“Myself.”
“Meredith?”
“Yes?”
“Was that your first spanking?” He asked her carefully. He didn’t want to presume to know her history or her story. He didn’t want to act like he knew everything there was to know about her, but he wanted to get to know her better, and he wanted to know what he was in for.
She hesitated a moment too long, and he had her answer.
So that was it.
She might not have been a virgin, but she was new to this world. She was new to the idea of being spanked and punished and played with.
Dominated.
Yet he saw something in her eyes that told him she wasn’t completely new. She wasn’t a total innocent. Not by a long shot, if he had to guess.
“Yes,” she finally said. “Yes, it was. And I don’t think it was appropriate,” she added hastily.
“No,” he said carefully. “I suppose it wasn’t very appropriate, was it?”
“No, it wasn’t.”
She looked at him and then her eyes caught the broken plate.
“I’m sorry about the plate,” she said. “I’ll replace it.”
“Don’t worry about the plate,” he said.
“You seemed upset.”
“No, I was upset that you disobeyed me and then you got snarky with me.”
“You don’t like snarky girls?”
“There’s a time and a place for everything, darlin’.”
“And at the end of the day isn’t the time to misbehave,” she said carefully, looking at him. He knew what she was doing. She was trying to figure out where they stood. What was going to happen between them? Was there room for something sexual or romantic there?
Or was the spanking a one-off event?
Was it a one-time thing that wouldn’t happen again?
“I’m not angry with you, but we are going to be stuck together for two weeks.”
“Quarantine,” she sighed, and she shook her head. “Who would have thought?”
“Nobody expected this,” he said. “Nobody.”
“I mean, I’ve heard in the news that this thing is nuts,” she said. “But…well, I guess I didn’t expect everything to happen so fast. This morning I woke up, and my biggest concern was wondering what I was going to make Alice for dinner.”
“Times have changed since then,” he said with a smile. “Now, what do you say we get the plate and food cleaned up? Then you can help me bring the groceries in
.”
“Okay.”
They worked together in silence. They picked up the large pieces of the glass and the bits of food. Then Meredith swept up the remaining shards and Daniel grabbed a damp washcloth to rub over the floor. He wanted to make sure there were no tiny pieces of glass that any of them could step on. If they were going to be stuck inside for a couple of weeks, they’d be spending a lot of time around one another. They weren’t going to have shoes on the whole time, or at all, and stepping on glass could mean a trip to the hospital.