by Sue Lyndon
He moved to sit on the side of the bed, patted his thigh, and gave her another stern look. “You disobeyed, Callie, and you will be punished for it. Over my lap.”
All the color drained from her face, and he realized that she hadn’t protested his use of her given name this time. Perhaps she hadn’t noticed.
“You’re going to spank me?”
“Yes. I told you to keep still, and I also told you to keep your hands out of the way, above your head. You were a naughty girl, and now I intend to redden your cute little bottom and teach you a lesson, Callie.”
When she placed herself across his thighs, she gasped as he forced her legs wide apart.
“I want a view of your wet folds as I’m spanking you, Callie. You’ll keep yourself spread just like this,” he said, shifting her bottom higher on his lap.
Arousal escaped down her thigh, and his excitement rose at the knowledge that she was enjoying this as much as he. She gave another needy moan. She was breathing hard and every few seconds a shudder jolted through her. He cupped her bottom and gave it a squeeze.
“You were a very bad girl, weren’t you, Callie?”
She released a harsh breath. “Y-yes, sir.”
He moved to cup her other cheek, pulling it far enough to the side as to reveal the tiny pink pucker of her rosebud. Sweat trickled down his temple and a tremor zipped up his inner thighs, tightening his balls and hardening his cock further. Lord almighty, he had to have her soon. He pushed aside his guilt over taking her before they were properly wed. God help him, but he couldn’t wait that long.
“After I finish your spanking, Callie, you will stand with your nose in the corner and your red bottom on display.”
A little whimper floated up from her, and he lifted his hand and brought it down with a firm, resounding smack.
“Naughty, naughty girl,” he said, alternating cheeks as he continued spanking her at a slow but steady pace, giving her about two seconds in between each hard slap to take a breath. “After your corner time is over, Callie, are you going to be very good and lie still while I taste what’s mine?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I hope so. Because if you don’t, I will apply my belt to your little behind. You don’t want a belt whipping, do you?”
“Oh, no, sir. Please don’t give me a belt whipping. I’ll be a good girl. I-I pr-promise!”
Her pale flesh turned a pretty shade of dark pink under his punishing hand. She wiggled around with each smack but didn’t try to escape. Her feet kicked slightly, and he thought she looked absolutely adorable in this position.
Nectar gleamed between her thighs. The light blonde hair covering her quim was neatly kept, and he noticed that the folds of her sex plumped as he continued her spanking. She was swollen and wet and ready to be taken hard.
This was the type of naughty game he’d played with Mary. He’d had a desire to dominate her in the most devilish ways, punishing her in the bedroom when she didn’t do as he asked, taking her in all manner of scandalous positions. She had participated and been most obedient, but she had never grown as excited as Callie seemed to be growing now.
Callie was different. And Lawrence felt different with her. As he spanked her, he felt no guilt over his dark desires. It felt natural. Transcendent. He never wanted this night to end. With each slap to her behind, she gave more of herself to him. She moaned and whimpered and parted her thighs wider in surrender.
When he finally stopped spanking her, he rubbed her heated bottom for several moments before delving into the sweetness between her thighs. Hot and slick, so perfect. She gasped when he traced the moisture around her folds. He teased her entrance with two fingers, pumping with slow and shallow thrusts.
Then he pulled out of her and stood her up. He rose and pressed his fingers, glimmering with her honey, to her slightly parted lips.
“Have you ever tasted yourself before, Callie?”
Eyes bulging, she shook her head, looking positively scandalized. He pressed more urgently at her lips, which she clamped shut in the next instant. “Open and suck, young lady. Clean your essence off my fingers and then go stand in the corner.”
Despite her obvious reluctance, she opened her mouth again and began licking her moisture off his fingers. Once she had finished, he turned her around, gave her bottom one last swat, and ordered her to stand in the corner to the right of the dresser.
She took up residence in the corner, and his cock stiffened at the sight of her standing there so obediently with her freshly punished bottom on display. Her arms dangled at her sides, though soon began inching behind her.
“No rubbing allowed, young lady. You will stand there and endure the lasting sting of your spanking.”
“Yes, sir.” She quickly returned her hands to her sides.
He counted to one hundred in his head, not taking his eyes off her lovely form the entire time. She fidgeted now and then, but otherwise remained in place and didn’t attempt to rub her red behind again.
Once he reached one hundred, he crossed the room to her and placed his hands on her shoulders. She shuddered and gave a tiny gasp. The sweet and heady scent of her arousal hit him, enticing him to explore all that would soon belong to him. He cupped her breasts, caressing the full mounds and rubbing her nipples until they grew into stiff, dark pink peaks. Still holding her right breast, he reached down with his free hand and stroked between her thighs, finding her more soaked than ever.
“So wet, Callie. So naughty. I ought to spank you all over again.”
She took a shaky breath. “I wish… I wish you would touch me instead, sir. Please. I need… I need…”
“Ask me to lick your quim and run my tongue all over your clit.”
“Sir!” She turned and looked at him, her face flushed nearly as bright pink as her punished bottom. “I can’t believe you would speak with such, um, base language.”
“Why? Because I used to be a man of God?”
She nodded.
“I’m just a man now, Callie. A man who wants you. A man who doesn’t care about how polite society thinks he should talk or behave anymore. Now ask me.”
“All right. Um, please, sir. Will you please lick my quim?” She spoke the last few words in a whisper.
“What else?” he prompted, pinching her clit as he raised an eyebrow at her in censure.
“And will you please, um, run your tongue all over m-my cl-clit?” Again, the last few words came out in a whisper.
Though a gem at The Red Petticoat, she wasn’t yet used to speaking in such base language either. Well, if he had anything to say about it, she would only be using such language in his presence. And he damn well had a lot to say about it. Callie would belong to him before the night was over.
“Get back on the bed, spread your legs, and put your hands above your head, young lady.” He removed his hand from her quim and urged her toward the bed.
“Yes, sir,” she breathed, tucking an errant curl that had fallen in front of her face behind her ear as she moved into position.
When she first sat atop the covers, she winced and squirmed, but she soon laid down and parted her legs to reveal her plump, moist sex to his gaze.
Lawrence wasted no time in joining her. He dipped his head between her slender thighs and lapped at her quim, tasting her and paying special attention to the most sensitive part of her—the little swollen bud that protruded from her wet folds.
She undulated slightly against his mouth, but she kept her hands in place above her head. Circling her clit with his tongue, he continued until she whirled into a frantic state of writhing and moaning. The little desperate moans she emitted drove him wild. When he finally joined his body with hers, he didn’t think he could be gentle if he tried.
“Lawrence, I… oh my God!”
He kept at it until her squirming ceased and she lay panting on the bed. He pulled away and settled himself on top of her, but instead of sinking his cock deep into her quim, he leaned down and kissed her.
/> Hard. Possessively.
After he gradually withdrew from her, he stared into her beautiful green gaze and felt as if the pieces of his broken world had finally come together.
“Callie,” he whispered. “My sweet Callie.”
He positioned his cock at her entrance and surged all the way inside her with one quick thrust. She grabbed onto him, her nails digging into his back.
He held onto her hips and pounded into her faster, causing the headboard to bang against the wall. The mattress bounced with their movements. Dark spots clouded his vision as his release approached. He held out for as long as he could manage, wanting to prolong his claiming of her, until at last the exquisite tightness of her quim clamping down around his cock had him spurting his seed into her depths.
Chapter Five
Callie snuggled against Lawrence underneath the covers, supposing she should kick him out soon. Though she’d enjoyed every minute of her time with him this evening, she couldn’t ignore the fact that he’d paid for it. Just because she’d liked being taken by him didn’t mean it wasn’t anything other than a business transaction. No sense romanticizing it.
Her heart felt heavy. Don’t get sweet on the customers. Stop it, Callie. Stop it right now.
What was she supposed to say to Lawrence now?
Thank you and have a nice evening?
Please get going so I can find another customer to bring upstairs?
She stiffened when he started stroking her back. The awkwardness became unbearable, as did the heaviness in her heart, and she pushed away from him. Yes, he’d spent fifty dollars on her, but did he really plan to stay all night? He’d already completed. Surely he wouldn’t lie there until he was ready to go again. Matthew had never taken her more than once a night. He had always fallen fast asleep after the act, holding her close in his arms.
Tears burned in her eyes and she blinked hard, forcing thoughts of her late husband from her mind. She wasn’t Mrs. Callie Smith anymore. She was Amber. A gem at The Red Petticoat. In a few short years, after she earned a decent amount of money, she could become Mrs. Callie Smith once more and start over again in Virginia. She would take the secret that she’d worked in a brothel to the grave.
“Well, I think we’re finished here.” She cringed at her uncertain tone. How did she politely transfer from one customer to another? She hadn’t thought to ask Opal or Amy or Madame Jewel for that sort of advice.
A look of amusement crossed his handsome features. His eyebrow shot up. “Finished? Darlin’, I haven’t even gotten started with you.”
Heat engulfed her face, and she found she couldn’t hold his gaze for more than a second at a time. Her confidence in working as a gem fled. She’d thought she could be a pretender without any trouble. Amber. Not Callie. Amber, Amber, Amber. She would return to being Callie when she boarded a ship in San Francisco bound for the east coast. She swallowed past the burning in her throat.
“You mean to stay the entire night, then?”
“Yes, Callie, and then in the morning I mean to take you home with me.” He propped himself up on one elbow. “I mean to make you my wife.”
He reached for her hand, but she flinched as if she’d just been slapped, and his hand froze in the air above hers.
“You don’t even know me.”
“We spent time together, Callie, by the river. I realize it was some weeks ago but…”
“A few conversations don’t count. Besides, folks around here seem to think you will eventually come to your senses and take up preaching again. The church is just sitting there empty, waiting for you. You might change your mind, but you most certainly won’t be able to follow your calling if you’re married to a soiled dove.”
“I want a wife, Callie. I’ve been alone for long enough. My calling is to take a wife and start a family.” He ran a hand across her stomach. “You don’t belong here. I saw how nervous you were up on stage when those miners were bidding on you.”
“I wasn’t nervous!” she said defensively. “The auction was my idea. I wanted to show Madame Jewel that I am serious about working here and being a gem. And the more I drum up business for myself, the sooner I’ll have enough money saved to return home. I don’t plan on staying in Culpepper for the rest of my life. I belong in Virginia, with my family. I never should have traveled here in the first place.”
“If you want to return to your family in Virginia, why do they not wire you the funds you need to return home?”
She pressed her lips together and closed her eyes, fighting back tears. “Please leave.”
“I’m not going anywhere, Callie.”
Opening her eyes, she stared at Lawrence, thinking he looked most handsome with his dark hair disheveled from their lovemaking. No, not lovemaking. Fucking. That’s what they had done. He’d paid fifty dollars to fuck her.
“If you are still so estranged from your family that you cannot ask them to pay your way home, what do you think your life will be like when you return? What if they won’t accept you?”
She sniffled and wiped at a tear, cursing herself for crying in front of him. “My oldest sister and her husband will probably take me in. My family doesn’t have to know our trip out west was a failure. I’ll tell them Matthew had success in the mining business before he died. They don’t need to know where my money came from. I could start over then. I could find a husband and have the family I thought I’d have with Matthew.”
“Callie, I would be a good husband to you. Far as I see it, you’ve just become my wife in truth, right here in this bed. Say yes, and let me spend the rest of my life taking care of you. We can get to know one another better after we are wed.”
Her bottom lip quivered. “It could never work.”
“Why not?”
“Because of where we are. Look around, Lawrence. You’re lying in a whore’s bed. I sold myself to you tonight.”
“I came here, knowing tonight was your first night going upstairs, Callie. Stopped in for a drink early yesterday and Opal told me. I came here tonight to make sure you only went upstairs with me. Because I have every intention of making you my wife. Marry me.”
The temptation to say yes was strong, but she knew it wasn’t right. She couldn’t allow him to throw away the possibility of becoming the town preacher. Her heart ached. Why couldn’t he have realized he was ready to settle down and marry during his last trip to town, the time he’d invited her to a picnic? Now any chance they might have had at finding happiness together was shot.
“I won’t have you wasting your future on me.”
“Callie, please don’t talk that way about yourself. You’re a good girl. You only ended up here by circumstance.” A flash of understanding crossed his visage. “You were staying with the Gerrards directly before coming here. Why did you leave their home?”
“You must go now, Lawrence. Please.”
Her expression must have given away some of the dark truth behind her leaving the Gerrards, because his nostrils flared and he tensed. “What did Mr. Gerrard do to you?”
“Nothing! He did nothing!” She pushed at him, trying to force him out of the bed.
“Don’t lie to me, Callie. I want to help you. Talk to me.”
Silence stretched between them, but she finally surrendered to the kindness she saw lurking in his gaze. What did it matter if she told the truth? It’s not as if she had actually seduced Mr. Gerrard.
“He came into my bedroom and tried to have his way with me. I fought back and his wife appeared in the doorway when he was straddling me, when he was very close to…” She felt her face crumple, and Lawrence gathered her up in his arms. He rocked her and murmured soothing words until she found her voice again. “He told his wife I tried to seduce him, and she kicked me out. And judging from the looks I got walking through town earlier today, I suspect she’s spread all sorts of nasty rumors about me. She always did like her gossip. So you see, I am ruined in more than one way. I have no business becoming anyone’s wife in Culpepper
Cove.”
“We’ll move away then, Callie. Wherever you wish to go.”
Why was he being so nice to her? Wasn’t this what she’d wanted, though? To find a husband, and quickly? But it felt wrong, given his past. She wasn’t pastor’s wife material. Sooner or later, he would regret his decision to marry her. She couldn’t allow him to make that mistake, not when he could have a very bright future here in Culpepper. The need for a preacher here was strong. She didn’t want to be responsible for him leaving a town that clearly needed him.
“I don’t wish to marry you, Lawrence. I’m sorry.” The lie tasted bitter.
“I don’t believe you.” He leaned down and kissed her forehead. His masculine scent enticed her, making her want to latch onto him and never let go. She felt safe in his arms. All the noise from the saloon seemed muted in his presence, as well as the worries that ran persistently through her head.
He held her for what felt like hours. In fact, she drifted to sleep in his embrace, only awaking briefly when he crawled out of bed and tucked the covers around her. “You won’t be working anymore this evening, young lady. Stay in bed and get some sleep. I will see you tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Yes, sweet Callie. Tomorrow.”
She drifted back to sleep and dreamed that she lived in a cabin on the mountain. The sun was shining down, the day hot, as she walked barefoot to a nearby stream to dip her feet in the water. Lawrence came out of the woods and set down his mining tools, then ran to scoop her up in his arms. He kissed her cheeks, and then her mouth, claiming her with a roughness that had heat gathering between her thighs.
In the morning, she awoke to find Madame Jewel staring down at her. “Are you well, dear? You never came downstairs after your big spender left, after he and I had a rather odd conversation. I had Amy peek in on you, but she said you were fast asleep.”
Callie sat up, only to realize she was still completely naked. She flushed and covered her breasts as she dove back under the covers.
