He opened up the front door. “You—” he pointed towards the three boys sprawled across the sofa. Mike was balancing a bowl of nuts on his stomach,.“Get out of my apartment.”
“What happened to 'make yourself at home?'" Tim complained… in Shal'ta. Unnecessarily.
“Don't you have a job?” he demanded of Michael, who Jack had supposedly placed in the engineering core, although Thorton hadn't seen much evidence. He'd never seen Michael on the job site, but he had seen a lot of Michael on his sofa lately.
“Yeah, I'm done. I said from the get-go that I'll only work human hours,” Mike said, and then added, “Four long hours a day…” he joked and shoved one of the twins with his boot. They both gave a snigger.
“Fine. I don't care where you go, you can't stay here. I'm talking to my wife.” He looked around. “Where is my wife?” Suddenly, he recalled Ellie's day. Mike was working on the ship and had a bachelor's apartment, but the twins were staying with Jack for now. It was settled that, against their wishes, they would soon attend the preparatory academy on Swaraan, since they were technically too young to acquire a work permit. “Is she with Ellie?”
“Nah. Jack gave us all the heave-ho. Said we weren't helping,” Tom complained.
Thorton could imagine it. He knew his wife's kin well enough to know that they were probably telling Ellie that the Swarii were all a bunch of bastards, an inferior race, and it was better that she not help them win the war, after all. It was easy for them to say things like that, since they'd never met a Frian before.
Thorton peered down at the twins. “Don't you have school to study for or something?”
“Don't rub it in, Ass,” Tom gritted. “Besides, we're not going to the Academy.”
Thorton raised an eyebrow, strangely curious by his response. “Why?”
“Because I know how to wield a fucking gun, is why! Like hell they'll take us anywhere we don't want to go!” Tom snapped his eyes narrowed with aggression.
Tim ate a big bite of his sandwich, too nice to say anything like that, but too angry to naysay his brother.
Thorton rolled his eyes as if a pet goldfish had made a threat against him. Not many things in the universe were much less scary than Tom, with his boyish face and bright, childlike eyes with his extra-long eyelashes. “Okay, Tom. That's right. Fight—” he paused, and turned to Tim. “Who's he always fighting, again?”
“The man,” Tim promptly reminded.
“Right. Keep fighting 'the man', Tom. Knock yourself out.” He gave a lazy masculine pat to his chest, a universal thump of 'revolution', but then he pointed towards the door. “Don't knock yourself out before you leave, though. Get gone.”
“I don't know when it happened, but you became a giant asshole,” Mike grumbled, but he was pulling his boots off the coffee table as if he planned to go somewhere. That was a good sign.
Thorton didn't get into it with Mike. It wasn't going to go anywhere good, and Thorton had already cleaned his clock. “No idea where Penny is, then?” he asked.
“Nope,” Tim said in a way that made Thorton pull his eyebrows up with doubt. The kid had said it too sharply for Thorton's taste. It felt like he was hiding something. “No clue.”
“Tim.”
“Um. Well, there's that dude that's been teaching her computer stuff…”
Thorton's eyes narrowed. “What's a dude?”
“A g-guy,” Tim replied, his tone dictating he knew quite well that Thorton didn't want to hear that his new, young wife was off somewhere alone with another male.
Thorton leaned over Tim. “Who?”
* * *
Poor, poor Jio. He was even more sexually deprived than Thorton, and Jio was younger than Thorton was! You'd think he never looked at a pair of tits before, and if he had, he hadn't gotten over it.
He had been staring down her shirt, unabashedly, for the last two hours, giving her instructions on navigating the mother ship's piloting mainframe between eyefuls.
“You don't have to watch them so close, you know,” Penny finally found herself chuckling in a casual way. “They're not gonna bite if you take your eyes off them for a second.”
“Hm?” Jio said dreamily to her breasts.
“My breasts can feel your eyes, Jio,” she clarified.
Jio jumped back like her breasts were indeed going to bite him. His youthful, flawless face that was normally pale was now beet red. “I…I…I…!” he stuttered, and then he gave up on trying to explain himself, looking like he just swallowed glass.
“It's okay, Jio, really. Despite being distracted, you've been a huge help,” she said with a smile, gesturing to the computer monitor.
He swallowed again and gave a very wobbly smile. “I've barely helped. You seem to know your way around.”
She shrugged. “Yeah, it's pretty different from what I'm used to hacking into on Earth, I guess, but the fundamentals are the same. I guess it's sort of like when a doctor plays vet for a day—different bone work, but all the same parts are there.”
Jio was looking south again. She rolled her eyes—this wasn't even her lowest-cut shirt! “Go ahead and touch them, Jio. Maybe some of the wonder will leave you.”
Jio, again returning to a dark hue of red from head-to-toe, snapped his head up. Surprisingly, he asked, “Seriously?”
Penny smirked. “Sure.”
He reached out, slowly, his hand shaking.
“If you grab one it will be the last thing you touch with that hand, I guarantee it.”
Jio looked like he was going to faint when he heard the voice, yet he and Penny both jerked their heads in the direction of the office door. Of course, Thorton was standing there.
“Oh my God, Thorton,” Penny said, rolling her eyes at Thorton's dark expression as he came stomping up. “You're like a monster in a horror movie or something. How do you pop out of the ether like that? What's your secret?”
“You want to lose the attitude,” he assured her with a growl. He was looking at Jio, though, with a death-stare.
“She invited me to touch,” Jio panted with fear. “She did!”
“What she has is not hers to offer you,” Thorton growled in return. “She's mine.”
“Yes, sir,” Jio nodded, without any hint of argument in his expression. “I'm so, so sorry Thorton—”
“Commander,” Thorton corrected snappishly, despite the fact that Thorton had told Penny that Jio was a very close friend; one of Ellie's rescuers. They had gone on missions together.
“Commander,” Jio rushed to say. “I am so, so sorry. So sorry…”
Penny winced, feeling horrible for Jio. She'd never seen a man set to piss himself until this moment. “Lay off of him, Thorton. I shouldn't have said it—it's like offering a starving man a cookie. He's pretty deprived.”
“If I catch you both even alone in the same room again, I will break every bone in your face one by one,” Thorton hissed at Jio, and then he jerked his thumb towards the door. “Now leave.”
Jio didn't need to be told twice. He scurried out of the room like a rat from a sinking ship.
Penny turned easily towards Thorton. “Jealous much?” When Thorton turned to her, trying to lay that deadly glare on her, she narrowed her eyes. “What's got your shorts in a bunch? It's just a boob.”
“It's not just a breast, Penny. It's my breast. Mine,” he snapped. “You're my wife. Get it?”
She rolled her eyes. How could a man be that possessive of anything? Still, she wasn't going to argue. Thorton looked more than angry; he looked tired.
“Keep rolling your eyes, Penny. I'm neigh close to spanking your flirty little ass right here and all the way back to the apartment, anyway. I just need the extra push,” he threatened firmly.
Penny's body went rigid at the threat; remembering their mating, where he belted her in front of a crowded room, came flooding back to her on the instant. She gave an angry gasp. “Thorton, you can't threaten—”
“Oh, I'm promising. Not threatening. You're
already gonna get it when we get back to the apartment. How dare you lie to me about going to see Fie? I felt like an idiot when he told me that you hadn't, Penny. You looked me right in the eye and you all-out lied. You haven't even gone to see Mary, his assistant. You haven't seen anyone!”
So that's what had his shorts all up in a wad before he even walked into the room! Sure, she lied, but she thought it wasn't important that she see a doctor. She felt fine, and even if she didn't, she probably wouldn't have gone. She'd never been to one on Earth, other than the school nurse to get a vaccination or a Band-Aid.
Besides, it was a small enough lie that it didn't warrant punishment. It's not like she would ever expect him to get a spanking if her ass ever started to look fat and if asked he would tell her differently. Surely, that sort of lie was on the same plane. It was a white lie.
“Thorton, the only reason I said I went is because you wouldn't stop worrying until I did,” she said with a tone meant to calm him.
“My wife was drugged and enslaved at a brothel on a pirate planet,” he rehashed angrily. “The only thing that could keep me from worrying is if you actually got your clean bill of health. Now I have two things to worry about: your health and the fact that I've mated with a woman who can look me in the face and lie to me that easily. I actually believed you.”
There was actually a look of hurt on his face. Why? She didn't know. “It wasn't a big lie! It was a little one, for your own good!” she assured desperately.
“Well soon you're going over my knee for your own good. Right now, you're going to the doctor for your own good. Now, for your own good, you'd better wipe that look off your face and come here, Girl.” He pointed to the ground right in front of his boots.
She wasn't very excited to scurry right over to him, and she sank lower in her chair than before.
“Now,” he decreed with more of that 'promise' in his eyes.
She swallowed and lifted her chin bravely. “Look here, Thorton,” she said as firmly as she could. “I’m not a kid. If I need to go to the doctor, I’ll go. I feel fine. I don’t need you to tell me what to do, and I’m not going to let you force me down there. Go mind your own business!”
He stomped over to her and yanked her out of the chair by her upper arm and pulled her along his side. “We’re not arguing about this any longer,” Thorton informed her. “I apparently do need to tell you what to do, and for the record, you are my business. You’re going.” He directed her speedily through the door and into the main hallway of the mothership.
“No!” she shouted stubbornly, dropping her body weight towards the floor. The most vertical part of her body—which was her arm, was help up only by Thorton's grip on her.
Thorton looked left and right and saw people walking back and forth down the hallway, many who were apparently watching the scene but didn’t want to accidentally make eye contact with him. His cheeks began to flush. “Penelope,” he growled, using her full name, which he’d never done. “Stop embarrassing me. Stand up and move.”
“I have rights, Thorton,” she hissed. “I don’t have to go.”
Thorton suddenly bent down, yanked both her arms up, and then dropped his shoulder. She was scooped quite efficiently over his shoulder in one fluid movement.
Noting quickly that her ass was up in the air and her stomach was digging uncomfortably into Thorton’s broad shoulder, she hit her fists against him as he turned around and walked back in the direction of their apartment, which she wanted… At least, she didn't want to go in the direction of the medical bay! But she didn't want to go home like this. “Stop it!” She smacked his back again with the side of her fists. “Put me down, Thorton! This isn’t funny! It hurts!”
“What's going to hurt is the paddling you have coming to you,” he assured grimly, and loud enough that any passersby could have easily heard.
She blanched as a flood of emotions passed over her. Embarrassment, anger, nervousness, excitement…. Nervousness seemed to be the one that stayed. Thorton sounded serious. “Thorton,” she whined, “I don’t wanna go! Don’t make me go, that’s all! You’re just a worry wart! Thorton!”
He marched down a hallway, made a turn, and she heard him hit the code to open the door to their apartment. He put her down on the ground and then grabbed her ear, wheeling her towards the nearest corner.
She was hoping her brothers or Mike might have still been where she left them, in front of the television, but the apartment was empty, aside from a piles of crumbs all over the sofa. There was no one to fan Thorton's temper, no one to post-pone Thorton from doing whatever he wanted with her.
“You are ridiculously childish, did you know that? I do not ask that much of you, but I have to fight with you every inch! And you hate it when I embarrass you, but you have no qualms with making me look like I don’t have you under control!”
Her eyes were quickly burning with angry tears. She didn't want to be 'under control'! She didn't want to be treated like a child, and she told him so!
He propelled her into a corner then grabbed both of her arms in his hands and gave her a firm shake. “I know you're not a child. You made that perfectly clear by offering Jio a feel. If you were trying to end my friendship with him, that was a great way to go about it,” he snapped at her, pointing a finger to her chest. “Give me one reason why you don't deserve a punishment, Penny, just one,” he demanded of her.
Her cheeks puffed red with anger. “Because it's the twenty-first century, and you have no right! You're nothing to me, you—!”
She was interrupted by his angry grunt of, “Okay!” before, without any other warning, he unbuttoned the top of her new skirt deftly and jerked it, her panties, and her leggings down so that they bunched around her knees, except for her skirt which fell down enough to puddle around her ankles.
She gasped, not knowing what to try to cover her up first! How ridiculous she must have looked with a shirt on and her pants down must have been quite a spectacle. She glanced out their living room window which had an all-too good view of space and of any ships about to land in the dock who could see the front end of her when she was like this, so she had to make a decision fast, but eventually she chose to cover her backside, which she had been so good in hiding from her new husband so far. It hadn’t been easy, but he had yet to really get a good look.
She put her hands back to block herself from Thorton’s view, but his hands quickly grabbed her wrists and forced her hands up until her palms were touching her head. “Don’t cover yourself,” he growled, only it wasn’t the growl she had come to love; the one he used when he was talking dirty to her in bed as he played with her. No, Thorton had the growl of a very fed-up husband. “I don’t want you to move. I want you to stand there and think on ways you can be more obedient and honest.”
He walked away and she lowered her hands immediately to cover herself again. She didn’t even like the reflection of her like this in the window.
As soon as her hands touched her exposed bottom, Thorton immediately came back, and turned her around. She was bent over his hip and under his arm in a heartbeat, and his big, strong, calloused hands were smacking down against her bare bottom.
“No!” she squealed miserably, but it was a horrible position. Only her tiptoes were on the ground and her bottom might as well have been in China as far as she was concerned, because twist and turn as she tried, her arms could nowhere near protect herself from any of this humiliation.
“I-am-through-with-being-lenient! You’ve-had-this-coming-for-a-long-time, Little Girl!” he grunted between smacks.
The pain of every single slap deserved attention. Each spank was both sharply painful and then turned into a numbing pain right before it restarted. And his hand just reddened one of her nether-cheeks and then the other.
She screamed. There was no getting away from this. It had already gone on longer than the all-too-familiar belting, and that had left welts on her thighs the whole rest of the day! “Please!” she pleaded. “I’ll be
good! I’ll be good! I’m sorry!”
The smacks and the pain continued until she had well-started emitting tears. It was so painful—so painful and so hopeless! He dropped her to her feet and made her face the corner again, this time with a red bottom. He repositioned her hands on the back of her head. “Stay there.”
She slumped, wondering if she could even imagine anything so miserable as what just happened. She was sobbing, sweating, shaking, and Thorton was somewhere behind her, watching her. At least she thought so. She couldn’t see his reflection in the glass window next to her corner, but she wouldn’t dare drop her hands now for a million dollars.
After what seemed like hours, Thorton said sternly, “Penny, come here.”
She turned, slowly and pathetically, attempting to make him feel bad for spanking her. But then she gasped when she saw what was in his hand.
She had never seen a paddle in her life before, but she knew that's what he was holding. She held her breath as her body froze, trying to gulp.
“Penny,” he warned.
“No!” she sobbed. “No! I said I was sorry!” she pleaded.
“Penny, let’s get this done. Then I’m taking you to Fie and he's going to examine you. Afterwards I'll put you to bed and we'll have a long talk about being alone with other men and egging them on to touch you.”
“It's more casual on Earth! I didn't mean anything by it, I swear!” she argued, and was sincere. Nearly the entire male population of Rogue River beneath the age of twenty-five had at least touched her breasts and maybe even kissed her, but she'd only slept with ten of them. What was a boob, after all? “Touching doesn't mean anything, you can't punish me for not knowing how you'd react!”
He gave her a dubious eye at that, not believing it. “I'm not punishing you for that, we'll actually talk about it when we get home, and I will make it painstakingly clear to you that if I catch you in a similar position, you'll rue the day. This spanking, and I'm sure there'll be many in the future, is about lying to me and then throwing a tantrum in public when I gave you a direct order.”
Learning to Blush: Swarii Brides, Book Two Page 20
