Chapter 15
Keri
I had known, the moment the words left my mouth, that I was going to be in serious trouble.
The journalist had been insufferable. She’d cornered me at the mayor’s charity gala, the same charity gala that Jaxon had expressly told me was a professional appearance only, the same one he had warned me no fewer than three times to be on my best behavior for.
She’d wedged herself between me and the canapé table with that smug little recorder held up like a weapon and asked me right there in front of half the city’s administration whether I thought it was appropriate for a woman in my position to be publicly involved with a man of Jaxon’s questionable financial influence.
I should have smiled.
I should have excused myself.
I did not do either of those things.
What I did instead, in a voice that carried very clearly over the string quartet and the clinking of champagne flutes, was inform her exactly what I thought of her publication, her research methods, and the particular brand of journalistic integrity she had apparently purchased from a clearance bin somewhere.
By the time I finished, she had gone the color of a poached salmon, and I had the full attention of everyone within a twenty-foot radius.
Jaxon had appeared at my elbow twelve seconds later. I knew because I had counted. His hand had settled firmly at the small of my back, and he had smiled at the journalist with that terrible, pleasant smile that meant absolutely nothing good for anyone, especially for me.
“Darling,” he had said pleasantly, “why don’t we get some air.”
It had not been a question.
The car ride home had been completely silent. Not the comfortable kind. The kind where I knew without the question of a doubt that I had earned a spanking, and a hard one at that.
Now I stood in the center of his study—our study, I corrected myself, because I lived here now—with my hands clasped in front of me and my eyes fixed on the swirling pattern of the rug because looking at him directly was simply not something I was capable of at the moment.
“Do you want to tell me what that was?” he said.
His voice was even. Quiet. That was worse than if he had been angry.
“She was being provocative,” I said, which was true.
“She was doing her job,” he replied.
“Her job is to insinuate that I only have my position because I’m sleeping with—”
“Keri.”
Just my name. That was all. One word, and my sentence died in the back of my throat. My bottom clenched and a surge of worry hurtled through me.
What came next was going to hurt.
I pressed my lips together and stared at the rug.
“Look at me, little girl.”
The air went out of my lungs. I hadn’t expected the shift in his tone, the kind of voice that made my spine go straight and my stomach turn over with a feeling I was never going to admit out loud. Slowly, I lifted my eyes.
He was seated on the couch. He had taken off his jacket and set it aside, and his shirtsleeves were rolled halfway up his forearms. He was watching me with that familiar concerning expression…
The one that meant he had already decided exactly what was going to happen and was simply waiting for me to arrive at the same conclusion.
“I’m sorry,” I said. Which I was. Somewhat. At least sorry enough that I was probably going to get my bottom spanked very, very shortly.
“Are you?”
“I said I was.”
“What you are,” he said, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees, “is proud and impulsive and entirely too quick to let your temper make your decisions for you.” He paused. “And you know that.”
My jaw tightened.
He was right and I hated that he was right.
“She had it coming,” I muttered.
“That may be true,” he said. “But I told you specifically what tonight required of you. Didn’t I.”
It wasn’t a question.
“Yes, Daddy,” I heard myself say, and I hated the way the word softened the tightening in my chest even as my chin stayed stubbornly elevated.
“Three times,” he continued. “I told you.”
“I know.”
“And you agreed. You promised me.”
“I know.”
“Look me in the eye and tell me that you don’t deserve to be taken over my knee.”
My face went red hot. I held his gaze for exactly four seconds before my eyes dropped back to the rug.
“I didn’t say I didn’t deserve it,” I muttered. “I said she had it coming.”
The silence that followed was long enough to make my palms damp.
“Come here, little girl. Right now.”
Every muscle in my body went rigid. I recognized the feeling, the same electric charge that ran through me every single time, no matter how many times it happened, no matter how well I thought I knew what was coming.
My pride reared up stubbornly and told me to hold my ground, but my body was already moving toward him.
I stopped in front of him and tried not to look at his hands.
I looked at his hands.
He had beautiful hands. Large, with long fingers, and a certain quality of stillness to them that was entirely deceptive. I knew exactly what those hands were capable of and the knowledge sent a flush racing from my collar to my hairline.
“You embarrassed yourself tonight,” he said quietly. “You embarrassed me. And most important, you did something you had given me your word you wouldn’t do. Which of those concerns you the most?”
“The last one,” I said, and the words surprised me with how honest they were.
He held out his hand, palm up.
“Then you know what comes next, little girl.”
I stared at his palm. My heart was hammering. My clit had been pulsing, traitorously, since approximately the moment he had said little girl and I despised my own body for it with a fury that had nowhere reasonable to go.
“I don’t want it to hurt,” I whined.
“I know you don’t.”
“Can’t you just—”
“No.”
I exhaled. The sound was more defeated than I intended.
Slowly, I reached for his hand. His fingers closed around mine and he guided me gently but without any negotiation, pulling me forward until my knees bumped the edge of the couch cushion.
He reached for the zipper at the back of my dress, sliding it down with an unhurried ease that made my breath catch, and then he drew the fabric carefully off my shoulders.
“Hands on your head,” he said.
I laced my fingers together at the back of my skull and stared at the wall as he reached behind me and unclasped my bra.
He drew the straps down my arms without ceremony, his touch entirely matter of fact even as my face burned.
When his thumbs hooked into the waistband of my panties, I made a small and very undignified sound.
“Daddy—”
“You know the rules,” he said simply.
He drew them down slowly, stopping to study them, and I knew before he said anything what observation was coming.
“Look at the wet spot you’ve left for me, naughty girl,” he murmured, and his tone was so precisely measured between scolding and satisfaction that I wanted to disappear through the floor.
He folded my underwear and set it deliberately on the arm of the couch where I would have to look at it.
My inner thighs were slick. The air in the room was warm and still and I was completely bare, trembling slightly, and furious at myself for getting myself into this situation in the first place.
“Place your hand in mine,” he said.
This was always the moment. The one where my feet wanted to carry me in the opposite direction and my hand moved toward him anyway. I always wanted to run, but I always ended up bare and over his knee anyway.
His grip was firm and steady as he drew me over his lap. He arranged me with my hips high, my bottom positioned exactly where he wanted it, one arm caught lightly behind my back and held there. I pressed my free hand against the couch cushion and stared at the fabric.
For a long moment, he simply rested his palm on the curve of my bare bottom. It was warm. Heavy. Patient. Far too big for my little bottom.
“You gave me your word tonight,” he scolded me.
“Yes, Daddy,” I whispered, finally starting to feel guilty for the first time.
“When you give me your word, what does that mean?”
I swallowed. “It means I keep it.”
“And when you don’t?”
My pussy clenched hard and I hated myself for it. “It means I’ve been naughty and… and you spank me very hard.”
My voice got a little smaller with every word.
“That’s right, little girl.” His palm lifted. “Daddy’s going to make sure you remember what your word is worth.”
The first spank cracked across my left cheek, and I gasped at the sound of it even before the sting fully registered.
It was sharp and loud and shocking in the quiet room.
The second landed on the right side. He built a rhythm quickly, his hand finding the same spots again and again with a methodical precision, leaving no part of my bottom untouched.
I breathed through the first dozen spanks with my teeth clenched and my pride wrapped firmly around me like armor.
Then he moved to the lower curve of my bottom.
“Oh—” I bit back the rest of the sound.
“You’re going to stay still for me,” he said, continuing steadily.
“I’m trying,” I gritted out.
“Try harder, little girl.”
His palm cracked down on the same spot twice in quick succession and my hips lurched forward despite every effort to hold still.
He held me more firmly, his other arm bracing across my lower back, and I felt the futility of resistance settle over me like a weight. I wasn’t going anywhere. I never did.
“Do you understand why we’re here, little girl?”
“Because I lost my temper,” I managed.
“Because you made a promise and broke it.” He spanked me even harder. It wasn’t vicious, but impossibly firm, and my breath left me in a rush. “Because you decided in the moment that your pride mattered more than your word.”
“It wasn’t—I was defending—”
Two very hard spanks, low enough to make my toes curl.
“You will not argue with me while I’m punishing you,” he said, his voice perfectly level.
“Yes, Daddy,” I gasped.