by Thianna D
"Ms. Kendle? I'm Jonathon, the housing board secretary. Brent said to send you up to his office on the third floor when you got here. I see Cory left the food with you." His eyes twinkled and she found herself returning his smile easily.
"Everyone here is very nice," she admitted.
"Brent has worked to make it that way." His eyes darted around and he leaned in. "All the single women wonder how you caught him. Good for you." With a wink, he walked away through a door marked Office.
Grinning despite herself because she kind of wondered the same thing, she turned and quickly made her way up the stairs. Well, quickly was an overstatement. The first set of stairs she made it up easily enough. Not so much the second set. By the time she got to the top, she was breathing pretty hard. "You couldn't put your office on the first floor?" she called out, panting.
The sound of a chair being moved preceded Brent walking out of a door. He took in her look and smiled. "Not used to two flights of stairs?"
"No." She lifted up the bag and he took it, putting an arm around her and guiding her inside his office. It looked like almost any office. Except it was incredibly tidy. Too tidy. No office should be this orderly. After he pointed her to one of the two chairs facing his desk, she sat in it and he pulled up the second, sitting next to her as he removed containers from the bag.
"Reiny is an amazing cook. You're going to love her food."
They ate in companionable silence for a few minutes, though she did "mmm" a few times. He was right about the restaurants in Corbin's Bend. The food from any of them was amazing. "This is good," she admitted as she took a sip of a soda he had waiting for her.
"Like I said, we purposefully recruited great chefs. The last thing I wanted was bad restaurants."
"So, who was the lawyer?" she asked, picking up her fork again.
A small shadow crossed his face as he stood up and leaned over his desk, retrieving some papers. "He was from a firm in New York… strangely enough, the same firm Eliza worked at." She wondered if it had to do with his deceased fiancée and was prepared to be there for him about whatever it was. Until the next words fell from his lips. "He came here about you."
"Me?" she asked in surprise, putting the fork back down.
Nodding, he handed over the two eight-by-ten images. Looking down at them, her eyes widened. "What the hell?" The images were of her, and yet they looked as though they had been tampered with.
"It sounds like the Korvens are after something."
Blinking, she looked up at him. "You know my ex-fiancé was Nathan Korven?"
"Yes, I do."
"Wh-what do they want? And why do my pictures look weird?" They didn't just look weird. She looked drugged out in them.
"The lawyer wanted proof of some illness you have."
"I'm not ill!" she shrieked, enraged and actually about to burst into tears because she understood now what this was about. Nathan and his family had decided to claim she was ill because she was interested in spanking. Why couldn't they just leave her alone?
"I know you're not," he said soothingly, grabbing their food and tossing it on his desk before pulling her onto his lap. "It's obviously some ploy by them. I'm just not sure what or why. But I wanted you to know about it, as I sent the lawyer packing and you need to be prepared if he comes to you."
Shivering, she tried to fight back the tears that wanted to erupt as they always did when she got angry, but they were winning out. "Why can't they leave me alone?"
"I don't know, but I promise we'll find out. The development has three sets of lawyers, of which one set also has the Korvens for clients. Under the advice of the other two sets, I have already set into motion the legal briefs needed to make sure everything they know goes under lock and key and everyone in their office who has had access to it has their access revoked, and the list of their names sent to us. This…" He paused and she could tell he was trying to figure out the way to say what he needed to say. "If your house was a part of the development already, you would have greater protection, but as it is, I have called a meeting of the board tonight to discuss what kind of protections we can add."
"Brent, the house is not a part of the community."
"I know. But if you think I'm going to leave you to those sharks," his body shook with anger, but instead of scaring her, it actually comforted her, "Not a chance."
"Thank you."
"You're welcome."
Without further word from the Korvens' lawyers, it was simple to push it to the back of her mind. Especially as Corbin's Bend was a bit of an eye-opener for her. In the three weeks since she had been spanked for the first time, Char had only been spanked by Brent for pleasure in her bedroom, so it was a bit of a shock as she was walking down Spanking Loop to actually see a man slap a woman on the ass and, instead of her turning and slapping him across the face, the woman bent over and shook her derriere in a provocative manner. A giggle left Char's lips as she hurried past. Or tried to hurry past.
"You're Char Kendle, aren't you?" the woman asked, standing up. About Char's height, she had straight black hair that ran past her shoulders, bright green eyes, and laugh lines that said she smiled often. Reaching out her hand, she walked forward, the man at her side. "I'm Bethany Angel. This is my boyfriend, Kirk Darrent."
Shaking each of their hands, Char nodded. "Yes. Sometimes I feel like a celebrity. Everyone knows who I am."
Kirk, a portly man in his early thirties with a receding hairline, smiled kindly. "Happens to all new residents. But especially to the woman who's dating the president of the housing board. Don't worry. Once you have been here a year, nobody'll think anything of it."
"A year? Great."
Bethany laughed. "You'll get used to it. Kirk and I moved in fourteen months ago. It was freaky at first because where we moved from, nobody talked to strangers, but here? Everyone says hi."
A scream combined with a loud smack startled her and Char looked to the house to her left. Another scream came out of the windows, and Bethany shook her head. "Don't worry. That's just Carrie Ann Nelor. Her and her partner have a strict DD relationship and whenever she gets punished, we all get to hear it."
"Loudly," Kirk tacked on, grimacing. "I think I'll talk to Brent about it again. He got them to shut the windows for a while."
Bethany offered Char a warm smile. "Most of us are pretty open about spanking as fun, but when it comes to punishment, we keep it to ourselves – except for the public punishments. For some reason, Danelle likes everyone to know when she is turning Carrie Ann's ass a bright red because she did something wrong."
"Public punishments?" Char asked, electing to pass over the last part of that information.
"Yes. When a resident does something against the charter, they receive a public disciplinary action," Kirk explained. "It could be anything from having to explain to everyone what they did and why they won't do it again, to a full spanking."
A spanking in front of people? How humiliating. Oh, shit. And a bit exciting. Just how sick was she that the thought turned her on?
"So, what do you two do?" she asked to try and get her mind off that.
"I teach high school," Bethany explained. "Kirk here is a lawyer. He spends every other week down in Denver at his office there. But he also has an office here in the community for anyone who needs his assistance. How about you?"
"I'm a writer. Still trying to write a New York Times bestseller."
As she spoke to Bethany and Kirk, it wasn't exactly easy to ignore the screams and cries that came from the house next door, and when they were finally silent, she felt herself relax a little.
"I had best get back to my office. It was a pleasure to meet you, Char," Kirk said. "And you," he said to Bethany, slapping her firmly on her buttocks. Her giggling answer along with the way her eyes lit with lust made Char wonder if that was how she looked when Brent spanked her. "I will be home at five-fifteen. Be ready."
"I will!" Bethany called after his retreating figure. A low sound that r
esembled a purr came from her throat before she turned to Char and grinned. "Want to come in for some coffee? I would do anything right now not to have to grade papers."
"Sounds great."
Bethany's house was small, but homey. "Kirk and I plan to start a family in a few years," she explained as the two got comfortable in her living room. "Brent said they would move us to a larger house at that point. Right now, this is perfect for us." She sipped her coffee and then gnawed on her lower lip for a moment. "Tell me if this is none of my business because the last thing I want to do is pry, but there is something I have been wondering about ever since I moved here."
"What's that?" Char could not imagine that she would know anything Bethany wouldn't.
"Is Brent well hung?" She asked the question with what amounted to polite interest, but it was so surprising that Char, who had just taken a drink of coffee, began to choke. "Oh, shit! Don't hurt yourself. You don't have to tell me! I just know Kirk is a big boy, and from what I've seen of the front of Brent's pants, well…" Bethany grinned at her, and as she stopped choking, Char found herself starting to laugh. "There, now you can feel like a part of the club."
"The club?"
"Yep, all of us are a pretty tight group here and you will find yourself asked the strangest questions. Have you gotten any of them yet?"
"Yours is the first," Char admitted.
"Cool. Taylor asked me mine. We were at our first community get-together and had just been introduced. Her husband took Kirk to introduce him to some other people and she leaned into me and asked, 'When he spanks you, does he hit a little to the left?'"
"What? Why?" Char asked, starting to laugh again.
"She had this theory that left-handed men hit more to the left. I told her that Kirk covered the whole area nicely, thank you. Her response? She sighed and made a comment about it must just be her husband. I guess her left hip receives the brunt of it."
"So people really ask these kinds of things?" Char wondered if she would ever feel comfortable asking the kind of question Bethany had just asked her.
"Oh, sure. That's one of the great things about being here, actually. I mean, Kirk found out there was a better product to use to lessen bruises by talking to Brent, and I found out that ginger added a whole new set of sensations by asking Venia what the weirdest thing her husband had ever done during a spanking."
"Ginger?"
Bethany's eyes sparkled. "Oh, yeah!"
Unable to stop herself from asking, Char said, "What does it do?"
"Let's just say it adds a certain level of warmth. And Brent will know all about it. The man is said to be really good in bed." She paused. "Though you would know all about that, I suppose."
"A bit."
Bethany grinned, and then, as if sensing that Char was not completely comfortable, changed the subject.
Chapter 7
And here comes the real snow," Brent murmured as he walked out of his house, looking at the flakes falling thickly around him. The first few snows of the season always felt rough, but they never stayed long, nor did they make the world pure white. But he had lived here long enough to know that the storm that was starting now would probably go on for a couple days, leaving their entire world blanketed in sparkling silver.
It truly would be beautiful. As long as everyone remembered to drive slowly and had taken their notices seriously about getting their gutters cleaned out. If not, at some point he would receive some emergency calls. It happened every year.
With the weather turning, he pulled the four-by-four out of the garage rather than his truck. He intended to stay the night with Char – something he did three to four times a week now – and her hill was a bear to drive up in anything but the all-terrain vehicle when the road was deep in snow and ice. Brent pulled out onto Spanking Lane and moved smoothly through the development. It was just after five, and a few cars were already pulling up to houses as people got off work, and anyone who spotted him waved as he drove past. He returned the waves, continuing on his way.
This was his and Char's month anniversary. Well, since he had spanked her, anyway, and tonight he planned on introducing the next part of their relationship. She loved to be spanked for fun and sex, but she had a few habits that did not serve her well and he wanted to help her overcome them. Domestic discipline would be perfect for that. Plus, he admitted to himself that he wished to further their relationship, and after his time with Eliza, he understood just how much DD could intensify and strengthen a couple if done right.
Of course, in the community, he had also seen it done wrong. Some were just inexperienced couples who got carried away and thus had to be talked back down to reality. A few were heads of household who gained a god complex, a few were taken in hands who lost themselves in trying to figure out who they were and became subservient rather than just submissive; which was why they had developed a mentoring system. Brent was a mentor to ten heads in the community: nine male, one female. They called him all the time, some just to chat, some to ask if they were being unrealistic, which usually meant they were not – their partner was just pushing to see if they would push back – and some to complain about their partners, which usually meant they were being unrealistic. Corbin's Bend was lucky in that only twice had abuse been an issue. The abusive member had been kicked out of the development and the one who had been abused given as much help as she or he needed. Both had elected to stay there due to the support system.
Four of the women in town had already told Brent they would be willing to mentor Char. Of the four, he felt either Kelli or Venia would make a great mentor, and if tonight worked well he would bring it up.
Out of the corner of his eye he spotted someone running toward the road and instinctively slowed down. As he pulled over, he recognized Brody as the young man opened the passenger door and stuck his head in. "Hey, Brent. Sorry to bug you. Mrs. Michaelson is in labor and Dad called the medical helicopter because she isn't doing well. The baby's too big, I guess. Anyway, we can't find her husband. Do you know where he is?"
Damn. Well, that would put off his evening for a bit. "I haven't seen him. Let me check around. Does your dad need any help?"
"Not at the moment. But he's keeping an eye on the weather and says we need to get her out of here within the next half hour."
"All right. I'll be back within thirty. Tell your dad to meet me at the helipad. I'll either have her husband with me or I'll go with Deliah down to Denver until he can get there."
"Thanks, Brent!"
Grabbing his cell phone from where it lay on the dash, Brent quickly sent a text to Jerry, their pilot, letting him know to have the helicopter ready in thirty minutes. After calling four people who might know where Laurent Michaelson was with no success, he made the call he did not want to have to make.
"Hi, Brent," Char said in her soft, happy voice. "I made you the most scrumptious dinner tonight. It's a recipe I learned years ago."
Groaning softly, he shook his head. "Ah, shit. That makes it even worse. Baby, I'm not going to make it home tonight. Deliah Michaelson is in labor and has to be airlifted to a hospital, and we can't find her husband. As such, looks like I'm going to Denver."
"Is she all right?"
"Sounds like natural birth won't work because she's carrying a huge baby. Well, you met the Michaelsons last week. Deliah is all of five feet tall and Laurent is over six foot. It's no wonder the baby's a bit big."
"That poor woman."
He chuckled because the tone of her voice was half shudder, half amusement. "Glad it isn't you?"
"Maybe a little. When will you be back?"
"As soon as we find the missing husband, I'll come home." And finding Laurent was not necessarily an easy thing to do. He was a good man, but sometimes he just liked to get away for a few days. That he chose to do his disappearing act when his wife was so close to delivery made Brent angry. He would definitely be having words with the man when he found him.
"Damn," she sighed, and he paused in th
e midst of his own thinking due to her tone.
"What's wrong?"
"I have to go out of town for a writing assignment. I'll be gone for four days."
"Damn," he agreed, making her laugh softly. "Then I guess I'll see you when you get home. When are you leaving?"
"Well, I wasn't going to leave until tomorrow, but if you're going to be gone, I think I might put the food away and go now. The roads aren't as bad as they will be soon."
"Good point. At least get to Denver. I don't like to think of you driving that hill once the snow starts to pack."
Once they said their goodbyes, he put the phone down, an unsettled feeling quivering in his stomach. He'd had this feeling before when he was an officer: something was about to go down. The problem was he didn't know which issue it had to deal with. Deliah or Char? Shaking the thought out of his head, as it never did to dwell on it, he pulled out and made his way to the northern part of the development where the helipad sat. By the time he arrived, Marcus was already there, directing placement of his patient.
Looking up at him, Marcus frowned and walked over. "No Laurent?" he asked.
"Not that I could find."
"Bastard. He knew Deliah was due to go into labor any day."
Slapping him on the back, Brent smiled. "Let's give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he has a flat tire somewhere. I've already asked for people to look for him and his car through the call system."
"Uh-huh. Well, I assume that means you're going with her?"
"Yep."
"All right. I have to stay here. We have two more medical issues I have to deal with. Deliah should be fine on the ride down. Her contractions are still a ways apart, and this is her first baby. Call me when you get her there and settled." Marcus handed him her charts. "Give those to the nurses."
"Will do." Brent climbed into the cockpit, sitting next to the pilot.
"Shall I have someone check on Char while you're gone?" Marcus asked, holding the door.