Authors: Maren Smith
“You know,” Marshall said, “one of these days, you are going to meet someone who becomes more to you than just another fuck.”
“Spare me.” Kade let go of the drape, but the sheer fabric falling back into place did nothing to block the redhead from his mind. She really was a lovely creature—the prime pick for his first conquest out of this new busload of clients. “While I appreciate the advice, my friend, mounting a woman is a lot like climbing a mountain. If you’ve already done it once, there’s no point doing it twice. You already know you can.”
Jackson made a sound of disgust, but Kade didn’t bother staying to defend himself. He had places to be and women to do, and if he didn’t hurry, some other master might claim his next mountain before he got to her. He headed for the door.
“The 101?” Marshall called after him.
Kade threw up a quick thumbs-up, but he didn’t stop. A familiar thread of heady excitement began to wend its way through him as he reset tonight’s target on the tall, strawberry-blonde quarry unsuspectingly lingering in the admission’s courtyard.
Let the hunt begin.
“S
elena!”
Jerking around, the bouncy blonde, who had cheerfully talked Chelsea’s ear off throughout the bus ride from Granger to the Castle gates, let out a squeal and abandoned Chelsea to the machinations of the admission process. She ran across the open courtyard, throwing herself into the arms of the
elegantly garbed medieval woman who raced down the Castle steps to meet her. They hugged—laughing, squealing and bouncing (although, mostly that was all Selena).
“It’s been too long, Kaylee!” Selena declared once they’d pulled back at arms’ length to admire one another. “You look fabulous!”
The medieval woman, Kaylee, gave a twirl, showing off her red and gold-trimmed gown. She looked like royalty, a princess straight out of a fairytale. There was even a crown on her head, a simple but elegant golden ringlet that matched the equally simple band she wore around her neck.
Selena touched it. “Marshall?” she asked. Kaylee blushed, and Selena’s smile softened. “You look happy,” she amended, taking the other woman’s hands in both of hers.
“I am happy.”
“He’s taking good care of you, then?”
“Oh boy!” Kaylee laughed. “Is he ever taking care of me! It’s one of many things the Castle men do extremely well.” Throwing her arms around Selena’s neck, they hugged again and she added, “As you, my dear friend, are about to find out for yourself.”
“Bring it on.” Selena sighed. “I’m so ready.”
“Next!”
Chelsea glanced back over her shoulder at the orderly line moving one step closer to the admissions table. She wasn’t at the head of it just yet, but there was now a good three-person gap between her and the next person in front of her. She was about to close that distance when her arm was seized and, with “deer-in-the-headlights” eyes, she was suddenly a participant in the happy reunion between the two friends.
“Kaylee, this is—” Suddenly dropping her voice, Selena covered her mouth and whispered, “—Chelsea.” She linked their arms, giving Chelsea a happy squeeze as her voice returned to normal. “We’ve been friends now practically forever.”
“Uh…” Chelsea managed, her eyes getting even bigger when Kaylee also embraced her. The woman hugged her as if they were long-lost sisters.
“This is her first time to the Castle,” Selena said, watching with a grin. “Isn’t that wonderful?”
“It’s good to meet you,” Kaylee said warmly in her ear.
It was the warmest welcome Chelsea had ever received from an absolute stranger. “Thanks, um…you too. Love the dress.”
Kaylee pivoted for her too, and those princess skirts flared so out so high Chelsea caught a very revealing glimpse of sexy mesh stockings and a golden anklet with a padlock on the inner ring.
Interesting jewelry. Chelsea tried not to judge. She also probably should have set Kaylee straight on the actual facts of the “friendship” between herself and Selena, but one minute that moment was ripe for correcting and in the next, a Roman slave girl in the shortest slip of a tunic (complete with collar, wrist and ankle bands) came darting down the front Castle steps and headed straight for them. That her breasts didn’t bounce right out of that bellybutton-revealing tunic was nothing short of a fashion miracle.
“Hannah!” Selena cried, running to meet her now too, with arms thrown open wide.
So, that’s what “deer-in-the-headlights” eyes looked like on someone else, Chelsea thought as the slave girl threw out her hand in a desperate, last minute attempt to turn the impending hug into a hearty, welcoming handshake. It didn’t work. Bouncing and squealing, Selena ignored her outstretched hand and caught the shorter brunette up in an enthusiastic bear hug.
“It’s so good to see you again!” she cried.
The girl, Hannah, gave Kaylee an imploring look. She patted Selena on the back. “Yeah…you too, you too. Um, K-Kaylee? We’ve got a problem.”
“It’s okay, she’ll let go in a minute,” Kaylee said, which made everyone laugh, including Selena who did step back. Even Chelsea laughed. For just a few seconds, she forgot that she was a thief among strangers. For an instant, she actually felt like she belonged.
“I meant, we have a bigger problem,” Hannah corrected.
“What sort of—oh God!” Kaylee groaned. “Please don’t tell me guests are cavorting in the reception hall again. I keep telling people, we have to keep those doors closed!”
“Oh!” Selena gave a small hop, clasping her hands together. “Is that where the commitment ceremony is going to be held? What kind of ‘cavorting’ are we talking about? Is it fun? Sexy? Oh! Are bodily fluids being exchanged?”
Kaylee gave her a look. “Boy, are they ever.”
“People are getting laid just thinking about my wedding.” Selena bounced on her heels, rubbing her hands gleefully. “I can’t wait to be one of them!”
“You say that now,” Kaylee laughed, “but let’s see how enthusiastic you are when you have to help me re-sanitize all that equipment.”
“It’s not the reception room,” Hannah interrupted. “It’s Sara.”
“What happened?” Kaylee asked, sobering instantly.
“I don’t know. I think she’s sick. One minute we were talking, and the next thing I know, she’s puking in a fern. She ran off in tears. I tried to catch her, but she locked herself in one of the medical rooms and now she won’t open the door.”
“She puked in a fern?” Selena wrinkled her nose.
“Oh, like you’ve never done that before,” Kaylee shot back. To Hannah, she asked, “Does Jackson know?”
“She begged me not to tell anyone. Him, especially.” The women reacted to that the way normal people might have reacted to, ‘And then I shot him.’ Hannah wrung her hands again. “Yeah, I know.”
Gathering her long skirts, Kaylee headed inside. “Which medical room is she in?”
“I’ll take you.”
Her manila envelope and Wal-Mart bag still clutched in her hand, Chelsea remained behind, watching as all three women hurried toward the massive double doors of the Castle. Wondering if she’d see any of them again during her stay (as big as this place was, highly unlikely), she was about to rejoin the nearly depleted guest lines when Selena noticed her absence.
Running back, she grabbed Chelsea’s arm. “Come on, silly! We have to hurry; this could be serious.”
“But—” Chelsea had just enough time to glance at the admission tables, with all those smiling attendants who were passing out forms and collecting manila envelopes. Most of the people they had ridden in on the buses with had taken their seats in the semi-circle of folding chairs around the empty podium, just waiting. No one even glanced her way, not even when Selena pulled her toward the Castle.
“Don’t worry,” Selena scoffed. “You’re with me, and we’re practically the best of friends!”
Chelsea had a few real friendships and not one of them had been made as fast as this. Yet, in spite of her misgivings (and boy, did she have them), when Selena tugged, Chelsea found herself following.
At any minute she expected someone to stop them—one of the orientation attendants, maybe, or the incredibly tall woman who passed them on her way to the podium and then paused to stare after them as she and Selena hurried to catch up with Kaylee and Hannah. No one in that long line of butlers who side-stepped to avoid colliding with them at the entrance said one cross word or ordered them back out into the courtyard. Not one person that she saw in that grand entry-way—gilded so opulently with marble floors and pillars, the grand curving staircase leading up to the second floor, the trio of glittering chandeliers, the sparkling brass fixtures molded to look like couples in the throes of lovemaking—not one said anything at all to them. They were much too busy talking among themselves, laughing, pointing,
hurrying around. Some even had maps. Chelsea understood the need for those in an instant; this place was huge!
“Come on!” Selena pulled at her and together they dashed up the opulent staircase
, down a veritable maze of hallways and corridors, through a wing crowded with very adult “boys and girls," maids and butlers, slave girls and…was that guy dressed as a pony? ...with plenty of security guards holding watch over the whole room. Each time anyone glanced her way, Chelsea’s stomach tightened with a little pang of dread, but no one asked a single question. No one even looked at them oddly. She’d done it. She had infiltrated the Castle with a ticket to a vacation she hadn’t paid for.
Chelsea laughed, little more than a chuckle, one born of surprise rather than any real mirth, but it caught Selena’s attention and she looked back at Chelsea with a grin of her own. “Just you wait. You haven’t seen anything yet.”
When Selena began giggling, Chelsea couldn’t help but giggle along with her. She felt as if she were getting away with something so much bigger and more important than ten free days in an expensive adult resort. She didn’t know exactly what that bigger or more important thing might be, but right now this was starting to feel like the adventure of a lifetime. For the first time in five long months, she couldn’t feel that tiny knot in the pit of her stomach that made her feel worried and scared. She forgot about the things she lacked—money, housing, a job. For the first time in a very long time, she actually felt happy.
Straight ahead, Kaylee and Hannah were gaining ground. Apparently, they were more accustomed to dodging people than either she or Selena were, and here the crowd was so thick that all Chelsea could see of them now was a brief flash of Kaylee’s red skirt as she and Hannah veered off main hall, shooting through a set of closed double doors.
“Hurry!” Selena laughed, tugging at her.
Chelsea ran faster, but as they drew close enough to grab the door, it suddenly flew open and they very nearly crashed into it. Selena jerked up short, catching the flat edge before it hit her face-first, but Chelsea wasn’t that quick. She collided smack into the man who walked through. Tall as she was, and as fast as she’d been going, they hit with enough force to knock them both over. That they didn’t crash all the way to the red-carpeted floor was due only to the lightning-reflexes of the man who caught her, clutching her close as they crashed into the door, which crashed loudly into the hard stone wall.
“Oh whoa!” Selena gasped.
Chelsea couldn’t even do that much. “I-I-I—” It was right there at the tip of her tongue: “I’m so terribly sorry,” except none of those words would come any further than that.
The man—no, not a man. No mere mortal looked anything like this—was nothing less than Greek god perfection wrapped in human form. He was dressed all in black—black trousers, black vest, with no shirt to obscure the hard-chiseled lines of his naked chest. His black, black hair was military buzz-cut short. His black, black eyes roved her, brightening first with appreciation and then amusement. And his mouth…oh, his mouth…so invitingly kissable that Chelsea couldn’t stop staring at it, not even when he noticed and those lips began to curl.
He rumbled, a low chuckling breath of laughter that shivered all through her in the most toe-curling way. “Hello, Red.”
“I-I—” she stammered, making no move to get off him. But then, he was making no move to let her go, either. His hands curled around her waist, if anything pulling her just a little bit closer. She blushed. She couldn’t help it. She was staring, and she couldn’t help that either. He had to be the most gorgeous man she’d ever seen in her life and his body heat was burning right through both their clothes and straight into her.
“Excuse us,” Selena chirped, taking Chelsea by the arm. When she tentatively pulled, the Greek god pushed Chelsea up and set her back on her own two, clumsy feet. He was still smiling, still devouring her with his eyes—the eyes of a man very much interested in getting to know her better—and gestured for them to take the right of way through the narrow doorway into the hall beyond.
“Ladies,” he said graciously, and damn if he didn’t sound as gorgeous as he looked.
“Thanks,” Selena giggled, pulling Chelsea along behind her.
Chelsea stumbled, bumped into the doorjamb and very nearly fell over her own feet because she kept staring back at him over her shoulder instead of watching where she was going. His smile broadened, exposing perfect white teeth.
“Who was that?” she finally gasped, but only after they’d turned the next corner and she could no longer see him anymore.
“The big bad wolf,” Selena said, and then laughed. “The biggest, baddest wolf this Castle has ever known. Considering some of the men I’ve met here, trust me, that’s saying something.”
The big bad wolf.
Poor Little Red Riding Hood. She never had a chance.