“Prancing around in that tiny skirt. Flashing your ass for everyone to see.”
“I’m wearing my cheerleading uniform!”
“Don’t I know it.”
“I was not flashing my ass,” she pouted.
“Oh, you were sweetheart, trust me. Me and every other guy in the state noticed. Someone needs to teach you how to behave, or one of these days you’re going to get more than you’ve bargained for.”
“Behave?” Now she was pissed, I could tell, but I was too. And for her own good.
“Your daddy’s sheltered you. But men are animals, let me tell you, and if you keep strutting your stuff around like you do—”
“I do not strut my stuff.”
“You most definitely do. And if you want men to treat you like a good girl, you’d better start acting like one.”
“What the hell are you talking about? Act
like a good girl? What do you think, I’m five years old?” She was yelling now, real fired up.
“You’re acting like it right now.”
“I hate you! Where do you get off treating me like this? I’m not a baby.”
“You’re a spoiled brat.”
“Am not!”
“That’s just what a spoiled brat would say. Problem is, no one’s ever taken you across their knee.”
“Are you insane?”
Swerving over, seething with pent-up frustration, I took the truck onto a gravel driveway. I recognized it without thinking it through—a short road to a dirt parking area, the start of a few hiking trails and a favorite make-out spot for the locals.
Three-thirty on a school day, we were the only ones there. I pulled into a spot and jammed the truck into park.
“What are you—?”
I grabbed her, all thought gone from my brain. I pulled her across my lap.
“This is what I mean.” I positioned her square across me, her ass up in the air exposed as her skirt fell forward, her panties riding up on her creamy cheeks.
“Declan!” her voice sounded breathy as I raised up my hand. I brought it down hard right across her bottom, my palm smacking sharp and rough. She gasped.
“You need this.” I grit my teeth as I raised my hand up again. She squirmed in my lap. I brought my palm down again, fast and hard on her ass cheek. She gasped, loudly. My hand came down again with a smack. Her skin instantly turned pink, warming to my hand. Her breath came fast, turning into a pant.
“Declan!” she called out again. Smack, my hand came down again on her rear, and this time I let my palm linger a moment, caressing that space just between her ass and her inner thigh, so close to her pussy, coming so close but not touching. She wiggled and squirmed under my hand. Her panties had slipped up, exposing the lower half of her luscious cheeks, round and soft under my assault. Smack, I did it again, lingering longer this time, a slight caress to that tender flesh.
She moaned. Her cheeks pink and hot under my large, calloused palm, she gave the breathy, needy moan of a woman who wanted much, much more. A woman getting spanked and loving it.
Everything changed in an instant. I stilled, my hand on her skin. She stopped squirming and froze under my palm, as if she’d been caught. My cock pressed hard against the zipper of my jeans, into her thigh. Nothing but the sound of our mingled breathing, heavy, in the closed cab of the truck. But I could still hear it, that moan.
My thumb was so close, only an inch away from her panties. If I slid them over, what would I find? If I pressed gently against her, my thick thumb along her sex, would she be wet? Was she getting off on this? If I slid her panties down, would her pussy glisten for me, aroused, slick and begging for my touch?
I almost did it. I almost inched my fingers over, almost slipped my thumb underneath that cotton to stroke her wet, needy pussy. My shaft throbbed, pounded, pressing urgent for more.
Instead, I drew back my hand. I grabbed her hips and practically threw her back into her seat. Without a word, I started the truck back up. A cloud of dust rose behind us as I drove back onto the road.
I ran a hand through my hair. Though I was going nearly 50, I rolled the window down all the way. As if that could cool me off.
Kara sat stock still. She’d buckled herself and then sat, frozen.
I couldn’t believe I’d pulled over the side of the road and given Kara Brooks a spanking. She needed one, sure, but that hadn’t been a good idea. My palm itched for more, gripped around the steering wheel so tight I was surprised it didn’t crack under the pressure. Her skin had felt so warm, so right, so ready for me.
Neither of us said a word.
But I kept hearing a sound. My mind kept replaying that moan, the moment she’d revealed what lay within. She wanted me, maybe in ways even she didn’t understand. She wanted me to touch her. She liked that spanking. We’d gotten so close, seconds away from some seriously nasty shit. And she would have loved it. I could have had Kara Brooks coming hard on my fingers in a matter of minutes.
I needed this girl away from me, far away. That had gone too far. All it had taken was one ride in a truck together and we’d nearly exploded. This had to end, and it had to end now.
I promised myself right then and there that I’d make it through the summer, three more months working on her daddy’s ranch, zipped up, locked down, far away from her. Even if I had to work my way through every slut within a 50-mile radius to do it. This girl was a fire too hot to touch, blue flame that would peel the skin right off. Harlan would literally kill me. And I’d lose my job. And worst of all, with my luck she’d fall in love and start writing our names in her notebooks circled in big hearts.
It would be a strict no-look, no-touch policy for the remaining three months before I left. First thing I’d have to do was forget all about that moan. That soft, breathy, sound of need that let me know, undeniably, how much she wanted it.
Now
Four o’clock Saturday and I was still out in Bozeman, helping my property manager Brett deal with all hell breaking loose. The water main had snapped in two and flooded the 18-hole championship golf course. We’d been slapped with a lawsuit from a neighboring property. And now the head chef, a guy we’d flown in from L.A., famous for his Asian-fusion cuisine, was threatening to kill the grill cook.
Why, you ask? Do you really have to ask? What turned otherwise perfectly sane men into stark raving lunatics, brandishing knives and swearing in at least two languages? A woman. The same thing that made me antsy as hell to get the hell out of there, back to Billings, back where I could bury myself in Kara Brooks.
Usually, I kept a cool head, delegated and dealt, eliminating problems before they even rose to the surface. Today, though, in my impatience to wrap everything up, I’d blown a fuse. I’d found myself yelling red in the face at Brett, who sure as hell didn’t need any shit from me.
His wife was due any day now. After I’d calmed down, I’d brought them both lunch back at their cabin. It wasn’t as massive as the clients’ properties, of course, but those were pretty over-the-top. Members had custom-built (from within a set of five pre-approved aesthetically-integrated designs) 5,000 square foot ‘smart homes’ wired with the latest in home entertainment, automation, comfort and, of course, home security. Your basic log cabin all pimped-out.
As property manager, Brett’s place topped out around 2,000 square feet and lacked some of the rocket ship-ready technology, but I’d had the damndest feeling when I walked in that afternoon. The smell of bread baking in the oven, the sounds of rockabilly playing low on the radio and laughter coming from the kitchen. It felt like a home.
After the tongue-lashing I’d given Brett, I’d expected to find him fuming, probably ranting to his wife all about the asshole of an owner. Instead, I’d walked in to see Brett with his arm around what used to be his wife’s waist before she was nine months pregnant, their hands up in classic dance formation, cracking each other up over her gigantic belly as they shuffled around to the beat. Huh. Home dancing with his pregnant wife. He didn’t care about the rest of it. They had their own private world together, the two of them soon to be three, and nothing else mattered.
I’d cleared my throat and set the lunch down, apologizing for having lost my temper.
“No worries,” Brett assured me. “Good to know you’re human.”
That’s what I thought about as I drove back to Billings, sometimes hitting 90 miles an hour before I’d force myself to slow down a touch. Human. What did that mean? Had I not seemed human before?
Maybe that was a good thing. Human was messy. The whole “you’re only human” thing meant you’d screwed up. I felt dangerously on the brink of doing exactly that. Kara belonged in that kitchen scene I’d walked into, pregnant by some loyal, devoted husband, building a life and family together. I belonged back at the club I’d gone to last night, kinky and perverted, extracting pleasure from flesh and then walking away.
; Like oil and water, I shouldn’t try to mix our worlds. It didn’t work. It hadn’t worked six years ago. It wouldn’t work now.
I still had time. Nothing had started, not yet. Kara had given me consent, but we hadn’t yet begun our bargain. I could set her free.
But how could I, when I had what I’d most coveted finally laying before me, eager with need? The sight of her in that stockroom, ass up on a shelf, hands grasping the metal, thighs spread wide apart for me with her head thrown back in ecstasy. How could I not drive 90 miles an hour back to that? After all, I was only human.
Showered, changed and down at the bar I saw her instantly. Across the crowded room, she stood out like a swan in a flock of pigeons. In a skimpy, sexy-as-hell waitressing uniform.
What the fuck?
Sure enough, Kara held a small pad of paper, pencil tucked up behind her ear as she spoke to a group of guys. An interested group of guys. I fought a sudden urge to have them all thrown out of the bar. As the owner, it was within my rights. Probably not the best idea for business, though, since their only offence was flirting with my girl.
Not my girl, I reminded myself, deciding to let this play out for a few minutes. So she’d somehow started waiting tables at my bar. Why did that seem to make sense? She was making it hard for me, as she always had. Had I really thought she’d be sitting there at the bar, demure and docile, awaiting her orders? Kara always bucked against me, pushing my buttons, never making things easy. Why should anything have changed? Just because she’d sent that text last night, it didn’t mean she’d changed who she was. Spirited. Feisty. It drove me wild.
Back up against the wall, I assumed my usual position. Watching, waiting, taking it all in. I liked to keep an eye on everything and everyone. I watched Kara flit about like a butterfly. If butterflies looked sexy as sin.
She had mile-long legs and I could see so much of them, stretching up from her cowboy boots to the edge of her tiny skirt. That strip of black cotton didn’t cover her up so much as reveal, calling attention to those long, tone legs leading up and up. Every luscious curve outlined in intimate detail, her small waist flaring out into such generous hips and a high, tight ass. Curves like that bordered on illegal. My thoughts definitely crossed right on over.