She considered him the chief of their little family. And he was the leader of his friends. They asked his permission to do things. He said they had meetings where they sat in counsel. He was the undisputed boss, except at home. Here, they shared the duty. She called him chief in her own mind. He laughed when she told them their roles at dinner last night. He had kissed her lips as though he had a right to and as chief, she thought he did, too. Her men didn’t need a chief, but she did.
Maya often wondered if Paxton saw her as his woman. She had told them she was theirs and they all seemed to want her, but Pax didn’t seem convinced she was his to take—his to claim forever. Maybe it was because he was proud and wanted to say it to her. She told him again today and he gave her that look that made her tummy wiggle. It meant he wasn’t happy with her. Today he gave her that look like he wanted to say or do something but stopped himself. He blocked his feelings well. Once she tried to push him to see if he would finish his thought or the action he seemed to hold back, but he simply sent her inside with a swat to her bottom and some grumbling.
“Soon, my little rabbit, very soon you’ll not try to force my hand.”
She wasn’t at all sure what he meant but her core tightened at the firm tone. Her center wept in anticipation. There were phrases that the translator did not do well. She was learning words, but it was hard going. Her tongue in translation didn’t extend to much understanding, but he had used a word before, manipulation. That translated well enough.
Today, she didn’t try to irritate him, but she had. She’d seen a plant growing wild outside on the tall mound of rocks that made up the side of an overhang of land. The outer rocks had come from the ground over the years when plowing and preparing the earth for certain trees and bushes Paxton couldn’t grow without dirt. They’d tossed the debris into a large rock pile that extended from the end of the outer gardens to the bottom of the dome overhang, making a climb seem possible.
Scrambling up the side of the rock pile, she almost lost her balance when her feet faltered, making her unsteady and the climb difficult. The rocks at the top hadn’t settled properly and she grabbed the ones beside her to regain her footing. It wasn’t working. Some small boulders beside her rolled down the little mountain, forcing Maya’s hold to become even more tenuous. She heard her own cry of dismay through gritted teeth as her attempts to gain stability bore little fruit. The only thing she knew to do was to call for the man she knew would protect her if he could. She trusted him to at least try to save her.
“Paxton! Help me!” Her words were in her native tongue, but his name was the same. She hoped it was enough. She stopped moving and tried to keep her spot. So far, so good. She wouldn’t move yet.
As she prepared to go tumbling down with the rest of the falling debris, she felt hands encircle her waist, and she was shoved hard against the gritty wall. Her stumbling stopped, and the supports no longer disintegrated beneath her. She could smell the sweat and masculine scent of Pax, and she heard his labored breathing. She knew it had been foolhardy once she felt the instability of the ground, but at the point she realized she’d made a grave error in judgment, she was committed. Getting to the top was her only solution.
Now she could relax a moment as his hot breath bathed her neck and ear in comfort. “Okay, little rabbit, I have you. We have to climb to the top now, so I need you to listen.” Her mobile translator did its job. She nodded her head. “Okay, love, things have calmed down some. I want you to pick your spots carefully and climb up.” He handed her two metal plant stakes. “Use these to secure your hand holds. I’ll be right behind you. You won’t fall.” A rope dropped from the top and she felt the roughness go around her.
She took a deep breath and sank the first long stake deep between the rocks into the firmer supportive dirt below. She then planted the second stake, pulling herself up in a slow but steady pace, finally reaching the top. Paxton followed her up and made solid ground right behind her. They sat on firm ground for a few moments, their labored breathing the only noticeable sound. Pax checked her over as he took the support rope from around her.
His hands touched her all over. “Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Not at all?”
She lowered her head and shook it. Her man wouldn’t allow her to hide her shame, bringing her eyes to connect with his. He stared and then nodded before sending the robot that had helped to affect the rescue back to his task.
“What made you climb that rocky ledge?”
“There was a medicinal plant I recognized that you don’t know, and I wanted to surprise you.”
“I appreciate that you have a good eye for these things, and that you wanted to add to my collection, but it wasn’t safe to do it that way. You left the dome without telling me and the sun’s rays are damaging at this time of day. If Darla hadn’t alerted me to your call for help, I wouldn’t have heard you.”
“I didn’t think it would move,” she shrugged as she pulled away from his hand. “I thought it was solid ground.”
“But it wasn’t, and you would have known if you asked me about it.” Paxton ran his hand through her hair and settled it on her shoulder. His chastisement pierced her independent streak.
“I am the daughter of Rainwater. He is a powerful warrior who taught me to be strong. And free. I don’t need you to tether me to you or treat me like a child. I’m a woman if you would but see me.”
His voice hardened. “Then you should have shown responsibility by asking me first. You were told to ask when you want to leave the dome or when you aren’t certain of something, and this is a prime example of why that is important. It drives me crazy to think I could have lost you. We all could have. I care about you; I need you in my life, Maya. Don’t you understand? I would never get over it if you had died or sustained great injuries.” He drew in a shaky breath.
“I’m sorry, Paxton, but I won’t allow you to keep me joined to you the rest of my life. You need to allow me freedom to choose my path.”
“Maya, I know you’re a woman. Today, you’ll be a woman who will feel the flat of my hand on her bared bottom. I know you’re sorry, but I’m spanking that pert little ass because I have to know you got the message. I’m not trying to tether you to anyone; I’m trying to keep you safe while we work on you becoming more oriented to this time. Assimilated.”
“I hate that word and I don’t know spanking. You’re not striking me. I’ll not stand for you to hit me like a dog.”
“It’s not the same thing as you make it sound. I’ve already done it.” He’d gotten her attention.
“I don’t understand.”
“You do, you just don’t understand the word. I’m punishing you, but you’ll be fine. It’ll hurt but not leave any lasting damage. I can’t even leave any real marks because Sterling would have my head since I made a big deal about not using approved methods to make your assimilation go faster.”
“Because he wants me.”
“We all want you, Maya. Don’t you know that? It’s the damnedest thing, but it’s the truth. Never doubt we want you as our woman. Do you even realize how strong a commitment we’re willing to make if you’re ours? To keep you, forever? All of us?”
“Yes. I have dreams of you, too. The dreams tell me I have three mates.”
“I don’t understand that, or all of the other things you, Zander and Sterling can do with your minds, but I know we’ll have to work on this togetherness issue. Three men, Maya, is nothing like one, especially not for one as young as you.”
“I have seen twenty winters.” Her tone said it all. She thought she was well past the time for waiting to find a husband or lover, or to experience these spankings he was threatening.
“That isn’t old, sweetie, not when we all love you and we would want to make love together sometimes.”
She nodded. She had known it for a while, but Paxton needed more. He wasn’t as open in his acceptance, but she would not be deterred. She’d have to teach him what he need
ed to learn to believe she was ready. Maya yearned to have him love her like Zander had. She knew it wasn’t mating, but after the fright she’d had climbing the rocks, she wanted more than gentle loving. Something told her Paxton was the man for that kind of release.
“But right now, I’m going to blister your flawless round bottom for putting yourself in harm’s way when you didn’t have to. For disobeying me.”
He rolled her over his lap, remaining where he sat on the ground. She didn’t resist when he yanked down the yoga pants she had worn so her assets weren’t inadvertently shown to the world. That was Zander’s requirement when she bent over one day to pet the lambs.
“It’s either longer skirts or bottoms. There is no other choice when she is outside. Besides, I don’t mind telling you she is an utter distraction when she is close with no bottoms.”
The men had laughed and bought yoga pants, but it added another layer in the disrobing process now. Paxton’s hand landed with loud precision. She didn’t make a sound. She’d told them it was not uncommon for women and children to be hit with sticks, and all manner of other things. She experienced it all in her life. Therefore a ‘spanking’ by Paxton wasn’t anything to worry about. He swatted hard and fast but never anything close to more than she could handle. She couldn’t say she liked Paxton’s punishments, but she didn’t hate them, nor did she fear them.
It stung, and she had to suppress a few yelps, but she understood his need to correct her. This was a claiming of a different kind. He was exerting his authority over her and she knew the strength of his desire for her by teaching her to obey him. He feared for her safety. She’d understood this need of his on that first day. She knew it was a demonstration to those around them that she was his. It was a comfort even if the heat in her backside encouraged her to protest that display.
This time, however, instead of releasing her, Paxton ended his chastisement and rubbed her bottom. She liked that part of his declaration, very much. The burn on her rear morphed with the tingling in her lady’s parts and an amazing thing happened. She could feel herself become anxious with want. It was like walking into her night dream in the daytime. Very much like she felt with Zander the other night. Not just the spanking, but Paxton rubbing her sitting end. She saw this in her dream and relaxed into his touching.
Maya moaned and didn’t even care. This was a natural part of life. Her mother and grandmother had told her to allow it to happen with her mate. She had allowed Zander to touch her like she had seen couples in her tribe do. They enjoyed their men. Although she was careful not to watch too closely, she couldn’t help but hear their excitement.
“My sweet little rabbit. I’m not sure this will make my lesson stick, but I have to touch you.” She’d heard his words and didn’t want to stop him. She wanted to beg him.
His finger swooped in and he discovered she was soaked. “Do you feel that, Maya? It’s your body’s honey. Your arousal. It tells me you’re excited about my touch and what we are doing right now. Maybe you even liked your spanking, just a little. Do you feel it?”
“Yes.” She didn’t recognize her own voice.
“It’s how a woman readies herself for her man. Like Zander, I won’t take you, I promise, but I want to show you enjoyment. Can you lie here and let me love you?”
“Yes.”
He didn’t say another word before his finger dipped back into her cream and teased her tender parts. Soon the tightening in her core was becoming overwhelming. She couldn’t lie still. He touched a spot inside her channel that sent her into throes of heat-engulfed rapture. The pressure and the tingling sent tremors of intensity through her body, the clamping down of her inner muscles was almost overwhelming. She saw rainbows behind her closed eyelids, and she didn’t know if she wanted him to stop or continue. Her cry of painful pleasure was all she could do as her body stiffened and her muscles contracted.
Maya took a ragged breath and then another once the feelings had subsided.
“Are you doing okay, honey?”
Paxton rubbed her thighs and bottom as he spoke tenderly. This was not the same man who had taken her across his lap and punished her thoughtless actions earlier. This man had such care in his voice, he made tears come to her eyes. These men were demanding and strict but loving and kind in their behavior towards her. Her dreams were always truthful. These men were for her.
“I am not harmed.”
“No,” Pax chuckled. “I didn’t think you were.” He continued his massage of her inner thighs and bottom. “But it can overwhelm you if it’s too early in your experience of orgasms. It’s your first with me.”
“Orgasm, is that what you call this achiness in my body? Zander called it ‘coming.’”
“Yes. It’s called many things, coming, climax, or orgasm.”
“Or peaking, that is what Zander calls it. I think I like orgasms.”
Paxton laughed this time. “Yes, I bet you do. Women and men like them during sex or when they are making love.”
“Not when they mate?”
“Yes, mating too.”
“It makes me sleepy.”
“Yes, it can. You can go inside and have a rest if you like but just because I gave you some pleasure doesn’t mean the spanking should not teach a lesson. No climbing something you aren’t sure is sturdy, and no going outside the garden dome unless I know about it.”
“I won’t Paxton, I promise.”
“All right, then. We’ll walk around to the other end where we can use the steps. First point out the plant you wanted, and I’ll send up a bot to get it.”
That had been this afternoon. She wanted that tightening again, that orgasm repeated, but she didn’t want to earn a spanking to get it. Now she looked at the program starting and recognized some of this world as hers, like the other night. Sterling said it was the same world but a different time. Whatever it was, she knew this place on the viewing screen. Not the exact place but it was like her time before here. It saddened her to know it was a place that didn’t exist now.
While she believed she was fulfilling her calling, this was the time and place chosen for her by the Creator, she missed the familiarity of her home. A smile always burst across her face when she saw the doctors and she looked for them in their usual areas when she was worried, or lonely. They always welcomed her.
The program spoke of legends and mythical beliefs of those like her people. She watched closely. But they were not her people or those like them, they were pretending, like Sterling had told her some on this screen did. These people were only similar in some ways, but it was still a comfort to watch them. She was glad they attached the portable translator to her wrist because she could understand the words.
Her men spoke to her about a myth of people like hers that spoke of a woman with her gifts going into the cave and never returning. She said there were many such stories about that cave, making it a forbidden place. She didn’t think it was necessarily a story of her though. And if it was, then it simply meant she would never return to her own time. Nothing more.
The program in front of her was saying the skinwalker was a legend. A story the old ones told. That is what the man said. He didn’t know they were real. That all the evil in this time and hers, were because of skinwalkers. Murder, rape, thievery, treachery: They were all because of the skinwalkers. She had told that to Sterling when she watched a news program with him and as he explained the strange words to her, it was obvious they had many skinwalkers among them.
As Maya listened to the stories they believed were not all true, she saw through her mind a flash of a man in a coyote skin. It was Lakan showing himself to her inner eye. She hadn’t seen him since she had been in the cave. She’d hoped he’d stayed in the other time but her last sighting of him was as he jumped towards her. Now, her vision told her something different. It told her he was in the same time, the same world as she.
It was he who was the coyote in her dream and it was he who tried to steal her on the first night. He
was looking for her. Shifting when he needed to as he tried to find her. As the story ended on the screen, the lonesome cry of the coyote sounded. She cried out as the skinwalker continued to howl. This skinwalker was for her.
Chapter 9
Sterling was jerked awake by the blaring of an alarm, then a woman’s scream. Maya’s scream.
“Darla, alert the house and go into lockdown.”
“All alerts have been activated, Sterling. Security is initiated. Paxton and Zander are coming in your direction.”
“Thanks, Darla.”
Sterling raced to open Maya’s door. When he entered, the light automatically turned on and she screamed again. Scooping their frantic woman into his arms, she fought him even as he soothed her.
“Hey, now. I’ve got you. It’s okay, honey. I’ve got you.”
Sterling rocked and crooned like he did this every day when in fact, he had rarely been in the position to need to comfort someone so distraught. Most people had their support with them or didn’t trust him enough yet to allow the contact. He felt somewhat awkward with any physical contact other than casual sexual partners. With Maya, it was natural. He’d reach for her as he passed just to make contact and she’d lean in to his touch.
Thundering steps stopped at Maya’s door. As Sterling could have predicted, Zander went straight for Maya and Paxton’s ex-Marine came out in full force while he stood guard at the door.
“Darla, what’s the problem?” barked Paxton.
“Human intruder.”
“Where?” Paxton looked around the wide empty hallway.
“He was in the compound, but he has disappeared.”
“Where?”
“Unknown.”
“How?”
“Unknown.”
“Set up surveillance footage for my viewing.”
“Queued up, Paxton.”
Captured Obedience Page 10