“Quit saying that!” Penni lunged at Jackal, pushing him backward, his words lacerating her pride.
He took a step to get his balance, and she vindictively pushed him again, smiling when he toppled onto the couch next to the treadmill.
Penni spun and turned to go upstairs.
“Oh, no, you don’t.” Penni found herself pulled backward onto Jackal’s lap. “You don’t get to be mad at me when I’m telling you the fucking truth.”
“I can be mad if I want to. Train and I are none of your business!”
“What business?”
Jackal’s sarcastic laugh had Penni’s temper rising to a boiling point. She had never lost control of her rage to the degree where all she wanted to do was strike out at him.
Instead of trying to break his hold, she leaned back against his chest, turning her head so she could bite his shoulder.
Sickened by what she had just done, she tried to jump up, but Jackal used her movement to bend her over his knee.
“You did that, knowing I wouldn’t bite you back.”
“I’m sorry.” Penni’s temper’s cooled, ashamed of herself.
“The next time you bite me, bitch, I’m going to give you a bite you’ll never forget.”
“Don’t call me a bitch!” Her demand ended with a yowl of pain as Jackal’s hand came down on her bottom. She was wearing a pair of workout shorts and a thin T-shirt, but he didn’t care that the material was thin and flimsy or that she could feel the scalding heat of his palm on her butt.
“Calling you a bitch doesn’t give it justice. That was for flicking me off.”
Penni had known that incident when they had first seen each other had irritated him.
Another smack landed on her bottom. “That was for you telling Ice to tell me to go fuck myself.”
She had known that one had stung.
Penni quickly smothered her chuckle when Jackal’s hand returned to continue her punishment. He recounted her other offenses, which she lost count of due to the pain that was radiating from her sore butt.
“That was for leaving Casey’s lingerie party before I could show up.”
“What? Have you lost your mind?” How was she supposed to know he had wanted to give her a ride home? Thank God she had left before he had arrived. She had been drunk off her ass and had eaten too many of her own brownies. To say that he would have been laid that night would have been an understatement.
Penni’s thoughts came back to the present with another whack of his hand.
“Then you stood me up and almost killed me with those bees and the dogs …”
The son of a bitch had already spanked her for that one. Clearly, he hadn’t gotten over it.
“Okay, okay. I’m a terrible person.” She tensed her buttocks, waiting for his spanking to continue. When it didn’t, she looked over her shoulder to see Jackal staring down at his hand on her bottom. He was now massaging her buttocks.
“Does it hurt?”
“If I don’t answer, are you going to start spanking me again?”
“No.”
“No, it doesn’t hurt.” Penni slipped out of his grasp, sliding to the floor between his thighs. “My butt has hardened to spankings.”
“Who in the hell spanked you?”
Unconsciously, she placed her hands on his thighs. “My mama. I stayed in trouble when I was a little girl. She told me it’s a miracle she had any hair left. I got out of the house five times before I was four. The last time, I was at a dangerous intersection when she found me. I would climb anything I could. One time, I went so high up a tree she had to call the fire department. I set the house on fire when I was three.”
“She should have watched you better.”
Penni shook her head. “I was terrible. I admit it. I was a little hyper. That was probably why Shade brought his friends over whenever he came to visit. They could help keep an eye on me. My mother would spend most of the time trying to catch up on her sleep.”
“Your father didn’t help watch you?”
“Oh, yes, but when I tried to show him I was old enough to dry my own hair, Mama didn’t trust him anymore.”
“What was wrong with that?”
“I was standing in the bathtub and had grabbed the blow-dryer when he had reached for a towel. I nearly electrocuted my dad and myself, but he managed to jerk it out from the plug.”
Jackal leaned back on the couch, laughing.
Desire flooded through her body, and Penni clenched her thighs together as she knelt on the floor.
Penni giggled, and Jackal leaned forward, covering her mouth with his. Her mind was screaming at her to jerk away, run up the steps, but the urge to respond defeated her common sense.
Pressing into him, she felt her breasts tauten under her thin T-shirt.