Heart Song Anthology, Carolyn Faulkner [simple ebook reader .TXT] 📗

She was stiff as a board, looking embarrassed and wishing she were anywhere but here. Sean reached over and laced his fingers with hers. “I won’t take any money from you, honey.” His tone said that the topic wasn’t up for discussion. “But make no mistake, you’re going to pay in other ways for being so cavalier about your own safety.”

That did not sound good to her. Not at all. Her bottom was still stinging from the last time he’d decided she needed a lesson, and that was only two days ago. She had let loose with a string of epithets at another driver who was dawdling a bit in the fast lane – and she wasn’t even driving. Sean had let her know, unequivocally, that such outbursts were far from welcome.

That was going to be a problem for her – a big problem. She had a potty mouth. A very uncouth potty mouth, and, for some reason, her usual laissez-faire attitude went out the window when she was riding, or worse than that, driving. She could foresee a future for herself that comprised many, many days of sitting very, very uncomfortably.

Suddenly she realized that they were on a much-too-familiar route. They weren’t heading to dinner; they were headed towards home – either of theirs, since they only lived a couple of streets away from each other.

“Hey, wait a minute! Aren’t we going out to dinner?” She hadn’t eaten since she’d sent Pam to grab her a big chef’s salad from the diner across the street, and that had been around noon.

“After we take some time to address your misbehavior.”

Tess felt her expectations for the evening crumbling before her eyes. So not only did she have to sit on a bottom that was tingling in anticipation of what she knew was coming, but she also had to put up with her stomach grumbling loudly while they got there.

This time they went to his house. She’d only been there twice since they’d started dating. He seemed to prefer her house for some reason, although she didn’t know why. His was a gorgeous, big, classical one-floor log home, with an open floor plan and a kitchen to die for. It was filled with what looked like brand new stainless steel appliances that she’d drooled over every time she was there.

He let her in first, following her closely and locking the door behind him as if he thought she might make a break for it – not that it hadn’t crossed her mind. But she figured she wouldn’t get very far, since he was pretty buff, she was hopelessly out of shape, and she didn’t want to embarrass herself any more than necessary tonight. Having him carry her back into the house, kicking and screaming – which she knew by now he wouldn’t hesitate to do – would definitely qualify as an embarrassment.

She half-expected him to immediately begin to spank her, but as always, he seemed to enjoy proving her intuition dead wrong. Instead, he took her into his arms and hugged her tight, then kissed her deeply; she instantly melted.

Then he pulled back just a bit and whispered into her ear, “Go bend over the couch in the living room.”

Tess’s head came up, nearly clipping him on the jaw as it did so, and she stared into those deep, soulful brown eyes of his, finding absolutely no trace of mercy. She had done wrong as far as he was concerned – which was all it took – and she was going to have to pay for it.

She completely believed him when he said he would refuse to take any money for returning her automobile to a roadworthy state. She knew two things for certain, though: it would be a big chunk of change and she would pay every cent; he was going to take out the cost in strips of her hide.

The couch she was to lie across was one of those camel-back types, with a tall hump in the middle that she instantly knew was going to lift her feet well above the floor and force her bottom out provocatively. There was no support for her arms, either, nothing for them to hold on to, nowhere for them to go, except to be perpetually tempted to reach back and save her rear from the thrashing. She already knew that was definitely a no-no, having tried it once before. She’d ended up with both of her wrists clasped in one of his hands. The dominant showoff always found it easy to subdue her and award extra swats for having the audacity to try to ease her own suffering.

“No interfering with your punishment,” he had said in that no-nonsense way of his that seemed amplified any time she found herself being chastised by him.

With a resigned sigh, she laid her tummy over the back of the sofa, finding it surprisingly easy to balance there. She had been right about her feet. They were dangling uselessly above the floor. Tess was literally left hanging, and entirely at Sean’s mercy.

He approached her from behind this time, reaching for the waistband of her jersey knit skirt and pulling it down and off with embarrassing speed, as if she’d somehow known this morning that she would end up in this position, and had dressed for the ease of her disciplinarian.

Oh, she’d dressed for him all right – much better than she had since she’d moved up here, hauling out the feminine accoutrements that she had eschewed after coming north. In expectation of their date – and because she never knew if any date night might turn into The Night – she’d decked herself out in makeup, a nice outfit and even a cute bra and garter set with matching stockings. The garter belt now framed her panty-clad bottom. Sean thought it made the most tempting target, not just for a hard spanking but for other things.

“Very cute panties,” he