She opened the door anyway. The cold, crisp air wafted over her along with the scent of his cologne. Both left her shivering.
Vance leaned against the doorframe, his shoulder braced and his hands still in his pockets. “I’m afraid, Ettie Thomas, you have killed my desire to travel.” His dark eyes twinkled with humor, though his handsome mouth resisted the urge to smile. “Before this goes any further though, I feel it’s only fair to warn you. If you let me come inside, I’m going to kiss you so hard it’ll take years for your toes to uncurl.”
Heaven help her, her toes were already curling. Half of her wanted to run. Half wanted to give in. And yet, when she opened her mouth, it was neither acquiescence nor outright refusal that came pouring out. “You and what army?”
He tsked. “God, I love your mouth.”
She only retreated half a step when he pushed his shoulder off the threshold and stepped inside. Kicking the door shut, he reached for her, his fingers sliding across her cheeks and up into her hair, bringing her right back to him. When he kissed her, her toes didn’t just curl, she melted. Into his hands, into his mouth. The nibbling caresses of his lips and gentle teeth until, on the breath of a shaky sigh, she opened to him and he invaded.
Maybe it was for the best that she’d deleted her story out of her last issue, because she got it all wrong. Vance’s lovemaking wasn’t at all like she’d imagined. It was far more intense. Far more demanding. It didn’t even happen in a bed. The minute he gained access to her mouth, his fingers abandoned her hair. They travelled down the back of her to catch her bottom in both his hands, squeezing and lifting her hips up into full contact with his. Hard to believe she once called him a eunuch, considering what she now felt pressing hard against her mons.
He took her straight down to the foyer floor and their mouths barely parted long enough for them both to tear at the fastenings of her pants. She arched up her hips while he skinned down her clothes, tossing them aside. She reached for his fly next, but already he was moving down her and all she caught was a handful of shirt. Rather than be thwarted, he shrugged right out of it, sweeping her legs apart, his burning mouth branding a trail of hungry kisses down her belly as he repositioned himself between her knees.
That first fiery taste when he touched her with his tongue nearly brought Ettie upright.
“Hands on your head,” he ordered when she reached for him.
Ettie tried to obey, but the minute he parted her with his fingers and covered her clit with his heated mouth, she reached for him again. The lashing of his tongue brought her hips bucking up against his lips.
“Restraints,” he vowed, his dark eyes laughing at her eagerness as she caught at his shoulders, struggling to drag him back up over her or to wriggle herself further down under him. “That’s the first thing I’m going to make for you. Restraints.”
“Good for you.” Her hands were like claws when she finally got them on his pants. She alternated, pulling at his button and zipper, cupping and stroking at the bulge of the cock concealed beneath.
“Then a paddle.” He helped her, shoving at his jeans until they were down just far enough to be out of the way. “Two paddles: one leather, one wood.”
“Promises, promises.” She locked her legs around him, catching his buttocks in her greedy hands and all but impaling herself the instant she felt his prodding quest for entry. She sucked air, her whole body arching up into the force of that first claiming thrust. “Oh my God,” she gasped, her arms and legs tightening all the way around him.
Chuckling, Vance held himself as deep inside of her as he could go. “I like that way better than horn dog. And just for the record, I haven’t done this—” He withdrew only to thrust again, so hard she could feel it all the way up to her throat. “—with anyone else either.”
Her only response was the moan his next withdrawal dragged from her as he began to move. Four years, seven months and who the hell cared how many days were utterly destroyed on the cool marble tiles of her foyer, and Ettie couldn’t have cared less that the man rising on strong arms above her was the same one she thought she couldn’t stand one week earlier.
She had tormented him for years; now he returned the favor one tender kiss at her lips, one suckling hickey upon her breasts, and one heart-deep thrust at a time. Her whole body quivered. She forgot how to breathe. Or, maybe it was simply that his kisses stole the air right out of her. All she knew was that at that pinnacle moment when his pumping hips began to rock harder, shallower and faster, and every inch of her tightened around every inch of him, when it reached its most overwhelming and all she wanted to do was bury her face in her arms and feel, that was when he fisted her hair in his hand.
“Look at me,” he ordered, refusing to let her hide.
She clung to him, letting him be both the anchor that held her as well as the driving force that tore her all apart. Her climax shattered her. His “Good girl,” groaned against her ear as he slammed in deep and shuddered to the gripping convulsions of her sex, was the balm that mended her back together again.
It wasn’t anything at all like what she had imagined in her story. It was better.
And for them, it was just the beginning.
Epilogue
Hey, Ettie,” Vance called across the house. Standing at the full-length mirror just inside the closet door, he had one eye on the necktie he was trying to wrestle into submission and one eye on the moving van just now pulling into the driveway of his old house. “I think someone’s moving in across the street!”
“Good for them!” she called back. It was fifteen minutes until they had to leave and yet, from the sounds of it, she’d abandoned the kitchen and was back in her office. Probably writing again; only one of the many hazards, he’d discovered, associated with living with a writer. Every waking moment was spent either writing or plotting, to the point that they were late everywhere they went because it took an act of Congress (or Vance taking off his belt) before she’d abandon her computer.
He almost rolled his eyes. Checking the time, he called, “Ettie, I swear, if you burn the ham, I’m going to burn your butt!”
“Oh, you and what army?” The acoustics in this house were great. He heard her mutter that all the way from her office.
Pulling the tie off from around his neck—torturous, medieval strangulation device that it was; the community’s Christmas dinner was supposed to be a casual event anyway, damn it—Vance tossed it on the dresser as he left their bedroom. Already unbuttoning his wrist cuffs and rolling up his sleeves, he was halfway down the hall when he heard the tell-tale thump of her chair hitting the wall behind her desk and then one set of human feet and two sets of scrambling dog paws racing their way back to the kitchen. By the time he reached the adjoining living room, she was pulling the pineapple-glazed ham for the potluck dinner out of the oven. It both looked and smelled perfect. Not that he was about to let that assuage him.
“What you mind repeating what you just said?” he asked, coming around the kitchen island toward her.
“I said, um…yes, sir?” Ettie replied. She even snapped off a belated salute, but backed away when he kept coming. She let herself be trapped against the sink all too easily, and they were both smiling when he caught her arm and drew her back to him.
They’d been together as an official couple for two months, and any day now, Vance hoped she might stop killing him in her paper. In the meantime, it had been zero days since her last spanking—not that anyone was counting.
The End
Maren Smith
Hi, I'm Maren. I'm 30, married to a wonderful, dominant man, and have five four–legged children: two dogs and three cats. I love strong, authoritative men–men who are both ready and willing to leave the lady of their choosing red–bottomed and weeping and for her own good. Writing has given me the wonderful freedom to explore my spanking side without feeling 'weird.' Even better, with the invention of the Internet, I can write what I love and know it will be appreciated by people with the sa
me interests.”
Don’t miss the entire Corbin’s Bend Series!
Welcome to Corbin’s Bend
Return to Corbin’s Bend
At Home in Corbin’s Bend
Corbin’s Bend Homecoming
Love in the Rockies
Other Books By Maren Smith
Single Titles:
How to Live Without a Man
Something Has to Give
B-Flick
Fairy Godmothers, Inc.
Black Sheep
Daughter of the Strong
The Diva
Enemies
The Great Prank
Jinxie’s Orchids
Katy Run Away
Kindred Spirits
Life After Rachel
The Locket
Mistress
Morogh the Demon
Mountain Man
My Lady Robin Hood
Saga: Constance’s Story
The Suffragettes
Treasure
Varden’s Lady
The Next Ex
The Miner’s Wife
Angel of Hawkhaven
Red Petticoat Saloon series
Jade’s Dragon
Warming Emerald
Corbin’s Bend series
Last Dance for Cadence
Have Paddle, Will Travel
Masters of the Castle Series
Holding Hannah (Book One)
Kaylee’s Keeper (Book Two)
Saving Sara (Book Three)
Sweet Sinclair (Book Four)
Chasing Chelsea (Book Five)
Owning O (Book Six)
Maddy Mine (Book Seven)
Meeting Marshall (Novella)
Box Sets and Anthologies
The Dark Forest
The Smith Sisters Christmas Anthology
12 Naughty Days, A Holiday Anthology
Confessions of a Spanking Author
Cowboy Discipline
With Hearts Aflame
Masters of the Castle
When the Gavel Falls (Masters of the Castle anthology)
The Naughty List
Spanking Tails Vol. 1
Spanking Tails Vol. 2
Spanking Tails Vol. 3
Spanking Tails Vol. 4
Spanking Tails Vol. 5
Spanking Tails Vol. 6
Spanking Tails Vol. 7
Spanking Tails Vol. 8
Spanking Tails Vol. 9
Spanking Tails Vol. 10
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Learning to Live Again
Ruth Staunton
All rights reserved.
No part of the book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Published by Blushing Books®,
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is registered in the US Patent and Trademark Office.
Staunton, Ruth
Learning to Live Again
eBook ISBN: 978-1-62750-692-2
Cover Design by Anthony Walsh
This book is intended for adults only. Spanking and other sexual activities represented in this book are fantasies only, intended for adults. Nothing in this book should be interpreted as Blushing Books' or the author's advocating any non-consensual spanking activity or the spanking of minors.
Prologue
Grant Taylor pulled his pickup truck into the driveway of the home he shared with his wife and two teenage daughters. He killed the engine and pocketed the keys, but he didn’t immediately get out. Instead, he dropped his head back against the headrest and closed his eyes, not wanting to move. Exhaustion made it feel like he had lead in his bones.
He was getting too old for these twelve hour shifts. In his younger days, when he was working patrol, he hadn’t minded the shifts. If anything, he’d liked working only three days a week. In those days, he’d actually taken time off on his off days rather than picking up side jobs to make extra money like he’d been doing for the past decade or so. The constant working was wearing on him, but as hard as it was, these days being at work was often better than being home. The girls argued constantly, about any little thing. They whined worse than they had as toddlers. Anything they were asked to do or not to do turned into a long drawn-out debate, usually ending in Lainie begging and pleading or giving up and doing it herself. He’d much rather sit here in the driveway and enjoy the peace and quiet than go into the house and face the chaos that had become the norm in their household.
Steeling himself, Grant got out of the truck and went into the house. In contrast to his dire predictions, the house was unnaturally quiet, though he could hear the heavy thump of Kathleen’s music coming from her bedroom upstairs. He made his way to his own bedroom, putting away his gun, handcuffs, hat, and radio, before coming back into the kitchen where his wife, Lainie, was cooking dinner.
He wrapped his arms around her from behind and pulled her back against his chest, hugging tight. “How was your day?” he asked, dropping a kiss on to the top of her head.
“It was fine,” she said softly, but something in her voice had him doing a double take. He caught her chin in his hand and carefully tilted her head back against his chest so he could look into her eyes. It was immediately apparent that she had been crying.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
Lainie shook her head. “Nothing. It’s just been a long day.”
Even without years of law enforcement experience, he could have spotted that lie a mile away. He tightened his grip on her chin just enough to be firm. “Don’t even try it,” he told her, letting his voice take on the touch of the authoritative tone he often used with inmates and subordinates.
Lainie sighed. “It’s nothing really,” she said. “I was grading students’ retests, and they are horrible. It’s like they don’t even try, and the girls were arguing. Kathleen was whining about food as usual. Same stuff, different day. It just wears me out sometimes.”
Grant turned her in his arms so they were facing and hugged her again. There was a time when she would have gladly leaned into his embrace and melted against him, but these days, she just stood there. Not pulling away but not actively leaning into him either, as if the affection never touched her. Cupping a hand behind her head, he guided her head gently onto his shoulder and smoothed his palm over her hair. “I’m sorry you had a hard day. What do you mean about Kathleen?”
“It’s not important,” Lainie said, dismissing it with a wave of her hand.
“If it’s bothering you, it is important,” Grant insisted. “Talk to me.” It was an old refrain. One he had repeated many times. He had tried for years to convince Lainie that he wanted to help her. What was important to her was important to him, no matter how trivial or inconsequential she found it to be. Unfortunately, much to Grant’s private annoyance, Lainie seemed to have a very hard time remembering that.
Lainie stepped back out of his embrace and turned away, fiddling with the food cooking on the stove. “She doesn’t eat lunch at school because she says the food is gross, but she won’t get up early enough to pack lunch, so by the end of the day she’s starving. She starts demanding snacks as soon as she sees me. When we have to wait for Natalie to finish tutoring, it just goes downhill from there,” Lainie replied. “I’ve thought about packing something myself just to be sure she eats, but I really don’t have time. I’m barely getting there on time as it is with the way the girls drag around in the mornings.”
Grant frowned, wondering why this was the first he’d heard about this problem. His jaw clenched as he fought down the familiar wave of frustration. Why hadn’t she told him th
ese things? How many times did he have to tell her that he wanted to know? He couldn’t help her if she never told him what was going on.
Taking a deep breath to calm himself, Grant asked, “How long has this been going on?”
“A while,” Lainie replied. The offhanded way she said it only served to frustrate him more. He wondered how much more had been going on for ‘a while’ that she hadn’t bothered to tell him about.
Grant scrubbed a hand through his hair, trying to shake off his irritation. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked.
“I didn’t want to bother you,” Lainie said. “It’s not that important anyway.”
Grant’s pulse, which had been steadily rising throughout this exchange, shot up. His chest tightened painfully. His hands curled involuntarily into fists and his fingernails dug into his palms. Slowly, deliberately, he spread his fingers and laid his hands, palm down, on the counter top. “That’s where you’re wrong,” he countered. “It is important. Little things become big things, and I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s going on.”
“I do tell you about the big things,” Lainie replied. “I just didn’t think I needed to bother you with every little argument and annoyance.”
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