by Cara Bristol
She peeked at a frowning Bethany and faked a reassuring smile.
“Do you have the address?” she purred into the phone. There! Neutral enough to fly over Bethany’s head and pointed enough to get the message through his thick one.
“Four seventeen Drury Lane. Apartment 217.”
Her jaw dropped. “Y-you… How…?” she sputtered.
“Being the deputy chief of police has its perks. See you soon.”
“No!” she cried, but he’d already hung up. She didn’t even have his cell number. When he’d called her to set up the meeting at the bar, he’d called from the police department, so she only had that number on her caller ID. She had a hunch she’d have a lot more trouble getting past the guardian dragons to the deputy chief of police than the deputy chief of police had getting to her.
She almost slammed the phone down but belatedly remembered Bethany. “That will be fine. Thanks for the information,” she said to empty air and gently replaced the receiver.
“You call the deputy police chief Mark?”
“It’s his name.”
Bethany curled her mouth with distaste. “It sounded like you two were having a lover’s spat. What was that all about? How do you know him?”
Bethany had been a friend first, but she was also an employee, and although the two roles often entwined, what business was it of Bethany’s—who’d unilaterally tabled a program she was supposed to develop—to question her phone calls? Stephanie didn’t answer to her—least of all about her private life. If she and Mark had been having a lover’s spat, it was inappropriate for Bethany to inquire about it. Nor did Stephanie appreciate the censure on her program coordinator’s face that she might be in a relationship with a man. Men were not the enemy! They were as injured by sexism as women.
But Gloria, she’d like to injure him. Right where it counted.
Her annoyance with Mark and her irritation with Bethany and her inappropriate prying snowballed into a hard knot of anger.
“My phone call is none of your business. This meeting is over.” Stephanie folded her arms and tightened her lips into a line.
“Fine.” Bethany snapped the lid shut on her netbook, grabbed it and her phone, and headed for the door.
“And Bethany,” Stephanie spoke sharply. The other woman peered over her shoulder. “Get the communications program up and running by next month, or we’re going to have a serious discussion.”
* * * *
Holy fuck, she made him hard. Mark leaned back in his chair and chuckled. His gut had warned him that Stephanie would get cold feet once the sun rose and that he should seal the deal. He refused to allow her to wiggle out of their date. Squirm on his lap when he spanked her, yes. But run from him? Not a chance. He had a successful career, a home, a life. But the short time he’d spent with her had filled hollow places he hadn’t known he had. He wasn’t about to give up until he’d given it his all. This spitting kitten wanted him as much as he desired her, even if she refused to admit it.
She probably had no idea her lower lip quivered when she thought she was being tough. Didn’t realize how her expression softened when she looked at him, how utterly perfect she’d felt in his arms, around his cock. He’d intended to stop after a few kisses, but she’d pushed it further. When he’d halted her actions and taken control, she’d melted against him, around him, like butter. He’d felt her body give.
She liked it a little rough and had sought out the pain, moaned, clenching her pussy tight around him the harder he sucked on her nipples.
The aggressive face she tried to present to the world wasn’t who she was. The real Stephanie was soft and submissive but feisty, rather like the Bottom Burner she seemed to enjoy so much. Sweet and peppery. He knew it; her body knew it. Her mind would take some convincing. He planned to hold her, fuck her, and spank her until she relinquished her shield, and then hold her, fuck her, and spank her some more for the joy of it. He’d gotten turned on just talking to her, listening to her soft, girlish voice.
He’d enjoyed teasing her and would have done more if she hadn’t had someone with her. He had no wish to embarrass her. Though she might doubt it, he respected her and her organization. He’d done some checking, and she’d impressed him with how much she’d accomplished in such a short period of time and with such a relatively small budget. WAN’s programs were solid, well-respected. Who knew how many women she’d protected through self-defense training? How many others had gotten the confidence to change their lives after taking her Assertiveness & Self-esteem classes? Rape victims found support groups at her center.
The Rod and Cane Society had an auction fundraiser planned, and he would submit WAN’s name for a funding grant.
Mark stroked his jaw. He’d intended to take Stephanie to his favorite Italian bistro, but Rod and Cane was having a cocktail party for members of exceptional standing and their guests. He could lead her into his spanking world incrementally, or he could grab her and jump in. The latter, while shocking at first, would ultimately be the most direct way to introduce her to domestic discipline.
He wanted to find out early on if she would accept his lifestyle. He would need to push her a bit, because the idea would meet with an automatic rejection. Just because domestic discipline would suit her didn’t mean she would agree to it. But dominance and control were as ingrained in him as breathing, and spanking was a key way he expressed those traits. Better to find out sooner rather than later if Stephanie refused to embrace it.
Chapter Four
“How did you know I wouldn’t stand you up?” Stephanie peered at Mark as he drove. She’d wavered between vacating her apartment and meeting him at the door with the announcement the date was off. Instead she’d donned her heels and greeted him with a saccharine smile and a rod in her spine. She’d decided to go out with him to prove she could resist his charms. Give it a little time, a couple of hours max, and his domineering ways would override her body’s desire, and she would lose interest. She crossed her legs.
He palmed his heart as if reciting the Pledge of Allegiance and affected a wounded expression. “You thought about standing me up? I’m crushed.” He grinned, and her fluttering stomach explained exactly how smart, normally savvy women got involved with the wrong men. “I figured your feminist principles wouldn’t allow it. You would confront instead of hide.”
She tucked her hair behind her ears and brushed a speck of lint from her arm. “Of course.”
He turned down a quiet residential street in an exclusive neighborhood. Vehicles lined the street, but he located an open space and expertly slid the vehicle between two parked cars outside a huge, floodlit, Victorian mansion.
“This is where the party is?” Stephanie gawked at the grand edifice looming out of the quiet darkness. “Who lives here?” He’d tried to warn her, but she’d disregarded his clothing suggestion, and now she feared she would be underdressed in her silk leggings and a long poet-style blouse overlaid with a man’s pinstripe vest. She disdained the frivolity and lack of function in most women’s fashions, but rued the lack of color and variation in men’s. Over the years she’d developed a personal style that borrowed from both sexes.
A gold chain belt, her favorite hoop earrings, and a half-dozen bangles embellished her evening ensemble, but she could envision the other women decked out in slinky designer dresses, the men in starched shirts and sport coats—she glanced at Mark—the way he was dressed.
“Nobody lives here. I’ll get your door.” He unfolded his tall frame.
That again. She ticked off the seconds as he strode to the passenger side. She was quite capable of opening her door. But to survive the evening, she would have to compromise. So, she would allow him to assist her in and out of the car, and at the end of the party, he could concede dating was out of the question. That was fair.
Lined by topiary shrubs, pavers meandered to the mansion’s entrance. She was admiring a stand of willow trees weeping over the manicured lawn when her heel slipped into a c
rack. Mark caught her before she could do more than lurch. “Thank you,” she said. “I didn’t see that.”
“The path doesn’t take into account women’s shoes,” he said.
She cursed her inattentiveness, because she’d given him an excuse to wrap his arm around her waist. The pressure was light, the distraction heavy. Her skin tingled, not only where his hand rested but everywhere else too: her back, her neck, her sex, her breasts. She thanked her foresight for donning the vest, because she needed the protection—she suspected her nipples were leading the charge.
“Careful.” He tightened his hold protectively as they ascended the stone steps to the double front doors. She steeled her spine.
“Is that a badge reader?” She frowned at the small metal box mounted on the wall.
“Yes. It’s used when members need access but the building is closed.”
“Members of what?”
Atop the steps, he spun her to face him and grasped her waist. So close, his damnably seductive scent filled her lungs, and she could see the shadow of a beard already starting. Her itchy palms and sensitive nipples remembered well the sandpapery texture. She clenched her fists. He stared into her eyes. Desire glinted, but a somber intensity had replaced the humor she’d expected to see.
“After much consideration as to where to bring you tonight, I decided you needed to get to know me in a meaningful way as well as how dating me will affect you.”
He didn’t present it as an if but a certainty. Typical.
“To answer your earlier question, this isn’t a private residence but the headquarters for an association I belong to, the Rod and Cane Society.”
She dropped her jaw. “You don’t mean that organization I read about in the Sentinel? About men who beat up women?” The entire city had been abuzz about the column Cassidy Myles had written. WAN had presented a public lecture against the practice.
“Men who discipline women.”
“You’re a member of Rod and Cane?” He’d already said so, but she sought verification. Though he hadn’t tightened his grip, the hands that had seemed so protective, so stirring, now seemed more like shackles.
“Yes.” He met her gaze, unflinching, unapologetic. She might well have asked him if he’d ever been a Boy Scout.
“You hit women?”
“I spank,” he said, like it was something entirely different. “For discipline—and to enhance erotic pleasure.”
It made sense now. She swallowed. “That’s why you suggested Bottom’s Up, isn’t it?” She was hyperaware of his touch. He knew what he was doing, had accurately predicted her reaction. If he hadn’t been holding her, she likely would have bolted.
He nodded.
She glued the pieces together. “You’re saying…you want to spank me?”
“Yes.”
Before she could recover from her shock, he ushered her into the den of sexist male domination.
She marched woodenly as she plotted her next move. Though her heart hammered with trepidation, she sensed she had nothing to fear from him physically. The one thing she’d gleaned from Cassidy’s article was that domestic discipline was consensual—or as consensual as it could be, since the women had to be brainwashed to agree to something so crazy. What were the odds, she wondered. Was it a cosmic joke to pair a women’s libber with a chauvinist who spanked? A feminist and a Dom go into a bar…
So not funny.
Boy, had Elizabeth been wrong about this man. Wow.
He maintained contact, his arm searing her waist through two layers of clothing as they walked side by side like a normal couple instead of a shell-shocked feminist and a kinky sexist who were going to part company the instant the evening ended.
Mark leaned into her until his breath caressed her cheek. Her pussy—damn it—pulsed. His lips brushed her ear, and a shiver scuttled up her spine. “Relax, kitten,” he whispered. “I’m not going to spank you…yet.”
“My name’s not kitten, and you’re not going to spank me…ever,” she spit out, vowing not to talk to him unless she absolutely had to.
He chuckled, and for a moment she considered driving the heel of her palm into his jaw, but instead she studied her surroundings like she used to teach in self-defense. Be aware.
Formal portraits of men, some dour, some less severe, but all exuding masculine assurance as if their pictures had been painted with testosterone, stared imperiously from on high in the round room.
She frowned as she recognized a large emblem etched in gold on the marble floor. “Is that the state seal?” She broke her vow of silence. More of the “CityScape Uncovered” article was coming back to her. This had been a government edifice of some sort.
“Yes. Before Rod and Cane bought the building, this used to be the governor’s mansion.”
She counted a dozen people milling about the rotunda, all coupled up. The men’s dress ranged from business casual to semiformal, the women likewise. Some wore slacks, some dresses. To think her biggest concern had been her clothing! A snort of laughter erupted through her nose.
“Are you okay?” Mark asked.
“Couldn’t be better.” She glared at him.
They approached a reception desk, and Mark produced a name badge from his pocket and clipped it to his lapel. “Ms. Stephanie Gordon is my guest this evening,” he said to the woman.
“Welcome, Ms. Gordon,” she said. Stephanie noted two things about her: she had skin like creamy milk chocolate and a badge that read Mrs. Lewis Johnson. Like the progress women had achieved in ninety odd years since they’d gotten the vote had all but vanished.
The woman handed Mark a white badge. Before she could guess his intention, he’d attached it to her vest, his knuckles grazing the swell of her breast. Though he hadn’t touched them, her nipples tingled.
“You volunteer at a lot of these events, don’t you, Janeka?” he asked.
So the woman did have a name. And Mark actually knew it. Stephanie didn’t like that she liked that about him.
“I enjoy it.” She motioned to a tall African-American man who seemed to be guarding a set of double doors. “They’re clear. Let them in, Lewis.”
Janeka’s other half, Stephanie presumed.
Mark threaded his fingers through hers and leaned in again. “Brace yourself,” he whispered.
She frowned until Lewis flung open the double doors; then she clapped her free hand over her mouth to stifle her gasp as Spanko Land was revealed.
No wonder there was a freakin’ guard at the gate! She didn’t know where to look first or where not to look. The long hall served as a gallery with pictures of women being spanked mounted on the walls. Some subjects bore flirtatious expressions, others prideful, many repentant. Still others wailed as they were whaled upon. She tore her gaze away from the shocking paintings, only to find it drawn to display cases filled with objects used to spank.
“Those are called implements.” Mark’s gaze followed hers.
“Thank you for that bit of information,” she answered acidly. And she’d considered Bottom’s Up a bad date! She almost wished she was at the bar now. She could use a drink. Even a Bottom Burner. In a signature keepsake butt glass.
Her souvenir was rattling around her car. She was going to unearth it and throw it away. Or maybe not. Perhaps she would keep it as a warning to be more discerning and discriminating in her choice of men.
“It’s a lot to absorb,” he said.
“You think?” She scowled.
His lips brushed her ear. “Careful, kitten. Sarcasm may get you spanked.”
Her stomach performed an Olympic vault while her pussy throbbed. Her entire sex felt swollen and wet with arousal. Clearly she was experiencing some bizarre mind-body disconnect. “Don’t call me that.”
He threw back his head and laughed. “You don’t object to the prospect of being spanked; you just dislike the name ‘kitten.’”
“I don’t like either of them.” She squared her shoulders. “Isn’t this supposed to be a
cocktail party?”
He nodded.
“Do you suppose I could get one?”
“Bourbon on the rocks, a splash—just a splash—of water?”
“Yes.” He remembered her drink of choice. After five years of marriage, her ex-husband couldn’t remember she liked her coffee with one sugar, no cream.
“This way.” He guided her toward the end of the hall. She surrendered to curiosity and gawked at the cases as they passed. She noted everything from paddles to floggers to back brushes. She’d never look at her wooden loofah the same way again.
At the terminus of the gallery he led her down a corridor, then paused outside an open room, sounds of a party spilling out. Though she’d worn heels, he still topped her by several inches. With her new knowledge he appeared even taller, stronger, more macho. And he wanted to spank her. Within her skin, she felt smaller, more fragile, feminine. Stephanie wet her lips, her heart thumping. If anyone so much as said “boo” to her, she’d leap out of her boots.
“There’s nothing for you to be afraid of.”
“I’m not,” she lied. “It’s just a party. I don’t know anybody, but it’s only a party.”
“You know that’s not what I’m talking about.”
His skin felt hot as he entwined his fingers with hers, and she realized her hands had gone cold. He pulled her off to the side, away from the noise, the potential traffic, and turned her to face him. She stared at his throat. He wasn’t wearing a tie.
With a gentle but implacable finger, he raised her chin. “You always have the right to say no. No one can take away your power of consent. It’s not my nature to ask permission, but you can stop me with a single word.”
She jerked away from his touch. “You didn’t accept no with respect to this date.”
“You didn’t tell me no.”
She opened her mouth to argue, and he arched his eyebrows. “Did you?” he asked.
Stephanie snapped her mouth shut. “Not exactly. You didn’t give me a chance, and I couldn’t contact you because I only had the police department number.”
“So why didn’t you call me there?”
