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“Oh, I can promise you it’s likely I won’t be able to think about much else.”

  They walked out to her car hand-in-hand. He loaded her things into the backseat on the driver’s side. For a moment, time stood still, and they just watched each other, knowing they needed to part but not wanting to. Harper knew she was in trouble, and not just with the idea of a spanking. Being with him seemed inevitable and, damn the rest, she wanted it. She would do some reading and thinking, but as he finally opened her door and got her settled in, she already knew her answer. She’d figure out a way to make the thing work. He’d ease up if she eased up. She could do that.

  He leaned in and gave her another quick and still very chaste kiss on the lips. “Please text me when you get in.”

  “Of course. Night, Lucas, and thanks again for dinner.”

  He watched her pull off. They both had a lot to consider.

  Chapter 7

  Four Months Later

  Four months, two shows, and a dozen mini-upsets had passed since they’d started a proper relationship, practically living together for the last two of the months. Things remained exciting and fun, and she could honestly say there wasn’t much he asked that was unreasonable, but even reasonable could feel stifling, and sometimes she pushed back, just to let him know that she could and she would.

  Lucas was stability in cargo shorts, though, and Harper could depend on him in all things, and she was better for the security that provided. Only a few things usually got her into any serious trouble: her mouth (usually accompanied by her temper), her shortcuts, and most things involving her best friend, Maddy. Harper could sound off on just about anything way before her brain caught up in an attempt to slow her lips down. When she and Maddy were together, her inabilities and lack of impulse control magnified. Loose lips had cost her a few warning smacks and a lot of time alone in their bedroom thinking about her choices, which is what she was doing at that moment.

  Usually, Harper liked thinking about the early days of her relationship with Lucas, but not with her pending trouble. Her fast mouth had teamed up with her poor judgment. Why the hell had she climbed that rack? She supposed that was exactly what Lucas wanted her to think about, and somehow she was back to doing precisely what he wanted. Damn him and his ability to be right so often. He’d called her on her submissive nature from day one and wouldn’t let her shy away from it or behave as though something was wrong with her because it was different than the way that most of the women she knew operated.

  When they came together all those months before, that was one of the first things they discussed and was her first hard line. No one could know or suspect their dynamic. Lucas couldn’t understand, at first. It wasn’t like he was going to take her over his knee in the middle of rehearsal or a family dinner. Her worries were unnecessary, but he always reassured her that humiliation wasn’t part of the deal. He didn’t think there was anything wrong with their relationship or how they decided to interact, but they had to get creative when they were around other people, because he knew nothing would set her off faster than laying down the law in public.

  Getting up from the futon, Harper grabbed one of his spare sweatshirts and pulled it on. She never understood how he stayed so hot all the time. The air had to have been turned down to fifty degrees. She loved his scent, which was almost nothing at all, since Lucas rarely wore cologne and used minimal products when he came to work. Whatever it was gave her comfort. She knew she was about to embark on her first real punishment.

  When he did finally come back in, Harper was curled up on her side, playing a game on her phone, popping up as soon as the door opened.

  “Is everything all right?” she asked.

  “Of course, baby girl.”

  He leaned over and gave her a kiss. Sometimes she wished he did angry more demonstratively. Tender kisses confused her brain.

  “Why?” he asked, slightly puzzled.

  “You were gone too long just to be locking up.”

  “I would think you wouldn’t be in such a hurry, miss.”

  “Funny, but—”

  “I was setting up for the board meeting tomorrow, so we don’t have to come in so early.”

  Harper went into imagination overdrive. Did that mean he anticipated things being so bad that night that they’d both need to sleep in late? That could not mean good things for her backside. What concerned her more was what it could mean for their relationship. If things went too badly, would he leave or would she? Harper could distinctly remember her parents’ rare battle of wills and the energy in the house being suffocated by the blanket of too formal speech or awkward silence. It wasn’t the way things were with Lucas, and it turned out that Harper enjoyed the peace and stability it offered. She would only admit it to Lucas, but she also knew that her mother and Cliff steered clear of the silent treatment and one-upmanship. Her only hope was that submission to Lucas was within her. She didn’t want to disappoint him.

  “You all packed up?” he asked as he gathered his things. He looked over and noticed the sweatshirt. “Got cold again.”

  “Yes, to both things. I’ll make sure I bring it back tomorrow.”

  “All right, let’s get out of here.”

  “Lucas, before we go, I just want you to know I did think about what you said, and I’m sorry about climbing the rack and the flip mouth commentary. Foolish call on my part.”

  “Poor choice on your part, but nothing about you is foolish, Harp. And I don’t want to talk about this anymore until we get home.”

  “Yes, Lucas.”

  He took her hand and led her out.

  Knowing she was utterly ravenous most nights, Lucas wanted to make sure his girlfriend had dinner before their talk. She followed him to the kitchen, not sure what to say, so she sat at the counter as he rummaged through the refrigerator. Lucas was a far better cook than Harper. She had lived on her own since the day she went off to college and never saw the need to cook, when eating out was so much easier and involved a lot less clean up. She did enjoy baking and cooking the rare specialty dish, but daily meals were not in her wheelhouse. The beauty of their relationship was that they weren’t locked into gender roles, per se. Lucas cooked because he liked doing it, and he preferred the healthy meals he made to eating out all the time. His mom had taught him and his brother to cook alongside his sister because she had told him that marriage wasn’t a guarantee and she wouldn’t be stocking his fridge for the rest of his life. The nuns had tried the same rationale on Harper, but she didn’t experience the same takeaway. Perfect muffin tops and dividing an egg properly weren’t life goals she aspired to at any point.

  Leaving her condo had been a no-brainer, two months prior. Lucas was renting a four-bedroom house that was at least twenty minutes closer to the theatre, so most days they were able to go to work together, which saved them a fortune on gas. Right before the spring production that brought her back to the theatre closed, his roommate got engaged. They didn’t know it was because his girlfriend was already three months pregnant, but the shotgun wedding worked in their favor. Harper was moved in the week following the ceremony. She held onto the condo, thinking that at some point renting it would be smart. It was paid for, and there wasn’t a need to sell it. So she locked it up and put dealing with it on the back burner.

  “What do you have a taste for, baby girl?” Lucas could tell she’d been lost in faraway thoughts, but he didn’t know what they were and he didn’t have any need or desire to pry. Everyone needed little mental comforts.

  “You,” she said sweetly, adding in her goofy, waggling, suggestive eyebrows.

  “Harper.”

  Lucas felt confident that what he initially saw on her face was more honest Harper than what he was hearing. Not that the sex with them wasn’t hot or their desire waning in any way. He had zero issue physically responding to the love of his life, but it wasn’t the time to get sidetracked. He needed to be task-focused for the both of them. Contrary to what she believed, he wasn’t thrilled abou
t what was about to happen, either.

  “I’m not hungry, Lucas. Riley and I shared a huge salad during the break at rehearsal. Can we please get this talk out of the way?”

  Lucas placed both of his, suddenly gigantic in appearance, hands on the countertop and leaned in toward his love.

  “I’m not about to force dinner on you, but we both know you’re going to be hungry later.”

  She could only stare at him, giving no sign of agreement or disagreement.

  “Fine,” he said. “Go get ready for bed, Harper, and no drawing out the process. It will not serve you. When you’re done, have a seat on the bed and wait for me.”

  Her huffy sigh was an auto response to his sudden rigid requirements. She’d had enough of the be a good girl routine.

  “I swear I don’t need to do any more thinking, Lucas.”

  “What you don’t need to do is be defiant right now, Harper. Go.”

  He watched her slide off the stool and mopey-walk to their bedroom. Leaning back on the edge of the counter, Lucas gathered his thoughts and nerve. He’d been the one stalling. After setting up the space for the morning meeting and double checking every door before going back to his office and the fact that she hadn’t wanted dinner meant he was out of options. He was going to have to go through with the first intense spanking of their relationship. The short spanks here and there were easy. The sexy spankings they both enjoyed, but this wasn’t going to be like either of those. This was when being able to pick up the phone and call his dad would’ve been ideal. Of course, knowing his father, he wouldn’t have given Lucas an out, anyway. Instead, he would only confirm what his son already knew; not following through would be more damaging to their relationship than a spanking. Words were nothing without deeds.

  He guzzled a bottle of water before letting the dog out. Rowdy would not respond well to human wailing. Not being much into the kinkier aspects of the lifestyle, Lucas didn’t possess much by way of implements. He was fairly confident his wood-worn hand would do the job, though.

  He almost laughed out loud when he got to their bedroom door. No one could accuse Harper of over thinking things. She sat in the middle of their bed, playing on her phone. He felt like he was getting a glimpse of what she was like as a teenager, willful to her core, but covered in the sweetest sugar.

  “Not the best way to spend this time, Harper.”

  “You didn’t say not to.” She always came back with the snark and a smile.

  “You’re right. I probably should have, though.

  Holding out his hand, Lucas waited expectantly for her to bring it to him. Putting it on the dresser, he walked her back to the bed.

  “Lucas, I promise I won’t do it again. I know seeing me slipping down was scary as hell. I might’ve peed a little, too, but let’s call it a temporary lapse in judgment. Don’t I get one little get out of jail free card?”

  Harper wasn’t exactly pulling away from him, but she was definitely trying to widen the breadth.

  “No,” he said. “Not this time, and absolutely never where your safety is concerned. I don’t want to think about all the bones you could’ve broken. Now, we can go around on this as long as you want, but you should know that every minute spent stalling what I’ve told you is going to happen will add a minute to the time spent over my knee. The choice is yours.”

  “That choice sucks!” Harper scowled, scrunching her face into a pout.

  She was going to exhaust him mentally before he ever got her over his knee. It would be humorous if he didn’t still have the image of her foot slipping off of the shelf and her sliding down the rack as she attempted to grab onto an edge. Inside, he was willing her to not drag it on or make things worse by making him up the ante, because the stalling, the negotiating, and metaphorical foot stomping were setting his teeth on edge and garnering sympathy for her parents.

  “That tone tells me more talking is only going to get you in more trouble. Anything new we need to cover?”

  His asking was a compulsive need to do things right and let them play out the way they had agreed to. She had to come to the decision to submit on her own every time. When things weren’t ratcheted up, they both knew the dynamic worked for them. She even admitted and accepted the part of her that craved the consistency of the discipline. Harper liked to creep up to the line, and often danced all over it, but she needed to know it was there.

  “Nope.”

  “You need to stop going out of your way to be defiant, Harper. You’re more polite in your daily chit-chat with me. You really think answering nope is the way to go?”

  Looking into one another’s eyes, Harper acquiesced physically first and then let out an audible, less frustrated sigh of resignation. She had played all her cards. He was right, and she knew it. Harper was pushing his buttons on purpose. Finally, she relaxed her stance and moved in closer. He patted his lap, and she went over. She wondered if he’d feel the butterflies spinning in her stomach. If she was feeling them, she thought for sure that, standing, he’d be able to see them, too.

  “Why are we here Harper?”

  “Te gusta mi culo sexy en exhibición.”

  “In English and, trust me, it has nothing to do with sex.”

  “You weren’t impressed with my high fly act.”

  That one was met with a swift smack to the back of her thighs, and he wasn’t feeling an ounce of regret regarding the extra sting it left behind.

  “You have any other witty words you want to share?”

  “Ow! Okay, so too soon. Got it, lo siento. No es gracioso.”

  “Try again.”

  He had expected her to give some push back. It wouldn’t be Harper without that, but he needed her to be very clear that he was firmly in charge and setting the tone.

  “I climbed the racks again. I was by myself and didn’t use the ladder or ask for help. I really wasn’t doing it spitefully. It was just an impulse. A reflex action, if you— Ow! That’s too hard, Lucas!”

  Another smack! Damn, his hand was hard.

  “Hopefully the memory of this spanking will better help you control your impulses and reflexes.”

  “¡Ay! Tómalo con calma. Sí, papi!”

  She wasn’t even close to tears, but the spanks packed a lot more power than what she’d been getting in passing. There was no doubt he meant business. It wasn’t that she didn’t take him seriously before, but it felt like he was drawing his own hard line. Focused in on the searing happening on her backside, Harper became acutely aware of the sound. Lucas had stopped lecturing, and now the only audio vibrating off the walls were her cries and the sounds of the impact. Her subconscious was having its own internal dialogue.

  It was just an impulse, right? She didn’t have some sort of impaired psyche that really wanted to feel what a serious punishment would be like, did she?

  Lucas tapped her hip so she would lift a little for him to get her pajama bottoms and panties down. The girl hardly kept clothes on in the house and only ever slept in tank tops and panties, but he guessed self-preservation had kicked in and motivated her to slip on his old University of Arizona flannel bottoms. If he had not been about to redden her backside for scaring a year off his life, he’d have appreciated the look more. She had to wear them cuffed at the top and bottom to get around in them, but she loved them and looked adorable on the rare cold Arizona night.

  Harper reached back in a futile attempt at impeding his clothing removal process. That sting was pretty powerful through her clothes, and she didn’t want to gain any knowledge of how painful it might be without them.

  “I promise I will start from scratch, Harper, if you don’t get those hands back in front of you.”

  He backed it up with a warning swat that felt like anything but. As he resumed the spanking at full throttle, both held to a singular focus. Lucas’ was on getting his point across that endangering her life in any way was utterly unacceptable. Harper’s was on the throbbing, stinging sensation that had settled in her ass and her si
lent vow to not break any more rules. From there out, she was committed to whatever rules he set forth at home or in the theatre.

  The sob that escaped her mouth startled her as much as it did Lucas. He was actually relieved. He knew he needed to bring her to that place of acceptance and remorse, to remove her guilt and clear the slate between them, but her cries had gotten into the depths of his soul. He wasn’t sure he could go much longer if she held on to being stubborn.

  He spent a few moments with his spanking hand resting on her flaming backside. The heat he’d generously created was warming him tip to wrist as well. With a final pat, Lucas went to pull up the sweats and panties. Her little leg flutters were his only indication that she was communicating with him.

  “What’s the matter, baby girl?”

  In a shaky voice laced with lingering sobs, she answered. “Please don’t pull those up. I don’t want anything touching me.”

  “Not even me?” Lucas asked as he sat her up on his lap, keeping her bottom cradled between his legs and not resting on them, Lucas pulled her in close so she could lay her head on his shoulder.

  “Still nothing? Not even this?” he asked massaging her neck just below her hairline.

  “Um, that might be okay. FYI, that was miserable. I really want to be mad at you.”

  “If it weren't, it would hardly serve as motivation to not repeat the behavior. And, I’m glad you aren’t—mad at me, that is.”

  Harper snuggled into his side more without further comment. Kissing her head, Lucas let the silence take over the moment and closed his own eyes. He’d never felt so exhausted. Even disciplining his little sister after his dad passed away hadn’t been that draining. Sure, she was far more provoking, impulsive, and downright misbehaved as a teenager and earned spankings so frequently that he had started to think her behind was made of the same steel as her head. Harper didn’t typically push the boundaries, and their spanking escapades rarely maxed out at such intensity.

  Talking it out and lightly going at it on rare occasions or mixing it in with their sex life was different. As she began to process these distinct emotions and the physical pain caught up to them, the tears began to fall again.