Skye's Submission

Skye’s Submission By Carolyn Faulkner ©2012 by Blushing Books® and Joanne Locker

Copyright © 2012 by Blushing Books® and Carolyn Faulkner All rights reserved. No part of the book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Published by Blushing Books®, a subsidiary of ABCD Graphics and Design 977 Seminole Trail #233 Charlottesville, VA 22901 The trademark Blushing Books® is registered in the US Patent and Trademark Office. Faulkner, Carolyn Skye’s Submission eBook ISBN: 978-1-60968-369-6 Originally published as Skye’s Submission, Book One Skye’s Submission, Book Two Skye’s Submission, Book Three: The Wedding Cover Design by ABCD Graphics

Blushing Publications thanks you whole-heartedly for your purchase with us! There are plenty more stories such as the one you’ve purchased from Blushing Books! Visit our online store to view our might selection! http://www.blushingbooks.com This book is intended for adults only. Spanking and other sexual activities represented in this book are fantasies only, intended for adults. Nothing in this book should be interpreted as advocating any non-consensual spanking activity or the spanking of minors.

Chapter One “Do you think I don’t know where you are?” Skye stopped, right in the middle of pulling the casserole out of the oven, so much so that it seared right through the cheap oven mitts she was using and she burned her fingers a bit, but she couldn’t bother with that pain right now. Her heart was being squeezed too tightly within her chest to bother with that, and her lungs right along with them, so much so that she didn’t think she could manage even the shallowest of breaths. Shaking, she approached the answering machine like it was a cobra, puffed up and ready to strike. “55 Rural Route 3, Los Lunas, Tx. And you know I already have your unpublished, unlisted phone number. See you soon, lover.” The next message automatically started playing, not that she heard it. She sank onto the couch, too afraid to even touch the machine, her face buried in her hands. How had Mark found her again? She’d been so careful! She’d just begun to put down roots here in south central Texas, and she really liked where she was. The town was small and close knit, but they’d seemed to accept her from the beginning. Even her surly, perpetually angry looking neighbor had seemed to have taken a liking to her... sort of. If you could call it that. He definitely liked her cooking, anyways. As if he’d known she was thinking about her, the behemoth in question knocked at their door. He never used the doorbell, as if he was allergic to it, or something. Probably thought he’d crush that little button with his humongous finger. She’d come to recognize the knock. It was just like him – strong, firm, and uncompromising. It meant business, and, although an encounter with him right now was just exactly what her jangled nerves did not need, she knew that he would already have noted that her car was in the driveway, so she couldn’t get away with pretending she wasn’t home. Damn it! Why couldn’t she get herself into the habit of parking the blasted thing in the garage, anyway? But then, that would be the essence of her – somewhat lackadaisical. Not as pertained to work, at all, though. When she was working, she was type A all the way; a place for everything and everything in its place. But as far as her personal life... well, her current situation, as well as the car in the driveway where it technically shouldn’t have been, kind of said it all, didn’t it? She generally tended to take the easy way out, rather than doing things the right way the first time. There was a second banging at the door before she realized that she’d just been sitting there in a stupor, contemplating the hopelessness of her situation. “Jesus Christ, I’m coming, I’m coming.” It was when she reached for the door knob and immediately regretted the firmness of her grip that she realized she’d done a reasonable job burning her fingers, and was trying to surreptitiously blow on them and rub them when he barged in, not waiting for an invitation, as usual. She should have known better to think that she would have been able to keep anything from him. “What’d you do to your hands?” he asked immediately. The blasted man had eyes like a frigging eagle! “I just burned myself a little when I was taking dinner out of the oven.” She tried to keep her hands away from him as she ran the cold water, hiding them behind her while she stood at the sink waiting, but he wasn’t about to have any of that under any circumstance.

Despite her best efforts – which she knew were completely futile and childish at best but they were all she had to offer against him – he had her hands palm up and under his thorough scrutiny in seconds after he’d joined her, leaning his hip casually against the counter as if subduing her was second nature, and she knew it was. “You did a good job, but they’re not blistering. Hold them under here for a while. It’ll help take the sting out.” Skye scowled up at him. “That’s what I was trying to do before you so rudely commandeered my hands. I could have been doing that for the past two minutes already...” her tirade trailed off at the look he was giving her. Rourke turned away and inspected the mitts, then looked back at her. “With all the cooking and baking that you do, these are what you use?” He held up the well-worn, holey, noninsulated gloves. Unafraid, and not all sure she shouldn’t have been, she frowned right back at him, putting her wet hands on her hips. “Did I ask you to come in here and criticize how I cook? You don’t seem to be suffering any, considering how you devour the results!” The only response he gave her was a raised eyebrow as he stared at her hands, and then at the faucet. Sheepishly, she returned her palms to where he wanted them to be, hating the fact that he was right about how the cool water soothed them. Rourke swatted her behind sharply, saying firmly. “Leave them there until I tell you you’re allowed take them out.” Then he turned and left, and she could hear his boots stomping down the hall to the bathroom. She knew she should have protested, loudly, at the way he ordered her around, but he’d been doing it since moments after they’d first met, so she was used to it. She shouldn’t have let him be so dominant and bossy, although that seemed to be his normal state of mind. Allowing that kind of behavior in a man to flourish unchecked was what had gotten her into the situation she was in right now. But, despite the fact that Rourke Danville towered over her from some ridiculous height and was impossibly large, she’d never once felt the least bit threatened by him. In fact, it was always – even from the first time they’d met – just exactly the opposite. She’d come to Los Lunas at the behest of a good friend who was a police officer in the town where she and Mark had lived. Kerri had helped Skye get away from Mark to Los Lunas, and had sent her, first thing, to check in with her friend at the police department there, Kevin Raines. Skye had arrived on the doorstep of the combination Police Department Town Hall Court House after a twelve hour, nearly nonstop drive, and she was certain she looked the worse for the wear. She knew her hair was a mess, she was in a beat up old pink jogging suit, and that she still wore both dark bruises Mark had given her – the one along her jaw and the other blackened ring under her eye. But she didn’t care. She locked the car that contained what few worldly possessions she’d been able to gather from the house, took a deep breath, and walked up the steps into the forbidding building, stopping at the receptionist for directions to Kevin’s desk. Both of the men stood as she approached, and she wasn’t at all used to that. Did men still do that nowadays? Apparently so, in small southern towns. She stared at the one who had been sitting behind the desk, hoping against hope that he was her landlord, but knowing she was going to be wrong. “Kevin?” His face lit up, and she knew she was right. “You must be Skye! It’s very nice to meet you.” “It’s nice to meet you, too.”

Kevin turned to the other man, the one she’d already decided on sight that she’d prefer not have to deal with on a monthly – or even more frequent, Heaven forbid – basis, and introduced him. “Skye Sommers, this is Rourke Danville. It’s his place you’ll be staying at. He’s... well, we kind of tap him to do some police work for us around here at times, and he’s exSpecial Forces, so you’ll be very well looked after.” Skye wanted to refuse to shake his hand outright, but she knew she couldn’t, especially since he was apparently voluntarily going out of his way to help her. Her small hand was lost in his, and she knew he was keeping his strength at bay as they shook. Her eyes skittered to his, and she would have sworn that she could see a muscle ticking in his clenched jaw as he looked down at her; he looked absolutely furious. It was then that she realized that he was staring at her bruises, and she couldn’t keep herself from bringing her free hand up to her jaw self-consciously. She retrieved the hand he still claimed as quickly as was humanly possible, probably a little more quickly than would have been considered polite, but then the way he was staring at her spooked her a bit. He looked hard. Unflinching. Dangerous and... she couldn’t get the word out of her mind – deadly. It made her think she was glad she wasn’t Mark, if he decided to come after her while she was under his protection, whatever that meant. But she had to admit, she didn’t feel any kind of greasy, leering, slimy vibe from him at all. She hadn’t from Mark, either, though, at first, although Mark also wouldn’t have been caught dead putting himself out for a stranger, either. The two men sat, Rourke vacating his own seat in favor of commandeering one from in front of the desk next to Kevin’s, but he leaned away from her, and she couldn’t feel his eyes on her at all any more, much less leering at her, as Mark had distinct tendency to do. Skye cleared her throat uneasily, saying, “Well, I appreciate what the two of you are doing for me enormously.” Kevin chuckled. “Kerri’s saved my bacon so many times that this is a drop in the proverbial bucket.” The big man reached into his pocket and produced a set of keys, carefully laying them on Kevin’s desk and pushing them towards her, instead of offering them to her directly. “These are keys to the front and back doors of the house. Kevin and I will be the only two other people who have copies of these keys. It’s furnished, but you can feel free to decorate any way you like. It’s not a new property, though, so it comes with some idiosyncrasies. Whenever you’re ready, I’ll take you out to it and show you around.” Skye stood. “I’m ready now, unless there’s something else I need to do.” The men stood, too, as soon as she did. “No, I don’t believe so,” Kevin said, shaking her hand again. “I have a description of Mercer, and there’s an all points bulletin out on him county wide. But if he contacts you, though, let us know as soon as possible.” That thought sent a shudder through her that she was humiliated to realize that neither of them could have missed. But Skye straightened her shoulders and mustered a smile for Kevin, still not really able to meet the intense gaze of the giant standing next to her, who forcefully scrunched a well-worn cowboy hat down onto his head and motioned for her to go ahead of him. Without thinking, she did as he bade, walking to her small beat up Nissan as he made his way to his huge, beat up Dodge truck. “I’ll try to go slow. If I lose you, just stay put. I’ll come back for you.” Skye nodded, sinking gratefully into the driver’s seat, well away from him, wishing she wasn’t such a coward.

Rourke was launching himself into the cab of his truck at the same time, wishing he had something nearby that he could put his fist through. The sight of such a small woman who had taken such a beating made him want to murder the weasel that had done it to her. And he had the training to accomplish that goal, in many unique and extremely painful ways. He could only hope the asshole gave him the chance. *** She didn’t get lost, he had to give her that. She stayed tight on his tail, much the way he’d known he wanted to stay on hers from the moment he’d seen her. But he knew that he needed to tamp down the instant attraction he’d felt for her. Perhaps it was no more than the usual over protectiveness he felt towards most women, but he thought not. His pants hadn’t been quite that tight over that portion of his anatomy in quite some time, and they’d been that way from the moment she’d appeared, looking entirely too delicate in that faded pink jogging suit and wearing the vivid the scars of having paid a considerable price for having made a very bad choice in men. As far as he was concerned, there were a large percentage of men on the planet who didn’t deserve the companionship of a female. He wouldn’t even need five minutes to dispense with Mark Mercer, or any man who had raised his hand to a woman in anger. To Rourke, they were the lowest of the low, and he wouldn’t hesitate to grind them into the ground under his boot. The house he was going to rent to her was actually the original place his grandfather had built when his grandparents had arrived here from Scotland. There wasn’t much to it, but it should be perfect for her, and it was on his property, which he kept very well secured for his own reasons. He stopped in front of the house and she pulled into the driveway, getting out to pop the trunk and reach for a small suitcase as well as a couple of garbage bags. “Put them down,” he ordered as he walked towards her, his boots crunching on the gravel. She’d heard him, but Skye was used to doing for herself, so she got everything in one swipe, even managing to shut the trunk herself with her elbow. When he finally sauntered up at her, he was already frowning at having been summarily ignored. He reached out and relieved her of her burdens, taking them all into one hand, and turned to walk to the door without another word. “Next time you ignore what I say, I’m going to take you over my knee and spank you.” He may have been taking what little she’d been able retrieve of her belongings into a house that he owned, but she was standing stock still in the walkway to the house, having a truly epic battle with herself. There had been a time when what he’d just said would have sent a shiver up her spine – and to other very interested parts of her anatomy. She’d always found spanking – and frankly much more well beyond that - very titillating and, thanks to the internet, she’d been able to explore those areas quite thoroughly. But now, considering what had happened with Mark, she was torn. How could her body still want that from a man? She had to keep herself safe, first and foremost, and keep her libido completely in check. She couldn’t risk her life again just for a sexual thrill.

And she was not going into a house with someone who had just physically threatened her, after having known her for all of – she checked her watch – fifteen minutes. What the hell was it about her that she seemed to attract that kind of man? Was she wearing some kind of sign or something? Did she put out some kind of vibe? It took him a long minute to realize that she wasn’t behind him. He’d already gone into the house and begun his spiel about how cantankerous the water heater could be – and how he’d come put in a new one as soon as he got a chance – and how the roof might leak if they got a bad storm, but that he’d add that to his list, too. But when he turned to show her how to bump her hip against the dishwasher to start it, since the knob was missing, she wasn’t there. Instead, when he found her standing outside, he saw that she was on her cell phone, and there was no missing what she was saying. “And I just told you that I’m not going into a house with a man who just threatened to spank me! In fact, I’m not going to rent a house from a man who threatened to spank me, either. There’s got to be someone else in this God forsaken town...” Skye had been facing the road, but when she turned around he was standing right next to her, and she’d never even heard him walk up behind her. That wasn’t good. Not good at all. And his hand was out, rather imperiously, too, as if he expected her to just hand over her phone. She couldn’t hear what Kevin was saying. Her mind much preferred, despite her objections, to listen to what Rourke as saying, especially when he said it in that low, slow but firm rumble. Why hadn’t she noticed that his voice was so damned sexy? “You’re going to get Kevin all upset about nothing. If you just do as you’re told, you’ll never get spanked.” They could both hear Kevin chuckling at that remark, but Kevin also knew that Rourke never issued a threat – or a bet – he couldn’t cover. But she refused to be distracted – well, for more than a moment or two, anyway. Skye was so angry she forgot to be scared of him, and stared right straight at him, still holding onto the phone. “Yes, he’s got his hand out, like he’s the lord of all he surveys or something equally as draconian. I think he wants to talk to you.” Kevin tried to placate her as much as he could from his desk, and impart to her through is voice that everything he was saying was the absolute truth. “Listen, Skye, I know you don’t know either of us from a hole in the ground, but Kerrie trusts the both of us with your safety, and you obviously trust Kerrie. I can personally vouch for your physical safety when you’re with Rourke. If anyone can keep you safe, it’s him. If I needed a bodyguard, he’s the first person I’d call.” He very carefully hadn’t said anything about the fact that, if Rourke thought she needed it, she’d end up with a very sore rear end, but that was none of his business, and far from constituting abuse, in his book. He knew Rourke would die before he’d ever physically abuse anyone he considered to be physically weaker than himself, and, in truth, Kevin had seen Rourke risk his own life, time and again, to save people, even those that he might not have thought were worth saving. What Kevin had said did go a long way towards making her feel better about him, overall. “Okay, but his hand’s still out.” “So hand him the phone.” But her back was still up, and he had threatened to spank her! Didn’t anyone around here see a problem with that? “I don’t want to hand him the phone. It’s my fucking phone –“ She heard a short sigh, and before she knew it, he’d caught her up against him and she’d been swatted twice on the rear end – and not play swats, by any means. They made her want to

yelp, but she squelched the impulse. The entirety of her bottom stung all at once, and, almost worse than that, her face flushed so red from the fierce embarrassment at his treatment of her – and the ease with which he’d accomplished it - that she thought she was going to pass out. Especially considering that he didn’t stop there, and let her loose so that she could crawl into her car and drive away, never to darken his doorstep again, preferably. After delivering those terrible smacks to parts he should – by all right – have had no access to, he did something sneaky, and obviously part of his military training - that had her divested of her phone and her clamped obscenely up against him again – breast to thigh - in a matter of seconds. “Kevin, don’t worry about Skye. I’ll finish getting her settled in and give you a call when I get home.” He closed the phone and tucked it – slowly, as if he was relishing the act into her back pocket, tucking it against the butt he’d just swatted. Skye tried to struggle out of his hold and immediately discovered that she wasn’t going anywhere until he decided she could, and that only served to infuriate her just that much more. She tried to kick his shins, and ended up with her legs spread so wide that she had no choice but to lean her lower body against his for balance, but found that it was hard to balance oneself on a rigid, denim covered spike. She couldn’t even recoil from the intimate contact because Rourke held her in place with one big hand, holding both of her wrists pinned in place, and tipped his hat back with the other hand, sighing heavily. “Look, little miss –“ Skye’s eyes blazed angrily up at his. “I’m not your little miss!” She should have been worried about making this huge, amazingly strong man angry, but common sense had never been her strong suit. If it had been, she probably wouldn’t have ended up in East Bumfuck, Texas. He didn’t look angry right now. He looked... tender, for wont of a better word. The backs of his fingers stroked her jaw and beside her eye, making her chin drop, wanting to disappear into the ground from the shame. She was almost beginning to think he might even be human, and then he went and ruined it by saying, “I meant what I said. As long as you obey me, I’ll never need to spank you.” With that obnoxious statement, he let her go, and this time she realized she didn’t have much choice but to follow him into the God damned house. It was him or Mark, and of the two, even though she’d only known him for a matter of minutes, she’d take the ever annoying Rourke, hands down, every time. And even now, as her hands began to turn to ice blocks under the cold spring water, she realized she’d made the right choice, although she knew if something happened to him – or to Kevin, of course – that she’d regret it to her dying day. He reappeared with triple antibiotic cream, bandages, and a towel, which Sky thought was a bit of overkill, but if he was willing to do it, she guessed it was fine with her. “All right, you may turn off the water now. Let me see your hands.” She noticed how he’d used “may” is in “giving permission” instead of “can” as in “physically able”. He seemed to come by being a dom very naturally. She reached for the towel to dry off her hands, but he refused to give it to her, instead proceeded to care for her entirely himself, from the drying to the bandaging. It was her ring and pinky fingers on each hand that had taken the brunt of the burns, so he bandaged them together, and Skye had to admit that she was impressed at how gentle he was.

Chapter Two He’d just finished putting the last of the bandages in place on her left hand when the phone rang again, and Skye seized up. She couldn’t help it. Her whole body tensed, and he noticed it immediately, of course. “What’s wrong? You look like you’re going to faint.” The phone kept ringing, and Skye just kept getting progressively whiter. Rourke had her in his arms, carrying her to the flowery couch, just as Mark’s voice came on the answering machine. “I just wanted to let you know, daring, that I’m on my way. I wonder how long it will take me to get there?” By the time they heard the click of his disconnection, Skye had crammed herself into the corner of the couch, making herself as small as possible, and the sight of her so afraid made Rourke want to crush something. He knew he should wait and ask her to come to him, but he also knew that that would be too much to ask. She didn’t know him enough to think of him as someone to go to for solace, so he reached across the length of the small sofa and pulled her into his arms, settling her onto his lap as if this was something he’d done a thousands times before. And she felt so much like she belonged there, he knew he was going to have a hard time letting her go. But for now, he allowed himself a rare opportunity to indulge himself, wrapping his arms around her and holding her gently against him, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. His spontaneous act of tenderness was her complete undoing. She’d been able to keep herself together these past few days because she had to. There wasn’t anyone around to physically lean on, anyway; she was hours away from friends and family and living in a town where she knew no one. But here she was, being held in the warm cocoon of this big man’s strong arms. He began to rock them, slowly, as he rubbed her back. Rourke wasn’t saying anything, and his hands weren’t wandering, and she didn’t feel anything poking insistently against her bottom, either. He was just trying to offer comfort, and his lips on the hair at the top of her head dissolved the last tenuous thread of her control as the tears she’d been holding in for what seemed like years finally began to seep out of her eyes. Skye couldn’t keep herself from wrapping her arms around his neck, clinging and sobbing as he kept her safe while she cried until there were no more tears, and she’d collapsed bonelessly against him. Suddenly she realized that his shirt was soaked and her face was damp. She must’ve looked like quite a sight, and tried to move away from him, but when she tentatively pushed away from him, she found herself well and truly trapped, unable to move a muscle unless he allowed it. “And just where do you think you’re going?” she heard him ask from a place above where her head was tucked against his shoulder. That tone made her wish she hadn’t moved a muscle. “I’m sorry I cried all over you and got you wet.” “I’m not,” he replied immediately. “Gave me a great excuse to hold you.” Skye really didn’t know what to say to that, so she kept her mouth shut. The big hand that had been stroking her back moved to her hair. “I need to ask you some questions, honey.” She became instantly tenser than she had been, and he hated it, but he needed

some answers, and she was the only one who could give them to him. “But I want you to remember that I’ll keep you safe.” Rourke continued to stroke her back, but plunged on with the questions. “So that was him?” She nodded. “Does he know where you are, do you think?” “Yes, he called just before you knocked and flat out told me the address of this house, and –“ Skye didn’t want to go any further than that. “And what?” he prodded. She squirmed in his arms, testing his hold, but it was as tight as it had been before, damn him. “Well... there were a couple of hang ups.” Her eyes lifted to his then skittered away quickly at what she saw there. His face looked like a thundercloud. “You know the kind, where you pick up the phone and say hello, but there’s no one there, and then all of a sudden there’s a dial tone?” A muscle had started to jump in Rourke’s jaw. “And how many of those did you get?” “Three or so.” “And just how long ago did these start?” He must’ve been part of an interrogation team when he was in the military; she certainly felt like she was being grilled by a professional. And his voice! She’d read about it online, and never really thought she’d experience it herself, but just his voice was making her feel naughty! “Uh, a day or two ago.” Skye would have sworn that she could feel his eyes boring into her head. “And you didn’t see fit to tell either Kevin or myself that very pertinent piece of information?” “I didn’t know if it was him! The caller ID said ‘private name, private number’. It could have been anyone.” Sighing exasperatedly at her, he stood them up suddenly. “Yes, but in this situation, Skye, you have to assume who it’s most likely to be, and that’s him. I’m going to listen to the message he left before this one, and I want you to go pack a few things, ‘cause from this point on, you’re coming home with me where I can keep an eye on you.” Somehow confident that he’d be obeyed without question, he’d already turned away from her and headed to the small phone stand next to the easy chair across the room. “I am not going to stay alone with you at your house, Rourke Danville.” It was probably the snort that got her into trouble, but then, it could have been her mouth, or her tone, or a combination of the three. Skye only knew that he executed a very smart about face, and instead of stalking towards the answering machine, he was striding very purposefully towards her, and it took everything she had in her not to turn tail and run from him, especially considering what he was saying as he approached her, stern faced, eyes locked determinedly with hers. “Didn’t I tell you the first day we met that the only thing you had to do to avoid getting spanked was obey me?” By then, he’d already captured her around the waist, sat down on the couch, and plopped her over his lap, and there seemed to be precious little she could do about it. As he quickly and efficiently divested her of her pants and panties, which he made sure were well out of her reach, he continued, “And I think I also was generous enough to warn you about what ignoring my orders would get you, if memory serves.” And before she could retract her statement – not that she wanted to or was even considering doing so – and without even trying to talk to her about it, she found herself in the midst of receiving her very first spanking.

It was nothing like how she’d imagined. Absolutely nothing. For one thing, it hurt like bloody blue blazes. Every ever loving smack felt like he was holding a branding iron the size of his considerable palm to her vulnerable flesh, and he wasn’t stopping at just her rump, either. Her legs began to kick in protest almost immediately, and he squelched those movements as easily as clamping one impossibly heavy leg over the both of hers, then readjusting her position so that she was only over one of his thighs, but well over it, hanging in the balance so much so that she thought she might fall and crack her head open. And she might have, if he hadn’t had such a good grip on her wrists, which he kept pinned to the small of her back. She wasn’t going anywhere fast. And then he decided to brand those now helpless thighs, too. Skye wasn’t quiet through all of this, not that it was helping her any, and not that all of it was intelligible, though, either. Most of it was sobbing and yelping and moaning and crying. Threats and invectives were the first things out of her mouth, though, and he flat out told her that all they were only going to get her were more – and harder – swats. But some of it, she was mortified to realize, especially as the spanking went on, was out and out begging him to stop. When he finally did, it surprised her, especially since he wouldn’t let her up immediately, but instead held her there, with his hand still intimately covering four fifths of her rear. What he did next should have outraged her, should have made her demand he let her up so that she could have walked away from him permanently, in high dudgeon. He let his fingers travel down that natural cleft that was already so nearby, seeking the warmth he knew would be there. He changed the way in which his leg trapped hers, forcing it between them, so that she had no choice but to open her legs and grant him the access he wanted, despite her protest and her squirming about, trying to derail him from his intended target. He had to know, had to find out if he was wrong about her - for his own sanity. And he liked what he found. He didn’t crow about it, didn’t draw it out, didn’t rub her nose in it. He just did it, and that was more than enough for each of them, in their own way. Rourke returned everything back to the way it had been before he’d gone on his little spelunking expedition, as if it had never happened, and Skye found herself wondering if it really had happened. But it had. He’d boldly checked there, between her legs, to see if she was wet, and she had been. She’d known she was – hell, and it wasn’t even just the spanking, although she wasn’t about to tell him that. It was just him. She’d been wet around him from the very beginning; what could she say? “I’m going to stop now, but only because this is a time sensitive matter and I want to get this information to Kevin as soon as possible. But you’re not off the hook by any stretch of the imagination, young lady.” Dear God, he hadn’t just called her that, and in that tone, had he? He was patting her bottom, almost spanking it again as he spoke, certainly not rubbing it to soothe away any of the hurt. Skye had a sneaking feeling that that would not be his bent in any way. If he gave a spanking, he intended it to be just that, and she would know better than to expect that he was going to do anything that would relieve the stinging he’d just deliberately imparted to her bottom. “We will readdress this situation once we’ve gotten you settled in at my place. So, I’m going to call Kevin, and you’re going to go pack some things. And I don’t want to hear another word about it.” He finally let her go, but not before he delivered five last tremendous thwacks, one on each cheek, one on each thigh, and one in the middle, just so she’d remember what he’d already told her: he was to be obeyed, or there would be consequences.

Skye found it interesting that, after having set fire to her backside, he was very solicitous and helped her get up and find her clothes, almost dressing her himself, making sure she wasn’t still frightened, and was on her way to her bedroom before he got on the phone to Kevin to apprise him of the latest happenings. *** She ended up riding into town with him in his truck, since Kevin wanted to see him and they wanted her to leave her car in the driveway of the house, so that Mark, if and when he arrived, would think that she was there. Kevin greeted her like a long lost friend, hugging her and asking her if she was okay before offering her a seat. Skye gave Rourke a sideways glance before lowering herself gingerly into the proffered chair. Kevin was almost as observant about her as Rourke was. Alarmed, Kevin asked, “You’re not okay! What happened?” As Sky colored profusely, Rourke answered for her. “Someone decided she didn’t want to come stay with me. I persuaded her that it was the best idea.” Kevin chuckled. “Oh.” Skye was appalled that Kevin just accepted the fact that Rourke had spanked her, but she knew that arguing with either one of them wouldn’t get her anywhere. The men discussed strategies for capturing Mark as if she wasn’t there, and Kevin threw out the idea of using Skye as bait, if it became necessary, but Rourke vetoed it immediately. “I’m perfectly willing to do it,” Skye piped up. “Over my dead body,” he ground out. “If that’s the way it’s got to be...” she shrugged. Kevin had to play peacemaker, which was an unusual position for him. “All right, you two. There will be no dead bodies. It’ll probably be a moot point, anyway.” When they were through, Rourke bundled her back into the cab of the truck and drove to the grocery store. “I need to get some provisions. I generally keep my cupboards pretty bare.” They grocery shopped together, and it seemed to Skye that they were buying a hell of a lot of food, as if they were laying in supplies for winter rather than buying enough for what she figured would probably be no more than a couple of days together, and she said as much to him when they hit the checkout counter, deliberately maneuvering so that she got into line ahead of him and could swipe her card to pay for the load of groceries. “You never know about these things. Men like him are pretty squirrelly, and he could get spooked and just hide out nearby for a while. You could be staying with me for some time.” Chagrinned that she had beaten him to the punch and paid the grocery bill, he said, not bothering to lower his voice as the cashier gave her the long receipt, “That’s another spanking.” Skye just about ran out of the store ahead of him as he sauntered along behind her, thoroughly enjoying the view, and knowing that, beneath those well worn jeans, her bottom was probably still throbbing, and he had to admit the idea excited him. She excited him, and he – the confirmed bachelor hermit who had never had a woman stay with him for longer than overnight – was now definitely looking forward to having her stay with him on as permanent a basis as he could manage to arrange. ***

Skye hadn’t been in his house until that moment; she hadn’t had the need to annoy him in person, and he hadn’t made the offer. It, too, was a ranch house, but on a much more elaborate scale than the one she was living in, and based on a much more open, modern design. Before he showed her to her room, Rourke gave Skye the nickel tour. From the foyer, he brought her into the great room, which was simply another name for the living room, which was open to the dining room and into the kitchen, but there was also a study off of it that he kept closed. Skye liked the open concept, because she liked to cook, and when she entertained, she often found herself segregated from her guests, who were walled off in the living room. This design let the chef converse with his guests while cooking. Not that she intended to do any entertaining while she was in this house. She wasn’t going to be here that long. There was a truly enormous pantry/utility room off the kitchen, which was also the entrance through the garage, and the third bathroom was hidden there, also. The bedrooms were down a hall off the great room, and there were four of them, all of a very generous size, two on the right with a shared bathroom between, the big master suite in the left corner, and the fourth bedroom on the same side as the master. That’s where he put her stuff, so she’d be close to him. There was even a connector door, but he didn’t point that out to her. Skye stood there amongst her things – which he’d noted he hadn’t had to do battle with her about bringing in – looking a little lost. Rourke crossed the room and took her into his arms, rocking just a bit, glad when she didn’t put up a fight and just melted against him. “You look wiped. Why don’t you take a nap, and we’ll deal with the rest of your punishment – and have some of that great smelling casserole – later?” Rourke tipped her chin up, so that she had to look at him, searching her clear green eyes. She thought he was going to kiss her, but when he bent his lips to her, they found the shadows of her bruises instead, kissing them so delicately she could barely tell his lips were there. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that. I can promise you right now that I’ll never let him lay a hand on you again, Skye. He’ll have to get through me first.” It was just what she needed to hear, whether or not he was really capable of backing it up. She looped her arms around him – well, as far around as they could get – and leaned her cheek to his chest, sighing contentedly. “Thank you. I really do appreciate everything you’re doing for me.” He waited a beat for her to amend her comment. “Except the spanking.” She could hear his hearty chuckle rumbling in his chest, and then he’d tipped her chin up again, this time so he could cover her mouth with his own in a very sweet, surprisingly undemanding kiss that left them both wanting much, much more. When she pulled away, he allowed it. Knowing that she was under his roof went a long way towards making him feel somewhat less possessive, as did the undeniable knowledge of the completeness of her response to him that he’d discovered earlier. She wanted him, and he definitely wanted her. To him, it was just a matter of time before he possessed every morsel of her. Skye, however, wasn’t necessarily thinking along the same lines. She was agreeing with him – which was unusual in and of itself – that a nap sounded wonderful, even if she did hate the idea that she apparently had a second portion of her punishment, as well as a complete second spanking, coming if he was serious about spanking her for paying for what were, in essence, her

own groceries. She couldn’t see him eating yogurt and sprouts and drinking Diet Coke, somehow, so maybe she could talk her way out of that one. He was, again, as sweet as he could be to her, tucking her into bed like a child, kissing her on the top of the head, and even leaving the door open a crack so he could listen for her. How could he have known enough about her already to suspect that she had nightmares about the abuse she’d endured from Mark? Skye would have preferred that he close the door entirely, because she’d rather deal with them on her own than go through the embarrassment of having him come bursting through the door when she woke up screaming, but she had a feeling he’d hear her screaming and come a running anyway. He was definitely that type. While Skye slept, Rourke checked in with the surveillance team that was watching the house, but they hadn’t seen anything, as well as monitoring the cameras he had placed all over his property. Nothing going on anywhere. He could feel himself getting antsy, could feel the adrenaline rising as he always did before a mission. It made him restless, more aggressive and more dominant, and it was Skye’s butt that was going to pay for that increase in testosterone when she awoke. But not until she ate something. The woman ate like a bird. She’d started feeding him a few weeks ago, when he’d been there working on one of the numerous problems with the house and had been bathed all afternoon in the garlicky scent of her French onion beef tips, and she’d sent him home with a huge Tupperware container of it. He – who had been subsisting on peanut butter and jelly for longer than he’d like to think about – had called her immediately upon tasting his first spoonful and offered to reduce her rent if she’d agree to feed him dinner every night. He’d also figured it would be a great way to make sure he’d have another excuse to see her more often, as if the house didn’t provide him with that already. But the way to his heart was definitely through his stomach, and she’d already captured his, and everything she made for him just seemed to be better than the previous – shepherd’s pie, pork roast with all the fixings, some sort of cheesy chicken and rice and vegetable thing that he would have sworn he wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole that he ate all three servings of in one sitting, and then starved for the next two days. Their arrangement had worked out nicely for him, but this one was going to work out even better, especially after that snake Mercer was taken care of, once and for all. Rourke let her sleep as long as he could, knowing that she probably hadn’t been getting much. He tended to drive by the house if he was out at night, just to check on her, and the lights were often on long into the night. When Skye awoke, she felt better than she had in ages, stretching all over and throwing off the covers energetically. She wandered out into the rest of the house, but didn’t see him. She put the casserole – chicken, salsa, peppers, and sour cream that she served over tortilla chips then melted mozzarella cheese on top of – into the oven to heat, then went in search of her elusive host. He met her on his way out of his study, closing the door firmly behind him. “Did you have a good nap?” Rourke caught her and kissed her, turning her lose before she could register a protest. “Yes, I did. I just put dinner in the oven.” “Great! I’m starved!” She marveled at how much he ate, but imagined that he must burn it off running around the ranch, although she’d never seen him near a cow. She got a small scoopful of the salsa and chicken over a handful of chips, and he ate the rest of a nine by thirteen pan full of casserole.

Chapter Three “How is it that you don’t weigh three hundred pounds?” she asked, collecting the dishes to load into the dishwasher. “Chasing cattle all day will keep you busy.” He’d brought the rest of what had been on the table in, which she counted as a plus. At least he wasn’t one of those men who was allergic to housework. He started loading the dishwasher and putting stuff away right alongside her. She gave him an appraising glance as he bent over the dishwasher. “You neither look nor smell like you’ve ever encountered a cow in your life, save for the clothes, boots, and truck.” But you do have a very nice butt, she thought to herself. When he stood up, he was grinning ear to ear. “I believe I’ll take that as a compliment.” She smacked him, hard, on the shoulder. “What was that for?” He tried to sound wounded, but failed miserably. “That smug, shit eating grin.” He couldn’t really argue with that, so he didn’t. When they were done, he was leaning against the counter, and she tried to walk casually away from him, but he caught his arm around her waist. “We have some unfinished business, there, missy.” “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” Sky demurred, but the fact that her hands automatically went to her rear, which was definitely still throbbing, gave her fib away. She wasn’t looking forward to round two on top of what she’d already gotten. He reached around and brushed her hands out of the way, grasping those beautiful cheeks and squeezing them, forcing her to arch against him. This time there was no denying the evidence of his arousal. It was right there, poking her very insistently in the belly. “You have two spankings coming, but I think we’ll just finish up the first one tonight, and take care of the second one tomorrow. You’re gonna keep me busy, I can tell.” Rourke took her hand and began leading her down the hall, but not to her own room, to his, instead. He hadn’t shown her his room when he’d given her the tour, and she had to admit she was curious. It was very much as she expected, though; its décor reflective of the rest of the house - very clean and simple and extremely practical. What caught her eye was the size of the bed. It was humongous. Bigger than any bed she’d ever seen. “Good God!” His grin was unrepentant. “It’s a king and a half. I like room in a bed.” Did that mean he didn’t usually sleep alone, Skye wondered. She found herself standing at the foot of the bed, mesmerized by its size. “Come here.” Still staring, unable to tear her eyes away, Skye nonetheless found herself obey him, turning around to where he was standing in the middle of the big bedroom. When she came to stand in front of him, he commanded, “Show me your bottom,” but he didn’t sound like he was giving her an order. His voice was thick, like melted chocolate, and it dripped through her veins until it found her crotch and coiled there, making her throb as if he’d just reached out and flicked a finger over her clit. “Do what?” she asked, knowing her face was bright red at the thought.

His eyebrow rose, and one side of his mouth quirked up, too. “You heard me. I’m not going to say it again.” Less chocolatey, more ordery, but it still didn’t diminish the way her body responded to him one bit. She swallowed hard. No man had ever asked her to strip for him, not that there had been many men in her life at all. Besides Mark there had really only been one other guy, and that had been a disappointing, somewhat brief encounter in college, to whom she’d lost her virginity. Two disappointing sexual encounters, both of which she would regret for the rest of her life. Not a great track record at all. She hadn’t done very well, sexual revolution or not, in getting what she wanted. She was pretty much unfulfilled, unless you considered the small, fingertip vibrator she used on occasion. And she didn’t. The hands that settled onto her jeans were shaking, and she wasn’t at all sure she could work the button and the zipper to get them off. Once she’d gotten that dealt with, Skye stole a look up at him, hoping for a reprieve that she knew wouldn’t be forthcoming, but she had to try. He was staring at her in rapt attention, but there wasn’t a shred of mercy in those eyes. So she sighed and pulled her pants down, but not very far down and turned around. All that earned her was a very threatening, “Skye,” from behind her. It was actually much to do this when she couldn’t see him watching her, although she still complied with as much reluctance as she thought she could get away with, dragging her pink polka dotted panties down her still rosy cheeks as slowly as she could, wiggling and dancing enticingly in front of him because she so didn’t want to do it. Rourke dropped to one knee behind her, to get a better look and save his back some. God, she had a beautiful bottom! He wanted to nip it all over right now, but that wasn’t why they were here. Instead he patted it possessively, noting that she was still nicely colored from earlier. He could still see some of the imprints of his hand on her fair flesh. When he rose, he said, “Take them off. Both of them,” he added, before she could ask or interpret his order the way she wanted to, instead of the way it was intended. “Feel free to fold them and put them in one of my drawers. You’re not going to be needing them for a while.” That didn’t sound good. Skye did as she was told, though. She was already going to be getting another spanking tomorrow. She didn’t want to earn yet another. When he saw that she had done exactly what he’d suggested, with little fuss, he said, “Good girl. Now come over here.” He was sitting on the end of his bed, and when she arrived there, after walking as slowly as she could, he didn’t immediately put her over his knee. Instead, he cuddled her on his lap for a moment, which surprised and delighted Skye, who was rapidly realizing that she adored being in his arms and on his lap, as long as she wasn’t over it. He kissed her, and it was a long, lingering kiss that left her dizzyingly breathless, and wishing they could get this spanking stuff over with so they could get back to more kissing! But when Skye tried to initiate another kiss, he smiled, but declined her offer. “Not now, honey. I have something I want to say to you, and then we have something we need to deal with. I just wanted to say that I appreciate that you’ve trusted me enough – even on such short acquaintance – to let me spank you. I want to tell you again, because I think that it bears repeating, that I’ll never hurt you myself, and I won’t let anyone else hurt you, either.” Rourke pressed his mouth against her ear. “I want you. Badly. So much it’s a wonder I can walk around you, and even when I’m not around you, you’re all I think about. I don’t think I’ve gotten a lick of work done since you arrived.”

Skye colored prettily when he said that, and even more so when he continued, “When we’re done with your spanking, I’m going to make love to you until you faint.” “I believe I'll enjoy the latter part. Maybe we could just skip over the spanking and go straight to the loving?" Her request surprised even herself. Skye was not the type of woman to throw herself at any man, much less one who had taken her in hand as thoroughly as he had. She didn't do one night stands, and she hadn't slept with a man on as short an acquaintance as she was with him in her life. But if she was pressed, she'd have to say that what he'd done - for her and to her - was exactly what she needed, and she felt a deep physical - and if she was honest with herself, emotional - attraction to him. She'd die before she admitted that to him, but within her heart of hearts, she knew that she was responding to him on a deeply primitive level, and, for once in her life, she wanted to go for it. All of her careful vetting of Mark and making him wait until she was absolutely sure about him hadn't gotten her anywhere, and this man had already volunteered to put his life on the line for her, had opened his house to her, and had professed both that he would never hurt her and that he wanted her. Except for the spanking - or, more correctly – if she was being brutally honest with herself - because of it - he was damned near perfect for her. His lips were buried somewhere behind her ear, under her sun lightened hair, sending chills throughout her body that tightened her nipples and had her squirming on his lap. "I don't think so. If I say you're going to be spanked, then you're going to be spanked, and I’ll try to get it done as soon as possible after the offense, but the situation conspired against that this time. I wouldn't go around hoping for a reprieve, if I were you." And with that, he set her away from him. Automatically, Skye's hands went to the top button of her jeans, but his hands covered and stopped hers. "Let me. It's like unwrapping a Christmas present in the middle of summer." When he stood, and reached for the buttons of her shirt, she realized that he intended that she be nude for this portion of her punishment. She wasn't quite sure exactly how she felt about that, despite the fact that she knew her panties had already long since become damp merely from being close to this man. But she wasn't eighteen any more, and didn't have a model's figure – not that she had had one when she was eighteen, either - and, if they had decided to make love, she had planned on making sure that all of the lights in the room - hell, in the house! - had been long since doused, even if he had to braille his way to her. But it didn't look like she was going to get a choice. Her hands did try to come up to stop him, but the look he gave her made her put them right back down again, biting her lip and hoping she hadn't just made things worse for herself. Skye didn't want to earn herself any more swats than she was already going to get from him, and actually began wondering if there might possibly be a way to have her sentenced reduced... In a bold move she'd never really tried with any man before, Skye reached out, just as he slipped the eyelet white shirt off her shoulders, to cup him in her hand through the butter soft worn denim that covered him. Rourke couldn't suppress a suddenly indrawn breath, and it had her smiling, sensing success, and also somehow knowing that it wasn't easy for anyone to surprise this man. He was the type who liked to know exactly what was going to happen, and preferred to be in charge of it, if possible. And she also knew that he liked to be in charge of her. Skye sensed victory, since he hadn't told her immediately to remove her hand. She already knew that he wasn't shy about telling her what he wanted her to do, and he hadn't said a

word about the way her hand was gently rubbing the front of his jeans. In fact, she could feel the way he was subtly arching his hips against her, pressing himself into her palm. Skye took a step towards him, gently rotating her hand as she did so, lifting her lips in invitation to his. Rourke looked down at her, knowing exactly what it was that she was doing, and surprised at just how successful she was being at doing it. He'd always been able to maintain a very firm control over his libido with any woman he'd brought to his bed. None of them had ever meant very much to him; they were simply a night or two's romp. But his body reacted differently to her than any other woman he'd ever met, and that hand, especially as she added in fingers that began to squeeze him in a gentle rhythm, had him almost instantaneously near the edge of a culmination he hadn't been planning on allowing himself until well after he'd taken care of the discipline she needed. He was curious to see where she was willing to go with this, though. He knew she was trying to seduce him out of punishing her, and that this was a definite departure from her usual behavior. She wasn’t the forward, grabby type in the least, and he was extremely interested to see just how far she was willing to go with it, but it didn't look like his body was going to cooperate, or he'd come awful close to unmanned in a humiliatingly short amount of time. When she stepped forward and leaned herself against him while cupping and gently squeezing him, he had to clench his hands into fists at his side, or he would have given into the urge to throw her onto the bed and drive himself into her, clothing or no clothing. At this point, he was hard enough that nothing was going to get in his way. Rourke hadn't felt this randy since he was a teenager. He did not allow himself to give in to the way she was teasing him. He had learned to exercise an iron control over his body, and although it was nearly impossible, he did it. But he did allow himself to reach down and grab a handful of that beautiful blonde streaked hair, right at the nape of her neck, gently tugging back so that she had no choice but to arch into him, requiring that she look up at him. His action wasn't violent in the least, but decidedly deliberate and unmistakably dominant. Skye's hand stayed where it was, but lost its grip, and he saw a shadow of fear in the eyes that locked with his, but also watched her tamp that down, almost immediately. “Good job,” he complimented quietly. “I know we're still very new, Skye, and I'll say it every time I can think to: I'll never hurt you like he did. I might wear out your bottom – or other places,” he added with an unrepentant smile, “but I would never, ever use my fists to do anything but defend you. And when you do things like withhold information about what Mark is doing, you put yourself in more danger, and that just about kills me. I cannot tolerate the idea that that man might hurt you just because you couldn't be bothered to tell me something.” With that, he kissed her, deeply and slowly, taking his time, keeping his hand wrapped in her hair and controlling her movements with it, not letting her lengthen the kiss when she wanted to, setting her back from him when she probably had thought she had him in the palm of her hand – which she did, pretty literally. She was crestfallen at the failure of her plan, and he almost had to smile at the look on her face. Rourke lifted her chin with his finger. “Did you really think you were going to be able to divert me from your spanking?” “I can hope. Especially since you've already spanked me.” she groused, if carefully. “That's not how this works,” Rourke growled. “I told you we were going to pick this up later, and that's exactly what we're going to do. If I say I’m going to do something, I damned

well going to do it, especially if it pertains to you and your spankings. But more importantly, I will not have you putting your life at risk by not telling me or Kevin about things that could get you killed, like phone calls from your crazy ex. We can't protect you from him if we don't know everything about what's going on with him.” How did he manage to make her feel so damned naughty? The “Yes, Sir,” she said to him slipped out of her mouth as naturally as if she said it to him on a daily basis, and in truth she'd never said it to anyone in her life. But it just seemed to fit with him. Must’ve been the military background and bearing that was a distinct holdover from his previous occupation. He'd already begun to continue what he'd started, those big, callused fingers slipping inside her waistband, rasping against the tender skin of her tummy as he unbuttoned and unzipped her jeans and slid them down her legs, letting them fall where they might, then offered his hand and helped her to step out of them, wearing only the lacy pink bikini panties and bra she'd put on this morning. She wasn't even naked yet, and she wanted to run for cover. Skye was a normal sized middle aged woman. She wasn't as skinny as she'd been in high school, and usually she was comfortable with that. But this wasn't one of those times. She desperately wanted to make a grab for her clothes, but knew that wouldn't be a good idea. When he reached for the front clasp of her bra, she couldn't help but put her hands on his wrists, not quite trying to stop him, because he was much too strong for that anyway, but whispering a soft, “No, please,” as her fingers tried unsuccessfully to encircle those thick wrists. “Oh, yes, baby. I want to see you. All of you.” But, contradicting his words, his hands fell to his sides. “Take off your underwear, Skye. I want to see you.” He wanted her to expose herself? That was a thousand times worse than having him doing it to her! Skye wasn't even sure she could do it, although when he shifted his weight a bit and put his hands on his hips, giving her that “I'm not going to wait forever” look she'd already come to know and dread, her hands had immediately gone to where his had just vacated. But she took her time with the small clasp, unhooking it as slowly as she dared, already ashamed at how quickly he was able to make her beg him not to make her do this, and how wet it made her that he could! “Rourke, please, can we at least turn the lights out?” “No.” “Will you turn around, then?” He chuckled softly, and she could see that a broad small smile was playing around his lips. “No.” “But -” Her bra was unhooked, but she was holding the two sides together, not wanting to let them fall apart. He looked ravenous, as if he would devour her at the sight of her unfettered flesh. Rourke didn't say a word, he merely took a few short steps behind her, placed a big palm over her lower belly to steady her, and administered ten very sharp swats to her essentially defenseless behind that had her gasping and sobbing. Then he plastered himself up against her from behind, so that she could feel every inch of him against her tender skin. His mouth found its way through the waves of hair to that sensitive spot just behind her ear, where his mustache tickled it with every word as both of his hands started at her hips, moving slowly upwards, claiming every inch of her that they touched in no uncertain terms. “You had better get that bra off you before my hands get there or you're not going to like what I do to your nipples.” Skye was almost so lost in the hazy magic of his flesh on hers that his words didn't register at first, but his warning tone eventually did manage to seep through the sensuous web he

was weaving around them, and she let the scrap of lace drop seconds before his fingertips reached the underside of her breasts. She couldn't suppress a moan of pure pleasure when those rough palms claimed her simultaneously, squeezing somewhat less than gently, fingers seeking then finding nipples that were already excitedly peaked and aching for the way he rolled and plucked them. Ah, dear God this man was going to drive her beyond her limits very easily, without even trying. She was going to climax right here, right now, just from the fact that she was standing here, half naked in his arms as he stood like a solid, muscular wall behind her, doing as he pleased with her ultrasensitive breasts. But he wasn't going to be happy with half measures. “Take off your panties.” The ragged whisper rasped into her ear just as he pinched each nipple painfully and unrelentingly. Skye wanted to obey, she did. And her hands had immediately found their way to the waistband of her panties, the moment he'd issued the command - and the moment her nipples had begun to hurt. “Rourke, I can't… you can't expect me to...” Again, a rumbled whisper at her ear. “I can, and I do, Skye Rose.” She began to understand that he wasn't going to let up the pressure on those two tortured buds until she did as he asked. So Skye, moving as little as possible - thankful that these panties weren't skin tight, as some she had were – wiggled and danced just the lower portion of her body out of her undies. When they hit the floor, he said, “Kick them away.” She obeyed instantly, and her nipples were released, which was almost worse than having them pinched so tightly, because the blood rushing back into them caused an ache that was at least as bad, if not worse. It made her want to rub them, and her hands came up to do so, but he caught them as he moved around to stand in front of her and put them back down at her sides, saying plainly, “No. You are not to touch yourself in any way, Skye, ever. Your body isn't your own any more. It's mine,” as he swatted each breast lightly, but directly, on the nipple. He did it so quickly that she didn't have a chance to react before he was guiding her over to a table that had been placed – she had to think very strategically - in front of a large, open window. It was smallish and rectangular, and was about perfectly waist height on her. Just before he bent her over it, Rourke slipped a seat cushion in between her hips and the table, for cushioning. “Reach out and grab the window sill, sweetie. You're going to need it.” That didn't sound good. Skye wanted nothing more than to stand up and walk out of the room, but instead she found herself doing exactly as she was told. Why wasn't she running screaming from this man? She asked herself. The answer came in the form of the cream she could feel accumulating between her legs. As much as she might protest that his spankings hurt her, and they certainly did, they also turned her on to no end. And for some reason, and she wasn't sure exactly why, Skye believed him absolutely when he said that he would never use his fists in any way except to defend her.

Chapter Four It was the soft snick of his belt from his jeans that had it registering suddenly in her brain that the window was wide open. “Shouldn't that be closed?” she asked, motioning towards it with her head. His chuckle sent a shivers over every inch of her body. “I don't think so. There's no one around to hear you. They're all out moving the herd. And even if they weren’t, they’d just know that you were getting a thorough spanking.” He ran just the tips of his fingers down the indentation of her spine, to the very top of her bottom, but no further. Then he took a step to the side, and when Skye turned her head, she wished she hadn't, because she saw him fold that belt over, holding the two ends in his big hand, and bringing down the rounded end onto her defenseless rear. She was unprepared for how sheer and stark the pain was. She'd had a general idea of what a spanking felt like, but no one had ever taken a belt to her backside. It took her breath away, and before she could recover from the first time the leather lashed down on her skin, he'd brought it down again and again and again, setting fire to entirely separate territories each time. Naturally, Skye's hands left their death grip on the window sill to try to protect herself from further swats. But he saw their descent long before they were ever in danger of actually feeling the leather themselves. He would punish on very specific parts of her body – never anywhere else, and her hands were not one of those particular places. What he did next surprised her enormously. More so than anything else he'd done to her so far. She could hear him adjusting his own clothing, and all of a sudden, he had covered her completely – he was so much bigger than she was it was pretty much a given that he was always going to do that – his legs easily insinuating themselves between hers, forcing her to stand so abnormally wide that she was almost sitting on his lap. He entered her forcefully, but then, she was so embarrassingly wet that he encountered absolutely no resistance beyond the natural tightness of her body. Indeed, his aggressive possession had her moaning loudly, even if, intellectually, she might not have wanted to so reward his behavior. He fucked her. There was no other was to put it. It was raw and uncompromising and he wasn't asking her permission to do so. He was taking her, as if she was an unfortunate Anglo maid he'd found in a glade and he a Viking warrior from a raiding party, and every advance his oversized cock gained into her drove his zipper into the welts his belt had created across her bottom, rendering an ecstatic fusion of pleasure and pain that had her almost instantly on the edge of orgasm, where it sounded to her like he was not far from joining her. But then he stopped, keeping her splayed obscenely wide, almost literally hanging on him, as he rolled the belt around his fist, shortening it until it was only a few inches long, until he could both stripe her with it and continue to fuck her at the same time. “Hands.” One word, barely ground out of his throat, hardly even civilized. She put them back where he wanted them, hoping it would convince him to keep doing what he had been doing, to maybe even reach around to the front of her, to stroke her clit some. She was one, maybe two strokes from ecstasy. He had to let her come. He had to! But what he did, instead, actually deflated some of her desire rather than adding to it. He used the tail end he'd left of that belt to continue to thrash her as he fucked her, pleasuring

himself, but strapping her bottom hard enough that she couldn't latch onto the pure ecstasy of being filled and stretched and very completely possessed by him and drown out the frequent short, sharp smacks he was relentlessly delivering to her backside. The entire of it stung as if he'd sicced a thousand bees on her, and despite the fact that she was still right on the edge, she couldn't quite make it over that last precipice and into the orgasmic bliss she knew awaited her. He kept her there, deliberately hanging in more ways than one, suffering one stinging smack after another while he moved himself in and out of her, slowly, so that she could feel every inch of him possessing her, but keeping her pain level at such a pitch that she couldn’t reach past it to the undeniable Heaven he was creating between her legs. She dearly wish he'd let her close the window. The sounds she was emitting were alternatingly – and deeply embarrassingly – passionate and mournful, depending on which of the extremes of the feelings he was driving her to have the upper hand in her mind at that particular moment. Regardless, she could exercise about as much control over her own vocal responses as she could over him. But then she felt his rhythm increase and become even more frantic and violent than it had been, and seconds later he threw back his head and screamed at his own culmination, reaching beneath her to squeeze her breasts and slam himself into her so hard she collapsed against him – still very literally aching for her own release, as well as from the strapping she'd just received. Rourke kept her in place for several moments, letting go of the belt, but keeping his hand on the small of her back. “You are going to be the death of me, in more ways than one. I hadn't intended on doing that, but I just couldn't stop myself.” Skye danced in place a little, not wanting to be so obscene as to rub herself up against him, but desperately to get some sort of relief! She’d never felt such an ache before in her life, and he was making no move whatsoever towards granting her any kind of release. “Is your little butt on fire, Skye Rose?” That big palm had moved to pat her well seared flesh a bit condescendingly for her tastes. “Yes,” she growled, “but that's not what's got me agitated.” He moved away from her, saying, “Stay,” but even when she craned her head back, she couldn't see what he was doing. When he returned, nothing was different, that she could see. He came to stand next to her, brushing the hair back from her face. “You're incredibly beautiful, you know?” His voice was deep and husky, and she knew that he meant what he was saying. But Skye couldn't help it. It was absolutely ingrained in her, and probably most of the female population of America. She rolled her eyes, and said, in a disdainful tone, “Yeah, right.” His reaction was as immediate as it was painful. It was just his hand, but her bottom was so sensitive from having been previously thrashed that he might as well have been using a prison strap or a thick wooden paddle. The tears she'd just been able to get under control were back from the very first swat, and he didn't seem to be in any mood to stop, but he did, at around ten extremely hard smacks. Then he came back to squat down near her head. “I don't know why it is that most women nowadays don't know how to take a compliment. It's as if they think it's immodest to do so. But believe me, I don't give many of them, and I don't appreciate being contradicted for having done so.”

He sounded hurt, and she would have bet her life that pretty much nothing on the Earth could have made him sound that way. “S-sorry,” Skye whimpered, hating herself for having done so, but unable to stop it. “I'm just... well; I'm not eighteen any more—” “Neither am I,” he snapped back. “I'm not looking for a giggling co-ed. I'm too old for that. I want a woman. I want an adult.” He nipped her right where her neck joined her shoulder. “I want you. Or wasn't my embarrassing lack of control a few minutes ago evidence enough for you?” Seconds later, she found herself ensconced in his huge tub, but not until after she'd emitted the yowl to end all yowls when her roasted butt it the hot, bubbly water he'd drawn for her. The bathroom was candle lit, and soft music played through speakers she couldn’t even care to see. But now, she was resting up against him, her back to his front, thoroughly enjoying the way his hands were making themselves at home with her body. In truth, Rourke couldn't seem to keep his hands off her – they seemed to want to constantly slide up and down her sides, over her breasts, and most particularly, down between her legs, which he preferred, and thus required, that she keep well open, laying them over his, which spread them quite naturally simply because his were so much larger than hers. Skye arched in his arms, pressing her breasts more firmly into his hands, or rubbing herself more firmly against where his eager fingers had delved between those widely opened legs. Rourke adored every move she made, every whimper, every moan, every mew. He couldn't believe he was already hard again. That hadn't happened to him in quite some time. He was no spring chicken himself, but apparently she was some form of personal aphrodisiac. Not that he was complaining, of course. It was nice to know that he still could still act like a teenager if he wanted to. And with her, he definitely wanted to. But for now, he was going to concentrate on her. She'd gotten her spankings. More than she'd bargained for, he was sure. He'd gone pretty hard on her. But he'd rather start out strict from the beginning than try to recover ground after having been too easy at first. Besides, he would bet that she was a woman who would benefit from a very firm hand, and he was just the man who could provide that for her. He knew that she hadn't been happy when he hadn't allowed her her own release while she’d been bent over at the window. But that was something that he intended to keep a tight lid on, too. He had a feeling that, under all of her embarrassment about it and the humiliation and shame that society had drilled into her, she was a very sensual woman. And he intended to keep a tight rein on that; he would keep her hungry, almost always wanting more, doling out orgasms carefully, so that they were always thoroughly enjoyed – and thoroughly earned. Tonight, though, he would give her her fill. He hadn't been joking when he'd warned her at first that he might make love to her until she fainted. She was just responsive enough that that might not be too far outside the realm of possibility. The way she writhed when he plucked those tight raspberry nipples, and nearly pressed his hand against her crotch when his fingers boldly wandered between her legs, raising her hips to greet him like a long lost lover. “Rourke...” his name was a breathless plea on her lips, and he wanted to hear more of it. He nuzzled her neck, nibbling casually. “Yes, Skye Rose? What can I do for you?” Her answering groan had him chuckling outright, but he wasn't going to let her get out of it that easily. Instead, he kept her left nipple held tightly between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand, twirling and pinching it as his right hand made its way between those widely spread legs of

hers, seeking and finding a very swollen bud that seemed to have ripened and been waiting just for him, for his touch alone. When he very, very slowly dragged the pad of his middle finger over the crest of her button, he thought he'd misjudged her, and he'd gone too far already. Skye shook and shuddered and groaned and writhed, but then she begged him to do it again when he took his hand away. “Pleeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaase, Rourke, pleeeaaaaaase!” She practically dragged his hand back to where she wanted it, begging him to pleasure her more. Clearing his throat, he began to whisper at her ear. “You realize you still have another spanking coming tomorrow, don't you? For maneuvering yourself into paying for your groceries this afternoon?” Rourke counted it as the magic of his fingers and voice that she didn't even seem to think about arguing with him about that point, although he bet she would raise it tomorrow, when he put her over his lap for her next spanking. He wondered fleetingly how many she'd earn tomorrow, then said it out loud to her, making her groan in protest. As he spoke to her in his low, husky tone, nibbling occasionally at her ear, her nipple found itself twisted and tugged and pinched, flicked and rolled, and then he started all over again, while his other hand concentrated on that throbbing nubbin. The suds in the water provided more than enough slickness for his eager fingertips as he dragged them over and over every molecule of that ultrasensitive spot while he told her what her time with him was going to be like. “I'm not going to be easy on you, Skye Rose. I'm going to spank you every time I get the chance, and with anything I can get my hands on. There's a lot of leather around this place, lots of quirts and whips and crops and I'm sure I can come up with a paddle or two. Plus you like to cook, and that means there'll be wooden spoons in the kitchen. I'll make sure there are at least two or three implements in every room, 'cause I have a feeling that I'm going to need to be using them on your naughty little rear end.” Struck by a sudden inspiration, he continued, “As a matter of fact, I want you to find me tomorrow as soon as you wake up, and bring me a wooden spoon from the kitchen. I'll probably be in my study. You'll get your spanking then, when you're just awake, over my lap in my study. Or over the end of my desk, I haven't decided which. Regardless, you'll be naked.” “N-no...” Skye didn't know how she found the audacity to form the word, considering the condition of her bottom, and her current position, but she did. He redoubled his efforts. If she could deny him like that, then she wasn't nearly as close as he wanted her to be, and lowered his voice another octave or so. “Oh yes. Because you're not allowed to come into our bed any other way, and you’ll be coming to me fresh from bed. If I want to take you in the middle of the night, which I'm quite likely to do,” he emphasized his point by arching his full blown erection against her, “then I don't want to have to unwrap you first.” Seconds later, with a casual thrust, he joined them, and Skye's moans took on a completely different sound, and Rourke, of course, noticed the difference. He was entirely tuned into every nuance of her responses to whatever he was doing to her. “Oh, so that's what you wanted. I should have thought of that before. You need to be filled, don't you, when you come? Well, that can be arranged.” Oh, dear God, the man was stretching her so much she thought she might burst. She hadn't even noticed just how big he was before because he'd been spanking her, and her body was so confused between the pleasure and the pain, but right now, it was all unbelievable and unrelenting pleasure and she couldn't get away from it. He was behind her and in front of her and everywhere she turned, he was there, his hands on her, claiming her, loving her, forcing her to surrender that ultimate ecstasy, and she knew he would not stop until he had what he wanted.

When she felt the index finger of his left hand pressing against her bottom hole, she went off like a rocket, surprising him, and it took all of his skill to keep her in place, completely surrounded and filled by him. He was not going to let her have any control in this – or most – situations, and she might as well learn that now. Rourke held her tightly while she exploded, not allowing her to move away from him as she might have preferred, instead keeping one hand between her legs as he continued to rock steadily in and out of her, the other slipping in and out of her bottom in roughly the same rhythm, not allowing her to deny the rising and completion of a second and third orgasm, whether or not she wanted them, before he allowed himself to find his own release. She was so boneless and exhausted from the events that evening, that she could barely keep her head above water. Rourke lifted her out of the bath himself, drying her as carefully as he would a child, rubbing her hair dry, and then carrying her to his enormous bed and depositing her under the covers, then following her there right after her, as if he thought she might bolt and run. But she was much too tired for that. In fact, he was glad to see that all she did was turn towards him, falling asleep like a kitten on his chest. *** Skye had always been an early morning person, much to her own disgust. She’d always wanted to be the type that slept late in the morning and stayed up late, but it never worked out for her. She was an early to bed, early to rise girl. But not this morning. The first time she opened her eye to peer at the unfamiliar surroundings, the clock on the nightstand said it was nearly eleven. She absolutely couldn’t believe it. She’d never slept that late in her life. Rourke was gone, as she’d expected him to be. Ranchers couldn’t loll around in bed all day. Skye rolled over and sat up, regretting her action immediately and lying back down, realizing this was not going to be a sitting day as she rubbed her butt compulsively. Her bottom had reminded her rather loudly that she had been very soundly punished yesterday, and she began to worry about the spanking she was set to receive this morning. But she knew that he wasn’t going to let her stay in bed all day, and he’d probably spank her worse if she didn’t do as he asked, so she threw off the covers and padded into the bathroom, naked, and hating it, wishing she thought she could get away with either forgetting that he’d told her to meet him in the study first thing this morning, which she knew she couldn’t, or at least putting on a nightgown or a t-shirt or something, but she knew he wouldn’t be happy about that, either, he’d tack something extra onto her punishment if she did that, too. As she passed the full length mirror on the back of the bathroom door, she turned around and looked at her bottom, sure that it had to look utterly ravaged. She was sorely disappointed to find that there was the occasional bruise and raised spot, but nothing dramatic. Skye hoped that didn’t prompt him to think that he needed to try harder... So she made her way to his study as stealthily as she could, skirting mirrors as well as windows. Luckily, he seemed to have already drawn the blinds in anticipation of her little walk of shame. The kitchen was an inside room with no windows, so she didn’t have to worry about being seen as she rummaged through the drawers, looking for the smallest wooden spoon he owned. There didn’t seem to be much of a choice, unfortunately. All of them were enormous, as far as she was concerned, and some of them even had slats, which she knew from exhaustive research was completely out.

She picked the most innocuous looking one – which wasn’t very. It was very plain, even old fashioned, with a longish handle and the smallest bowl of the ones he had. But it still looked wicked to her, and she dreaded the feel of it on her still sore rear. The study door was closed, and she was tempted to simply run back to the room and sleep a while longer, but before she’d even knocked, he opened it. “There you are, Sleeping Beauty. Come on in.” She tried to brush past him, but he took the spoon from her and hugged her tightly against him, kissing her in a way that made her knees completely unable to support her body, especially when she hadn’t even had a cup of coffee yet. He swung her up into his arms and carried her to sit behind his desk in his huge leather chair, cradling her in his lap. The room was dark, as he’d drawn the heavy curtains on the bow window that was behind his desk. After another long, will sapping kiss, he asked, “How did you sleep?” “Really well, for the first time in a long time,” Skye confessed, fiddling with the buttons of his shirt. It felt strange to be sitting naked on the lap of a fully clothed man in what was, essentially, his office. Rourke tipped her face up and kissed her once again, very tenderly. “Why do you think you slept so well here?” The answer she gave surprised but pleased him. “Because I feel safe here.” His smile was a reward to her, in and of itself, but then he couldn’t help but tease, “Are you sure it wasn’t because of the sex? And/or the spankings?” Skye hid her face against his neck, blushing for all she was worth. “No, it was not either of those things. Stop saying things just to make me blush, you rat!” “Ah, but a guy’s gotta have a hobby, doesn’t he?” Rourke reached down to squeeze a bottom cheek. “Speaking of which, how’re you doing this morning?” His answer should have been in the way she arched – or rather, tried to arch – away from his hand, but it just made his fingers clench just that much tighter. Skye frowned. “Rolling onto my butt this morning when I sat up reminded me that I don’t want another spanking from you ever again.” “Well, I don’t think that that’s going to be possible, especially since you have one coming right now.” He reached out and tapped the wooden spoon against his desk. “But I want to see what condition that lovely rear of yours is in before I give you this second spanking. So hop up and lean over my desk.” Grumbling quietly under her breath the entire time, Skye none the less did what she was told, standing in front of his immaculate desk and then, very reluctantly sprawling over it as he continued to sit in his chair. When Rourke noticed that her arm was propped up, her palm supporting her head, elbow on the desk, he issued a sharp order, along with a swift crack to her already completely vulnerable butt. “Whenever you assume this position, Skye Rose Sommers, I want you to put your arms out in front of you. If you can, then grab the edge of what you’re bending over. If not, then just keep them out in front of you.” “Yes, Sir.” When did her voice start sounding so blasted wimpy?

Chapter Five Of course, the answer was, once he’d started spanking her. Or maybe even earlier, when she’d learned he was Special Forces. She wanted to talk to him more about just exactly what that meant, but he was as closed mouthed as she’d thought he might be when she’d tried to question him about it occasionally. Their operatives – even the retired ones – must’ve taken some sort of “oath of silence” or some such thing to annoy the heck out of whoever got close to them. Skye wasn’t able to continue ruminating about what his former career might really have been comprised of when she felt that blasted spoon against her tender flesh. For what had looked like the most innocent implement she could find, it definitely wasn’t. She definitely preferred his hand, although distinctly not his belt, although the spoon had a feeling that was almost worse, because all of the pain was concentrated in a very small spot, and he quickly got into a terrible rhythm, peppering swats all over her rump and making her dance in place like a little girl who needed to use the potty. But then he stopped, and Skye could feel him almost running his hand over her bottom, but not quite. He wasn’t about to give her the ease that that would entail, but it was as if he was feeling some sort of surge of possessiveness or something. “I bet you think that being spanked for paying for your own groceries is a pretty stupid thing.” Skye opened her mouth, and then closed it again, not really sure what she should say. Would telling him the truth just get her into more trouble? His hand gripped her right cheek hard, not soothingly in the least, just in a manner that he knew would garner her attention. “And just so you know, I always want to hear the truth from you, Skye. Even if you might think I don’t, I do.” He came around to squat down in front of her, taking her hands in his and catching her eyes with his. “We haven’t really discussed this, and I know that this is a kind of strange time to –“ he sighed, and this was the first time Skye had seen him even the slightest bit hesitant, “well, my timing for things like this has never been very good – but I want a relationship with you, not just a few weeks while we straighten out your crazy ex-lover. And a good relationship can’t be built on lies.” He kissed the backs of each of her hands, then replaced them where they were gripping the edge of his desk and winked at her as he returned to his place. “To say nothing of the fact that you know what your bottom is going to get if I find out you’ve lied to me. So tell me, don’t you think it’s kind of stupid of me to spank you for maneuvering yourself into paying for your own groceries?” “Yes, I do.” “Good. “But it doesn’t make any sense for you to pay for food you’re not going to eat!” “First of all, who says I’m not going to eat it?” He swatted Skye once, very hard, making her yelp. “I did. I can’t see a macho cowboy like yourself eating yogurt and sprouts.”

Another hard swat, thankfully on the other cheek. “You shouldn’t make such assumptions about people, and definitely not me, Skye. I’ve eaten things you would never touch, believe me, so I’m not the fussy type.” He was right. She should have thought of that. He might well have been dropped off in the jungle, expected to live off the land, eating who knows what or whom. “But still, it’s not right for you to buy my food. I’m perfectly capable of paying for my own stuff.” That statement, for whatever reason, earned her six more very hard swats, three to each cheek. “I have no doubts about that,” he growled. “I may have a bit of an old fashioned outlook, but I want to take care of you. So I did not appreciate you deliberately maneuvering so that you could pay for the groceries. And I think that this will help you to remember not to do that in the future, won’t it?” Skye couldn’t say what she was thinking, because that little instrument – in his more than capable hands – had robbed her of her breath, as had the sobs he’d very quickly and easily reduced her to. When he finally stopped, Rourke kept a hand on her back to keep her in place, tucking the wooden spoon into the middle drawer of his desk, figuring it might well come in handy in the future. Then he turned her over, laying himself on top of her and within her, gathering her as close to him as he could. “I’m sorry I brought up the idea of us extending your stay at such an awkward time, but I want you to stay with me, regardless of what happens to Mark.” As if on cue, the phone rang, and Rourke groaned. For a moment, Skye thought he might not answer it, and she realized just how much of a change that was in his personality – that he would even consider ignoring a phone call at a time like this. But he couldn’t, of course, so he rose, detaching himself from her and grumbly at having done so. “This had damned well better be worth it,” he growled at the poor unsuspecting soul on the other end of the phone. Apparently, however, it was more than worth it, because his demeanor changed immediately, and Skye knew just by looking at him that something had happened that involved her before he said another word. He reached out his arm in silent invitation for her to join him on his lap, which she did without the slightest hesitation. “Around where? Not the house? Heading towards it? I’ll let my men know. Yeah, why don’t we meet at Chaz’s house – he’ll be fine with that, and then we can coordinate things from there.” He looked at his watch. “I can be there in about five minutes.” Rourke turned the phone off and frowned down at Skye for a long moment, then tipped her chin up, having had a sudden revelation. But regardless of what he worried about in regards to Skye, he still told her the truth about what he’d just learned. “That was Kevin. Mark has been spotted in town.” He hated the way his words chased the light from her eyes, to be replaced with a shadow of fear, even though she was sitting, safe as she could be, in his lap. He couldn’t wait to get his hands on that weasel. “We figure he’s going to head for where he thinks you’re staying, and we’re going to get him there. You,” he tapped the end of his index finger against the tip of her nose pointedly, “are to stay right here, where you’re safe.” He indulged himself in a very slow, deep kiss, before rushing away from her, saying, “I’ll be back as soon as I can.” Skye followed him to his room, where she was surprised to find he secreted a ton of weaponry that he managed to wear, despite the fact that he did not climb into what she thought he might – a camouflage uniform. He remained in the clothes he’d gotten into this morning –

jeans and a white t-shirt, but he did don a blazer to hide the holsters that crisscrossed his back. He was going in loaded for bear, but then, he had no idea what kind of fire power Mark might be carrying, so, as far as Rourke was concerned, better safe than sorry. After diving hurriedly into jeans and a blouse herself, Skye walked him out to his truck, clutching his hand until it nearly cut of both of their circulation. Smiling down at her, Rourke pried her hand off of his and leaned down to kiss her, hard, one more time. “Don’t you worry. I’ll be back to finished what Mercer so rudely interrupted, I promise.” Skye wished she could feel as confident as he did, but she knew Mark better than he did, and she knew what an oily bastard he could be. She stood in the driveway long after his truck had disappeared, biting her thumbnail, tears falling unheeded down her cheeks, until she heard the phone begin to ring in his study. Skye hauled her still sore butt in there as fast as she could, grabbing up the receiver on about the eighth ring. “Hello – yeah – what do you want?” “Skye? It’s just me – Kevin. I wondered if Rourke had left yet, but if you’re answering I guess he has. I’ll try him on his cell.” He sounded harried and anxious. “What is it? What’s happened? What’s wrong?” She wanted to know everything about what was going on. “Nothing, it’s just that Mercer’s managed to slip our tail, and now we’re not sure exactly where it is that he’s headed.” “Call him.” She hung up the phone before Kevin could reply and turned to the panel of security screens that showed various areas around the ranch. One of them was the road that the house she had originally rented from him was on. The others were various places around the ranch – the barns, the stables, and points around the house. It was a movement around the corner of the house that caught her eye. Unfortunately, she didn’t know how to move the cameras to follow something, so she had to wait until it came up again on another screen, but it did, and then she knew. Mark was just to the side of the window she was in front of. Skye dropped as stealthily and quickly as she could out of the chair and onto the floor, crawling quietly along the perimeter of the room, knowing that if she could get to the bedroom, she’d at least have some weapons with which she could fight back, and a phone from which she could call his cell. She knew that all of the doors were automatically set to lock when they closed, so she didn’t have to worry about that, not that Mark was going to let something like that stop him, but it would at least delay him getting in, and she’d be able to hear where he was when he decided to make his move. But then she realized she could already hear him. He was talking to her, as if he expected her to run out of the house and into his arms. “Where are you, Skye? I know you’re in there somewhere. That dirty, grubby cowboy has been keeping you in there with him. Come out to me so you can be clean and we’ll go away together, just you and me. I love you so much, Skye. Come to me. I’ll forgive you. You know I will. I just want you to come to me and everything will be all right. I’ll forget all about that filthy cowboy. You’ll see.” Mark’s singsong, unbalanced, straight out crazy voice was about to drive her around the bend. She’d found the hidden drawer were she’d seen Rourke take several guns from before he’d left, and she’d found a handgun there that was loaded, and latched onto it like it was her only hope, and at this point, it was.

But then, as she skulked along the baseboards, trying to keep track of where Mark was by the sound of his voice until she could make it back to the study and make sure he had no idea where she was in relation, she heard him. “Mercer, I’ve got a bead on you, and I’m telling you right now to put your gun down and come out with your hands up.” Rourke. She didn’t know where – or how - he figured into the equation; she couldn’t find him on any of the screens and it sounded like he was speaking through a bull horn. “Ah, the dirty cowboy speaks.” The crazy was notched up a level or twelve in his tone. “Did you lay your filthy hands on her? Did you touch my woman?” Rourke didn’t care a whit for any insults flung his way. He’d withstood worse than this guy could ever come up with just getting through his military training. But it took everything he had not to correct the psychotic man about just exactly whose woman Skye was. And he knew that correcting someone who was truly cuckoo would do no good, although it would make him feel a hell of a lot better. Even though he was more than four hundred yards away from him, Mercer was well within the sights of gun he was using – the gun he’d used professionally for the benefit of his government for many years. Hell, if he had his way, he’d’ve already been dead. But he knew that that way meant inquiries and inquisitions, and paperwork enough to drown him, so he’d held back so far. But he wasn’t going to hold off much longer, regardless of any bureaucratic consequences. And if Looney Toons, there, got a hold of Skye, then all bets were off. Luckily, she’d obeyed him up to this point, and he hadn’t seen hide nor hair of her, but he didn’t know how long her good behavior was going to last. She had to be scared out of her wits inside that house, and Rourke was desperate to get this thing over with so that he could comfort her, but everything seemed to be conspiring against him. Kevin wasn’t here yet, and he was the scene commander, so technically Rourke had to wait for his okay to do anything. Technically. “Huh? Did you? She’s mine, you know! She’s mine!” Mark’s behavior was becoming more erratic. He started to shoot his gun occasionally, in no particular direction, as if he couldn’t quite contain his anger and it overflowed out through his gun. Skye had no idea where Rourke was, and she was terrified that he might be hit by a stray bullet, which, of course, was exactly how he felt about her. But she was bound and determined to save him from Mark’s wild shooting spree. She couldn’t stand it if he got hurt on account of her. It would just kill her. So she slowly opened the front door, near where Mark was standing, using her best, most obsequious voice. That was what Mark always preferred. He liked her to be sickly sweet, the picture perfect, never arguing, airhead women, just an ornament on his arm that propped up his manhood and made him look good. Heaven forbid she should actually express an opinion or have any sort of a backbone. That was a definite no-no. “Hi, Mark. There you are! I’ve been waiting for you to come and rescue me.” She knew that it would appeal to his ego if he thought he was saving her. Skye rushed towards him, her arms open. She was unprepared for how tightly he grabbed her. It was hurtful, as if he didn’t care whether or not he broke her ribs. But she had succeeded in distracting him enough with her surprise entrance that he was no longer waiving the gun around. In fact, he was barely paying any attention to it at all, preferring, instead, to concentrate on her.

He had her by the hair now, still crammed up against his side, but the gun was still in his hand, pointed towards the ground. At least until they both heard the shot that hit his right shoulder, causing him to drop the gun immediately, free Skye, and clutch at the wound as he cursed a bloody blue streak at his unseen assailant. Then Skye took the gun out of waistband of her jeans and aimed it at him, her finger on the trigger. She was very ready to see the end of him. “Stop right there, Skye. Kevin’s almost there. Don’t do it.” He’d covered the ground between the three of them as quickly as he could without compromising Skye’s security. He still needed to be able to drop Mercer if he made a sudden movement, but he didn’t want her doing anything foolish that she’d regret later, either, or compromising his ability to do what he needed to do by getting into his line of sight or fire. “Back away from him, Skye.” He could tell that she was crying, and raw emotion like that was never good when one was handling a firearm. It could only get her into trouble. Not that she wasn’t already in a ton of trouble, as far as he was concerned, just for having come out of the house, where she had been relatively safe. “Mercer, you stay where you are, too. I’d just love for you to give me a reason to shoot you again, and this time I won’t be aiming for your hand.” As soon as he was close enough, he kicked the gun well out of the other man’s range, just as Kevin appeared on the scene and his men took over the formalities of arresting Mr. Mercer. Rourke handed his precious gun off to Kevin without a second glance – stunning the younger man into silence, since he’d been begging to just get an up close look at the thing for years, and now here he was having it shoved into his arms just so that Rourke could go take care of a woman. He’d’ve never taken that bet in a million years. Skye was some ways away from the men, squatting as if she was trying to make herself the smallest possible target, still clutching the gun out in front of her, that haunted, wary look back in her eyes that he’d been able to dispel, for the most part, in the past month or so, but definitely within the time that she’d been staying with him. He’d helped her come to feel safe, but Mercer’s presence had destroyed all that, and he guessed they were back at square one. He hunkered down to one side of her, trying to be as non confrontational as he could, sidling a little closer every few minutes and talking softly to her, but not looking directly at her. “Sweetheart, I want you to remember who I am,” – a smidge closer – “and what I’ve promised you,” – another bit closer – “and put the gun down.” Rourke stayed still on that command, watching to see whether or not she obeyed him, whether or not his words were sinking in, and if she would respond to him or not on that deep a level. The gun stayed right where it was for several very long moments, and then, slowly, very slowly, she lowered it, but he could see she still had a death grip on it. Her knuckles were pure white. When he moved again, it was a bit more, enough that he was next to her, but not quite touching yet. “He didn’t hurt you. I would never have let him hurt you.” Rourke heard her start to sob and keen as she literally caved in on herself, hugging and rocking with her arms around her own torso, the gun nearly forgotten in her hand as she sought to comfort herself as best she could. Calmly, quietly, he suggested, “Here, why don’t you let me deal with that thing?” Gingerly, always watching for any sudden movements, he reached across her and relieved her of the gun, unloading it immediately and throwing it away from them, towards the bushes. He’d deal with it later. The sounds of her sobs tore at his heart, and he just couldn’t stand it.

It occurred to Rourke that he ought to ask her if he could do it before he did it, but then he brushed the idea way. Asking didn’t come naturally to him, and she’d just have to learn to deal with that. Instead, he sat down and lifted her onto his lap, folding her into the safety of his arms and letting her cry it out against his chest. Kevin walked up and scuffed the toe of his boot while he talked to Rourke. “She gonna be all right?” “I reckon.” “You gonna be all right?” There was a long pause, one that Kevin didn’t expect. He would have sworn that he saw tears in the big man’s eyes. “I don’t know. I told her to stay in the house. She came out to him while he was waiving the gun around. I don’t know why – I don’t much care. But I thought he was going to shoot her before I could shoot him. I thought I was going to –“ Rourke choked up, his arms contracting automatically around Skye as he spoke. He couldn’t say another word for a long moment. “I thought I was going to lose her.” Skye lifted her head from her shoulder. “I only came out of the house because I didn’t know where you were, and he was shooting so randomly, I worried that he was going to hit you. I figured I could distract him until you could get up here, or Kevin could get here, or some-“ She couldn’t say anything else, because Rourke was kissing her, but then he drew back, running his hands up and down her as if he thought she’d been hurt somehow. “Are you all right? Did he hurt you?” “No. He pulled my hair a bit, but nothing major,” she looked shyly up at him. “Thank you for rescuing me.” Rourke raised an eyebrow and frowned fiercely down at her. “I wouldn’t have had to rescue you if you’d obeyed me and stayed in the house where I told you to stay.” The younger man executed a smart about face and headed back towards his men, saying “I think this is my cue to leave.” “Chicken!” Skye called after him. “Bawk, bawk, bawk!” Kevin clucked unapologetically, without looking back. Rourke’s expression hadn’t changed one iota when Skye snuck a peek at him and tried to struggle out of his arms, but he was having none of it. “But I thought you might get hurt!” “I don’t want to hear it, Skye Rose. I love you.” He choked up and could barely get out the next sentence. “I thought I was going to lose you. Everything I am, everything I have, is yours for the taking.” Rourke gathered her closer to him, rocking the both of them slowly. “You’re to staying here with me, where I can keep a close eye on you. A very close eye on you. You’re prone to get into all sorts of trouble.” “I am not!” Rourke looked around them pointedly, but Skye burst into tears again. “This is not my fault!” “And if you had stayed in the house, as you were told?” he asked pointedly. “But you–” “—are a highly trained Special Forces military officer. What do you know about surviving a gunfight that you think I don’t?” She hadn’t thought about it that way. “Let’s get you back in the house.” Rourke stood, and held his hand out imperiously to Skye, who looked at it, but made absolutely no motion to take it. “I don’t wanna.”

He looked puzzled. “You don’t want to go back into the house? Why not?” Was she having some sort of traumatic reaction to the house because of Mercer? Would they need to move? He wondered, his mind jumping to all sorts of possibilities in its adrenaline soaked state. “Because you’re going to spank me if I go back in there,” she pouted, folding her arms over her chest like a stubborn child. Rourke threw back his head and laughed, attracting the attention of several of the other men, then squatted down beside her, leaning over to whisper in her ear, “Do you really think I wouldn’t take down your pants and panties and spank you out here, if I wanted to, sweetie?” Then he stood again, and offered his hand to his brightly blushing woman, more casually than before, because he knew she’d take it. Truly appalled at the thought, and knowing better than to test him because he’d do it just to spite her, she knew, despite all of the men milling around his front yard, Skye took the hand he offered, however reluctantly. Rourke used it to tug her hard against him, so that they were plastered together, chest to knee. “Tell me you love me.” If he hadn’t been so sure of her response, he would never have pressured her to say it. She blushed brightly, and he loved it. “Here? Now?” “I just told you, here and now.” Skye immediately softened. “So you did. I love you, Rourke Danville.” She wished he would smile as openly as he was right now more often. It toned down the intensity that surrounded him, and made him seem more human, more vulnerable. “I love you too, Skye Rose Sommers-soon-to-be-Danville.” Skye giggled at his addendum to her name, then yelped when he finished it with a hearty swat to her bottom that she knew every man around them heard. She entered the house with a blushing face, and knew she’d soon have a blushing bottom to match because of what she’d done, even though her motives were valiant. But she was, surprisingly, wrong about that.

Chapter Six It was the waiting that killed her. He’d already positioned her the way he wanted her, very ritualistically, as usual. She’d come to know that about him. He was all about the ritual – as he knew she was – and the delicious way that caused one to revel in every aspect of what was about to happen. Only this was... different. He never delayed a disciplinary session – certainly not to this extent before. Rourke believed that infractions should be dealt with as quickly and sternly as possible, but he’d very deliberately delayed this one until long after the offense was committed because he hadn’t trusted himself. And he’d told her that, flat out, even knowing her background. Hell, it was her background that had brought her here - right here - in more ways than one, and his background that had him holding her to a higher standard than he might have. Rourke had been Special Forces, and he still dabbled occasionally, although he’d assured her that it wasn’t very often, only to help their good friend Kevin Raines out when he desperately needed it. But he would never lose that military edge that made him just that much harder than the average man, to say nothing of his size. He drove her a little harder, just the slightest bit past her reserve, past her comfort level, but carefully not beyond her true limits every time, whether he was punishing her or making love to her, driving her towards that peak of pleasure she would have sworn she was much too exhausted – or sensitive – to reach, but managing to prove her wrong each and every time, and humble enough not to gloat about it afterwards. He would merely drag her into his arms, smothering her against that broad, lightly hairy chest of his, one big hand tilting her head back so that he could drink the last breath from her before she fell into sleep, exhausted and ecstatically happy. Skye Sommers had come to Rourke Danville beaten but not broken, and he had stepped up and rescued her – a complete stranger to him. He’d rented one of his houses, on his own land, to her and then, when the situation between herself and her attacker had become heated, he’d not so much as batted an eye at opening his own house to her. In fact, it had been much more like he hadn’t given her a choice about whether or not she was going to come to stay with him, because he’d already begun putting his size 13 triple E’s down, or rather his triple extra large palm down on her bottom when he deemed it necessary to gain her cooperation in any given matter, or to correct what he considered to be disobedient behavior – which seemed to be anything that disagreed with him. And he certainly wasn’t going to hesitate to do so when it was a matter of her personal safety. Quite the contrary. She nearly snorted as she remembered that he’d threatened to spank her within about five minutes of having met her, which almost had her running screaming in the opposite direction. And now, here she was, long after the event that had freed her from having to worry about Mark Mercer for several decades as he languished in jail, waiting for the first stroke of that wicked looking quirt of his to fall. And she knew he was deliberately taking his sweet old time about it, too, the bastard. Not that he hadn’t sought to make the time she had to wait uncomfortable as all get out, too. He had. It hadn’t taken him several months to get to this point for nothing.

Once Mark had been carted off, and the adrenaline had worn off, and Rourke had realized that she was all right, Skye had never seen him so mad. Granted, she didn’t know him all that well, but she knew enough to tell that he was one big angry. So much so that, after a week or so, despite their mutual protestations of love, she began to think it would be best if she headed back home and tried to get back to what was left of her life in Tennessee. She didn’t bother to hide it from him. She wasn’t into sneaking around, and she wasn’t trying to cause a scene – histrionics probably made her at least as uncomfortable as they did him. The words “drama queen” were not in her vocabulary. She was trying to be pragmatic. He was acting like he didn’t want her around. He barely spoke to her, didn’t touch her at all any more – not to make love to, not to hug, not even to spank, except at night, when he glommed onto her as if he never wanted to let her go, but even then, it wasn’t the intimacy that she knew she craved, and thought he did, too. Skye was certain that he was going to wale the tar out of her at any moment, and the pressure was killing her. She was in the midst of folding a pair of shorts into her suitcase in their bedroom, wearing a loose pink flowered tank dress and very little else, due more to the fact that the rest of her clothes were gradually ending up in the suitcase than the clothing rule he’d instituted, when he ambled in and stopped, mid-stride, immediately crossing his arms over his chest, asking, “Just what do you think you’re doing?” Not “Honey, don’t go,” or “I couldn’t bear it if you left me,” or anything in the least romantic like that, but rather a question that sounded an awful lot like an accusation. Skye was very carefully – and surprisingly successfully - keeping her tears at bay as she answered calmly, “I’m packing.” “I can see that,” he snapped back, crossing the room to stand next to her, thoroughly succeeding in distracting her by his mere presence. He smelled like leather and the outdoors, and those scents had already become so ingrained in her as belonging to him that her body was already coming embarrassingly to attention. She’d packed and repacked the same pair of shorts at least five times since he’d sidled up beside her, standing there like some outraged tyrant, and now she could think of nothing but the many intimate things he’d done to her, and what it was like to writhe within his arms, for one reason or another. Finally, Rourke had reached around her and grabbed the now thoroughly wrinkled shorts out of her hands, throwing them on the bed and grabbing her upper arms to turn her towards him. “Why?” Skye snorted, refusing to look at him. “Because you don’t seem to want me around. You’ve barely said three words to me in the past couple of weeks, since – since Mark went away, and I can feel how angry you are with me. I wish you’d just spank me, or whatever, and get it over with. I know you’re mad that I disobeyed you, and I’m sorry, but I didn’t want you to be hit by a stray bullet. But you don’t even seem to want me anymore, and I’m not going to live where I’m not wan – Ah!” He had reached one long arm out and swept the suitcase to the floor seconds before they landed on the bed. Rourke made sure that he absorbed their weight, landing on his back, then rolling quickly so that she was beneath him, the tiny scrap of her underwear ripped away as if it had never been just before he pressed himself inside her, claiming her, taking her with one swift, uncompromising stroke that had her screaming and sighing at the same time from his unexpected possession.

“Does this feel like I don’t want you, Skye Rose?” he growled, barely able to rock himself within her, their fit was so tight, despite the fact that she was, as always around him, dripping wet. She didn’t know how he could possibly still speak: she could barely think at this point. Her palms clung to his muscled back as she mewled plaintively in time with his small but powerful thrusts that forced her to take even more of him each time, until she felt as if he was splitting her wide open, until she felt almost uncomfortably full of him. But then, they were still relatively new to each other, and he was more of a man then most. Skye had never felt quite so overwhelmed, quite so possessed, and yet, instead of being frightened by it, it only made her want even more of him. Somehow, the simple shoulder ties of her dress had come undone so that the entire of it had formed a band at her waist, leaving her almost entirely naked to him, and Rourke took every advantage of that. His mouth descended ravenously on those tightly peaked breasts, biting each tight nub slightly, then soothing with his lips and tongue, tugging and finally pinching and twirling with his fingers, not letting up, driving her towards her inevitable end but on his own glacial timetable, judging every reaction, eagerly gauging every nuance of her expressions, her moans, her anguished cries when he stopped doing something she particularly enjoyed, which at this point was always. Even the low, rough sound of his voice was an aphrodisiac to her, scraping over every nerve in her body as he spoke, igniting fires in her mind, as well as her overheated flesh. Rourke buried his mouth at her neck, growl-whispering, “What makes you think that you can just up and leave, when I’ve already told you that you’re mine?” He emphasized the word “mine” with a ferocious thrust. If it had been another time, another place, Skye might have become alarmed. What he’d just said to her was a little too close for comfort to something Mark had said to her that last time they were together. But this experience was too primal. It was impossible to mistake who it was that she was with. Rourke’s face was now less than an inch above hers. Their eyes and their bodies were locked together. It was Rourke, not Mark. There really was no mistaking the differences, and they were not just physical. Rourke had risked his own life and property to protect her, had opened his house to her, and had professed his undying love. Even if he hadn’t done so lately, she never doubted it. He reached down to deepen his mastery of her by just that much more, positioning her legs over his shoulders, adding depth to his possession that Skye would have bet was an impossibility, ignoring her whimpers of near ecstasy as he forced her to open herself just that much more to him. “You’re close, aren’t you?” he asked huskily. Skye could only nod in response, unsuccessfully blinking back sudden tears that Rourke then wiped away. “Good. I want you to listen to me carefully.” He dropped deep, lazy kisses on her mouth occasionally that complimented the delicious rocking of his hips as he spoke. “You’re not going anywhere, my love. I’m sorry if I made you think that I didn’t want you around, but that’s never going to be true. Feel me within you.” He thrust hard, nearly, but not quite, driving her over the edge as he expertly forced her to ride that fine line. “I walk around like this, all day, every day. I can barely get my work done for thinking of you and what I want to do to you when we’re alone.” His voice broke, and she heard the love in it as he continued. “But it’s not just the sex

by any means. I’ve never felt like this about anyone in my life, and I’m having a hard time coping with the thought that I could have lost you a couple of weeks ago, which is why I haven’t been as demonstrative as I want to be.” She heard him swallow hard, and his softened demeanor disappeared as if it had never been, as he began to fuck her, hard enough to make his speech ragged, but carefully enough not to bring her to her own pleasure. “I’ll never let you go, Skye. If you leave me, I’ll find you, and bring you back here, right here, where you belong.” His scream of satisfaction, mere seconds later, was so loud it must’ve been heard by the cowboys that were out on the range. But there was no such complimentary cry from Skye, because Rourke very carefully hadn’t allowed her to experience her own ecstasy. As he lay on her, exhausted, but still mindful of not crushing her and taking the bulk of his own weight on his arms, the truth of exactly what he planned was just beginning to dawn on her. “Hey! Wait! What about me?” The hands that had been clinging to his back were now beginning to pummel it angrily. Rourke couldn’t suppress a small smile, glad that she was comfortable enough to smack him, as long as it didn’t go too far, and wasn’t disrespectful. He rolled to the side and easily subdued those pesky hands of hers, catching her wrists in one of his hands as she sputtered and growled angrily at him. “This is not fair!” He tucked her against his side, ignoring the way she was diligently trying to wiggle away from him at the same time. “Fair is what I say it is. And you have a punishment coming. This is part of it.” “Part of it? Just how long is this going to go on?” she practically yelled, outraged that he would do this to her. Her lower body ached as it never had before, and it didn’t sound to her like she was going to be finding relief any time soon. He caught her chin and forced her to look at him. “As long as I say it does. And you know that you have a rule against touching yourself, don’t you?” Her only response was an irate growl, which got her nowhere but flipped over on top of him, her bare bottom exposed as his legs easily forced hers apart, trapping them with his own, and he began to spank her. “Ow, ow, ow! All right! Yes, I know! I won’t touch! Okay?!” Apparently her assurances weren’t anywhere near enough for him – or, more likely, he didn’t like the tone in which they were delivered, which was somewhat bratty, even she had to admit - because he continued to swat her bottom, trapping her wrists at the small of her back and slipping himself inside her as he did so. “No! You can’t do that!” Skye yelled, protesting both the fact that he was still roasting her rear as well as his presence within her, especially since she knew it wasn’t going to lead anywhere for her until he decided it was. And she had a feeling that was going to be a long, uncomfortable while. But, ah, dear God, he felt good inside her, stretching her almost uncomfortably again, filling her completely – although she definitely did not like the fact that he had made very sure that she had no control over anything he did by her position – back arched by the way he held her wrists, legs spread wide and held there by his own, there was precious little she could do - for or against - anything he wanted to her. And what he did, flat out, no excuses, was fuck her until he came again, surprised and delighted by his own abilities at his age. He indulged himself in her body, knowing that what he was doing to her turned her on, too, but not doing anything else that he knew she would like, but

rather singularly pursuing his own pleasure and again leaving Skye unfulfilled and moaning piteously when he was through. Almost enough so that he considered relenting. But only almost. He didn’t want to set a bad precedent, especially not so early in their relationship. Rourke loved her to distraction – which, frankly, frightened him a bit. He’d never felt anything quite so deeply in his life, and he knew he was going to struggle to maintain the strict air he usually had absolutely no problem maintaining with any woman. But with Skye – maybe it was that the first time he’d seen her, there were bruises on that fair skin, and it had nearly killed him. She’d touched a part of him that he’d’ve sworn didn’t exist, and now, all he wanted to do was protect her. Even from himself, apparently. But he knew she probably needed a stricter hand than most. She was impulsive and almost too trusting and Rourke knew he needed to guard against the temptation to go easy on her, because he loved her so much, and always wanted to see that happy smile on her face. *** But, over the course of the next few months, he found that Skye flourished under his very strictest impulses, even under his teasing attentions. They seemed to make her even more submissive than she might have been, more attentive to his rules, less unpredictable and less apt to argue with him that she had been before he’d really laid down the law to her. He kept a tight rein on her, from that moment on. He very deliberately kept her on edge, indulging himself and keeping her pleasured, but only to a certain point. And he enforced the clothing rule he’d come up with earlier about only allowing her to wear those pretty, loose dresses, with no undies while he was home. As much as he adored the idea of keeping her naked, he knew she wouldn’t feel safe that way, and, in truth, he wouldn’t feel safe leaving her that way. He allowed her to wear what she liked when he wasn’t home, which he knew would be underwear, jeans or shorts, bra and a top. If he could, he would have had her ignoring the doorbell, or at least answering it in full flak gear, just in case, considering that, although they’d succeeded in putting her only enemy behind bars, he certainly had enough of his own floating around out there to give him pause, despite his own virulent security precautions. Not long afterwards, he turned over the majority of his duties about the ranch to his stunned foreman, who proceeded to tease him about the reason for his about face every chance he got. Griff Connors had been a part of his team when he was on active duty, and was his right hand man in more ways than one, but he didn’t consider himself to be second to anyone about anything, and he was at least as alpha as Rourke himself was. Luckily, they worked well together as a team because they agreed about how most things should be done, and Rourke had entered the military earlier than Griff, who was a year or two younger, so rank had had its privileges if need be, and Rourke didn’t hesitate to pull it when necessary. But when his commanding officer had fallen head over heels – which was something he’d’ve bet would never have happened to the confirmed bachelor - Griff refused to pull any of his punches, much to Rourke’s disgust. Having turned over his baby to Griff, very surprisingly without so much as a backwards glance, there were fewer and fewer days that he had to get up and leave Skye to her own devices, which was very much the way he found he preferred it. He still had work to do; the ranch was

hardly the only pot he had his big fingers in, and he involved Skye as much as she wanted to be, but she’d seemed antsy about that, for some reason, so he’d not pressed her to do so. But she seemed to have her found her own pursuits quite happily, since he had made it quite clear that he preferred she not work outside their home, which had surprised her at first. “You want me to stay home?” “Yes.” “And do nothing?” He shrugged. “Do what you want. I can find things for you to do to help me, if you like. But I have enough money for the both of us, so you can do whatever the hell you want, as long as you stay out of trouble, Trouble.” She had looked at him like he had two heads. He was so much the opposite of Mark, who had very carefully controlled every cent of his own money – as well as hers – but had also kept a tally of who owed what to whom and had certainly expected her to pull in her share of their money, but somehow without ever seeing or speaking to another man. Rourke just wanted her at home with him as much as possible, to hell with the cost. Skye had been quite glad to see that there were more than just a few things on which Rourke and Mark differed enormously. Rourke was generous to her, almost to a fault. He’d come home one day with a pair of riding boots, in her size – when she knew she’d never given him that information – and had set about teaching her to ride. She as somewhat timid about the idea, not because she had any fear of horses, quite the contrary, she’d always loved them, but had never had the chance to spend much time with them. She was nervous because she wasn’t at all sure what he would be like as an instructor. He could be deadly serious at times, and she didn’t know if she wanted to subject herself to his possible bad temper, not that she’d seen any evidence of one. But she again found herself very pleasantly surprised when he remained amazingly patient with her as she learned. And she realized that she should have been able to tell how he’d be with her by the way he treated his animals. All of them – from the smallest barn kittens to the biggest stallions – all clamored around him for attention, whether he wanted them to or not, and she’d never seen him be anything but patient and gentle with any of them, regardless of what his day had been like. But Rourke, in his infinite generosity at suggesting she stay home, wasn’t taking into consideration the health and welfare of her bottom, which was definitely not coming out ahead in this bargain. He might have eschewed a big punishment until he had a chance to cool down some, but that definitely didn’t mean that he wasn’t taking every possible opportunity to get to her behind, for any possible reason, which included things she’d never really thought of, like tone of voice, which got to be a big one. Somehow, she found it very hard to keep the sarcasm out of her voice, and that was forever getting her bent over the breakfast bar for not inconsiderable amounts of swats with one of their expanding collections of horrible wooden spoons. Every time they went into a store – department, antique, thrift or supermarket, he had to come out with a new wooden spoon, blast him. Or swearing, which was another. She suggested a cuss jar, but that went nowhere. “No need for a cuss jar,” he’d said with a big shit eating grin on his face “when there are so many implements lying around the house, not to mention those at the ends of my arms.” Skye was nowhere near as amused as he was at that pronouncement. He spanked her at the drop of a hat. Only it was much more towards a punishment than just a spanking. He was wound so tightly after he nearly lost her that the discipline she’d

experienced when she’d first met him seemed like child’s play. He was so much more serious about it; his demeanor much more closed and occasionally almost frightening.

Chapter Seven Money was one of the first real arguments they’d had, and eventually it was the second they had, too. Skye wasn’t used to having someone else paying her way, and although she certainly loved the idea of not having to work, she wasn’t at all sure how she felt about just letting him be her sugar daddy. She’d been working since long before it was legal for her to do so – she’d had a paper route, then found a job washing dishes at a tourist trap restaurant in Pigeon Forge when she was only thirteen. From there, she’d never been without a job, even when she was going to school full time. Some of her money went into the family pot, which was always scraping the bottom of the barrel, but most of it was saved towards her college education and her goal, which was to earn her education degree and become a teacher. She quickly came to the conclusion that she was too independent to simply lean back and let him pay for everything, despite his assurances that he could afford it – and the evidence that she could see around her that backed up his words: the Escalade in the garage that he rarely drove in favor of his disreputable truck, the top of the line stainless steel appliances in the big kitchen, the huge, nearly Olympic sized, in-ground pool surrounded by a gorgeous grotto, with a hot tub built in... Just the size of this place screamed money. It looked like something straight out of MTV Cribs. So when the first of the month rolled around – even thought she’d technically missed a month or two there during all of the kerfuffle with Mark - Skye presented herself in his study with her purse and began digging out her checkbook, saying something to the effect of, “Okay, what do I owe you towards monthly bills?” He was literally surrounded by papers, and even though she’d knocked on the closed study door and he’d called her in, he was in the middle of a phone call, which she caught the end of as he gave her checkbook a withering look. Skye apologized quietly with hand signals for interrupting him and sank down into one of the chairs in front of his desk, trying not to feel like she’d been called into the principal’s office. But she couldn’t help it. He definitely gave off that disciplinary vibe, busy or not, and her bottom had already begun to tingle the moment she stepped into this room. It was a reflex action. Kind of like the way the rest of her tingled whenever she was around him. “So he’s where?” Skye didn’t like the look on his face one bit. It was alarmingly reminiscent of how he’d looked when they were dealing with Mark. “Well, keep an eye on him. What am I paying you for, anyway?” Whatever the person on the other end of the phone said then got a rare smile out of him. “Well, it’s about what you’re worth, innit?” He turned the phone off and Skye suddenly found the considerable weight of his attention completely focused on her. “Did I hear you say something about bills?” Suddenly wishing she could back out of the room, Skye none the less straightened her back, leaned forward and put her checkbook on his desk, pen at the ready. “Yes, you did. I want to know how much my contribution is towards this month’s bills.” She put his name in the payee line, then raised her eyes to his, waiting for the amount, and hoping against hope that this wasn’t going to be a thing.

When her eyes met his, she knew she was going to be waiting a very long time, and that he would have said she should have known better. Her first clue might have been the way his eyebrows were raised or it might have been the way his jaw was twitching. But the biggest clue was when he very quietly and deliberately rose from his chair and came around to where she was sitting and simply reached down and lifted her out of her chair, carrying her against his hip with only an arm around her waist, like a sack of grain. But they didn’t head for the bedroom, as she expected. Instead, he walked right out the front door, and trekked across the beautifully manicured front yard to the barn. When she realized that he was taking her outside, Skye immediately began to try to extricate herself from his hold – she did not want any of the hands seeing her like this! She really thought she wouldn’t have a problem escaping; after all, it was just his one arm around her middle. But not matter how hard she wiggled, no matter how much she tried to push or tug at the band of iron that was clamped securely about her waist, she couldn’t seem to budge either it or herself, even the slightest bit. She should have known better. One of his thick, muscular arms was the equivalent of three of any other man’s, if only because of his stubbornness and determination to keep her in whatever position he placed her, to say nothing of his tremendous upper body strength. Then she tried to look for somewhere to hide, certain that they were going to encounter someone out there, and knowing she was going to be absolutely mortified in the process. But there was no hope there, either. His jeans were no help; they were molded to his butt, and the same went for his shirt. She couldn’t reach down and pull her dress over her face without exposing the rest of her to the winds, damn it. There was no hope for it. She just had to pray that everyone was gone. The only person they encountered was Griff, thankfully, who had met Skye’s eyes once and tipped his hat at his boss, broke out into a huge grin and beat a hasty retreat, having immediately and correctly assessed the situation and realized he didn’t necessarily want to be a part of it. Or rather, realizing quite correctly that Miss Skye wouldn’t want him to be a witness. She’d colored quite beautifully when their eyes met, and he knew from his own experiences that she would be mortified just by their brief contact. Rourke took her past all the horses, all of whom nickered at him for attention – or, more accurately, for a treat - back into the tack room, where the equipment for the horses was stored, included all of the big Western saddles which were situated over several sturdy sawhorses. The smallest saddle was the one he’d been using to teach her to ride, and that, of course, was the one over which he chose to carefully place her when he finally decided to put her down. She was wearing one of those pretty little dresses he loved, with no panties, because he was home with her. It was an older one; well-worn enough that it was practically see through, cool and light for the summer. He flipped the lacy hem of it up over her back, taking a long moment to run a big hand possessively along her side and back. Skye had already gotten to the point where any touch from him had every little bit of her screaming with unfulfilled desire. She almost wished he would just go ahead and do whatever it was that he was going to do to her – even though she knew she really didn’t want that – just so she could finally get to the point where she could – with his permission, of course – release all of this pent up pleasure he’d been torturing her with. She felt like she was going to explode at any minute with it any time he so much as came into a room, much less laid his hand on her; she’d been so tortured by it.

His touch just then gave her a full body shudder, almost akin to an orgasm, but nowhere near as complete. “Do I need to bind you?” Skye wanted to ask him exactly how bad the punishment was going to be before she answered, but she knew he’d think that that was being impertinent. She also knew that he liked it when she took a punishment without having to be bound, although he’d also made it very plain to her that he completely understood if she needed assistance in being still, and he’d vowed that he would never think an iota less of her for wanting to be restrained. But, with or without the help of soft leather bonds, she was expected to stay in the position he’d placed her in, and, although a certain amount of avoidance was understandable, he wouldn’t tolerate a lot of kicking, or too much in the way of interference with what he considered to be her rightful discipline. “Well?” he asked, and she was grateful that she couldn’t detect any impatience in his tone. “Yes, please.” There was no sigh of exasperation, either, for which she was truly grateful, but she ended up bawling anyway for some reason, and, of course, he noticed it immediately. She couldn’t seem to get away with anything with this man. He picked up on absolutely everything about her, all the time. He didn’t even finish with her legs, but took her off the horse immediately and leaned against another saddle while holding her tightly in his arms. “What is it? Did I hurt you?” All Skye could do was shake her head and cry like a ninny, burying her face against his neck and hanging onto him for dear life. “What is it, then? Are you okay? Feeling sick?” More head shaking. Rourke was at a loss for what was wrong, but she was crying as if she’d just lost her best friend, and he wasn’t about to spank her when she was like this. So, when the sobs began to subside, recognizing that she didn’t seem to be in a mood to talk yet, he set her on her feet and took her out to where the horses were, and every horse in the barn again stuck his or her head out to be patted, hoping for one of the peppermints he usually kept in his pocket as a treat. Even Sirius, his stallion, was standing as close to the barn as he could get from the paddock outside, whinnying and trying to get his attention. They walked up and down the lineup of stalls, doling out treats to old Samson, who was pushing thirty but was still in pretty good shape, to Nabisco, who had just had a pretty little foal, and Starshine, a beautiful, forgiving, bombproof bay who had been helping him teach Skye how to ride, as well as everyone else, even the demanding, not so good tempered Siruis. When they were through with the menagerie, he stopped her, seeing that her tears had dried completely almost as soon as he’d diverted her attention to the horses, and said, “So what was that about back there?” She looked down, and he could sense her embarrassment, but he wasn’t going to have any of it. “Skye,” he said, his tone full of warning. “I –“ she was biting her lower lip fit to break the skin. “I just worry that you’ll think I’m a wimp when I ask for restraints, even though you told me you wouldn’t,” she blurted out, knowing if she didn’t she would never tell him, and he would never give up until she did. Now there was his exasperated sigh. He leaned back against the stall, until Starshine decided to try to reach out with her wonderfully dexterous lips and try to nibble his hair, which had Skye giggling and Rourke ducking quickly away.

“If I had lips like that, we’d never leave the bedroom!” Skye quipped. Rourke reached out and grabbed her by the hips, his expression serious as he tipped her face so that their eyes met. “I told you that I’d leave it up to you, sometimes, whether or not you’re bound. If I ask you, then I want to know, and it’s purely your decision. I won’t think any less of you regardless of what you decide, Skye. Really.” “But –“ A big finger was placed over her lips and she quieted immediately. “No buts. You’re not always going to be given the choice. In some cases, you’ll be in chains whether you want to be or not.” There was no way he could miss her shiver at his mention of being in chains, and he tucked that idea away along with the others his steel trap mind had filed about her likes and interests – especially those of a sexual nature. “Other times, I’ll expect you to take what I give you without moving a muscle, which I think will be very hard for you, considering how much you tend to wiggle in protest.” Then he kissed her deeply, taking his time, luxuriating in the fact that this woman was his, and, frankly, unable to believe his luck. “I think there’s something that we’ve still got to address in the other room. . .” Skye found herself being led inexorably back to the tack room, where she least wanted to be, and although she hung back as far as she could from him, she didn’t resort to all out dragging her feet, as she really wanted to, knowing that that would only get her into more trouble. When she was again draped over the saddle she used when she was riding Starshine, her ankles tightly attached to the back legs of the sawhorse, wrists to the front – which was something she wasn’t prepared for, since he’d only been dealing with her ankles before – she was still able to raise her head and watch him cross to a cupboard in the corner of the room and draw out an implement that reminded her of a ruler, only it was a smidge longer, perhaps eighteen inches rather than twelve. And, before he was finished with her, Skye was certain that she’d felt every one of those eighteen inches against her poor cringing bottom! He’d pulled her dress well up over her back this time, so much so that her breasts beneath were exposed; her tender, sensitized nipples pressed against the rough leather, and all of her backside, from her shoulder blades to her heels, was stripped bare. Although she knew that he would never discipline her anywhere but her bottom and the backs of her thighs on her backside, and she also knew that he liked her to be as naked as possible. Skye was frankly surprised that he’d allowed her to keep her dress at all. Rourke walked around her, not touching her with the implement, but rather with just the barest tips of his fingers, knowing how it affected her because he could see the gooseflesh it raised. “I like you partially dressed, you know that? I like you in your pretty dresses walking around the house, knowing that you have no undies on, that I can lift up your skirt and take you any time I like, or spank you any time... or . . . “ He didn’t finish his thought, and normally Skye would have picked right up on that, but she was too distracted by his hand, and the way it was playing around the folds of her bottom. She was being held wide open for him, forcibly. She couldn’t close her legs even though she desperately wanted to – not exactly to deny him access on a whim, but to deny him access to her body only because she knew it wasn’t going to get her anywhere! She knew she was dripping wet without him having done anything. She lived in that state nowadays, and it wasn’t fair. Not at all. He took his pleasure of her whenever he wanted, as he’d said, but he very carefully left her hanging, every time, and she knew this time wasn’t going to be any different.

“My, my,” he whispered as his finger delved between those perpetually moist folds. “Someone is all hot and bothered already, aren’t you?” Sexual frustration had a very snarky comment right on the tip of her tongue, but she knew better than to say it. Rourke didn’t take well to snark – she’d learned that lesson the hard way. So her only answer was one she couldn’t control - a long, low moan as two of his drenched fingers found her fully engorged clit and rubbed, twice, excruciatingly slowly over every molecule of it. And then he withdrew his attentions as quickly as if they had never been there, leaving her dangling – again, still, yet – and raised the wicked implement he’d chosen. It was much more flexible than a ruler or a yardstick, thinner than either of those but just about as wide, hard yet flexible, and quite wicked when laid across an unsuspecting bottom. As Skye soon found out. She screamed from the very first stroke to the very last, knowing that Griff was close enough that he could probably hear every sound she was emitting – from the low groans when Rourke left off her punishment occasionally and found the source of her pleasure to turn her attention away from the pain he was conjuring in her bottom to each of the cries of pure anguish when that awful thing descended on an innocent butt cheek, or worse even, across the back of a thigh, which elicited such a high pitched screech that he started given two of those strokes to one latticed over her bottom. But regardless, he could always bring her right back to the edge of her orgasm within just a few seconds of his fingers having found her still embarrassingly engorged button, or that dripping slit, which he filled with one, then two thick, stiff fingers. Her moans of pure delight were at least as loud as those of her complete despair, most of which came, surprisingly, when he was lecturing her. She detested being lectured, almost more so than being spanked. The discipline hurt, but the lectures made her feel naughty, which made her feel embarrassed, which was almost worse than the stinging strokes he delivered across her bottom. “I believe we’ve discussed money before, Skye Rose, haven’t we? An incident about paying for your own groceries?” “But –“ Groceries weren’t monthly household bills – the two didn’t equate in her mind. Five stripes, three of which criss crossed her thighs, raising interlocking welts. “How did that end for you? Weren’t you in much the same position as you are now?” “Yes, Sir.” He’d been called “Sir” before, most of his adult life, in fact. Yet it had never felt quite as satisfying as it did coming from her. It had never meant as much, coming from Skye. She wasn’t compelled by the UCMJ. She wasn’t even compelled by him. He had set no such rule deliberately, preferring that it come from her mouth naturally, rather than on a compulsory basis. She was simply committed him; submissive to him by her own desire, word and deed, and the title had recently begun falling from her mouth occasionally, and he felt honored every time it did. Rourke had a sudden thought and changed his line of questioning. “Whose house is it that you live in now?” She had a feeling that the most obvious answer wasn’t going to be right, but what other answer could there be? “Yours.” Ten tremendous strokes fell up and down her backside. “Wrong. Try again.”

Skye couldn’t even think what the right answer would be. It was his house, after all. “I don’t know.” Another ten, from the other side, that deliberately crossed the first ten and had her literally howling from the burning sting as he laid each one down across her already well roasted flesh. Rourke decided to give her some assistance, realizing he was asking her to read his mind. “Who lives there, Skye?” “You do,” she sobbed. “And who else?” “I do.” “So whose house is it?” She could hear the implement whiz through the air just before it cracked against her rear, and she heard that sound three more times before she came up with the answer he wanted. “Ours?” “Yes! I told you when I loved you that everything I had was yours. There’s not a lot of me left, Skye, really,” he said cryptically, “but everything that I have and everything that I am is yours, and I’m not going to argue with you about it anymore. I’m going to call my lawyer on Monday, and have you added to all of my accounts, and have your name put on the house –“ “But –” She wanted to point out to him that he might not have been making the best decision. How could he know that she was that trustworthy when they hadn’t known each other that long? But she wasn’t in the best position to do that, and Rourke didn’t hesitate to remind her. Only she wasn’t at all prepared for the method he chose to do so. “No buts, missy.” He put the implement down, but left her bound, inspecting her backside carefully. There were raised welts, and her bottom was a deep, angry red, but he also knew that she healed very quickly and he wanted to make sure that she remembered what they had spoken about. “This is the second – and I’m determined that this will be the last – discussion we will have about money and who owns what. As far as I’m concerned, we both own everything here. Of course, since you are submissive to me, I intend that you will ask permission before buying things of any size, and I’ll work more details of that out and let you know shortly. But this is your house – your home, and I want you to embrace that fact. Starfire out there is your horse.” He had returned to that hidden cupboard, only this time when he put the implement back that he had used on her ravaged backside, but he took something else out that she couldn’t see. Then he came around to stand behind her again, and she felt him parting her bottom cheeks, which hurt in and of itself because pretty much every inch of her rear had been subjected to that awful long ruler thing. Something cool and slick was dabbed on her bottom flower, which made her automatically clench and squeal loudly. “What are you doing back there?” She wished that she could clench her cheeks closed, but there was absolutely no possibility of that. He didn’t answer her, which only made her that much more nervous about what it was that he intended to do. At first, he didn’t do anything, and she didn’t hear anything until she heard the loud snap of what she knew, somehow, without having to see it, was a rubber glove clamping around a thick wrist.

Although Skye’d already tried the bonds with which he’d tied her during her punishment, she tried them again now, hoping they’d been magically loosened somehow, knowing she really didn’t want to find out what it was that he had in mind for her. But she was going nowhere. Rourke reached lubricated, ungloved fingers between her legs, past where he’d already left a generous dollop, right to that spot he could find if he was blind and half dead, the one that her body would welcome if she was ten months dead, that greeted him with a full body clench, just as he pressed something up against that very tight opening with his other hand, making her clench again, but for a completely different reason. “Open for me, Skye.”

Chapter Eight She didn’t think she could relax enough to obey his command, especially considering how big that thing – whatever it was – felt against her. Of course, anything would feel enormous at this point – and he was pressing it inside her! Skye was sure she would never, ever be able to accommodate it, even though it seemed to be somewhat tapered. When the tip entered her, she was surprised at the contrast in feelings; she felt invaded, in a place where she didn’t necessarily want to be invaded – not that she was being given a choice. But there was definitely an element of pleasure, as much as she didn’t want there to be. Not in the same way as his fingers felt as they occasionally stroked over her clit, but it was still surprisingly – and embarrassingly – pleasant. But she didn’t want to like it! Rourke began to gently move the plug in and out of her. He hadn’t seated it completely within her – or even really close to that – yet, but kept pressing it further and further in, forcing her little bottom hole wider and wider, and thoroughly enjoying her mewling cries of distress, although he could also hear the occasional, but distinct moans of the beginnings of bliss, although he knew she would be hard pressed to admit it at this point. When he decided that he wanted to set the plug full into her rear, he began to stroke that very prominent little nubbin a bit more – although not too much, because he was very aware of just how close to the edge he was keeping her, and he didn’t want to put her over it. But he also knew that what he was going to be doing to her rear was going to detract from how his fingers were going to be strumming her, so it was going to be a very delicate balance to maintain. When Skye felt those fingertips begin to dance with more purpose, she nearly lost herself in them, but then she felt more pressure from behind that both alarmed and distracted her, keeping her from falling headlong into the orgasm she longed for. As he gently but inexorably pressed the small – but big for her – plug against her bottom flower, forcing it to widen more than it ever had in her life, she began to feel a little more pain than pleasure, especially when it reached the apex, just prior to the neck, where it would be seated more comfortably and be stopped from getting lost entirely by the flange. But Rourke didn’t stop, didn’t dally or play with her about putting it all the way in this time. He felt it was best to get it out of the way, to let her have the experience, nonstop, of taking the plug completely, feeling it open her to its fullest point, then allow her to relax around the smaller neck, relieving the discomfort of being opened so much at the very end, so he seated it within her relatively quickly, not paying attention to her cries of distress and lodging it within her completely until he knew it was where it should be, and that she couldn’t disabuse herself of it without his assistance. She’d yelped loudly at the end, in pain, partly, he knew, but also partly from the indignation of having had this done to her. And he knew that the pain had eased as soon as he’d pushed it all the way in, so he wasn’t worried about having caused any kind of damage. He’d surprised her, and she hadn’t really liked it, or perhaps more accurately, hadn’t wanted to like it. She was at such a sexual peak right now, he could probably do pretty much anything to her and she would like it. There would be a bit more to come, but for now, he would allow a bit of time

to get used to it, and set himself to the task of soothing her a bit, helping her put her troubles behind her, so to speak. Skye couldn’t quite wrap her head – or any other part of her – around what had happened. She desperately wanted to eject the invader from her body, but, bound as she was, she had absolutely no hopes of doing so. Tears came to her eyes at her own helplessness and trailed down her cheeks, and even his fingers rubbing soothingly over her clit offered no solace... at first. Then, suddenly, as if a light bulb went on, the sensations of her bottom being filled and stretched – not awkwardly or unpleasantly so, but constantly and continually – as well as those rough fingertips giving that ever swollen bud no relief at all, as he hadn’t stopped at her tears, but rather redoubled his efforts on her behalf, had her panting and arching and lewdly rubbing herself against him. Which, of course, made him almost immediately withdraw his hand to bring it right to where she really didn’t want it – the flange of that plug, to slowly, very excruciatingly slowly, withdraw it, so that she felt every iota of it being removed at least as much as she’d felt it being put in place – perhaps even more so, because she was now even more exquisitely sensitized to it, having been stretched so much on first flush. Now Rourke couldn’t tell the difference between her moans and her groans, as to whether they were being caused by pain or pleasure. In truth, it didn’t matter to him, and he doubted seriously whether it mattered to her, either. What was happening to her at this point was a wondrous conglomeration of both sensations, and he suspected that she only wished that neither would stop. He tugged the plug out, although not all the way, then thrust it back in, definitely less gently than he’d removed it, proceeding to do that several more times before he seated it within her for the last time, fearing that if he continued, she’d lose control entirely, and that would have been entirely unacceptable. So he plugged her completely, tapping his finger on the end of the flange to make sure it was well secured, turning it so that its tail end was placed vertically between those still dusky red cheeks, and then he reached down and began to release the leather thongs than had kept her in place. Rourke helped her stand, reminding her that the plug was to remain in place. “I don’t have much choice about that, do I?” she mewled. “No, you don’t, missy,” he answered unapologetically, before grabbing her into his arms and kissing her silly while his hands roamed down to boldly pat the end of the plug, making her squeal and try to doge his hand. “You’re going to wear this for the rest of the afternoon as a reminder that you’re not to argue with me about something as petty as money, especially since you own everything you see.” He held her in place by the end of the plug that poked out from her bottom. “And this is just the very beginning of this type of thing, I promise you.” *** And he’d been as good as his word. The next business day, he’d gotten hold of his lawyer and set into motion the paperwork necessary to have her name put on everything he owned, from the lowliest stock to all of his credit cards and bank accounts. He’d also been as good as his promise about how he had only just begun to introduce her to anal pleasures. He added that to the repertoire with which he tortured her while he made her

wait for the punishment for which she’d finally ended up in the position where she found herself that night, waiting for that first stroke, awash in the scent of the leather he was wearing and the leather of the implement he’d chosen – a vicious looking quirt. He’d told her he was ready to punish her for disobeying him the night they’d caught Mark, and that it wasn’t going to be pleasant, not that she hadn’t already realized that. She was surprised that he’d chosen to do it at this time, of all times. They’d found out that a man that he’d put away a long time ago had escaped from prison, and had vowed to exact his revenge on Rourke. The phone call she’d heard the tail end of before he’d taken her to task in the tack room was about Joseph Carey. Kevin had called Rourke to let him know to redouble the security measures he already always had in place, which were considerable. But then again, since her transgression had to do with disobeying him during a similar situation, perhaps it made sense. Rourke had made her wait all day. It had been a day like any other for him, but she had spent it dreading the evening, when she knew he was going to punish her, but good. They’d done the grocery shopping together, as they usually did, which she enjoyed enormously. Going out with him was entirely different from going out with Mark had been. His eyes didn’t rove like Mark’s did, and he didn’t make lewd comments about other women to her. Skye loved that she could almost feel his possessive gaze on her as he followed her around the store, and she knew from watching him that his eyes never wandered to anyone else, ever. She’d cooked them a roast and they’d had their usual evening swim, and then he’d sent her to their bedroom, where she was to wait at the end of their big bed for him to come in. When he finally did, Sky looked up at him as if she thought he was going to wrap his hands around her neck and wring the life out of her. That wasn’t exactly what he wanted to see, so he sat down and held her on his lap, rocking and hugging her. “I know this time hasn’t been easy for you, Skye. I haven’t wanted it to be easy for you, frankly, because seeing you in that psycho’s arms wasn’t easy for me.” She could hear the raw fear in his voice, and the arms around her were shaking, just as they had when he’d held her right after he’d taken Mark down. “I’m sorry.” “I know you are, and I can assure you that you will be even more so before the night is out.” A shiver went down her spine at his words. Rourke lead her into the bathroom where he deposited her in the tub, but there were none of the usual bubbles he’d drawn for her. Instead, he washed her very carefully, every inch of her, as always, then helped her out of the tub and dried her, although not as thoroughly as usual. “Damp skin stings more,” he said, answering the question in her eyes as he brushed her hair back into a ponytail. Skye pouted back at him, but he ignored it, guiding her back into their bedroom and all the way through it, touching a panel next to their bed to reveal a room she’d never seen before. It wasn’t very big, about the size of a good sized walk in closet, but it was lined in mirrors. She could see every conceivable angle of each of them. There were padded pink leather cuffs hanging from the ceilings by gold chains that he slipped over her wrists and pulled tight, almost forcing her onto her tiptoes, but not quite, as well as a set of complimentary cuffs attached to a wall on either side, which soon held her ankles in place that kept her legs well spread. Her wrists were held just the slightest bit forward from

where her ankles were, so that her back was bent just a bit, just enough to force her bottom into prominence to receive the strict attentions he was going to deliver. She could see Rourke’s reflection wherever she looked, which she hated, because she could also see herself in all her glory which she could most definitely have done without. She could have look at him all day, but detested seeing herself, especially naked. He seemed to have a thing about hidden cupboards, because there was another one in here as there was in the tack room, and he was taking several things out, none of which looked like they were going to be good for her. There was a small table built into the corner that was also made of mirrored material, so much so that she’d missed it when he’d brought her in because it blended in so well with the rest of the room, and he put the things he’d taken out of the cupboard onto it. The first thing he did, though, was come to her and touch her, all over. He was tall enough that he could reach her fingertips, and he ran his hands down from there over every single bit of her, as if he was claiming her, proclaiming his right to punish her through his touch. Rourke left not a millimeter of her flesh free from his fingertips, not even the most intimate, standing behind her and tugging her legs even further back, as far back as they would go, bringing her bottom into even further prominence so that he could reach between her legs as he stood over her, claiming the entire of her privates with one huge palm and squeezing possessively. “This is mine,” he growled, catching her eyes in the mirror. Skye was already breathing so hard that she couldn’t formulate more than a one word answer. “Yes, Sir.” “It’s mine to pleasure. Or punish.” His last word gave her cause to pause for a second, but she knew he still expected a response. “Y-yes, Sir.” “And tonight it’s going to be punished.” She couldn’t help it. She contracted, even though she’d never considered that her privates might be disciplined. And to her deepest shame, just the thought of it now made her worry that there was a puddle on the floor between her legs. “So tell me why it is that you find yourself in this predicament, missy?” Oh, no, he wasn’t going to make her have to confess her crime, was he? “I – I left the house when you told me not to,” she blurted out, hoping that was what he meant. “Exactly. I hope by the time I’m through here that you’ll think twice the next time you consider disobeying me.” With that, he leaned down and bestowed one of the gentlest, most tender kisses she’d ever received in her life as a precursor to one of the worst, most painful spankings she would ever receive. Rourke stood to one side, putting his left hand over her mons, his middle finger naturally settling, but not moving, on her clit, as, with his other hand he found her bottom flower with the tip of what felt like something huge. “This is a step up from what I’ve been using on you these past few weeks, Skye, and I intend that you’re going to wear it while you’re punished. It’s nowhere near enough for you to just be whipped tonight, which you most definitely will be. I want you to be held open while I’m doing so. So this is a medium sized plug.” He held it up for her to see. It was kind of bullet shaped, pink, and definitely much bigger than the baby sized one she’d become accustomed to. Apparently too accustomed to. “I’m being very nice, to you, nicer than I should be, considering that this is supposed to be a severe punishment, because I put lube on the tip of it, and even a little at the widest point,”

he whispered roughly at her ear as he teased her with the it, poking it at her, making her try to dance away from it although she was entirely unable to do so. “You should probably thank me for that very quickly, or I could wipe it off and make you take it dry.” “Th-thank you, Sir!” Skye swallowed hard. She didn’t think she could take it at all, much less dry! His middle finger began to stroke her clit as, at the same time, the plug began its advance and she couldn’t suppress a groan – not really knowing which situation prompted it, or perhaps not wanting to examine which too closely for fear of the answer. Rourke, however, had no such compunction. He’d gotten very good at reading the tones of her yelps and squeals and he was very pleasantly surprised that all he heard was pleasure, despite the fact that he knew that she was being very widely stretched, so he backed off on the way he was playing with her clit and let the sensations in her bottom blossom with the way it was being pressured to bloom. He was surprised to realize, though, that even then, her moans had definitely diminished and became more anguished as he began to advance the implement he had in his hand, there was still a distinct note of pleasure that he hadn’t expected. It seemed his girl was more anally involved than he had previously thought. Despite the fact that he did intend for this to be a punishment, he wasn’t about to risk any kind of permanent injury, so he introduced the much wider plug very slowly, although not nearly as slowly as he would have if they were merely lying in bed together on any given evening. She was, after all, being disciplined. He advanced it nearly halfway in the first time, listening to her beginning to keen a bit, begging him to stop as if he was tearing her apart as he’d known she would early on, as was her habit, hoping he would ease up on her. Occasionally that ploy had worked, especially early on when they were together. Nowadays, it didn’t. He adjusted her legs further apart, earning another long groan that lengthened almost into a growl as three of his fingers tickled her clit, then moved south to plunge less than gently inside her, just as he pressed the plug further into her, this time just shy of its largest point. Skye tried to lean forward, away from that horrible invader to easy up on the pressure Rourke was causing, but she couldn’t. He’d set the bonds just tight enough that, with all of his careful adjustments, she had nowhere to go. She had to stand there while he violated her with both his big hand and that awful pink thing, pressing it almost all the way in, then out again, several times, at first slowly, torturing her with it very deliberately, she knew, then pistoning it in and out of her until – to her complete mortification - she lost herself in the feelings it conjured within her – the humiliating pleasure of having absolutely no control over being stretched so widely - and began to press back against it rather than trying to get away from it. It was then that he decided simply to hold it steady, and she ended up seating it within herself without very little help from him, except that when it began to get a bit uncomfortable, she tried to retreat, and he emitted but one word. “Stop.” Rourke was gratified to see that she did exactly as he’d commanded, although she was whimpering as she did so, and he knew that she was being most uncomfortably stretched, but there was more of that to come, at least until she found the unfamiliar plug completely inside her. “Move back and take it all in, Skye Rose,” he commanded, and she knew from his tone that there would be no wheedling him out of it.

Skye was mortified at the suggestion, and she could see her own face turn that awful, mottled shade of red all around her. She couldn’t get away from that sight, or from what was happening to her bottom. And she’d just been ordered to force that last portion – the biggest portion – of the plug inside her, which was the very last thing she wanted to do... wasn’t it? And she knew he didn’t like to wait for her to obey him. Skye pressed her hips back, knowing he was going to keep the plug still, knowing that he expected her to, essentially, cause her own bottom to be invaded by that huge pink thing. There were so many mirrors around - she could see it as it was happening to her! “Watch it, Skye. No closing your eyes. That’s a part of your punishment.” Skye keened loudly, the sound echoing around the room. How had he known that she had just decided she was going to close her eyes at the atrocious sight? And now even that small relief was being denied. She was moving very slowly, but she was moving, so Rourke didn’t feel he could correct her quite yet, but he did whisper a bit of advice. “If you do it quickly, like ripping off a band aid, it’ll hurt less.” Her skeptical moan had him removing the plug once, almost all the way out quickly, then reseating just the slightest bit further than it had been before, it so that her last, tiny, backwards movement pressed it all the way home on the heels of her loud yelp. Rourke had to almost smile at the way her feet danced in place as the chains tinkled melodically, almost as if she was doing a little girl’s potty dance, trying to rid herself of the unwanted lodger. He couldn’t resist swatting a beautiful, full cheek, reprimanding her to stand still or he’d pull it all the way out and they’d go through the process again. That had her standing stock still immediately, although he could see that she was still moving her feet in place, and he could hear the way she was hissing air in through clenched teeth. He knew it must feel uncomfortable for the moment, but that feeling would die down shortly. When she became more accustomed to the much smaller neck, she’d hardly know it was there - unless he reminded her, which, of course, he fully intended to do. Rourke thought he’d have to remember that in the future; requiring her to participate in her own punishment like that was therapeutic, he thought, and also reaffirmed her complete submission to him. From his position behind her, he continued to smack her bottom, thoroughly enjoying the feeling of his own flesh connecting with hers. Despite his stockpile of various implements, and even this room or the barn and its tack room, he really preferred the old fashioned approach to discipline, with her - preferably lying over his lap – with, surprisingly, some form of clothing on, but pulled well up and out of the way so that even her breasts were exposed, spanking her with his hand. It was more intimate. He liked the feeling of his hands on her, of her over his lap – which inevitably had him hard as a rock even before he began spanking her – his arm across the small of her back, and even his leg over hers, if she was rambunctious while being disciplined, which she often was, because even when it was a quick thing, he never made it easy on her. But he felt this situation definitely called for a less traditional, less touchy feely disciplinary session. His heart had shriveled in his chest when he’d seen that man’s hands on her, and it had taken him a very long time to get to the point where he felt he could punish her and not break down in front of her. It hadn’t ever been that he was worried he’d hurt her during the punishment as the reason that he’d delayed it so long; but rather that he preferred not to blubber all over her during it.

Chapter Nine Meanwhile, Skye was discovering quickly just how much she detested having something inside her while she was being spanked. Every time his hand connected with her rear, it sent shock waves through her flesh that jolted the plug within her, making her clench automatically around it, forcing her to acknowledge how fully she was filled and just how widely she was stretched. Even though it was just the neck of it, she could still feel the rest of the plug within her passage, and how she was still being held open. She could feel every movement, every swat in both parts of her bottom, and it was almost like being spanked twice. The first time the edge of his palm hit the end of the plug, she squealed mid-groan, especially when he then grabbed the flange and twisted it several times, then gave it a hard tug, as if teasing her that he was going to remove it. “Stop! No! Ah!” “It’s going to come out some time, you know.” “I don’t want to think about that.” “That’s good, because it’s not going to be for a while,” he warned, spanking her again. Rourke loved the way her backside colored as he spanked it, turning from its original creamy lusciousness to a pretty pink, and then, as he kept spanking, a deep, dusky rose while her cries changed from the early, almost whiney – not that she dared – attempts to sucker him into going lighter on her to absolute, out and out wailing as he continued to smack up and down her thighs and butt cheeks, until his palm began to burn and he could see that she was actively crying, and not just crocodile tears, either. It wasn’t easy for him to make her cry. He recognized the necessity of, but it also wasn’t something he ever did lightly. Especially since he knew he wasn’t anywhere near finished. But when he reached for the wooden paddle – a smaller one than he had used on her previously, but somewhat thicker and sturdier, with holes drilled in it to cut down on the wind resistance – he heard the phone ringing in the bedroom, and he knew he had to answer it, considering what was going on with Joseph Carey. Skye was outraged, frankly, when he left her literally hanging there, saying with a wry grin, “Stay right there. Don’t move a muscle.” She wanted to squeal and scream at him, but she also didn’t want to get into any more trouble than she was already in, so she kept quiet. He did leave the door open, and she could hear him talking, if not the exact words he was saying. He sounded worried and tense, although none of that showed when he returned to her to pick up the paddle he’d left on the table by the door, and Skye found herself feeling much the same way, forgetting about being left bound and worrying that the situation with Carey had deteriorated. “Is there a problem? Do you need to go?” Rourke had to smile at her transparent helpfulness. “No, I don’t, thank you very much.” “Are you sure?” He realized from her tone that it was much more to her than just trying to get out of a punishment, and that she was truly worried about his enemy getting to him. Rourke put his big hand on her back, in the middle, and squatted down to look her in the eye. “I told you that I

won’t keep you in the dark about this. Kevin was just keeping me apprised of what’s going on. They know where he is, and he’s nowhere near here, so you can relax.” He stood, rubbing the paddle against her already reddened bottom. “At least about that.” The paddling began with absolutely no further preamble, and had Skye desperately wishing Kevin had called to say that they needed to leave the house immediately, but she didn’t have that kind of luck. The wicked wooden instrument, in his expert hands, had her dancing madly, so much so that Rourke looped his arm around her waist to keep her quieter. She was bound at all four points, but she still managed to wiggle around so much that he needed to still her further, but that steel band arm of his did it, and also brought him into an even better position to wield that implement, which fit her rump just perfectly, covering all of each cheek in one smack, just far enough down to hit that ultra-sensitive natural crease where she sat down, so she’d remember this every day for a long stretch of unhappy days. So he treated each half individually, but not without occasional overlap, which also managed to mightily tap that stopper in her bum, making her surge forward each time, unsuccessfully renewing her attempts at escape, trying to flail her arms as best she could, legs tugging against the cuffs, but bound to endure that which he decided to mete out to her. When her bottom was a deep red, her moans hoarse and piteous, he stopped, replacing that implement with the last one he would use on her: his quirt. It was a shortish leather whip with two thin ends that stung like nobody’s business – he knew from experience in accidentally whacking himself with it on occasion while he was working with the cattle. He couldn’t imagine what it was going to feel like on her already ravaged bottom, but then he wanted her to remember the lesson that her own safety came first with him – more so than anything else, including and especially his own. He could take care of himself. She was a babe in the woods, and she needed to follow his directions in situations like they’d recently found themselves, or she could very easily find herself dead. And it looked like they might well find themselves in another such situation, if Carey wasn’t found shortly, so he wasn’t in any kind of a mood to go easy on her. He made a mental note that he needed to conduct some sort of basic gun training with her, to get her comfortable enough with one that she could use it if she needed to. With sobering thoughts like that running through his head, Rourke came round to stand in front of Skye, tipping her head up to kiss her very, very gently on the lips. “I adore you, you know.” He couldn’t help it. His eyes filled with tears, and his throat nearly closed with emotion. “I couldn’t take it if a hair on your head was hurt because of me - because I hadn’t taught you well enough to obey me without hesitation. That when I tell you to stay in the blasted house, that you do exactly as I say, because you know that if you don’t, you’ll end up right back here, and next time I won’t be so gentle with you.” And with that, he began to bring that vicious quirt down on her backside, always striping across diagonally from top to bottom, able to reach from the very beginning swell of her bottom cheek to nearly mid-thigh with a good stroke, laying a shorter one down next to it and one above, then switching sides to lay tracks over those, and continuing to swap back and forth until her bottom began to resemble some sort of bizarre tic tac toe board of unhappy, raised red welts. Skye was beyond herself. She’d never hurt so much in her life. Her backside was on fire, and she couldn’t avoid seeing the entirety of it happening to herself, all around her. Not only did she feel the burning sting of each descent of that terrible leather, but she had to watch it descend and then hear the crack of it against her own flesh. She saw it every time he raised his

arm, every time the whip bit into her flesh, saw him create the awful pattern on her bottom and the backs of her thighs, even through her own tears. She cried and moaned and screamed until she was long since hoarse, but she could see by the set of his face that he wasn’t going to stop until he thought she’d learned her lesson. And when he did stop, and she’d thought it was all over, she found she was wrong. He’d made her spread her legs, which had crept a bit closed in self-protection against the tails of that quirt, and he’d given her ten last vicious strokes, under handed, while her held her lips wide open and the very tips of those two prongs snapped dead on her clit, several times in the exact same spot, nearly causing her to faint with the excruciating pain. While she was still trying to cope with those last unexpected insults to her privates, head down, mouth wide open to tug in all the air she could, he pulled the plug out of her bottom with no preamble, quickly, like he’d said she should have taken it – like ripping off a band aid, and Skye screamed but no sound came out because she was still in the midst of trying to scream from the abuse her poor clit had just taken. Before he released her, Rourke waited until she’d come down from the pain enough to focus on him. He wanted her in the right head to acknowledge what he was going to show her. “Look at me, Skye.” Her head snapped up obediently and their eyes collided in the mirror. He stepped behind her, opening her lips as she whimpered, then reached out to press two big fingers inside her. They slid in effortlessly. He came around to squat in front of her, raising those two cream covered fingers. “I just want you to see how wet you are, even after being punished this hard.” He dipped his fingers into his mouth, cleaning them of her dew, his eyes closing at her intimate flavor. “You are an amazing woman, my love.” Finally, she was freed and fell into his arms, carried with excruciating gentleness to the bed, laid on her side so as not to touch anything to her delicate backside, and Rourke appeared in front of her, a cool, soft cloth in his hand, which he drew over her face, placing on her eyes and down her neck, over her breasts and down over her tummy. “Would you put that on my rear, please?” Skye asked, after he’d put a cup of cool water to her parched lips. “No, sweetie. They’ll be no comfort there, I’m afraid. I won’t alleviate what I just did. I want you to remember it for as long as you can.” He tucked her against his side, carefully keeping his arm well above her waist. She was too tired to argue with him, for now, and fell immediately asleep, safe within his strong arms. Rourke was up long after she’d drifted off, adjusting the pillows around her whenever she stirred even the slightest, pressing tender kisses to her forehead, and offering a strong hand when she needed to go to the bathroom – despite her protests of modesty, which he brushed off, helping her onto the pot and leaning against the door jamb while she tinkled, her face nearly as bright red as her bottom. He helped her up, and she accepted his assistance, all the while protesting that she didn’t really need it. Rourke kissed the top of her head with a loud smack. “I’d pick you up and carry you, but I don’t want to do anything that might cause you any more discomfort.” He was startled then, when she turned and looped her arms around his neck, just hugging him as tightly as she could, midway between the bathroom and their bed. “I’m sorry I disobeyed you.”

Tears stung Rourke’s eyes as he grabbed her up in a warm, loving bear hug. He didn’t trust himself to say anything beyond, “You’re forgiven.” He knew that she already knew that spankings were the end of things, in his book. He would never hold a grudge. He had no need to. He brought her back to bed, settling her back in comfortably before taking his own place, only to have her crawl on top of him, where she often liked to sleep, despite the fact that she often compared him to a brick wall. He was amazed when, just a few minutes later, he found her small hand enclosing itself around his ever present hard on, and couldn’t suppress a deep throated groan at the feel of her fingers on him. He’d never had a problem with premature ejaculation before, but being with her was as close as he’d ever like to get. Just thinking about her touching him had him ready to burst. When she actually did it, he was almost always in danger of losing complete control. Skye carefully spread her legs over his hips, then guided him inside her, sighing blissfully as he filled her completely, not even minding the discomfort her position caused. Heaven was having him as a part of her, and she’d put up with anything to achieve that. Neither of them really did anything very active about their joining. Rourke rocked his hips a bit, as did Skye atop him, but their mouths and hands were much busier exploring each other, deep kissing until they were both breathless and mindless from it. His fingers found those perpetually peaked nipples and treated them with infinite gentleness, only very occasionally pinching them until she cried out, then going back to teasing, making her itch for harsher treatment that he deliberately withheld. Skye rubbed her face against his broad chest, delighting in the light feathering of hair there, plucking and using the edge of her teeth on his nipples, succeeding in making him gasp with pleasure, which she prized above most things in life. Eventually, his rocking took on a more purposeful motion, and his wet tipped finger slipped between them to find the ultimate source of her pleasure, knowing he was breaking one of his own rules about not pleasuring her after a punishment, but not much caring. He wanted all of her tonight, and he intended to have it. She’d surrendered herself to him in punishment, and now he wanted the same surrender in ecstasy, but he would control that, too, knowing how much she liked being controlled by him, and how hard it would be for her to do so when he’d been teasing her for so long. When his finger first touched her already engorged clit, it simply settled there, not moving. Skye was doing enough moving herself, because she hadn’t expected this, and she was already so sensitive. But Rourke reached out and stilled her. “Quiet, love. You may come, but only when I say so. I suggest you start reciting multiplication tables now,” he grinned. Skye didn’t know whether to rejoice or cry. She was finally going to be given a release, but how was she possibly going to manage to control it, when he’d been teasing her nonstop for so long? And Heaven forbid she should disobey him. She knew he wouldn’t hesitate to spank her for doing so, and she couldn’t imagine what that would feel like on her already roasted bottom! He had become a master at torturing her, and now was no exception. He kept his finger – and Skye – in place, with her draped over him, his palm on the middle of her back as a reminder to her to keep still, and simply began rocking his hips, which slid his finger over and over her hard little button. He listened to her breath very carefully, breathing in her moans, adjusting the pressure of his finger to how close he thought she was, flicking it rapidly sometimes to test her, making her

moan agitatedly. “Now, Skye,” he said in a reprimanding tone he knew she loved, “you know that you must obey me. You don’t want another spanking on that bottom, do you?” “No, Sir,” came the tiny whisper. “So you must not peak, darlin’, until I say you may. Understand?” he reached down and patted a butt cheek firmly. Skye started at the pain even that light touch caused, then realized she should welcome the distraction. “Yes, Sir.” She didn’t know how long this went on – hours and hours it seemed, but she could tell that he wasn’t going to last much longer himself. His thrusts were become more and more powerful as he filled and stretched her. “Skye, are you ready? Not until I say so, but get yourself ready.” She’d been ready for months now. Her entire body was one big nerve ending, one huge orgasm waiting to happen. She felt as if all of her skin was swollen, ready to burst with it, and still he controlled it and her to the very end. “Almost, Skye. That’s good. Damn, you’re so tight,” he panted. “All right, Skye. You may come. Quickly, now. Obey me. Come now.” Milliseconds later, she was like a wild thing above him, and it was all Rourke could do to just hold on for the ride. He’d never seen her like this, and he wasn’t sure whether he wanted to or not again, but she was entirely out of control, riding him violently, milking him for every bit of pleasure she could get and then some. His orgasm was entirely lost in the fierceness that was hers. She growled at him, animalistic ally, deep in her throat, and, as his erection receded, he replaced it with three of his fingers just to keep up with her. She seemed to need endless stimulation, and he was bound and determined to give it to her. By the time she collapsed on her side on the bed next to him, he’d lost count of the number of her orgasms, but knew it was at least in the teens, if not more, and he was sure that, if he pressed it, she’d give him even more. But she looked absolutely exhausted, and he was ever mindful of her health. So he tucked his little hellcat against his side and kissed her forehead, whispering his prayerful “I love you,” even though he knew she was already asleep. *** Because he wanted them both to face the reality of what might happen, and because he wanted her to be able to take care of herself should the need arise – and with the record the two of them were accumulating with stalkers, it seemed inevitable that she would need to in the future – he sent her to a gun safety class, then took her shooting, teaching her how to do it himself, just as he was teaching her how to ride. At first, Skye was very resistant – or at least, as resistant as she thought she could get away with. She had taken his gun in hand only when she’d thought he was in danger. Handling a gun wasn’t something she necessarily wanted to do, but Rourke wasn’t giving her a choice, as usual. Not only did she not want to shoot, but she didn’t want reminders of how unsafe they really were intruding into their life together, either. And this was one big intrusion, as far as she was concerned. But Rourke managed to persuade her that this was for the best, and he did it without spanking her simply by asking her if it would be all right with her if she found herself in a

position where she could take the shot that would save his life, but she didn’t know where the safety was on the gun she was holding so she could take the shot. She was an instant, if still grumbling, convert. And, he was pleased to see, she was a natural at it. It was funny – Skye adored horses and really wanted to learn how to ride, but it wasn’t coming very easily to her. She often told him that lessons felt like yet another spanking, and walked away from Starfire rubbing her bottom as if he’d just taking his palm to her yet again. But shooting, which she really didn’t want to do, now that she did wonderfully without much thought. He told her once what she should do – the correct stance, how to cup the butt of the gun in both hands, to draw in a breath, release it half way, and squeeze the trigger slowly but steadily, and she rarely missed her mark from that point on. Although they tried to ignore it, the reality of Carey’s advance on them – on Rourke – was a constant tension in the background of their relationship. Granted, it was a depressingly familiar one, since that was how they had come together. To Skye, it was much worse that he was the one in danger, but Rourke knew that she was in just as much danger as he was. Carey wouldn’t hesitate to kill anyone that was with him, and he’d told her that, although he didn’t think it had really sunk in. He knew she still thought that he was the man’s primary target, as if she thought that someone couldn’t possibly want to kill her if they didn’t know her. Unfortunately, crazy didn’t work like that, which she should have realized through their confrontation with Mark, but Rourke wasn’t about to push the thought on her. If it helped her cope with the situation, then it was fine with him. He was going to see to her safety, regardless. He tried to keep her as occupied as possible, teaching her as much as he could about self defense, guns, horses, and the ranch, and she seemed interested in absorbing all of it, although mostly about the horses and the ranch. She became even more glued to his side than she had been, which was exactly the way he wanted it. He didn’t much let her out of his sight, and that was the safest place for her to be. But he really didn’t think that they should be away from the ranch, since – despite the failure to keep Mark at bay, it really was the safest, most secure place they could possibly be. Besides, if Carey was coming for him, and it looked like he was, Rourke wanted to fight him on familiar turf. He’d grown up on this ranch; his family had owned it for generations, and he still knew ever blade of grass on it, despite the fact that he didn’t really actively work it now. Nearly every man on the ranch was either ex-Special Forces or at least ex-military. He knew he was surrounded by not only the best team of cowboys anywhere in Texas, but also by a highly trained security force. Griff saw to that, and he’d been thoroughly mortified at the failure of his team when Mercer had managed to penetrate the perimeter. It wouldn’t happen again. Rourke would have the home team advantage, and he knew that, against Carey, he’d need all the help he could get. Jonathan Carey made Mark Mercer look like a Sunday school teacher. He could see that the stress was taking its toll on Skye, though. She was acting like she had when he’d first met her – startling easily, always on edge, her eyes regaining that wary look he’d thought had been banished for good once Mark was put away.

Chapter Ten Rourke did his best to keep them as occupied as possible. He decided they were isolating themselves too much, even though he wanted them to stay on the ranch as much as possible, so he started having Kevin come over with his girlfriend occasionally, for a poker night or just to hang out and watch a movie on the huge flat screen TV, or having any combination of them and/or Griff up from his small foreman’s house for dinner, knowing that that would give Skye reason to plan a small meal or dinner party that would keep her happily occupied for a while at least, and he knew both men would be very happy to indulge in her good cooking, most especially Griff, who he knew usually ate whatever he could wrestle from a can or dump out from a bag and into a microwave. He would have bet his life that the stove in that small kitchen had never even been turned on. He also started having them take long rides out into what would become – shortly – he hoped – their land, hoping to familiarize her with it as much as he was. He told her the history of how his family came there, their struggles and woes trying to keep the land when it was much wilder than it was currently, and she seemed genuinely interested in learning about it. Sometimes they took a picnic basket and ate lunch out there. Rourke always took a couple of rifles, and carried his Glock in a shoulder holster. She was already comfortable firing every weapon he owned, just in case, and they usually saw at least two or three of his men while they were out, since he’d beefed up security considerably as soon as Kevin had alerted him to Carey’s escape. He’d also gotten her into the habit, since they were pretty much entirely alone at the house – Griff’s little place was well away from them – of taking a swim after dinner, especially since it was so hot in the evenings. She’d ordered a pretty swimsuit online that he was disappointed to find was one piece. Rourke didn’t hesitate to let her know that he hadn’t expected that she’d keep so much of herself covered. After all, it was just the two of them. One night, while they were swimming late in the evening, he took off his trunks and threw them up on the edge of the pool, and began to swim after her, his intent clear in his eyes. Skye swam away as fast as she could, but there was no way that her strokes could out match his, since his arms were half again as long as hers. He was on her in a flash, the fabric of the swimsuit stripped off her before she had a chance to turn back to him and defend herself. When he pulled her up against him, they were both nude in the six foot area of the pool, where she would have been over her head if he had let go of her, not that she was in the least worried that he would. He took too good care of her for that. Besides, she had already wrapped her arms around those almost too broad shoulders, her fingers trying unsuccessfully to bury themselves in the militarily short hair at the back of his head as her legs found his waist. “Perfect,” he breathed, his mouth claiming hers as he turned them both so that her back was against the wall of the pool, leaning back just a bit to quickly insert a floaty behind her so that she had a cushion as he made one short, forceful thrust that joined them completely and had Skye arching against him, begging for more.

Rourke buried his lips at her neck, yielding to that need to drive into her uncontrollably but taking her along with him, nipping gently at those beautiful dewy breasts, licking then suckling eagerly, teasing and torturing them as he struggled to rein himself in. She was the only woman with whom this had ever happened, and it happened all the time that he nearly lost himself within her, but he was trying to get better at regaining control, and he was able to calm himself down enough to adjust her even more closely against him, reaching down to grab bottom cheeks that were cool to the touch, but still had raised ridges from last night, when he’d had to discipline her, and feeling them with his fingers as he pulled her against him nearly hurtled him into the heavens. She had had entirely too much to drink at one of those small dinner parties, and had gotten defiant - just out and out defiant. Argumentative, for some reason, which was very unexpected for his usually even tempered Skye, and he knew that the reason for it was because Kevin had told them during his visit that Carey had been caught in Oklahoma, but had managed to escape after killing the two police officers who had arrested him. It was after everyone had left, and they were both cleaning up. Rourke was no chauvinist. He knew she liked to cook and entertain, so she did that. But he had no problems with cooking, himself – well, more accurately, grilling – and would be entirely comfortable throwing a small dinner party himself, if she didn’t want to, neither did he have a problem with assisting in the cleanup. But it had seemed that everything he did upset her in some way, earned him an eye roll or a tsk or a slammed cupboard. Rourke was patient with her, not saying anything until it got to out and out disrespect, which was very unlike her. When the tone of her voice said that she thought he was an imbecile, then he put his foot down, or, more accurately, his palm down on her pretty little hind end. Skye’d been crabby all night although she didn’t know why. She was just pissed off at everyone and everything, and he was handy. But she knew she’d pushed him too far with her last comment about him being an ignorant cowboy and tried to back away from him, but he was much too fast for her. At first, he was just going to give her a quick little reminder spanking, thinking that would help her straighten her out. Rourke’s hand snaked out and grabbed her upper arm, spinning her around and tipped her over the knee he’d raised by propping his booted foot up on the bottom rung of one of the snack bar stools, thoroughly enjoying the view as he gathered the skirt of her pretty pink dress into the steadying hand at the small of her back, then lowering her lacy panties to her ankles where they were quickly kicked off as she tried to protest her humiliating position. But Skye wasn’t taking all of this well at all. In fact, she was more actively fighting him than she had when he’d first begun to spank her. She was all legs and arms and feet and hands, trying desperately to escape an end that she should long since have realized that, with this man, was a foregone conclusion. If Rourke decided that she needed a spanking, then she was definitely going to get one. As a result, she found her tipped well forward over his knee, wrists secured at the small of her back in one large hand, legs trapped under his other leg, entirely helpless, but still wildly looking for a way out of this situation, and bawling inconsolably because there was none. She couldn’t use her hands or feet, he was holding her too tight for her to roll off him, and there was no part of him close enough for her to bite, damn it.

Rourke was of half a mind to call off the spanking; she was in such an emotional state, or at least change the venue, but he didn’t want to do either of those things. In fact, he decided he was going to give her a routine spanking here, this way, the way he’d shown her he’d intended to do so originally, but that – with all her fighting and fussing about it - she’d also earned herself another one that he’d deliver to her in their bedroom, where he’d have more room to work. She was crying so piteously that it wasn’t easy for him to do. He loved her, and he hated it when she cried, even when he was the source of those tears. But he truly felt he knew what was good for her, and regular, strict discipline had proven to be very good for her – Skye had even admitted it to him herself, sweetly, shyly one night as they lay talking in the afterglow of their love. So, he resolutely applied his hand to her bottom as if she wasn’t already sobbing, spanking her hard and crisply, reddening those rounded cheeks of hers and down her thighs until there was no more creamy flesh left, and then adding a second layer, just in case he’d missed a spot, while she arched and tried to kick and tug at her wrists as he lathered her bottom but good. Then Skye found herself suddenly on her feet, standing in front of him like a naughty little girl, the skirt of her dress still held up around her waist by his hands on her waist. Rourke expression was stern, his eyebrow raised in warning. “You need to watch your tone of voice, Skye Rose. As well as your behavior while you’re receiving a spanking. There’s no need for all that thrashing about. You could hurt yourself.” She looked for all she was worth like a pouty little girl, her arms crossed over her chest, lower lip sticking out defiantly. It was the defiance he intended to rid her of, one way or the other. Rourke got up and moved behind her to place his big palms on her roasted buns, guiding her into their bedroom by steering her with them, which had her positively screeching by the time they reached their destination. “Stop,” he commanded, and Skye complied, dancing in place from the ache of his firm grip on her sore bottom. “Let go let go let go!” She’d been chanting that since he’d glommed onto her in the kitchen. “If you’d like me to release your derriere, then you’ll need to ask me politely, Skye. Demanding isn’t going to get you anywhere,” he chided sternly. She bit her lip, realizing from his admonition how shrewish she’d been sounding, and how seriously he was taking this. “Please let go of my bottom, please!” He did so, but not without giving her two more considerable swats as reminders. “Assume the position at the table.” The table was the one in front of the window, the one she’d come to hate enormously because he bent her over it frequently to punish her. She’d had dreams of having a bonfire with it and his depressingly large collection of paddles, wooden spoons, and other wooden implements, but hadn’t gotten the chance to be out of his sight long enough to do it! Now she’d found herself having to drape herself over it again, the small pillow in front of her hips for comfort, with her skirt spread out over her back, her fanny bared for whatever implement he chose. There were no bindings at this table. He expected her to keep her position – hands clutching the corners of the table, feet hugging the outsides of the legs, which spread them terribly wide, exposing her privates - regardless of the number of strokes or the ferocity of the implement.

And the implement he’d chosen was her absolute least favorite, and the one she’d have the hardest time keeping still for – the cane. Just the sight of it struck fear into her heart, and she knew that she’d let her attitude go to far this evening, and that her poor rear was going to have to pay the price. Rourke squeezed those cheeks gently, holding himself still within her as the water lapped quietly around them, listening for the squeals he could still elicit from her even a day later. The tracks he’d laid down were still quite prominent on her bottom and thighs, and would be for several days. “That’s what naughty girls get,” he reminded her as he began to rock himself inside her again. Skye pouted prettily. “I said I was sorry.” “Yes, you did.” And she had, most beautifully that night, after he had ravaged her backside quite severely for her indiscretion, then assuaged his desire for her on their big bed, putting her on all fours at the edge, with her head down, and her bottom up, grabbing her arms just above the elbow and fucking her hard, not worrying about her pleasure because she was to have none this evening anyway, as she’d just been punished. But after he’d tucked them both into bed, when she was lying against him and they were both nearly asleep, she’d apologized to him very sweetly, saying she hadn’t known what it was that had gotten into her and that she certainly didn’t think of him as an ignorant cowboy. Rourke, of course, had forgiven her, and smothered her in kisses before rocking her to sleep. This time, though, he smothered her in kisses before rocking her into an enormously loud climax that had the two of them so exhausted that they nearly drown before they could make it out of the pool. Rourke lay at the edge, prostrate, moaning, “I think I’m getting too old for this. Maybe I’m just getting too old for you. You’re going to be the death of me.” He lifted his head and saw Skye walking around naked, picking up towels and straightening up, then looked down at his manhood, which, at the sight of her, was slowly rising again, despite his claims of infirmity, and said, “Stay down, man, don’t you have any sense of self preservation at all?” Skye’s giggles delighted him. He wished she would laugh more, but their current troubles put a big damper on that. He wished they were over and done with, and the clouds that had been hanging over their relationship from the start would clear out, once and for all. He wanted to marry her, but she’d refused until things were more settled. That was one of those things that he couldn’t really force her to do. Or, at least he hadn’t thought of a way to coerce her into marrying him yet, anyway. He was sure he’d figure it out in time. *** Things did come to a head relatively quickly after that. They were out for a picnic lunch one afternoon, in the northwest corner of his land, very close to where it bordered with his neighbor, Bruce Hamilton, to a place they’d come to before. It had a few small shade trees and a tiny pond. The problem was that, even before they got there, they found the bodies of two of his men, but they were in a place that had no cover. As they were dismounting, they began to hear gunfire, as well as horses coming towards them.

It all happened so fast that Skye didn’t really even realize what was happening. One moment, she was happily cantering along on Starfire, and then he pulled up near to what looked like a mannequin that had been splashed with ketchup, frantically waving her off and telling her to get down and get her gun out, which she promptly fumbled into the sand like a useless idiot. Then she heard some loud popping sounds and the next thing she knew Rourke was tugging her off her horse while throwing himself in front of her. Griff reached her first, and he did the same thing as Rourke had done, putting her behind him immediately, but he also rolled Rourke over and that was when Skye saw the dark red blotch on the front of his shirt, and knew he’d been hit. Griff saw how white she’d become at the sight of Rourke’s wound and said, “He’s on Bruce’s land with a long range, high powered rifle. Bruce is coming up behind him. He was one of us, too,” he explained further. A red flare appeared overhead, and everyone suddenly began rejoicing except Skye, who was still trying to stem the tide of blood seeping from Rourke’s wound. “They got him. The medic chopper will come in now and get the wounded, first of all him.” *** The rest of it was all a blur – trying to tend to him while they waited for the EMTs, praying they would get there before he died, the chopper ride, which they allowed her to take with him only because they couldn’t get her to let go of him, and the unimaginably long time spent waiting while he was in the O.R. At least until Griff showed up to help try to divert her attention some. He talked to her about Rourke and what he was like when they were in the military together, made sure that she rested as much as she could, and that she ate something, even if it was only broth from the vending machine. He even gave her “the look” when she, at first, refused to drink it, but that backfired when she burst into tears on him. Although it was uncomfortable as all get out for him, he held her in his arms, letting her cry it out until the doctor arrived, looking around the room saying, “Mrs. Danville?” Neither of them bothered to correct his assumption. “Your husband is in ICU. It’s going to be touch and go for a while. We won’t know more for a few days about whether or not he’s going to make it.” Skye reached out and grabbed Griff’s hand and squeezed it so tightly he thought his fingers were going to break. “Can I see him?” “Give us some time to get him setup, and then I’ll have a nurse come down and get you. You can sit with him as long as they say you can.” “Thank you, Doctor,” Skye mumbled absently, turning away from him and dropping Griff’s hand. Griff shook the man’s hand and thanked him, also, then found Skye sitting dejectedly on a row of uncomfortable plastic chairs. He sank down beside her, patting her leg. “He’ll be fine. I’ve seen him recover from much worse than this, Skye. He’s tough.” “But he lost so much blood before they were able to get to him... ” Her voice was ghostly soft. She put her hand on his arm. “Before you got there, we heard shots, and he told me to grab my gun and jump off my horse, but I fumbled my gun – it’s probably still out there. I fumbled it. And then the next thing I knew, he pulled me down and threw himself in front of me.” Skye’s

voice filled with wonder at Rourke and disgust at herself. “He took a bullet that was meant for me, Griff. If he dies, it’s my fault.” Griff’s tone sounded remarkably like Rourke’s ask he grabbed her shoulders and shook her slightly. “That’s ridiculous, Skye. First of all, you’re not combat trained – even though Rourke tells me you’re a deadeye, you’re still a newbie, so no one expects you to be perfect in the heat of battle. Second, Rourke would do anything he needed to do to protect you, and that’s just how he is with the people he cares about. There’s no fault in that. You just take care of yourself, and let the nurses take care of him, and he’ll be better before you know it.” It was the most she’d ever heard Griff say at once; he was a man of few words like Rourke, not that she necessarily took much comfort in any of them. She still had a boulder in the bottom of her stomach that made her feel that this was somehow all her fault. Skye spent every minute she could at the hospital with Rourke, by his bedside in ICU, sitting next to the IV pole, holding his hand and talking to him, mostly apologizing to him for the state he was in and praying that he’d recover. It had taken a solid week of sleepless nights in a horrible hospital chair before the doctors could tell her they were certain that he would make it, and she’d broken down right then and there when she’d heard the news. His nurses, who had seen her becoming more and more wan as she kept her vigil at his bedside, had encouraged her to go home and shower and nap, to come back to him refreshed in several hours. They’d be bringing him out from under the powerful drugs that had kept him unconscious since his surgery, in order to let him heal, and he was being moved to a regular hospital bed, so she had a while to go home and relax and recharge a bit. Skye decided to do as they suggested. She’d been thinking a lot lately, and needed a place where she could think that was away from the hospital. She bumped into Griff stopping in to see him on her way down the corridor, and told him the good news that he was better, but that, since he only had a few minutes, that he wouldn’t actually get to see him because they were in the midst of getting him ready for his move, but she also let it slip that she thought that it might be the best thing for all parties concerned if she wasn’t around when he woke up. He was appalled at that idea, of course, but he could see that his arguments weren’t getting through to her. He let her go, knowing there was little he could do to stop her from leaving, if that was what she decided to do. *** Skye went back to the home they’d created together, every nook and cranny filled with memories of them together all day long, making love, laughing, making love, talking, making love, eating, swimming. His presence was so large in her life, she couldn’t imagine it without him anymore, and yet, she might have been the cause of his death. She couldn’t bear that thought. Skye didn’t eat anything, like she’d promised the nurses and Griff that she would. She took a long, hot shower, letting it wash away the inevitable tears until she could cry no more, then fell into bed, in a long, tattered t shirt of his, alone and lonely and wishing she was dead from the guilt. It was the banging on the door that woke her. Someone was pounding on the front door with something and very occasionally yelling a bloody blue streak, screaming her name in between various colorful invectives. She recognized that voice. It couldn’t be, but it was. It was Rourke.

And he was crying. Skye awoke instantly and raced to the door, flinging it open to find him half dead on the doorstep, his face as white as the ghost he looked, swaying precariously on crutches, tears trailing down his cheeks as he tried to draw in what had to be another extremely painful breath to call to her with everything he had. “You can’t leave me. I told you before that I’d hunt you down and bring you back. Don’t you think I mean it?” He wobbled his way into the house as she hovered over him like a mother hen. “What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be in the hospital?” He rounded on her, anger giving him some of the strength he needed. “How can I lie there when you’re planning to leave me? Have you packed yet?” He looked around accusingly, although she knew each movement must have been excruciating. “Well, you can just unpack, like you did before.” Rourke reached out and grabbed her to him, moaning as he brought her against him. “You’re not going anywhere.” He’d lost a lot of steam by the time he got to his last statements, and they were barely whispered. “You got that?” Skye did her best to support him as he practically crumpled onto her, but suddenly there was a pair of strong arms supporting him instead. “I’ll help you with that, ma’am. I’m Curtis Wardell, Mr. Danville’s nurse. He got here a bit ahead of me.” A large African American gentleman lifted Rourke like he was a baby, raising his eyebrows in question as to where the bedroom was. “The guest room?” Skye asked thinking that might be better for him. “OUR ROOM,” Rourke corrected as vehemently as he could as he was being carried. Skye showed Curtis to their room, then settled down next to Rourke. “You’re not going anywhere, you hear me?” Skye shook her head as she brushed the hair away from his damp forehead. “I’m not going anywhere, Rourke.” “Promise?” “Promise.” She was curious as to how he’d found out she had been thinking about leaving, though, and asking him how he’d found out. “Griff left me a note,” he said absently. She’d forgotten about their encounter in the hallway. “We’re getting married tomorrow. I’ve let you put it off too long.” Skye looked at Curtis, whose brows were raised. “Tomorrow, then. I’ll call a J.O.P. We’ll do it up fancier later.” “Just want you not to leave me. You keep trying to leave me,” he mumbled, nearly asleep. She kissed his cheek, whispering, “I’m so sorry you got shot.” His voice was clear as a bell when he replied, “Why? You didn’t shoot me.” Skye had to laugh at that. “You’ll be here when I wake up?” Rourke asked suspiciously. “I will.” Just in case, his big fingers encircled her wrist, capturing her at his side, where she belonged.

Chapter Eleven When she rolled over late in the morning, she was stiffer than she’d thought she’d be, and for good reason. It wasn’t often one got spanked twice, hitched, thoroughly sloshed and completely taken, all on the same day. It was a wonder she’d survived it at all. Skye tried to stretch and decided that wasn’t a good idea at all, especially when her particularly sensitive rear parts brushed against even the extremely expensive million thread count sheets. Even hours later, she regretted her actions immediately, and rolled onto her tummy, reaching an eager arm out for her new husband, surprised to find him suspiciously absent. Couldn’t wait to get away from her on their first full day of marriage? That didn’t bode well, did it? She thought, giggling quietly to herself, her fingers covering her mouth automatically in that quaint way most women had of hiding their teeth when they laughed, until she realized with a start that they smelled quite startlingly of herself this morning, due to Rourke’s fierce guidance last night. Skye couldn’t help but shove the bunched sheets between her legs against the dull ache that settled there as snatches of naughty memories slowly came back to her, flooding her mind with glimpses of fingers here and his mouth there. The things she’d done! The things he’d made her do! She could feel the full body blush beginning anew just at the mere thought of it . . . *** Rourke had insisted that they marry immediately after that second close call. She’d been able to talk him about of the “next day” idea – just barely - but he was adamant about the fact that he wasn’t going to spend any more time waiting around for the right moment or letting her get used to the idea of any of that folderol. Instead, once he’d recovered, he removed the choice about it from her entirely, except about the wedding gown, telling her that they were going away and that they were going to be married while they were away. He’d been entirely unprepared for the tear storm that followed his autocratic pronouncement, though. He’d not thought of her as that fussy a woman, but he hadn’t considered that the subject was her wedding, and that that was of utmost importance to most women, Skye included. She wanted some say in her own wedding, and he wasn’t of a mood to grant her much. Rourke had thought to keep the affair extremely small and intimate, perhaps only a J.O.P., as few as was possible necessary witnesses, and themselves at the very remote cabin he owned in a location Skye knew nothing about, well removed from where he lived, and that would be that. No formal dress, no flowers, no music, no guests, no dinner, no invitations – no fuss, no muss. Then there would be just the two of them, surrounded by the blessed peace of the wilderness, where no one could disturb them without physically knocking on their door. He had consciously not invited many twentieth century inconveniences to the cabin: no cable, no internet, and no cell phone reception. Its severe isolation was its security.

Rouke was getting damned sick and tired of one or the other of them having to dodge gunfire every other week. He wanted them to be in a place where he knew they’d be safe. His soon to be wife, however, had different ideas of what her dream wedding would be like, and she didn’t seem at all interested in his austere vision thereof. Rourke rhapsodized sarcastically about her vision of a perfect wedding. She naturally wanted a fairytale wedding, to be wearing a princessish gown, surrounded by family and friends, dancing the night away in a lavishly decorated ballroom – “I didn’t say that at all,” she corrected him icily. “I never wanted a ballroom or a ball gown, necessarily. I’ve never even tried a wedding gown on. How would I know what I might like or even look good in? But what do you want me to get married in? A pair of jeans and a t shirt?” Rourke was thinking that that would be perfectly fine as far as he was concerned, but he was smart enough not to say it out loud, and could see that she was truly upset, not just needling him for the fun of it. Skye could see that this argument was getting them nowhere, so she changed her tact entirely. “Do you have any pictures of the cabin?” His eyebrow rose. “Probably. Somewhere.” His lack of enthusiasm at the idea of having to dig them up was more than apparent. “Find me some. I want to see it.” She was envisioning a shack in the forest. But it might not be that bad, and perhaps she was struggling against something she could be more than happy with accommodating. After all, she wasn’t against having a casual, natural wedding in the forest. It could be kind of pretty, since it was mid-summer, and there had to be flowers and things blooming and greenery in abundance, and she’d always loved that kind of setting. Seeing that he wasn’t moving at all, Skye wandered towards Rourke and put her small hand on his chest, her fingers touching the open area between the buttons of his shirt. “Please.” The fire that was always barely banked between them – and was even hotter lately since he’d been incapacitated for so long - rose immediately in him at her touch, and he captured her hand, bringing the side of it, where it had met his chest, to his lips as he kept her eyes locked with his. “For you,” he nodded, executing an about face and heading for his study. Not fifteen minutes later, he dumped a pile of old Polaroids in her lap, as well as some older, discolored pictures of a beautiful redwood log cabin that was much bigger than she’d imagined, although definitely not a mansion of any sort. Skye began to pour eagerly over them. Typical of a male photographer, there were fewer interior than exterior shots, but enough for her to fall in love with it immediately, despite the fact that – even with as little information as she had - she could already see that it desperately needed a woman’s touch. It reminded her of the house she was in – sturdily built, with almost a pioneerish air, practical but homey, with a big master bedroom, reasonable sized eat-in kitchen, a smallish living room, and a huge sun porch, all decorated, it seemed, by Field and Stream magazine. But she could see that, with some quilts and flowers and homey touches, it would be a very beautiful cabin, and the land around it was positively gorgeous, and teaming with wildlife. “And did you build this house?” “Yes,” he answered gruffly, still grumbly at having been coerced into producing the photographs. “Oh, Rourke, it’s beautiful. I’d love to become your wife there.” She sounded as if she was on the verge of tears, and he rose to settle her onto his lap in the big recliner. The rest of it sorted itself out rather easily, although he did have to curb her

guest list a bit, since the cabin wasn’t very large, and there were no cities of any size nearby and therefore no hotels, but Skye acquiesced, agreeing that romance and intimacy were of the greatest import. In the end, only Kerrie and Kevin, who had become a bit of a couple, Griff, and Trina MacIntyre, who was a close friend of Skye’s from college, were invited, as well as the JOP. Trina would be doing Skye’s hair and would be a bridesmaid, and Kerrie was the maid of honor. Griff, of course, was Rourke’s best man. Skye was, in general, pleasantly surprised at just how involved Rourke insisted on being in the overall arrangements. He was even very adamant about wanting to be with her when she chose her dress, also, although Skye gently told him that that was not going to happen. She thought, when he pulled himself up to his full height in front of her, and she saw that dark look come into his eyes, that she was going to get herself spanked for what she’d just said, which she didn’t think was at all fair, either, and she was all prepared to argue against it. “And why not, my love?” She hated it when he used that intimidating tone and looked down his nose at her like that, not that he could necessarily help it, since he was so much taller than she was, but still. It was annoying in the extreme. “Because it’s bad luck.” Rourke chuckled. “You’re not superstitious.” “No, I’m not. But I am a traditionalist, and I don’t want you to see the dress until I’m coming down the aisle.” They were in bed, snuggled under the covers because he insisted on setting the air conditioning so low. “But my dearest Skye, there’s not going to be an aisle.” “Stop confusing me with the facts, Rourke.” She smacked him sharply on the shoulder. “Kerrie and I are going to look for a dress. You just have to pay for it.” Rourke reached around and grasped both of her bottom cheeks. “I’m quite certain that striking your husband to be is a spankable offense, you know.” Deciding to push her luck, as well as push herself up against him, tempting fate twice over, she replied boldly, “I don’t think I realized that my husband to be was such a wuss... “ All in all, her wuss of a husband to be made certain that she paid handily for her impudence. She and Kerri found a gorgeous dress that suited her – and the location – perfectly. They got together with Trina on a web conference call, showing her the dress and discussing possible hairstyles to get that angle of things worked out, as well as flowers – which they wanted to match the dress because it had embroidered flowers on it – and, of course, music. “What about food?” Trina brought up something that no one had tackled yet. “Are you going to have a cake to cut? Hors d’oeuvres? Dinner?” Skye frowned. “I dunno. We really haven’t talked about that at all. I suppose I could cook.” Trina frowned. “You are not going to cook for your own wedding, or make your own wedding cake. Think of something else. Get your Mr. Moneybags there to think of something. Have lobster flown in, or get Martha Stewart to bake you a cake. It’s your wedding. Spend some money, girl!” Skye cringed. Even now, when she’d been spanked for it more than once, money was not a topic that she liked to discuss with Rourke, so she put off dealing with the flowers and the cake and food for the small wedding party until it was nearly too late, and Kerrie was on her butt about it, as any good maid of honor would be.

They were chatting back and forth online about it one night, and Kerrie threatened to rat her out to Rourke about it. That was a very interesting about face for a woman who had blatantly questioned Skye’s sanity about deciding to marry a man who spanked her. Something to the effect of, “Have you lost your mind, woman?” was yelled into Skye’s ear when she announced the happy news to her best friend. “That man beats you! You went from the frying pan into the fire, as far as I’m concerned.” Kerrie had never pulled her punches in regards to her opinion about the fact that Rourke spanked Skye. As far as she was concerned, it was just another form of abuse, no different from what Mark had done to Skye. The fact that her friend was blissfully happy, had no split lips, no black eyes, showed absolutely no fear of her lover, and, in fact, was obviously and overtly in love with Rourke, and he with her, held no truck with Kerrie. Skye had had to practically blackmail her into being a part of the wedding, and it had actually come to the point where she had told Kerrie that she wasn’t going to do that any more, that Kerrie had to decide for herself whether or not she wanted to be a part of their happiness. Of course, she did, and she’d called and apologized, but she’d also left the door open if Skye ever needed to get away from Rourke in the same way she’d needed to get away from Mark. Skye assured Kerrie that that would never be the case with Rourke. “So now you’re going to tell on me?” Skye yelled, outraged. “If that’s what it takes to get you the wedding you deserve, then yes. And I don’t have to go to Rourke. I’ll just tell Kevin. And he’ll tell Rourke. So, either you tell Rourke tonight about the fact that there should be a pretty cake with pink roses or something like that, as well as flowers to match your dress, and something pretty for that mantle above the fireplace and a bouquet for me and a boutonniere for him and Griff, plus something for all of us to eat while we’re there, then I open my big fat mouth to Kevin. And you know I will.” She did know. Kerrie, like Rourke, did not make idle threats, damn her. Skye fussed and fretted all afternoon after that phone call, finally deciding it would be better for her to just come clean and talk to Rourke than for it to come to him from a third party. She knew that if she was probably going to get a spanking for putting off talking to him already, but she’d really catch it bad if he heard about it from a third party. She didn’t really know why she had such a stumbling block about money with him, except that there was such a disparity between them, in that she wasn’t making any, and he had a ton of it, so she felt like she really shouldn’t be spending his money. Skye had been getting into trouble with him about finances practically since the moment they’d met, and she had a feeling that she was probably still going to be catching hell about it until their fiftieth anniversary. When they’d finished dinner – a big batch of homemade chili with slightly sweet cornbread that was almost more of a corn cake – she sat on his lap and snuggled up between him and his evening paper, which, considering what a creature of habit he was, was a dangerous place to be. Rourke put down the paper, instantly suspicious. “What do you want?” She humphed, pulling away from him and crossing her arms over her chest indignantly, “That’s not a very nice thing to say! How often do I ask you for things! Sheesh!” He wrapped his arms around her waist, feeling her move away from him in a manner that was more than physical, smooching her loudly on the temple, a broad grin on his face. “I know, and that just makes me more suspicious.”

“I need to talk to you about a couple of relatively important things about the wedding arrangements that we’ve both forgot.” She was very glad she was facing away from him, and he couldn’t see her eyes as the darted nervously about the room as she uttered the fib. “Oh. What?” he sounded genuinely concerned, and that made Skye feel moderately better, although not enough to make her stop fidgeting nervously with her hands. “Um, well, there’ve been no arrangements made for a cake, or for flowers, or any kind of nosh at all after the ceremony - at least, not that I know of.” “Hmmmm,” Rourke tapped his chin with one finger. “No, I haven’t made any either. Well, that’s not too hard to do, is it? Call a florist and cake shop tomorrow and order what you want. You just tell me who you settle on and I’ll tell them where to send it. As for something to eat afterwards, why do you leave that to me?” He turned her to look at him. “Do you trust me to know your finicky tastes, my love?” Skye nodded eagerly. “There. Then it’s all settled.” For some odd reason, Skye found herself near tears at his easy pronouncements. “Rreally?” He heard the catch in her voice and felt a tear on the back of his hand. “Sweetie, what is it? What’s got you all wound up?” Rourke turned her towards him, and she fairly collapsed into his arms in a jumble of tears and half-formed thoughts, throwing her arms around him and burying her face against his neck, fairly drowning him with her tears. “Didn’t want you to have to spend more money – flowers and cake – where – fly them in? And Kerrie was gonna tell on me – spanking –“ She was overwrought with the plans for the wedding and that was just what he’d been trying to avoid by wanting to have a small, casual wedding at the cabin. He gathered her up, his paper completely forgotten, and brought her into their room, laying the both of them on their big bed, gathering her into his arms and just holding her tight. “You don’t have to worry about the flowers and the cake, sweetie. Just tell me what you want – or I’ll get in touch with Kerrie and she can help me ‘cause she knows what your dress looks like – and we’ll get just the right cake and flowers. I know you love pink roses, so that’s what we’ll get for both, if you’ll trust us, and we’ll get them to the cabin at just the right time.” “I can do it . . .” she fussed, struggling to get up, but he wouldn’t allow it. *** Instead, Rourke tapped the end of her nose firmly. “No more worrying, my girl, understand? Or it’s my first idea that we’ll follow, and we’ll be off to the courthouse tomorrow, and that’ll be that.” Skye stopped resisting. “Close your eyes.” She’d learned to instantly obey that voice of his, the one that flowed like warm fudge over her jangled nerves and settled into the pulsating valleys between her legs as his words swept away every care – everyone except her concern for the health and welfare of her own bottom. “How long have you been torturing yourself about this, love?” Rourke asked as he peeled away the layers of her clothing, replacing them with his hot, sweet mouth. But Skye could barely think when he touched her like this, although she knew he expected a response. “I – I don’t know.” She knew this would not be considered a viable answer, and seconds later, each nipple was cruelly pinched and twisted when he didn’t decided he didn’t like what she’d said. She had better find a way to answer him in a more complete manner, or it would get worse for her from there.

“Kerrie noticed it a bit a go.” Each nipple was then soothed, but not completely. “How long ago is a bit, Skye Rose? Don’t make me drag it out of you, honey.” Firm, but not angry. He was very rarely angry with her, and never when he disciplined her, ever. She was horrible with dates, even when she could think! Was it a couple weeks? A month? She settled in the middle. “Three weeks, or so.” “Oh, baby. That long? When it just took us less than two minutes to settle, you fretted and stressed yourself over it, didn’t you?” Dear God, he was kissing his way down over the sides of her breast, licking their sensitive under sides, his busy fingers preceding him, tickling over her ribs, that gently nipped in waist, over her lower belly which always made her raise her legs and giggle because she was ultra-ultra-ticklish there until he reached down and cupped that bare delta between her legs possessively; Skye had already automatically opened her legs as wide as she could, offering herself to him as he had trained her to. Whispered, “You know I don’t want you to worry about things like that since there’s no need. You know better than that, now, don’t you?” How did he know that that scolding tone got right to the heart of her? Almost – although not quite as well – as the powerful swat he gave her with that open palm of his, causing a tremendous sting that radiated out from the center, especially when he topped himself by issuing two other resounding swats, one to the inside of each pristine thigh, leaving matching palm prints. It wasn’t usual for him to punish her there – either of the places he’d chosen, and it only made it that much harder for her to come to grips with when he murmured deeply, “Hold yourself opened for me, Skye.” She reached down, tentatively, because she knew what was coming and didn’t want it but knew that delaying would only result in worse discipline. Skye parted her own lips as he’d commanded, leaving her legs splayed wide, her feminine secrets entirely exposed and completely unprotected. Rourke began backwards this time, spanking first each leg, and then the area she’d displayed so beautifully for him, his palm cracking right over that most sensitive area, causing Skye to jackknife nearly in two from the intensity, before resuming her prior position, as she knew she was expected to do. Seconds later, his mouth surrounded her recently offended flesh, suckling fiercely, not quite soothingly but more demandingly as his fingers sought and invaded her completely, occupying her front and back almost rudely. “Did I say you could let go of yourself?” Sharper, less forgiving as those huge, thick fingers wiggled around inside her. Skye hurried her own fingers back down to their expected places, stretching herself open for him again as his mouth eagerly claimed even more of her, as if he couldn’t get enough of her taste in his mouth, exploring every exposed inch of her while he forced her to accept more and more of him, widening and pressuring her to the point of discomfort and two or three deliberate steps beyond as a conscious counterpoint to all of that gooey pleasure his mouth was creating. Just before he allowed her a rare release, Rourke raised his head, his mouth drenched in her juices, groaning in time with her, “I will remind you of your place before and after the ceremony, Skye Rose. Be prepared for that.” She had heard him, but was too far out of her mind to really process what he’d said, nearly fainting dead away from the pleasure he brought her as his mouth descended once again

after his pronouncement, and, with that single minded intensity of his, he focused his entire being on bringing her to one of the richest, most intoxicating – and almost debilitating – peaks she’d ever experienced. So much so that her world began to swirl around her and she nearly lost consciousness. It was becoming a habit with this man, one she wasn’t at all sure she wanted to encourage – not that she was going to be given a choice. Later, on their wedding day, she would heartily wish she had remembered what he’d said about the fact that he was going to remind her of her place. She should have made a mental note to remember that – no matter how crazy he’d made her - and realized exactly how it was that he was going to accomplish that goal, so she wouldn’t have been so surprised when he actually went through with it. Rourke was a man of his word.

Chapter Twelve Skye was unaccustomed to flying on private airplanes. Crowded, uncomfortable coach commercial flights with drunken fellow passengers asleep on one shoulder and a screaming baby in her other ear, no problem. But Rourke owned several planes, it turned out, and he had them flown to the cabin. He could have flown them himself, too. She’d only just found out he had a pilot’s license, but he wanted to spend the time with her, and not in the cockpit. Skye was still a little huffy about the fact that he wouldn’t tell her where the blasted cabin was. “In the West,” he’d grumbled as he packed her onto the plane, already tired of having to field her multitude of questions about it. After flopping dejectedly down into a seat, Skye stared out the window. This wedding trip certainly wasn’t starting out as she’d expected. She really didn’t like the idea that she didn’t know where the hell it was that she was going! She wasn’t some giddy teenager that couldn’t keep her mouth shut. She understood that the reason Rourke wanted to keep the location of the cabin close to the vest was that the fewer people who knew it, the better hold he had on security, and considering what had happened since they’d been together, she guessed she couldn’t blame him in wanting to maintain a tight rein on things. But it just annoyed her, and she was mad that she felt like this now, when she was supposed to be so happy, and everything was supposed to be so romantic – she was going to marry a man she adored in a beautiful cabin deep in the woods and they’d be able to spend as much time as they wanted there, together, just the two of them, luxuriating in each other with no outside influences or distractions. She should have been deliriously happy. “Buckle up, sour puss,” Rourke teased as he took the seat opposite her. Skye frowned at him, but did as she was told, not wanting to consider the consequences if she didn’t obey him. Rourke watched her, saying nothing, until after they’d taken off and Judy, the in flight attendant, appeared with two Baccarat crystal champagne flutes and a bottle of Cristal champagne. Rourke thanked her, opened the champagne and poured them each a glass, then turned his attention to Skye, who had continued to stare out the window glumly as if she was going to her execution rather than her wedding. He reached over, unbuckled her seatbelt and lifted her onto his lap, handing her a glass and catching her eye as he lifted his flute. “To you, my Skye Rose. You know that I’m much less given to a pretty turn of phrase than I am to animalistic grunts and groans, but I’ll do my best.” He caught her around the waist and held her eyes with his. “Here’s to the most precious person in my world.” Her tears filled with eyes at his heartfelt toast, and any remnants of petty anger melted away with them. Hoping he didn’t expect her to come up with a toast of her own – knowing she couldn’t be anywhere near as eloquent as he was – Skye clinked her glass with his and took a sip of the wonderful champagne, giggling at the way the bubbles tickled her nose, then immediately kissing Rourke, her fingers trying to delve into his hair, but, as always, coming up short due to his militaristic haircut. She tucked her cheek against his shoulder and sighed.

“Is it that important to you to know where we’re going? I’d kind of thought it might be a romantic thing to be whisked away to somewhere you don’t know to get married,” Rourke asked, taking another sip of the champagne, then setting both of their glassed down. He wasn’t just asking to placate her; he really wanted to know what she was thinking. Skye shrugged. “I guess you’re rubbing off on me. I’m getting to be much more of a control freak than I used to be. I’m just curious.” “Well, of course, you’ll own it, so you’ll know eventually; but I did keep it out of the original round of paperwork as a panic room kind of thing, and that’s turned out to be a good idea, I think. But when we get home, you’ll find out.” “Won’t we have to land at an airport in a city?” He grinned smugly at her. “Nope. I own enough land that I built an airstrip close by.” Skye gave him a considering look. “Hmmmm. That’s gotta be a considerable amount of land, then. Montana? Wyoming? Idaho?” Rourke just laughed. “You know, most people would probably be able to do a lot of deducting by just looking out the window... “ Skye smacked him. “Shut up! I can’t help it if I have a terrible sense of direction! I’m lucky I can make it from our bed to the bathroom in the middle of the night without going by way of Canada.” That had him giggling, because it was so true. “Will you at least tell me if I guess it?” He snorted. “Hell, no, I won’t.” That earned him another hard swat, which had him rubbing his shoulder. “Cut that out! I’ve got bruises, you know.” She gave him a look much like the one he often gave her. “Puh-leeze.” Then she piped up with, “Alaska?” Skye kept guessing throughout the remainer of their flight, but never knew if she was right. After they finally landed, the crew hugged and congratulated them as they left the plane and got into a big white Escalade for the several mile trip to the cabin itself. When they arrived, Skye found herself entirely enchanted by the beautiful cabin, surrounded by old growth pines and firs. It wasn’t starkly pristine or fussy neat; instead it looked like it belonged there, as if the forest had accepted it as one of its own. There were some landscaping attempts here and there, but nothing garish or glaring, just the occasional splash of color from perennials that made them look more like wildflowers than planned gardens. While she was wandering about, Rourke had gone ahead of her and unlocked the door before finding her and sweeping her up into his arms to carry her over the threshold. She squealed and giggled at this wonderful testament to tradition, then commented, “Isn’t this a day early, though?” They had arrived the day before everyone else, who would arrive tomorrow, having been collected by the same plane, the day of the wedding. After kissing her senseless, Rourke set her down in the middle of the cabin, saying indignantly, “Don’t you pester me with your details, woman. Here I am, trying to be all romantical and everything, and you have to go spoil it with the facts...” Skye spun around, trying to take all of it in at once. “Oh, Rourke, it’s beautiful, inside and out!” He’d already leaned back against the kitchen counter, his ever present cowboy hat tipped back on his head, quite content to just watch her being happy. She looked – finally – as if she hadn’t a worry in the world, and that was what he’d been going for for quite some time.

And she meant every word. It felt like home, probably because it was his. It was very overtly a man’s place, with a lot of forest greens, browns, reds, and gorgeous pine paneling, but it was also surprisingly open and sunny and warm and homey, and she knew he would be perfectly fine with any changes she decided to make, if she changed anything at all in the future. It all looked so warm and welcoming, she wasn’t sure if she would want to at all. They had a light dinner of crudités, sliced meats, and some good French bread they’d stolen from the larder on the plane. The rest of their supplies would start arriving bright and early tomorrow, along with all of the wedding accoutrement. Skye wasn’t exactly sure what she expected from the night before their wedding, but she knew it wasn’t what happened: Rourke gathered her into his arms at a depressingly early hour, kissed her on the top of her head, said that they were going to have a very exciting and long day tomorrow, and told her to go to sleep. It was a bit of a letdown, but, to her amazement, she was asleep in about five seconds. She hated it when he was right. *** The next morning, she was up relatively early, which was a good thing since their guests arrived not long after she’d enjoyed her first cup of coffee and while she was still in her robe, but had, luckily, put on the one and only nightie she still owned – or rather, Rourke allowed her to own. Griff was the first person through the door, loaded down like a pack mule with all sorts of provisions. Even so, he managed to give her a huge bear hug - that was until Rourke appeared and growled at him to leave off molesting his woman on his way out to grab his own load of wedding and/or honeymoon supplies. Griff didn’t bat an eyelash at his friend but planted a big smooch on Skye’s cheek and departed for a second load. Kevin appeared next, under the weight of his own two huge armloads of stuff, with Kerrie and Trina right behind him, each carrying more delicate treasures – flowers, food, cake, and dresses. Everyone – except for the bride, who was strictly commanded by everyone to stay put in the house – lent a hand in unloading the plane, so that chore was accomplished in no time, and everyone heaved a sigh of relief when all of the necessary people, parts and parcels had arrived safely and in one piece. The J.O.P. would be coming from whatever nearby small town, so he wouldn’t be arriving until just before the ceremony, which was at one o’clock. The girls crowded around Skye and squealed and giggled. Before they disappeared into the bedroom to spend the rest of their time getting ready, Skye announced to everyone that, while they had been toting barges and lifting bales, she had put out breakfast munchies – muffins, bagels, fresh fruit, butter, cream cheese, coffee, milk, etc - on the counter for everyone to help themselves. And while the women secreted themselves in the bedroom to get ready, the men were outside, where Rourke and Skye had found the best setting for the ceremony, putting together a small white trellis, in front of which the bride and groom would stand. It certainly wouldn’t take them the three or so hours that they had to get ready, but it was a wonderful excuse to chat and giggle and nibble – at least in Kerrie’s case for the latter. She was constantly starving, although you wouldn’t know it, because she was rail thin. “Stop eating!” Skye whined at her. “If I eat one more bite, I won’t fit into my dress! It’s a sheath, and every lump shows!”

Kerrie rolled her eyes. “It isn’t lumps you ought to worry about showing, now, is it?” Trina perked up, sensing an undercurrent she wasn’t familiar with. “What’s going on here? What am I missing?” “Nothing,” Skye said flatly, glaring at Kerrie as she reached for another bit of a cinnamon sugar topped spice muffin. “No fair! I’m out of the loop and I hate that! What is it?” Trina whined. Skye sighed. There was no hope for it now. Once Trina caught wind of something, she was like a dog with a bone. “All right. What’s Kerrie’s not so subtly referring to is the fact that Rourke spanks me.” As embarrassed as Skye was to admit that fact, sometimes she liked to, just for the shock value. And, with Trina, it was well worth it. Her friend’s mouth formed a perfect “o” and her eyes bugged out so far Skye worried about whether or not they’d ever go back in. “You’re shitting me! You mean role play right? Like sex play?” Kerrie snorted. “No, unfortunately, that’s not what she means.” If anything, Trina’s eyes got even bigger. “He really spanks spanks you? And it really hurts?” “Hell yes it does.” Skye had to catch herself from reaching around to rub her butt reflexively. “Well, why would you let him do that?” Skye couldn’t help but laugh at the blatant astonishment in Trina’s voice. “Because I find it to be an amazing turn on, frankly. Being controlled, submitting, submission, his dominance, being spanked when I don’t obey . . .” she literally shivered at the thought, seeing Kerrie’s eyes roll as she did, but ignoring them entirely. “That’s what blows my skirt up, ladies. I know it must be an upsetting thought to you. Kerrie’s all ready to call the cops on him and send me to feminist boot camp, and I know I’m an anachronism.” Skye got up and crossed the room, gazing out the window at where the men were working on the trellis, unable to stop looking at her man, her voice dreamy and star struck, as if she was an adolescent girl talking about a rock star she had a crush on. “But... damn, he’s perfect for me. He really is. He’s everything I want and need and it’s like he’s made for me. That man knows how to push every button I own, and I don’t know what I’d do without him.” Rourke had turned to see Skye staring out the window at him, and she blew at kiss at him. He caught it and pressed it first his heart and then rubbed his palm straight down his flat stomach to cup his package, and she giggled and did the same with his, then turned back to the women, who were agog at both her confession and her behavior. “Sorry.” “I, for one, am envious,” Trina declared, having seen both sides of the exchange from her angle on the bed. ‘I wish I could find a man who loved me half as much as he loves you. Does he have any brothers?” “Nope, sorry.” “Damn.” The rest of their time was spent slowly getting ready, playing with their hair and makeup, and complaining about the lack of technical capabilities at the cabin. Kerrie, in particular, was having withdrawal, since there was no cell or internet reception. “And what’s with all the secrecy about getting here?” Skye stepped out of the master bathroom in the cream bra, garter, bikini panty and hose ensemble that, color-wise complimented, but, in spirit, clashed completely with the elegant dress

that would go over it, but she loved the idea of wearing something naughty under her gorgeous but sedate and romantic wedding dress. “You look like we should put you out on a street corner, but Lord knows, there probably isn’t one of those within a thousand miles of here, so you’re safe,” Kerrie cracked. “Thanks, I think.” With her hair, makeup and underthings taken care of, the only thing left to do was to get her into the dress, but it was still a little early to do that. Skye didn’t want to risk damaging it, so she didn’t want to get into it until the very last moment, which worked out well, considering that a few moments later, they heard a soft tap at the door. Trina and Kerri were already dressed in the tea length pastel pink dresses they had chosen themselves. Skye had promised herself – and them – that she wouldn’t force them to buy one of those terrible bridesmaid dresses, and she hadn’t. She wanted them to get something they might actually have a chance of wearing again sometime. So she’d just given them a shade of pink to shoot for, and asked them to run their choices by her before buying them, and that had worked out just fine. Kerrie went to the door, but didn’t open it. “Who’s there?” “It’s Rourke. I need to see Skye.” “But you’re not supposed to see her before the wedding!” “Is she in her dress?” “No, but –“ “Are you and Trina dressed?” “Yes, but –“ Skye could have told Kerrie that, once he found out that there was no reason for him not to be in the room – as far as he was concerned – that he was going to come in, hell or high water, but she didn’t. Kerrie could learn what it was like to deal with Rourke on her own, as far as Skye was concerned. His eyes barely skimmed over the other girls, landing squarely on Skye, that hungry look settling immediately into them at the sight of her in that sexy outfit. “How the hell am I supposed to behave all afternoon now that I know what’s going to be under your dress?” he asked huskily. “I think that’s our queue to depart,” Kerrie murmured dryly, grabbing Trina’s hand as she whimpered a little - barely able to tear her eyes away from the sight of Rourke in all of his dominant glory – but meekly followed the older woman out of the room. Still not really having acknowledge them, Rourke said, “Yes, go outside and find Kevin. He needs your help.” Skye had been sitting in the big easy chair by the bed, her feet curled up beneath her, but when she saw him coming, she stretched a leg out towards him, and he caught her foot in his big hand, stretching her leg up over his shoulder as he knelt before her. “Dear God, woman, you’re impossibly sexy. I may just have to make a rule that you have to wear something like this around the house all the time . . .” Her hands were at least as busy as his, reaching boldly forward to cup the ripening area behind the zipper of his pristine black jeans. “You’re looking pretty damned sexy yourself, cowboy.” And he did. Along with those sprayed on tight black jeans, he was wearing a crisp white tuxedo shirt, bolero tie with a rose agate stone, and a black morning coat. He looked good enough to eat, and Skye’s mouth was watering. As was Rourke’s but he wouldn’t allow himself to be deterred from his original purpose in coming here. Instead, he insinuated himself into the chair next to her, forcing her to take a seat on his lap, since there really wasn’t enough room for the both of them on the chair.

Rourke tilted her face up to his with a finger beneath her chin, his heart in his voice. “I can’t believe this day has finally come. I’ve wanted to marry you since the day I met you, practically, when you came to sit in front of Kevin’s desk, all wan and frightened, and all I wanted to do was put my fist through Mark’s face and take you home with me, whether or not you wanted to come.” She was going to ruin her makeup, but she couldn’t keep the tears from overflowing down her cheeks. “I love you, Skye. Don’t you ever forget it.” Rourke’s lips descended tenderly onto hers. But within the next few seconds, she felt herself tilted inexorably, familiarly, over his lap, and there she was, on their wedding day, in the sexy lingerie she would be wearing beneath her beautiful wedding gown, as he lowered the itty bitty bikini panties to her ankles and then completely off, covering her bottom with that huge palm of his, immediately bringing to her mind what he had cautioned her about yesterday. “I will remind you of your place before the ceremony, Skye Rose.” Was she just remembering his words, or had he just said that? She didn’t have much time to dwell on it, because he was already beginning the lesson with a full armed crack against those tender nates. As much as she wanted to right from the start – even just his hand spankings always hurt that much - Skye couldn’t cry out; her friends could still be in the house, and even if they weren’t, she didn’t trust the house to be soundproofed in the least. But Rourke, of course, wasn’t taking that into consideration. He never did, even at home. If someone heard her squalling because of a spanking she got, it was pretty much her problem; Rourke was generally of a mind that she shouldn’t have gotten herself into whatever pickle it was that had earned her the punishment in the first place. But this situation was different. She hadn’t done anything – except agree to marry him – to earn this spanking – that she could think of. Had she? “I love it when your bottom gets all rosy like this,” he breathed, continuing to lay swat after crisp swat onto her already well-tanned butt. “And I’m going to love thinking about the way it’s going to be framed by your garters all day. I had no idea you were going to be wearing such sexy lingerie, honey, or I’d’ve brought the paddle.” Heaven forbid! Skye thought. His hand was going to be the death of her as it was! She wasn’t going to be walking down the aisle clutching a bouquet of pink roses and baby’s breath, she was going to be walking down the aisle clutching her roasted butt! Rourke continued to spank her until he had brought her to tears, until he could sense that she was well on the verge of truly not being able to hold her peace any longer. Her bottom and the backs of her thighs were thoroughly decorated by his bright red handprint, in extreme relief against both her creamy skin as well as the stark creaminess of the lacy garters and belt. He knew he had tenderized her flesh to a particular point, and that the strips of those garters would rub against that flesh for the rest of the day, reminding her with each movement – as the ring on her finger reminded her visually – of exactly whose she was. As he administered the last few swats, listening to her struggle to keep quiet, failing in most cases and letting a low groan or high pitched whimper escape, he leaned down and whispered in her ear, “You will never really know how much I adore you, Skye.”

He topped her off with a blinding flurry of ten or so smacks that had her wiggling and jumping and struggling to avoid them – and succeeding at avoiding none of them, of course. Then he set her on her feet and stood, kissing her with the utmost of gentleness that belied the sternness with which he had just punished her, adjusted the few strands of hair that had escaped her do, and dried her tears. “Where’s your dress?” “It’s hanging in the bathroom, on the back of the door,” she answered automatically, still flustered from the way her bottom was stinging. He headed there immediately, but Skye recovered quickly and said, “But you’re not supposed to see it – me – before the ceremony!” She regretted her words immediately, wondering if they were going to earn her another round, but she needn’t have worried. “Too late.” He was already on his way back to her with the dress draped over his arm. “I want to dress you myself, and we don’t believe in that old fashioned superstitious crap, anyway.” He had unzipped the dress and was holding it out for her to step into, but she put her hand out to stop him. “Wait! I need my panties back.” Rourke smiled up at her, staying in place with the dress still held out for her. “No, I don’t think so. No panties for you today. Just a well-reddened bottom beneath your dress as another reminder of whose you are.”

Chapter Thirteen She bit her lip hesitantly, but knew he wouldn’t relent stepped into the dress, and he relished playing lady’s maid for her in this way, moving around behind her to zip her up, then coming around in front of her again and taking a few steps back. She looked achingly beautiful, and he felt tears come into his eyes at the sight of her before he cleared his throat and asked almost abruptly, “Flowers?” “They’re in the fridge,” she nearly whispered, having seen how his eyes misted over and touched by the purely emotional reaction he had to the sight of her. “I’ll get them when we’re sure we’re all done, then, and make sure the other girls have them.” He dropped to one knee and slipped her feet into the ballerina flats she’d chosen for practicality’s sake, not wanting to twist an ankle on the uneven ground she’d be walked to him by wearing heels. Straightening, he asked, “Ready?” Skye nodded, suddenly overcome with nerves. “You look gorgeous.” He surprised her by bending over and picking up a scrap of something white off the floor, which she recognized as her panties. Just before going through the door, he removed the hanky from the pocket of his morning coat and replaced it with her panties, arranging it so that it looked like any old satin and lace hanky, winking boldly at her as he stepped into the living room, closing the door behind him before she could raise an objection. Only the two of them would know that it wasn’t a stodgy lace handkerchief. He returned seconds later with her big bouquet of roses, telling her that all was ready and that they would begin when she appeared at the front door to the cabin. When she stepped out of the bedroom, she saw that the men hadn’t been idle while she and the girls were chatting and laughing and getting ready. The cabin was strewn with roses – many more, she knew, than she had ordered. Someone had augmented the order, and she didn’t have to wonder who. There were candles everywhere, as well as beautifully crocheted doilies under gorgeous bouquets that matched the ones the girls were carrying and the boutonnières the men were wearing. A leaf had been added to the highly polished old oak table, and what looked like an antique lace tablecloth was spread over it, along with a ton of food, just waiting to be descended upon by the hungry hordes and their multi-tiered cake awaited cutting on separate table, frosted with white butter cream icing and splashed with pink roses and green ivy. Trina and Kerrie, who were waiting patiently for her in the doorway oohed and ahhed over Skye in her gown when they saw her, then, at her signal, given after a deeply drawn breath that was meant to calm her but had absolutely no effect what so ever, they began the processional. The ceremony itself went beautifully and was conducted under a completely cloudless sky. Trina walked down the front steps of the cabin then began the short walk to the trellis first where their friends simply formed an informal semi circle, waiting for the bride., then Kerrie started down a few minutes later. When Skye appeared, she could hear their indrawn breaths, and once she’d made it down the stairs and had taken a few steps towards them with the garters scraping against her poor

beleaguered bottom, her eyes firmly fixed on the man who had caused the stinging, tingling ruckus in her behind, she knew she didn’t want to walk to Rourke, she wanted to run to him. He was her love and her lover, he would be her exacting master and her mister, and she didn’t want to wait a moment longer for that to happen. So despite the fact that the style of dress she’d chosen definitely wasn’t made for running, she did exactly that, and a chuckling Rourke met her halfway, swinging her around and kissing her deeply, then half carrying her the rest of the way back. When they joined their friends in front of the gray haired Justice, Griff leaned towards Rourke, tapping him on the shoulder and saying, sotto voce, “You did know that you’re supposed to wait until after the ceremony before you kiss the bride... ? No one at the wedding was surprised that the vows contained the anachronistic promise on the bride’s part – to obey her groom - except the official, who was very surprised that the groom had, when consulting him, insisted that that be a part of the service. The bride had uttered her vows with absolutely no hesitation whatsoever, while looking dreamily into her groom’s eyes. The wedding feast was joyous affair, with much love and free flowing champagne, fresh Maine lobster for some of the guests, and Kobe beef for others. It lasted until early evening, when the guests were packed back onto the plane. Rourke and Skye had asked that no one give them any gifts for the wedding – since they really didn’t need anything - but, instead, they gave their guests each a gift. Each guest had brought enough luggage for a week’s stay, and they were paying for their guests to go anywhere they liked – within the continental United States - on vacation for a week – staying in the best hotels, with a luxury rental car for a week as well as spending money. Kerrie and Kevin were going to be treated like whales in Vegas. Griff was going to see his long lost family in Florida. Trina was going out to Hollywood, in hopes of being discovered, or, at the very least, she was going to spend a week being treated like Hollywood royalty on someone else’s dime. It worked out perfectly for everyone. The newlyweds didn’t have room for everyone to stay at the cabin – and they certainly didn’t want company on their wedding night - and everyone they loved the most got a wonderful vacation. Rourke again carried Skye over the threshold of the cabin – this time, for real – letting her slide slowly down the front of him, her wedding dress bunching up on his belt buckle, exposing her unprotected sex in a way that had him on his knees in front of her, pressing his mouth to her bareness, his hands reaching up inside her dress to cup her still tender bottom. He’d had to reach down, surreptitiously, he hoped, to adjust himself every time he saw her shift in her chair – despite the thick padding on the seats of the dining room chairs – knowing he was the cause of her discomfort. He’d caught her eye several times and winked at her, loving the way it made her blush, more so with each glass of champagne she drank. Now Skye found herself looking down at her husband – her husband! – and she nearly orgasmed just at the sight of this big man with his face buried unabashedly, eagerly, even, at the very heart of her, the creamy lace and pink roses of her dress framing his black head, contrasting starkly with his crisp white shirt. She threw her head back as he rubbed his tongue over her clit, hands groping for something to steady her, but there was no hair to pull, and his shoulders were at least a mile away . . . Something hard hit her back, not quite knocking the wind out of them, and she was bereft of him for a few moments, having been told in that no nonsense tone of his to stay put. Skye

recognized the soft glow of oil lamp light combined with the comforting scent of lavender as he quickly lit some scented candles and lamps, creating a wonderful glow off the warm wood in the cabin before eagerly retuning to the head of the dining room table, where she was laid out before him like a veritable smorgasbord of delights. Her eyes had drifted closed, but flew open when he pinched her bottom. “No snoozing on me, there, woman. There’s a lot more to come tonight, and I mean that quite literally.” “Ow!” “Aw, poor baby! What are you going to do when I whip your butt later tonight?” Skye found herself wide awake at that. “No, you’re not going to do that... are you?” “Love, honor, and obey, right?” he repeated back to her, his arms pressing her legs back, not allowing her the choice about whether or not she wanted to keep them open any longer, but forcing her to by leaning forward in his chair, fingers splaying her lips wide open the way he sometimes forced her to keep herself on display for him as his open mouth descended on her, wetting her completely, everywhere, then raising himself just slightly. “Just so we’re clear here, you are not to come tonight until I specifically say you can. And you are to do exactly as I say, or there will be dire consequences.” He had carefully positioned himself so that, as he spoke, every movement of his mouth brushed his lips over her already excruciatingly swollen clit. “Understand?” Swallowing hard, Skye answered, “Yes, Sir.” “Good girl,” he praised, returning to his luscious pursuit. It was then that she felt something being pressed against her bottom. Something that was small at first, but graduated, and he fed it into her rear until he first began to feel resistance. “I know we said we weren’t going to get each other wedding presents, but I couldn’t resist. This is a set of pink anal beads that I thought would match your wedding dress perfectly, and it does. You’re going to wear them tonight, whether or not you’re wearing your dress.” He popped the first challenging bead inside her, making Skye groan at the way she was being stretched open. “There are quite a few more to come, wife, and you’re going to take them all before the evening’s through.” He scooched her down a little further on the table, so that her bottom, with the beads, hung over the edge, supported by his hands, and brought her hand down to feel the size of what was to come. Skye’s eyes got as round as Trina’s had when she learned about the spanking aspect of Skye’s relationship. “Oh, no, please! I can’t take anything that big!” “You can and you will.” Rourke helped her off the table, deciding that he wanted to retire her dress, knowing that she wouldn’t be at all happy if anything untoward was to happen to it. So he put her in the middle of their living room, with the beads hanging out of her bottom, and divested her of her beautiful dress, warning her not to move before going to hanging it carefully in their closet with the garment bag over it to protect it. She presented an incredible picture when he returned, having known better than to move out of position while he futzed elsewhere. She was barefooted, and very shortly braless, as he preferred, but still in her little garter belt, garters and hose, and with that little addition to her bottom, plus cream leather cuffs that he had also gifted her with. She was priceless. Standing behind her, he commented, “I think you’re still quite pink from this morning, aren’t you? Or is that just blush? Mmmmm-mmmmm.” Skye could feel his fingertips, callused as they were, trailing down from the back of her neck to that terribly intimate spot, just above where her bottom crack began. “I have to have a picture of this. Don’t move an inch.”

But Skye opened her mouth to protest and automatically stepped towards him at the same time. They’d never done anything like that before, and she didn’t like the idea of pictures in the least. Who knew where they could end up, especially nowadays? She didn’t like the idea of revealing images of herself ending up on the Internet, which she felt they inevitably would, somehow. “Why do you want a picture?” she asked. If that had been all she’d done, Rourke would have been fine with it. It was the step that got her into instant trouble. He wasn’t even using a digital camera, preferring his old Pentax, even if it was ancient technology. But he’d seen her move out of place, and that was all it took. She’d disobeyed him, and he was going to punish her for it. Even though she realized what she’d done and retracted her foot immediately, she knew she’d been caught, and would pay the price. Rourke didn’t say anything immediately, and he didn’t answer her question, either, as it wasn’t really necessary. He wanted a picture of her. He wanted lots of pictures of her. He understood her concerns before she voiced them, but he had no intention of sharing them with anyone else – certainly not the unwashed masses on the Internet. He was much too possessive of her for that. She should have realized that in the first place, but she also should have recognized that, if it came down to it, the ultimate decision about something like that was his, not hers. But most of all, regardless of the provocation, she should have stayed where he put her. Even something as insignificant as one deliberate footstep constituted disobedience, as far as he was concerned – and she was going to find out. He indulged himself, taking as many photos of her as he wanted – probably more than he wanted, but then, this not being a digital camera, there would probably be the inevitable ones that didn’t come out. Then he took her hand and led her outside, behind the cabin, tugging her along when she wanted to hang back due to how uncomfortable she was feeling with that horrid thing in her bottom. He brought her to a spot that was bathed in moonlight, as well as in a set of security lights he’d had specially rigged up for just this purpose. There was a clothes line set up out there that had been attached to the back of the house. Only vestiges of the ropes remained – since he’d bought the place and installed a dryer – but the steel T that they were attached to remained, conveniently, along with the eye hooks that the ropes were tied to. Rourke knew Skye well enough to know that she wouldn’t want to be pressed up against a dirty steel pole, so he’d had it refinished and outfitted with weather resistant foam padding, so that she would feel as comfortable as possible when the time came. Rourke produced adjustable lengths of chain, with which he hooked Skye’s wrists to the steel frame, forcing her up onto her toes, which for some reason she found made her have to clench her butt cheeks, which, in turn, made her just that more conscious of the pink tail that was hanging between her soon to be flaming cheeks. And with the steel pole in front of her, she wouldn’t be able to do much in the way of escaping whatever implement it was that he decided to use on her. She was well and truly trapped. Whoosh-crack! Whoosh-crack! Skye closed her eyes. She knew she didn’t want to see whatever it was he was going to be using on her. It was bad enough to hear the sounds it was making. She could hear him

wielding – practicing, maybe - with what she knew was some sort of whip - exactly what he’d threatened to use on her not long ago. He was using the thing not a foot away from her, and each time she heard it sing through the air, she flinched, knowing that, very shortly, it was going to be ending its journey on her backside, and it hadn’t really even recovered from the spanking he’d given her before their wedding ceremony! It wasn’t fair. Not fair at all. *** And he began with no preamble at all. No lecture, no scolding, no nothing. Just a scorching line of fire across the crest of her butt cheeks, and then, very quickly, a matching one from the other side. X marked the spot, and began to mark a lot of other spots, too, up and down her backside, and there was absolutely nothing she could do to avoid the strokes he brought to bear. She couldn’t dance away on tiptoe, and there was nowhere to go but up against that unforgiving pole, anyway. There must’ve been some kind of tiny nubbin or knot at the end of that thing, because it bit into her flesh wherever it landed, as a kind of a parting shot, insult to injury. So not only was there a line of flames left behind for each stroke, but at the very tip end of every lash was a searing bite as she was sure a huge chunk of her bottom was torn up each and every time. Or at least it darn well felt like that. She didn’t think she’d have much of a bottom left by the time he stopped. Skye was fairly howling with each stroke, singing in time with the whip itself. Rourke stood back for a moment, admiring his handiwork, noting the various angry shades of red on her rear and the backs of her thighs, and the small welts the tiny knot at the end of the whip left on her flesh. Then he stepped forward for a moment, taking hold of some of her pink tail, and pressing the next round ball into her bottom unexpectedly, popping it up inside her with no warning at all. It wasn’t that big. Certainly not the biggest thing he’d ever put inside her, and it went in relatively easily, but not without a certain amount of discomfort, for sure. She was moaning loudly, and crying, so he stepped up to whisper in her ear, “Do you want me to take it out?” Skye shook her head. She knew what that would mean. He’d take it out, all right, but then he press it right back in again. And he might not stop at just that. Rourke took found all the pins and took them out of her hair, so that it hung down loosely, then he unbuckled and unzipped his pants, pressing himself into her from behind. He’d been on the verge of coming in his pants most of the day, and he knew this wasn’t going to take very long, but they had all night, and he intended to make the most of it. He wrapped her long hair around his arm, pulling her head back and fucking her hard, feeling the length of her tail pressing against his belly as he took her, hearing the chains shake as he rode her hard, all of it adding up to an earth shattering orgasm for him, nearly driving him to his knees behind her, literally making him feel faint. He took a long moment to recover, then reached up and released her from her bonds, saying, “I trust you’ll know to stay put when I tell you to now. I will have your obedience in all things, whether or not you agree with them, Skye.” With that, he lifted her into his arms and carried her back into the house, putting her down in much the same spot where she’d committed the offense that had gotten her punished, telling her again to stay put, then going into their room to see that all was in readiness for her.

When he returned, he tucked her hand into his arm and guided her to their bedroom as if he was going to be presenting her to royalty. Skye was unprepared for what she saw, and she had no idea how he’d pulled it off. The bedroom had been decorated with rose petals – on the bed, on the floor, everywhere - and was bathed in the soft glow of scented candles and several oil lamps. There was champagne on ice, as well as a small table set up with delicacies for them to nibble without having to venture to the kitchen, unless they wanted to. Skye didn’t know what to say. Rourke lifted her chin. “I know I’m very demanding and that you endure a lot for me. I want to make sure you realize how much I love you, and how precious you are to me.” She couldn’t seem to stop crying, and melted into his arms. With a sweep of his arm, soft music began to play, and they danced for a short time, until Skye mentioned that she was famished. Rourke guided her to their bed, saying that he would bring them both food, and he would feed her himself. He liked her to be totally dependant on him, even for her food, and if he could arrange it, for this honeymoon at least, she would be just that – completely dependant on him for everything, even the most basic of needs. He brought her a plate that had her in tears again, and he was at a loss for why, but when he presented it to her, she burst into tears. “What is it? Are you hurting?” He was the picture of concern. “No, silly. It’s just that I know I’m a terrible fussbudget about food in particular, and yet you’ve just brought me this plate of goodies, and there’s nothing on it that I won’t eat. If that’s not a sign of how much you love me and pay attention to me, then nothing is. No other man I’ve been with has ever paid as much attention to my wants and needs as you do.” Rourke grinned. “I do. I might not always allow you to indulge them, but I do know them.” He offered her a bite of a humongous, gourmet chocolate dipped strawberry, the one chocolate dipped fruit exception he knew she allowed. But he didn’t bring them very much food, because he didn’t want either of them getting sleepy. The plates he brought were small, and there were really only a couple items on each of them. He intended that they would indulge each of their appetites a little, and then move to satisfy another, all through the night. “That’s enough for right now. I want to see another appetite satisfied.” He slipped off the bed and put the plate on the nightstand, then opened the top drawer, removing several object, but not allowing Skye to see them. “Lie on your back with your legs open wide and close your eyes, Skye Rose. Now it’s your turn... perhaps. Just let me take care of you.” Lying on her back wasn’t going to be her favorite position by any means, with her bottom burning a hole in the comforter beneath her, but she did as she was told. She never wanted to have a moonlight meeting – or any other kind – with that whip again! “Lift your head.” Something soft but somewhat binding was placed over her eyes, like a sleep mask, but not as loose as some of those tended to be. Even when she opened her eyes, she couldn’t even see a trace of light. She was well and truly blind. He gathered her wrists above her head, clamping them together using her leather cuffs, then attaching them to the headboard some way she couldn’t tell, because she couldn’t see it. Rourke knew that being bound was a huge turn on for her. Skye was already wiggling, tugging and twisting, testing to see if she could get out of them. And she couldn’t. A shiver ran up her spine.

Chapter Fourteen Skye could hear him come down to the end of the bed, but then she all was silent, except his occasional deep, somewhat ragged breath. She desperately wanted to close her legs, but knew that would not be a good idea. Then she heard the camera again, and knew he was taking pictures of her like this. Her legs wanted to close automatically, from dregs of long learned modesty, even with him, but she was able to stop them. Barely. “Ahh-ahh-ahhh,” he cautioned, continuing to snap pics. “You don’t really want to close those beautiful legs. I can see how wet you are. The pictures are going to show that.” “No!” She would have given most of what she owned to have been able to cover herself with her hands right now, like a silly virgin. “I can see it with my naked eye. You’re dripping honey.” Skye heard him crouch down, and could feel his warm breath over her privates, and knew he was directly in front of them. Firm fingers touched then spread open those already moist lips, quickly passing them in favor of finding a home within her, first one, then quickly two, and finally three, stretching her, opening her, with only her own natural juices to ease the way as they rasped over her delicate tissues, while, with his free hand, the camera whirred furiously. She could feel how his fingers were competing with the beads in her bottom for spaces, and the beads were losing, and all of it, every iota of her reaction, was being preserved for posterity. As he began to pump those fingers in and out of her, she couldn’t suppress a moan, and Rourke nearly moaned with her. “Next time, I’m going to use a video camera,” he groaned, still snapping away with one hand as he continued to fuck her with the other. “No, no please!” she begged. “No to the pictures, or no to the video?” he asked, truly curious as to her answer. Skye could barely get her answer out around what he was doing to her. “No - to – both!” He stopped immediately, swatting each of her thighs sharply. “You must not come until I give you permission, remember? And permission has not been given. And may well not be given at all.” That blithe pronouncement gave her cause to groan loudly. “And I will take as many pictures or videos of you as I like, Skye Rose Danville.” Sudden, complete quiet, then soft footsteps at the head of the bed. Her hands were released with the command, “Touch yourself.” “T-touch myself?” she repeated, as if she’d never heard the words before. Skye hadn’t been expecting this turn of events. “Yes.” It was a harsh whisper, guttural. Rourke loved to watch her make herself come, and he rarely gave her permission to do so. She did as she was told, reaching down to her own pussy, assuming a position that had, at one time, been rather familiar but now was much less so, as Rourke saw to her needs, although on a much less frequent basis then she had seen to her own. She opened her own outer lips with her fingers, and with the middle finger of her right hand dipped down between her inner lips to collect some of her honey, as Rourke called it, and brought it back to her excruciatingly swollen clit.

She heard Rourke’s quick intake of breath as her own sizzled in between her tightly clenched teeth at the feel of the silky, slickened pad of her finger gliding effortlessly over the crest of her clit. Just that was nearly enough to send her spiraling into the as yet forbidden orgasm. “Please, Sir –“ “Not yet, baby. Not yet.” He lay his hand over hers, still wanting to control her, even when he really couldn’t, except from afar. The whirring of the camera was a definite mental distraction, but she tried to ignore it and concentrate elsewhere – but not too much, or she’d end up disobeying him. It was a fine line to walk. Skye felt him squat down and she thought he might press his fingers inside her, as he often did. But that wasn’t what he did. Instead, he lubed used his fingers to lube it up just a bit with some of her own natural juices, and pressed the next bigger bead into her bottom. As much as it was uncomfortable, and it was, she had never been able to hide from him how anally stimulated she was, and he knew how much this would drive her crazy. She felt enormously full, as if he’d given her a huge enema that was constantly crowding at her gates to get out. It brought her to that next level, and the second she stroked her finger back over her clit, she knew she had to ask again. To beg, or face the fact that she would surely end up disobeying. “Three more slow strokes, and then you may come.” Skye didn’t know if she could hold it back that long, but she knew she’d better; he would be counting. And, from the sounds she was hearing in the background of her mind, he would also be taking pictures of her as she exploded; she certainly didn’t want that, but she didn’t have a choice. “One.” She was right on the verge. Skye could feel that peripheral tingle, that all body ache that harbored the beginning of her culmination, and she wasn’t at all sure that she’d make it another two strokes. “Two.” Every muscle she own tightened unbearably, almost painfully; she would have sworn that even her hair was curled in anticipation of this wondrous event. She wanted nothing in her life as much as she wanted that last stroke that would send her over the edge. He waited a long last beat before saying, “Three,” then tugged the entire line of anal beads out of her at once. Before she’d even really completed that last stroke, her entire body convulsed violently, and she let loose with a full throated scream that Rourke smiled, knowing he had absolutely no reason to suppress it. Instead, he stood at the end of the bed, snapping shot after shot and drinking in the pure, unadulterated sights and sounds of her pleasure. Well before it was over, though, his first and foremost thoughts were of always of Skye and her comfort. He removed the blindfold and joined her on the bed, ditching the camera and rolling her into his arms, rocking her and holding her tight. Sometimes she cried when it was really hard for her, and sometimes she didn’t, but he always liked to be prepared in case she did. He didn’t want her feeling bereft, regardless.

She dosed in his arms, which he allowed, although he woke her several times to avail himself of her charms, not quite settled enough into the fact that she was his wife to fall deeply asleep himself.

As the memories of yesterday flooded into her mind, Skye rolled over again, carefully onto her side in recognition of the condition of her bottom, frowning down at the spot where her groom should have been. What could he be doing up this early in the morning? He’d let her sleep some of the night, but she would have sworn he was up most of it; he should have slept in late this morning. She had planned on getting up before him and making him breakfast in bed, but that hadn’t worked out. Skye got up and headed for the bathroom for her morning ablutions, slipping into one of his t shirts, which he sometimes allowed as a substitute nightgown, against the slight morning chill. They’d gone to bed with the windows open. She expected to find him in his easy chair with a cup of strong black coffee and some thick, encyclopedic non-fiction book about the origins of the universe in his lap, but he wasn’t in the living room, or anywhere in the cabin. Skye got dressed – which was no mean feat since she hadn’t packed a lot of clothing, considering that they probably weren’t going to be needing a lot of clothes on their honeymoon in a secluded cabin in the woods. She checked around the cabin with no luck, then widened her perimeter and discovered a small disreputable shack not far from the house, well camouflaged, and as she pulled the door open, she also spotted an antenna sprouting from the top of it, and frowned. Wasn’t this place supposed to be removed from all of that communications stuff? Wasn’t that the whole idea of them coming to this place? Just as she was yanking open the door, he was opening it to come out, and Skye nearly fell onto her kiester from the surprise of it. He closed the door behind him without offering to show her what was inside the tiny shed, grabbed her upper arm and practically dragged her back towards the house, his lips in a grim line. From the look on his face, Skye wasn’t at all sure she wanted to know what was going on. Rourke knew he didn’t want to tell her what he’d learned this morning. He’d tried to keep the cabin as isolated as possible, but he wasn’t an idiot. He had a beeper up here, so that, if need be, he could be gotten hold of, and the shack he’d come out of had enough communications equipment that he could get back to whoever had beeped him. And, apparently, it was a damned good thing that he’d taken that precaution. There wasn’t anything for it but to tell her outright what was going on. He needed her to have her wits about her. Rourke brought her into the cabin and sat her down on the couch, while he took his usual seat in the easy chair, facing her. He held her hands in his, hating the fact that he was going to have to destroy their idyllic honeymoon so soon after it had gotten started. He was just going to have to owe her one. “Honey, I’m sorry to have to say this to you, but it’s got to be done. Mark Mercer has been released from jail accidentally, and he’s not very far away from us right now.”

Rourke watched her face blanche white, and the fear that had been put to rest not very long ago – fear of Mark and then of Carey – come full front and center again. His heart ached for her. He – the supposed security expert – hadn’t done a very good job of keeping her safe since she’d been with him. He would blame her a bit if she divorced him and went her own way once this was all said and done. All he seemed to do was put her life in jeopardy, in one way or another. But in the mean time, all he could do was his level best to make sure that she was safe. “How could he do that? I don’t even know where we are! I thought the location of this place was such a big secret!” Rourke sighed, turning away from her to get up and begin to get things ready for them to leave the cabin as soon as possible, unable to face her and how he’d failed her yet again. “We’re in Wyoming, in Yellowstone National Park. We’re on a piece of land that’s private property; that my family has owned for generations. It was grandfathered into the park. Apparently, Mark has done little else since his incarceration besides research me and my family. Our ownership of this land is a matter of public record.” “How’d he know we were getting married?” “I don’t know,” Rouke sounded impatient as he ducked into the bedroom to gather more things. “People talk. We didn’t really ask anyone to keep the wedding itself a secret. We ordered dresses, flowers, a cake... Anyone who’s determined to can find out anything they want to. And he’s had all the time in the world.” Rourke stopped rushing around when he noticed how frail she looked, just sitting there, not having moved from where he’d put her, just kind of collapsed in on herself from when he’d told her. She looked small and frightened, and he knew he wasn’t helping any by rushing around, but that was what needed to be done right now. He came to kneel down on one knee before her. “Skye, I know you’re scared, but I’ll protect you, I swear I will. We need to get out of the cabin as soon as we can – like right now. I was an idiot last night and I turned off the beeper. I wanted an uninterrupted night with you. I figured we were safe – that nothing was going to happen to us here. I mean, I figured what else could?” he snorted derisively at himself. “So now we have much less time than we might have if I had left it on. He’s really close, and time is of the essence.” She rose, gathered a few things into her own backpack, which he put into the big bag he was carrying and followed his lead out towards the car when they heard another vehicle coming up the driveway. It stopped well back, and then they heard the first round ricochet off the side of the cabin. Luckily, the next shots missed them, but hit the tires of the car, rendering it useless. Skye had to wonder if Mark was deliberately aiming for the tires, playing with them. That wouldn’t be out of the question, considering how she what she knew him to be like. “We’re going to have to make a run for it, into the woods.” Rourke checked her footwear. She was wearing sneakers. Good. At least she hadn’t thrown on the ballet slippers she’d worn at the wedding. Hiking boots would have been preferable, considering the terrain he knew they were going to encounter, but sneakers would do in a pinch. “I know the territory like the back of my hand, and he doesn’t. That’s a distinct advantage. I can get us to a ranger station before he–” he stopped there, not wanting to complete that statement. “I can get us to a ranger station, where we can get help.” Skye just nodded. She trusted him with her life. Always had, always would. They were hunkered down next to the now considerably deflated Escalade when Rourke turned to her. “When I say three, we’re gonna make a bee line for the woods – right there,” he

pointed with his gun after handing her one he knew she could handle. “And this is not one of those stupid movies where you go on two, okay?” Skye frowned at him. “I know that!” “Just checking.” They made it into the woods, barely. A bullet had grazed Rourke’s shoulder, and Skye desperately wanted to treat it as blood seeped sluggishly through his t shirt, but Rourke was pushing her on, his hand at the small of her back, his voice harsh as he whispered, “Keep running!” Times like this made Skye wish she was more of an athlete. Her feet found every root and every gopher hole and her face found every branch and her hands every prickly bush, and she knew that she was slowly him down to a crawl. He’d already be safe and warm at the ranger’s station if he didn’t need to watch out for her. She was breathing so hard she thought she’d pass out. “I have to stop. I can’t breathe.” “No. You have to keep going.” “I can’t.” “You can. Do it.” He swatted her bottom, which she’d forgot about until just then. “Do it, I said.” She did it, but she knew she couldn’t go for much longer with out a rest. Her lungs were burning almost as badly as her butt did after he got at it. When he finally pulled her up against a huge tree trunk, laying his body fully against hers, not allowing her to fold up and cough up a lung as she so desperately wanted to, it was all she could do just to draw in breath after long breath of air. Her jeans clung wetly to every inch of her legs, t shirt plastered to her torso clammily. She knew she stunk to high heaven, but then, so did he. “Are we –” “SHHH!” He turned his head away from her, and she realized that he was listening for Mark, and whether or not he was coming up behind them. Then he scanned up ahead of them, and tugged her along with him at a fast jog, up to a dry gully of sorts, literally throwing her over it, then dragging her up under its small cliff. “Stay here and don’t make a sound. I’ll be right back.” There was absolutely no doubt in Skye’s mind that that was the hardest command to obey that he had ever given her. She wanted nothing more in her life than to run after him, and if she couldn’t do that, then she wanted to throw her head back and bawl about having been left alone in the woods to be killed by her crazy ex-boyfriend. If she had been asked at the time, Skye would have sworn that he had left her alone for at least an hour or two. The time crawled by until he jumped over her, into the ditch in front of her, splashed some dirt deliberately onto her face and hands, and said, again, still, yet, “Run.” She wanted to ask him what he’d been doing, but didn’t have the breath to do it, and besides, she knew better than to do that, anyway. He probably wouldn’t have answered her, anyway. He was in warrior mode, and wasn’t the most talkative, at best. He continued to run behind her, barking up her heels – literally – when she tried to lag even the slightest, and sprinting ahead only when necessary to show her the way. Eventually, with no signs of Mark, he let them slow to a jog, and even stop for a few moments to catch their breath.

Rourke produced a canteen, but told her to drink sparingly because their store of water was scarce. Skye dug into the bag that he had been carrying and produced two bottles of spring water that she’d put into her backpack, pleased at the surprised look on his face. “Do you think you’d be able to run wearing the pack?” Skye shrugged. “Can’t be that much worse than how I already feel.” Rourke chuckled. “Spoken by someone who hasn’t been through basic training,” he said, handing it to her. “Good. It’ll take some of the weight off of me.” “How much further is the ranger station?” Skye asked, expecting to hear that it was an hour or two away, maybe as far as four or five hours. “Oh, a day or two at most.” She choked on her sip of water. “A day or two? You mean we’ll have to spend a night out here? With the bears and the wolves and the snakes?” She looked around them nervously. “Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!” he chanted, giggling softly at her. “We don’t have enough food to attract bears. Wolves, well, we’ll deal with them if they bother us, which I doubt they will.” “Why do you doubt that?” “Because I’ll pee around our campsite, that’s why.” “Ew! I could have lived without knowing that!” He grinned down at her. “Don’t ask the question if you don’t want to know the answer, honey.” “What about snakes, and bugs and ugh!” She couldn’t even go on with that list. She’d rather have dealt with the bears and wolves, frankly. “I have a snakebite kit in the bag.” “Lovely,” Skye took another gulp of water, then Rourke took it away from her. “What did you do when you left me?” “Well, I don’t know if he can track, but I’m going to assume he can. I laid several different sets of them for him to find, to hopefully send him off the scent. And I’ve deliberately chosen a ranger station that’s out of the way and not well known, so I’m hoping he won’t think that that’s the one I’m going to, anyway.” He was trying to exercise his injured shoulder, but it looked very sore. “You should let me treat that.” “When we’ve stopped for the night, I will, although I don’t think we’ve got much to do it with.” Rourke was a hard taskmaster, in many ways, and this was much like a forced march, as far as Skye was concerned. By the time he allowed that they could stop for the evening, after leaving her again in a place he considered relatively safe, and doubling back to make sure he saw no signs of their assailant, they finally settled in a small ravine. “I wish I’d brought more than this for dinner,” he apologized as he handed her a granola bar. “But I had to think fast.” “This is fine,” she munched contentedly on hers, but piped up quickly. “Let me fix your shoulder up. He sat docilely enough for her, despite the fact that just peeling the shirt away from his skin must’ve been very painful, especially considering that the blood had dried into the shirt and onto his flesh, tugging at it as she removed it. Rourke turned his head and considered the wound. “Ah, that’s nothing. Just a flesh wound.”

Skye snorted. “You could probably use some stitches, but I didn’t bring a sewing kit.” She rummaged into her backpack and brought out a box of assorted Band Aids, some hand sanitizer and a purse sized packet of tissues. Rourke was amazed. “Jeez, woman, you come loaded for bear, don’t you? I need to have you on my team more often, if you pack like this!” Effusive compliments like that didn’t flow from Rourke that often, so Skye blushed bright red from head to foot. “I didn’t know what we might need, so I packed a little bit of everything.” He poked at her backpack with the toe of his boot. “What else you got in there? A chateaubriand for two? A king sized bed? Masseuse?” “Not quite. Let me finish with this, and I’ll see. I was kinda in a daze, so I don’t really remember.” She cleaned her hands first thoroughly, then dabbed his wound gingerly with a tissue soaked in the hand sanitizer, desperately not wanting to hurt him. Rourke could see that she was very nearly in tears at having to do this. “I can do it myself, you know.” Skye met his eyes. “No, I want to help you. I just hate the idea of hurting you.” “It really doesn’t hurt me at all, baby girl. I’m nowhere near as sensitive to that kind of thing as you are any more.” “Oh.” Rourke grabbed her fingers and held them tightly. “I will get us out of this, you know,” he said, capturing her eyes with his. Skye didn’t flinch an iota when she said, “I don’t doubt that you will.” Rourke snorted. “How you can have that much faith in me after all that’s happened to us, I’ll never know.” She finished cleaning the wound and bandaged him up, knowing the Band Aid – despite their advertisements – probably wouldn’t stay in place when they were running for their lives, so she dug in her purse for her Swiss Army knife and cut a strip off her t-shirt to bandage it in place.

Chapter Fifteen “You’d make a good field medic, my love.” “Thank you, kind sir.” Skye smiled shyly as she packed away the medical supplies. “Got anything in there for food? That granola bar didn’t cut it for me, I don’t know about you.” “I’m not surprised. We’ve been running all day. I’m starving, too. But I just grabbed whatever was on the counter.” Skye dumped the contents of her backpack into her lap. Their food stores ended up being a couple boxes of raises, three Cadbury Caramello bars and a bag of Sun Chips. Rourke looked the stuff over. “I had gotten this stuff out to take on a picnic hike to Blue Hill Pond.” He gave each of them a handful of raisins, then put the rest of the food back. “I was going to take you skinny dipping.” His eyes narrowed as he considered her carefully. “Have you ever been skinny dipping, Mrs. Danville?” She’d already finished her raisins in one mouthful, while he was eating them one at a time, huddling in on herself, rubbing her arms and looking cold. “No, I definitely haven’t.” Without a word, he lifted her onto his lap, wrapping himself around her to keep her warm. It was only going to get colder tonight, and he was pretty impervious to it; he’d been trained to be that way. She was definitely not. As he held her, his hand very naturally roamed down to her bottom, patting it lightly. “How’s your little butt doing today? In all the excitement, I haven’t had a chance to ask about how it’s doing.” Skye buried her face against his neck, partly from the cold, but partly because she didn’t want to talk about this topic. “Are you all right?” The pats became firmer when she didn’t answer him. “About last night?” feigning innocence. “Yes,” his tone letting her know that he wasn’t fooled by her act. “Oh, I’m fine.” He could hear the hesitance in her tone. “What are you holding back?” Why was it that this man always seemed to know, inherently, when there was something she wasn’t telling him? Even in the dark, Rourke knew that she was biting her lip. He bet he could guess what it was that she was thinking, and said it out loud. “You didn’t like me using the camera.” She was a xenophobe – she tended to be wary of new things automatically, and detested pictures of herself. Nude pictures of herself were certain to be inconceivable. He felt her shrug. “I do want to ask you for something about that.” That was a rarity, and he was pretty certainly going to grant her anything she requested; she asked for things so rarely. “What is it?” Her swallow was so loud it sounded painful. “Just don’t post the pictures anywhere, huh?” Her words were choked whispers. “Oh, sweetie, of course not!” Rourke hugged and rocked her, appalled that she thought he might do that in the first place. “On my honor, I would die before I would share those pictures with anyone, ever! I have a darkroom of my own; no one but us will ever see them. I’ll

give you the negatives, even, or we can put them in our safe deposit box. No, silly, you don’t ever have to worry about that. I’m much too possessive of you for that.” He felt her sigh of relief relaxing every part of her body. Playfully, he picked up the thread of their original conversation. “But there’s a flashlight in my bag. I just might have to inspect your bottom, just to make sure it’s okay . . .” “No! No light. If you can turn on a flashlight, then we can have a fire!” she hissed. Rourke was not to be deterred. “Then I guess I’ll just have to feel my way, won’t I?” As much as he might have wanted his advances to develop into something more solid, nature took over and before he could coax any kind of response out of her, and the sound of her soft snoring met his ears. *** She awoke as soon as he moved the next morning, and just turning onto her back had every muscle she owned screaming bloody murder at her. “Up, up, up. We might be able to make it there today, I’m not sure, but we’re sure gonna try.” “I can’t move,” Skye groaned. Rourke sighed heavily, then reached down to roll her onto her back, ignoring her virulent protests, and commenced a quick but thorough massage that had her literally purring by the time he was finished. And then he didn’t give her a choice about whether or not she got up; he picked her up off the ground and stood her on her feet, dusted her off and slide her into her backpack, handing her the last of one of their bottles of water for breakfast, saying, “March.” It was much less a march than it was a jog-trot, and sometimes a run. Occasionally, he would let them stop, but it wasn’t for a rest. He seemed more concerned more often that he was hearing evidence that they were being followed, which had Skye even tenser and more on edge than she had been yesterday while they were running. It happened on one of those forays, when Rourke had said that they were very close to the Ranger Station, and he had doubled back. He’d left her hugged up against the overhang of a ravine, clutching her gun and looking around nervously, counting the seconds until he appeared again. But it wasn’t Rourke that appeared before her. It was Mark. He looked much older than she’d remembered; his hair once mostly black now largely salt with a little pepper, his face haggard and worn, his eyes dancing nervously from her up to the top of the ravine, as if he expected that Rourke would appear at any instant, which was a pretty fair expectation. “Hello, Skye, my love.” He was pointing a much larger gun at her than she was at him. It was Mark’s voice, but with a large tinge of crazy on the side, making it almost hypnotic. He sounded absolutely, utterly and completely sure of himself, as if nothing and no one on this Earth could dissuade him from his stance – mental or physical. Skye pasted a big, fake smile on her face as she stood. “Hi, Mark.” “If you’re waiting for your husband to return, you’re going to have a long wait. I killed him about five minutes ago,” he said casually, as if he was commenting on the weather.

It was like a punch to the heart and the gut at the same time. All of the air went out of Skye’s world, but she didn’t want Mark to see that. Her finger tightened around the trigger of her gun. But before she could squeeze off a round and put Mark out of her misery, Rourke jumped down from the top of the small overhang, just slightly to one side and in front of her, startling Mark who did fire a round, directly at Rourke. Skye had the presence of mind to throw herself in harm’s way, taking the bullet that was meant for Rourke, who saw what she had done and dispatched Mark in a hail of bullets without a second’s thought before collapsing next to his wife’s body, not certain whether she was dead or alive. All he could see was a spreading red splotch across the front left of her shirt. Rourke gathered her into his arms and began running in the direction of the ranger station, praying that the nearby shots had already gotten someone there moving towards them. *** Skye was in serious enough condition that the grim-faced EMT’s had her LifeFlighted out of the Park, with Rourke holding her hand the entire way. He promised not to get in the way of the EMTs doing their work, but they couldn’t have surgically removed his hand from hers if they had wanted to. The hospital staff had a hard time doing that when they finally got there, and he stood at the doors to the treatment room the entire time, despite the fact that the nurses did their best to try to get him to sit down. He even did the intake interview while standing right there at the door, watching what was being done to her, praying harder than he ever had in his life. The cops, however, when they descended, had no such sense of humor, considering that there was a bullet riddled body in the woods. These weren’t cops that he’d known all his life, and they didn’t take kindly to a murder happening on their watch. Plus, since it happened on Federal land – although he could probably fight that and win it, if he wanted to – the Feds had to get in on the fun, too, so there were multiple rounds of interviews, despite the fact that there was more than enough evidence to support the fact that this was pure and simply a case of self defense. Despite the fact that his wife had ended up in a hospital bed, fighting for her life. All he kept saying was that he wanted to see his wife. No one there thought that he had anything to do with her mishap, and they could see, plain as day, that it was killing him to be away from her. His one phone call was to Griff, who then called Kevin, who called in every favor he knew to get things wrapped up quickly, and have Rourke released as soon as possible. The second he was out of there, he ran back to the ER, but was informed that she was in surgery, so he ran up several flights of stairs, only to be turned away, of course, and be told that he had to wait in the waiting room with everyone else, where he commenced to pacing a hole in the floor. Rourke couldn’t believe what she’d done – that she’d thrown herself in front of him like that. What could she have been thinking? If anyone was going to do that in this relationship, it ought to have been him, for her, not the other way around! When he got his hands on her next, he was going to blister her bottom – after he kissed her breathless. If he got his hands on her. The brief conversations they had had about her condition had been sobering at best. He’d known when he’d been taken away by the authorities that there was

a good chance she’d end up in surgery, but the doctors hadn’t sounded very optimistic, one way or the other. There were several other families in the waiting room, and one by one, as they day wore on, their names were called by either doctors or nurses. But not Rourke’s. Griff appeared to wait by his side, and Kevin called frequently for updates, as well as Trina and Kerrie, but the doctor didn’t appear until well after sunset. “Mr. Danville?” It was the doctor. Rourke hadn’t really determined whether the news was better if the doctor came for you or the nurse. He got up and Griff hung back until Rourke motioned for him to come, too. “How is she?” “She came through the surgery.” Both men heaved huge sighs of relief, although Rourke stopped in the middle of his. “I sense a huge but coming.” “But she’s in a coma. We don’t know how long it will last. Her body’s been through an incredible insult, and hopefully she’ll come out of it in her own time.” “Can I see her?” “A nurse will come and get you when she can be seen. It should be about an hour or so.” Rourke shook the doctor’s hand and thanked him profusely, then leaned up against the nearest wall, rubbing his hand over his face. “I don’t know whether to be happy or not.” Griff smacked him on the arm. “She’s alive. That’s what counts right now.” Rourke stared at the floor for a long moment. “I haven’t told anyone this but, she took that bullet for me. Threw herself right in front of it when Mercer pulled the trigger. He was aiming at me point blank. Woulda killed me, too, if she hadn’t –“ He stopped and cleared his throat. “I can’t believe she did something so stupid. It should be me in that hospital bed.” Griff wasn’t going to have any of his self-pity. “Don’t you remember, it already has been once. Besides, wouldn’t you have done the same exact thing for her?” “Of course.” “Then why would you disparage her for doing the same thing?” A lesser man would have cowered at the scowl Rourke directed at him, but Griff met his eyes full on. “I’m not disparaging her –“ “Sure sounds it to me. You got a helluva woman there, man. She’s been through hell and back with you, and like this is the third time, if I remember right. Seems to me you ought to be working on helping her out of that coma, and then showing her how much she means to you, in that order. Bottom line, she saved your life. Now it’s your turn to save hers.” Griff was right, of course. He hated not being right. *** Rourke spent every minute at Skye’s bedside. He did everything the doctors said one should do for a coma patient. He talked to her. He played her favorite television shows and music. He held her hand and kissed her face and sat on the bed with her. And one evening, when he was sitting there with her, in the late evening, when they – he – was watching “The Daily Show” he heard her say, very weakly, “Could you turn that down, please?” At first he wasn’t sure of what he’d heard, so he did nothing, and she said it again, a little louder.

Rourke happily muted John Stewart and hopped from his chair onto the edge of her bed, facing her, a broad grin spread across his face at the sight of her eye staring blearily back at his. “There you are!” He leaned forward and hugged the stuffing out of her, almost forgetting that she still had stitches on one side. The second thing she said to him, her too thin fingers tracing his scraggly beard was, “How long have I been asleep?” Rourke caught her fingers and pressed them to his lips, sighing, “Too long, darlin’, too long.” *** As soon as it was medically possible, he had her flown home to recuperate. He rehired Curtis Wardell and set him to hovering over her almost worse than he did. Almost. Skye wasn’t quite sure how he managed to pile even more rules onto her on top of the ones she already had, but he did. He wanted her to recover as quickly as possible, so that they could continue with their interrupted honeymoon, and she understood that. He wanted her to pick the place this time. She could go anywhere she wanted – back to the cabin, Vegas, Hawaii, France, the Bahamas, China, wherever she wanted. Except for all the added rules, he was almost being too nice to her. Scratch that, she thought. He was adding rules, but he wasn’t lifting a finger to enforce them. Or even the old ones, come to think of it. She wondered if he was afraid to – if her little mishap had made him a bit afraid to discipline her, for some reason. Come to think of it, he’d been very affectionate with her, held her a lot and cuddled with her, but he hadn’t been sexual with her at all either. She knew that he was being respectful of her medical condition, but it got to the point that, although he was always with her, she felt incredibly neglected. Skye didn’t know whether or not she was healthy enough for sex or discipline. She only knew that she craved both. She certainly never thought she’d miss being spanked, and it was definitely not something she ever really wanted to admit to anyone – especially not him – but she did. Now, how did one go about getting one’s disciplinarian to recognize that fact, without actually having to come out and say it? He was babying her to death, and it was driving her crazy. She felt good, probably better than she had before she got shot. Some of the muscles in her chest wall were torn by the bullet, so she was going through physical therapy, and she was in better shape now because of it. Their impromptu run through the woods and shown her out of shape she was, so she had asked the physical therapist for some gentle exercises she could do while she was recovering to help get herself into shape, and they had been helping enormously. The more she exercised, the more she found she wanted to eat better so as not to ruin her good efforts, and the better she began to feel all around. Except in the two areas that he had the most control over, and was avoiding like the plague. All she could think of to do was to break a humongous rule that he couldn’t help but notice and have deal with. She couldn’t believe that she was even considering doing it, but she hoped that that would force him back into being the strict disciplinarian she needed, rather than continuing to treat her with kid gloves.

He had restricted her to the house, and for a long time, she had been perfectly fine with that, while she’d been recovering. She’d been restricted from the pool, unless she was with the therapist. She was limited to a very healthful diet, and could only eat healthy food meant to build up her strength. And she most definitely wasn’t allowed to go out drinking with Kerrie, who was in town spending some time with her fiancé Kevin this weekend. So all of those things were exactly what she did. Skye let him catch her swimming that Friday morning, long after Paul, her PT guy had left. He frowned at her and reminded her that she wasn’t supposed to be doing that, even if she did feel so much better, but he didn’t haul her out of the pool and over his knee, as he would have before she’d been hurt, and like she secretly wanted him to. He just turned and went back to work in his study. She ordered a pizza – her first in a very long time – a pepperoni lovers with sausage, black olives and extra cheese, and she ate it in front of the big TV in the living room, where she knew he’d see her. But again, although he pointed the infraction out to her, and waited for her to acknowledge it, he didn’t do anything about it. Skye didn’t want to give him the chance to stop her from leaving the house altogether, though, so she left to meet Kerrie for dinner at her favorite steakhouse in a neighboring town, then they moved on to everyone’s favorite watering hole, a honk tonk bar with a great in house band and half price shots for ladies on Friday nights. But she wasn’t completely heartless. She’d left him a note, telling him who she was with, and what she was doing, and letting him know she’d be in eventually. He was gone all day at a business meeting, and wasn’t expected to get home until late that evening, but at least he’d know where she was when he got home. By the time he got to her that night, bleary from his own long day, she was already several sheets to the wind. Skye didn’t do beer much; she went right for the shots of bourbon or tequila, and Kerrie was only too happy to oblige and try to keep up with her. They were both full of steak, garlic bread and onion rings, so the liquor had a long way to go to get them drunk, but even so, she was up on one of the tables and twirling her lacy panties above her head. Rourke frowned. He wasn’t sure whether he wanted them to be hers or not. . . Which was technically worse, he wondered. If they were hers, or someone else’s? Regardless, he simply walked up to the table on which she was dancing and lifted her down. Then he turned her around and swatted her bottom, which, he noticed as his palm connected with her well-worn jeans, was definitely pantiless, so they were her own panties, which he then grabbed out of her hand and stuffed into his back pocket as he marched her out of the saloon. The patrons apparently agreed with how he chose to handle his wife, because they were hooting and hollering suggestions about what it was that he might like to do with her once he got her home, some of which weren’t too far off target, either. When Skye got tipsy, she got affectionate, and she was all over him like white on rice, rubbing him and loving on him, trying to French kiss him while he was driving. He’d held himself away from her while she was recovering, trying to be a gentleman, but this was the end of the road for that. If she could go out and carouse like that, then things were going back to normal. “Well ish about damm time!” she slurred. “What do you mean? You nearly died – I was just trying to let you recover.”

“You don’t love me anymore!” she wailed. The car windows were down, and everyone on all six lanes of the interstate heard her lament clear as day. “Are you crazy? Of course I do.” He reached across the car and tugged her up against him, wishing they were home in bed. “Let’s wait until we’re home to have this discussion, so we can be all cozy and safe, because it’s important, and I can’t concentrate when you’re all upset. Okay?” “Okay.” She sounded like a petulant little girl, but at least she’d agreed. He carried her into the house and into their bedroom, propping her up in bed and handing her a big glass of water and two aspirin. “Drink these. By all rights, I ought not to give them to you, so you can suffer the hangover tomorrow, but I’m being nice, because I’m going to light into the other end of you tomorrow instead, but I think you know that already.” When Rourke joined her in bed, Skye snuggled up next to him. “Now, what’s all this crap about me not loving you?” “You haven’t touched me, or – or – or…” She didn’t want to say it. “Or spanked you –” “Thank you,” she sighed. He twirled one of her locks of hair around his big finger. “I don’t want to hurt you. I thought I’d die when you got shot.” “I know the feeling.” “Yeah, but it’s not the same for me as for you. I’m a big tough guy. I’ve been shot before. And besides, I’m supposed to protect you, not the other way around.” He sounded so forlorn. Skye traced circles in the hair on his chest. “You do protect me, when you discipline me. And I miss it something fierce when you don’t do it, just like I miss it when we don’t make love. It’s just wrong not to do it.” Rourke turned towards her, tucking her under him as if she was made of spun glass. “I don’t want to hurt you... “ he whispered, his lips settling on hers like a butterfly on a flower. “If you do, I’ll tell you, and we’ll adjust. I’m not that fragile.” He looked up at her and smiled. “Yes, you are. You just don’t know it.” Skye put her arms around his neck and hugged him to her with all her inconsiderable might. “I just don’t know what I’d do without you, Rourke.” He brought them together – reveling in the sounds of her sweet, sweet sighs - as he hugged her with his considerable might, still careful of her side. “I just don’t know what I’d do without you, either, Skye Rose.” As he rocked them, he kissed her, long torturously soft kisses, and hot, sweet, burning kisses, until he knew she was fit to explode. When he knew he could hold it no longer, he reared back and grabbed her hips, pulling her against him, less careful of her than he wanted to be, but trusting her to tell him if he hurt her, driving himself into her and taking her with him over the precipice, into the abyss on a mutual groan of bliss. Just before they both fell asleep, Skye asked, “You’re going to spank me tomorrow?” “Uh huh. Yeah. You have a pretty good session coming. You swam alone when you’re not supposed to. You ordered a pizza that you’re not supposed to eat. You went out and drank and danced on table tops and took your panties off... ” Damn. He never forgot anything. She was in some deep trouble. “Do you have to?” “Uh huh.”

Skye waited a few beats. “But I’m thinking my side’s gonna be hurting about then.” “When?” “Whenever it is that you decide to spank me. I’m pretty sure that my side’s gonna be acting up then.” “I’m pretty sure that your bottom’s going to be blazing tonight and tomorrow if you don’t let me get some sleep.” “Good night, Rourke. I love you.” “Good night, Skye Rose. I love you, too.”

The End

Blushing Publications thanks you whole-heartedly for your purchase with us! There are plenty more stories such as the one you’ve purchased from Blushing Books! Visit our online store to view our might selection! http://www.blushingbooks.com This book is intended for adults only. Spanking and other sexual activities represented in this book are fantasies only, intended for adults. Nothing in this book should be interpreted as advocating any non-consensual spanking activity or the spanking of minors.