To Seek a Master
Authors: Monica Belle
Contents
About the Book
Sexy daydreams are shy Laura’s only escape from the dull routines of her life. But with the arrival of an email ordering her to dress provocatively, she wonders if her secret fantasies about her colleagues are about to become true. Unable to resist the new and more daring instructions that arrive by email, she begins to slip deeper into dangerous water with several men. But when her controller finally reveals himself, she’s in for a shock and a far greater involvement in his illicit games. Because this powerful figure possesses an uncanny understanding of her most shameful and intense desire – to surrender to a master in every way.
About the Author
Monica Belle is an Oxbridge graduate and the author of several successful
Black Lace
novels, including
Black Lipstick Kisses, Bound In Blue, Noble Vices, Office Perks, Pagan Heat, The Boss, The Choice, To Seek a Master, Valentina’s Rules, Wild By Nature
and
Wild In The Country
.
Also by Monica Belle:
Noble Vices
Valentina’s Rules
Wild in the Country
Wild By Nature
Office Perks
Pagan Heat
Bound in Blue
The Boss
1
LAURA SLIPPED INTO
the window seat just in time to prevent the Devil from getting it first. He was one of the regular commuters, nicknamed for his neatly trimmed beard and the dash of white in his hair which, with an aquiline face and a smart dark suit, gave him a distinctly Satanic look. Others included Darcy, Mr Brown, the Grey Man, Miss Scarlett, Hovis Boy and the Tramp. All seven took the same trains each day, into Cambridge on the 7:55 and back on the 17:40, providing fuel for her imagination to stave off the boredom of commuting.
She had no idea where any of them lived, or what they did, only at which stations they got on and off and a few personal habits that allowed her to invent fantasy lives for each. Darcy was the attractive one, tall, with an athletic build and an easy manner that suggested an appealing combination of humour and masculinity, perhaps appealing enough for her to have made an advance had the plain gold band on his ring finger not implied that somebody else had got him first.
In her imagination there was no ring and one day the two of them would be alone in carriage. There would be no need for any of the social niceties and careful testing of each other’s defences so essential to real life. He would know she was willing and simply take her, calm and confident as he stripped her naked, had her kneel to take him in her mouth, lifted her onto his erection and had her, still cool and poised in his perfectly cut office suit as he brought her to heaven again and again.
None of the others had Darcy’s allure. There was something stern about the Devil that she found intriguing but also disturbing in a way she didn’t fully understand, yet he was at least twice her age, so she preferred to think of him as the villain from one of the old-fashioned crime thrillers she liked to read, the sort of man Darcy would rescue her from before taking her as his reward.
Mr Brown and the Grey Man made a pair, both middle-aged men of middle height, probably in middle management and middle everything else. Only in the way they dressed did they differ, the one in a scruffy brown suit that matched his thinning brown hair, the other plain and grey. Mr Brown, she liked to imagine, had a secret home life, perhaps attending wife-swapping parties where he would dress up in garishly colourful women’s underwear and watch the other couples having sex. The Grey Man she thought of as an automaton, or perhaps an android, built at one of the research companies in Cambridge and being road tested to see if anybody spotted him.
Miss Scarlett was either a spy or the scheming mistress of some wealthy industrialist, depending on Laura’s mood, while the Tramp was an eccentric millionaire who would one day drop dead and leave her his entire fortune for smiling at him twice a day for the last four years. Hovis Boy was simply Hovis Boy, a spotty youth whose sole distinguishing characteristic was the sandwiches he carried in a plastic bread wrapper.
Settling more comfortably into her seat, she spent a moment watching the lines of dark brick houses move past as the train gathered speed, before taking her book from her bag. It was one she’d found in a charity shop near work, a paperback published in the 1950s and full of the unashamedly red-blooded heroes and yielding heroines she enjoyed. It was called
Taken to Turkey
, and she had started it that morning, introducing herself to the beautiful Evangeline Tarrington, the superbly
handsome
Mark Frobisher and the wicked Lord Jasper Mauleverer. Just twenty pages in, and Evangeline had already been kidnapped by Lord Jasper, only for his car to be ambushed by Bulgarian bandits en route to Istanbul, a highly promising situation.
The Bulgarian bandits were everything Laura could have hoped for, and kept her occupied all the way to King’s Lynn. As she walked from the station she was lost in a daydream, one in which she was Evangeline, but instead of being rescued in the nick of time by the gallant Mark Frobisher she was made the plaything of the bandit chief. Better still, the chief could have his wicked way with her, only for Frobisher to arrive a moment too late. The two men would fight it out as she lay naked and trembling in the furs beneath them, but when the Englishman finally triumphed he would be unable to resist, and instead of carrying her to safety would take his turn on top of her. Even better than that, Frobisher and the chief could turn out to be old friends from some earlier adventure, get thoroughly drunk on arrack and share her. She would kneel among the furs, naked, her bottom lifted to the chief’s thrusts as she sucked on her supposed rescuer’s erection, thoroughly used as they chatted casually of other girls they’d given the same undignified treatment.
Laura was smiling as she walked, oblivious to everything but the vivid fantasy in her head, so that it was only when she reached her flat did she realise that she’d left her smart leather bookmark on the train. It was only a company one, given out to all junior employees as a blanket Christmas present the year before, and she quickly put her irritation aside, along with her fantasy as she settled down to the mundane tasks of the evening. Smudge needed to be walked, and she had to eat something, if only beans on toast, while she’d also have to iron a fresh blouse for the morning.
The last detail turned her mind back to work, something she did her best to avoid when not actually in the office. Given what EAS paid her, it was hardly reasonable for them to expect her to devote her free time as well as the regular nine to five, yet that seemed to be what was expected of her, especially by Mr Henderson. ‘Look smart,’ was one of his many watchwords, repeated at every opportunity and underlined with numerous remarks on her appearance and a clothing allowance on top of her PA’s salary. The clothing allowance at least was welcome, although she would have preferred to spend it on something other than designer suits and expensive blouses, at least occasionally.
Laura bit her lip as she considered her boss. His comments had never crossed the line into anything that could be considered harassment, and yet the implication that her looks were important to her job was clear. The little approving nods when she made a special effort with herself, the way he introduced her to clients as if showing off a trophy, even the way he’d positioned their desks so that she had to walk the full width of the office for every tiny thing, all of it suggested that a major part of her work was to look sexy.
The worst part of it was that in different circumstances she wouldn’t have minded. He was tall, powerfully built and quite commanding, all features she liked in a man, so much so that when she had first joined EAS she had allowed herself to fantasise about being taken roughly over his desk. That was before she’d discovered he was married, while on closer acquaintance she had come to realise that there was something faintly sleazy about him, although she could never quite come to grips with what it was.
As she finished the blouse she remembered her resolve not to allow work to intrude on her private time. They were visiting clients in the morning, a Peterborough firm who wanted to upgrade their ancient oil insulated switchgear to SF6 gas.
Mr
Henderson had stressed the importance of proper preparation, but then he always did and the situation with Evangeline Tarrington was far more interesting than any amount of switchgear.
Now a little tired but feeling pleasantly lazy, Laura turned on her bath, pouring a liberal portion of oil into the stream from the hot tap so that she could already smell the hot jasmine scent as she went to her bedroom to undress. The little ritual of dealing with her clothes was soon complete and she turned back to her book, eager to discover how Mark managed to rescue Evangeline from the clutches of the bandits, as he inevitably would.
He did, distracting the guards by exploding an old Mills Bomb he happened to have with him on the far side of their camp, rushing in to slit the chief’s tent at the back, extracting Evangeline and make good his escape before anybody even noticed. As he fled he carried her over his shoulder, a thoroughly undignified position that brought a smile to Laura’s face as she imagined herself as the heroine. It was much too early in the book for the couple to do more than share an uncertain kiss, but Laura read on, waiting for the subtle change in the sound of the running bathwater that would tell her it was full enough. To her surprise Mark Frobisher wasn’t making gallant remarks but seemed to be rather cross.
‘You little fool!’ Frobisher blustered angrily. ‘You might have got us both killed!’
Evangeline’s pretty mouth fell open, too shocked by his unexpected wrath to respond. Frobisher shook his head, his expression setting in a determined scowl as he appeared to reach a decision. He sat down on the running board of the great Bentley.
‘Come here,’ he growled, commandingly.
Evangeline obeyed, unable to do otherwise. Frobisher reached out, taking her gently but firmly by the wrist to pull her in to his body. Her maiden modesty welling strong in her bosom, Evangeline struggled against him, although her true desire was to yield. He was too strong for her in any event, pulling her close with ease, but not for the intimacy of a kiss. Rather, Evangeline found herself drawn forcibly down across his lap and, as her clothing was adjusted behind, her mouth had come open in astonished outrage. She was to be spanked.