Rod of Correction: Taken and Tamed

by Carolyn Faulkner

  Instead, realizing he’d lost almost two more hours of his life to the Internet, he headed for his huge gourmet kitchen and began to prepare breakfast for them.

  Minutes later, everything was perking along nicely – the bacon his chef always had precooked and ready for him to just heat up in the microwave was almost done, along with a seasonal fresh fruit salad. Her cup of coffee – strong and dark like he knew she liked it – was waiting to be brewed in the Keurig; he’d already scarfed most of his first cup of the day down and would probably have to make another before they ate. Scrambled eggs – liberally adulterated with cheese but nothing more because he wasn’t sure of her exact tastes - were on the back burner to keep warm, and his one weakness, his one true indulgence that he allowed himself every Sunday was warming in the oven – giant, big as your head cinnamon rolls. He had his chef trained to make two of them – and two only – on Fridays before he left his boss to his own devices for the weekend. He’d learned just how Rod liked them, with lots of sugary cinnamon and tons of cream cheese frosting sitting in a bowl on the counter, waiting to melt into the tops once he took them out.

  He was being extremely generous with her, considering he was giving her one of his precious rolls. He hoped she realized just how special that meant she was to him. He’d dated women for months who had gone wanting when it came to that particular vice of his.

  Just when he was congratulating himself on being so benevolent, a whirlwind that was being swallowed up by one of his button down shirts darted past him, right to the treasure chest in which she had voluntarily placed her phone and her keys last night, upon arriving.

  But, of course, when she flipped the lid up, there was nothing there. “Where is it? Where’d it go? It was right here last night . . .”

  By the time he got there to tell her where they were, she was already on her hands and knees on the floor, peering beneath the beautiful antique mahogany buffet and peering here and there, muttering invectives at the cell phone gods for not having kept better track of it for her.

  Rod wasn’t being much help because he found himself mesmerized by the sight that greeted his eyes. She was facing away from him in much the same position into which he had put her last night on his bed, straining to look under the furniture, his big shirt obscuring the majority of her more exciting bits, but still he didn’t think he’d ever seen one of his shirts ever look so good on anyone, including himself.

  For a long while, he stood there, slack jawed and dry mouthed until, finally, he reached down without thinking and took a hold of her, at the very private root of her, making her jerk her head up at the sudden – not to mention extremely intimate – contact with a resounding thunk.

  “Oh, dear, Sunny, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you do that.” He immediately abandoned his more interesting post in favor of practically hauling her out from under the furniture.

  “Don’t – no, God damn it! Stop it! I have to find my cell!” she protested very loudly and very petulantly as she actively fought him. “I’m expecting a call from -” absolutely no one that mattered as much as getting him to cease and desist. She realized, as soon as his hand made contact with her rump that she should immediately reconsider her words, her tone and her actions. He’d draped her unceremoniously over the back of the big overstuffed couch, holding her there with ridiculous ease by the mere placement of his hand on her back.

  He’d only planted a few swats before he patted her behind, saying, “I would suggest you not move – even a millimeter – before I get back.”

  As much as she wanted to get up and continue to search for her things – and she really, really, did – Sunny somehow managed to do as she was told. She craned her head around a bit to see what he was up to, but that the extent to which she had moved. She had a feeling that his little foray into his study wasn’t going to mean anything pleasant for her, and she knew she didn’t want to make things worse.

  When he returned, it was with something in his right hand that she couldn’t see well because of the angle.

  But she could certainly feel it! Something long and thin – a ruler, maybe? – assailed her backside with a vengeance, the sting of which didn’t lessen with time, not one iota - in fact, just the opposite.

  He swatted her so many times – and so hard – that it actually broke. That stopped him as he spent several minutes very carefully inspecting her rear to make sure that she hadn’t gotten any splinters. If she hadn’t been crying so hard, - blubbering for the first time since she was a child, Sunny would have jumped for joy at the implement’s timely demise.

  She would have been celebrating prematurely, because, apparently, he had brought a whole fistful of the blasted things with him, and he proceeded to destroy each one of them in the course of teaching her this painful lesson.

  When he finally stopped, Rod was panting from his efforts, and it looked like someone had massacred a handful of rulers as they lay broken and scattered where he’d flung each one before reaching for the next.

  She was still over the couch, where he’d put her, as she damned well better be, panting much harder than he was and hiccoughing sobs. He hoped that helped her come to the realization that he would not tolerate being spoken to by her like that. It seemed as if they were back at square one, as if she’d forgotten everything she’d learned last night, not that he was going to let her continue to do so.

  Sunny didn’t think that anything had ever hurt so badly in her life. She wasn’t a mother, so she didn’t have that kind of comparison, and she had never had surgery and was, luckily, very healthy. She’d sprained her ankle here and there, gotten tennis elbow when she’d discovered, then inevitably overindulged in the sport, but it was nothing like this.

  Perhaps it was the combination of the several kinds of embarrassment that had heightened the sensations she felt every time one of those rulers landed. A lot of them – especially near the end – smacked down right over territory that had already been covered multiple times. There was always going to be a baseline of mortification at being spanked like a child. There was no way around it. But now she was also embarrassed because she’d awoken and not even considered the events of the last evening, but rather reacted absolutely frantically because she’d gotten a look at his bedside clock and realized she’d slept so long, and she knew she was expecting several important calls this morning that she absolutely could not miss.

  She’d forgotten her new position, even though it was so soon after having confessed to him that she didn’t want to be released from their arrangement, too.

  So she waited – arms not long enough that she could support herself on the couch cushions beneath her and legs not nearly long enough to make it to the floor, dangling there as her bottom throbbed and stung terribly, and awaiting his pleasure.

  Rod, too, was having a bit of time composing himself. He didn’t usually issue such a severe spanking, especially not so early on in a relationship. But he wouldn’t back down from it; he wouldn’t apologize. He intended to hold her as closely to the bet as possible, for as long as possible. If he managed things correctly, he had hopes that this might even turn into something much longer-lived.

  He hadn’t considered even just exclusivity with a woman in years, much less a far deeper commitment than mere fidelity. In the past decade, the majority of his encounters with the opposite sex had been little more than one night stands, with the occasional, rare months-long thing that always dissolved when he had to choose between his work and the woman.

  Not this woman, though. He hadn’t let anyone get that close to him since he was in his early thirties, and even that had died a slow, painful death because of his obsession with his business.

  He’d reached the top of his game long since, and was still a major force within the business community, but lately he’d been thinking a lot more about wanting a real relationship again, and was – to his great surprise – more than willing to put it first, ahead of his job.

  He was in his forties, and all
of his friends had been married at least once, if not several times more than that, and almost all of them had rug rats, too.

  When he’d met Sunny, he already knew most things about her – her stellar career and savvy business moves had him wishing he’d found her first. They would have been an unbeatable pair.

  They still could be, only not in the boardroom, and, after having gotten to know her over this past year, he’d become even more persuaded that he had to make her his.

  Now, as he spoke to her in a calm, low voice, he kneaded her rear, both soothing and aggravating it at the same time, which was exactly his intent. His speech was frequently punctuated by her low moans and soft sobs. “I have your cell phone, your keys, and my cell in the safe in my study. I know you’re a busy lady – I’m just as busy as you are, probably even more so. But you will not be getting either of those things back until tomorrow morning, just before I send you home. No computers, no cells, for either of us. And if you lose any money because of it, you can send me the bill.”

  He didn’t offer her the option, this time, of bailing. As far as he was concerned, that ship had sailed.

  “Who are you?”

  She wondered if it was a trick question. “S-Sunny McClure, Sir?”

  “And what are you?”

  That one she struggled with for a long moment, then she sighed and said, “A submissive, Sir.”

  “Whose?”

  She kicked her feet a bit before answering, “Yours, Sir.”

  To her surprise, he helped her down very gently, making sure she had her full balance before he let go of her arm, then he proceeded to unbutton the shirt she’d put on in haste, not finding her clothes anywhere in the room. “No more clothing, Sunny,” he chided. “If I want you to be dressed, I’ll do it myself.”

  He laid the shirt over the couch she had just vacated. “Are you cold?” he asked, frowning, noticing her peaked nipples. “Do you want me to turn up the heat?”

  That had her blushing bright red and shaking her lowered head. “No, Sir,” came the soft reply from under that mass of hair, embarrassed to let him know that it wasn’t cold that was causing that reaction.

  She might have expected that he would have her kneel before him as he did this, but instead he brought her close to him, one hand splayed on her furnace of a bottom, as if proudly claiming the effect his corrections had had on her, the other buried in the hair at the base of her head holding it tipped up and steady, so that she had no choice than to meet his eyes.

  “Fold your hands behind your back and tell me again, Sunny, who and what you are,” came the husky command.

  She could feel how aroused he was. They were both nude; there was no hiding it, in his case, anyway, and in that position, her hips pressed outward as her back arched, as if seeking him. She wished he hadn’t made her put her arms out of the way; she would have much preferred to have them around him while confessing something she found so strangely profound. “I’m Sunny McClure, and I belong to you, Sir,” she almost whispered, staring straight into his eyes. As she spoke the words, his hand came around to cup her womanhood, requiring that she spread her legs to accommodate his quiet demand.

  She’d changed the wording a bit, but in a way that he loved, so he didn’t chastise her. Of course he couldn’t resist delving a bit, holding her still while his middle finger drowned in her juices. He watched her eyelids shudder, saw her breathing quicken as he drank in her immediate responses to him and felt her melt in his arms.

  All of a sudden, though, she found herself standing there, alone, still mesmerized, looking up at him with her every desire mirrored in her eyes, but he was already standing in the doorway to the kitchen. “Breakfast is served. Follow me.”

  She was very reluctant to be naked outside, but he assured her that he owned enough land around them that they couldn’t be seen, and reminded her that his driveway ended at the front of the house and they were going to be at the back, as well as the fact that no one could get past the gate at the beginning of the driveway without him buzzing it open.

  All of which he explained while he was guiding her there - not at all willing to let her prudishness spoil the secret spot he was taking her to. It was a place she’d only seen in once, in darkness, a little alcove patio up against the back wall of the house, with a small wicker table and chairs, that was surrounded by hundreds of bird baths, bird feeders and bird houses. They were so tame they barely took notice of their human observers. He served her a generous portion of fruit salad, bacon, cheesy eggs, and half of the enormous cinnamon bun, as well as pouring her coffee – which he already knew she liked black with two sugars – along with a big glass of fresh squeezed orange juice.

  The extravagant breakfast was barely enough to pry her attention away from the birds – big jays and tiny finches and nearly everyone in between, even a few humming birds were all busily eating, bathing and, in some cases, fighting, despite there being more than enough of everything to go around.

  There was even a squirrel feeder – a concession, he told her – to the housecat sized squirrels, who regularly raided his feeders if not given their vig.

  “If you’re out for long enough, and you’re quiet enough, you can feed the hummingbirds from your hand.”

  He had to admit he’d hoped she’d like it, but was surprised by her enthusiasm over the spot, which weighed heavily in her favor. He hadn’t shown any other woman this place, preferring, if they stayed to breakfast, to have it in the nook in the kitchen or the dining room, depending on her style, and to keep its charms entirely to himself.

  She was so enthralled that her breakfast was getting cold and she’d barely touched it. “Sunny, eat. The birds’ll still be there when we’re done.”

  She turned back to attend to her meal, but was easily distracted again by their antics. Instead of letting her incur another punishment for not eating her breakfast, Rod solved the problem in a most pleasant manner by simply lifting her onto his lap and feeding her himself. She didn’t even seem to notice, but opened her mouth like a little bird when he told her.

  It was a long, leisurely meal, one that both of them thoroughly enjoyed, although Rod probably for different reasons than Sunny. He was very happy that he’d gotten her to eat the majority of a big breakfast. He knew from one of their mutual friends that she had been anorexic in high school and part of college, although she had recovered. She was still too thin for his tastes; when he stretched out over her, he worried she was going to break. He wasn’t going to have any of that not-eating crap on his watch.

  He liked that she seemed much more relaxed with him than she had been last night. He was still somewhat stunned by the turn of events – not that he wasn’t glad about it, but it had turned out better than anything he could have fantasized. In his mind, he had run her through them all, almost from the moment they’d met, but the reality certainly was a hell of a lot more exciting!

  Chapter VI

  Rod was just about ready to call breakfast good. But he had other things on his mind, too. He helped Sunny off his lap and told her to bend over and touch her toes.

  She was a fast learner – sometimes – and realized that putting up a fight probably wasn’t the best idea, considering the condition her hind end was already in. So, adorned with her usual beet-red blush around him, she did as he bade.

  “Good girl,” he murmured, recognizing just how hard it must be for her to do that, although he wouldn’t have hesitated to give her behind a second tanning – just as bad as the first – if she had refused.

  She was so small, especially in comparison to him – not sickly and ultra thin, just fine boned. Her delicacy pleased him, although he knew she was really hard as steel. He thought it must have been difficult to always have to be that way as a businesswoman. In his experience, most women had a softer side, one that, as career women, he’d found they had to lock away in order to succeed.

  “Do you like other animals as much as you like the birds?” he asked, just out of curiosity. />
  “All of them, although I don’t own any, because it wouldn’t be fair to the dog or cat or horse or whatever, Sir.”

  He nodded, having reached the same conclusion himself.

  “Your skin is so soft,” he marveled, trailing his fingertips down the groove of her spine, all the way to the top of her cleft. The birds, having breakfasted with them, had left to their own pursuits, and in the silence he could hear the way she sucked in her breath when he arrived there – in anticipation, no doubt, of what he might subject her to.

  It ended up being something that wasn’t too horrible, she guessed, if there had only been one instance of it. He had pressed himself – his rock hard maleness – up into her quim, withdrawing it triumphantly, covered in her slick juices.

  “Are you always like this?” he asked.

  Sunny laughed nervously, her eyes flittering to his and then quickly away. “No, Sir.”

  “Ahhh. Must be the fresh country air.”

  Not wanting to contribute to his ego, which didn’t need any help as far as she could tell, she didn’t bother correcting him.

  This was just the first of many such inspections he conducted, whenever the mood struck him, for the rest of her time with him. In the middle of lunch, while they were watching a gold mine of H+ episodes. In his cozy den, curled up on the big overstuffed couch – over which she’d already been draped once – and at the end of what constituted dinner, which was leftover pizza and party food from the night before.

  “I won’t always let you eat like this, you know.” He had prohibited her from feeding herself entirely, as he’d found he enjoyed the process so much, and it allowed him to make sure she ate in sufficient quantities, and – usually – not junk food, but this was an unusual situation.

  Sunny had caught his occasional references to the idea that this wasn’t just a weekend lost in time. Despite how much she was enjoying it, she wasn’t at all sure that she wanted to commit to more, because she knew that she’d then be taking on someone who would be at least as demanding as her job, and she wasn’t sure she could do it, even for this . . . for him. It was hard enough not to run into his study and try to find his safe when she thought he wasn’t looking, but he always was looking at her, watching out for her, making sure she was comfortable and had everything she wanted or needed.