A Wilder Heart

by Loki Renard

  Shamed and annoyed, Aster shot a hard scowl over her shoulder. “So it’s always my fault, is it? Never anybody else’s? I’m the one who always gets punished? Everyone else gets to do whatever they want?”

  “Everyone else isn’t my problem,” he said, turning her back to face the corner. “You’re my problem, and you’re the one who is going to end up with a hot backside if you don’t control yourself.”

  “I’m going to have a hot backside anyway,” she complained, “because I’m not perfect and you expect perfection.”

  “Kicking people and swearing at them is a long way from perfection, Aster,” he said dryly. “Now you stand there and you think about your behavior.”

  “I think my behavior was awesome,” Aster shot back. “And I’d do it again. In a heartbeat. I might go out tomorrow and do it just for fun.”

  There was a heavy silence and she knew that she had not impressed him. She didn’t care. She was just off a twelve hour flight, following a harrowing ordeal and she’d been harassed by assholes. Her reaction was more than understandable, hell, it was muted. She should have kicked every single one of them. She should have... “OW! What was that for?”

  “You’re thinking naughty thoughts.”

  “How the hell do you know what I’m thinking?”

  “You get a certain energy about yourself when you’re planning something,” he said.

  “Oh, bull— OW!” He’d smacked her again. She’d had enough of that now. It was too much and none of it was fair. She turned on him, angry and naked and shook a finger at him. “Stop that!”

  “I will not,” he said impassively, looking down at her with the same calm, kind eyes that belied the fact that he had been smacking her bottom for the past ten minutes almost non-stop. “You need this.”

  “Fuck off, I don’t.” She frowned at him. “Nobody needs this.”

  “You do.”

  He was so damn sure of himself and completely unyielding. And Aster couldn’t stand it, because she didn’t feel sure of herself. She felt completely out of sorts and out of place, as if she’d stepped into someone else’s life.

  “I hate it here,” she said, her eyes filling with tears. “I want to go back.”

  Owen reached out and pulled her into a hug. “There’s hot water here,” he murmured against her ear. “And a soft bed, and electricity.”

  “And loud, mean, stupid people,” she sniffed against his shoulder.

  “That too,” he admitted. “But none of them are here right now. It’s just you and me.”

  “You and me, and I’m in trouble.”

  “You are,” he agreed, patting her bottom lightly. “But you knew you were going to be, didn’t you? The minute your foot swung you had to know that my hand would be meeting your backside sooner rather than later. Didn’t you?”

  Aster tried to hide her smile, but Owen pulled back and looked down at her. “I thought so,” he said. “You can pout and complain all you want now, but you knew precisely what you were getting yourself into while you were doing it.” A smile began to rise to his lips. “You’re a brat, Miss Aster Wilder, and brats get spanked.”

  He started walking backwards, keeping her hands in his as he drew her back toward the large bed where he inevitably sat and pulled her across his thighs. Aster went without too much in the way of resistance, knowing that she would at least feel home across his thighs. As she settled across his legs and laid her head on the coverlet, all the stress and tension of the past twenty-four hours began to settle and drain as he ran his palms up and down her bottom, back and thighs. It was very soothing, and for a while Aster forgot she was in trouble at all.

  Owen reminded her with a slap to her left cheek and then her right. He began swatting her, landing his palm to each side of her bottom with slowly intensifying slaps that built a heat in not just her bottom, but between her thighs. She felt her lips began to slide against one another with the moistness of her need. And then the spanking stopped.

  “Stand up,” Owen said. “And turn around to face the bed.” There was a particularly husky need to his tone that made Aster obey quickly.

  She stood up with her hot red cheeks and faced the oversized bed which could have slept six people comfortably and waited. She did not have to wait longer than it took for a zipper to be lowered before Owen put his hand on the back of her neck, bent her over and slid the thick length of his cock inside her pussy, a simple thrust which made her entire body clench and then release and then clench again as he took her with firm strokes that made her tight walls stretch to accommodate him.

  He held her hips firmly, leaving her to squirm in his grasp as he held himself still and used his arms to slide her back and forth along the length of his cock. They had both been holding onto the edge of arousal for more than half a day. There was no pretense or slow build to their lovemaking, it was intense and immediate.

  “You’re tight,” he growled. “Is that what being naughty does to you? Makes your pussy nice and tight and wet?”

  She was clenching at his cock, her pussy greedy for every inch of him. Owen slid her right back against him until his length was as deep inside her as it could go, her lips wrapped around the very root of his cock. She could feel the head of him pulsing against the inner nub of her cervix and knew that she was as full as she could be. She closed her eyes and relished the sensation, whimpering when it came time for him to withdraw.

  She could hear her own wetness as his cock slid from her pussy. He eased her forward and laid her face down on the bed, keeping her hips raised so that her hot red bottom and puffy pussy were exposed to his gaze and his touch.

  Owen left her there for a moment, letting her feel what it was to be presented that way, to have her pulsing pussy left yearning for more. When she felt the hot head of his cock running over her lips, she let out a little whimpering moan and lifted her hips higher. But he was not going to take her again, instead he brushed the head of his cock over her wet clit a few times, then laid a quick swat to the wet lips of her pussy, spanking her in that most tender spot.

  Squeaking, Aster tried to move away. Owen didn’t allow that. He took one hand and grasped the curve of her hip while swatting her pussy lips over and over, fast, stinging little swats that made her lips swell and her juices flow even as she whimpered and whined complaints.

  Just when her pussy was too hot and too sore and she was certain she could not take anymore, Owen thrust his cock back inside her, took hold of the back of her neck and began pounding inside her pussy with rough, hard thrusts.

  Aster was glad for the bed beneath her, because her head was spinning so much she was sure that she was going to pass out. Her pussy was stimulated beyond capacity, tingling and stinging and aching as Owen drove himself inside her again and again, riding her toward his climax with little regard for her tender body.

  Her orgasm came rushing through her like a tidal wave. She closed her eyes and saw bright colors, for a single second she was sure she saw the bright iridescence of the tui’s wings flashing right at the peak of the experience as she broke through the bonds of normal existence and for a few sweet seconds floated in the release of climax.

  “Feel better?” Owen wrapped his arms around her and held her close as they lay together on the bed, thoroughly sated.

  “Much,” she agreed. “You didn’t have to spank me that hard, though. And you didn’t have to spank me... there.”

  “Yes, I did,” Owen disagreed. “You forgot yourself in all this excitement. I had to remind you how things work between you and me.”

  Aster should have let the matter go, but she couldn’t quite manage it. “Oh, you did have to? Did you? I don’t even get a day’s grace in this thing? You’re just going to punish me no matter what else is going on?”

  “I know it’s hard adjusting,” he said, his tone softening a little. “And I know you’ve been through more than most people go through in their entire lives, but I think you can handle it. And I know it’s not doing you any favo
rs to let you backslide into the spoiled brat you were when we first met.”

  “And it is doing me favors to smack my pussy?”

  “I think so.” He grinned broadly, sliding his hand down to cup the hot, tight pouch of her sex.

  Aster bit her lower lip and let out a sound between a cry and a moan, which almost served to cover the fact that she had to agree.

  Chapter Twelve

  “Would you look at these?”

  Aster was trying to enjoy a morning cup of coffee out on the balcony when her father came striding in and dropped four magazines on the table in front of her. She was on the cover of each and every one of them. One of them showed her butt first over Owen’s shoulder, another with her face contorted as she flipped everyone the bird and yet another of her foot in mid-swing. The worst of the pictures was the one where Owen was smacking her bottom, because her mouth was wide open in shock from the slap and his hand could clearly be seen on the round of her bottom.

  ASTER WILDER GOES WILD! The headlines blared.

  “Ugh,” she groaned. “Well, fuck ‘em.”

  Zach frowned at her, clearly unimpressed by her lack of concern. “Did you spend all your time in New Zealand learning to curse?”

  “I spent all my time there learning that this stuff doesn’t matter,” she said. “And you know it doesn’t either.”

  “It’s not going to do very much for my career, is it? Having an out of control kid on the front page of every magazine.”

  Aster made a snorting sound. “You’re worried about your career? Daddy, this is one of five mansions you own. You’re worth more than some island nations. I think your career is going to be fine.”

  “Owen!” Zach called his name and a moment or two later, Owen made an appearance. He had shaved off the beard that had grown during their time in the wilds, and Aster wasn’t sure she liked that. It seemed like everything that had been good about their ordeal was being swept away and sanitized.

  “Teach my daughter a thing or two, would you?” Zach said with a smile. “She seems to think it doesn’t matter if she’s on the front page of every magazine flipping the world the bird.”

  “Does it?”

  Aster looked up in surprise. After what Owen had done to her last night... her pussy lips were still sensitive from it, so much so that she’d decided not to wear underwear. And now he was casually questioning whether it all mattered.

  There was a pause in which Zach frowned at the pair of them, and then his expression cleared. “No,” Zach said with a crooked grin. “I guess it doesn’t really.”

  Aster’s jaw dropped. “When I said it didn’t matter, you said it did! Now he says it doesn’t and you agree! How is that fair?”

  “I said it doesn’t matter if you don’t think it matters,” Owen told her. “Because there are ways of making sure you behave yourself, aren’t there?” He pointed to the magazine cover in which she was being swatted.

  Aster blushed bright red to the tip of her ears as her father burst into laughter. Owen allowed himself a smirk as well.

  Quite embarrassed by proceedings, Aster excused herself, leaving them to their chortling manliness. She had other things to do anyway. Her friends were coming over to welcome her back to the land of the living, as they called it. A party had been planned. Celebrations were in order, so she was told.

  She lacked a certain enthusiasm as she got ready. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to see her friends, it was that she was still very discombobulated from the whole experience. If she could have had things her way, she would have curled up in bed with Owen and avoided the world at large. But they had come from far and wide, so she was told and the party was inevitable.

  It began later that evening with streams of people flocking to the mansion, many of them more interested in the cachet of having been invited to Zach Wilder’s home than saying hello to Aster. Aster put on her best dress and her bravest face and greeted her guests along with her father. She had played hostess many times before, but it had never felt so much like playing.

  Friends flocked to say hello and express their delight that she was still alive, but as much as she told her story, she could see the blank looks in their eyes. They didn’t get it, not really. She found herself not wanting to tell the tale of the mushrooms and the tui after the first time she told someone and they laughed and told her a story about a time they’d mixed too many recreational drugs and gone out clubbing. It wasn’t the same thing, not at all.

  A few hours into the evening, Aster retreated to a quiet corner, letting the party go on without her. It seemed churlish to be turning her back on what was a celebration of her life, but there were only so many hugs and smiles she could give before the realization that it was all so much more empty than those precious days in the New Zealand wilds.

  After a while, her father found her. “I have something for you, Aster,” he announced in the same tone he’d used when buying her her first pony.

  Aster put on her best smile, knowing her father thought he was doing her some kind of favor with all this nonsense.

  He handed her an envelope. “Open it.”

  With a little frown, Aster opened the envelope. This was not how gifts from her father came. They usually came in oversized boxes, or in the form of real estate. She figured the envelope probably contained ownership papers to something or other. But it didn’t. It contained plane tickets. Two tickets. To the Amazon River in Brazil.

  “Wha—” Aster looked up at her father, her mouth ajar in surprise.

  “You leave in a week,” he said. “Assuming, of course, you think you can get a solid project together in that time. I’m going to send a film crew with you. This is your chance to make something on film without... acting.” He said the last word with a little curl of his lip.

  “I can! Oh, my of course I can! Thank you!” She wrapped her arms around him and squeezed tight, hardly able to believe her luck, or her father’s generosity for that matter.

  “I’m sending a film crew with you, and two armed guards in addition to Owen,” he said, hugging her back. “I want you to stay safe.”

  Aster pulled back and looked at her father. “Does Owen know about this yet?”

  “Owen was the one who suggested it when you stormed off this morning,” her father said. “He said you were a natural born survivor and that you had a talent for bonding with wildlife. He thinks you’re going to do great things, and I agree.”

  Aster’s cheeks began to hurt from smiling so hard. To be believed in by Owen and her father, and encouraged to follow her heart was a gift so precious as to be priceless.

  “Can’t say I wouldn’t prefer you to be tucked up somewhere at home,” her father added. “But if you have to be running around in the middle of nowhere, at least you’ve got a good man by your side. And the paparazzi won’t be able to follow you.”

  “That’s right. No more headlines for me,” Aster promised. “No bad ones, anyway.”

  “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.” Her father smiled down at her.

  “Owen! We’re going to Brazil!” she shouted across the room to Owen, who had been talking to someone or other. He was as much of a celebrity as she was now. Everyone wanted to meet the man who had saved Aster Wilder.

  He excused himself from the conversation he was having and made his way through the room to her.

  “Daddy said it was your idea!” Aster put her hands on her hips and gave him a mock stern look. “Did you tell my father to send me to the Amazon?”

  “I may have done,” he admitted with a smile.

  “Thank you!” She threw her arms around Owen and hugged him tighter than tight. “We’re going to see all kinds of things out there.”

  “Mmm hmm, and as long as you do as you’re told and follow directions, you might just survive most of them.” Owen flickered a little wink over at Aster’s father to soften what he’d said.

  “She’ll do as she’s told,” her father said. “I’m not sending you to the Amazon t
o get yourself hurt, Aster. You follow Owen’s directions, you understand me?”

  Aster sighed and tried not to roll her eyes too obviously. “I’m going to be fine. You know that already or you wouldn’t be sending me, would you?”

  “I’m sending you because Owen says you’re cut out for it, and I know how important it is to follow passion where you find it,” her father replied.

  Whether he meant her passion for the wilds, or her passion for Owen, Aster didn’t ask. There was a party to enjoy, and suddenly, she felt very much in the mood for celebration.

  * * *

  A week in LA passed quickly, preparing for another trip deep into nature. A lot of Aster’s friends didn’t understand. “But you’ve just got back!” Sarah’s great big eyes went impossibly wide when Aster told her the news. “You just survived one ordeal, now you want another?”

  “I do,” Aster said. “I really do. You have no idea how fun it is.”

  “I’ll tell you what’s fun,” Sarah said. “A weekend photo shoot in Barbados. That’s where I’m headed. You should come with me.”

  “Sorry,” Aster said, patting her friend’s shoulder. “You’ll just have to take Barbados on your own.”

  Sarah pouted, but not even the disappointed expression of a model could convince Aster not to embark on her next grand adventure. She was looking forward to the time with Owen. Since getting back, it seemed to her that all Owen had done was go about making preparations. She knew it was his job, but it was going to be nice to be his sole focus again once they left US shores.

  The day soon came and Aster hugged her father tight, waved goodbye to him and practically ran onto the plane. Owen found her enthusiasm charming, that much was obvious and for the first few hours of their grand adventure, all was well.

  The flight to the Amazon was pleasantly without disaster. Aster, Owen, their three-man film crew and two bodyguards landed in Brazil without incident.

  At first, Manaus, Brazil seemed like every other developed nation in the world, cars, concrete, mini-malls etc. And at first, Aster was a little disappointed. “What kind of wild place is this?” She screwed up her nose and pointed at a chain restaurant. “You can get fried chicken here. Anywhere the colonel is isn’t wild enough for my tastes.”