Chapter 17
CHAPTER 17
Eliza popped up from her chair, stomping her way past Mr. Chambers. “This is ridiculous.”
“Enough.” Samuel landed a hard swat to her bottom, shocking a squeal from her. “You have already earned yourself a very serious punishment for lying to your Daddy. I suggest you don’t make it worse by disrespecting Director Chambers right in front of me.”
“Yes, Sir,” she grumbled, doing her best to not cross the line into “disrespectful” again, though she was feeling anything but respectful toward either of them at the moment.
Why couldn’t they see she hadn’t meant to be naughty? She really had just forgotten her homework and she’d been so panicked about getting into trouble for it, she hadn’t thought through the ramifications of copying Reese’s homework.
But nobody seemed interested in her opinion on the matter, which was making it very difficult to accept her punishment with any kind of grace.
“Cheating is a very serious offense, Miss Bennett,” Mr. Chambers began once they were in his office with the door closed. “One that could result in expulsion from Rawhide University depending on the circumstances.”
She could feel the color draining from her face at his words. “Expelled?”
“Yes.” Mr. Chambers paused, letting the implication hang heavy in the air. “Luckily for you, I hesitate to call what you did ‘cheating’. It’s not against the rules for students to help each other with their homework. But you are old enough to understand the difference between working together on an assignment and simply copying down the answers.”
Relief warred with her feelings of injustice. “I guess. Sir,” she added with a yelp when Samuel’s hand connected with her bottom again.
Mr. Chambers’ expression softened, just a bit. “Eliza, your purpose here at the University is to learn. Do you think you would have learned anything by merely writing down Reese’s answers versus actually doing the assignment yourself? Even if you’d done the assignment together, you both would have been engaging with the material. Instead, you chose not to do the assignment and then you attempted to hide the fact that you hadn’t done it by copying answers.”
“I didn’t choose not to do it! I forgot. There’s a difference.” Maybe it wasn’t an important difference to them, but it made all the difference in the world to her.
“Did you forget when I asked you if you had any more homework last night?” Samuel asked, and her stomach twisted into those guilty knots she was becoming all too acquainted with lately.
“No, Sir,” she confessed quietly. “I had a plan to do it in the morning, and I figured that was kind of the same thing as having it done already. ”
“That’s a conversation we can have at home. For now, do you understand why you’re being disciplined by Director Chambers?”
“No. I think it’s stupid.”
“Which is it? Do you not understand or do you not agree?” Samuel asked, his tone sharper than she could ever remember hearing it.
“Both.”
“Eliza Jane, I am very quickly running out of patience with this attitude. Go bend over the desk.”
The unfairness of it all crowded in her chest, making it difficult to breathe, to think. “But this is so stupid! It was an honest mistake, I don’t understand why you’re both acting like I committed a fucking felony.”
“That’s ten with the paddle, and you’ve just lost your phone privileges for the rest of the day.” Fury flashed in Samuel’s eyes. “Keep pushing me, little girl.”
Oh, fuck. She really had gone too far. “No! I’ll be good, I swear!”
“It’s far too late for that. Get into position, Eliza.”
Even knowing she’d already overstepped by a good bit, she couldn’t seem to rein herself in. Crossing her arms, she stomped her foot, realizing belatedly she was acting exactly like a bratty Little despite her constant protests that she was not, in fact, Little. “But it’s not fair !”
Something flickered in her guardian’s eyes and for a moment she was certain he was going to force her to take her punishment, one way or another. Instead, his gaze shifted to the man standing behind her. “It seems my Little girl needs some time to get in the right headspace for her punishment. Can we push this back to say, tomorrow at nine?”
Postpone her spanking? What the hell was going on?
“Of course,” Mr. Chambers said with a nod, not looking the least bit surprised by Samuel’s request. “I’ll see you both then.”
“In the meantime, could we borrow your office? And some of your… supplies?”
Mr. Chambers chuckled, and the sound had the hairs on the back of Eliza’s neck rising. “Of course. Feel free to use whatever you need. I’ll give you both some privacy.”
Samuel’s gaze never left Eliza’s face even as Mr. Chambers walked past them and out the door. And then the door shut again, closing her in the office with her very angry looking guardian.
“I’m very disappointed in your behavior today, Eliza.”
Disappointed . The word slammed into her chest making it hard to breathe. Which only made her tighten her folded arms, digging her fingers into her own flesh, the little bites of pain settling her and grounding her as everything inside her threatened to spin out of control. “Okay.”
“For starters, I’m disappointed that you felt the need to lie to me last night instead of telling me you still had an assignment to finish.”
Oh shit. Alarm bells rang in her head. “I didn’t mean for it to be a lie! I was going to do the assignment with Kylie at breakfast but then we ended up talking and I just forgot about it.”
“I understand all that. But that doesn’t negate the fact that you lied right to my face when I asked if your homework was finished last night. And then trying to copy someone else’s homework instead of simply admitting your error. Which I honestly would not be that upset about if you had done the responsible, Big girl thing and accepted your punishment. Instead, you chose to be rude and defiant. You’ve been a very naughty Little girl, Lizzie.”
“I wasn’t trying to be naughty! You’re just not listening .”
“No, Lizzie. I listened. I understand that you don’t think it’s fair, but the fact remains that you broke a school rule. You also broke one of our rules when you lied to me. Whether you meant to or not, whether you think it’s ‘fair’ or not, you earned a punishment. A punishment you refused to accept.”
Something big was coming. She could feel it. “So what are you gonna do?”
“Since you don’t seem to want to be a Big girl today and accept responsibility for your actions, I’m going to treat you exactly how you’ve been acting. Starting with taking your Big girl panties off and putting you in something more appropriate for a cranky toddler. Luckily, Director Chambers keeps his office stacked with diapers for his own Little girl.”
Panic clawed at her chest, and for a moment she thought she might actually pass out. “No, you can’t! I don’t want to wear a diaper!”
“Are you adding it to your hard limits?”
Goddammit. She should have known that would be his answer.
And for a moment, she was tempted. More tempted than she had been by anything she’d ever experienced at the Ranch.
But she couldn’t bring herself to say it. “No. It’s not a hard limit.”
“Then you’re going to wear a diaper for the rest of the day. I’ll bring a couple extras with me in case you need to be changed later.”
“I can’t go to the library in a diaper. Please, it’s too embarrassing.”
“My naughty Little Lizzie. I have no intention of allowing you to spend the day in the library, unsupervised.”
“You don’t?” It should have been a relief. But something about his tone of voice told her the worst was still to come .
“No. Naughty babies don’t get such freedoms. You’re going to sit at Daddy’s desk while he teaches the rest of his classes. If you need to potty, you can use your diaper and Daddy will take you to the bathroom to change you afterward.”
There it was. Fuck.
“Samuel, please.” Her voice was barely a whisper. “I won’t ever lie to you again, I swear .”
“I certainly hope not. And we can discuss that particular issue in more depth once we get home. And I hope for your sake that you are in a much better headspace by then, or else it’s going to be a very long night for you. Now, lie down on the couch so Daddy can get these Big girl panties off his naughty Little girl’s bottom.”