Seducing Sandy Read online

  Seducing Sandy

  Masters of the Castle, Book Eight

  Maren Smith

  Blushing Books

  Contents

  What’s Inside

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Maren Smith

  ©2018 by Blushing Books® and Maren Smith

  All rights reserved.

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  No part of the book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

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  Published by Blushing Books®,

  a subsidiary of

  ABCD Graphics and Design

  977 Seminole Trail #233

  Charlottesville, VA 22901

  The trademark Blushing Books®

  is registered in the US Patent and Trademark Office.

  * * *

  Maren Smith

  Seducing Sandy

  * * *

  EBook ISBN: 978-1-61258-612-0

  Print ISBN: 978-1-61258-636-6

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  Cover Art by ABCD Graphics & Design

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  This book is intended for adults only. Spanking and other sexual activities represented in this book are fantasies only, intended for adults. Nothing in this book should be interpreted as Blushing Books' or the author's advocating any non-consensual spanking activity or the spanking of minors.

  What’s Inside

  I’m going to paddle you,” Reeve promised. She deserved it for that comment alone.

  “There’s nothing wrong with being gay.” She edged half a step away from him. “And stop looking at me that way. I don’t like that look. It does very weird things to my stomach.”

  “It ought to do weird things to your backside,” Eric shot back. “That’s the part of you in the most danger right now.”

  Her hand twitched, but she caught herself before she did anything so childish as tuck it back behind her. A poor defense, as well-spanked bottoms everywhere already knew, but Reeve recognized that twitch for what it was. Littles did that, but so did new submissives. She was pushing all the wrong buttons, but she was doing it out of ignorance. This was her first tumble down the rabbit hole, a fall she was only willing to take because of an ulterior motive, but already Reeve could see where this would end. He could see himself stripping her of her green princess dress, one set of untied laces at a time. He could also see her standing at the foot of one of the Castle’s infamous four-poster bondage beds in nothing but her shift—or hell, not even that—with that twitching little hand of hers tucking back behind her as she watched Reeve unbuckle his wide leather belt and pull it free of his pants loops.

  And it absolutely would be Reeve who did that; Eric could use a belt when he had to, but he didn’t prefer it. Eric was a Daddy Dom at heart. He liked those ‘gentler’ methods—the scolding and guiding, lots of hugging and caressing, and when spankings were delivered, he liked over-the-knee with his open hand imparting the pain. It was more intimate that way.

  Reeve was not a gentle Dom. He wasn’t a straight-up sadist, either. On the sliding scale of alpha malehood, with Daddy Doms at one end and Dungeon Masters the other, Reeve landed somewhere in the middle. He liked canes, crops, paddles and straps. He liked the head-game of making her fetch the implement he would then use on her. He liked the squirming, the trembling fingers and trepidatious glances that accompanied his making her take down her own underwear, baring herself for his pleasure and his punishment, and he could so easily see Sandy doing all of that for him. He could see her bending to lay her trembling hands on the foot of his bed, offering her ass for its first good old-fashioned whipping. And Reeve could see himself delivering it, because he wanted to be her first. He wanted to be the one she remembered from now until the end of her life, every time some stray thought sparked this memory, leaving her to wonder time and again what unfathomable impulse had made her obey instead of running for the nearest exit.

  “We’re not going to give you a tour,” Eric told her. “We’re going to spank you.”

  “First me,” Reeve said, staking his claim. “Then him.”

  Chapter 1

  Well,” the woman on the bus beside her said with a good-natured laugh. “It was hell, I’ll tell you, but I got myself together again. I got a job. I’m living on my own and supporting myself for the first time in my whole adult life, and now… look at me.” She spread her hands in a cramped shrug, indicating the whole of the seat they shared and the length of the crowded, noisy bus in general. “I’m on my way to the Castle.”

  “Yeah, but…” Knowing she risked sounding out-of-place and perhaps even judgmental, Sandy Ebelson tried to bite the question back, but curiosity overwhelmed her. “Why here? Why the Castle?”

  A twinkle in her green eyes, the older woman winked. “Oh, I don’t know. I guess I just wanted to do something wild and crazy before I’m too old to enjoy it.”

  Sandy’s gaze danced over what few facial wrinkles the other woman had. “You hardly look ‘too old’ for anything.”

  “Aren’t you a peach?” The older woman laughed.

  Sandy didn’t argue, but she meant it. What was ‘too old’ these days? If forced to guess, she’d have placed the other woman in her mid-fifties, what with that hint of hard-to-cover grey in the brown of her shoulder-length hair, and lines at the corners of her eyes that deepened when she laughed. But it was an attractive laugh and, for all that she was carrying a few extra pounds under that heavy winter coat of hers, it was a rather handsome woman with whom Sandy was sharing her bus seat. And who was she to be judging anyone else, anyway? Sandy wasn’t swimsuit-model thin either, not now and certainly not in the summer months. Nor would she be seeing her twenties again any time soon.

  “Screw anonymity.” Smiling, the other woman stuck out her hand. “My name’s Wendy.”

  Relaxing just a little, perhaps for the first time since bullying her way into this assignment, Sandy shook Wendy’s hand. “Nice to meet you. I’m Sandy.”

  The bus bumped in and out of yet another rut in the long, unpaved drive that led away from Granger and the country highway they had just departed from. A wide series of farm fields surrounded them now, all knee-deep in snow at the moment and about to get deeper if this morning’s weather forecast held true. Stalks from last fall’s harvest still poked up through the snow here and there.

  “So, tell me,” Wendy said as she snuggled in for the last leg of their journey. “What brings you out here?”

  Work, but Sandy knew better than to say that. Fishing expedition, that was her next option, but she wasn’t sure she ought to say that either. “I just…” she hesitated, that old familiar awkwardness creeping up into her face on a wave of heat, “…want to learn more about myself, I guess.”

  She was blushing. She knew she was, but if Wendy noticed she didn’t think enough about it to bring it into the conversation. People probably blushed talking about this place all the time.

  “You and me both.” Wendy nodded. “I can’t wait to see what they’ve got planned for me.”

  The older woman hugged herself, but Sandy knew the shiver that went through her had more to do with excitement than chill. This was a luxury bus, with warmers in the seats and heaters underneath. It was right on the verge of being almost too warm, but although Sandy had
her coat open, she didn’t take it off. It was too crowded. Not just the seat that she shared with Wendy, but the entire bus was packed. Sandy would have to stand in order to shrug out of the heavy garment, and they were in the very first row. Which meant she had a great view through the front windshield of the forest they were creeping up on at the super-safe speed of fifteen miles-per-hour that kept them from sliding off the road and into the field. Beyond that forest lay the Castle. The largest (according to their website) BDSM dungeon in the country.

  Her heart gave an extra skipping jump. She couldn’t see the Castle yet, although here and there she thought she could pick out the shadowy grey form of a massive stone structure deep within that sheltering forest. It was another few minutes of crawling travel before she caught sight of her first multicolored flag playing peek-a-boo through the ice-shrouded branches. Here and there, she spotted the dark shadow of security cameras planted high on the electric poles hidden amongst the trees. If she let her imagination run away with her, she could almost imagine herself on a very comfortable bus en route to prison. Which was ironic, really. Because that’s exactly where her boss warned her she could end up if she persisted in chasing this particular story. The Castle, he said, was insanely protective when it came to safeguarding the privacy of its guests. She would not be the first person arrested if she got caught.

  The allure, however, was just too strong, especially for Sandy, who had always dreamed of being a journalist. It was a tough market to break into, though. A person had to be really, really good these days if they wanted to get away from the minutiae of writing stories like firefighters rescuing kittens from trees, or elementary school play performances, or local births and deaths, and who got arrested over the weekend and why. Granger was a small town and she’d lived here all her life. Big cities offered better news stories, but the competition was greater there. She didn’t want to move anyway, so what did that leave? As far as she could see, Sandy had one choice: She had to find a story, a big story, and she had to be the one to deliver it. She had to prove she had the skills to make it as a journalist—a real journalist—or forever be content writing articles like: “Criminals Cut Loose in Egg Aisle, ‘Chicken butt, that’s what’ spray painted in 41 colorful ways all over Tully’s Grocery.” Or covering local events like who won the chili cook-off during Dust Bark Days and who won the coveted Miss Sheep crown at this year’s Lamb and Wool Festival.

  Small as Granger was, even this sleepy little berg had its share of secrets. When it came to Ohio, no secret was bigger than the Castle.

  It had been in operation here for years, but Sandy had never met anyone who’d admit to ever being inside. A real-life castle, it had been rescued from demolition crews making way for a shopping mall in Scotland. Dismantled brick by brick, the infamous owner, Marshall Leaf, had shipped every last bit of it to America, where it was rebuilt in the wilds of Ohio farm country. Granger was only a few miles east of it, a peaceful little slice of American morality that had been trying for years to shut the place down. At least once a month, some church started up a petition or picketed in front of city hall. But the plain fact was, the Castle wasn’t going anywhere. Not when Granger had no other major source of business revenue or jobs to replace it, and certainly not when nothing short of Disney World moving to Ohio would have replaced the level of tourism the Castle inspired. Sure, the tourists were only in town long enough to get on and off the Castle’s privately-owned buses. But there was still money being made at the local gas stations, restaurants, the coffee shop at the bus depot, sometimes the hotels, and surely the tourist traps, because for years now they’d been springing up on both sides of the main thoroughfare through town like fudge, cheese and jewelry-selling whack-a-moles at a carnival show.

  “People have a right to know what goes on in that place,” Sandy had told her editor-in-chief. “Don’t you want to know?”

  “I’m pretty sure I can imagine,” he’d dryly replied. “Just hold on, now. If you think you’re the first person who’s ever tried to break in over there, think again. I can show you a whole stack of police reports on the people who’ve failed.” Digging a file out of his desk, he began flipping laminated clippings across to her side of his desk. “Elsa Crowley, caught on the grounds and arrested for trespassing. Daniel Webber, caught on the highway taking pictures. His equipment was confiscated, and he and his film crew were sued for invasion of privacy. He lost to the tune of half a million because the dumb shit actually filmed himself crossing the fence at one point, with a sign right there that read: No cameras or recording devices may be used on these premises and no trespassing. Andrew Harlestone, who landed a job there for about three hours before he was caught with a camera on him. He got fifteen years and will have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.” There were more clippings in that folder—a lot more—but he stopped, dropped the file on his desk, flopped back in his chair and frowned at her. “What are you trying to do?”

  “It is a statistical fact, Bill,” she’d hotly replied. “99.1% of these kinds of social dungeons—” She’d put that in air quotes. “—are nothing more than fronts for illicit and illegal activities. I’m not a prude. I saw Fifty Shades of Grey. I own all the books. But is that what’s really going on here?” She began counting off on her fingers. “Drug trafficking, sex trafficking, rape, coercion, assault—all of that could right now be occurring in our own backyard and nobody is doing anything about it.”

  His frown deepened. “Maybe because there’s nothing happening.”

  “Or maybe because they’re too scared of what could happen to them if they talk.” She frowned back.

  A leap of muscle ticked along his jawline as he studied her. But he wasn’t shutting her down; he was listening.

  “I’m not saying that is what’s happening,” Sandy had persisted, trying to rein in her exuberance and bring it back to a strictly professional level. “And I’m sure not trying to buck for free vacation time. Maybe this really is just a place where consenting adults come for some good clean kinky fun. But if it’s not—” She paused for emphasis, bracing her hands on the edge of his desk to lean back towards him. She lowered her voice to a conspirator’s level, “—don’t you want to know? I mean, beyond all question. You’ve got four girls, don’t you? Don’t you want to know for sure every time they drive down that road, they’re not driving in front of a place where girls their age or younger are being pedaled to the lusts of the men who visit there? Why does it cost so much to get in? Why is the security so high? What are they hiding?”

  It had been a low blow to mention his daughters, and Sandy knew it the minute she saw heated anger flare in the backs of his eyes. But Bill wasn’t editor-in-chief by chance. He had worked his way through the paper for twenty years, earning every one of his grey hairs, and he knew how to hold his temper.

  “All right,” he’d eventually said. “You go ahead and draw up a detailed plan of what supporting evidence you have now, what you think you’ll find if you get in there, and how you intend to find it. I’ll take a look at your plan and we’ll go from there. But I’m telling you now, I don’t think you’re going to find jack shit. The Castle ain’t nothing but a place for rich people to hang out with other rich people, doing God knows what because it’s the latest craze that money can buy. So fine. You wanna go get yourself in trouble over nothing, you go right ahead. But when you get arrested, don’t come crying to me for bail money. And if you don’t get arrested, congratulations, you’re the new Miss Martha Perfect. There’ll be a charity bake sale next week at the Pentecostal for you to cover.”

  She really shouldn’t have mentioned his daughters. But, on the other hand, if she hadn’t, she probably would have had to come up with the entire ungodly entrance fee all on her own. But two days after that conversation and two hours after she dropped her type-written plan on Bill’s desk—complete with an entire section of “anonymous tips” that she’d made up, because for a story like this, the end would absolutely justify the
means—he’d called her back into his office and handed her a voucher for the entry fee. The paper had covered it.

  “Don’t say I never gave you anything,” Bill had said, right before he arched his eyebrows in serious warning and added, “Don’t get caught.”

  So, now here she was. On a bus next to Wendy, bouncing out of the final tooth-jarring rut right before they crossed through a set of massive wrought-iron gates into the last half-mile stretch of private woods surrounding the Castle. A manned security shack was built into the high stone wall and the gate itself towered a good eight feet higher than the top of the bus. Solid wall was all she could see stretching out the length of the property way to either side of the bus, until the denseness of the forest swallowed it up. Both wall and gate were higher than a standard ladder could reach, but not for a cherry picker. Good luck getting one of those past all those security cameras or the guard shack so someone could snap some pictures over the wall.

  The creak of the gates swinging open was antique-ish and rusty and probably done solely for the shivering effect that raced right up the length of Sandy’s spine. She squirmed in her heated seat, feeling the warmth against her bottom, but in a way that felt almost foreboding. At some point during her visit, her butt was going to feel this kind of warmth but in a whole new way. She’d known that for weeks.