by Maren Smith
“You can’t—”
But now he’s up, his hand is fisted in my hair and it turns out that yes... yes, he can. I am being dragged into the corner at work and though it’s not appropriate, I love it so much and... and it’s just like it used to be...
Will keeps his fist tight in my hair until I am positioned to his liking with my hands clasped behind my back in the corner. “Now, you will stay here until I tell you that you can go back to your desk. If I see so much as a twitch out of you before then, you’ll be getting extra punishment when we get home. Is that clear?”
“Yes, Sir,” I breathe. I’m floating now, and I don’t even care anymore that we’re at work and that someone might come in, because all I want is to be his good girl.
The sound of him returning to his desk, opening his laptop, rearranging some papers—all of it is hot because all of it is being done while I stand here in the corner, held in place by his dominance, submitting to his silent punishment. My breathing slows as I stare at the white painted wall in front of my face.
Behind me, I hear him begin to type.
CHAPTER TWO
“EVERYTHING OK?” ASKS Annie, as I slide into my office chair with a soft sigh.
Swearing inwardly, I straighten up at once and plaster the most ‘professional’ expression onto my face that I’m currently capable of mustering.
If only we had kinky colleagues, life would be so much easier.
“Yeah, he just had some queries about our social media activity,” I say, and then quickly pretend to be very interested in something on my laptop screen so that Annie will stop asking questions and I can stop making stuff up.
She gets the hint, and I have a good half an hour to cool off before Danny and Felicia, our two office administrators, accost me about the party.
“So Annie said we’ve got the go ahead,” says Danny, flinging my post down onto the desk and then seating himself on the edge of it with an expectant grin. As always, I need to remind myself that—however much he might look like a kid—he’s 24 years old (only four years younger than me) and it’s not ok for me to act maternal around him.
“Yep!” I grin back. “Right, Felicia, I want you on diaries. Find a date that everyone can do and let me know ASAP. Danny, start putting together a Christmas play list; the cheesier the better and no grime, we clear? Annie,” I swivel around in my chair to face her, “Are you still ok taking food and drink?”
“Absolutely!”
“Great, so that’s just me on decorations and we should be sorted.” I clap my hands together and bounce up and down in my chair. Will has spoken to me several times about behaving in a professional manner at work, and I have reminded him repeatedly that the reason he originally asked me to help out with the business was my awesome creative skills and hyperactive social media style, and that if he wanted someone professional to do it all, he should not have hired his bratty little submissive. As you can imagine, those conversations don’t always end that well for me.
“Mia?” says Felicia, who is leaning against the photocopier and examining her nails. This week, they are bright red with little holly sprigs, and I have to stop myself from constantly cooing over them as though they are her first born children. “Are we going to have a-a-” She pauses and begins muttering to herself in Spanish. “Ah! ¿Cómo se dice árbol de navidad en Inglés? Oh, a tree! Yes; are we going to have a tree for Christmas?”
“Of course we’re having a Christmas tree! I’ve found a place just a few streets away where you can get the living ones in pots.”
Danny throws back his head and laughs. “Mate, how are you going to get one of those up three flights of stairs??”
“Oh, I’m not going to get a big one.”
But he’s still laughing. “Seriously, just get a fake one in a box and assemble it up here.”
I fold my arms and raise my eyebrows, doing a pretty good impression of Will in Dom mode. “Who is in charge of decorations, Daniel Carter?”
“I just—”
“Who?”
He rolls his eyes and straightens up. “You are, Princess Mia.” He gives me a bow, laughs some more and then saunters away to his desk. I valiantly resist the urge to call out ‘don’t you take that tone with me, young man!’ but the struggle is real.
“What are you making?” asks Felicia, pushing her long dark hair behind her ears and nodding at the red fabric on my desk.
I hold it up for her so that she can see the string of bunting, which I am sewing to resemble a long train of reindeer flying across the sky.
“Oh. I see.” She gives me one of her Felicia smiles, which I have always interpreted as meaning ‘you are really quite silly but I shall happily tolerate you’, and turns back to the photocopier.
I glance at Annie, mouth ‘ouch’ and we both descend into silent giggles as Felicia continues photocopying, oblivious.
“So,” says Annie, once we have both returned to normal, “What kind of food would you like? Are we thinking high-end canapés or something a bit more low-key?”
I tap my pen against my lower lip; this is a serious question that requires serious deliberation. “Hmm... I think as long as whatever we choose is overtly Christmassy, it will be fine. We’re not going for subtle here.”
Annie narrows her eyes at her laptop screen. “So; gingerbread Christmas stars, yes. But goats cheese, rosemary and caramelised beetroot croûtes, probably no?”
I beam at her. “I knew you’d know what I meant.”
“Perfect! Okay, just let me finish off this month’s payroll and I’ll get right on it.”
As Annie taps away at her laptop doing actual work, I snuggle down into my office chair, raise up my legs to sit cross-legged (health and safety be damned) and carry on with my sewing. Once this bunting is finished, I will start on the Christmas stars and snowflakes (or, as I prefer to refer to this task, the Glitter Explosion) and then it will be time to come up with some ideas for table decorations.
“So, did you and Will set up this business together?” asks Annie after a while, and I blink at her for a second because I can’t quite believe that she is only asking this question now after all these months of working with us.
“Not exactly. He already had his catering van when we first met. He’d take it around festivals and events and stuff in the summer. He was working the rest of the year in other people’s restaurants back then though.”
“Oh right.” She has stopped typing, and I get the sinking feeling that this is going to be one of those conversations that venture into areas where I will have to make stuff up. “So, did you meet him at one of the festivals or...?”
Ah, the trailing off question. Don’t you just love the trailing off question?
No. Me neither.
“We met online,” I say, making my voice weirdly matter-of-fact, as I always find myself doing when vanilla people ask me this question, and avoiding eye contact. “I had just graduated with a marketing and communications degree. When we got talking about his business, I said I’d help a bit with the branding and social media; you know, just get to him started. I mean, he was great at the actual food side of things obviously, don’t get me wrong, but I helped him to make it pretty, set up a website, develop a brand and a look and a vision; all that jazz. I worked a few different jobs while he was getting established, but once he’d bought the second restaurant, he asked me to come on board full time and, well, here we are.” I give a little shrug like it’s no big deal and can we stop talking about the past now but Annie is still curious.
“Wow—so you had this whole business relationship developing alongside your personal relationship? That must have taken some getting used to!”
Nope. He is my Sir and I love obeying his commands. There is no one in the world I would rather work for.
But I can’t say that. Or, at least, I really shouldn’t say that. So instead, I just smile and shrug again and turn back to my laptop like I’m bored of this conversation, and this time Annie gets the hint.
>
CHAPTER THREE
“NOT SO FAST, LITTLE girl!”
I freeze, five stairs up, and then look back over my shoulder to see Will standing in the hallway glaring up at me.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, trying my best to look innocent.
“Back down here. Now.” He takes off his thick winter coat and hangs it up behind the door, never breaking eye contact.
My belly clenches up in that gorgeous way that is both scary and hot as hell, and I tighten my grip on the bannister rail. “Why?”
“Mia Elizabeth Clarke, you are already in enough trouble as it is.” He raises his voice ever so slightly. “Here. Now.”
“But...but I already had corner time.”
Will grabs hold of the bannister rail and starts up the stairs after me.
I squeak and take the rest of the stairs at a run before sprinting along the landing, throwing open our bedroom door and flinging myself inside. This is a ridiculous plan, however, and I realise this moments later when Will strolls in, calm as you like, shuts the door firmly behind him and then stands there, arms crossed, expression hard and mouth set in a disapproving line.
I retreat until the backs of my thighs hit the bed, and then I sit down on the edge of it with a defeated whimper. “I’m sorry.”
He raises an eyebrow and takes a deliberate step toward me. “Sorry for what, young lady? For being a brat at work, for running off just now or for both?”
I hug my arms, press my cheek into my shoulder and mumble something incoherent.
“What was that?” His voice has that sharp edge to it that tells me I am in big trouble, but for some reason lovely submissive Mia seems to have disappeared since our little post-meeting chat and my brat persona has well and truly taken over.
“I said I don’t know,” I grumble, staring down at the carpet and still hugging my arms with my face averted.
“Stand up.”
I shake my head, squidging my cheek deeper into my shoulder, and stay put.
“Right.” In my peripheral vision, I see Will take two quick steps forward and then he grabs hold of my hair and yanks me to my feet.
Before I have the chance to do anything more than shriek and wriggle, he sits down hard on the edge of the bed and drags me over his lap.
“You want to act like a brat, Mia?” he demands, his voice harsh, as he pulls up my sensible work skirt and hooks his fingers around the waistband of my knickers. “Well then, I’m going to treat you like a brat.”
As he wrenches my knickers down to my knees, I can feel my heart hammering against his thigh and that pulse starting up between my legs, even as I am whimpering and gasping and trying to escape. I love it so much when he forces me. I love the little bursts of adrenaline that kick in when he grabs and manhandles my body. I love the feeling of being held down, helpless, for him to punish.
I just wish that loving it made it hurt a little less...
The first smack is hard and bruising and makes me squeak. The second is just as bad. Those that follow after come so hard and so fast that it’s all I can do to keep breathing. Oh shit, he’s not playing.
“Owwww-uh!” My tone is plaintive and resentful and—unsurprisingly—it gets me nowhere.
“Quiet, bad girl!” he snaps. “We’ve barely even started.”
Oh fuck.
The spanking continues, unabated, until finally my brattiness crumbles into nothing.
“I’m sorry! Oh! Ouch, oh... please, Sir, I’ll never be bratty at work again—owww—I promise!”
But for all the good it does me, I may as well plead with the carpet. Will carries on spanking me just as hard and as fast as ever, and soon my bottom is burning and throbbing so much that it feels as though it has its own heartbeat.
“Pleeeease!” I wail, kicking my feet and tossing my head from side to side.
“Keep those feet on the floor, young lady!”
“Oh Sir... please... I’m so sorry... please, no more!”
“Yes more, Mia. A lot more.” His voice is firm and hard, and I feel another leap of excitement in my belly even as my eyes fill up with tears. “We could have been done by now if you hadn’t run away from me like a silly little brat.”
The tears spill out and now I am weeping over his lap, as his hard hand keeps coming down again and again, relentless and without mercy.
“How many times have I spoken to you about behaving properly at work, young lady?” he demands, never losing his rhythm.
So many. Too many.
“How many times, Mia?”
“I don’t know,” I grind out, twisting on his lap and holding tight to the bedclothes. “Lots, I guess.”
“Yes, lots.” He punctuates that word with an extra hard smack. “So it’s about time you listened to me, isn’t it little girl?”
“But... but I don’t like being vanilla!” I wail, kicking my feet in a renewed fit of brattiness.
“It doesn’t matter if you like it or not, that’s just the way it has to be when we’re at the office. Now you listen to me, little girl; if this happens again,” his breath is becoming ragged now, “I will be taking off my belt. Is that clear?”
Oh, God, I have only ever had the belt once before, and that was when I got a speeding ticket. He had to tie me up and gag me for that or the whole neighbourhood would have known what was happening by the time he had finished. I still have some of my best-ever orgasms reminiscing about that particular punishment, but that doesn’t mean I’m in any kind of rush to repeat the experience. So to even bring it up, he must be deadly serious. The belt is not a threat that Will throws around lightly.
“Please Sir,” I whimper, clenching the muscles of my legs together as I veer between arousal and dismay. “Please not that...”
“I said, is that clear?” he demands, landing a particularly bruising smack on the underside of my right cheek that makes me cry out and wriggle.
“Yes-Sir-that’s-clear!” I blurt out, my eyes screwed shut.
“Good. See that you remember, young lady.”
He carries on spanking me, landing heavy smacks that propel my body forward over his lap and force gasps and cries from my throat, until I am weeping again, and then, eventually, he stops.
“What do you say to me, Mia?”
“I’m sorry, Sir,” I whimper.
“And what else?”
I let out my breath and feel the tension melt out of my body. “Thank you, Sir.”
“Good girl.”
For a while I lie still across his hard thighs, sinking into his lap as my heart rate slows and my breathing evens out. He strokes my back, his hand firm but gentle, and I close my eyes and sigh into the bedcovers.
“Right, young lady,” he says, giving my hot bottom a sharp tap that makes me squeak. “Time for you to have a little nap. Into bed, now.”
I am far too floaty and spanking-drunk to argue, and allow him to manoeuvre me into bed and under the covers without a single word of complaint.
“I’m going out for a while,” he says, leaning down to kiss me on the forehead. “I’ll wake you up when I get home. And Mia?” He fixes me with a stern look.
“Yes, Sir?”
“No orgasms until I say. You know the rules, young lady.”
I snuggle down into the soft pillows and gather up our fluffy Christmas snowflake blanket under my chin. “Yes, Sir,” I murmur, smiling a little and allowing my eyes to flutter closed. “I know the rules.”
CHAPTER FOUR
“WAKE UP, SWEETHEART.”
I open my eyes to find Will at the side of our bed, his face close to mine. I smile and he kisses me.
“How long have I been asleep?” I murmur, rolling over and putting my arms around his shoulders.
“About two hours or so. Are you ready to get up now princess? I’ve got a surprise for you downstairs.”
“A surprise?” I am up immediately and Will laughs as he catches me around the waist.
“Not so fast, little girl,” he says, pinning my a
rms to my sides. “You need to be blindfolded for your surprise.”
I lean back into his body and sigh in sleepy contentment. “Yes Sir.”
“Good girl.” He releases one of my arms and reaches back to rummage in the bedside cupboard. You’re never more than two feet away from some kind of kink equipment in this house and this evening is no exception; it is only a few seconds before there is a thick black blindfold fitted snugly over my eyes.
“Comfy?” he murmurs into my ear.
I nod. “Mmm-hmm.”
Will takes hold of my shoulders and turns me to face him. “Up you come then, princess.” He hoists me up into his arms and I wrap my legs around his waist, resting my cheek on his shoulder. I love it when he carries me like this; it makes me feel so tiny and vulnerable and protected. Safely wrapped up in Will’s strong arms, I snuggle into his neck as he takes me downstairs, the enforced darkness of the blindfold soothing me and enhancing my other senses. When we reach the ground floor, I smell something warm and delicious coming from the kitchen.
“Mmm... what’s that, Sir?” I whisper.
“Part of your surprise, princess.” He pauses, reaches out with one of his arms and then I hear a click. A moment later, he eases me down onto the sofa, arranges me in the comfiest corner where all the best cushions live and then covers me in a blanket which—I can tell from its fluffiness—is my grey and white Christmas reindeer blanket. I sigh again and snuggle down into all that warmth and softness. Will’s footsteps move away into the kitchen and I wait a while, in this lovely relaxing darkness, listening out for his return and wondering what that gorgeous spicy-sweet smell might be. Apart from that, my mind is wonderfully, blissfully empty.
“Here you are, little girl.” I hear two gentle thuds as what sounds like cups or glasses are placed on the side table nearest to me. “Let’s take this blindfold off now, shall we?”
I dip my head forward to give him better access to the fastening at the back of my neck. As the blindfold comes away, I blink at what—at first—seems like extremely bright light. As my eyes adjust, however, I realise that the click I heard earlier was Will turning off the main light and that the light in the room now is coming from candles and lanterns and...and...
