Old Enough To Know Better

by Carolyn Faulkner

  “Yeah, well, I don’t want him to be alone, you know, especially since I’ve found my Ted.” Jane had the “happy couple syndrome” that made her want everyone with whom she was close to have the happiness that she and Ted had found.

  “I understand. But I don’t think you have anything to worry about with Finn. He was out in California to make his way, make his mark in the business world. Probably, since he’s back here, he’ll settle down, find a girl and have a family.”

  That was exactly what Jane, who was dying to become a grandmother, wanted to hear. “Oh, from your lips to God’s ears!”

  They made plans to have lunch in a few days, then hung up.

  Chapter Six

  Cat decided that the two of them, for what it was worth, were right. She needed to get out of the house. So she took a ride to the top of Cadillac Mountain and walked around up there a bit, heartily enjoying the fact that the mountain kept trying to blow her back off. Then she walked along the Acadia National Park Loop Road a bit, although most of it was closed off since it was still early yet and not quite tourist season, but it was still gorgeous.

  Then she headed home, her mind full of thoughts about Clint and Finn and what she was going to do about the two of them. Or rather, the one of them that was still alive and trying to date and/or spank her.

  “Yeeee-owww!” Okay, mental note: her next boyfriend was definitely going to be older than she was. And decrepit. Emphasis on the decrepit. Like not able to raise whichever hand he favored to spank her. That sounded like a very good idea to Cat right now, especially since the man who was currently indulging in that activity was disgustingly young and even more disgustingly muscular and fit.

  It had been a while since she’d been really spanked. Clint had been actively sick for quite some time, and that part of their relationship had had to take a back seat for the last four or five years they had together. They had both mourned the loss, but that was the way it had to be. She’d forgotten how absolutely horrid it was, but someone was in the process of helping her remember it. Someone who had told her to eat all of what he’d left for her in the fridge – the two pb and j sandwiches and what had turned out to be enough chicken casserole to feed the Third Army.

  She’d managed to eat some of the chicken and one of the sandwiches, and was learning very quickly that that was far from acceptable, as far as he was concerned. Imagine that – a dominant man who wanted her to do precisely as he’d said. How noble. She’d forgotten – happily, it seemed, how they could be such sticklers some times, and it was even worse if they thought what they wanted was for your own damned good.

  What was she doing here? Her panties and hose around her ankles yet again and she was over his lap on her own blasted sofa, which she was happy hadn’t seen much action from herself and Clint since they’d bought it after he’d become sick. At least there were no comparisons going on in her mind from old memories flooding her brain. That was something to be very thankful for. She’d cancelled this date, for crying out loud. Or rather, she’d tried to.

  Cat had spent an awful, sleepless night, dreaming of the man whose hand was rapidly searing her cheeks, but delivering an even more blistering and humiliating lecture. She was mortified to realize, but late this morning, she’d called him, trying to break the date. They shouldn’t date. It was just not right. He was too young, she was too old, they were too different, they were just . . . too. Too attracted to each other, too explosive together, too likely not to make it out of the house to go on the actual date for one reason or another . . . but she wasn’t about to go there with him over the phone or she’d never be able to talk him out of it, although she had a feeling it was a lost cause anyway, she had to at least give it a try.

  She’d made up her mind. They couldn’t possibly date, and she’d decided to inform him of that fact in a serene, rational and mature manner.

  He’d been very calm, but had reassured her, in no uncertain terms, that they were going be going out not only that evening, but many others, and that he was going to arrive on her doorstep exactly when he said he was to take her out to dinner in whatever condition she happened to be in at that time. If she was nude, then she was going nude. If she was in pjs and bunny slippers, then she was going in pjs and bunny slippers.

  Cat had uttered a longsuffering sigh that had come alarmingly early in this relationship, and he had chuckled low in his throat back at her in a most unsettling manner, igniting every nerve ending she possessed. Tired of fighting with him already, the brat in her resurfaced for a moment. “Oh, all right,” she’d said, ungraciously, turning off the phone without even saying goodbye and immediately delving into her closet for something to wear. Since she really hadn’t been planning to go out with him, she hadn’t given her wardrobe much thought.

  She had a lacy pink concoction that she’d bought several years ago on a whim that would probably fit the bill, although it might be a bit too sexy. She should really be wearing something towards the frumpy side to discourage him. But the pink dress looked fabulous on her, if she did say so herself. And she did, but rarely, like most women.

  She’d been wandering the Mall – an unnatural pursuit for her, but she was bored – and saw it in a shop window. It was on sale, which made it even more appealing. Cat loved a bargain, even though she had no one to wear it for and nowhere to wear it to. It had hung in the back of her closet, untouched, since then, too pretty to wear to the places she usually went.

  She hauled it out now and put it on, glad to see it still fit like the proverbial glove. In fact, it was even a slight bit big, if she let herself admit it. She frowned. Damn him, he was right. She did need to eat something. She was losing weight not that she’d ever admit that to him under any circumstance.

  Blush hose, light makeup, the small, drop diamond earrings Clint had given her for one of their anniversaries, and a pair of flats that were just the right complimentary color completed her ensemble, along with a very light spray of perfume just as she’d heard the doorbell ring.

  She checked her watch – six exactly. She liked a man who was on time, or even a little early. Cat detested lateness in anyone, since she was compulsively early herself. Her mother had always said it was because she was making up for being three weeks late to her own birth. But then, she thought as she’d made her way to the door, he probably already knew that. It was kind of disconcerting that he knew so much about her – even little peccadilloes and preferences – when she knew so little about him. If they were actually going to continue this “relationship”, she’d try to rectify that tonight.

  But they weren’t, so she wouldn’t. She was still determined to convince him that it wasn’t a good idea at all that they date.

  She opened the door and then just stood there like an idiot for the longest time, staring at him with her mouth open, drool puddling at her feet. The man was friggin’ gorgeous, there was no way around it. How the hell had he latched onto her, anyway? She knew he didn’t have a mommy complex; Jane had raised him better than that, and besides, he spanked much too hard for that. Pretty soon, there wasn’t going to be enough hair dye in the world to cover her gray, and she already couldn’t finish ninety percent of the sentences she started. He was going to be bored with her in a half an hour; maybe that would be her out.

  But damn, he was a fine looking man!

  He was wearing a sport jacket that strained just slightly across those football star broad shoulders, as did the white shirt beneath. He was wearing dark blue jeans that clung lovingly to every muscle of those thick legs like she wanted to, and she was surprised to see the tips of cowboy boots on his feet. He’d gotten a haircut, and it was noticeably shorter than it had been, which she definitely preferred. His face showed no stubble, no soul patch, no artfully shaved beard, nothing but his square jaw and sensuous lips, until she worked her way up to those chocolate brown eyes, which were gently laughing at her. “Can I come in, or do you need me to strip down out here before you decide?”

  Completel
y mortified and raspberry red that he’d caught her so blatantly salivating over him, Cat opened the door and stepped back so that he could walk by her, giving him plenty of room to do so. Still, he barely scraped by, deliberately dragging himself up against every bit of her so that she got a feel of every inch of what she’d just taken an eyeful of, and he watched every second of her reaction to him with a lazy, self-satisfied smile on his face that made her want to punch him.

  She couldn’t suppress it. It was too big for her – lots of it, probably, she thought with a twisted smile – and she let herself go with it, arching against him, letting her head fall back and enjoying the feel of his body against hers.

  Finn wanted to lay her down right there, in the foyer, in front of the full glass door where God and anyone who bothered to drive or walk by could see them, but he didn’t. He contented himself with teasing both her and himself with that little body rub, then turned and continued straight into the kitchen.

  Cat closed the door, expecting to see him in the living room, but he’d gone all the way into the kitchen for some strange reason and was peering intently into her refrigerator.

  All of a sudden, she remembered. She was supposed to have eaten all that food he’d left for her – both of those sandwiches and a boatload of casserole. Or, at the very least, destroyed the evidence to seem like she had. Fuck.

  “What did you just say?” He’d already started back to her, with a look on his face that said he wasn’t happy that she had disobeyed him, and shortly, she wasn’t going to be, either.

  Oh, crap, had she said that out loud? She was going to have to be a lot more careful about her language from now on, damnit. But no, they weren’t going to be doing this again after tonight. “Nothing.” Cat hoped that came out sounding as innocent as she wanted it to.

  “I should hope not considering you’ve already got a spanking coming for not eating what I told you to eat, Catherine.” Finn had come to stand right in front of her.

  Darn, he was big when he stood over her like that. It made her want to take a step back, but she refused to do it. This was her house, and she wouldn’t be intimidated in it, certainly not by him. “I ate what I wanted of it. I had a sandwich and some of the casserole. There was too much of it for me to eat in twenty four hours.”

  Finn had seen that flash of fear in her eyes, and it almost made his resolve crumble. The last thing he wanted to inspire in her – ever, ever, ever – was fear. He knew he was a big lug of a guy – he couldn’t help that and she was a very small, delicate woman. Even more so, he thought, when she was wearing such a fairytale dress that suited her perfectly, but it just served to accentuate her fragility. He felt as if he reached out to touch her, she’d splinter into a thousand tiny pieces.

  He took a step forward, remembering that she hadn’t backed away from that luscious body greeting they’d had in the doorway. “You are so beautiful,” he breathed against her ear. “That dress was made for you.” She smelled the way every woman should, and he buried his nose right behind her ear, touching her nowhere else, and breathed deeply of her scent – a very light, floral perfume, used sparingly, a soft shampoo, but mostly just Catherine, a mixture that he found entirely intoxicating.

  When he straightened, she was blushing again, or was that still? One end or the other of her seemed to be permanently red around him, not that he was complaining on either count. He wanted her so badly he could barely think, but he knew he had to maintain his priorities. She would come to count on him to guide her, and the heart of that was consistency. If he said he was going to do something, then he needed to do it. This was something in which he would not – could not – fail.

  Finn took her hand and brought her to the living room couch, standing her directly in front of him. He reached up, under the skirt of her dress and gently, carefully, relieved her of both her panty hose and her panties, which were little more than scraps of lace that somehow perfectly matched the color of the dress, as if they’d come as a matching set. They didn’t sell them to women that way, did they? He wondered fleetingly.

  Cat had tried to protest, weakly and ineffectively. Finn knew it was a necessary gesture on her part and simply brushed her seeking hands away carefully, but inexorably. He wasn’t sure if she’d been actually trying to stop the spanking, or if she was just trying to keep him from baring her bottom again. Probably a little of both. It must not be easy for her to be that intimate with him so early on in their relationship – bare bottomed and over his lap, as she was seconds after he’d brought her under things to her ankles, well away from any easy retrieval by her.

  This would be the first time he’d really be able to take his time with her. The first time he’d really see her and be able to touch her. He discounted her other spankings as more quick and expeditious. This one would be more deliberate and ritualistic, although not quite as much as he would like. Finn understood, from Clint, how important that element of discipline was to Catherine, that the rituals were a big part of what made her feel safe and secure, beyond himself and his presence, and when their relationship was more cemented, he would certainly implement those.

  Right now, though, he indulged himself as much as he could, slowly raising the gossamer skirt of that cotton candy dress while she reached back and tried to stop him. He caught her wrist easily, trapping it in his free hand at the small of her back almost as an afterthought. Cat had tried to kick her legs, but the hose and panties at her ankles kept her legs trapped nicely together, just as he’d intended.

  Her bottom was a thing of perfection. He’d never, ever think of her as an old woman; he’d never considered she was much older than him, frankly. Finn had never thought much about age as pertaining to a woman, anyway. Unlike the majority of his sex, he was attracted to personalities first, looks were a distant second. Luckily, with Catherine, he got both. Despite the fact that she was too skinny – hence the reason for her being in this position, he thought with a deep frown – her bottom was as generous and well rounded as he could have asked for, which meant that it would only become more so as he helped her out of her depression.

  He was truly a lucky man.

  Right now, though, he needed to take care of his woman, even if she might not see it quite that way – the taking care or the woman, just yet.

  Finn believed in spanking – hard – while he was chiding a woman, so he started right in, peppering his lecture with solid, heart – and bottom – felt swats. “When I tell you to do something, Catherine Angelique Taylor, I expect you to do it. I don’t want excuses. You’re entirely too thin, and you need to put on some weight and eat healthier. If I have to buy you groceries and make you breakfast, lunch and dinner, and come over here and feed them all to you forkful by forkful, don’t you think I won’t.”

  She definitely wouldn’t put that past him for a minute. He was at least as stubborn as his mother was, maybe more so, and that was not a compliment. At this point, she wouldn’t put much of anything past this man, damnit. Cat was trying desperately to wiggle her way off his lap, but he was a big man and he had long legs, and it was a depressingly long way off them, to say nothing of the fact that his free hand held her easily in place, so all her wiggling got her was more swats for too much wiggling.

  “Stop that right now, Catherine. You’re going to get a thorough spanking, and I’m going to make sure that you get every swat that’s coming to you, so that you’ll think twice the next time you decide to ignore something I’ve told you to do.” Finn landed a long series of crisp, firm swats to her rounded cheeks, alternating spots and sides, and that was the impetus for Cat’s loud “Yeow!”

  “You’ve been much too long without someone keeping their eye on you and their hand on your bottom, but that has come to an end right now. Your end. I can promise you that your lovely little backside is going to be getting the attention it deserves from now on, Catherine.”

  Oh, dear, now he was slapping the backs of her thighs! She hated that almost worse than the spanking itself! It wa
s bad enough to be spanked on your bottom, but the backs of your thighs were what she thought of as more innocent territory, less capable of handling the swats that a bottom might normally be expected to endure.

  She wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of crying. She wasn’t. But when he’d ripened the entirety of her backside to a cherry red, then began again, and reminded her in a horrible, chiding tone that couldn’t possibly have come from a man that was more than a decade younger than she was, that she was going to be reminded of how naughty she’d been when she had to sit on her bottom at the restaurant, she burst into tears.

  That was what Finn was waiting for. He issued several sharper, well placed spanks, mostly right where her bottom joined her thighs so that she definitely would be reminded while sitting demurely across from him in the restaurant. Then he pulled her up and into his arms, not letting her arrange herself yet, but holding her tightly against his chest and rocking just a bit, patting her back and letting her cry it out.

  He had a packet of Kleenex in the inside pocket of his jacket for just such occasions, and gave her one immediately, then went back to patting and rocking until she leaned away from him just a bit, even though she was still sobbing slightly. “I have to fix my makeup.”

  Cat would have stood up, but Finn caught her hand, and looked into her eyes. “Just a second. You have something to say to me before you go.”

  She blanched, her eyes widening, then filling with tears again that overflowed down her cheeks in true rivers. She knew what he meant. It was what Clint required of her; that she express remorse at having been disobedient.

  Finn wasn’t at all sure he really should be pressing her at this point, but it felt right, and he usually went with his gut in most situations, and was proven right nine times out of ten. He didn’t push or press, just waited for her to work things out in her mind and held her hand while she did it. She didn’t have to be elaborate or thank him – that might come later, he hadn’t decided – but he did want her to say she was sorry, and he knew that she knew that that was what he was asking.