Graceful Mischief by Melinda Barron

Chapter One
     
    Note to self: They say beauty is skin deep, but truly, beauty is more how you interact with other people. Truly beautiful people can be truly ugly when they open their mouths.
    To do list: Finish edits on three chapters
    Write M’s story on favorite fantasies
    Be ready for dinner at seven, sharp!
     
    Grace Shelley stretched her arms above her head and arched her back. A day’s worth of writing sometimes meant an aching back, but today she didn’t have that problem. Since her first novel had been published two years ago, she’d been busy not only career-wise, but personally, too. She loved it. And today, she was excited about getting some alone time with her Master, her lover, her husband.
    A warm glow filled her, despite the chill in the stone walls. She grinned as she toyed with the computer keys. She was in a castle, an honest-to-goodness English castle, with more rooms than she could count, wings that went off in all directions and hallways wide enough to fit a swimming pool.
    She wouldn’t be here if she wasn’t married to one of the most handsome men in all of Hollywood, Toffer Shelley, known to the world as Drake Dawson, and known to Grace as Master, the man who kept her safe and provided her with innumerable pleasures. Most of all, though, he was the man who loved her exactly as she was.
    For three and a half years now she’d been his wife, his lover, and his submissive. She’d obeyed his every command and was always hungry for more. It didn’t matter to him that he was tall, dark and very, very handsome, and she herself was not so tall, nor so beautiful, and at size eighteen, not anywhere near as svelte as the wives of the other actors they knew. She had learned early in their marriage not to say anything derogatory about her size, because Master didn’t like it, and she didn’t like the punishments that came from those transgressions.
    She’d also learned to ignore the tabloids and the reports on TV entertainment programs showing them on the red carpet, where the commentators made less than flattering remarks. Toffer dealt with it with perfect aplomb. If he heard the comments, or heard of them, he ignored that reporter the next time he saw them at an event, and would stick little comments in interviews about “small-minded people who had to feel better about themselves by cutting other people down.”
    The reporter would have to make some sort of apology before Toffer would give them the time of day again. Since he was one of Hollywood’s leading men, they needed his stories to boost their ratings. Grace hugged herself, then looked at her watch. It was after five. She needed to bathe and then get dressed for dinner.
    Toffer had told her he expected her to be ready at seven. Any later and he would construct a punishment fitting the crime. The idea made her smile, and she thought about leaving a button undone, or not having her shoes on when he arrived.
    The idea was fun, but the idea of going to London for dinner held more interest for her. Since Toffer had started filming Days of Grace, a medieval love story, he’d worked fifteen-hour days. Tonight would be the first evening they’d had to go out together in weeks.
    The fact it was Halloween only made things more exciting. This morning, Toffer had said something about going to a party in London, at a BDSM club. She’d smiled her approval, even as her heart had beat just a little bit too fast. They didn’t generally go to public places, since there was too much of a chance of someone selling a photo of him inside the club to a tabloid.
    But since it was Halloween, they could wear masks and not be recognized. She allowed her thoughts to wander about the pleasures that awaited, then realized with a start it was a quarter to six. She hurried to the bathroom and bathed, making sure everything was properly shaved, then tried to dress in a hurry, which wasn’t easy to do considering she was hooking herself into a corset.
    Toffer had