by Jane Henry
The day passes in a blur. I stand beside my brothers when we witness Nolan and Sheena take their vows at Holy Family Church before we head back to the McCarthy house. It’s been decorated with lavish bouquets of flowers, many cut right here from the gardens and greenhouses on the estate. We watch Nolan and Sheena take their first dance, then Keenan and Caitlin join them. Cormac and Aileen come next, and I realize all the men of the Clan are taking the dance floor.
It’s my chance.
Megan’s sitting with Breena, and her eyes are a little wistful. But there are others at the table, Sheena’s sister Fiona and a mate of hers. Breena will be alright for a minute.
I want that woman on my arm, and I want her now.
“Fancy a dance, Megan?” I ask her.
I don’t know what I’m thinking, what I’m doing. She’s the cousin of my Clan brothers, almost like family.
But she isn’t my family.
She stands and flushes again. “Would love a dance, thanks,” she says. I take her hand. It’s soft and smooth, delicate and small in my larger, rougher one.
It’s just a dance, I tell myself. No harm can come from a dance. And it’s what’s expected right now.
Everyone’s dancing.
But Jesus, it isn’t just a dance.
When I slide my hand along her lower back, easing her to step in time with the others, her warm, voluptuous curves are pressed against me. Her arms encircle my neck. She’s trembling.
“You alright?” I whisper in her ear.
She isn’t the timid type. Megan’s bold and determined, outspoken and brazen. But now… right now, as we’re waltzing to the sounds of music being filtered through speakers, when I’m holding her, and we’re thrust into the intimacy of the moment… right now, she actually seems a little nervous.
“Fine,” she says, her voice a husky whisper. “I just…” her voice trails off, and I realize she’s been drinking. She swoons a little. I draw her closer, holding her up to me.
I lean down and whisper in her ear. “Just what? Are you drunk, lass?”
She giggles, the cutest damn thing I’ve ever heard. “Wee bit.”
“Mmm,” I say with disapproval. “So you’ve been naughty, have you?”
What am I doing?
This isn’t me. I’m shamelessly flirting with my Clan brothers’ cousin, right here under their noses. But hell, I’ve been lost in months and months of misery following Eve’s death. I’ve pushed myself to be the father Breena deserves, the man of the Clan I’ve been taught to be.
For one damn night I want to forget my responsibilities, my jobs. For one night, I want to be a man with a beautiful woman on his arm.
I’m not the man set on vengeance, who’s given up damn near everything, who’s vowed to give up even more to set the world back to rights.
She isn’t the family cousin, protected by law and Clan code, her very role setting her apart from all others and dangerous as dynamite.
We aren’t two star-crossed lovers.
I’m just a bloke with a lovely woman, dancing in the garden.
Her eyes are closed and her cheek’s pressed to my chest. I dance her away from the others, to the outskirts of the dance floor, underneath the twinkling white fairy lights in the garden.
“I have,” she whispers back. “Naughty indeed.”
She’s much smaller than I am, so she has to look up to me. When she meets my gaze, there’s challenge in her eyes, tempered with a flirtatious grin. Christ, she’s stunning. “And what would you do about that?”
Something clicks then. It’s like the shutting of a door, the clanging of a gavel. It isn’t even a voluntary choice, as I press my palm against the sweet dip in her lower back, bend, and whisper in her ear.
“I’d teach you to behave yourself.”
She shivers, her voice a hoarse whisper. “How?”
I’m going all in. I’m diving off the cliff into the endless ocean below.
“I’d take you back to my place,” I tell her, whispering so it’s just the two of us, an outward dance to others but the dance of seduction between us. “And take you across my knee for being a naughty girl.”
She’s panting, her chest heaving against mine as I continue to draw the picture.
“I’d take down your knickers. Those would only get in the way, you see.”
It’s only one sound, one syllable, her low, seductive, mmm, but it’s a goddamn turn-on. She feels this, too. She wants this. Hell, maybe she even needs it, just like I do.
“Of—of what?” she whispers.
“The good, hard spanking you deserve.”
“I believe you could do that,” she whispers. “There’s a hardness about you, Carson.”
“Oh?”
“Aye,” she whispers, and when she shivers again at the chilly breeze off the water, I draw her closer. “And I… like it.”
The rest of the party passes in a blur of toasts and cocktails, food and dancing, but we’ve crossed a line. I know what’s going to happen tonight. She does, too.
I hear her telling Aileen she’ll help me with Breena tonight, as if she needs an alibi or something for not going back to the mansion.
Breena’s half asleep by the time we get back to my flat, and I carry her in on my shoulder. I open the door, bring her to her bedroom, and Megan helps her get into her jammies. Breena’s snoring before we even shut the door.
We’re still dressed in our formal clothes, but we’ve wilted from the day’s events. Still, even with her hair disheveled and her makeup faded, her dress a little wrinkled, standing barefoot in the vacant hallway because she kicked her heels off ages ago, she’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.
I can’t think of Eve, can’t compare her.
I was a different man then.
I haven’t been with a woman since… I can’t think of it. If I do, I won’t go through with this, and I need this. We both do.
All this time, I was mired in grief and pain, and this gorgeous woman’s been right under my nose. But I didn’t see her, then. I couldn’t see anything but darkness and pain. I’m not sure what’s changed.
I take her hand and walk her to my room.
“A drink?” I offer.
“Aye, bring the bottle,” she mutters.
She sounds a little nervous, jittery. And for the first time, a little voice in my mind whispers, Good.
I’m glad she’s afraid.
It’s far too dangerous for her if she isn’t, if she thinks I’m one of the good guys.
It’s better for her if she fears me. If she knew what I’ve done, what I’m capable of, she might run. She can’t get too close to me. If she fell for my seduction, I could harm her.
But hell, I want this woman.
We pour Jameson into shot glasses in silence. Holding each other’s gazes, we each drink a shot.
Then another.
Then another.
I take her shot glass out of her hand, slide it on the bedside table, then go to draw her onto my lap.
To my surprise, she pushes me away. “No,” she says, shaking her head. “I’m too heavy to sit on your lap.”
I frown at her. Women are literally crazy about this one thing.
“You are not.” I reach for her hair, weave my fingers through the tangled waves that have come loose, and pull her head back. “I don’t ever want to hear you say anything like that again.”
I pull her onto my lap, and she pushes my hand away, but I cuff her wrist with my fingers and restrain her.
Before she can respond, I kiss her. Our mouths part and she’s moaning, or maybe I am. I’ve lost track of where her breath begins and mine ends. She tastes seductive and sweet, like cream-laced berries, and the soft, sensual feel of her mouth with mine makes me hard. She squirms on my lap, resisting, but I know it isn’t because she doesn’t want this. She truly thinks she’s too heavy.
Megan’s curvy and voluptuous, an Irish Marilyn Monroe, but hell I fucking love her full, voluptuous figure.
“Carson,” she pants when we stop kissing for a moment. “I may need another drink.”
“You have another drink, you won’t leave here tonight.”
She bites her lip, and my dick grows hard just watching her. She makes her decision. “I can deal with that.”
I pour her another shot, and one for me. Holding my gaze, she swigs it. I join her.
“Okay,” she says with a nod, like she’s just decided to take up a new hobby or go back to school. “And now I’m ready… I think.”
I grin at her. “Ready for what?”
She swallows hard. “My—my spanking. You said you were—”
But I don’t need her to finish. She’s given me the green light.
Wordlessly, I reach for the zipper of her dress.
“No!” she says. She grabs my wrist to stop me.
“No what?” I frown at her, while I detach her fingers from my wrist. Oh, no, we don’t play that way.
“You can’t… you can’t take my clothes off.”
I look at her in total shock. I can’t take her clothes off? How does she think two people are supposed to fuck?
“Are we on two different pages here?” I ask, unable to keep my voice from being harsh, stern.
She shrugs. “I don’t know. I came here for a reason tonight and hoped that you would, too?”
“Which was…” I prompt. “Tell me the reason.”
She smiles, swallows hard, then says all in a rush, “One-night stand.”
Okay, so that’s step one.
“Aye. Then how do you propose we do that with your clothes on?”
“In the dark,” she says, her eyes wide and bright with conviction. “Under the covers.”
“No,” I tell her. “You’re not hiding from me.”
She opens her mouth to protest again, but I hold my finger to her lips.
“Do you trust me?”
She shouldn’t. She sure as fucking hell shouldn’t.
But still, she nods her head.
“Good,” I say with approval. “Now take off your dress and put yourself over my knee for your spanking.”
Chapter 4
Megan
This can’t be happening.
I’m absolutely, positively, plastered. The words he’s saying are far off in the distance, and yet at the same time, they’re somehow magnified. Everything’s heightened. My pulse races, my body trembles, and my thighs clench together of their own accord at the hard sound of his voice.
I feel like I’ve been seduced by Superman.
By the dark-haired, dominant, kinky as fuck, stern sex god of a man who’s fooled everyone with his wire-rimmed glasses and studious drive for perfection. He’s Clark Kent come to life. I take those glasses off, and he becomes a god-like superhero.
Oh, I am so totally off my fucking nut.
But I do it. I let him unzip my dress and no man has ever done that before.
I’ve had sex, and lots of it, but always on my terms. Lights off. Under the covers. You don’t see me, and you can do whatever you want, but you don’t undress me. I’m too… fluffy. Curvy. And men don’t like curvy girls like me.
But I love sex, and that’s a fucking enigma, so I’ve learned how to do it.
Dress up the curves. Bring them back to my flat. Shut off the lights and kiss under the covers. Send them home the next day, no strings attached, because after we’ve had our orgasms it’s better to move along.
No commitment. No rejection. No heartbreak.
I blink at Carson, who’s now crossed the line and taken me to where no man has before.
I’m the one in charge. I’m the one who leads the way. But since this morning, he’s stepped into that role, and I… think I like it.
“Now put yourself over my knee for your spanking.”
I’ve wanted this. I’ve fantasized about just this.
To be dominated and punished, at the hands of a man who’ll take control. By a man who won’t cave to my demands just to get into my knickers. To feel the heat of a man’s palm on my body.
The other girls have told me about this, how they love the loss of control. How deliberate pain can heighten awareness, stimulate desire, intensify orgasms. And I didn’t need them to tell me. I’m no stranger to a well-used vibrator, and my thoughts go to kinky, dark places with ease.
But no fantasy matches reality.
No one tells you how hard it is. When someone gives you exactly what you’ve craved, exactly what you need, how scary it is when it comes to the actual submission. I told him I needed another drink, but I lied. I didn’t need another drink. I think I might need a lobotomy or something.
So when he orders me, I don’t move. I can’t. I physically cannot bring myself to wriggle my plump body over his lap. If I do, I’ll… jiggle.
And what if he sees me jiggle?
He cannot see me jiggle.
So I don’t tell him no. I don’t fight him or talk back. I don’t do anything but stare at him in stupid fucking silence. I’m so turned on, a good gust of air will make me come, and yet there I am, on his lap with an unzipped dress.
A beat passes, then two, and I stare into the depths of his gorgeous, mesmerizing eyes. There’s darkness in those depths, like the facets of obsidian. They glitter, making me shiver. Finally, he’s had enough.
With a scowl that makes my tummy flip, he bends and grabs my hair in his fist. A tug sends an erotic tremor of pain down my scalp.
“Do I need to make you?”
The hardness of his voice makes my pulse race.
Yes.
Oh holy fuck, yes I need him to make me.
I manage to snap out of my frozen trance with a sort of nod, though I’m sure it isn’t at all graceful and elegant but looks like the bobbing head of a turkey or something. Still, he gets the message.
He reaches for my zipper and yanks the rest of it down. My dress falls off my shoulders. I look down at the top of my chest, and so far, it isn’t that bad. So far all you can see is my best feature, my full breasts spilling out of my ivory satin bra. He pauses in disrobing me, bends his head to my chest, and kisses first one breast, then the next, before he sinks his teeth into my flesh.
My head falls back and erotic pulses of heat flash between my legs.
“Bad little girls get punished, Megan,” he says, shaking his head.
I don’t respond, because my tongue is literally frozen.
We’ve come to the part that terrifies me. I need him to do more, to… bite me again or something, anything to distract me from the awful fear that grips me at the thought of being naked in front of him. To my shock and awe, he takes the satin edge of my dress with his teeth and drags it down my body.
My mind comes to a stuttering, terrified halt.
He can see my belly, easily my worst feature, all dimples and valleys and curves. I reach my hands out to stop him involuntarily. I can’t speak, I’m that frozen and terrified, but I can stop him from undressing me.
At least I think I can. When my hand reaches his wrist, he freezes, his jaw clenches, and he gives me another stern look that makes my sex pulse.
“Are you trying to stop me?” he asks, quirking an eyebrow up at me like a stern professor.
“My belly,” I breathe stupidly. His frown deepens, and to my surprise, he reaches for his necktie. In one fluid motion, he unfastens the knot, tugs it, and whips it off. In the next moment, my wrists are secured in front of me with his knotted tie.
Oh, Jesus.
Once I’m secured, he finishes the bloody job, just yanks my dress off like a child unwrapping a Christmas present. He gently pushes me to my feet, slithers the fabric right down the length of my body until it hits my ankles, then he wads it into a ball and tosses it to the corner of his room.
I’m so exposed. So vulnerable. I begin to tremble a little.
Now my thighs, those aren’t as bad as the belly. They’re full alright, again dimpled and… well, thick, but there’s a little birthmark in the uppe
r left corner of one, which might be kind of sexy if you squint. And… well, I do have nice ankles.
But my appraisal of my body is short-lived, because then I realize with absolute horror that he’s going to draw me over his lap again. He pats his knees.
“Up you go.”
And then I’m sitting in his lap, my arse grazing his thighs, and I’m wearing nothing but a bra and knickers.
With the lights on.
And this is a first of mammoth proportions.
But before I can think… before I can protest… before I can make a plan that will shelter me from the rejection that’s sure to come… he begins.
First, my shoulders. His large, warm, calloused palms glide to my shoulders, holding me, his eyes roaming hungrily over my body. I can’t mistake that look for approval. I know better. But maybe he’s as drunk as I am and doesn’t see the truth.
He brings his mouth to my right shoulder, leaving warm, erotic, fluttering kisses along my naked skin. He drags his mouth from my shoulder across my chest, pausing to lap at my collarbone, before he brings his mouth to the left and worships the other side.
Worships. Legitimately, truly worships my body.
He turns me on his lap so I’m facing him, removes my bra, then kisses and licks and nibbles at my breasts, as he weighs them in his hands. When his mouth travels lower to my belly, he pinches my nipples, keeping me fully heightened and aware. I move my hands to stop him when he reaches my belly, and even squirm my body to try to get away from him. It’s uncomfortable. I feel so exposed, like someone’s shining a spotlight on my flaws. But it isn’t until I try to move that I remember my wrists are tied and I can’t get away.
I bite my lip.
I’m not going to ruin this. I’m not.
Maybe he’s drunk enough he’ll forget my body’s imperfections later. Maybe he’ll have such an amazing, earth-shattering orgasm that he’ll forgive my flaws. Maybe he’ll… oooohhh.
My internal protests come to a stuttering halt at the feel of his hands moving up and down the length of my body.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” he says in a hoarse whisper. “Jesus, Megan, you’re bloody fucking perfect.”
