Saving Sara (Masters of the Castle) (11 page)

He whipped her bottom until the hurt became easier to bear and then he switched targets, and lashed his stripes of fire down the backs of her thighs. Those were the worst, the hardest to stay still for, particularly since her legs were spread so wide apart that he whipped them both one at a time. He did a thorough job of it—first her left thigh, the one closest to him, letting her feel in exquisite detail exactly what the right would soon be forced to endure. Until, by the end, Sara was clinging to the edge of the tub by sheer force of will alone, sobbing so hard it was a wonder she could stand at all.

There was a puddle of her tears on the floor and pooling on the tub’s edge between her hands. Jackson sat directly in it when he took her arm and slid in under her. She needed little coaxing to settle on his lap. She went as if she’d been launched, throwing her arms around his neck and burying her face in the side of his throat, curling up in a tight fetal ball that forced him to hold all of her at once.

For the longest time, the only things that moved were her shaky, shuddering breaths as her tears slowed and eventually died away, and his hands, one softly stroking all the hot bare flesh of her thighs and hips that it could reach, while the other smoothed unhurried designs up and down the curve of her spine. They were skin-to-skin, and breath-to-breath, and his penis under her was as soft and non-threatening as anything she’d ever felt, and yet it was the most intimately that any man had ever held her before.

She didn’t deserve it, but she couldn’t bear to let it go, either. So she closed her eyes, shutting out everything but his strength and his touch. She barely felt it when he picked her up and carried her back to bed. Curled in his arms, she lay beside him—became one with him—lost herself if only for a little while in his overwhelming ownership, the hurt of his hands when he gripped her buttocks and squeezed, the even hotter hurt when he finally rolled her onto her back, grinding her aching bottom into the mattress with each slow thrust of his hips in the cradle of hers.

“Come,” he whispered, when she didn’t think she deserved to. And for long hours afterward, she lay safe and secure in his arms.

She didn’t want it to end, but it eventually did.

All too soon, the gravel crunch of tires rolled up the long driveway, bringing with it the new day’s clients and heralding that inevitable moment when a subtle knock intruded at his apartment door.

“I hear you,” Jackson muttered bitterly.

It was time for her to go.

Sara sat fully dressed at the dining table, slipping her stockinged feet into her shoes. Her bottom was a dull, hot ache contained in denim jeans. Her hair was brushed. The orange she’d forced herself to eat for breakfast felt like a brick in the pit of her stomach. She wanted to run to the bathroom and throw it up, but she didn’t. She just tied her sneakers on instead.

Her things were all gathered by the door. For some reason, Jackson couldn’t seem to stop messing with
them. He kept organizing, rearranging and then checking the weight of the two bags.

“I’ll help you carry it down,” he said without looking at her.

“I can manage,” she replied, not looking at him either.

The longer she spent with him, the worse it was going to hurt to leave. Already it felt as if she were flaying away at her skin. No sense adding salt and lemon juice to the wound.

“Fine.” He dropped her bags where they were and didn’t touch them again. But he didn’t leave the doorway, either. He just stood there, hands on hips, so tall, so muscular, looking damn fine in nothing more kinky than jeans and a black wife-beater tee.

Sara made herself look away. This was ridiculous. She was just wasting time now, dragging out the inevitable. She should just go. Like ripping off a
Band-Aid, some things were best when done quickly.

She stood up, feeling the brief flash of discomfort as her shifting weight changed where the chair pressed against her tender bottom. She welcomed the heat and the hurt that flared under her skin. She was going to need all the distractions she could get just to walk away from him.

Jackson turned away, facing into the room, when she edged past him to pick up her duffel and her carry-on. It was right on the verge of her tongue to offer him a quiet goodbye. It would have been good to leave on something other than a mountain of regrets and the argument currently sparking like a live wire between them. Try as she did, she just couldn’t think of what to say that might diffuse it.

“Okay,” was the best she could come up with, and it was an awful start that had absolutely nowhere to go.

She turned and simply headed for the door, and Jackson fell into step beside her. He started to open it for her, but only opened it partway before he slammed it shut again.

“Stay.”

One word was all he managed. Fiercely whispered, but it still rocked her with its intensity. There were so many reasons to go. Some of them were even good ones, but her resolve still wavered.

“One more day. I’ll let you go, I swear. Just give me one more day.”

Stay. Everything inside her wanted to, but in the back of her head, she knew there was nothing to stay for. This was all still make-believe. So what if they played well together? Playing wasn’t living. There was no permanence here. Jackson was her greatest friend and maybe he’d missed her for a while after she left, but despite what he’d said—either last night or this morning—he didn’t
want
want her. How could he? He was like a god among Doms. He not only physically looked the part, but he had the attitude, the mannerisms and he knew how to make her body respond even when no other part of her wanted to. He was so sexual, so dominant. With the crook of one finger, he could have had anyone in this Castle. No living, breathing submissive in her (or his, for that matter) right mind would have been able to resist. What hope did that leave for someone as damaged as her? It was three years ago all over again, only this time it was worse. Leaving felt harder somehow. She could have put her hand on his and pushed it off the door, but she didn’t. She couldn’t. She couldn’t make herself move that much.

“Stay,” Jackson murmured again.

“You’re going to hurt me.” She hadn’t meant to say that out loud; hearing it somehow made it feel more real.

“Never.”

“I’m going to hurt you then.” That was real, too. She felt that knot tighten in her chest all over again.

“Never.” His hand caressed hers just before she felt a gentle tug on the cloth handle of her bag.

This was such a bad idea. She had to leave, but her feet refused to move. He tugged again and she weakened. Her fingers let go when her legs should have walked, and the next thing she knew, her duffel bag was on the floor beside her, the heat of his body was moving in closer, and the tip of his finger was under her chin, tilting her face up to his.

“Never,” he said again, and kissed her.

Kisses like this should be illegal. His mouth was so warm and soft. When he nibbled at her lips, coaxing her to open to the first sweet invasion of his tongue, her toes curled up tight inside her shoes. She made the softest sound, a faint moan, but it made him shudder. Funny, how someone as small and slight as she was could shake someone as big as Jackson.

The next thing she knew, the door was at her back and Jackson’s hands were on her ass, molding and squeezing and lifting her hips up hard into his. The rampant bulge of his growing erection ground against her sex. There were two layers of denim between them, but she could still feel the furnace-heat of him burning into her body. His fingers dug into her, seeming to find every tender spot his spankings had left behind, and when she gasped, his tongue and hips began a synchronized thrusting rhythm that sent every other thought she had scattering to the clouds.

The thrusts of his hips grew in time with the hungry stabbing of his tongue. It bumped her up against the door, rattling it until it almost sounded like knocking.

No, wait. It was knocking. Someone was knocking on the door at her back.

Breathing hard, Jackson ceased his plundering of her mouth. He raised his head and glared at the wood panels above her head. “Go,” he growled. “The fuck. Away.”

Sara clung to him, her senses spinning, dancing, feeling something akin to frenzy, all the way down to where she could feel his cock digging against her.

“Master Marshall has arranged an open seat on an outbound bus. He wants to know if Sara is interested in taking it.”

It was a woman’s voice and there was laughter in her tone. She wasn’t hard to recognize either. It was the same woman who had led Sara out of Master Marshall’s office yesterday after Robert so callously disassociated himself from the relationship. What was her name? At the moment, Sara could barely remember her own.

“I’m fine,” she called, her voice shaking so badly it was a wonder she could speak at all.

“Go. Away,” Jackson repeated, dark warning underlining each sharply bit-off word.

“I have to hear it from the client, Jackson,” the woman in the hall airily replied. “You know the rules. I have to verify she’s not being coerced—”

“You’ve verified it, now get lost!”

“It would be better if I saw her with my own ey—”

Jackson heaved Sara off the door and put her down. She stumbled at the abruptness with which she was released, but managed to catch the wall and didn’t fall.

“I’m not going to count to three,” Jackson snapped, ripping open the door. “I’m not even going to count to one—!”

The woman was already gone, though. Sara could hear her laughing as she fled swiftly back toward the stairs. Jackson did not pursue farther than the step or two that carried him out into the hall.

“Come bother me about that again and I’ll bust your skinny little ass!” His scowl switched targets almost immediately, and a few seconds later another Master came into view. He had both hands held up in a gesture of wordless surrender and did not look directly at Jackson until after he’d unlocked the door of the apartment directly across the hall from them. He turned then, staring back at Jackson as he held the door wide open. Like a line of little ducklings that followed, a string of three barely-clothed “barbarian” girls scampered giggling past him and disappeared inside. The last one in got a sharp smack on the bottom by the Master holding the door. He smiled at Jackson.

“Life is good,” he said, and for the first time, and only for half a second, his gaze dipped past Jackson and settled on her. Faster than she could blink, his eyes returned to Jackson. “Are you done with her? Want to pass her over? Conan’s always on the lookout for another Valeria.”

“Say that to me again and you’re going to lose all ability to eat without a straw.” Jackson was as far from smiling as she had ever seen him.

“I’ll take that as a ‘no
.’” Chuckling, the Master disappeared into his apartment. Just before the door swung shut behind him, she heard him say, “There are three women in this apartment and not one of them is sucking my cock. Someone is going to get a beating.”

Jackson stared at the door for several long seconds, then the now-empty hallway, and finally, he looked back in at her.

“Who was that?” Sara asked.

A flicker of annoyance pulled at the corner of his mouth. He ignored the question entirely. “Get my bag, the dress box and my belt from the bathroom. We’re leaving.”

“What?” Startled, at first Sara didn’t move. “Where are we going?”

“Somewhere we won’t be disturbed.”

* * * * *

“Welcome to your new home sweet away-from-home,” Jackson said, as he unlocked the cabin door and pushed it open. He stepped inside. Rustic, but clean. The sort of two-room log cabin one would expect to find in a pioneer museum. The only
modern convenience was the bathroom, tucked just off the kitchen area, and the light switch tucked discretely between two log beams. He flicked it and all the old oil lanterns turned electric lanterns that were hanging around the room came to soft-glowing life. “What do you think?”

“It’s very remote,” Sara hedged, inching into the doorway, but she did not come inside.

Modern clothing wasn’t allowed anywhere outside of the private rooms at the Castle. Not even for employees. Especially not for employees. Being on vacation meant that, for the first time in well over a year, Jackson wasn’t wearing his usual security guard ensemble. Sara had opted for the royal package, and so he added a purple bracelet to his white one and donned the garb of a Lord: black breeches and knee-boots, white shirt and vest. He hated the coats—damn things never fit right on him. He’d left his tossed over the now-empty dress box he’d brought Sara.

She was wearing his gift, and damn, she wore it well. But then, Sara was the kind of woman who could rock a gunny sack. But then also, he wasn’t exactly unbiased, and this dress was about as far from a gunny sack as anyone could wear. The bodice was very thin, with short, off-the-shoulder sleeves. She wore a thin chemise to protect her skin from the tight bands of her corset, a lovely creation of white lace and narrow baby-blue pin-striping that really bought out the blue of her eyes. It also plumped her breasts right to the verge of popping free of the lacy top. He loved the exaggerated hourglass curve of her body. He loved the fact that the skirt was an independent piece, held in place by a series of ribbon ties that would allow for its solitary removal whenever the desire took him.