Chapter 2 #2
I thought my promise about consequences had been crystal-clear but I had a funny feeling that she thought I was going to do something intimate and naughty.
Intimate? Check. But we were miles away from naughty.
I trailed my fingers down her spine, starting at the nape of her neck and stopping at her tailbone.
She shivered, her body relaxing under my touch.
I should have clarified. Should have explained.
Instead I cracked my palm off either side of her pajama-covered ass.
“Callum Parrish!” She jerked to a standing position, eyes wild and wide. “What in the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“Exactly what I said I’d do. I’m teaching your bratty little mouth some respect. Get back into position.” If Quinn had been confused about the plan, she was well aware of it now. Her eyebrows knitted together as she stared, her eyes darting from my arms to my eyes again.
“You spanked me!”
“Two swats hardly constitutes a correction. It certainly doesn’t count as a spanking,” I confirmed. “Now bend.”
“I thought you… I thought you meant–”
“Did you really think I was going to fuck you over a hay bale?”
She chewed on her thumbnail as if contemplating the truth. It wasn’t the worst option if she had been thinking of a romp in the barn. Though I had a hard time believing that she thought we were going to have sex on Nana’s kitchen table. Without another word, Quinn placed herself flat again.
“Cat got your tongue, honey? You sure had a lot to say a few minutes ago while you were testing me.”
She seemed thoroughly humbled, but I doubted it was her natural state, at least not what she’d shown me so far. I was fairly certain that we were going to start our days like this for the foreseeable future.
Quinn
I stewed against the table, my ass arched upward as if I couldn’t feel the weight of Callum’s stare against my back.
No, I felt his eyes watching me like a heavy presence without touching me.
When he asked me if I thought he was planning to fuck me over the hay bale in the stable, I felt myself unravel.
It wasn’t fully, but enough that I had nothing worthwhile to say.
“Okay, point’s been driven home. Are we done now?” I tried to pepper irritation into my question despite my annoying arousal. “There’s animals to feed and tasks to be handled,” I muttered as if I had any semblance of self-control left.
“You’ll have plenty of time to do what needs to be done, but you’ll do it wearing my handprints on your ass. Unless you say ‘red’ like a stoplight, we’re going to continue.”
Red? Like a stoplight. I knew what he was referring to, at least from the kinky romance books I read.
I wasn’t experienced in any sort of relationship where spanking was the way to air out grievances, or whatever this was.
But I could handle one spanking. I’d certainly started my morning off under worse conditions.
“So, then why are you stalling?”
Damn it.
My mouth really was writing checks it couldn’t cash.
“I’m aware you’ve been running this place by yourself,” he said, landing several measured smacks on my sit-spots.
I was thankful that I’d selected my thicker cotton pjs though they didn’t diminish the sting completely. I didn’t give him the satisfaction of reacting. “As I’ve said it’s been just fine.”
“I’m not telling you otherwise, I’m simply improving the infrastructure. Rotting fence posts, some financial concerns, and those types of issues.”
Callum slapped his palm against my upper thighs. My cotton pants provided very little cushion there. I peddled my feet in place. “Ow! Those stung.”
“Yeah, sweetheart. I bet they did. A spanking is supposed to leave a reminder. You don’t have to trust me yet, that will come in time. But you will respect me and the role I’ve been given. Starting now.”
“And if I don’t?” I was hardly in a position to argue, but the question flew out of my mouth anyway as if I wasn’t feeling the warmth on my bottom that his palm left there.
“Then I suppose we are going to start our mornings this way,” he said infuriatingly unbothered.
“We most certainly are not!”
“I think adding a small change to your routine will benefit you. Listen carefully,” he said calmly and speaking low against my ear as if he wasn’t peppering my bottom with slaps while he disciplined me.
“I promise that’s about all I can do.”
“You aren’t being corrected for having opinions. This isn’t about beating you into submission because I disagree with you. You’ve decided I’m not worth listening to before I even told you the plan.”
Callum straightened so his weight wasn’t on me any longer.
His assessment wasn’t wrong. Something told me with certainty that he would drive the lesson home whenever I forgot to show the same respect he’d given me.
Even with the stipulation, he could have bulldozed his way onto the ranch and dismantled its very foundation.
Which was a terrible but accurate analogy for what he was doing to me.
I should have allowed his words to marinate but I couldn’t resist.
“It feels like that’s exactly what you are doing, Versace. Making me prostrate myself in front of you while you demand an apology for your eavesdropping on my private conversation.”
“Drop the condescending nickname, short-stack. You say that like I’m a spoiled, presumptuous jerk and nothing more.”
“I’ll stop when you do the same,” I snapped.
“Still so fiery. What would you like me to call you? Hm? Princess? Pixie? Dandelion? Muffin?” He slapped my ass several times in a row without pause.
Once I caught my breath I managed to reply. “I don’t like those nicknames.”
“Mmm. Wait, I know. Spitfire. Must have forgotten that one.”
Callum kneaded his fingers into my sit-spots, and I groaned from the pressure.
“I can live with you calling me ‘spitfire’.” I glanced over my shoulder as Callum leaned across my back, pressing his mouth to the shell of my ear. Goosebumps raised along my skin. I hated how much he turned me on.
“Good. We’ve settled one debate. It’s so much easier to have a conversation when you’re open-minded.”
I didn’t say anything about the ease in which the topics flowed. For reasons I didn’t understand, him keeping me bent over the table with one sinful-looking forearm pressed into the small of my back kept me grounded. “Fine, Callum. Consider it settled. What shall I refer to you as?”
“I prefer you call me ‘Sir’ or ‘Daddy’.”
“In your dreams, Versace.”
He hummed in satisfaction, which didn’t logically click until he traced his fingers down my back, stopping at my hip.
Before I could process what he was doing, Callum yanked my pajamas to my thighs along with my unfashionable but sensible granny-panties.
I hadn’t been thinking about him seeing them this early in our connection.
If I had, the sexy pink thong in the back of my drawer would have been my first choice.
How embarrassing!
He struck my ass hard. Slow, measured slaps with long pauses in between while I whimpered and moaned.
Stupid moans of pleasure formed as a direct result of his actions.
I should have been more embarrassed, but I wasn’t.
Not when I liked the way he handled me. Fuck.
Was I falling for him? It certainly felt like it.
Who was I kidding, I’d fallen for him long ago.
“Okay! Okay! In your dreams, Sir!” I protested weakly even though I raised the volume of my voice. At least it was loud against the table. “I won’t call you Versace anymore.”
“Such a good girl,” he said, massaging my ass.
Callum fixed my granny panties, tugging them up to my hips, repeating the process with my pajamas while I relearned how to breathe.
He carefully shifted me around, lifting me to sit on top of the table.
I let him because my brain wasn’t quite ready to make sense of it all.
His hand cupped my cheek, tilting upward so I had to focus on him which was likely intentional.
I felt tears pooling, but I blinked them away.
The overwhelm from earlier faded into something deeper.
Callum reminded me in a tone which brooked no argument that he’d start every morning this way if it would get us on the same page.
“Are you all right, spitfire?” His thumb stroked my jaw.
No, I was absolutely not all right. Not when I was sitting on Nana’s table with his handprints on my ass, or at least it felt like he’d left his mark.
Not when my whole world was still spinning on its axis.
Nana was my support system all rolled into one person.
And without her, everything seemed to be too much.
Sure, I had amazing friends, a whole group of them.
They loved me, but I didn’t have a mentor or any family.
I’d lost my mother when I was three years old.
My father did the best he could, raising me until he unexpectedly passed in my pre-teens.
My aunt couldn’t be bothered and simply signed over custody to Nana and Tuts without so much a glance back.
It had been hard when we lost Tuts, but without Nana my world crashed.
Maybe that’s all this was, longing for stability.
I missed them and Callum reminded me of them.
He had Nana’s eyes. That’s what I told myself as I lost myself in them.
“I’ll be all right, Sir.” The title flew out again since my body felt like it was wide open and pouring out vulnerabilities faster than I could stop it.
He continued his gentle stroking along my cheek, the same way he’d done with Glimmer. He studied my face for a minute then dropped his hand. “French toast or eggs?”
The question was so normal. Like he hadn’t spanked the daylights out of me at six in the morning on a weekday. “Uh, what?”
“Breakfast,” he said, already moving toward the fridge. “You need fuel before you dive into your tasks. French toast is my specialty. Especially with Nana’s sourdough. But if you want eggs, I can make a pretty mean omelet.”