Last Dance for Cadence

by Maren Smith

  She shook her head, no.

  “Are you sure?” he pressed. “Because I’ll stop what I’m doing right now. I’ll take you wherever you want to go.”

  “I don’t want to go,” she admitted.

  “Why would you take my kids to Denver?”

  Admitting the truth was hard enough without having to look him in the eyes while she did it. She tried to turn away, to make it easier, but he took her chin again and dragged her gaze back to his.

  “Why Denver?” he asked again.

  In the end, she had to tell him what she’d done. She dug through her pockets to find his debit card and gave it back to him. She told him about the ice cream and her stolen tank of gas. She even told him about her mother’s wedding ring because when she’d guiltily shoved his debit card back at him, she hadn’t realized until too late that she’d also handed him her pawn ticket. She tried to take it back, then to insist that she’d return the money to him, every penny, no matter how long it took, but he only shook his head.

  He was almost laughing when he shook that ticket at her and gently chided, “You could have just asked.”

  “How?” Cadence replied. How did someone go about asking for something so personal and so important? She honestly didn’t know. For the first time in her life, not knowing how to ask for help felt more like a deficient than a strength.

  Marcus tsked and put both the debit card and the pawn ticket into his wallet. “I’m going to take you back to my car. I want you to stay there while Father Beauchamp and I move yours out of the middle of the road. When I come back, I only want you to tell me one word: Go or stay. If you want to go, I’ll help any way I can. I’ll take you back to Denver. I’ll help you get your mother’s ring. Whatever I can do, I’ll do. And when I drive away, I’ll be very sorry to see you go.”

  That was an understatement if ever she’d heard one. She knew because he still had her chin in his hand, was still forcing her to meet his eyes when she saw the naked loss pass through them just at the prospect of letting her go. That look cut into her like glass. Those words hurt her, deep inside her chest. It was a wonder she didn’t physically bleed.

  “But if you chose to stay,” Marcus continued, that flicker of loss melting into something slightly harder, a promise honed by all the determination it took for him to say, “then I’m going to drop the boys at the movie theater. I’m not going to sugarcoat it, honey. I am going to bust your butt like you have never had it done before. Afterwards, we’ll start over. Once you’re able to sit down again, it’ll be like this never happened. But this has to be your choice. Think about it.”

  She didn’t want to think about it. Even with all he’d just said, all she wanted to do was throw her arms around his neck and hurry through whatever she had to in order to get to the forgiveness part. That was frightening. She had so many problems, it was hard to see past his stability. It was hard to see past him.

  She tried to walk back to his car, but he insisted on carrying her and for once she let him without complaint. She felt too fragile to protest if he wanted to baby her just a little, just this once.

  It took Marcus and that other man, Father Beauchamp, only a few minutes of struggling and pushing at her car before a passing female jogger and two men in a car stopped to help. With the jogger manning the steering wheel and pushing on the door frame and everyone else shoving from behind, they muscled Cadence’s car off onto the side of the road. The Father then manned his cellphone while Marcus shook hands all the way around, thanking everyone for their assistance. He didn’t come back to his car right away, and maybe that was for the best, because all the while she was supposed to be thinking oh so carefully about this choice she was going to make, all she could really think about was what would have happened had she actually made it out of Corbin’s Bend before her car gave out. She could have been halfway between here and Denver, on that long stretch of nearly empty, hilly winding roads with a cellphone that had no minutes, two bum legs and three little boys in the backseat who depended on her to keep them safe.

  She was so stupid. Why hadn’t she thought this through? Why hadn’t she waited for Marcus to come home, given him a chance to explain? Why did some nasty, dirty, awful and dark part deep down inside her still want to run?

  “Cadence?” From the backseat, buckled safely into his booster seat, Buddy’s voice sounded so small and timid. “Are we in trouble?”

  “No, Buddy.” She forced a smile when she glanced back at him. “Of course not.”

  “Are you?” Michael asked. His too young eyes seemed just wise enough to give her a knowing look when she flashed him that same smile next. There was something in that look she just couldn’t bring herself to lie to.

  “Your father would never hurt me,” she said instead.

  That was the truth too. For the first time since Marcus had caught her, from the first time she’d tried to run really, her hands relaxed their death’s grip on one another. How mind-boggling it was to think that in a few short minutes, she could very well find herself back in his office, her pants and panties puddled around her knees while he took her across his lap for a spanking to beat all spankings.

  …bust your butt like you’ve never felt before…

  But that wasn’t the same as hurting her, was it? Sebastian had hurt her. He’d all but killed her. For the last year, between the accident, the hospital, learning to walk again and learning that she hadn’t a prayer of ever again dancing the way she had always ached to, she had been walking, talking and breathing, but still she had been dead in every way that mattered most.

  It startled her a little when the driver’s door suddenly opened. Marcus dropped down to sit behind the wheel, jingling his keys as he juggled for the one that fit the ignition.

  “The good Father called Lelo. He’s going to tow it back to his garage and see if it can be revived. If anyone can do it, Lelo can. When it comes to mechanic work, I swear, he’s the Car Whisperer.” He twisted the key and the engine jumped purring to life. Glancing over at her, Marcus said, “Well?”

  “Stay, but…”

  “No, buts,” he broke in, throwing the car into gear and checking for traffic. “How you guys doing back there?” Just before pulling back onto the near empty street, he glanced into the backseat through the rearview. “Still feel like that movie? Cadence and I have something to do at home, but there’s no reason you boys can’t—”

  “Are we in trouble?” Buddy interrupted.

  “Would I be taking you to the movies if you were in trouble?” Marcus countered. When his youngest shook his head, he countered, “Well, I guess nobody’s in trouble then.”

  “Nobody, nobody?” Michael asked, and there was something in his tone that made both Cadence and Marcus glance back at him.

  “Not in any way that truly matters,” Marcus answered cautiously, and that seemed to be answer enough for Michael, but not in a reassuring way.

  Folding his arms across his chest, he glared straight ahead. “I don’t want to go to the movies.”

  Marcus and Cadence both exchanged looks. “Son, if you don’t go, then Daniel and Buddy can’t go either. I need you there to keep an eye on your brothers. Otherwise, I’m not comfortable leaving them at the theater.”

  Michael looked at each of his brothers in turn, then frowned at his father.

  “Movies?” Marcus asked.

  Michael’s acquiescing nod was the most reluctant that Cadence had ever seen, but when Marcus drove them up to the theater and checked them in to the supervised Disney Room, as Michael filed out of the backseat alongside his brother, his last words were to Cadence alone. “I’ll see you when we get home.”

  Then he looked at his father. Taking Buddy’s hand, he walked his brothers into the theater without another backwards look.

  “Well, I guess he told me,” Marcus said mildly, watching after them until Eletha Freeley, the woman who kept the Disney Room running smoothly on a volunteer basis five days a week, poked her head out the front door.
She flashed him three fingers and then both mouthed and pantomimed, “One movie? Two?”

  Marcus held up a single finger.

  “Soda? Popcorn?” Eletha pantomimed next.

  Marcus nodded once. “There goes dinner,” he muttered.

  “Twenty-five,” she mouthed, flashing as many fingers and once he’d nodded again, disappeared back inside the theater.

  “They’re going to be bouncing off the walls when I get them home tonight, I can already tell.” Glancing over at Cadence, Marcus held out his hand. She took it, but shyly, gleaning small comfort from the way his big fingers interwove with hers. “Ready for this?”

  A slow shiver of trepidation rippled up her back, prickling every hair on her nape as it went. “Yes, sir.”

  Kissing the backs of her fingers, he held her hand the whole way home.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  “Office,” Marcus told her, and judging by the look on her face, that single word held the same dread-filled knell as, say, a death sentence.

  She didn’t argue, though. She tried to slip past him, not into his office but toward the kitchen. “Just let me get something fir—”

  She stopped when he caught her arm. Her mouth opened, but he circumvented whatever she’d been about to say when he pointed, silent and stern, at his open office door. She went after that, but she went with an air of quiet stubbornness aimed at acceptance, something that didn’t quite mask her fear. God, he loved that about her. The regalness and pride, the unyielding determination she wielded like a sword to prove how capable she was. As if anyone other than herself was arguing that.

  She limped heavily, moving stiff and slow. It was too soon for her to be out of bed, so just as soon as he was done roasting her backside, he was going to take her back there, tuck her gently into bed, rub some ointment into her knees and if there wasn’t time then to kiss, caress, and ravish her completely before he had to go pick up the boys, well, then that part would just have to wait until after he got back.

  Wanting to give her a little time to let the gravity of her situation truly sink in, Marcus went to the kitchen. He discovered the note on his way to get something to drink. Halfway to the sink, he stopped while he read the whole thing, twice. He shook his head and then continued on, pausing by the garbage can just long enough to put that note exactly where it belonged. This was probably that ‘something’ she had wanted to get. Well, he’d been serious when he’d said this was going to be the worst spanking of her life. He’d also been serious when he’d said afterwards they were starting over, wiping the slate completely clean, beginning again fresh.

  Opening the fridge, he found a lemon and the second piece of ginger he’d bought, just in case. He made up a glass of lemonade, squeezing the juice in fresh over a few ice cubes before adding the sugar and stirring it all together. After sampling a sip, he added a little more sugar. It was plenty sweet enough for his tastes, but after the session he had planned, she was going to need something to help replenish all the sweat and tears he was about to wring from her. Protein would be best, so he made her a sandwich, extra meat and cheese, and some of that chipotle mayonnaise he found in the door of the fridge. He’d never tried the stuff before, so this must be one of Cadence’s personal preferences. He licked a little off the side of his thumb after recapping the bottle. Not bad. A little spicy, but he could be converted.

  Putting a slice of tomato and lettuce in a separate baggy so it wouldn’t get the bread wet, he wrapped the sandwich and put it back in the fridge for later. What else? Chocolate, maybe. Did they even have anything chocolate? He searched the fridge and freezer, then the pantry. The closest he came to it was a package of Nutter Butter cookies. He popped a couple of those into another baggy and put those in the fridge next to the sandwich. He checked his watch.

  He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t looking forward to this on some level. Over the years, he’d known dominants who claimed to take no sexual pleasure at all in the dispensation of true discipline, but Marcus wasn’t one of them. There was nothing more beautiful or erotic than a well-spanked bottom. How it came to be in that woeful state was entirely beside the point. He loved the cries, the moans, the heart-wrenching wails that finally dissolved into sobs and tears as supple flesh was made to yield to stroke after stroke. He loved the squirming and writhing, the twisting of hips that strove so hard to stay in position when every ounce of human self-preservation was screaming to escape the punishing pain. He truly, truly loved that moment when the stubborn need to endure broke, giving way to sweet yielding submission, repentance, and remorse.

  He always took great care never to administer more than was honestly deserved, and he would sooner give up the kink before he crossed that line from loving discipline into abuse. But he did love this. His pulse quickened. His hands shook just a bit as he washed, then peeled the ginger root, scoring it to make the irritant juices flow and cutting a channel into the base to give her tight anal sphincter something to help hold the root in place.

  He smiled, remembering the last time he’d used this. She’d scoffed at his claim that he could make this unpleasant for her. He checked his watch again. Let’s see if she still felt that way half an hour or so from now.

  Gathering the lemonade and the ginger root, he headed back to his office. He locked the front door on the way, just in case, and then once he was in the room with Cadence, he locked that door as well. Not because he was afraid of being disturbed but because of the effect it had on Cadence. She already had her pants and panties off. They were hanging on a peg on the coat rack and she was sitting on a stool in the corner he’d once assigned her, sandwiched between the coat rack and a small table. Her hands clutched at one another nervously and her nose pressed right up next to the anatomy poster on the wall. When she heard the click of the lock turning, she drew a shaky breath.

  “This is going to be very intense, so before we get started, sweetheart, do you need to use the bathroom?” He set the things he’d brought with him down on his desk.

  “No, sir,” she whispered softly.

  “Are you hungry, thirsty?”

  “If I eat anything right now, I think I’ll be sick.”

  Marcus went to the cupboard where he kept his implements and selected the hairbrush. He brought both it and the ginger root to her, placing both on the small table to her left. She drew another shaky breath and quickly looked away so she wouldn’t have to see them.

  On the patient side of his desk were two straight-backed chairs. He selected one and set it down directly behind Cadence’s stool. She was trembling by the time he sat down. Her nerves regarding the impending punishment were catching up with her. That was good, up to a point. But then it hit him, and not for the first time, exactly what he was about to do. Their days of calling this a working relationship were over. He was about to take this to the next level, a very intimate level that only lovers who shared this lifestyle ever knew.

  Folding his arms around her, Marcus pulled her, stool and all, back into the cradle of his thighs. He held her close, letting her feel the heat and strength of his body until her trembling gradually eased. He was about to make himself her dominant. Not her boss who spanked her, but her Dom. A protective, propriety heat flooded his belly, stirring his cock until all he could feel in that department was the confining press of his trousers’ zipper.

  She was so very new to this, but there was no denying that there was a submissive woman trapped deep underneath all that defiance and pride. With every spanking, he had felt her. With every spitting moment of stubbornness that melted into fragile submission, he’d caught tantalizing glimpses of the lost little girl fighting so hard to reach out to him, clawing and scrambling to get up to the surface where she could touch him and be touched in turn. She wanted to submit to him, even if she didn’t yet know the way or the words.

  That was a lot of responsibility. There were so many ways in which he could screw this up, but he was all but humming with readiness to begin. He would be gentle when he d
esired to be and harsh when, like now, she wanted him to be. He would give her what she didn’t yet fully understand she needed. He would be her very first dominant, the man who knew her in ways no one else had ever touched and, if he had anything to say about it, he would also be her last. Because something told him, if he did this, he wasn’t going to come out any less scathed than she. And that was okay, he was ready for that too. All he had to do was start.

  “It’s all right,” he told her softly, sweeping her long blonde hair off her back and over her shoulder, baring the nape of her neck to his comforting kiss. He rocked her, letting her know with every fiber of himself that, as bad as this had to be, it would not be the end of them. There was a light at the end of the darkness and he would help her find it.

  “It’s all right, Cadence,” he whispered again, his hand coming to rest lightly on her tense belly. Her trembling intensified until he could all but feel the butterflies he knew must be writhing there. He had to get closer. The cloth barrier of her shirt was much too thick and all too swiftly stripped away. He left it lying on the floor beside them before returning his hands to her, finding nothing between them now but the barest strip of a bra and a lot of bare, pale skin.

  She caught her breath, her trembling intensifying, but not because she was afraid. She was fighting the need to cover herself, to hide her vulnerabilities in the only way she had—behind her own trembling hands, but she didn’t. She shivered, but she kept her hands down and did not flinch away when he let his arms fold back around her.

  Her reward was another kiss and the gentle strokes of his hands as he circled from her belly to her back, unhooking the clasps of her bra and baring her completely. Her small hands gripped his knees in an effort to find some stability. Her shoulders hunched, but only just as his hands wandered and caressed her, down her arms, down her legs to her knees, reversing their path and drifting back up to her hips. When he reached between her clenching thighs to cup the furnace-like heat of her pussy, she shivered and melted, a soft puff of shaking breath her only protest. And not a very convincing one at that.