Just One Night

by Carolyn Faulkner

  Andrea blinked back the tears and smiled up at him. He could be such a goofball, especially when he was trying to make her feel better, which, bless him, was a lot of the time, she knew.

  "And I want access to even more. Do you have other kitchen appliances that might burn the house down? Bring 'em over! Alligator pumps in a size twelve? How about Jello molds? A pony, perhaps?" He kissed her once, very tenderly, cupping her chin in his hand. "Like I said, I'm a greedy cuss, and I want all of you, all the time."

  She looked down for a moment, then, in one of the biggest leaps of faith she'd ever taken in her life, she looked back up at him and said, "All right."

  He wanted to give a very loud, very un-British, "Whoop!" at that, but he didn't.

  Instead, Rad gathered her to him tightly. "I promise you, you won't regret it. And I'll help you decide what to do with the place, too, but you can take some time with that before you decide."

  In the end, she simply closed the house up. He'd steered her toward renting it, but she didn't do anything toward making that a reality. There was still some furniture there, but not much else. He didn't really care what she decided to do with it or when. He'd gotten what he wanted. It was all over relatively painlessly, and he spent her first night in her new residence distracting her in every way he knew how, because he had hated seeing how down she was about leaving that place, and, in some ways, he felt awful about insisting on it.

  She hadn't lived anywhere else in a very long time, and it took Andrea a bit to really adjust to living with him, which, on one level, was kind of ridiculous. But she hadn't had a lot of change in her life, and this was a big one for her. For the first couple weeks or so, she was jumpy as a housecat, and cried easily, and got herself spanked quite often at first, which he knew she had a hard time accepting, even though she'd been fine with it before he'd moved her.

  Rad was patient but not lenient with her. He felt consistency was a very good thing—for a sub and in a Dom. So if she would have gotten her bottom blistered when she lived across town, then he made sure that she ended up sniffling and hiccoughing sobs and sporting a very sore bum when she lived with him, too.

  He was aware that she was struggling, and he was there for her with open arms—and sometimes an open palm that cracked hard against her rear end. Slowly, with a lot of love and frank conversation, many hard hugs and some nights spent with her stinging, hot bottom pressed up against his cock as she fell asleep, she began to settle down and settle in.

  The outbursts that resulted in her being punished, which hadn't been like her in the first place, lessened, then went completely away. She started smiling more, and with his supportive caring, as well as his loving consistency, she found her path back to the way she'd been with him previously. Not that she was perfect, by any means. She hadn't been perfect before, and she certainly wasn't now.

  Months later, Rad had left on a trip to Moscow—his first since she'd officially started living there—and he had gotten into the habit of calling her every night. He texted her all the time, and they had emails going back and forth, too, but he called every night at eleven, her time, no matter what time it was where he was, just to talk to her before she went to bed.

  And it was no different that night, either. It was Thursday night, and he was expected home tomorrow. Home—she could think it—or say it—now without getting sad and without picturing the other house.

  "Good evening, my love," he purred at her when she answered the call.

  "Good evening." He'd started calling her that not long after she'd moved in, and Andrea wasn't sure what she should say back to him. But he didn't seem to expect anything more from her because of it, which eased her mind a lot.

  But she didn't know what she was going to do when he told her that he loved her. She definitely loved him, but she wasn't comfortable admitting it to herself yet, much less saying it to him—definitely not now, and maybe not for quite a while. It was one of those many weird things about her that he seemed to take in stride—for the moment anyway.

  "Did you have a good day at work?"

  "Yes."

  "And was everyone nice to you?"

  She had to laugh at that. She didn't know what it was like at his work—probably different, because he was a boss, but at her office, not everyone was nice all the time. In fact, lots of people weren't nice any of the time.

  But she didn't like to complain to him. "Everyone was fine, thanks. How about you? Did you get everything done that you wanted to?"

  "I did, thank you." His voice lowered to a truly obscene register. "But I miss you terribly! I am so glad to be coming home tomorrow."

  "Me, too!"

  "Oh, that reminds me, did you make that appointment with the doctor that I asked you to? I didn't see it on our calendar."

  "Uhh…"

  "Andrea."

  She hated it when she heard him say her name—in that tone, anyway.

  "Yes, Rad, dear?" she asked in her sweetest, most innocent voice.

  "I asked you to make that appointment how many weeks ago now?"

  She knew that was not a rhetorical question. "Two," she sighed.

  "Yes, two. And you still haven't made the appointment?"

  He heard her sigh, knowing she was probably twisting her hair or picking at her dress nervously, because she hated it when he scolded her.

  "No," she had to say again.

  "Well, we shall have to have a conversation about that when I get home. And if you know what's good for you, you'll have made the appointment before then. Understood?"

  Andy sighed, a little peevishly. "Yeah."

  "I'm sorry, what?"

  "Yes, I will. I promise," she said, much more convincingly.

  "See that you do, darling. Believe me, you don't want your spanking to be any worse than it's already going to be."

  No, she absolutely did not! He had—gradually, granted—upped the ante on her spankings, so that they were now much less tentative than they were. Even when he occasionally laid a few smacks to her behind while making love to her, they were almost always sharp and hard.

  And Andrea knew that what had betrayed her to him the most was her own body, which was a hard concept to swallow. But it seemed the stricter he was with her, the creamier she became down there. Apparently, he paid close attention to such things, and usually she liked that about him. Rad did focus almost entirely on her when she was with him, but she could have stood him to be a bit less eager to discern that bit of information.

  What she now recognized as "play" spankings were a thing of the past, which was a fact that she was confronted with when he strolled into the house that night.

  She could have gotten time off work and gone to get him, but he'd left his car at the airport, and he wanted her to just go home and relax until he got there, which was a couple hours after she'd arrived.

  As soon as she heard him put his key into the lock, she was up and standing at the door, at least as eager to see him as he was to see her. As soon as his eyes landed on hers, Rad immediately dropped his suitcase, suit bag, and briefcase right where he stood, in favor of opening his arms to her.

  Andy flew into them, and he pretended that she had nearly knocked him over with the force of her greeting, although she now knew that even lean men could be incredibly strong. He lifted her off the ground as his mouth eagerly claimed hers, and her legs wrapped around his waist, and all he did was turn them around, so that he could plaster her up against the wall just to the left of the door.

  Rad made short work of what there was of her panties, not even bothering to bare her in any other way, and only doing so for himself enough to allow his cock to poke out of the zipper of his pants. He gathered her wrists into one hand to hold them above her head—almost spilling himself at the sound of her whimper as he held her captive. With his other hand, he guided himself to her, setting the tip against those soft, inner lips of hers as he used every bit of his strength of will to pause and stare down at her until that soft, slightly fuzz
y gaze found his.

  As he acted, he spoke in a guttural tone, "I am so glad to be home, with and in you." And in one tremendous thrust, he was balls deep in her. Rad gloried in the way she writhed as he pinned her, fingers finding taut nipples beneath the robe she was wearing, then, when they were achingly sensitive, his hand wandered down to where they were connected, finding her clit unerringly and teasing it madly.

  She was so hot—in so many ways—and even though they hadn't been apart for more than ten days, he was absolutely unable to keep himself from climaxing after only a few strokes, still straining against her, pumping her full of himself, emptied and drained in a way that he only was with her.

  He let go of her wrists, pulling back a little to look at her a bit sheepishly. "Hello, darling."

  She smiled up at him. "That was quite some hello, Mr. Windsor!" Andrea arched her hips toward his. "But you left one of us wanting!" She pointed it out to him because he was making no move toward satisfying her, which was pretty unheard of for him.

  "I know. But you're due a punishment, I'm afraid, and there will be no pleasure for you before I address that with you."

  Her exaggerated pout was comical, and what he said next did nothing whatsoever toward soothing it.

  "Don't worry; we'll get to that sooner rather than later."

  In fact, it turned rather quickly into a frown.

  "I'm starving. What do you want for dinner?"

  To his great delight, she'd made dinner for them, and seconds later, he was tucking into a hearty homemade beef stew, with garlic cheddar biscuits to go with it.

  His eyes closed on his first spoonful of it, and his expression wasn't that different from what she'd seen of his other type of bliss. "This is phenomenal. Thank you for cooking."

  Andrea preened under his praise, although she blushed, too. She knew that he could afford to have a chef cook for him, so his compliments about her food meant that much more to her.

  "You had some when you got home?" he asked.

  "Yes," she answered reluctantly. He had made it mandatory that she not wait for him, but that she eat something for dinner when she got home. When he wasn't able to be there with her, she kept him company while he ate.

  "Good girl. Now go stand in the corner."

  The look on her face was priceless, and he was tempted to take a picture of it, but she had a moratorium on pictures that he hadn't gotten a chance to try to talk her out of yet. For now, he would just have to rely on his memory.

  "The corner?" She said it as if he expected her to stand in the sink or on top of the dining room table.

  "Yes," he affirmed, wiping his mouth with his napkin while watching her closely. "Robe off, nose in the corner, and hands atop your head, please."

  He was amazed to see that her eyes got even rounder at those instructions, although she didn't move.

  "Did I say something that is unclear to you, Andrea, honey?" he asked, sounding a tad too solicitous for her comfort.

  "No. No, I… just…" She was at a loss for words, never having expected to be told to do that by him.

  "Don't make me put you there—"

  That was more than enough warning for her. She was up like a shot, although he saw her delightful hesitation on doffing the robe, which meant that she was going to be standing there naked, while he finished his dinner. But she put it over the back of her chair and headed to the corner he pointed to, which was not five feet from him, to his right. So that he could easily keep an eye on her.

  This was a horrible precursor to the punishment itself! He'd not asked her to do anything like this before, but here she was. It was surprisingly hard to keep one's nose pressed into a corner, especially when one was as well-endowed as she was. And standing still like this wasn't her favorite thing to do, either, and her feet began to move nervously almost immediately. Having her hands on her head meant she couldn't fidget with her fingers, either.

  Andy had been so wrapped up in her own thoughts, she hadn't heard his chair scrape on the floor as he pushed it away from the table, but she certainly felt it when he delivered two agonizingly hard swats to her backside, one to each cheek.

  All he said was, "Stand still, Andrea," before returning to his chair.

  She sighed. "Yes, Rad."

  "Good girl."

  He ate a lot more slowly than she did, although she'd been working on that, so she was there for a while, especially since she heard him get up and get seconds—probably of everything. Where he put all the food he ate, she would never know, but he had not a spare ounce on him.

  When he returned with his food, she was all twitchy again, earning herself four more of the same kind of spanks before he tucked back into his dinner.

  When Rad was done, he pushed his chair a bit away from the table and said, "Come here, baby girl."

  She did, but she made as if to put her robe back on before she got to his lap.

  But all it took was one soft, firm word from him, "No," and she put it back down.

  He held her on his lap, knowing that she really liked being there.

  "Thank you for making that appointment." He'd been horrified to hear from her that she hadn't been to the doctor in more than a decade. No mammograms, no physicals—nothing. Tone deaf that he could sometimes be, he had gone so far as to remind her that she wasn't twenty any more.

  Andrea had not been amused, and he wouldn't have been surprised to find out that she set her stubborn self to not doing as he'd asked her to right then and there.

  "You're welcome," she replied tentatively.

  "And you know why you're going to be punished?"

  "Yes."

  "And why is that, my dear?"

  "Because I didn't make the appointment when I was told to, or the soonest time afterward."

  "Yes, but what, of the things you know I expect of you, does that mean you didn't do?"

  She pursed her lips. "Obey."

  "And you still feel that it's right for you to obey me, even when I make you do things you don't want to do, like go to the doctor?" He liked to check in with her frequently to make sure things were still okay with her.

  Her, "Yes," was delivered on a slightly put upon sigh.

  But he wanted more than that, better than that. So Rad squeezed his arm around her until she looked at him. "You're sure about that?"

  "Yes," she answered, with more conviction.

  His lips were a thin, ominous line. "Perhaps I should wait to ask you that until after you've been punished," he commented, setting her down and leading her into their room.

  Normally, even with a punishment spanking, she got some sort of warm up, even if it was really just a hand spanking preceding a paddling or the use of her hairbrush on her own backside.

  But this time, he had her lie down on their bed, and he bound her hands above her before catching each ankle and tying it to the corresponding corner of the bed.

  Andrea lay there with her eyes closed, already heartily wishing she'd made the damned appointment when he'd first asked her to. Then she heard a sound she didn't recognize, until she heard the slightly tinny jangle of the buckle as he placed it in his palm before wrapping it around his hand until he had the length he needed.

  Upon opening her eyes, she realized that he had taken off his belt. It wasn't all that thick, necessarily, and it was only about an inch wide, but there wasn't a trace of a smile on his face as he stood there, looking down at her, and that was highly unusual for him. And it was more than enough to put her on edge about what was coming.

  "I don't usually bind you, but I don't want you moving around so much that a lick ends up somewhere other than where I intend it to. I'm going to ask you again, now. You're comfortable with submitting to me? With my expecting you to obey me when I tell you to do something, Andrea? Because if not, speak now."

  "Yes." She had turned her head away from him and delivered her answer to the mattress in front of her, quite certain that she didn't want to watch him punishing her.

  The first st
roke landed seconds later, cutting across her entire bum, right at the very bottom curve—where she already knew it would hurt for some time after, every time she sat down. She'd yelped, startled at first. He'd never used his belt on her in this position—only over his lap—and even just after the first one, she'd disliked it intensely.

  His stance allowed him to use all of his considerable upper body strength for each swing, and she felt the results of that, all the way to her toes.

  There were no more yelps after the first one—the rest were all caught somewhere painful between a scream and a groan. Before he'd gotten to five, she was tugging at her wrists and trying to roll, but he'd positioned her well, and she couldn't move anything that would cause him to misplace a stroke.

  It rapidly got to the point that she didn't care whether one of them wrapped or hit somewhere it oughtn't. She just wanted them to stop landing on a butt that was already ablaze! But when he did move from her rear, she realized that she really didn't want him to move there—the backs of her thighs.

  Each and every one of those he laid down across those fair, unblemished legs drew a scream from her, but he didn't stop until he'd given her at least as many there as he had to her bum. Then he alternated, keeping the strikes even for each roasting, tenderized place.

  She was sobbing wretchedly well before he stopped, but he waited until he felt she had surrendered herself totally to his discipline, and that was a very fine line. It was something he discerned by her demeanor more than her tears, by the movements of her body rather than the way she writhed with each vicious stripe of red with which he decorated her backside.

  Andrea was tensed, waiting for the next swing of the leather to fall, but it didn't. She still wasn't looking at him, but she could hear that he was putting the belt back on, and then she felt him releasing each ankle and climbing onto the bed to free her wrists before he took her into his arms.

  It never failed to amaze and humble him when—especially after what had probably been the harshest discipline he'd ever dealt her—she still turned toward him, every time when he gathered her to him, clinging to him for solace rather than spurning him for punishing her. It was one of the most fulfilling things he'd ever experienced, and he hoped that it was always so between them. He also hoped that she felt anywhere as positive about those aspects of their relationship as he did. She wasn't very forthcoming on that front unless he poked at her a bit, but he thought she was.