Saving Sara (Masters of the Castle) (15 page)

He smiled, but it was his devouring smile. It was all teeth. “Consider me your rescue,” he told Robert. “Run along, little man. Run along.”

“We were just talking.” Robert backed up defensively, shooting Sara a frustrated look that ended when Jackson stepped between them again. “I was negotiating a scene with
my
girlfriend.”

Sam more dropped than set his lunch on the table and quickly planted a restraining hand in the middle of Jackson’s chest, shoving him back just enough to keep him from getting his hands on Dickwad. No longer smiling, Sam thrust an accusing finger back at Robert. “Leave,” both he and Marshall said at the same time.

“You don’t negotiate
anything
with
my
submissive!” Jackson barked, but Robert had already taken the Master’s suggestion and was across the room, slamming out the door just as fast as his long legs could take him. “Nervy, fucking bast—” But Jackson stopped, abruptly biting back the word when he turned and he suddenly saw Sara. She stared back at Jackson, her eyes watery, hugging herself, her left arm pinned in close to her side, her right hand clamped tight to hide as much of the scar on her shoulder and neck as she could. Crap.

A Little Maid came bouncing through the crowd, her lacy-mobcap slightly askew and her long brown hair bouncing against her back. “Woo hoo!” She held aloft two pudding cups as she squeezed her slender frame in between two occupied chairs and came to a triumphant stop next to Sam. “I had to beat off two subbies with a stick, but I got two of the chocolate Jell—oh.” She paused, looking from one somber face to the next, to Sara and then finally turned to Sam. “What’d I miss?”

Once upon a time, if forced to describe Hannah, Jackson would have called her mousy. Hard to believe looking at her now, but she’d blossomed and it wasn’t hard to figure out whom she’d blossomed for.

Confrontation over, Sam patted Jackson’s shoulder twice and then let him go. “Come here, Hannah,” he said, pulling two chairs out from the table they’d commandeered. He snapped his fingers imperiously at one of the seats. “Sit your butt down while you still can.”

She made a face. “What did I do?”

He snapped his fingers again and she glared, but she also sat. So did Kaylee, quietly accepting the chair Marshall still held for her. Sara pulled away from all of them, still hugging herself, still trying to hide herself in that way that drove Jackson absolutely crazy, though not in a good way.

“Come here,” Jackson told her, dropping to sit in the only chair left. He pointed to his knee and waited to see if she would sit or make him chase after her first.

Right now, she was looking very chase-able, but he didn’t think he could trust himself to catch her without kissing her or throttling her or grabbing her ass and throwing her down on the nearest table, clearing away all the people and their lunches with a sweep of his arm, rip
ping through the necessary layers of clothes and just fucking the hell out of her, because that was the only way either of them it seemed could get past all the minutiae and bullshit and just connect, the way two lovers should. The way he needed to be with her, if she would just let him.

Frustration crashed against him like ocean waves on cliff-side rocks. “Sara,” he snapped. “Come here.”

The look she gave him was still watery, still supremely unhappy, and now resentful, too. “We were just talking. You didn’t have to be so rude.”

“You know better.” Jackson knew better
, too, but he still stole a page from Sam’s book and snapped his fingers, pointing sternly at his lap. “Sit down.”

Apparently, what worked for Sam and Hannah didn’t fly at all with Sara. “I am not your dog,” she said hotly.

“Mind yourself,” Marshall warned, and Jackson was about to take exception to his tone until he realized the Master of the Castle was talking to his Lady. Kaylee stared down at her plate, her lips rolled tight together as she no doubt fought to keep from intervening. It likely would not be on his behalf, either.

This wasn’t a conversation Jackson wanted to have in public, let alone in a crowded dining hall in front of his friends and colleagues or the clients trying so hard not to stare as they eavesdropped. He could all but feel them grading him against that imaginary Dom-ideal that existed nowhere except in the fertile vale of their imaginations and works of complete fiction.

Fighting back temper and frustration, Jackson attempted a calming breath. “I said sit down, Sara.” He patted his knee a second time.

“I’m not hungry.” Snapping about, Sara would have walked away, but for the minor eruption that jacked him out of his chair so violently he knocked the chair over. The wooden back clattered against the floor, echoing sharply in a suddenly near-perfectly quiet dining hall.

He was doing this all wrong and he knew it, even as he grabbed her arm. “You have not been excused.”

“I am not your submissive, either!” She yanked to free herself from his grip, but he was years beyond being able to let her go.

“Are you his? Is that whose submissive you are?” And just like that, not only was he having this fight in a very public place, but he was yelling damn near face-to-face and toe-to-toe with her, with absolutely no regard to who was watching or listening or grading.

And she was so beautiful, with that flush of temper washing up through her face to shine alongside the tears in her eyes.

And he had absolutely no perspective and no ability to keep his frustration in check or his temper from shaking in his hands. He was Sampson and she was Delilah, and he was weakening so damn fast, and how was it after all of this that she could still—on any level, even the smallest one—want Robert? “That jackass isn’t worth the fucking ground you stand on! He doesn’t want you! You know he doesn’t! How the fuck could he?”

She recoiled as if struck, her lips parting as she let out a shaking breath and drew it sharply back in again. He saw her swallow hard many long seconds before she said, “Because the only reason a man like Robert would want someone like me is when he needs a third for his scene, right?”

“What?” Jackson stared at her, stunned. “That’s not what I said.”

“Yes, it is.” She shook off his hand, twisting and yanking free when he too late tried to tighten his grip. “I can see what you’re thinking every time you look at me!”

“You can see what I think?” Jackson echoed, incredulously at first, and then with the kind of hot-blooded anger that rocketed up through the back of his head, drilling in through his temples to cast everything in that suddenly too small dining hall in multi-shades of throbbing red. “Baby girl, you see what
you
think when I look at you!”

Head down, she tried to walk away. She got all of three steps before he had her again.

“Let go!” she shouted, her voice breaking and the first of many tears starting to fall. “Get off me!”

Getting off would imply he was on her in the first place, and in that heart-pounding, blood-boiling half-second of ill-thought-out consequences, in her was exactly where he knew they both needed him to be. The entire dining hall fell away. He lost track of the crowds, the other Doms and submissives, and his friends sitting at the table. He lost track of everything except the way her eyes first narrowed when he grabbed her shoulders and then rounded when he yanked her right back up against him. She tried to bite him, but he kissed her anyway, furiously. Passionately. With everything in him that he was too damned clumsy to say.

“Stop it!” she hissed, squirming to break away the instant his lips unlocked from hers. “Don’t! Jackson—Ah!”

Her squeak became a shout when he ducked down, grabbing the backs of her thighs and tossing her up over his shoulder.

“Jackson!” She thumped her fist against the small of his back; he smacked her up-turned bottom, winning from her a gasp and immediate surrender. Give and take—that’s what good, working relationships were made of.

“We’re going to eat your lunch,” Sam called, grinning, which neatly stopped Jackson about halfway to the exit. He came stalking back to the table, turned and hunkered down.

“Get the plate,” he told Sara.

“Put me down,” she said tightly. “I can walk.”

“In about three seconds you won’t be able to sit, never mind walk. Do as you’re told. Get the plate.”

She made a seething, growling sound in the back of her throat. She also picked up the almost-forgotten plate of alfredo.

“Silverware,” he reminded, and she reached for those, too. Sam quickly plucked both knife and fork back out of her fist.

“Trust me,” he chuckled. “You’d rather eat with your fingers than let her hold either of these right now.”

He was probably right.

“Nothing better than lunch and a show,” Marshall said, as Jackson hupped her a little higher on his shoulder and then headed for the door again. The Master of the Castle raised his hand, offering a slight wave. “Nice meeting you again.”

“If they can keep from killing each other, they’ll make a cute couple,” Hannah said, breaking into the first of her two pudding cups. “I love it when a man goes all Neanderthal like that.”

Sam snorted. “That’s not what you said the last time I did that.”

“It’s not as much fun when you do it.”

“I hope she’s all right,” Kaylee said, watching them go.

“She’ll be fine.” Marshall patted her knee. “Eat your lunch. We have fifteen minutes now before we have to make our scheduled tour of the Castle grounds.”

She made a face.

“It’s part of your job description,” Master Marshall softly said, in a sing-song tone.

“I think I’m feeling faint,” she replied, using the same tone.

“I believe science has recently concluded that vigorous spanking can often help, if not completely cure, fainting spells,” Sam interjected helpfully.

Kaylee flushed. “Dang it.” She
thunked her elbows on the table and picked at her plate. “Spanking helps everything around here.”

Smiling, Marshall tossed Sam a
conspiratorial wink. “Must be something in the water.”

Sara was on the verge of tears by the time Jackson wrangled his apartment door open and carried her inside.

“I want to go home,” she said, and was completely disgusted with him (and herself, frankly) because it came out sounding sulky and whiny and childish beyond belief.

“Don’t drop the noodles,” was his reply, and damn him if he didn’t sound faintly amused while he did it. First he was yelling, and now he was laughing at her? Feelings of helpless frustration surged. Sam had been wise to take the knife and fork away from her. As mad as she was right now, she probably would have stabbed Jackson in the butt with one or even both of them.

Well, ha on him. She’d been steadily dropping noodles and bits of shrimp like an Italian version of Hansel and Gretel, practically from his first step out of the dining hall. There wasn’t even half a plateful left, and drips and spatters of alfredo sauce decorated the backs of his pants all the way down to his boots.

Carrying her straight to the table, Jackson turned around. “Put it down.”

Her hands shook, but she did as she was told. She even managed not to slam the plate.

Turning away from the table, he put her down next, lowering her gently until her feet touched the floor. Sara managed to keep all the bad she was feeling locked tight inside her, right up until he faced her and she saw his rueful smile.

He was laughing at her.

Sara lost it. She knew she was out of line and yet there was no holding back. As satisfying as it would have been to slug him one, she burst into tears instead and reached across the table. Flinging the pasta plate, she sent shrimp and noodles flying everywhere and the empty plate whipping over the kitchen half-wall. It shattered somewhere between the stove and the sink.

It was the most childish and useless thing she’d ever done. Hugging herself, she spun and stormed off down the hallway.

“Sara,” he called. Now he wasn’t just laughing at her, he was rolling his eyes, too. She could hear it in his voice. She stormed faster, knowing he was following. Ducking into the bathroom, she slammed and locked the door, and then she stood there, trapped in
a room without exits, feeling more stupid than she had ever felt in her life. It was an awful feeling, and it only got worse when she heard his deep and heartfelt sigh from the opposite side of the door.

“Sara, baby.” He knocked lightly twice. “Open up.”

Grabbing a towel from the rack, she slumped down on the side of the tub, buried her face in the soft terrycloth and just bawled.

She couldn’t even put her finger on exactly why. She wanted to be mad, because being mad seemed so much more admirable and in control than what she actually thought this was—a pity party. Being mad was better than being pathetic. Why did she have to run into Robert today? She’d been just fine in the dining hall, right up until Robert came up behind her and touched her arm. It wasn’t until she’d looked up at him that she’d felt
it, that splintering, crackling sensation that had raced through her guts just as if they were composed of breaking glass.

“You look good,” he’d said. Like they were old friends, coming together for the first time in ages. “My sub and I are doing a scene in the Rainbow Room later tonight. Want to play with us?”