Maid for It (A Maids for It Novella) (2 page)

The foyer is circular—a detail I could have
intuited from the turreted exterior—and elegantly appointed in dark
wood and travertine. Light streams in from a rose window more than
two stories high, making colorful patterns on the pale marble
floor. I find this simultaneously beautiful and foreboding, like
entering a church and a dungeon at the same time.

The butler shuts the door behind me. The
sound of it latching is as loud as a gunshot. Having heard a lot of
gunshots not so long ago, I have to fight the urge to throw myself
to the floor.

“I’m Travis, Mr. Hardcastle’s butler, valet,
and man of business. And you are…?”

“Gabriela Marquez.”
Travis.
I wonder
if that’s his first name or his last name. And what does he mean by
“man of business”? A strange turn of phrase I’ve never encountered
before.

“Would you prefer I call you Gabriela or Miss
Marquez?”

I blink, baffled. What anyone calls me is the
least of my concerns. I wonder which would please the heretofore
unpleasable Mr. Hardcastle, and I decide on familiarity over
formality. “My friends at home called me Gabi.”

Travis arches an eyebrow. Perhaps I should
have chosen formality.

“Very well, Gabi,” he says, his tone managing
to be slightly more condescending than before, which hardly seems
possible. “As you may have already been informed, Mr. Hardcastle
not only lives here, but works here as well. He is currently
engaged in a significant project and won’t be able to meet with you
and explain your”—he coughs delicately here, his wan cheeks turning
ruddier—“duties for some time. In the meantime, I will show you
around the house and then to your room.”

As he’s speaking, however, I’m gaping,
because he’s led me into the largest, most exquisitely furnished
living room I’ve ever seen. Every piece, from the brocaded sofa to
the velvet-upholstered armchairs to the Persian rugs to the
paintings hanging on the walls, is a work of art. The far wall of
the room is sheer glass and frames the blue-green expanse of the
ocean, a different sort of art altogether.

“I’m sorry, Miss Marq—er, Gabi, but you
do
speak English, don’t you?”

“Oh yes, sir, I most certainly do. I’m just a
bit…overwhelmed by all of this.” I gesture around the room. I’ve
never seen anything like it. Not even in a museum.

This seems to placate and please the butler.
He smiles and nods. “I understand completely. I imagine I would
have much the same reaction had I not been with Mr. Hardcastle
almost from the beginning. Now, as I was saying, this is the living
room...”

He drones on as he leads me through the
house, drawing my attention to paintings by Rembrandt and Picasso
and even a very tiny Renoir. Mr. Hardcastle is not just
ridiculously wealthy, I realize, but insanely so. This frightens me
but also excites me in ways I don’t want to examine.

I’m no longer paying attention to Travis, but
instead trying to imagine what Mr. Hardcastle is like. I envision a
spindly man with horn-rimmed glasses and bad, pale skin. After all,
he spends all day indoors and reportedly doesn’t socialize at all.
What if he has bad breath and sweats too much? Maybe the reason
none of the maids who’ve been here before have lasted is because
he’s so socially and physically awkward, they couldn’t stand to be
touched by him. How will I survive if he disgusts me so much, I
can’t bear to be in the same room with him, much less have sex with
him?

The answer is obvious. Nothing and no one can
disgust me so much that I’ll risk being returned to Mexico.
Somehow, some way, I will cope.

And with that certainty, I trail Travis
politely through the remainder of my tour.

I have to admit, I didn’t
expect
there
to be so much actual
cleaning
associated with this job.
After Mr. Daniels forced me to give him that blow job in the limo,
I sort of assumed the majority of my time would be spent fucking
and sucking my employer.

But it’s been two days and I haven’t even
seen
Mr. Hardcastle yet, let alone fucked or sucked him. And
I’m starting to feel antsy, although whether that’s because I’m
afraid I’m going to be sent away or because I don’t much like
scrubbing toilets, I’m not sure.

At the moment, I’m scrubbing the
marble-inlaid floor in Mr. Hardcastle’s expansive bathroom. On my
hands and knees, my bare ass points up toward the ceiling. I know
there are security cameras in many rooms of the house, and
sometimes I suspect the butler watches me when I take on these
kinds of tasks because when we pass each other in the hallways,
there’s a look in his eyes that says he’s seen me in my knickers or
lack of them, as by Mr. Daniels’ decree, thongs are the only
appropriate underwear for a
Maid for It
maid.

Of course, there are no cameras here, so for
the moment, I’m safe from prying eyes.

“Well, what a pleasant surprise,” a deep
voice purrs behind me.

I nearly jump out of my skin. I don’t have to
turn all the way around to find its source, however. As I come up
to a kneel, I see his reflection in the mirror. I register tall and
muscular and drop-my-jaw gorgeous before I register naked.

Naked and armed—though that word doesn’t
sound right at all—with a cock that’s easily as long, when flaccid,
as Mr. Daniels’ was hard. And it’s not
staying
flaccid.

Surely this
can’t
be Mr. Hardcastle.
He’s too…my mind searches for one English word to encompass him and
fails miserably. He’s too hard, handsome, masculine, virile, huge,
hot
in every way to be a computer geek.

But I say meekly as I turn to face him, “Mr.
Hardcastle?”

“In the flesh.”

And oh, what flesh it is! That cock is
growing longer and thicker before my very eyes.

He takes a step toward me, and I realize I’m
at just the right level to take that cock into my mouth and suck
him off. Instinctively, I want to. But I’m also afraid. Even
half-aroused, he’s enormous. I’ll never get him all the way down my
throat the way I did Mr. Daniels.

My fear blossoms, unaccountably, into a wet
ache between my thighs. I’m terrified. I know now why none of the
previous maids lasted more than a week. They couldn’t take that
huge dick in all the places he wanted to put it. And his hard,
green eyes tell me he’s the kind of man who wants to put it
everywhere—mouth, cunt, ass. I shiver, my nipples pebbling against
the fabric of my nearly sheer white blouse.

“You’re much prettier than I expected. Your
photo didn’t do you justice.”

“Gracias,” I whisper, my heightened nerves
slipping me into my native tongue. I don’t say the other Spanish
words that run through my head.
Lo mismo para ti
. The same
for you.

Of course, I hadn’t had a photo to go by.
Just my silly, fevered imagination.

He takes his cock between his thumb and
forefinger and strokes it, almost idly. I’m so hot with
anticipation and terror, I’m glad I’m on my knees. No chance of
falling to them when I’m already there.

“Travis tells me you like to be called
Gabi.”

I nod. “Yes.” My voice is raspy, as though
I’m suffering from laryngitis.

“I’ll try to keep that in mind, but there are
other things I’m more likely to call you. Like Slut and Whore and
Cunt. Does that bother you, Gabi?”

My cheeks heat. It does bother me, but
probably not in the way he means. I’m so aroused now, it’s all I
can do not to press my palm between my legs to stem the ache.

I shake my head.
No
.

“Good. Because I’ll call you whatever I like.
You, on the other hand, will call me Sir. Is that understood?”

“Yes, Sir,” I answer. The tension rises and
rises in me. I’m going to explode soon.

“Good Slut,” he praises. His fingers continue
to work his dick, up and down. It’s fully erect now and beautiful.
My mouth and my pussy are watering, empty, hungry. “I have only one
rule for my whores, Gabi, and it’s a very simple one. But before I
tell you what it is, I need to know that you are here of your own
free will. That you
chose
this because it’s the life you
want.”

My own free will? The life I want?
A
bubble of hysteria forms in my throat.

I haven’t had a will of my own since I turned
a corner by mistake and caught Helio Cantavares in the process of
gunning down two rival drug lords. Nothing that’s happened since
then has been my decision, my choice.
Everything
has been
driven and decided by others, from my parents’ decision to scrape
together every peso to send me to the United States and safety—a
lot of good that had done—to the judge’s order that I become an
employee of Maid for It to Mr. Daniels’s pronouncement that I was
the
perfect
maid for his most difficult customer.

As for the life I want? I
want
the one
I had. The one I was forced to flee. I want my tiny two-bedroom
adobe house five blocks from the Instituto Tecnologico where I
taught English. I want my family—parents, brother, two sisters, and
a passel of nieces and nephews. I want the chance to meet a nice
man, fall in love, have a family. Above all, I want Sinaloa, the
place I was born and raised and still love.

But more than I want any of those things, I
want a life. To live.

“Yes, Sir,” I answer, though I keep my eyes
studiously focused on the intricate tile pattern of the floor.
“This is the life I choose.” I avoid saying it’s my will, because
that would be a lie. I have to hope what I can say truthfully is
enough.

His hand grabs my chin and forces my face
upward. “Then why are you crying?”

He swipes at the warm tears rolling down my
cheeks, and I realize to my horror that it’s true. That I
am
crying.

Puta!
What a fool I am, to let
thoughts of home bring me to tears. Why now, when it is critical
that I convince this man I want him to use me as his whore, his
cunt, in exchange for my life?

“I’m sorry, Sir. I am just thinking of my
home and family, and I cannot help feeling sad that I will never
see them again.”

“So go home to them. I will not keep a woman
against her will.” He caresses my face, an unexpected and tender
gesture that makes the tears want to come all the more freely.
“Even a woman as perfect as I think you may be.”

Longing rises in my chest at the roughness of
his tone, the sweetness of his words. As much as I want to live, I
suddenly want even more to please him, to be perfect for him. Not
just to save my life, but because something in him calls to me,
makes me ache and yearn to be whatever he wants, whatever he
needs.

He is alone. Like me.

I don’t know where that thought comes from,
but instinct tells me it’s true. And instinct also tells me he’s my
only chance. The one person, the one place I can be safe. I need
him. If he sends me away, I’ll die. If not literally at the hands
of Helio Cantavares when Daniels has me deported back to Mexico,
then figuratively when I’m forced to become the whore of a man who
isn’t Benjamin Hardcastle.

“Please, Sir,” I say, pressing my hot, wet
cheek against his palm. “I want this. I want you. I want to stay
with you and please you. I’ll do anything you ask, just don’t send
me away.”

He tips his head to one side, considering. “I
am not an easy man, Gabriela Marquez Lucero.”

I blink, surprised. I haven’t heard my full
name used since the day I left Sinaloa. Americans are utterly
baffled by the Mexican system of surnames, and always mistake the
mother’s maiden name, which comes last, for the father’s last name
and actual surname, so I haven’t bothered to use the Lucero since I
came to the US.

“You may have heard that none of the women
who have come here before you have lasted more than a few weeks. Do
you know why not?”

I shake my head. I asked Mr. Daniels, but he
wouldn’t tell me anything except that he felt sure I would be the
maid to please Mr. Hardcastle. I tried to find out why he thought
that, but he wouldn’t explain.

“Well, then, I might as well explain now. It
is because I demand complete and total submission. I told you I
have only one rule for my whores, and it is this—you must never say
no. Whatever I require of you, you must do. If I tell you to lick
the floor clean with your tongue, you will do it. If I tell you to
walk down Sunset Boulevard naked, you will do it. And if I tell you
to bend over in the driveway, lift your skirt, and take my cock up
your ass right then and there, you will do it. Without hesitation,
without bargaining, and without question. You can ask for mercy,
and I may give it to you. Or I may not. But you will not say no. Do
you understand?”

As he talks, the wetness between my thighs
grows, spreads. I don’t understand why, but the idea of him
controlling me in this way is deeply, almost painfully erotic.