by Livia Grant
“I hope they paid you for coming,” Marcus Devon said to Kieran on the way out. “If you ever get fed up at computers, you have an alternative career as a clown.”
Kieran noticed a distinct coolness between Carla and Marcus’ partner, Cadence. They just about acknowledged one another and the couple moved on pretty quickly with Marcus’ children in tow. Kieran couldn’t help wondering about it as they walked towards the exit. Jack was kicking his ball in front of him, and letting it bounce back on the extendable string attached. His game was slowing them up and most people had already exited. Kieran was too busy pondering over the coolness between Cadence and Carla to pay much attention to his surrounds.
Kieran heard a dog bark and the sounds of panting nearing them. He looked around only to see a large Rottweiler running at Jack. Instinctively Kieran got between Jack and the dog, blocking the dog’s path.
“Get down on the ground both of you,” he roared at Carla and Ava. At the same time, he pushed Jack down and covered the child with his body while still watching that the other two were not attacked. Carla and Ava watched wide-eyed and screaming from their crouched positions as the dog ploughed over Kieran. He was torn between protecting Jack, who seemed to be the object of the fierce hound’s focus, and trying to calm the other two.
“Heads down,” he shouted at them. Even if he could not prevent the onslaught, he at least wanted to stop Ava and Carla from seeing it. Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion and yet he knew it was all a matter of seconds before the dog was upon them. He could hear some of the circus staff shouting frantically at the dog and who didn’t even pause in his tracks. The last thing he heard as he put his head down low in an effort to protect his face and neck, was the sound of feet running towards him.
The beast ploughed through him, clawing him with his toenails, and widened his massive jaw. Kieran tensed, ready to feel his teeth. With a mighty jump, the dog pounced on Jack’s ball, and promptly ran off with it. Jack was hysterical, more at the loss of his ball than fear as he almost seemed unaware of the danger. Ava and Carla were equally panic stricken at what might have been the outcome. Kieran managed to calm them all enough to move. He ushered them all back to the O’Brien’s house with promises of buying an even bigger, better ball the next day. Carla remained unnaturally quiet, her face ashen.
“Are you all right?” Kieran asked, putting his arm around her. For once she didn’t shirk his touch. He noticed she was trembling. Tears were running down her face. “Hey, there was no harm done, it was only a ball,” he reassured her.
“I’m absolutely petrified of big dogs. One of my cousins was mauled by a Doberman when we were small. He was lucky to survive. I thought for sure you or Jack were going to be torn to shreds,” she admitted.
“He was no match for an O’Brien. Jack and I would have torn him apart with our bare hands,” Kieran said with bravado, trying to raise a smile. But she remained grim. Even when they returned to Ange and Jim’s and the children had long since forgotten the incident, with the help of a movie and bowlfuls of popcorn, Carla was still absolutely silent. She insisted on waiting for Jim and Ange’s return before she would leave, even though Kieran was there.
When Ange and Jim eventually returned, Kieran walked Carla back to her place. He offered to stay in the guestroom, which Carla refused in spite of her obvious distress. He took that as yet another rejection. She was obviously keeping him at arms length and didn’t trust his motives for offering to stay. He actually did have an ulterior motive to stay – her appointment was looming large and he really wanted to talk to her about it, but he didn’t know where to start.
Kieran just couldn’t get his head around what she was proposing to do. The more he thought of it, the more it riled him. The idea that Carla would bare herself, and put herself in such an intimate position with a complete stranger, was disturbing. When he examined his reasoning, Kieran knew he actually wouldn’t have felt much better if it was someone personally known to her, except he would be less concerned for her safety. Eventually he had to acknowledge the source of his annoyance. He was jealous. He didn’t want another man near her. Finally, he plucked up the courage to address it the following day as they lounged around the pool after their swim. He broached it on the apparently reasonable grounds of her safety.
“You’ve your beating appointment tomorrow, don’t you? Well I’m coming with you, and I’ll wait in the car,” he announced out of the blue.
“Don’t call it that. Thanks, but I could be a few hours. It’s too long,” Carla protested, but it was weak. He could see she was almost relieved. He knew she hadn’t told anyone else what she was up to, so she was still set on going alone
“Either I go, or I ask Ange to. I’m not letting you go alone, and that’s final. It’s too dangerous to let you go on your own.”
“Okay, okay! You can come. To be honest, I’m more nervous than I expected to be. It would be good to know there is someone waiting for me. But no heroics, you stay outside, even if you hear me scream, because I will scream. That’s the whole point of it. If I really need you, I’ll shout your name, okay?” She gave him a severe look with her warning. He knew she didn’t trust him after how he had tried to interfere with Jim and Ange.
“I swear. I’ll keep out of it unless you call me. I know it might sound paranoid to you, but I just can’t help worry that he could be some sort of evil bastard luring you there under false pretences. Preying on your insecurities or something.”
“Lord bless you, Kieran O’Brien, you’re the only person in Corbin’s Bend who sees me as half human, I’d bet. Most of them would be queuing up to abandon me on his doorstep and with good reason. Ange is the only exception, and she’s the one with the most right to hate me.”
“What do you mean, Ange should hate you?”
“Never mind, I’ll tell you another time. Maybe after I’ve had my discipline session. I can’t believe they haven’t told you.” Carla’s face was flushed with embarrassment and she became totally restless. He watched her skit right back to the pool and swim another twenty laps to avoid talking to him. He couldn’t help but wonder what was going on in that complicated, pretty head of hers.
Chapter Four
Three a.m. Carla thought with a groan. She had spent the whole night fighting with sleeplessness in spite of having taken a sleeping pill. She was surprised at how nervous she felt about the whole thing. It was bloody Kieran rubbing off on her with that nonsense about her safety, she decided. Although, she had to acknowledge she was also nervous about the actual spanking thing. She had only ever had one real bad punishment when she was nineteen years old and she and some friends had been caught doing Ecstasy at a party. Her father had a friend in the police department and he had pulled some strings to avoid a court appearance, but her father had been called. God she had paid for that. She didn’t know her father had it in him.
For most of her childhood she had been pampered and indulged as an only child. Spankings had been rare and very moderate. But the day after the party, she thought she would surely die before he had finished with her. The chemise and brief panties she was permitted to wear for modesty purposes had afforded her little protection as he paddled her over and over again over his study desk. Whenever she thought about it even to this day, she could feel the after effects and the humiliation of being made to strip down to her under-things and bend across his desk. Her mother was there, watching, and she had cried tear for tear with Carla. But it had worked. She never, ever touched a banned substance again. Awful as it was in one way, it was also a defining moment. She looked at her father with new respect and was much more mindful of his orders after that. She knew that he spanked her mother, and she also knew that was what she needed in her own marriage. A man to pay mind to, not someone she could walk all over.
The sound of her hall clock chiming the half hour brought her back to the present. Carla knew she was going to be sore and emotionally exhausted after her ordeal. She was anxious about what the di
sciplinarian would be like, but he seemed to be of good repute. She was also apprehensive about baring her soul to this stranger, facing her faults. She had written out a list of the transgressions that were troubling her so she could be punished for each and every one. No point in going through with it if she didn’t feel she had faced them all, painful as they were to her.
Carla was touched that Kieran was willing to come with her. Especially given his views on spanking as discipline in general. She liked that he wanted to take care of her and couldn’t help regret that he was so bloody vanilla. He was the first person she had felt really at ease with since she had screwed up so badly, first with Jim, then Marcus, the local doctor. She cringed when she remembered how she had reacted to her discovery of Cadence’s handicap and how hard it had hit her when Marcus employed Cadence to look after his children over her, in spite of her disability. She hated her stupid tactlessness. Bad and all as that was, she knew Kieran would probably end up hating her if he knew how she had tried to come between Ange and Jim. Carla couldn’t bear that, he was her best friend in Corbin’s Bend. Up until the previous day, she had assumed Kieran had known at least some of her history with the O’Briens, but once again she had underrated them, and how they genuinely seemed to have forgiven it.
She tried to distract her wayward, sleepless mind with thoughts of Kieran. It was nice having a man friend that she wasn’t interested in. His vanilla status made him even more undesirable to her than his relationship to Jim. Carla knew she could never allow herself to love a man that couldn’t live her chosen way of life. She needed it with every fibre of her being. She needed a man she could look up to and respect, a man that could curb her inclination to self-serving behavior and bitchiness, the traits she least liked about herself. But more than anything, she needed a man who would love her in spite of this; and care enough to correct it with good old fashioned spanking discipline. Someone who cared enough as much for her as her father did that day all those years ago. She knew Hank had felt every one of those blows on his heart, just as Carla had on her bottom, but he saw it as his duty to protect his darling only child from herself.
The school bell went off and Carla was late. She was terrified. She’d been late twice this term, if she was caught again, she surely would end up in the principal’s office. The bell kept ringing and ringing and she was running faster and faster. She could hear footsteps chasing her, calling her name. With a jolt, she woke up and realized the footsteps were someone pounding on the door and the school bell was actually the doorbell. She jumped out of bed shouting she was coming as she pulled on a dressing gown to cover her skimpy nightdress.
“What the heck? Do you realise it’s six thirty? I only just got to sleep,” Carla snapped at Kieran as he barged through the front door.
“Sorry, this couldn’t wait. I can’t let you go through with it. I won’t let you do it. I’ve been awake all night thinking about it. It’s crazy.”
“You can’t stop me! It’s got nothing to do with you, Kieran. I need to face my demons, and be punished for it, and unless you’re going to man up and do the punishing, then I suggest you get the hell out and let me make my own decisions,” Carla snapped with exasperation. She saw his brain catch up with her words.
“And if I punish you, you’ll cancel?”
“Christ, Kieran, I was joking. It’s called sarcasm. We both know you wouldn’t be able to see it through.”
“But if I could?”
“Fine, if you could, and if you could do it properly, then yes, I’ll cancel.” She didn’t for one minute believe there was any likelihood of her not making her appointment.
“So, what exactly do I need to do?” he asked.
“Fuck, you want the step by step guide?”
“How the hell else am I supposed to do it? Or make it mean anything.”
“Shit, you’re serious. Um, okay. I suppose first you need to talk to me about what it is I’ve done. Get me to confess it. Then spank me for each thing, I guess. Maybe pausing in between. Look I don’t really know. I’ve only ever had this done once, when I was young. Every other time it was erotic. But I think you need to be disapproving, authoritative. I doubt you can do that! It’s a crazy idea.” Kieran flinched and she knew she had stung his manhood, although she didn’t mean to. She was just being straight. Her foot in mouth disease was playing up again.
“Let me worry about how I behave! We’re here to discuss how you have behaved. For now I need the practicalities. Like what I’m supposed to use, how many times I’m supposed to hit you. How I know if I’m going too far, or even if I’m not doing it enough. You know what, you go and wait in your room, and give me a key. I’m going to talk to Jim. I’ll get more sense out of him.” Without waiting for a reply, he was gone, snatching her door-keys from inside the front door.
Shit, she’d gone and done it now. If he was going to punish her, then he was going to want to know why. She’d have to tell him everything. Carla cringed at the thought of the conversation that was going on between Kieran and Jim right at that moment. No doubt Kieran would reveal all to his brother. She was mortified. She figured she might as well wait in her bedroom as suggested.
The room was a mess, and she quickly grabbed three days’ worth of dirty laundry from the floor and dumped it in the laundry hamper, before quickly flinging the clean clothes she hadn’t yet tidied into a pile on the floor of her walk in closet. The four glasses on her nightstand would just have to wait as she didn’t dare leave the bedroom.
When that was done, she was at a loss over what to do. She decided to stand facing the wall. Carla mulled over her night clothes. She left the nightdress on and took off her robe as a compromise. Standing naked waiting would have been just too humiliating, especially given that they had a platonic relationship. She worried if he would actually want her naked, or even just bare-bottomed. Her panties were light and flimsy enough, but at least they would afford her some modesty. Her pulse was racing. She was anxious. Not even so much about the spanking as chances were he probably would be afraid to go too hard on her. But confessing her errors to him was way worse than doing it to a stranger who didn’t know or care about the people involved. And nor did she really care how a stranger viewed her. But Kieran, that was different, she would loathe to lose his regard.
It took forty five minutes of standing there before she finally heard the front door open. She didn’t dare look towards the door of the bedroom. Shame and fear prevented her. Carla realized she could lose a good friend before the morning was out, and it saddened her deeply. She was regretting her rash decision as she heard the door open.
“Good girl, well done,” he said softly. Then more firmly “Jim says you should have a paddle that you got when you moved in. I want you to get it and hand it to me. I will use my hand first, then the paddle and maybe even my belt, depending on what you’ve done, okay?” Carla nodded, while looking at the floor. She couldn’t look him in the eye as she handed the paddle over. She wondered was he as nervous as she? If so, he was doing a great job of hiding it. He seemed quite sure of himself. His brother had instructed him well. He sat at the foot of her bed.
“Take off your nightie. Then I want you to kneel down on the floor, look at me, and tell me why exactly you should be punished.”
The reality was even harder than she had imagined. Taking the nightdress off was bad enough, but having to go through her misdemeanours while in nothing but her panties was hell. She offered to hand him over the list she had written the night before, but he told her no, she had to say the words. Bit by bit he coaxed the whole history of how she had coveted Jim even up to where she had caused Ange the shame of a public spanking. She kept looking away, trying to avoid his gaze which was shockingly grim as he heard the trouble she had brought on his brother and family. With words of steel, he sharply reminded her to look at him each time. There was no hiding place from her guilt. The eyes that normally beheld her in either merriment or concentration, were now silently and sternly upbraiding he
r. His horror at her actions showed on his face. Finally she was done.
“I don’t think I will have much problem spanking you after that. Have you any idea the damage you could have done? Do you even care? And did you even pause for one minute to think the effect your behavior could have had on those two little tots over there? Did they even fit into the Carla master plan, or were you planning that Ange would return home with them and they would be no inconvenience?”
His words came like a slap to her. In truth she didn’t think, at all. At that time, as far as she was concerned, she would have made Jim a much more obedient and fitting partner than Ange could. The children never came into it; she had never once considered them, until after the event. She started to cry, the guilt of her total selfishness coming like a tidal wave.
“Save your tears for later,” he scolded. “What else have you done?” She realized he meant it too. Her admission had hit him hard.
By the time she had haltingly gone through the story of how she had humiliated Cadence because of her disability, he really did know the ugly side of her. Carla never felt so ashamed of herself. She saw her fall from grace in every movement of his jaw and in the dullness in his eyes. For the last couple of weeks, she had known he liked her, and she had revelled in the glory of for once being the admired instead of the admirer. She hated the disappointment in his expression. She had his admiration when she considered it worthless because of his unwillingness to spank. And now here he was, ready to spank out of concern for her safety and maybe even out of jealousy, and bingo! At the very moment she wanted it, Carla had lost his regard. Life just wasn’t fair. Carla felt shattered. Broken. It seemed happiness was not meant to fall her way.
