Raising Lucy Page 7

I take a deep breath and leave the kitchen on silent feet.

  Chapter 13

  Master Roman

  * * *

  If I live through this trial, God will surely grant me a special place in heaven. My life has been upside down for weeks, from the moment I first saw Lucy in my club. It’s been a hurricane since she came to my home Monday morning to interview. But today has been more like a tsunami.

  When she tipped her pretty face up to me in the kitchen, eyes wide with shock that I had told her to drink her milk… God, I nearly came in my pants. I know for certain she drank that milk as soon as I left the room. I watched her shift in the seat and sit up straighter. I have shocked her, but I feel confident she will thrive under my direction. My firm demands will make her heart pound.

  Lucy is a blank slate, but she is so totally ripe for training. Her responses and mannerisms are screaming for someone to dominate her.

  Patience. I need an abundance of it. I will ruin everything if I move too fast and scare her. She is so pure and precious and untouched. Even though she had been in my club five times, she has never scened with anyone.

  Of course, that had never been an option. Every member of my club knew within an hour of her first appearance that she was off limits. No one even looked directly at her. They weren’t rude, but they knew better than to approach her, especially because this was the first time in the fifteen years I have owned this club that I have ever made such a proclamation.

  I need to tone down my demeanor for the rest of the morning or she might not return tomorrow. I have the time. I’ve made the time. I’ve carved out the next month to ensure she learns what it means to submit to me and realizes her true nature.

  Sure, I have work that needs to get done, but I won’t be traveling or seeing many clients in my home office. The bare minimum is what I have planned, and my staff knows it.

  I have met with Nancy—my house manager, Evelyn—my cook, and Weston—my butler. I have many other employees, but those three have been with this household for years. They know me better than I sometimes know myself. They can anticipate my every need often ahead of me.

  Over time, the rest of my peripheral staff will understand this arrangement, but for now, the only thing that matters is that those three manage things in the express way I have dictated.

  And they will too. They are paid well to do as I request. They enjoy working for me. And in addition, all three of them worked for my father before he died. If anyone thinks I’m an excessive dominant with outrageous quirks, they did not have the pleasure of knowing my father and grandfather.

  Those men were far more formidable. They could make anyone cower, and I’d seen them in action as I grew up. Is dominance genetically inherited or learned? I would never know. It didn’t matter.

  As Lucy steps back into my office, wringing her hands in front of her, I can feel the tension rolling off her in waves. She’s nervous. Probably confused. Understandable, and I want some of that edge to remain, but I need to soothe her a bit also.

  I rise from my chair and point to one of the chairs directly across from my desk. “Sit.” I considered ushering her to the sofa across the room, but then decide that might be too intimate and tempting, so I lower myself back onto my desk chair and wait for her to sit across from me.

  She sits with her back straight and her hands folded in her lap in much the same way she sat Monday morning. Professional. Nervous.

  I lean back in my chair, trying to appear casual, rubbing my chin between two fingers and my thumb. There are things about her I want to know. There are also things I need her to know. “Tell me about your childhood.”

  She frowns. “My childhood, Sir?” Her cheeks pinken. Odd.

  “Yes, it’s that time between birth and eighteen. I’m making conversation. Getting to know you,” I point out.

  “Oh.” She licks her lips and sits up straighter, but she bounces one knee. “It wasn’t very interesting, Sir.”

  I lift a brow, lean back, and steeple my fingers in front of my mouth. “I’ll decide that.” Now I’m even more curious than before. The PI didn’t dig too hard because I didn’t feel it was necessary. Perhaps I have errored.

  She glances away from me. “I grew up in a small town in Missouri. My father died when I was ten and my mother when I was eleven. Then I moved in with my grandmother in Chicago until I turned eighteen when I came here. That’s about it.”

  I don’t like her answer. She spoke too fast, glossed over her parents’ deaths as if they meant nothing, and left her grandmother to move across the country right out of high school? There is much more to this story. Perhaps she never got over her parents’ deaths and it hurts too badly to discuss it.

  “It must have been really hard to lose both parents so young.”

  She blinks at me.

  “Lucy?”

  She shrugs. “I don’t really remember, Sir.”

  I don’t believe her. In fact, my curiosity is far more piqued now. I sit forward and set my elbows on my desk. After staring at her several moments, I decide to let this topic go for now. I don’t want to alienate her. I’ll delve into this further another day.

  I change the subject. “Why did you get a temporary pass to my club?”

  She squirms, which I’m quickly learning makes my cock hard every time. I can’t decide if I want her to keep doing it or take her over my knee. For now, I will scowl. I glance at her lap, frowning, until she gets the hint and stops moving her sweet little ass.

  Finally, she speaks again. “I just wanted to check it out.”

  “Just so we’re clear, you won’t be returning.”

  Her eyes widen. “Okay, Sir.”

  “I don’t permit my home employees to have membership in my club.”

  “Okay, Sir. I wasn’t intending to actually join anyway, Sir.”

  I tip my head to one side. “Why? Did you not find my club to be to your liking?”

  Her face flushes a darker shade of red and she shakes her head. “No, Sir. That’s not it. I couldn’t afford it.”

  “I see. Well, on my salary you can, but you won’t. Nor will you join any other local club. Understood?” I realize my voice has gotten gruff.

  She is biting her bottom lip, and she releases it before I have a chance to either demand that she do so or possibly jump over the top of the desk to take it in between mine. “Yes, Sir.”

  “I won’t have gossip tainting my employees. Their private lives are their own, but since I’m the owner of a club, it could cause unnecessary issues for my staff to belong to any club, especially my own.” I hope I have sufficiently explained myself.

  It is true that my home employees don’t belong to clubs, not even my own. But in Lucy’s case this decision has far more to do with my claim on her than anything else.

  It’s not that many of my employees don’t enjoy the lifestyle or participate in it. Most of them do. But they do so in private. I prefer there be no public scrutiny of my personal staff.

  “I understand, Sir. Your point is moot. I have no intentions of joining a club.” Her knee is bouncing again.

  I narrow my gaze at her. “You must have enjoyed visiting Surrender. You returned four times.”

  She swallows. God, I love to watch her squirm. The more I speak with her, the more certain I am of my initial assessment. Lucy Neill is not only submissive but will thrive under my thumb.

  She is fighting an internal war. I watch it unfold on her face and in her body language. She has the inner strength to straighten her spine and take my dominance. I make her nervous. Hell, I make most people nervous. But she intends to stay. And I’m so damn proud of her already. It’s difficult to keep my face rigid and not smile.

  She flattens her hands on her thighs and rubs them slowly, her face dipping toward the floor. “I wanted to see what it was all about.”

  “Submission?” I watch her so closely.

  “Yes, Sir,” she whispers.

  “Why are you embarrassed?” I ask, gauging her
every movement. I desperately want to set my hand on her thigh to make her stop jiggling her leg, but I also don’t want to draw attention to her body language right now. I like how authentic it is while she isn’t being self-conscious about it.

  She lifts her face again. “I’m not sure, Sir.”

  “Well, there’s no reason to be embarrassed about your submissive tendencies. Many people have them. Right now, it’s working in your favor. I wouldn’t have hired you if you weren’t subservient. I need my assistants to easily obey orders without questioning them.

  “As you well know, I have been through several assistants lately. People think they can hack it. They tell themselves they can tolerate me because the pay is good. I’m sure you’ve given yourself a similar pep talk more than once.”

  She smiles slightly for the first time all day, and it radiates all around the room and makes my cock harder than it’s been since Friday night.

  I realize at that moment I want to see her smile often for the rest of her life. It might take a while to get to the point where she does so frequently, but I intend to persevere. Getting soft on her now would not bode well for me in the long run, however. She needs guidance and rules and structure before she is permitted laughter and free time and…pleasure.

  I continue. “The point is, I want you to know that I feel confident in your ability to do this job. I’m a good judge of character.” When she flinches, I release a chuckle before I can stop myself. “Touché. I suppose that wouldn’t appear to be true considering how many assistants I’ve had lately.”

  Her face reddens, and her mouth falls open. “Sir, I meant no disrespect.”

  I lift a hand. “None taken. You’re right to wonder about my judgment. However, just so we’re clear. In every one of those instances, I knew from day one the women would not work out. All I could do was hope they proved me wrong.”

  She nods slowly. “Why did you hire them?”

  I offer her a smile. “Because you didn’t apply.”

  Chapter 14

  Lucy

  * * *

  By the time I get home from my first day at work I am a mess of emotions. Master Roman has spent the entire day confusing me. He has so many facets. He can go from gruff to laid back to laughing without warning.

  Okay, laughing is too strong a word. He smiled once for a millisecond and might have given a half-chuckle at his own expense for the same length of time.

  It’s late. I’m so drained from the stress of the day, I want to drop into bed. Instead I find myself heading for the bathroom while stripping out of my clothes and dropping them along the way.

  The reason I turn on the water and start to fill the tub is because Master Roman all but demanded it in his parting words. “Go home, Lucy. Take a long, hot bath. Get eight hours of sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  As I slide into the hot water, I try to remember the last time I’ve taken a bath and come up with nothing. In fact, if it weren’t for my crazy cleaning spree on Monday, this tub would have been too gross to lie in. I’ve used it as a shower and nothing else for the two years I’ve lived here.

  I suddenly wish I owned bubbles and sigh. I would never own such an extravagance even if I were the sort of person who took baths. Bubbles cost the same as an entire loaf of bread and some American cheese. I could eat that for lunch for a week. Bubbles are an extravagance I cannot afford.

  Perhaps by my first paycheck I will be able to. I close my eyes as I admonish myself. There will be no bubbles until I’m out of credit card debt and the rent is consistently paid on time without me having to scrape the last few dollars together.

  The water feels good. It is soothing. I start to drift off, my mind wandering in a direction I should not permit. But I can’t help it. Before today, I have imagined submitting to Master Roman on a number of occasions. All of those daydreams have evolved out of my imagination.

  Now? Now, I have actual material to work with, and my thoughts run wild. The thing is, I know Master Roman is a Dom, so visualizing me on my knees before him is so easy. After all, he certainly has someone in his life who kneels in front of him.

  I jerk my eyes open, my mouth drying at the thought of another woman submitting to him. I grip the sides of the tub, stiffening. Why does that bother me so much?

  I wonder how many submissives Master Roman has had in his life. How many of them has he trained? But more importantly, does he have one now?

  As I release the edges of the tub, I force myself to calm down. Jeez. First of all, it’s none of my business whether or not Master Roman has a submissive or even twelve of them. I’m his assistant. Nothing more.

  Second of all, when would he have the time? The man is a force to be reckoned with. With the exception of the time he spent talking to me after breakfast, the man worked non-stop all day. He was either on the phone or buried in a file or clicking away at the computer.

  I was near him for twelve hours today, and nothing about his body language suggested he was wrapping things up when he excused me. In fact, he had muted his phone to glance my direction and bark out his final orders to bathe and sleep, dismissing me.

  In truth, every day has twelve other hours in it. Perhaps Master Roman sleeps five of those and spends seven in some dungeon playroom with nine women, or men. How would I know? And, it’s none of my business, I remind myself.

  The water begins to cool, but I find I’m enjoying my soak and not done analyzing my day, so I turn on the hot water to let it warm up again. I sigh as my limbs relax. I know my brain is not going to shut down and permit me to sleep no matter how tired I am.

  The absurd thing is that I truly didn’t do much today. After breakfast, and after our weird chat, I spent some time familiarizing myself with his filing system which I discover is located in my office, taking up a good portion of the wall I had not paid any attention to.

  Master Roman keeps his space free of clutter. Even his file cabinets blend into the décor, making it appear that he has nothing to do and no work happens in his office or mine.

  I worried the entire time, mindful that I would need to become far more organized or risk his wrath. Lord knows how he might react if I left a paper on my desk at the end of the day or a file cabinet not quite closed.

  He hasn’t said as much to me, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to pick up on his need for order in all aspects of his life.

  My mind wanders back to the idea of submitting to him. How much “order” does he insist upon in that area of his life? How meticulous are his submissives? Does he require them to shave their legs on Mondays and Wednesdays for example?

  I giggle. I wouldn’t put it past him. I picture myself again, kneeling at his feet, arms behind my back. Would he gather my hair and braid it like I’ve seen a few Doms do at his club? Would he want me to cut it? After all, it’s unruly. Or…would he wrap his hand in it and yank my head back.

  I squirm in the bathtub, squeezing my thighs together. I’m turned on. More than I have been in the previous few days since I first went to Master Roman’s house. I slide one hand between my legs and stroke my fingers through my folds. Even though I’m submerged in water, I know I’m wet.

  When I flick my fingers over my clit, I jump and bite down on my bottom lip. Holy shit. I’ve been aroused many times in my life. After all, I read a lot of erotic romance novels. They make my life interesting and give me a reason to get up each day. As an introvert, I’m grateful to the millions of authors out there who provide me with entertainment.

  I have not, however, ever had an orgasm. I have tried a few times lying in bed late at night after reading a particularly risqué chapter, but I have never succeeded. I’m not even sure orgasm is a real thing, or perhaps not for me.

  Tonight, though… I flick my clit again and flinch. Nerve endings that have never been this close to the surface or this sensitive come to life. My belly flips over and tightens inside. My legs shake. I slide my finger lower and push it up inside me. Slowly. I’ve never done this bef
ore. The only thing that’s ever been inside me is tampons…and Dr. Pruitt’s speculum. It’s tighter than I expected.

  I have never actually seen a male penis in the flesh, but I’m pretty sure they are significantly larger than the opening I’m examining.

  My body slips lower in the tub, and I lose my grip on the edge, nearly going underwater. Sputtering, I jerk to sitting, grab both sides of the tub, and pant into the silence of the room.

  I stare down at my small breasts. My nipples are hard points. The globes feel heavy. There is a throbbing between my legs. My entire body is shivering. The water has cooled again.

  I rise from the water and step out of the tub carefully, afraid my legs won’t hold me or that I might slip on the linoleum. After toweling off, I make my way to my bedroom, open a drawer, and pull out an old T-shirt and panties. My standard nightwear.

  As I shrug into my clean underwear, I remember that I need to open the package Nancy has sent home with me tonight. Tomorrow’s clothes. It seems beyond odd that she would provide me with an outfit every night for the next day, but then again, everything in Master Roman’s world is a bit off kilter.

  Nancy has instructed me to bring my “soiled” clothes from the previous day back each morning to be sent to the laundry. She used the word soiled. As if I were playing outside all day and got my knees dirty.

  I’m still shaking from the arousal I’m fighting to ignore and exhausted at the same time as I pad back to the living room and grab the package. It’s tied with string like the today’s had been. In it, I find a pleated beige skirt and pastel pink blouse. At least I won’t be wearing the same thing every day. My favorite pink flats would go with the outfit, but I worry that I’m not supposed to wear anything I wasn’t instructed to wear, so I shove that idea to the back of my mind.

  I chuckle as I head to the bathroom. This job could quite possibly prove to be extremely boring over time, but at least I will have some surprises to look forward to: the following day’s clothes and every meal.