Slender as she was, Miranda was also strong, and her incredible experience showed when she raised Ana's skirts up out of the way and took her underwear down, baring the pale curves of her bottom. Even though she'd asked for this, it was sheer nervous reflex that made Ana reach back. Miranda caught her wrist, and then in a move that sucked the startled air right out of her lungs, she scissored Ana's legs between her own, pinning them down. To prevent her from kicking, Ana realized, and that was a scary thought too. It was one thing to ask for this, to know what she needed was as far from gentleness as Miranda could give her, and something completely different to experience it for the very first time.
'It won't be nice,' Miranda had said, and she was right. From the very first crisp snap of that brush when it bit into the fullest swell of Ana's right nate, it was the most painful thing of her life. Once upon a time, back when her life had centered around Peyton and needing to hide her spanking fetish, she had liked to troll the internet, collecting memes that she hid on her laptop in a file marked, 'Plants to buy'. Her favorite of those for the longest time had been one that said simply, 'A real spanking doesn't start until you wish it were over.' Miranda must have seen the same meme, because she took Ana, from her first breathless gasp at the unbelievable sting of it, all the way to kicking, bucking and shouting, then pleading, then finally just sobbing within only a handful of spanks. It truly was the Bad Ana hairbrush, and it was awful. And if Ana had anything to say about it, she would never, ever need to be on the receiving end of its fiery brand of penitence again. Even if that meant she was good as gold for the rest of her life.
"You're a good girl," Miranda said, from somewhere above and beyond the pain. "You'll always be my good girl, even when you do naughty things and I have to spank you. And especially when you don't do naughty things, but like now, you still need me to spank you anyway. You're my good girl, Ana," she said, paddling her bottom with that horrible hairbrush until Ana was too worn out to move. All she could do was lie in position, take what Miranda gave her, and weep.
But it was a funny thing. By the time it was over, Ana's bottom was on fire, her eyes were swollen and red from crying, and she could barely hold still when Miranda dragged her upright and made her sit upon the knees she'd just been so soundly spanked over—but as she sat curled in Miranda's soothing embrace, her tears absorbing into the soft cloth of Miranda's shirt and hair, she suddenly became aware that the smothering guilt that had been eating her up inside was gone.
Peace and exhaustion were all that she had left.
In that brief smidgen of time, they were the only two people in the world. The heat in her bottom bloomed, overriding the pain, burning away everything except for the acceptance with which Miranda soothed away her tears. Soft caresses became softer kisses, each one gradually growing in passion until Ana's sobs turned into moans, and the next thing she knew, Miranda's hands were gripping her buttocks, massaging and squeezing, before lifting her up and throwing her down on her back on the sofa.
It had been one of, if not the worst day of her life and yet, in that moment, Ana wouldn't have changed a thing. Not the spanking, because that had absolved her. Not the hell Peyton had put her through, because that had brought her and Miranda so much closer together. It had got them talking. It had brought out the truth, and as the saying so often went, the truth had made them stronger.
EPILOGUE
At 2:07 in the morning, Don's cancer-wearied body finally gave up. At 2:08, when cell phones all over the Castle began to light up with the grim news, Miranda's was the first to receive it.
Reaching over Ana's warm, sleeping body, she read Marshall's simple message—He's gone—and then carefully disengaged herself from the tangle of Ana's arms and legs. She got out of bed, quietly making her way to the bathroom and shutting the door. Sinking down to sit on the side of the tub, she pulled a towel off the rack into her lap, buried her face in the absorbent peach-colored terry cloth, and wept inconsolably. She was still there when Ana found her later that morning.
With her eyes bloodshot, her nose red from crying, and her throat wailed raw, Miranda said, "He's dead."
She could have sworn she had cried every last drop of moisture from her body, but when Ana sank down to sit beside her to wrap her in tight, sympathetic arms, she found she wasn't done after all. Not by half.
Four days later, in a quiet ceremony, Don was buried in a cemetery the next county over. Of his actual family, only his mother attended. As for his Castle family, who had loved and accepted him for years, it took three shuttle buses to bring them all to his gravesite, and it was standing room only by the time they'd all arrived.
"I want to do something," Marshall said, once the brief service was over. "Something like an auction, with all the proceeds being donated in his name to help other cancer victims and their families. What do you think?"
Watching as a heavy tractor lowered the headstone into place, Miranda couldn't speak. Her hands were folded over her stomach to minimize the shaking.
"Miranda?"
"He'd like that," she said, but she found it hard to think of anything beyond the grief. She was teetering on the edge of an abyss of Grand Canyon-sized proportions. The flap of a butterfly's wings could have catapulted her over, but just as she felt herself begin to fall, a tiny hand slipped into the crook of her arm. She looked down, her mouth automatically answering the sad smile Ana gave her.
Resting a hand on her shoulder, Marshall started back to the buses, then changed his mind. "You were special to him. You know that, right?"
Miranda made herself nod, but condolences like that were poor consolation when the loss was still this raw.
She continued to stand there for a long time after almost everyone else had walked away. Two of the buses left. The third, no doubt on Marshall's order, idled patiently until, at a soft tug from Ana and an even softer, "Come on," Miranda at last turned away.
They walked back to the bus together and found a seat to share in the very back. When Ana held out her arm, Miranda—the most experienced and oft-regarded as the most severe Mistress the Castle had ever known—folded her six-foot-two-inch frame so she could lay her head upon her submissive's small shoulder.
"It'll be okay," Ana said into her hair. "I have you now, and it's going to be okay."
"Dispensing comfort is supposed to be my job," she said. Years of watching Don had taught her that. The last two weeks with Ana, however, had shown her she still had a lot to learn.
Ana kissed the top of her head. "When you're ready to take back your Domme mantle, I'll think about letting you."
"Cheeky monkey," Miranda said, her wounded heart lightening just a little. When she held up her hand, Ana took it, letting their fingers interweave as they rocked together, the bus beginning to crawl down the unpaved road toward the blacktop of the street ahead.
"You wouldn't have me any other way," Ana said, bumping her shoulder playfully.
"No." For the first time all day, Miranda's smile lost a shade of its sadness. "No, I wouldn't."
Together, they went home.
The End
Anastasia Vitsky
Anastasia Vitsky is a naughty girl with a wicked sense of humor. She writes F/F spanking stories because she loves a story with a good female disciplinarian. She strives to write stories that speak to our everyday lives now versus the fantasies no one can hope to achieve.
Visit her blog here:
governingana.wordpress.com
Don’t miss these exciting titles by Anastasia Vitsky and Blushing Books!
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Editorial Board
Daughter of Discipline
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Maren Smith
“Hi, I'm Maren. I'm 30, married to a wonderful, dominant man, and have five four–legged children: two dogs and three cats. I love strong, authoritative men–men who are both ready and willing to leave the lady of their choosing red–bottomed and weeping and
for her own good. Writing has given me the wonderful freedom to explore my spanking side without feeling 'weird.' Even better, with the invention of the Internet, I can write what I love and know it will be appreciated by people with the same interests.”
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OTHER BOOKS BY MAREN SMITH
Last Dance for Cadence, Corbin's Bend Book 8
How to Live Without a Man
Something Has to Give
B-Flick
Bippity-Boppity-Boo
Black Sheep
Daughter of the Strong
The Diva
Enemies
The Great Prank
Jinxie’s Orchids
Katy Run Away
Kindred Spirits
Life After Rachel
The Locket
The Miner’s Wife
Mistress
Morogh the Demon
Mountain Man
My Lady Robin Hood
The Next Ex
Saga: Constance’s Story
Spanking Tails I thru X
The Suffragettes
Treasure
Varden’s Lady
Have Paddle, Will Travel
Masters of the Castle Series:
Holding Hannah (Book One)
Kaylee’s Keeper (Book Two)
Saving Sara (Book Three)
Sweet Sinclair (Book Four)
Chasing Chelsea (Book Five)
Owning O
Box Sets:
With Hearts Aflame
Masters of the Castle
The Naughty List
Spanking Tails Vol. 1
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Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Epilogue
About Anastasia Vitsky
About Maren Smith
Ebook Offer
Blushing Books Newsletter
About Blushing Books
Ana Adored: Mistress of the Castle (Masters of the Castle) Page 23
