Maid for It (A Maids for It Novella) (6 page)

He leans forward and captures my mouth in
what I realize is our first real kiss, his tongue stroking mine
with a kind of hot desperation as his cock tunnels into my most
forbidden territory, over and over. Once again, I feel continents
shift, mountains rise, valleys fall. He’s remaking me, I realize,
shaping me so his desires become my desires, and there’s nothing I
can do to prevent it. Perhaps I don’t even want to.

Perhaps he’s not really changing me at all,
but simply showing me who I always was.

Unbelievably, I come again, gasping with the
force of my release. It takes him by surprise, and as my muscles
clamp down on him, his features contort into their own mask of
agony-ecstasy. He thrusts in one last time and comes, too.

He collapses to one side of me, his breathing
harsh and ragged in my ear.

“Jesus, I think Daniels finally got it
right.” His hand cups one of my breasts, a gesture that’s more
proprietary than carnal. “Go to sleep, my sweet little slave. I’ll
tell Travis you’re to have the day off from housecleaning, too. I
think you’ve earned it.”

I’m surprised by his largesse, but I’m even
more surprised when, ten minutes later, he snores gently. He’s
fallen asleep. I daren’t move and wake him, and so I lie there,
awake, the weight of his hand on my breast and the soft gust of his
breath against my cheek filling me with a peace like nothing I’ve
ever experienced.

I think I love him.

I’ve been with my master for six weeks
now.

So far, he hasn’t taken me to
that
room
, which has come to seem more curse than blessing. Whenever
I clean the gym, I stare at that door and remember what’s behind
it, and a hive of bees takes up residence in my stomach, buzzing
and zipping in a frenzy of fear and anticipation. I find myself
wishing he’d just take me there and do whatever it is he plans to
do with me so that I can stop
imagining
what will happen and
how bad it will be.

As the days pass, however, it’s becoming
harder and harder for me to imagine that he would ever truly hurt
me. He’s a hard man and an uncompromising one, but I’ve come to
realize that, far from being inscrutable, he’s the most transparent
and comprehensible male I’ve ever known. Unlike the few men I dated
briefly back in Sinaloa, there are no games with him, no vague
hints, no hidden agendas. He tells me exactly what he wants when he
wants it—whether it’s for me to scrub the kitchen floor until it
shines or to bend over in front of the window that overlooks the
beach and let him take me where anyone who happens to look up as
they walk by the house could see us. Rather than feeling trapped by
his demands, I’m freed by the certainty and security they
provide.

I’ve learned not to expect to see him every
day. Sometimes he disappears into his office, which is separated
from the main house by a small courtyard, and doesn’t come out for
days at a time. I’m sure he must have food and a bed in the small
outbuilding, which I’ve never been invited to enter, although
perhaps he doesn’t need the bed. He seems to require far less sleep
than normal people; I’ve never known him to sleep for more than
about four hours at a stretch. I sometimes suspect he may not sleep
at all during some of these intense periods of work, because he
often takes me to bed when he resurfaces, whatever the time of day,
fucks me with fierce, swift intensity, and then falls into a deep
sleep for several hours.

He still has the capacity to surprise me,
though. Last week, for example, he declared that I needed something
to wear other than my maid uniform and took me shopping…on Rodeo
Drive, no less.

It’s become apparent to me that my master
isn’t reclusive because he is shy or retiring, but because he has
no tolerance for incompetence, laziness, or stupidity, and frankly,
most people one encounters in public fall into one of those three
categories, if not more than one. And so, the fact that he chose to
accompany me on the trip instead of sending me with Travis is
tantamount to a declaration of love, especially since it forced him
to interact with any number of salespeople who set his teeth on
edge.

Every item of clothing he purchased for me is
exquisite and tasteful. Oh, there was a little side trip to an
“adult” boutique, the entire inventory of which made me blush pink
as a carnation, but I’m fairly certain he doesn’t intend me to wear
anything he bought there in public. Especially since he almost took
the head off the pimply-faced, leather-clad boy behind the counter
when the boy had the poor judgment to remark that I had “amazing
tits.”

Today, he let me go to the grocery store.
Ever since I surprised him one night with a meal of homemade
tortillas with
mochomos
and rice, I’ve been doing more of
the cooking, which pleases me since I miss the flavors of home.
More than once, however, Travis hasn’t bought the right
ingredients, and I complained the other night that he obviously
wouldn’t know the difference between a jalapeno and a bell pepper
if it bit him on the ass. My master laughed at that, and today, he
sent me to out to shop. Alone.

I could run, and he knows it. The fact that
he trusts me not to fills my heart with a joy that feels too big
for my chest to contain. As I park the BMW in the garage and pop
the trunk, the door to the house opens and Ben fills the space,
watching me as I get out of the car. I’m wearing a royal blue silk
blouse and a pair of black slacks, my feet encased in low-slung
black sandals.

I smile at him. “I’m back,” I say, stating
the obvious.

“Yes.” His expression is unreadable, and I
experience a moment of doubt. Did I take too long? Does he think I
considered running?

“I just need to get the bags from the trunk.”
I start to walk around to the rear of the car.

“Come here,” he says, his voice thick and
raspy.

Obedience is second nature to me now. As I
walk toward him, I try to decipher his puzzling mood. Is he angry?
Disappointed? Frustrated?

Only when I reach the foot of the set of
steps that leads from the garage into the house does it dawn on me.
He’s
relieved
. Which means he was afraid. And he didn’t want
me to know.

I ache to throw my arms around his neck and
pepper him with kisses, assure him that I’ll never, ever leave him.
But that would tell him that I saw this tiny chink in his
impenetrable armor, and I know that would mortify him.

And so I bow my head and say, “Yes,
Master?”

He strokes the hair at the back of my head.
“Come inside. Travis can bring in the groceries.”

I follow him into the house, my stomach
buzzing with the sense that something momentous is about to happen.
He heads through the kitchen and out into the dining room, and for
a heart-stopping second, I think he’s taking me to
that
room
. But then he turns and heads into the living room and
picks up a small, square box from the coffee table. I know
immediately it’s a jewelry box, but it’s much too big for anything
like a ring.

He clears his throat, and I realize he
doesn’t quite know where to begin. Another first.

“I’ve wanted to give this to you for a
while,” he says slowly, “but I needed to be sure you were ready for
it. Now, I know you are.”

“Because I came back?”

He nods. “You didn’t have to.”

I suppress a smile. I don’t want to point out
that I couldn’t have gotten far on a tank of gas and one hundred
dollars in grocery money. Aside from anything else, if I did, it
would prove I’d at least given the idea consideration.

“I didn’t want not to come back.”

“And now that I know that, I know you’re
ready for this.” He opens the box.

I catch my breath as the diamond-encrusted
contents catch the light and send it arcing in all directions. As
my eyes adjust to the brilliance, I see it’s a necklace. Well, not
really a necklace, but rather a solid platinum choker. Nestled in
the satin bedding beside the choker is a tiny key.

“It’s beautiful,” I say, although I don’t
fully grasp its significance.

He lifts it from the box and hands it to me.
Now I can see the words inscribed in the metal at the back of the
choker.

Property of Benjamin Hardcastle

I run my fingers over the letter, engraved in
elegant calligraphy. It’s beautiful and…heavy. Not just literally,
although the half-inch thick band with its diamond studs
undoubtedly weighs several ounces. But what it’s truly heavy with
is symbolism.

I lift my eyes to meet his. “A collar?”

“Yes.”

“I see.” And I do.

This is the final step in our journey as
master and slave. By putting on this piece of jewelry, I’m not
merely accepting his ownership; I’m embracing it. Encircled by it.
Bound to it.

“Will you wear it?”

I look from him to the gorgeous band of metal
in my hand. I’ve already given myself to him completely, allowed
him total control of every aspect of my life. Whether I wear the
collar or not, I’m every bit as much at his mercy.

And yet, there’s something about donning this
tangible representation of our bond that makes me hesitate. My
sister-in-law told me before she married my older brother that,
although they’d been living together for almost two years, there
was something about the act of putting on the ring and saying the
words in church that made it different. Permanent. Irrevocable.

Although there’s no church, this collar feels
the same.

Six weeks ago, I thought I loved him. Looking
back, I know that emotion was real, but not personal. I didn’t love
Benjamin Hardcastle specifically. I loved the
idea
of him,
big and dominant and possessive and, most of all, protective.

But do I love him now? He’s still big,
dominant, possessive, and protective, but he has also become a
human being to me. For every one of his admirable
qualities—intelligence, honesty, industriousness, intuition—there
is a corresponding flaw—impatience, ruthlessness, perfectionism,
arrogance. I’m not immune from the effects of any of those flaws;
in fact, I’m the most vulnerable to them of all.

My secret weighs as heavy on my heart as the
collar weighs on my hand. If I trust him enough to wear it, I
should trust him enough to tell the truth. And yet, I can’t. Not
because I don’t trust him, but because I need
him
to trust
me.

I drag in a long, slow breath, my decision
made. Reaching behind my neck, I unclasp the chain that holds my
crucifix around my neck and slip it into my pocket. I can only have
one master.

“Yes, I’ll wear it.”

Triumph darts across his features, so quickly
I wouldn’t have seen it if I hadn’t become so intimately familiar
with his every expression.

Do I love him? It’s as obvious as the
existence of air that I do.

He takes the collar from me and uses the key
to release the lock at its back. The band swings open to slide
around my throat by means of a cleverly concealed hinge at its
front. My master slides it on, and I lift my hair to give him
access to lock it in place at the back of my neck. The snick of the
key sends a shiver through me, the weight of the cool metal
settling around me like a shackle.

He spins me around and pulls me into his
arms. “Thank you.”

Joy throbs through my veins. Coming from my
master, a ‘thank you’ is as good as—perhaps better than—an ‘I love
you.’

After brushing his lips across my forehead,
he adds, “I suppose I’m going to have to send Daniels that
exorbitant bonus I promised him if he sent me a properly submissive
and willing slave.”

The word
willing
makes my stomach
seize. I push aside my discomfort. I
am
willing. Whether I
was when I first arrived doesn’t matter anymore. Or it
shouldn’t.

But as he leads me upstairs, draws me into
the bedroom, and begins to undress me, I can’t shake my
apprehension. Somehow, someday, there will be hell to pay. I just
don’t know yet what kind of hell it will be.