“Maybe,” I teased. “Anyway...it’s handled. The Subaru runs once more. Problem solved.”
“Good. I’m glad.”
I relaxed, happy to put the whole event behind me. But Dean kept talking.
“I still wish you’d fixed it earlier. I don’t like that you stalled out on the blindest part of the highway.”
Were we really beating this to death? This weird wash of prickles ran up my spine. I’d seen Dean hyperfocus before—on new ways to tease and taunt me, and the beautiful work he did in architecture—but on me not fixing the car?
I clenched my hands into loose fists. “Dean, I couldn’t help where my car died and the week was nuts. There was no way I’d have made it to the shop last week.”
“With the rain...it wasn’t good.” His voice poured through the phone with concern, sinking me back into the pillows. “Something terrible could’ve happened,” he murmured.
Why he was getting so worked up over this, I couldn’t understand. “It’s fixed. It’s over.”
“Now it is.” His breath was more noticeable, a raspy sound that usually tickled my ears, now throwing me off paired with his heavy worry. “But you know... I think this calls for a lesson.”
A what? It sounded like he was trying to be playful, but I frowned. “Why?”
“Because I did say I needed to think of something to punish you for your obstinance.”
I loved the way Dean spoke to me, with his uncanny way of switching between sweet and playful to this dark, lusty version of him with ease—but a lesson? For what?
“I’m sorry, are you trying to tell me I’m in trouble or something?”
“Yes,” he said, adamant. “I think when you come over for Christmas, your behavior warrants discipline. Maybe...a spanking.”
I swallowed hard. A spanking? For not fixing my car fast enough? What the fuck?
Our relationship was full of Dean’s wild, arousing assignments and tests of bondage, public displays and power dynamics, which could take my mind clear out to space and back. As much as it had felt natural, even this far out, healed, confident and happy, it had taken a while to adjust to it, since all my previous experiences in submission were tied up in the pain of my relationship with Charlie. Dean was no Charlie. What we shared had nothing to do with abuse like it had in my past. Our experiences were fun, explorative and hot.
But nothing I’d done warranted a spanking.
I curled my knees into my chest and cleared my throat. “I didn’t do anything wrong. Why would I need a spanking?”
As Dean began, his voice grew firm. “Shall I list the reasons? You let your car go too long. You pulled off on the side of the road to stubbornly change a flat in the rain, rather than call any sort of road service, on the blindest part of the high—”
“I couldn’t possibly help a flat tire! Which, I remind you, I fixed plenty fine on my own.”
“I’m talking about the starter, though. That should have been fixed sooner. That’s the reason you need a spanking.”
I reared back against my pillows, startled by the annoyance whirling through me. Since when did Dean get this bossy? “Oh, come on. I did everything right. You don’t get to punish me for doing everything right. You’re overreacting!”
The heat suffusing my cheeks had me shaking my head, and Dean was silent for a long time. His voice came out hoarse when he finally spoke. “Okay. I’m... I’m sorry I worried.”
“This is beyond worried. Are you okay?”
“Yes,” he said, but it felt like there was more coming. Nothing did, though. The silence went on forever until finally Dean murmured, “I’d really like to try this with you... I keep picturing you bent over my knee.”
So he was after a deliberate, focused kind of spanking, and this was how he thought to bring it up?
I ran my palm over the comforter beside me, trying to simmer down. Dean’s ideas always heightened my awareness and made me sensitive and open to the potential of anything. I didn’t mind a spanking; it wasn’t like Dean hadn’t smacked my ass when he tied me up and bid me to submit to his whim. But as punishment for doing nothing at all? How he’d broached it held me back and, exploration aside, my flash of irritation wasn’t mellowing. Not with how intense he’d gotten.
“I’m down to consider it, but no bullshit, okay? Not because I did anything wrong. Because I didn’t. I don’t like you playing that card, Dean. It doesn’t...feel good.” His quiet response went on so long, I fondled the hem of my robe in a mindless effort to figure out what to say next. “Are you there?”
“Yes.” One quiet word, such a contrast to all that emotion he’d had out of nowhere over a flat tire. “Are you mad?”
“No. I’ll be fine.”
“Okay. I’m sorry I pushed.”
“I appreciate that, and I mean it. I’ll consider it, under different circumstances.” When he didn’t say anything, I raised my voice. “Like maybe for Christmas. If you’re good.”
Dean’s laughter broke through the line, and I giggled with him, enjoying the shift away from whatever über Dom moment he’d just attempted to have. It wasn’t how we worked, because I adored the light, sweet side of him, too. I smiled and pushed my frustration aside.
“Speaking of Christmas...we’re going to have a full house,” he said.
“Yeah?”
“Yes. You, me, my brothers and a couple of pals. Eight, maybe nine of us total.”
“Wow. You’re cooking for all these people?”
“It’s tradition. Crazy, aren’t I?”
“I’ll say. But I’m glad I’ll get to see it happen,” I said. He’d cooked dinners for me that would make Selby proud—but a holiday feast?
“Me too.”
“Any word from Niko and Cassandra?” Niko had been Dean’s father figure from his late teens on, and though Dean talked to his parents regularly, it was Niko he spoke of the most. “Are they going to make it for Christmas?”
“Nope. But the good news is that they’ll be here after, on Sunday. They’re in town for two weeks, turns out!” His voice lifted as he said it and I imagined the sheen he probably had in his eyes. Though Niko had left to travel the world a decade before with his wife, Cassandra, he and Dean had stayed close. Dean had been enthusiastically awaiting their arrival, working extra to spend as much time with them as possible.
“That’s great! Do you get to take all that time off?”
“I’m hoping to, so there’s a lot to handle if I’m going to pull it off. I’ve got a couple of appointments that I probably can’t move while they’re here, but we’ll see.”
“Two weeks off. I’m jealous.” WOFC closed down for several days around Christmas, which I could use for sure. But I hadn’t missed how hard Dean had been working to make the time off happen. Dean had inherited the business from Niko. He’d also learned his love of architecture and sailing from him in all the years they’d spent traveling on a boat before he’d gone to college, and later, when they’d lived together in San Francisco.
“Well...maybe our weekend in Monterey will compensate?”
The reminder of the getaway he’d planned to celebrate my late January birthday made me grin, though it sounded awfully far away. “It’s not two weeks, but it’ll be glorious. I’ll take it! I swear, it’s always at the worst time of the year, right after the holidays. Welcome to a birthday in January. That’s been, like, my whole life.”
Dean chuckled. “Busy and crazy.”
“Yes. Busy and crazy, but fun.”
“It’ll be good. Great. We’ll make it through.”
I exhaled.
He could as easily have been referring to whatever that whole worry of his had been.
I still didn’t get it, but I sure was glad it was over.
Chapter Three
; I hung up my desk phone and sat back in my chair. The unnecessarily long conversation I’d had with the community center director had me rubbing my eyes with a heavy sigh.
“That bad, huh?” Maddie, my dearest colleague, came around the side of my cubicle to hold out the box of chocolates she kept stashed in her desk. She usually dubbed it the painkiller for rough appointments, but apparently this counted, too. She gave the box a shake, the motion making the many bracelets on her wrist clang and rustling the flared sleeves of her silk tunic.
“You’re a life saver.” I grabbed a chocolate and popped it in my mouth, and the smile on her face spread clear into her green eyes.
“It’s habit. Call it a mommy trick.”
“I love your mommy tricks.” I stood up and massaged my neck, then stretched my arms out to the sides. The holiday charity dinner had been going strong for almost a decade—with the last four of them hosted at the community center—so the number of details the new director had needed blew my mind. “I have no idea how that became so complicated.”
“Was it that new girl you mentioned?”
“Yeah. Bev. I miss Angeline.” That woman had been more organized than anyone I’d ever worked with, but after her maternity leave almost a full year before, she hadn’t come back. “Bev tries. She does. She’s just not all there.” Maddie took a bite of her own chocolate as I peeked at the clock. It was only eleven, but I could use a break. “You want to do lunch?”
“Did you not hear the drama of my earlier appointment?” she said. I raised an eyebrow. “Basically, let’s go with yes. Lunch is a big yes.”
I gathered my purse while she did the same. For the bulk of our walk to our favorite café a few blocks down the street, we discussed her stressful intake and the charity dinner raffle she and our front desk secretary, Tania, were in charge of. Once all of that was settled, we’d reached the café. We took our seats and ordered up iced teas, and I relaxed in the booth. “What are you doing this weekend?”
“Zoo.”
“The Oakland one?”
“Yeah. Timothy loves that place! The elephants are a huge hit.”
“I bet.” I’d hung out with her family several times since she’d started at WOFC four years before. Her son, Timothy, might well have been the cutest, calmest five-year-old I’d ever met. It didn’t hurt that her husband Henry’s kind and reserved demeanor helped turn their kid into an ultra gem. “Did you get the season passes? That’s got to be the fifth time you’re going.”
“We did. It was a no-brainer. And after that, we’ll be sorting out the nightmare known as Christmas.” Maddie twisted off a piece of French bread and chewed it with a shake of her head. “Chocolate for my prelunch snack, and I’m pretty sure I’ll eat this whole basket of bread before our meal gets here. Maya, I tell you, I’m going to eat my way through this holiday with Henry’s whole family coming! Two brothers, five sisters and his parents? All of them, kids and hubbies in tow? And you know how much I love cooking.” I snickered at the face she made, because unlike Selby, Maddie despised cooking. I’d also gleaned that Henry’s mom was a bit intense. “That’s going to be a story and a half when it’s over. But what about you? What are you up to?”
“Wedding dress shopping,” I said, singing the words.
Maddie waved her hands in the air. “Oh, yes. Selby most definitely wouldn’t let that go to the last minute.” The two of them had bumped into each other a few times, but Maddie had a good sense of my longtime best friend from all my stories.
“God, no. ‘The wedding boards say shopping early is key!’” I said, giggling while I raised my fingers in air quotes.
“I bet she’s excited.”
I grinned, since Selby and I had talked about it multiple times this week and her enthusiasm hadn’t dimmed a drop. “That’s an understatement! She’s bouncing off the walls.”
“Nice.”
“Yep. Plus, she’s all giddy for the holidays. I’ve told you how she gets.”
“You have. But aren’t you, a little?” Maddie reached out to tap my knuckles. “Christmas dinner with Mr. Super Sexy?” I snorted at what had become her favorite nickname for Dean, but a flicker of our last conversation crossed my mind. I must have frowned slightly, because she said, “Oh, dear. Trouble in paradise?”
I looked up. “Not exactly.” One of our regular waiters came to the table, so I didn’t elaborate until after we’d exchanged pleasantries and placed our salad orders. “I’m not sure how to describe it.”
“Hit me.”
I gave her the abbreviated version of his upset over my car breakdown, followed by his suggestion that I deserved some sort of retribution for the whole thing. “It was weird. I’ve never seen him get so... I don’t know. Bossy? He freaked out over nothing.”
Maddie nodded. “That is weird. Well, the spanking thing is hot, but not as a punishment for nothing.”
“Right? That’s what bothered me.”
“You told him so?”
“Of course I did.”
“Good. That’s lame. What do you think had him that rattled?”
I shrugged. “No idea. It was odd.” I chewed the piece of bread I’d torn off from the loaf in the basket and considered parts of our conversation. “It was like he almost went into a panic or something. He’s so mellow most of the time, I don’t know where that came from.”
“Hmm.” Maddie watched me closely. “What do you think of the idea, though?”
“Spanking? We’ve done it here and there, but not as an actual event. That seems... God, contrived, maybe?”
“Honey. Please.” Her tone nearly made me spit out my bread. Once I stopped laughing, she continued. “One should try everything before they knock anything.”
“I’m not knocking it! I’m not saying I’m not into it, either. The focus on it, though... I don’t know.”
“Surely you’ve seen it on the internet?”
“Some. I’d have to look for it more, I think.”
Maddie unfolded her napkin over her lap, a knowing smile lighting up her face. Her past with Sébastien, the Parisian sugar daddy she’d lived with before she’d spontaneously flown back to the States and settled down with Henry, had provided her with many experiences I related to. I wouldn’t call her a mentor, but she was certainly easy to talk to about all of it.
“Spanking videos,” she said, shaking her finger in the air. “Check those out.”
“Yeah?”
“Oh, yeah. Even Henry likes to watch those.”
“He does?”
Maddie stuffed a bite of bread in her mouth with an enthusiastic nod as our waiter returned with our salads. I handed over my card, since it was my turn to buy and we couldn’t be gone from the office too long. The staff here knew us well, and our waiter didn’t even blink as he wandered off with my card to ring us up.
“I’ll have to check them out,” I said.
“Totally hot. Do.” We both dug into our salads. After a couple of bites, she said, “Keep me posted.”
“I will. As long as he doesn’t get weird again, it could happen.”
“Maybe best to get through the holidays, huh?”
“True. Sorry yours is going to be crazy.”
“Eh. At least Timothy will have a good time.” She gave me her proud mama smile. “He’s amped with the cousins coming, and his favorite auntie, and his grandparents, and, and, and... So much family. Total chaos! It’s going to be nuts.”
I couldn’t disagree.
* * *
I woke almost forty-five minutes before my alarm Saturday morning, the sun filtering through my blinds and making it impossible to fall back to sleep. While I wasn’t near as ecstatic to be wedding dress shopping as Selby was, her enthusiasm had somewhat rubbed off on me.
At the moment, my soft sheets and comfy mat
tress were difficult to abandon. I was far too alert to close my eyes, though. I opted to grab my cell phone off the nightstand to laze around for a bit.
First, I checked on my social media accounts. Most of the content was the standard fare—silly memes, ridiculous videos and on occasion, something of merit my friends had posted. When I opened my email, I discovered Maddie had sent a picture Timothy drew, which she’d done many times before. “Cute,” I mumbled, smiling at the stick figure among flowers before clicking through and deleting several other emails. The lunchtime conversation we’d had popped in my head while I lay there reading.
Spanking videos. Check those out.
With this much time on my hands, bed seemed like a perfect place for that.
I opened my browser.
A quick web search revealed spanking to be everywhere. There looked like more on erotic spanking than disciplinary spanking, which I found surprising, but my search culled everything from blog posts to how-to articles, plus a plethora of kinky videos. The tags on one of them read Secretary sexually spanked. I couldn’t help myself.
There she was, glasses and stereotypical secretary attire: pencil skirt, white blouse, stockings and heels. Right away, she fumbled and dropped the mountain of binders she held in her hands. Her whole getup became even more noticeable when the camera panned out to show her bending over to pick everything up and muttering a slew of frazzled apologies. Her boss started lecturing her and ordered her to bend over the desk, and within forty-five seconds she’d been stripped of her skirt. She swayed her hips and moaned, the full garter belt she wore complimenting the curve of her ass that filled the screen, and I rolled onto my back, aware of the buzz of arousal teasing its way up my spine.
I’d watched plenty of porn on my own, and on occasion with Dean too—which tended to morph into quite a steamy fuck fest after—and though I preferred more plot than it usually afforded, I’d noticed my tastes had shifted over the last few months. Visuals turned me on more than they used to, particularly when they involved some level of dominant and submissive exchange. I think it was that I identified with these roles more now. The ones on screen were likely actors playing the parts rather than actually into them like Dean and I were, but watching these scenes sparked more ideas and possibilities for us to share.
The Discipline Page 3
