by Raine, Alice
‘Cheek like that will earn you a red arse, Mrs Jackson. Especially seeing as I’m already wound up from your earlier performance. It’s left me with a serious case of blue balls.’
I would have laughed, but his tone was silky and full of salacious intent, so all I could manage was a shocked gasp. Surely he wouldn’t spank me in here, while we had a room full of dinner party guests just the other side of the door?
Leaning back, he glanced at my neck and narrowed his eyes. ‘Besides, I like marking you. It’s one of the reasons I want the collaring. I want everyone to know you’re mine,’ he murmured, his tone so low and seductive that I actually shuddered in his arms. ‘See? You like the idea of it too,’ he whispered smugly. Which I did, but just not on my neck when I was wearing a low-cut dress.
‘I do,’ I admitted with a carefree shrug, ‘but I happen to know you wouldn’t dare mark me today. Not with my mother in the next room.’
Before I’d had time to get my lusty thoughts back in line I felt myself shifting as Nathan took a firm hold of my hips and steered me backwards into the walk-in pantry. His head lowered again, but just as I thought he was going to continue with his love bite, he instead kissed me, long and hard, then spun me around so I was leaning over the work counter.
‘Oh how wrong you are, Stella.’ The hem of my skirt was flicked up over my back so swiftly that I barely even felt it, but as I gasped, Nathan leaned down close to my ear.
‘How many spanks do you think you should receive for teasing me?’ he breathed hotly against my cheek and I quickly realised my mistake. This was Nathan we were talking about; of course he would have no issue with spanking me with my mum just a few metres away.
I could feel the heat of his erection digging into my thigh, and a heated groan rose in my throat as he ground it against me with several jerky jabs of his hips. Even though I could think of a thousand reasons to tell him to stop, I didn’t. Instead, I swallowed hard and answered.
‘Two, Sir.’ I’d normally say a higher number, but I was still vaguely aware of the fact that my parents were just next door.
Nathan groaned, and gently offered me the handle of a wooden spoon to bite down on, which I immediately accepted. ‘Good girl. As we’re going with just two, I’ll go a little harder than usual. Don’t make a sound.’
As Nathan raised his hand to perform the first smack he knocked a cake tin off the shelf beside us with his other hand. It was a genius move, because the clatter effectively covered the ringing noise of his hand connecting firmly with my buttock, and the muffled sound of me groaning my thanks. He was speedy with his next strike, too, this time knocking off a baking tray before flicking my skirt back down, chucking the wooden spoon aside, and kissing my gasps away.
The squeak of the kitchen door opening made my eyes fly wide open. A second later, my mum appeared behind Nathan in the doorway to the pantry. ‘Is everything all right in here? You haven’t dropped the pudding, I hope!’
I couldn’t even speak. My legs were rubbery, my arse was smarting, and my tongue felt thick in my mouth from the lust pulsing around my system.
‘All good, Mrs M,’ Nathan replied, stealing Kenny’s usual nickname for my mother and suddenly turning on the charm and looking completely calm. Ha! Quite apparently, all Nathan needed to do to relax himself around my mum was to give me a good hard spanking before interacting with her. ‘Stella just knocked a couple of things down. I was helping her pick them up. We’ll bring the dessert through now.’
My mum seemed satisfied and, thankfully, returned to the dining room, leaving me to sink into his arms and repeat my earlier question.
‘So what does the collaring ceremony involve?’
‘In simple terms, it’s where you officially offer yourself to me, and I place a collar around your neck, claiming you as mine.’ Nathan leaned his head down to watch my reaction, and bless him, he looked genuinely worried about what my reaction might be. ‘We’ll have it at Club Twist. There’s more to it than that, obviously, but we probably need a little more time to discuss it than we have now.’
I nodded, smiling broadly at the thought that Nathan craved me enough that he wanted to make it official in front of all his associates at Club Twist. However you dressed it up, it was a fairly big deal.
Before I could pick up the pudding, Nathan grabbed me and ducked down behind me. He lifted my skirt and caressed my burning bum cheeks, the gentleness of his touch causing goose pimples to rush across my heated skin.
I felt his fingers shifting the lace of my panties and then a deep, erotic groan grumbled from his throat as he examined my heated arse. ‘Fuck, Stella. You’re wearing my handprint on both your buttocks like a neon sign.’
Craning my neck, I looked over my shoulder and managed to see a blurry reflection of myself in the darkened glass of the kitchen door. Even though the reflection wasn’t clear I could see the redness that had bloomed on my bum. Huh. And I’d been worried that he was going to mark my neck. Mind you, at least my mother wouldn’t be able to see these beauties.
Nathan rearranged my clothes for me. He stood up, looking visibly flushed, and ran his hands through his hair before adjusting a very large bulge in his trousers. ‘I am so fucking hard right now.’ Leaning in close, he dragged me against him so our hips clashed and his erection dug into my stomach. ‘Dessert. Coffee. Then they go and I get to bury myself inside you.’ My eyes boggled at the bluntness of his words and my nostrils flared with the effort of dragging enough air into my lungs to breathe properly. ‘Don’t even think of inviting everyone to stay for cheese.’
Given the lowness of his tone, I should have taken his final statement as a warning, but Nathan telling me not to offer our dinner guests cheese so that he could have his wicked way with me sounded so random that I immediately snorted out a very inelegant laugh.
‘Fuck, Stella!’ Nathan gave me an exasperated look and rolled his eyes. ‘Why the hell I let you tease me like this is beyond me.’
Maybe it was the adrenalin flowing around my system from his impromptu and arousing spanking, but I was feeling floaty and in great spirits, so I grabbed his shirt collar and tugged his gorgeous mouth down to mine and kissed him hard as a broad grin split my lips. ‘Because you love me and want to claim me in some strange ceremony.’ With my sing-songy voice it came out like “lurve meee”, which I knew would bug the hell out of my already tetchy man.
Considering it had taken Nathan so long to admit his feelings for me, it was really refreshing that we were now at a stage in our relationship where I could joke about it with him like this and feel 100 per cent confident that he really did care about me that much.
‘That I do, and it’s made me into a right pussy,’ he grumbled, stepping away from me and picking up the pot of cream. As I went to reach for the cherry pie he took me completely by surprise by landing another resounding slap on my left buttock. It rang around the room and caused me to yelp loudly. There was no way our guests would have been able to mistake that for anything other than what it was.
‘Just as well you love me, too, hmm? We’ll continue this later.’ Nathan flashed me a wicked wink and headed back into the dining room, humming under his breath.
Bastard. But he was right; I really did love him. I was excited about the idea of the ceremony, too, but more immediately than that, I couldn’t wait to see if he would carry out his threat of “continuing this later”.
Chapter Five – Rebecca
Waving goodbye to Stella and Nathan, I followed Nicholas down the steps to our car. ‘Are you OK, babe? You’ve gone really pale.’ Nicholas sounded worried, and as I turned to him I saw his anxiety reflected in the tightness of his jaw as he quickly bundled me into the car.
‘I’m fine. The smell of the coffee that Stella served just made me feel a bit queasy, that’s all.’
Thinking about it, I’d been queasy yesterday, too, when Nicholas had made us our usual pot of morning coffee. It was odd. I usually loved coffee. A few moments of silence passed between
us as my brain tried to compute a few dates, then I gasped and turned to Nicholas.
‘Actually … can we stop at the pharmacy on the way home?’
Before I had even finished speaking, Nicholas had pulled the car into the side of the road and swivelled to face me, looking worried. ‘You’re feeling that bad? Do you want me to go straight to the doctor’s instead?’ Bless him. My man didn’t half like to panic about my wellbeing.
Swallowing shyly, I shook my head. ‘No … I was thinking I should pick up a pregnancy test.’
Nicholas blinked at me several times, his big blue eyes looking almost black in the twilight as he digested my words. ‘Really?’ he whispered, his voice turning hoarse as obvious excitement lit his features.
‘Mmm-hmm.’ I didn’t want to get his hopes up. We’d had a couple of false alarms since we’d stopped using protection after our wedding, but I’d always got my period before we’d taken a test. Each time Nicholas had looked more heartbroken than me. But today felt … different somehow. I didn’t have my diary on me, but I was fairly sure that I should have had my period by now, and if I was pregnant it would certainly explain why my favourite beverage in the whole world was suddenly turning my stomach so violently.
Drawing in a deep breath, Nicholas nodded. He restarted the engine and drove us to the nearest chemist before leaping from the car in his excitement. He was far gentler with me, telling me not to rush and taking my hand to help me from the car almost as if I was made from glass, which caused me to giggle.
Once inside, we surreptitiously searched for the right aisle before coming to a halt by a rack full of condoms, lube, and pregnancy tests. Their choice of product placement was certainly a little bizarre, and just needed a sign to complete it, stating “if you don’t use these, you might need this …”
‘Which one should we get?’ he asked, breaking me from my thoughts. I ran my gaze over the shelves and shrugged, feeling as bemused by the vast array of tests displayed as Nicholas looked.
‘I have no idea.’ There were some for a couple of pounds, right up to ones for over twenty quid. Jeez. For a twenty-pound note I’d expect the test to sing to me while I did a pee on it.
‘Let’s get one of each of the top sellers,’ Nicholas suddenly decided, grabbing three boxes from the top shelf.
The drive home was short and silent, but draped heavy with anticipation. Once we were inside, I went to the master bedroom and headed to the en-suite with Nicholas fast on my heels. Turning to him, I shook my head. ‘Uh-uh. There’s no way I’m letting you watch me pee on these. Regardless of how kinky you might be.’
Nicholas narrowed his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest. ‘This has nothing to do with kink.’ Licking his lips, he lost the determined look as it morphed into anxiousness. ‘I just want to be involved, that’s all.’
When he put it like that I could hardly refuse him, could I? Reaching up, I caressed his cheek, then rolled onto my tiptoes to place a gentle kiss on his lips. ‘OK, fine. But I still don’t want you watching me pee.’ We usually shared the bathroom when we were getting ready, and that often involved having a quick wee, but I didn’t fancy performing in front of him under intense scrutiny. ‘Go and get me one of the plastic cups from that fancy water dispenser in your study.’ Seeing his look of confusion, I rolled my eyes. ‘I’ll pee in that, then we can dip the tests in together and wait for the results.’
Nicholas nodded keenly and dashed off. Sitting down on the side of the bath, I couldn’t help but laugh out loud as I heard the door to his study bang, then him clomping up the stairs two at a time in his haste to get back to me.
Looking back to the paper bag in my hand, I chewed on my lower lip nervously. God. Would we finally get the result we’d both been hoping for?
Once Nicholas had returned with a plastic cup I shut him out of the bathroom and awkwardly positioned the cup so I could do my business. I grinned proudly when I managed not to splash any around, which given the tiny cup, was actually quite a feat.
I pulled up my knickers, washed my hands, and took a deep breath. ‘OK. You can come in now.’
Nicholas burst through the door and immediately thrust the tests at me, which he had obviously unwrapped while waiting for me. ‘All three tests say we need to hold the absorbent tip in the liquid for thirty seconds, no longer.’
Nodding, I took the first test and held it in the liquid while Nicholas timed me. It was the expensive test, but, disappointingly, it didn’t sing for me, or perform any sort of fanfare for the extra cash it had cost us. It also didn’t stop the nervous tremble in my fingers.
Following the instructions, I placed the cap on. I laid it on the counter and we repeated the whole process until all three sat there and we were both gazing at them expectantly. My heart was absolutely hammering in my chest, the blood pounding in my ears so hard it made the bathroom sound like we had a booming bass track accompanying us.
‘Now we wait for three minutes,’ Nicholas said, flapping through the different sets of instructions and looking genuinely flustered. After a minute or so had passed, he huffed out a breath and waggled the papers at me. ‘It’s so confusing! They all have different symbols for a positive test! One will get a blue cross, one gets two pink lines, and one has a smiley face. How are we supposed to know which is …?’
I stopped his rant by placing a trembling hand on his chest and jerking my chin towards the bathroom counter where our three tests were now displaying a smiley face, two pink lines and a blue cross. I could barely believe my own eyes.
‘Oh my God …’ Nicholas spluttered, bending closer to inspect them in more detail. ‘But it’s not been three minutes yet …’ he whispered in a shocked tone, glancing at his watch.
My throat was closing up with happy tears, but I just about managed to get some words out. ‘It’s obviously been long enough because those tests all look pretty definitive to me …’
‘We’re pregnant?’ he croaked, his gaze still pinging between my face and the three pregnancy tests.
The reality of the situation suddenly hit me. ‘Y-y-yes …’ I was so overwhelmed that I had to take a second to control myself before I could speak. ‘It certainly looks like it.’
Wow. I was really pregnant. Or should I say “we” were pregnant, as Nicholas had worded it.
Letting out a small groan, Nicholas swooped down and encased me in his arms. He pulled me gently against his chest as he placed numerous kisses into my hair.
‘God. I never thought I’d ever have a real relationship, let alone be a father. This is amazing, Becky. I love you so much.’
We’d been trying and failing to get pregnant for so long now that this was all quite overwhelming, but I still managed to croakily return his sentiment. ‘I love you too, Nicholas.’
His lips descended to mine as he kissed me with such sweet adoration that my tears finally escaped and began to wet my cheeks. ‘Just because we did three tests you know this doesn’t mean we’re having triplets, don’t you?’ I joked as Nicholas gently wiped away the happy tears that were streaming from my eyes.
‘We might be, you never know,’ he teased with a wink before carefully lifting me into his arms and carrying me from the bathroom.
Chapter Six – Stella
In the end, we had finished our meal with a cheese and a fruit platter, because Mum directly requested it, and so Nathan hadn’t been able to say no. I hadn’t helped matters by actively encouraging her, but it was just so amusing to watch Nathan’s silent strop that I hadn’t been able to stop myself.
As I dipped the final wineglass into the washing-up water I smiled, recalling the look on Nathan’s face. It had been an absolute picture. Bless him. He hated not being able to control everything in his neat little world, but when my mum came around he lost that control, and that frustrated him no end.
Everyone had left now, but seeing as Nathan had nipped upstairs to check on William I had taken the opportunity to quickly stack the dishwasher and wash the glasses.
‘I am so hard, Stella. I’ve been hard on and off ever since you provoked me by touching yourself. I’m desperate to be inside you.’
Well, that was quite a statement, wasn’t it?
My breath hitched in my throat as I stared at him greedily. Nathan raised his hands and grabbed the doorframe above his head, stretching out his lean body and almost causing me to drop the glass I was holding. His knuckles turned white, as if gripping the wood was the only thing stopping him from pouncing on me, and suddenly nothing else existed in the world except for my incredible man.
Glancing down, I could indeed see that his words were true, because the front of his grey trousers bulged at the seams. It looked as if I might be getting a second dessert tonight, which was just as well, because I’d been horny all afternoon since my teasing words, too.
I was sure that if I wound Nathan up just enough I’d get my lustiness taken care of very swiftly, so I put on my most innocent expression and fluttered my eyelashes at him. ‘You didn’t enjoy the cheese course?’ I asked huskily, my teasing provoking the exact reaction I was hoping for when I saw his nostrils flare at my cheek.
This was sort of “our thing”. He was obviously the dominant one between us, but I would often tread a fine line of teasing and prodding him and trying to provoke a reaction. It was a game we both enjoyed, but for me it took nerves of steel, because his fierce expressions were panty-soakingly good.
‘No, Stella, I did not enjoy the cheese course. And don’t think I didn’t see what you were doing with your mum, encouraging her like that. They stayed later because of you, which meant I have had to wait even longer.’ My heart sped up as I watched his gaze darken further, because as much fun as it was playing with him like this, I had to judge when he’d had enough. Nathan’s dominant side invariably came out to join the fun and didn’t find my games nearly as amusing if I pushed him too far. That was half the enjoyment for me; getting the balance just right so that I teased him but didn’t disrespect our Dom/sub bond.
