Replay Book 6: Highland Fling

by Nia Farrell

  “Yes,” she agreed. “Small but mighty. I’ll join you onstage, Sir, as soon as the musicians leave.”

  Standing, Sir Josef whispered something to Rich, then went to where Sir Piers and his wife were seated, listening to the pipes and drums.

  Rich helped her onto the sheet that they’d been using and folded his long legs to sit beside her. “Are you okay?” he asked, his face etched with concern.

  “Better than I was, now that I know what I’ll be dealing with. What I won’t have to deal with.”

  “Sorry I couldn’t change his mind. He’s pretty set on getting you straightened out, but he knows what he’s doing.”

  Rich sounded like he was trying to reassure himself as much as her.

  “I can take it. Really. If anything happens, he’ll answer to Aubrey. It sounds like he wants to avoid that at all costs.”

  “I brought water. I’d take small sips. I don’t know how long he plans to keep you up there, and water sports is a hard limit for you.”

  She appreciated his attempt at humor, but the thought made her stomach pinch.

  “Not helping.” He chided himself. “How about this? Sir Josef might be in charge of your punishment, but he said that I could provide aftercare. All you have to do is say the word, and I’ll be there. Fair enough?”

  Rich was quite the caregiver. Some sub was going to be very lucky. But as much as she enjoyed his company, she couldn’t get Ian off her mind. The look of him. The feel of him. Pity fuck or not, last night, he’d given her the best sex of her life.

  The band played one last song, plus an encore, then started to haul their instruments off the stage. Jannet took one more small sip of water, pushed herself to a stand, and walked to where Sir Josef was waiting.

  “May I have your attention?” he called out, repeating it until all conversation had stopped. “There is to be punishment administered tonight. This unclaimed submissive has wronged me, and I have determined that she should spend reflective time in the stocks. It is my punishment to name, and mine alone to give. She shall not be touched while she is there. Anyone who tries shall be taken off site and returned to the resort. Come, Kleine. Time to pay the piper.”

  “No!”

  Jannet’s head snapped up. There was no mistaking Ian’s voice. He launched himself in the direction of the stage. “I claim first right. She has wronged me, too. Months ago. Last night, I promised her punishment that she has yet to receive. It’s only fair that I have the chance to mete it out.”

  Sir Josef rubbed his chin. “Does he tell the truth? Did you wrong him, as he claims?”

  “He thinks I wronged him. But he has wronged me, too.”

  “Then we have a dilemma. Who shall punish you? Sir Piers, shall you render judgment in this, or must we decide between ourselves?”

  Ian nailed Sir Josef with his gaze. “This is between us,” he growled. “I say let’s settle it like real men did, back in the day. With swords.”

  “Swords.” Sir Josef was fit, but he mouthed the word with dread.

  “I’ll stand for Sir Josef.” Rich stepped forward, the Dom who regularly swung cutlasses in Pirates’ Cove.

  Ian nodded. “I have no objection, if he doesn’t.”

  Sir Josef bowed and stepped back.

  Ian walked over to Rich. “Swords,” he told him. “Of my choosing. If I win, she’s mine to deal with. If I lose, she’ll be Sir Josef’s to punish. Agreed?”

  Rich crooked a smile, confident in his skills. “Agreed.”

  “All right then. I’ll be right back.”

  Ian returned with two claymores, the heavy, two-handed swords wielded by Highlanders. But instead of handing one to Rich, he laid them on the ground, crossed at ninety degree angles. One of the pipers from the band came forward, and Ian stepped into place. Striking a pose, he bowed to the crowd and began the Ghillie Callum, the Scottish sword dance, performed by ancient warriors on the eve of battle.

  He was magnificent. The height he achieved on his jumps rivaled any premier danseur in ballet. The point of his toes, the muscled calves straining the knit of his red stockings, the kicks and flicks of his feet, the increasingly intricate steps woven between the quadrants of the blades…she could hardly believe what she was seeing. And when the tempo shifted so that he had to dance twice as fast, his precision rivaled any competition dancer that she’d ever seen.

  Two minutes was all it took to seal her fate. Rich didn’t stand a chance. He didn’t even try.

  Sir Josef was smiling when he conceded the victory to Ian. “She is yours,” he proclaimed. “Unless she chooses to use her safe word. Then she is mine. Which shall it be, Kleine?”

  She looked at Rich. Looked at Sir Josef. Looked at the man who fucked and danced like a dream, and went to stand before him.

  The next thing she knew, Ian picked her up, tossed her over his broad shoulder, and carried her toward the cottages, just like back in the day, when Highlanders lifted cattle and stole their brides. He kicked open the door to the last cottage on the left, stepped inside, and closed the door before setting her down.

  It was furnished like a home some three hundred years ago, with a sturdy table and chairs, a beamed ceiling, and a bed built to resemble a period piece but made large enough to fit a modern kinky couple. Sets of heavy black iron rings were visible everywhere. On the bed posts. In the door frame. On the overhead beams, table legs, and what had to be a spanking bench. A St. Andrew’s cross was in the corner near the fireplace, which likely wouldn’t be needed tonight.

  “Sit,” he growled, crossing to the table and pulling out a heavy wooden chair. “We are going to talk first. Anything else follows.”

  Jannet did as she was told, sinking down onto the seat.

  “First of all, whatever bullshit you’ve been feeding yourself stops now. Your brother has nothing to do with us. He let me know you were going to be here. That’s all. You didn’t seem to want anything to do with me at his reception. When the subject of dancing turned you cold, I dropped it, otherwise you’d have known what you learned tonight. Even then, I wanted to get to know you better, but I didn’t know how to approach you. Things got crazy at work, and then there was no time. I just finished a project for Sir Josef. I was finally to a point, I’d started thinking about you again, and here comes Micheil, with news that you’d be here. I’d have been here, too, for the music, even if he hadn’t told me. I would have seen you anyway. Wanted you anyway. Needed to tan that backside of yours anyway. Which is still going to happen. Do you remember what I promised you?”

  “Yes, Sir,” she managed. Her mind was busy, trying to grasp everything he was saying.

  “Spanking. Paddling. Flogging. Fucking. And tonight, we’re keeping them in that order. I shouldn’t have let myself get carried away last night. But I’ve been waiting months for you, and when the time came, I couldn’t wait a minute longer. I’ve seen your limits list. I know what you’ve said. Is there anything you want to change? Take off the table or add? No? Then I need your safe words. One to slow down. One to stop.”

  “Arabesque to slow,” she told him. “Coda to stop.”

  “Spoken like a dancer,” he said. “One more time.”

  “Arabesque to slow. Coda to stop.”

  “Good girl. This is your last chance, to stay or go home. What’s it going to be, eilidh?”

  “Stay,” she whispered. The words hung in the space between them.

  Ian nodded. “That bottom’s getting blistered.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “You’re going to crawl to me and beg me for it. You’ll count the strokes and thank me for each one. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  “Let’s begin.”

  Chapter Six

  Ian chose the most unusual reproduction chair in the room, built with the seat rotated so that a corner, not a side, was in front. He sat with his legs parted to straddle it. His hair-dusted knees poked from the bottom of his kilt, a traditional red-and-green MacGregor plaid.


  “Come,” he rumbled, patting his thighs.

  She started to drop to the floor, but hesitated. How in holy hell was she supposed to crawl in skirts? His fingers twitched. She bent her knees. Arms outstretched, she dropped to all fours and began the long, arduous task of crawling to where he sat.

  “Stand,” he ordered when she was close enough to touch him.

  “How many layers over your bottom?” he asked her.

  “Um, four? Skirt, two petticoats, and a chemise.”

  “Take off the dress and petticoats and drape them on the back of a chair. I do not want Jewell Fraser chewing my ass out tomorrow.”

  Jannet managed to turn before he could catch her smiling at the thought. After the miserable night that she’d had, it seemed only fair that he had suffered a little, too.

  She took off her plaid, neatly folded it, and put it on the seat of the chair. Taking off her dress, she laid it across the plaid. Once she’d untied her petticoats and dropped them, she shook them straight, draped them on the back of the chair, then put the dress on top to minimize wrinkles. Done, she turned and took a step toward Ian.

  “Uh uh,” he tsked, shaking his head. “Lass, have you forgotten so soon? That just earned you five more.”

  Shit.

  Biting her tongue, Jannet dropped to the floor and began crawling. She had to be careful with the fine linen fabric. More than once, she had to stop and work the length beneath her knees up enough to advance.

  “Stand,” he rumbled when she reached his right foot. “Bend over both of my legs. That’s it.”

  She ended up with his right thigh notched in the bend of her hips and her arms dangling over his left side, giving her a close-up view of those dancer’s legs of his.

  “Do you remember what I told you that you were going to do?”

  “Yes, Sir. Beg for a spanking, then count each one and thank you for it.”

  “Nothing’s changed,” he said. While he waited for the words, he traced the length of her corset, then smoothed the fabric of her chemise over her bottom. Rubbing circles with his palm, he spread his fingers and flexed them, grabbing hold of each cheek in an erotic claiming of her flesh.

  By the time he pushed his fingers between her thighs and wet the fabric of the chemise with her juices, she was more than ready to beg for a spanking. The sooner he started, the quicker they’d get to the sex that he had promised.

  “Please!” she panted. “Please, spank me, Sir!”

  She swore she could feel him smile.

  Ian pulled on her chemise, easing it up, baring her thighs, then her bottom. The next time he touched her, there was nothing between them but the heady air of anticipation for what was about to happen.

  “Count,” he said, and smacked her ass with the flat of his hand.

  The intensity surprised her. But then, this was discipline, not play. He was definitely the Dom in charge.

  “One,” she choked out. “Thank you, Sir.”

  “Two. Thank you, Sir.” This blow wasn’t as severe. Cupping his hand slightly yielded a deep, dull thud with less sting.

  Ian varied his strokes, changing the curve of his hand and the angle of impact. Most of the time, his palm bounced back from her flesh. Sometimes his stroke followed through. When he grasped her cheek and squeezed one, then the other, she wanted to push back against his palm.

  Ian slowed the pace and increased the intensity of the spanking. Jannet cried, tears falling like rain. Her body craved his discipline, resisting at first, until the endorphins kicked in and she found herself rising to meet his blows. He responded to the shift in her, making his strokes more sensual than punishing, rubbing and squeezing between spanks. Stroking her seam, he wet his finger and dragged it upward to circle her hoop.

  She went still, unable to tell him no, not ready to say yes.

  “Later,” he promised. “Before this weekend is through, I’m going to own every part of you, and you,” he swore, “are going to love it.”

  He pressed against the ring of muscle and slipped the tip of his finger inside. “I’ll need to get you stretched out enough to take me. Preparation is the key. Learning to relax is the trick. I’m telling you now, resistance is futile. This will be mine.”

  Ian pushed in deeper, and deeper yet, until he was buried up to the knuckle. “So tight,” he crooned, pulling out slightly and pushing back in. “You’re going to feel like heaven.” Gradually, he lengthened his strokes, until he was fucking her with his finger. “Good girl,” he rumbled. “We’ll continue this later. For now, you have a date with a paddle.”

  Her backside was on fire when she dismounted, rather ungracefully, from his lap. “Steady,” he crooned, grasping her arm while she found her feet. “Stand still for a minute. There’s no hurry. We have all night.”

  The resort had antiseptic wipes, kept out of sight in a cupboard with rope and toys for all kinds of play. Ian cleaned his hands and chose a leather paddle from the selection available. He swung it through the air and smacked his forearm, testing its flexibility and impact.

  Looking around the room, his gaze settled on the table. He walked over to it. “I want you here, standing at the end and bent over so that you’re lying on top. Lose the chemise and keep the corset. I like the look of it, but I want that bottom bare.”

  Removing the one required taking off both, then putting her stays back on. There was no hiding from him. He stood by the table, paddle in hand, watching her, admiration shining in the depths of his hazel eyes. The corset came off, freeing her breasts. Biting her lip, she reached for the hem of her chemise, crossed her arms, and pulled it over her head, revealing fair skin from her stockings up and ginger curls crowning the delta of her thighs. Her aroused nipples were drawn into tight, hard peaks.

  He gave one a pinch, then handed her the corset. Stepping back, he watched her put it on. “That,” he drawled, “is sexy as fuck. You have no idea…”

  She didn’t, but there was no denying his body’s reaction. His sporran refused to lay flat.

  “Step up to the table and bend over,” he rumbled. “Belly and chest on the tabletop. Hands clasped and armed stretched straight above your head. There. Now…spread those legs for me.”

  When she was exactly as he wanted her, he ran the leather paddle up and down her body, letting her get used to the feel of it, the size of it, the smell of it. Not unlike gentling a horse, except she didn’t believe in using whips on animals.

  He had no problem using one on her.

  Placing one hand on the small of her back, he rubbed circles on each cheek of her bottom, then hauled back his arm and struck the first blow. “One,” she ground out between clenched teeth. “Thank you, Sir.”

  “You don’t have to count this time,” he told her. “I want you focused on the paddle, not struggling to remember where you left off.”

  “Thank you, Sir.” For some reason, Jannet felt like he was rewarding her for how well she’d done when he spanked her.

  The second blow fell. A third. A fourth and a fifth. By the time he reached twenty, she was thrusting her hips to meet him.

  Tossing the paddle on the table, he bent down and shoved his tongue in her crotch, licking, tasting, coaxing, teasing, bringing her to the brink of orgasm without letting her climax. But he hadn’t told her not to come. He added fingers to the mix with a focus on her clit, and she exploded, body stiffening, shock waves rippling from her epicenter.

  He lapped up the juices that flooded his face, then thrust two fingers into her breach. Straightening, he rounded the table until he was standing directly in her line of vision. Fisting her hair, he thrust his fingers in her mouth. Breath hissed through his teeth as she sucked them, tasting herself before licking them clean.

  “Fuuuck,” he groaned. Meeting his hooded gaze, she could see how close he was to deviating from his plan and taking her anyway.

  Torn between keeping quiet and pushing him past the edge of resistance, she opted for silent acquiescence. Whatever pleased him, that�
��s what she would do.

  “I want you on the bed, on your stomach,” he decided. “I need to put some ice, then arnica cream on that bottom of yours.”

  Jannet unclasped her hands and pushed herself up, wincing at her soreness. So far, he hadn’t done anything she couldn’t handle, but the St. Andrew’s cross and flogging came next, and she was already hurting. Lashes on top of the punishments she’d endured thus far might have her using her safeword yet.

  Ian helped her off the table and onto the bed. It wasn’t a walk of shame, but she was ashamed of the way that she walked, hobbling like an elderly woman who needed help crossing the street. That made her think of Boy Scouts, and that made her think of their female counterparts, and suddenly she was craving chocolate mint cookies.

  Or shortbread.

  Shortbread with fresh strawberries and lemon whipped cream.

  Or peaches. Peaches would do.

  Ian’s hand smacked her ass, snapping her out of her reverie.

  “Ouch!” she hissed.

  “With me,” he growled. “You can wander off on your own time. Right now, it’s our time, and I asked you a question.”

  “Sorry, Sir,” she said, chagrined. “I’ll try to do better. I was thinking.”

  She bit her lip, then told him the truth.

  Ian angled his head, considering. “Food play’s a hard limit for you. Why?”

  Honest communication was the cornerstone for a D/s relationship. Trust was the foundation. He had already spoken of a future outside of Replay, beyond this weekend. Whatever they were building, it was starting here.

  Starting now.

  “Because I’m afraid,” she confessed. “Of craving the wrong things. Consuming empty calories. Packing on the pounds. I shouldn’t be thinking about cookies. I shouldn’t eat them. I was a chubby kid. When I danced and needed to be slim to compete…at one point, I developed an eating disorder. It’s a daily struggle, making healthy choices and watching my weight. And the anxiety is still there. The insecurities. Last night, after I left, I had an attack. I needed help getting back to my room. Somehow, Sir Josef found out about it. He was pretty upset that I had stopped short of full disclosure, and he’d cleared me for play.”