I decided the best plan would be to get to Mesa. I’d seen what Phoenix was like after dark and it wouldn’t be safe for a lone woman. Mesa had always seemed more well-to-do, to me. I figured I could probably get a job waitressing or something and earn money that way.
I’d do anything at this point.
I began walking in the direction I thought Mesa was in. The day got hotter and hotter, and I had no shade and nothing to drink. At least it was November, not June. By midday, I was out of energy for thinking and all I could do was keep walking. I didn’t know how far it was on foot but I had thought I would be there by now. Instead, this road seemed to have turned into the open desert. Had I accidentally ended up going the long way to Mesa?
Ugh, that would be just my luck, today.
The sun went down, and I still hadn’t arrived. Exhausted, I saw an old, closed gas station. I sneaked behind some barrels and tried to get some shuteye.
I’d almost drifted off to sleep when the cop had found me. And now I was arrested, imprisoned in a jail cell and... drinking bad coffee?
This was far and away the weirdest day of my life.
I looked at the man who was both my savior and downfall. He was hot. Especially in that cop uniform.
I nixed that thought right away. Guys like that were trouble for girls like me. He’d arrest me in a heartbeat just for breaking some dumb law I didn’t even know existed.
I lay back on the cot and tried to get some shuteye. At least it was quiet in here and there was a locked door between me and the rest of the world.
When I awoke, it was getting light outside. There were no blinds covering the windows for some reason. The cop was working on his computer with his back to me. This time of day would have been more stunning to see if I wasn’t locked in a jail cell.
Looming up like a black cloud following the sun was the big questions. I didn’t want to think about any of them. They stabbed me in the throat and tried to suffocate me. Where was I going to live? How would I get food? I still needed to finish school; I knew that high school diploma was my only chance at a future.
It seemed so unfair that after how hard I’d tried, I was going to have to drop out a few months before the end. All the days when I’d not gotten a wink of sleep because I didn’t know what my dad might do if I closed my eyes, then fallen asleep in calculus instead. The times I’d stumbled into the gym locker room to catch a shower before classes started because we had no water at home again. The evenings when I’d sat on a park bench in fading light, my nose four inches away from my schoolwork, trying to make sense of it because I couldn’t get it out when I got home. And school had never come easy to me the way it did for some people. I was a year behind already, because I’d had to repeat tenth grade.
It had all been for nothing.
For the last few years, every time my dad had gone too far, I’d comforted myself with a single fact. One day, I’d be eighteen, and when I was, I could leave and finally be free. I had spent sleepless nights thinking about exactly where I would go and what I would do. Then, when it had really happened, when I’d finally snapped and left, I’d been completely unprepared. I was a legal adult, I could do whatever I wanted. And now I felt lost and scared. And broke.
I knew better than to show it to anyone. The world was full of predators trying to take whatever they could get from me. I mean, why wouldn’t it be? Even my house had been occupied by one.
I would shoot first and ask questions later. It was the only way to protect myself when it came to other people.
“Hey, Robocop!” I called across to Officer Not Looking This Way.
He turned his head.
“Disrespect won’t get you anywhere, young lady.”
His words were like a slap in the face.
“I want to speak to a lawyer,” I demanded.
“You haven’t been charged with anything. What would you need a lawyer for?”
As he spoke, I heard little snorts of laughter. It only made me feel more like pushing to get out of here.
“I know my rights,” I lied. “I have a right to a lawyer.”
“You have the right to remain silent, why don’t you exercise that one instead?”
His tone was so annoying. “Who made you the boss?” I grumbled.
“Hello? Badge.” He turned back to his computer and I heard him hitting the keys loudly as he typed slow.
“Are you trying to spell a five-letter-word?” I taunted him. “I’m pretty sure I could type faster than that when I was in kindergarten.”
I had a lot of faults, but I typed hella fast. I steeled myself with a sassy comeback for whatever he was going to say next.
“Typing, huh? How fast?”
He disarmed me. Instead of telling him something harsh about his mom, I found myself answering him truthfully.
“Sixty words per minute.”
“I sure have a lot of reports to type. Think you could do some of them for me?”
Wait... what? My brain slammed on the brakes and took several seconds to turn the corner into this new territory.
“You want me to work for you?”
“Sure. I hate typing. And these reports have to be done by a deadline.”
“Seven bucks an hour. Not a penny less.” I stuck my chin out to show I wasn’t messing around. He chuckled.
“Sure. If you can do what you say. And follow my rules.”
“What rules?” I narrowed my eyes. If this was some sort of sex-for-favors deal, I wasn’t interested.
“You’re gonna be respectful, you’re gonna do as you’re told, and you’re not allowed to run off like you did earlier. You put yourself in danger out in the street.”
“Okay.” That didn’t seem so difficult. Anyway, it felt good to have some structure, even if it was from a random cop.
Slowly, he got to his feet and sauntered to the cell. He stood in front of the door and I looked up at him. He was tall. And even more muscular up close than he had been when he was across the room. My core clenched.
“Use Sean’s computer. I’ll log you in.” He showed me to the computer beside his own, and set it up. Sitting in front of a keyboard, I felt like life was making sense again. I mean, it seriously wasn’t, but typing was something I could do with my eyes closed. Literally. I’d learned to touch type on the ancient class computer at lunchtimes while the other students were busy eating and playing Angry Birds on their phones.
Rick gave me a stack of about fifty sheets of paper.
“My shift finishes in four hours, at eight a.m., so do what you can between now and then. Want some coffee?”
One minute I was his prisoner, now I was working for him. How had this happened?
“Yeah. Please.” Turning my chair around, I began working. I transformed the writing on the paper into a beautifully-typed masterpiece as my fingers flew over the keyboard.
I made it through five or six more cups of bad coffee, and a stack of paper, by the time some other guys came in.
“New recruit, Rick?”
I looked around and stiffened in fear. It was the Sheriff. The actual Sheriff. In this room. This room that I was also in. The guy whose face was on the placards by the intersection. Here.
I mean, it made sense. He was a sheriff in a precinct. Where else would he be?
Oh, God, was I in trouble? Whatever Rick said next might mean I got charged or something. What if the Sheriff wanted to make an example out of me?
“She’s helping me type up some reports, Sir,” Rick said.
“She got a name?”
I felt the Sheriff’s eyes on me. It was like, when he looked at me, he could see everything I hadn’t done and everything I shouldn’t have done, all in one brief glance. Rick had a similar gaze. Maybe it was a law enforcement thing.
“Avery, Sir,” I muttered.
“You got called Sir? I got a mouthful of rudeness. What’s so special about the Sheriff?” Rick teased me. I frowned and felt my face going very, very red.
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��Get lost,” I grumbled. “I got your typing done.”
“That’s no way to speak to an officer of the law, young lady,” Rick told me. It felt so humiliating, being spoken to like this, especially when the Sheriff was right there.
“You owe me twenty-four bucks,” I told him.
“How’d you figure that out?”
I got irritated because he owed me money and now he was implying that he wasn’t going to pay.
“You said seven bucks an hour for this gig. I’ve been working solidly for four hours. That’s twenty-four bucks!”
“No, it isn’t.” Rick’s tone was firm. I looked to the Sheriff for support.
“He’s right. He doesn’t owe you twenty-four dollars,” the Sheriff said.
My jaw fell to the floor. I couldn’t believe I’d done all that work and he wasn’t even going to pay me! After the day I’d had yesterday. When he knew I’d had nowhere to sleep and no money. What a douche.
“Fine. Screw you, Officer Asshole!” I snapped. “Next time you want someone to help you, maybe you should find a volunteer. Douchebag.” I tried to storm out, but the Sheriff blocked the exit and Rick put one hand on my shoulder.
“Ma’am, seven bucks multiplied by four hours isn’t twenty-four dollars. It’s twenty-eight.”
My stomach felt like I’d fallen down a hole. Twenty-eight?
“So... you weren’t trying to cheat me?” I asked, although I was pretty sure I already knew the answer. This was so embarrassing.
“No. I wasn’t.”
“I’m going to go get a breakfast muffin from across the street,” the Sheriff muttered, turning and leaving. Another officer appeared at the door but the Sheriff said something to him and they both left.
Rick and I were alone. And I’d just been really rude to him.
“You planning to arrest me again?” I asked him.
“No. You haven’t broken the law this time. But you’ve been pretty rude to me. And I don’t tolerate rudeness. You agreed to follow my rules when I let you out of the cell. I could find a lot of work for a fast typist like you. But if you want the job, you have to make amends.”
I frowned. “I’m real sorry, I got the wrong idea is all. I swear I’ll try harder to be nice. I’m so stuck right now. Like, you would not believe how bad I need a job...” I babbled. He held a hand up.
“I could make a guess about it. But there are plenty of other places that would hire a young lady with a strong work ethic. I have no doubts you’d find something eventually.” He paused for a moment and I felt his eyes boring into me. It was like he could see into my soul and size me up completely with that intense look.
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“If you want, you can have a job here typing up reports overnight. Sheriff Bob will agree to it if I ask him. We have the budget. But if you want to work here, you gotta make amends. Your smart mouth has landed you in trouble.”
“What kind of amends?” I looked over my shoulder. The exit was clear. He wasn’t in the way if I wanted to flee.
“To square things up between us, you’re going to have to take a spanking.”
A... what? I looked up into his eyes, trying to find any trace of humor. There was a twinkle, but I didn’t think this was a joke.
“Like a naughty child.” I shook my head in disbelief. “What if I don’t agree?”
“You’re free to go out into the world and do anything you please. But I won’t tolerate disrespect, especially when I’m trying to help you. If you want to work for me, you have to follow my rules, and that includes being polite.”
Polite. Rules. Spanking. How were these things all coming out of his mouth at the same time? I thought about leaving for half a second, but I was intrigued. No one had ever spoken to me like this. His calm authority spoke to a part of me that had always craved something I couldn’t put my finger on.
I had to know where this was headed.
This job. I was thinking about the job. That was all. At least, that’s what I tried to tell myself.
“Fine. Spank me.” I shrugged.
“You consent?” He didn’t sound surprised so much as checking I was definitely agreeing to this.
“Sure.”
He leaned closer, his hot breath against my cheek, and said, “You’d best bend over my desk, young lady. You have a punishment coming.”
I inhaled sharply, my pussy clenching as he spoke. I told myself the words were meaningless. Just a cop trying to teach a bad girl a lesson. I bent over his desk and waited, not entirely sure why I was obeying him.
Chapter 3
Avery
I’d never been spanked before so this whole scenario was new to me. Whenever my dad was mad at me he just yelled and threw things, and sometimes the things missed me. The calm restraint of the cop was a little confusing. He’d made it clear I’d wronged him, but he wasn’t yelling at me or belittling me. It was hard to process what was happening.
I bent over his desk, as he told me to. In this position, I felt vulnerable and exposed.
“No, don’t slouch. Push your bottom up. You’re going to take this like a good girl,” he told me. The words sounded like the kind of thing you’d say to a naughty child, but they were clearly intended a little differently. I tried to shift my body to follow his instructions.
“Much better. Know what this is?” He held something in front of my face and I nodded.
“A ping-pong bat.”
“I’m the Snake Eye undefeated table tennis champion five years running,” he told me. “And this is my lucky paddle.”
“Lucky me.” The words just popped out. I wished I could put them back inside my mouth and not say them.
“I’ll add extra for the sarcasm,” he assured me.
His paddle landed hard on my sit spot and I squeaked as the pain exploded across my skin.
“Okay! Okay! I give. I’m sorry I was rude,” I babbled.
“Good. It’s always good to be apologetic, but you’ve got a whole spanking ahead of you, so I’d stop talking if I were you.”
His paddle landed on my ass several more times. My thin cotton dress and panties were no protection at all. The wooden paddle thudded into me hard, searing through my bottom and making me regret ever speaking out of line.
The burning pain bubbled up inside me, until I had to ask in a half-yell, “Howwww many more of these—owwwwww—are there?”
He didn’t reply, but another flurry of paddle swats landed on my ass and I yelped as they exploded.
“Please, I’m sorry!” I was beginning to panic. I knew I’d agreed to this, but it was so hard! Why did it have to be so hard? And the swats weren’t following a pattern. He was landing them all over my ass, occasionally catching my sit-spot which felt extra-hard.
“Young lady, this is for what you did earlier, not how you feel about it right now,” he told me sternly.
I shook my head, trying to get the pain out somehow, but it just clustered around my bottom like an angry cloud of arrrrgh. My breathing was out of control and I scrunched my eyes up to try and stop myself from crying.
Nothing had made me cry in years. I wasn’t about to start now.
I held it in.
Just when I thought I’d got that under control, my eyes began to water. Fat drops landed on the desk in front of me and I sniffled.
He paused and leaned over.
“It’s just hay fever!” My words came out sharper than I wanted them to.
“In Arizona? In the desert air?”
I said nothing. It was hay fever. Allergies. I’d never figured out what I was allergic to. It wasn’t like my dad ever would have paid for a fancy allergy test.
I wasn’t crying.
I wasn’t.
“Have it your way. Guess I’m not done spanking you.”
He moved behind me again. He placed one hand flat on the small of my back. The paddle landed over and over on my sit-spot, making me clench my fists as the pop-pop-pop of pain lit my nerves on fire.
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“Arrrrrgh...” I complained.
“You can take this. I’m barely touching you,” he replied.
I didn’t believe him.
At the same time, the burn was changing and going somewhere else. It was like my bottom was too full of punishment so the heat was now overflowing into nearby areas. Only, it wasn’t hurting so much as... tingling? Was that the right word? I’d never experienced anything like this before.
Warmth spread through my panties. For a moment, I thought I was having the sort of unavoidable accident referred to in those Tena Lady commercials. But this was only a little liquid. It was obviously something else. I just didn’t know what.
The swats stopped. The heat stayed. I was still wrestling with watery eyes—which was nothing to do with this spanking—but now my body was confusing me. Deep in my core, a sort of hungry ache was making itself known.
He cupped my embarrassingly small breasts. His thumbs ran over my nipples, sending a shock straight to my clit.
“Next time, I’ll pull your panties down and spank your bare bottom, so I can see for myself how it’s making you feel.” His voice had changed a little. Huskier. Was this affecting him the same way it had affected me? But no one had spanked his ass.
I gasped as I thought about him lifting the hem of my skirt. Sliding my thin cotton panties down. Seeing the liquid pooling between my legs. The slight swell of my clit.
“Who says there’ll be a next time?” I asked, trying to sound like I didn’t care.
“Every inch of your body, except your voice,” he assured me. “Your eyes are hooded. Pupils dilated. Your breathing has slowed down. Lips parted slightly. Nipples are pointy and hard. And I’d be willing to bet there’s wetness between your legs and you don’t know why.”
How did he know? I stared at him in disbelief.
“I’m a cop. I can interpret your reactions and figure out what’s going on inside that pretty head of yours in seconds.”
Through the fog of whatever he’d done to me, I suddenly remembered how this had started. I had spoken out of line. This had been a punishment.
“I’m sorry I was rude. Pretty sure spanking isn’t in your rule book for how to treat prisoners.”
Stay All Night: Arizona Law 2 (Arizona Heat Book 6) Page 2
