other
maids I had told me she only worked half days because she wanted her afternoons
free. You could clean in the morning and debug game code in the afternoon.”

She lifted a brow. “You seem
to have given this a lot of thought.”

His only reply was a grin
that was way too damn sexy.

Colleen said nothing. She couldn’t
deny she was intrigued by his offer. She hadn’t realized how much she missed
programing until she was in front of all those computer monitors yesterday. If
nothing else, this would give her something to round out her resume for the
next programming job.

“Okay,” she finally said. “On
one condition.”

“Name it.”

“No more spankings.”

He didn’t even hesitate.
“Done.”

Colleen was a little
surprised at how quickly he’d acquiesced. The situation was only going to work
if Hughes kept his hands to himself, but she had to admit there was a tiny part
of her that was a little disappointed he’d capitulated so easily. Which made no
sense at all. It wasn’t as if she wanted another spanking.

“It might take me a couple of
days to start my new schedule,” she said.

He nodded. “I don’t want anyone
to know about the video game, so I’d like to keep the fact that you’re working
for me just between us. Any chance you can go back to cleaning my house again?
That way you’re right there and can get started on debugging as soon as you’re
finished.”

That made sense, though she
had no doubt Brenda was probably going to think she was crazy when she said she
wanted to go back to cleaning Hughes’ house, especially since she’d already
told the woman they didn’t get along. She’d come up with something, she supposed.

Colleen closed the door
behind him,
then
leaned back against it with a sigh.
Had she seriously just agreed to working alongside Steven Hughes? The other
times she’d done something he hadn’t liked, he’d spanked her. Sure, he’d
promised he wouldn’t do it again, but could she believe him?

Chapter Four

Working with Hughes—Steve—was
actually more fun than Colleen had thought it would be. It was a little awkward
the first couple of days, but the more time she spent with him, the more she
realized he wasn’t such a bad guy. A little paranoid about security and
obsessive about cleaning, but not the jerk she’d originally believed him to be.

And since she’d started
working with, he hadn’t spanked her once. Not even when she’d forgotten his
no-food-allowed rule and brought the nonfat latte and yogurt she’d gotten at
Starbuck’s into the computer room.

“But I used to eat at my desk
all the time at my old programming job,” she protested when he made her go sit
at the kitchen table.

He folded his arms and leaned
back against the island. “And I’ll bet you got crumbs all over the keyboard.”

“Maybe.” Colleen formed her
lips into a pout as she dipped her spoon into her yogurt. “You’re no fun at
all, do you know that?”

His mouth
quirked.
“You’d be
surprised.”

Something in his voice made
her pulse skip a beat, and she paused, her spoon halfway to her mouth. She
thought Steve was gorgeous the first time she’d seen him. Working side by side
with him every day had only intensified her attraction to him. Which made
sense, she supposed. If she had a type, he’d be it. Not only was he good
looking, but he was funny and smart, too.

He was also a contradiction.
Not many men could be sensitive and intellectual one minute,
then
go all caveman the next. It seemed crazy, but she was beginning to think the
reason she was so attracted to him was because he was that unique mix of
sensitivity and strength. And she was attracted to him, she admitted to
herself. Worse, she was starting to
like
him.

And, yes, that had been
wreaking havoc on her concentration in the two weeks she’d been working with
him. If it
was
simple sexual attraction, it would have
been one thing. But there was the whole spanking thing.

Every time he leaned close to
show her something or read the string of code she was working on, all she could
think about was how big his biceps were, or how good his cologne smelled, or
how strong his hands looked. Which invariably led to thoughts of him putting
her over his knee and spanking her.

She tried to banish those
thoughts, but the harder she tried, the more vivid her fantasies got. A month
ago, she never would have thought about getting spanked, and now, it was all
she could think about. What did that say about her? No matter how long she
wrestled with that question, she couldn’t come up with an answer. She just knew
that the more time she spent with Steve, the stronger the urge to get spanked
again became.

That afternoon was no
different, especially since Steve spent most of it leaning over her shoulder as
she worked. With his breath stirring her hair and his arm brushing hers, it
took all of her willpower to focus on what she was doing. When it took her
several attempts to get a string of code working, she cringed, hoping he hadn’t
noticed. If he had, he didn’t say anything.

“I was going to order
take-out for dinner. Or delivery, I guess I should say,” he said as they
finished up later that afternoon. “Want to stay? Unless you have other plans,”
he added when she said nothing.

Colleen shook her head, for
the first time glad she didn’t have a date on a Friday night. “I mean, yes, I’d
love to stay for dinner.”

“Pizza okay?”

She’d expected him to suggest
something more exotic, like Thai, and almost smiled. The man was indeed a
contradiction. “That’s fine.”