by Loki Renard
Ms Wright's neatly shaped but graying brows drew together. “You don't seem terribly sorry, Ms Matthews.”
“Because I really don't understand what I'm supposed to have done to you,” Zora replied, bracing herself for the slap she was sure was about to descend on her backside. She was not disappointed. Savage gave her a good hearty smack across both cheeks.
“You made Ms Wright's life very difficult,” Savage explained. “You could have brought down an investigation on her head when you escaped. If Holt had not covered for you, she could have been charged along with you.”
“Well she shouldn't have been,” Zora scowled. “It's not her fault.”
“I was in charge of you, Ms Matthews,” Ms Wright said. “You were my responsibility.”
“Oh,” Zora replied, feeling her guilt levels increasing. “Well, I am sorry about that. I didn't mean for you to get in trouble – not that you actually did.”
“You see, Zora,” Savage said. “It's not just you who gets hurt when you go haring off on your own accord. There are other people to consider.”
“I was considering other people though,” Zora argued. “I was considering you. I was trying to help you.”
“Matthews,” he rumbled down at her. “I don't need your help. I need your obedience.”
“Well that's a pity, because my help is way easier to get.”
He glowered down at her. “You're getting very flip again, Matthews. I'm guessing the sting has worn off your behind.”
“I could remedy that, if you like, Captain Savage,” Ms Wright offered.
“No!” Zora backed away, but Savage caught her easily, his big hand scrunching up in her shirt.
“Yes,” he said. “Please do the honors, Ms Wright.”
“No!” Zora said again, as if she had a choice. Between Savage and Wright, she found herself bent over the high arm of the couch. It was not an uncomfortable physical position, but having her panties pulled down by Ms Wright whilst Savage retired to his favorite armchair to watch, was uncomfortable for a whole lot of reasons. She hid her face in her hands as Ms Wright picked up a thick wooden hairbrush and tapped it against her bare bottom.
“Matthews!” Savage rapped her name sharply. “Look at me!”
Zora looked up at him just as Ms Wright brought the hairbrush down hard. Her mouth opened in an 'O' of pain, and her backside pulsed with the force of the stroke. But all that was secondary to the rush of hot shame that coursed through her body as she looked into Savage's eyes and saw him looking right back at her.
It was one thing to be spanked. It was something else completely to have to make eye contact with Savage whilst she was spanked. She looked away, too embarrassed to maintain their gaze, but he ordered her to lift her head and once more she looked into his eyes as Ms Wright smacked her backside with that devilishly harsh hairbrush.
“Please,” she whimpered after just two strokes. “No more.”
“Oh there will be more, brat,” Savage said. “I'm going to be making sure that you remember this. Next time I deploy, you're going to think more than twice before running off.”
THWACK! THWACK! THWACK!
Zora wailed as Ms Wright's brush landed harshly three more times against her bottom. She felt tears leaping to her eyes and welcomed their small mercy because it meant she couldn't see Savage's expression all that clearly anymore. She felt so incredibly small, so incredibly naughty, and so incredibly powerless as she lay over the arm of the couch having her bottom spanked whilst he watched.
“You do some impressive work,” Savage murmured from his armchair, complimenting Ms Wright.
THWACK! THWACK! THWACK!
Three more hard swats landed, making Zora's hips lurch and her cheeks clench. She kicked her legs, her toes drumming against the floor as the heat sank into her backside, melting her last reserves of stoicism.
She pushed off the ground and used the leverage to crawl forward over the arm of the couch. As escapes went, it wasn't particularly effective. Ms Wright followed her, whacking the hairbrush against the underside of Zora's bouncing round cheeks and arresting any attempt at further escape with a well placed grip at the back of Zora's neck.
Effectively pinned and naked from the waist down, Zora was subjected to one of the most thorough spankings she'd ever had. The brush was a devilish implement, stinging as much as it burned and burning as much as it imparted a deep ache. She knew she would not be sitting comfortably for a damn long while. And she knew she probably deserved it.
It was not a long spanking, but when Ms Wright released her, Zora was as spanked as she'd ever been. She gasped and sobbed into the plastic covering, which caught her tears and trickled them back into her face. She curled up, closing in on herself with the hurt.
Savage's arms swept around her and bore her up and then he was carrying her across the room, cradling her gently as he whispered words of forgiveness and care.
“It hurts,” she whimpered. “She's mean.”
“She is certainly very effective,” Savage agreed, kissing her tears away. “I'm glad she'll be on hand to keep you in line in the future.”
“She will not,” Zora sobbed. “I'm going to push her off something.”
Savage swatted her bottom. Only lightly, but it was enough to make her yelp with the sharp pain. “You will not,” he said. “You will thank Ms Wright for her spanking.”
Zora's mouth dropped open in horrified surprise. “I will not!”
“You will,” he said. “You owe Ms Wright a massive debt of thanks.”
“I'm not thanking her for that,” Zora refused. “I'm not thanking her for anything.”
“It is all right, Captain Savage,” Ms Wright said, gathering her things. “I do not ask for any thanks. Certainly not from the freshly spanked.” Her gray eyes twinkled. “In fact, I think I would be doing something quite wrong if anyone I had disciplined felt like thanking me immediately after the fact.
“You're a marvel, Ms Wright,” Savage said. “I thank you, even if Zora does not.”
In the aftermath of Ms Wright's punishment, Savage took Zora to the bedroom.
“Are you done persecuting me?” Zora curled up on herself and sniffled the words pitifully.
“Persecuting you?” Savage's chuckle rumbled through his chest. “You are getting off lightly, Matthews.”
“Because you're done with me.”
“Done with you?” He reached down and tipped her head up so she was looking him in the eye. “What's this about me being done with you?”
“You said I'd ruined us. When I saw you in Utah. You said I'd ruined everything.”
“I was angry,” he said. “I still came for you, didn't I?”
“You were always going to come for me. Can't leave a tool like me in the hands of the enemy.”
“Is that what you think?” His face was solemn and stern.
“You said I'd ruined us,” she repeated. “You said that.” Taking a deep breath, she tried to compose herself. If this was the part where he left her for good, she didn't want to be a mess. She could hold it together for a few minutes at least, long enough for him to tell her that he was leaving her to Ms Wright's tender mercies whilst he flew off to some far off base.
She felt his hands moving on her body, then the room spun as he tossed her down onto her back and leaned over her. Caught unexpectedly under his broad frame, she looked up at him, wriggling as her bottom pulsed with pain against the bed.
“I do have something to say to you, Matthews.”
She braced herself for something terrible.
“I don't want you to be my girlfriend.”
Tears came rushing to her eyes and she held her breath, nodding because she could not speak for fear of bursting into floods of tears.
“I don't want you to be my girlfriend,” he said. “I want you to be my wife.”
“What?” She couldn't believe what she was hearing. Even more so because she was hardly in the position for a proposal. “Are you serious?”
/> “I know I'm not down on one knee,” he said, gazing down at her tenderly. “But, god help me, you are a handful and this is where I want you. Under me. Always under me. So what do you say, Matthews? Will you be mine before man and God?”
She squirmed under him, feeling his hard body pinning her to the mattress. The answer rose to her lips before she could think about it.
“Yes.”
His eyes gleamed with an emotion she could not quite place. “Good.”
Capturing her in a kiss, Savage asserted his claim by stripping her naked. Her bottom hurt as her pants came off, but only for a moment and then he was inside her, making love to her with an urgency and primal possession that took her breath away. There was no sticky, cloying romance. There was love, and lust and need that transcended everything else. She clung to him as he plunged in and out of her tight channel, his pubic bone grinding against her clit with every hard stroke.
She cried out, unable to form any word but his name as he branded her body with his touch, reasserting his claim. In those minutes he told her everything she needed to know without saying a word. He told her that he longed for her, lusted after her, loved her and needed her. His consuming kisses, given with alternating tenderness and passion spoke similarly, flooding her being with the knowledge and reassurance of his love.
From bitter despair and tears of recalcitrant shame she was lifted to the heights of ecstasy, to the place where she was he and he was she, where she fancied she knew secret things she could not name but could only feel. Spun into a cocoon of love, she was held against him. He was her beginning and he was her end. All was rhythm, stroking, pounding sensation like the heartbeat of an organism greater than either of them. Clinging to his body she surrendered herself to the moment, hitting the peak with a shattering cry.
It should have been a perfect aftermath, but there was a crease of concern on Savage's brow that made her inquire as to what he was worried about.
“Can you really be with me, Zora? Can you be my wife in this place? Can you find happiness where I am?”
She bit her lower lip and nodded slowly as yet again the dozens of conversations with Martin Holt and Ms Wright and even Tex came slipping back to her. For years she'd been chasing a phantom of freedom, never quite tasting the elusive draught that she'd thought would fully satisfy. Existence meant limitations. It meant the boundaries of her body, the edges of her senses. She could only do so much, taste so much, touch so much, love so much. The only freedom she really had was the choice of where she allocated those oh so limited resources, the sweet seconds that were ticking away with every breath she took.
Looking into Savage's eyes, she knew he had her love. All of it. She had given it to him before truly understanding what it was, but she understood now. She understood and she was saturated with happiness.
“I belong where you are,” she said softly. She was laying stomach down on the bed, part of her naked upper body resting on his chest. The position was soft and intimate and it allowed her to trace patterns on his skin with the tips of her fingers.
“Zora...”
She glanced up from his chest to meet his eyes.
“I intend to enforce the 'honor and obey' clause in the vows,” he said, his sexy lips twisting as he spoke.
“Of course you do,” she said, smiling back at him. “Good luck with that.”
“Brat,” he growled, drawing her close so he could kiss her and kiss her again.
***
A week or so after her very painful but ultimately rewarding return to Fort Thistle, Zora was happening by Martin Holt's office when she spotted a familiar figure. A lean, tall figure, one she hadn't expected to ever lay eyes on again. She pushed Martin Holt's door all the way open, leaving it to slam against the wall in a dramatic entrance that earned her a look of irritation from both occupants.
“Zora,” Martin Holt said. “What's the problem?”
Zora pointed at the couch. The couch where Ms Wright had once thrashed the bejesus out of her was now occupied by a slimy villain.
Tex.
Tex in all his still alive, not at all in chains, glory. His leg had healed and he was dressed in typical Tex style. Sleek, dark clothing matched with a sleek, dark expression. He was still handsome, but she no longer saw that. Instead she saw what he was on the inside, dark and more than a little bit twisted.
“What is he doing here?”
“Fort Thistle is home to many misfits,” Martin Holt explained. “Mr Tex has numerous skills and ubiquitous resources. He has agreed to join forces with us in return for the dropping of charges against him.”
“So he's... a prisoner?”
“He is an agent,” Martin Holt replied. “Not that it is any of your business, Ms Matthews.”
Zora laughed. “He is going to tear this place apart. He's a mastermind. An evil mastermind. He's probably already started digging a hole somewhere to make his evil lair. He's going to need a lair, he's nothing without a lair.”
“Zora...” Tex growled her name in a guttural voice.
“Don't worry, there's probably a janitor's closet somewhere you can use as a little pretend lair,” she said, turning to him with a smirk. “It won't be what you're used to, but life is all about starting over.”
“That's enough taunting Mr Tex,” Martin Holt said. “There must be something else you should be doing.”
Zora shook her head furiously. “There's nothing I'd rather be doing than taunting Tex. In fact, if he's going to stick around, I might have to schedule some regular taunting.” She clapped her hands together and beamed with uncontrollable glee. “This is the best thing I've ever seen. Ever.” She pointed at Tex. “You're stuck in here with me now.”
Tex's face assumed a threatening expression, his lip curling up to meet his nose. “Or maybe it's you who is stuck in here with me.”
“I hope it is clear,” Martin Holt said mildly, “that no hostility can or will be tolerated within Fort Thistle, or indeed, anywhere else. That goes equally for the both of you. I'm aware of past hostilities, and I can assure you that any party who continues them will result in termination with extreme prejudice.”
Zora laughed. “You're being lectured, Tex.” She turned to Martin Holt. “That is not going to go down well with him. He's going to be plotting in his lair for hours to get back at you for that.”
“Ms Matthews,” Martin Holt interjected. “It's time for you to leave. Unless, of course, you'd like me to call Ms Wright to deal with this matter.”
“No need to call Wright,” Zora said, “I'm just saying, this seems like the worst idea ever.”
“Fortunately you are not the judge of calibers of ideas,” Martin Holt said. “In fact, your opinion could accurately be described as completely irrelevant.”
“Run along, Matthews,” Tex agreed, waving his hand dismissively in her direction. Even as a prisoner himself, he was still disgustingly arrogant.
“I don't have to do what you want me to do anymore,” she said. “In fact, I'll never have to do what you tell me ever again, because you'll never lay a finger on me again. So suck on that, Tex.”
“Ms Matthews, please.” Martin Holt spoke just as Tex's expression grew a great deal more somber and threatening. “Isn't there something you should be getting on with? Planning a wedding?”
“Oh yes,” Tex purred, regaining his native debonair charm. “I heard congratulations are in order. We're looking at the soon to be Mrs Savage.”
“Mrs Savage,” Zora repeated the title and found that she really liked it. “Yes, that's right.”
“With any luck Captain Savage will contain you to the kitchen,” Tex said. “Preferably chained to something considerably heavier than you are.”
“You're projecting, Tex,” Zora short back. “You're the one wearing the leash and collar now.”
“Zora. Out,” Martin Holt gave the no-nonsense order quite unexpectedly and backed it up by making her back out of the room with the sheer force of his presence, not to mention
his hand on her shoulder.
She found herself nose to door, cross-eyed at being shut out. A peal of laughter came bubbling to her lips. She had to find Savage.
A quick search of the likely spots revealed that he was in their front yard, doing something mechanical to his truck. He was wearing an oil-stained vest and his shoulders and arms were rippling with sweat as he wrenched a torque or torqued a wrench or something like that. She really wasn't sure.
“Hey!” She called out to him and bounced over the fence. “You will never guess who is here. In Martin Holt's office.”
“You're right,” he said, thoroughly distracted by the intractable innards of his vehicle. “I won't. This belt is slipping.”
Zora reached up for the hood, unhooked the stay and pulled it down with a clang, narrowly avoiding Savage's fingers.
“Just what do you think you're doing, Matthews?” Savage grabbed her and laid several hard swats across the seat of her jeans. “You damn brat!”
She laughed as each swat fell. They didn't hurt much through jeans and she was in far too good a mood to be annoyed by Savage's punitive slaps. In fact, the hold he had on the back of her belt made the seam of her jeans pull tight across her pussy. Every slap jolted her against the hard ridge, sending a little bolt of pleasure shooting through her loins.
There was a masculine laugh as Savage realized she was lifting her ass up to him. “Did you come out here just to get that tight little ass of yours smacked?” He wrapped his arm around her upper body and turned her head, planting a kiss on her lips.
“No,” she said, wriggling around to face him. “I came to tell you news. Serious news.”
“Mmm hmm.”
For a minute, his dark gaze consumed her and it was all she could do to contain the slow squirm of her hips, trapped as she now was between the body of the truck and his own hard frame.
“Well, out with it, Matthews.”
“Tex is here,” she said. “Not in jail here. But working here. You know. Working. Tex. Ha!”
Savage's thick dark brows lifted for a moment. “Hmm,” he said. “Well, I suppose they know what they're doing.”
Zora snorted. “They don't know what they're doing. It's Tex. You know what Tex is like. He has no limits. He does exactly what he wants to do, damn the consequences.”
