“Honey, aren’t they all like that about health and safety things?” Abby asked, chuckling. “From what I hear every HOH around here is just the same. Did you really expect Caine to be any different?
“He’s supposed to be a vanilla,” Norah griped. “How did he suddenly get all these HOH tendencies?”
“Not anymore,” Abby told her. “Sounds like you’ve successfully converted him.”
That was true, for the most part. Caine had taken to his role as disciplinarian like a duck to water. Unfortunately, he had often remained firm in the assertion that his methods of discipline would not and could not include spanking. He was perfectly fine with other methods of discipline, a fact that he didn’t hesitate to prove on a regular basis, but he wouldn’t even talk about the possibility of including spanking. Not that Norah had actually tried to talk about it all that much. After all, with the kind of trauma that he had been through, what right did she have to bring it up? Every once in a while though, she found herself mentioning it despite her best intentions. Caine might not be a spanko, but she was, and occasionally, no matter how hard she tried, that came out. She never pushed the issue though. Caine had perfectly justifiable reasons for feeling the way he did. He tried very hard to meet her needs in any other way he could. She owed it to him to be willing to compromise just as much.
Unfortunately, that meant her spanking fantasies were once again relegated to the realm of the erotic romance books she devoured on a regular basis. Her e-reader was full of them. She read them voraciously, over and over again, especially on the nights when Caine was gone to Denver. To her private embarrassment, more often than not, these reading binges inspired elaborate fantasies that ended with her reaching for her vibrator and pleasing herself before she went to bed.
She never told Caine about those nights or her fantasies. She never ever wanted to give him the impression that their sex life wasn’t enough for her. In fact, sex was one of the best parts of her relationship. They had been good together right from the start, and they got even better with regular practice. If only she could convince him to spank her, everything would be perfect. The problem was, she didn’t have the right ask that. Not with everything that Caine had been through. With the way that he had been hurt, she couldn’t blame him for not wanting to hurt her, even if that momentary pain was helping her in the long run. If only she could make him understand that just because it hurt, it didn’t mean he was doing harm, and, in fact, all spankings didn’t have to hurt. That thought stopped her in her tracks. Wait a minute, maybe that was the answer. Maybe she needed to introduce Caine to the possibility of erotic spanking. After all, erotic spankings weren’t meant to hurt. They didn’t cause pain, not the bad kind anyway. They were all pleasure. Maybe if she could get Caine to see that, he would at least be willing to spank her as part of sex. It wouldn’t be perfect, but it was certainly better than nothing.
Norah gathered her courage and brought it up a few days later when they were cuddled on the couch together after dinner watching some mindless sitcom. “Do you remember the other night when you said I was being naughty?” Norah asked, running her hand idly over Caine’s chest. Caine murmured absently in what Norah took to be the affirmative. “And I asked if you were going to spank me?”
Caine sighed. “I wish you wouldn’t keep bringing that up,” he said, exasperated. “You know I can’t do that. I’m sorry. I’m really am, but I just can’t hurt you like that.”
“I know that,” Norah told him. “I’m not asking you to hurt me, not all spankings have to hurt. In fact, some of them can be quite pleasurable.”
Caine raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Really?”
“Yes, really,” Norah replied. “Done right, it can be quite a turn on. It’s very sexy.”
“How so?” Caine asked.
“Why don’t I just show you?” Norah said. She got to her feet and reached for his hand, leading him into the bedroom. Once there, she stopped in front of him and undressed, slowly and deliberately. She could feel his eyes on her with every move she made. Good, she had his attention. When she was standing naked in front of him, she stepped closer and gripped the bottom of his shirt. She stripped it over his head and then ran her hands slowly over his bare shoulders and back and chest as she worked her way back down to his jeans. Caine was breathing hard, pupils dilated, and very clearly interested when she undid the fasteners on his jeans and hooking her thumbs in the waistband of both his jeans and underwear, stripped them straight off. Kneeling, she tapped his legs and gestured for him to step out. Once he had, she shoved their loose clothing out of the way and got back to her feet, pausing to trail kisses over the sprinkling of blond hair on his belly that pointed the way southward into the bush of hair around his more intimate parts. She stopped short of touching him there. Not yet, the time would come for that later.
Norah reached to take his hand again, intending to lead him over to the bed, but Caine stopped her, grasping her shoulders and kissing her, hard. “I could take you right now,” he murmured into her ear.
Norah grinned up at him. “Patience there, big boy,” she teased. “We’re nowhere near done yet.” Caine shot her a hot, piercing look that sent an electric bolt of need racing down her spine and into her center, but he acquiesced and allowed her to lead him over to the bed. “Sit up and get comfortable,” she instructed. Caine moved to the middle of bed, leaning up against the headboard with his legs stretched out in front of him.
“Like this?” he asked.
“Perfect,” Norah told him. She came over to join him, but rather than sitting beside him she laid herself across his lap, folding her arms and propping her head on top of them. Almost instinctively, Caine ghosted a hand over the skin of her bottom. “There you go,” she encouraged. “Just like that. Touch and rub, and when you’re ready, try a spank or two. You won’t hurt me. Not like this.” Frankly, he wouldn’t have to do much. The anticipation between them already had them both taunt as wire. Hit the right button and they would both go off like a rocket.
Caine continued rubbing up and down her back and bottom in several long movements. Norah melted beneath his touch, warm and firm and so incredibly relaxing. She was nearly turned into a pile of goo already when Caine finally settled an arm across her back and lifted his hand. She tensed instinctively, unable to help herself. The swat that followed was barely more than a tap. Nowhere near hard enough to sting and in all honesty, more than a little disappointing. Oh for the love of... She wasn’t made of glass. He wasn’t going to break her. Still, she didn’t want to do or say anything that might possibly discourage him. “That’s right,” she prompted. “Don’t be afraid to get a little harder. I won’t break, and I promise you’re not going to hurt me. I like the sting.” She felt Caine shift, and although she couldn’t see his face from the position she was in, she knew exactly what skeptical disbelieving expression he was making. It was the same one he had every time she tried to convince him spanking really didn’t hurt her, even when it did hurt. She wanted this; she needed it to the very marrow of her bones. She felt the movement of his body against hers as he drew in a deep breath and then another spank connected, this time on the other side and slightly harder. “Harder,” she pressed. The next swat was actually approaching the realm of being stingy. She murmured incoherently before repeating, “Harder.”
“Really?” Caine said, disbelieving.
“Yes, really,” Norah replied with utter conviction. “Harder.”
Caine paused, and she could practically hear him arguing with himself, but finally, his hand lifted again and came down with a resounding crack. Norah whimpered involuntarily, and Caine froze. “Are you okay? Did I hurt you?”
“Of course not,” Norah told him. “That was good.”
“Good?” Caine clearly wasn’t convinced. “Seriously? You have my hand print on your ass, and you’re telling me it’s good.”
“I do?” Norah said, delighted. “Cool. Do it again.”
Caine shook his head—she c
ould feel his torso twisting—and let out an exasperated breath, but he obliged, repeating the swat a half dozen or so more times, divided evenly between each cheek. Then he went back to rubbing again. Norah bit her lip against the instinct to tell him to stop. The rubbing, while nice, was doing nothing but taking away what little sting he had managed to build up. The last thing she wanted to do was discourage him, but dammit she wanted to be able feel it too. Before she could manage to find a way to explain that, his hand dipped lower, fingers working their way into her entrance and finding her clit. All semblance of coherent thought fled as he stroked her, fingers diving in and out, teasing, pushing her inexplicably toward the edge. Finally, he flipped her onto her back, entering her in one swift, demanding thrust, drawing her legs up over his shoulders, and driving into her again and again until she shattered with a wordless, incoherent cry. She was still riding the waves of her release when she felt him follow, giving a deep animal cry before he collapsed on top of her.
It was a long time before either of them stirred. When they finally did, Caine rolled off of her, settling on his side and popping up on one elbow. “You liked that?” he asked hesitantly. For one brief moment, she caught a glimpse of how he must’ve been as an adorably shy adolescent.
“Uh huh,” she replied quietly, smiling. “Sure did.” It wasn’t a lie. The sex was good. Sex between them always was. Still, she couldn’t stop the twinge of disappointment deep inside. It could be so much better if he would just let go and really spank her. It wasn’t like she was an expert on the subject either, but she knew that, down to the marrow of her bones. Logically, she should be celebrating this as a victory. Caine had spanked her, sort of anyway. For him, that was making huge strides. She knew that, and she appreciated it so much, but that didn’t change the fact that it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t nearly enough. It didn’t come close to giving her what she needed.
At the same time, it was a start, and like anything else, it was bound to get better with practice. Wasn’t it?
Chapter 11
Except that it didn’t. As much as Norah wanted to hope things would get better, that somehow, someway they would find a way for Caine to give her what she needed, even if it was only the occasional sexual spanking, things didn’t really improve. It wasn’t that Caine was opposed to the idea. He was still incredibly uncertain and hesitant, but he hadn’t refused. They hadn’t really had a chance to try again after that first time though. Life just kept getting in the way. With both of them running their own businesses, they stayed busy all the time. What’s more, Norah hadn’t exactly been in the mood to be particularly romantic. She was increasingly restless, edgy, and irritable. The feeling had been building for days. If asked, and she had been asked numerous times, she couldn’t put her finger on what was wrong. There wasn’t any one thing she could point to. The bookstore was nearing completion. The grand opening was scheduled in just a few weeks. That alone was incredibly stressful. It was on her mind constantly no matter how much she tried not to worry about it. In fact, trying not to worry about it was rather like trying to avoid talking about the white elephant in the room.
It became all she could think about. What if something went wrong? What if everything went wrong? What if it was a flop? What if everything she had done and all the work she had put in came to nothing? After all, what did she really know about running a business? She’d never owned a business before. True, she had practically run the bookstore she had managed back East. Mr. Carrnowski had been talking for years about turning it over to her when he retired. If she hadn’t decided to move to Colorado, she didn’t doubt that he would have done just that when and if he ever retired. Maybe she should have just taken the safe route and waited for him to retire. Except that she knew even as the thought crossed her mind she would have never been happy there. She was smothered and she knew it, even before John had died. She was happier here in Corbin’s Bend than she had ever been or would ever have been there, even if she did currently feel like her nerves were about to crawl out of her skin.
Still, she worried about the store. Popular culture said that bookstores were doomed to go the way of the dinosaur, that e-books and their readers were taking over. What if they were right? What if she had poured her dream and her life savings into a business that was doomed to fail? Quincy assured her time and time again that it would be fine, that she had good business instincts, and that Corbin’s Bend was a good market for a small independent bookstore, especially since Norah both knew and understood the particular niche market that people in Corbin’s Bend were interested in but might not be able to find in mainstream bookstores.
“All right that’s enough,” Quincy said finally one day during lunch when Norah was pacing the antique store and going over these worries for what seemed like the billionth time. “You’re working yourself up over something that’s never going to happen. I’ve told you over and over it’s going to be fine. Obviously, telling isn’t what you need.”
Norah froze in the midst of her pacing, spinning around to face Quincy. “What do you mean?”
Quincy raised an eyebrow. “I think you know exactly what I mean. You, my dear, need a spanking. If Caine isn’t going to get a clue on his own, then you need to tell him, or if not, I will.”
Norah stared at her, horrified. “You can’t do that.”
“Fine,” Quincy replied, “then you tell him, and I won’t have to.”
“I can’t either,” Norah protested.
“Of course you can,” Quincy told her. “You don’t have to actually say it, if that’s what you’re worried about. There are plenty of ways of letting him know what you need. Write him a note. Leave an implement out in a conspicuous place. Stage a scavenger hunt and be ready and waiting for him at the end of it. Whatever works for you, but honey, for your own sanity you need to do something.”
Norah sighed. Quincy was exactly right, and she knew it. This had been her biggest reservation when she agreed to a non-spanking dynamic with Caine. As much as she had understood his reasoning and appreciated the lengths he went to give her the structure she needed, sometimes there came a time when she just needed a spanking. It would fix this, relieve the tension, allow her to cry herself out, and reset everything. At the same time, she was fully aware of what she had agreed to. Caine had been abundantly clear that he couldn’t spank her. She had consented with her eyes wide open. It would be the height of unfairness to go back on that and ask him to do so now.
“It’s not that either,” Norah told her. She glanced meaningfully at the window and the people bustling by outside. This wasn’t the time or the place to get into this. Someone could come in at any minute, and she had no desire for the intimate details of her agreement with Caine to become gossip fodder for their neighbors. If there was one thing she had learned about her neighbors in Corbin’s Bend over the summer, it was that although they were some of the most caring people she met, they loved their gossip. She prayed Quincy would get the message and not press her for details now.
Thankfully, Quincy did get the message, but rather than simply letting the matter drop as Norah had expected, she called out, “Abby, honey, could you man the register for a few minutes? Norah and I are going to have a cup of tea upstairs.”
Abby readily agreed, and before she knew what was happening Norah found herself hustled up the stairs to Quincy’s apartment and settled at the kitchen table with a cup of tea in front of her. “All right,” Quincy said matter-of-factly, coming to take a seat across from Norah with her own cup of tea, “let’s have it. Why can’t you tell Caine what you need? He’s your HOH, isn’t he?”
“Yes, he is,” Norah said slowly, “but it’s complicated.”
“I’m sure it’s not nearly as complicated as it seems,” Quincy said. “I know it’s not easy to tell him what you need or to ask for a spanking, but honey, that’s what you both signed up for. It’s his job to help you with stuff like this.”
“Not like that,” Norah insisted. Before Quincy could argue f
urther, she took a deep breath and plunged on. “We practice DD, in a sense. Caine is my HOH. We have an agreement and rules and consequences that we both agreed to, but spanking isn’t one of them. Caine doesn’t spank.”
Quincy’s eyebrows shot up into her hairline. Norah fought the urge to laugh. Admitting that she didn’t get spanked in Corbin’s Bend must seem nearly as bizarre as admitting she wanted to get spanked to the population at large. Only she would come to Corbin’s Bend for the express purpose of finding the spanking relationship she had always wanted and get involved with a man who tried diligently to be her HOH but couldn’t bring himself to spank her. “Okay,” she clarified nervously, “he’s spanked me occasionally as part of sex, if you can call a few swats spanking, but he doesn’t spank as discipline.”
“I see,” Quincy said slowly, “and you’re okay with that?”
“I agreed to it,” Norah replied, shrugging.
“That wasn’t what I asked,” Quincy persisted. “Are you okay with that?”
“Of course I would prefer it to be different,” Norah told her. “I didn’t exactly plan on moving into a spanking community and then falling in love with a vanilla man who can’t bring himself to spank me. That wasn’t what I imagined when I moved out here. Opening the store wasn’t the only dream I was chasing when I came here. I thought I would finally be able to find a man who believed as I did and have the kind of relationship I’ve been secretly wanting for years. Unfortunately, it hasn’t worked out that way.
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