by Jax Lusty
His fingers eased out as his hand drifted around my hip and wrapped around my cock. With a few hard pumps, I was ready to come, and I warned him.
“Not yet, but soon.” He wiped his palm around the head of my prick. “I don’t want all this lovely juice to go to waste,” he said, squeezing the head as if milking me for more. “Good...good, Ari, that’s it.”
He took his hand away, and I heard the faint sound of him rubbing the oil over his cock. “Here we go, help me out.”
My stomach tumbled at the insistent nudge against my hole, and although I tried not to, I tensed.
“Hey...hey, don’t do that. Ari? Are you sure you want this?”
“Yes,” I huffed.
“You know I need more than that. Tell me you want me to fuck you.” His voice was soft, his words gentle, and a counterpoint to the unrelenting pressure of his cock.
I did want him to fuck me, yet sometimes at this moment, I panicked. Griff knew that, and he knew why. When it happened, we’d found that if I asked him to fuck me, if I took control for that small measure of time before everything changed, I would be okay. Today I struggled to get the words out. The pressure subsided, and Griff started to rub himself in small, slippery circles around my hole, and then up and down the furrow of my cheeks.
“Relax,” he whispered, “we can just do this. You like this. I don’t have to fuck you.”
All the time he spoke, he rubbed his cock back and forwards.
He was right. I did like that, and I could easily come if he continued that way, but it was like a failure, the second prize, and if I didn’t take him this time, would I be able to have him again?
“Fuck me,” I hissed, thrusting backwards the next time his cockhead ran across my hole.
“Okay,” he said simply.
He never gave me a second chance, never asked if I was sure, and I appreciated that.
Immediately, the pressure was back.
“You know what to do, Ari. Take a deep breath, relax and bear down for me, especially here.” He nudged against the tight ring of muscle.
I closed my eyes; my head bowed as I concentrated on surrendering to Griff’s cock. Suddenly he was in, and I felt the flare of heat that accompanied the breach, the radiating prickle of nerves before my body yielded to the intrusion. There was no pause to celebrate the success, just the continued drive. It demanded that I open and accept him until, finally, his pelvis against my arse told me he was all the way in.
I clenched my muscles, and his groan brought a smile to my lips.
Everything was fine.
He eased out, a long, inexorable slide that made me grit my teeth, and when he was almost free, the same slide, at the same pace, in the other direction. Each move was a similar calculated and controlled glide, but each time a little quicker than the previous. Soon, the only sound to be heard over our laboured breathing was the soft clap of his pelvis hitting my buttocks.
I was hard again and a whimpered please brought the reward of Griff’s hand around my prick. He started really fucking me, changing the angle as he worked my cock, telling me how proud he was of me, how good I felt, how much he loved me.
His free hand took my shoulder, pulling me up so that my back arched. With this new leverage, he pumped harder, and within the carnality of the movement I felt his love. My heart hammered, and a ferocious burst of pleasure seized me. The sensation ripped through my balls and cock right at the moment Griff shouted my name, striking me inside with a shattering thrust.
All I could hear above my rasping breath was Griff’s. We folded together, Griff nudging behind my knees, taking me to the earth floor of the horse stall.
“You please me so much, Ari. Are you okay?” His hand dragged through the perspiration on my forehead and into my damp hair. He twisted me towards him, claiming my mouth with a rough kiss as he eased his cock from my arse. “I’m going to wash up and get some things together for my trip. You take your time.”
I closed my eyes, listening to his movements around the stall and a moment later, I was alone.
CHAPTER 5
KATIE
Maraea and I spent much of the day in the garden, preparing the earth and planting vegetables that would feed us through summer. We had quickly become friends, and I enjoyed working alongside her outdoors.
She moved with a certain oneness with the land, telling me stories like that of Rangi, the sky father, and Papa, the earth mother. How they held each other in a deep embrace that allowed no light to come between them, and night came upon night for many days.
To me, it sounded very similar to our own creation story from the Bible but told with some differences, enriched by Maraea’s soft, lilting voice. It made the morning pass quickly.
When she tired of sharing stories and songs, she gave me small snippets of information about Griff and Ari.
Griff had been born in the Kotuku Valley, his father having farmed and been the shipping agent for the infrequent boats which serviced the small town. Then two things happened: Griff’s father drowned, leaving Griff and his mother to run the farm, and gold was discovered in Kotuku. Griff saw that as the town increased in population, so would the need for better transport facilities. He wanted to work in the shipping business but needed someone he could trust to run the farm.
Ari had been born in the area but was taken away to the Waikato when his mother died. When he was thirteen, he returned and took work at the Mission helping with the animals. He became friends with Griff, and once his father passed, Griff employed him to run the farm. “They’re partners in everything they do,” Maraea added, a small crease deepening between her eyes.
I wasn’t certain if her words were some sort of warning for me and wished I knew her better so that I could discuss the situation I found myself in.
“I’m aware of their close friendship.” I watched her, refusing to let the images of the men together in the bed come to my mind. Did Maraea know exactly how close their friendship was? Should I tell her? If I married Griff, my wedding vows—the part where I was to obey—would prevent me from discussing these things if Griff requested I keep them private. I held her gaze, and finally her mouth lifted in a smile.
“Good, I’m pleased you know of their friendship because they need each other. Many women wouldn’t be able to see that. What’s also important is that they want and need a wife, and I’m certain they’ll be good husbands for you.”
Referring to them as ‘husbands’ told me that she knew many details of the men’s friendship, and somehow that made my situation easier. Perhaps the day would come when I would be able to completely confide in her.
She went back to turning the earth, digging through the seaweed she had mounded in straight rows to break down through the winter. Now it was time to turn the soil and make the rows ready for planting, entrusting the seaweed to feed the plants through the spring and summer. “Feed the land, and it will give back to you,” she told me as she dug.
“Whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap,” I quoted in reply.
Maraea stopped and leaned on her hoe, brushing a glistening black ringlet behind her ear. “Griff and Ari have been preparing for the right woman, Keiti. Together they have built their beautiful house to be the finest in Kotuku. The farmland nourishes the livestock, and the stock improves with each new generation. Ari breeds the best sheep, cattle, and horses in the district. With the greedy demands of Kotuku’s goldmines, Griff’s shipping business grows each month. They have these things because they are honest, hard workers. Other habits and needs they have might appear unusual to you, but they have been sowing the seeds for their future for a long time. If you join them, all of you will reap the benefits of the union.”
“It feels so rushed.”
“You came here to marry, Keiti. Be thankful you didn’t marry the Watsons. Did you hope to be courted?” She nudged my arm with the suggestion, her head tilting back as she lifted her brow. It was a mannerism I’d noticed peculiar to both her and Ari when they were greeting each other
, or teasing.
“I never expected a courtship, although I can’t help but wonder if my hasty decision to come to New Zealand was foolhardy. The offer came to the Girls’ Home for the opportunity to come out here and marry. With Mr Watson’s demise, I’ve been given a chance to think this through with care, and I’m not sure what to do. I had no idea what to expect, and the reality makes me feel so unprepared for this pioneering life.”
Now Maraea laughed. She spread her arms wide. “This isn’t pioneering! I’ll wager you never had such fine facilities at your English orphanage.”
She was right. Griff and Ari’s house had a water tank high on a wooden stand. It stored the rainwater from the roof and through pipes the water fed to the tap in the kitchen, and one in the bathroom. The oven had a high-pressure boiler attached, and as long as I kept the fire alive, we had easy access to hot water.
I had my own comfortable bedroom instead of sharing in a dormitory with two rows of narrow, hard cots; a long, austere room that was freezing in winter and stifling in the summer.
“Pioneering is breaking in a new land. Clearing scrub from dawn until the sun sets. Picking out rocks from the earth you want to plant, until your fingers bleed. You’d be living in a raupo and nikau hut, if you were lucky. With that comes the constant risk of fire so that you couldn’t have a lamp in the evening to sew or read. Keiti, what you have to consider is not if you’ve been hasty to come here, but if you’re foolish in thinking you might find something better.”
Her words made me feel ungrateful.
Maraea had finished turning the soil and was making a straight furrow a few inches deep in which to plant her bean seeds. She concentrated on getting it just right as she spoke. “Do you want me to tell you what happens to a woman without protection around here? There are savages in this town, and they’re not the Māori.”
“You don’t need to say any more,” I said. Was this Maraea’s story? Had she been unprotected in Kotuku?
At the noon meal, I discovered Griff freshly washed and dressed in formal trousers and a freshly laundered shirt. He certainly looked handsome, and Ari passed as many long glances at him as I did.
I sent him a questioning look, but he told me to finish my meal and that he would talk with me after. When we were done I stood to clear away the dishes but Griff asked me to join him and Ari in the drawing room.
I swear I could not enter that room without blushing when my eyes rested on the chair. What made it worse was that it seemed to be Griff’s favourite. First he bid me to take a seat on the settee; Ari sat in the rocker and Griff again settled in the spanking chair, as I’d come to call it.
My stomach dropped as I noted the solemn faces of the two men. Having made up my mind to accept Griff’s proposal of marriage, had he now had a change of heart?
“I visited Doctor Blandford this morning to arrange our wedding ceremony. Unfortunately, he cannot proceed without a marriage licence.”
I can’t say I didn’t feel humiliated by his excuse to get out of wedding me, but if I pretended to believe it, I could maintain my self-respect.
I stood. I had few belongings to pack and could be out of the house in an hour.
Griff frowned at me. “Sit down, Katie. This afternoon I’ll take the steamer to Auckland and secure the correct paperwork. I have other business to attend to in the city, so my return should be no later than Monday.”
Was he letting me down by degree, thinking he could return from Auckland and say that the licence was unprocurable? This was my chance to salvage some dignity. “I can see what a burden I’ve become. If you’d instead allow me to go to Auckland, I can be off your hands and get on with making a new life for myself.”
At my words, Griff’s face turned thunderous like the thick dirty clouds I’d seen gathering overhead before a storm.
“The only trouble you are, Katie, is that you’re a distraction, in the best possible way. One more word of you leaving will see you across my lap. Do you think I’m so desperate that I would marry someone I considered a burden? That would suggest a complete lack of respect for my wife and for me...not to mention Ari. Provided I have the licence, Blandford will be here a week from today to marry us. You will not set foot in Auckland until I am able to accompany you as your husband.”
For the most peculiar reason, his stern words and voice made me yearn for him. His eyes burned as he watched me, and respectfully I deferred, lowering my gaze to his feet. My heart was rapid in my chest, and I knew not whether a shallow breath or one deep to the pit of my stomach, would help it slow. Inexplicably, tears welled in my eyes, and I swiped the back of my hand across them. He would not see me cry.
“Come to me.” His voice may have gentled, but his eyes still blazed.
My legs were quite unsteady as I crossed the room. I wondered if it was to do with the way my heart hammered, or the way he looked at me like the picture that hung in the small schoolroom at the Girls’ Home, of a wolf about to take a lamb.
I shifted my gaze to his lap, and his casual, elegant hand that rested there. I knew what trouble that hand could give me, and the thought of it made me draw another sharp breath. Between my legs was heavy; perhaps the numbness I’d noticed in my legs was spreading, and soon my entire body would feel this way.
I could not possibly forget the other night, the way I’d draped across his thighs.
It seemed to take forever to reach him but once I did, I vowed to show Griff I had remembered my lesson. I bent my knees, as gracefully as the odd feeling in them allowed, and carefully lowered my body across his thighs.
“Good God, Katie.” His words came as a painful exhalation.
What could I have possibly done wrong now?
“Can you believe this, Ari?” he said with a stronger voice.
“Hardly, but it’s a very beautiful gesture.”
“Do you need a spanking, Katie, hmm?”
The softness of his voice stirred me.
“I need whatever it is you wish to give me,” I spoke into the cloth of his trousers, my face burning with shame.
He placed a hand on my buttocks over the skirts of my dress. “Tell me how a spanking makes you feel?”
I couldn’t explain that to him. He would think my mind had gone if I told him being spanked made me believe he cared for me. Tears came again as my emotions, confused at what I tried to express, sought release.
In a quick move, he spun me so that I was cradled in his lap. He ran a finger through my tears, tracing down one cheek, beneath my chin, then up the other side. “I’m more than happy to give you a spanking, if that’s what you need, sweetheart. But when I called you over, it was to hold you like this. I don’t like to see you cry from sadness or dismay. Tell me, why the tears?”
I shook my head because I didn’t know why and I couldn’t trust my voice to speak. I wanted to stay curled in his lap, my cheek against his chest, listening to the steady bump-bump of his heartbeat.
“I think you’re all caught up in here”—he tapped my forehead—“and here”—he tapped my chest, right where my heart still raced like the express train. “I think a spanking will help let all that pressure out.”
Suddenly, I wasn’t so sure, and I told him so, even suggesting being held this way was probably all I needed.
“And when I release you, you’ll be right back at the start again, fussing and fretting, and feeling caught up inside. We’ll get this done, and I can leave for Auckland knowing that my pretty Katie is happy back here, waiting with Ari for me. Round you go, now.”
He reversed his previous move, and I was back across his lap. I heard footsteps across the boards and realised Ari had come for a closer look. Why had I shown my feelings to these men, only to end up in this position?
“Bare her for me, Ari.”
My skirts were lifted and in a quick moment I felt a tug on the string of my drawers, then they fell away. “No,” I cried as my bottom was bared.
Griff’s hand rubbed my cheeks, making me feel somehow no
t so naked. “I’m going to help you settle, sweetheart. You’re all wound like a watch spring and have no idea what you want anymore. Let me take care you.”
Ari crouched beside me, as he had the other time. It was he who held my skirt bunched at my waist. He tipped my chin and winked. “You’re going to be alright; we’ll make sure of that.”
I tugged my chin from his hold. I wouldn’t give in to his soft eyes and gentle words this time because his actions had shown he could be as mean as Griff when the moment struck him. As I freed my chin, the first broad slap of Griff’s hand connected with my bottom. It was a shock, and I cried out before pressing my lips tight and holding them between my teeth. That would be the one and only sound he’d have the satisfaction of hearing from me.
He’d started harder than the last time, and it surprised me I could remember each stroke and blow as if it had been a lesson I’d learned by rote from a school journal. My bottom seared with heat as Griff kept a steady rhythm, first one cheek, then the other. Both men had chuckled when I’d pulled from Ari’s grip. Since then, there’d not been a sound in the room beyond the slap of Griff’s cupped hand and the increasingly noisy way the three of us breathed.
“I can keep this up all day, little one, so you have to let me know when you’ve had enough.”
“You have a boat to catch,” I huffed at him.
“There’ll be another boat tomorrow.”
“I’ve had enough, then,” I wailed.
Ari lifted my hair and stroked a finger beneath my eyes. “Not until we see some tears, darlin’.”
The strikes came swift and fast, causing more heat than pain, but it was relentless. I flailed and tried to crawl my way from Griff’s lap, but he simply held me fast, ignoring my struggles, and continued the spanking.
Finally I stepped away from my pride and succumbed. He was stronger than me, able to hold me, care for me and protect me, and it was then I allowed myself to sink into him. Beneath me I felt the structure of his thighs, and the insistent erect cock between them. Above me the rise and fall of his chest and the tireless scorch of his punishing hand.
