by Loki Renard
Zora was sitting amongst the other patrons, entirely unshackled and feeling the tingle of potential freedom. Of course he'd warned her not to try anything silly in the car, but she had disregarded that warning almost immediately. It was the perfect place to make an escape, a well heeled little town where people were sure to notice and come to the aid of a damsel in distress. She almost had a mind to start screaming and carrying on right there in the restaurant, but she really was hungry, not to mention curious. “Real estate prices are wonderful there,” she answered his question, smiling sweetly as he snorted.
“You're not the sort of woman who invests in real estate.”
“I'm not? What sort of woman am I, pray tell?” She was being playful, but he responded quite seriously.
“You're the sort of woman who gets involved with dangerous men. You're the sort of woman who doesn't know what's good for you,” Tex smiled a dark smile. “You're trouble. I'd even go so far as to say that you're your own worst enemy.”
“I'm the woman your mother told you about, in other words,” Zora laughed. Tex seemed to have a surprisingly comprehensive understanding of her for a man who clearly didn't know the first thing about her aside from the fact that she'd once known Savage intimately. “You think you know me so well, don't you?”
“Here's what I think,” he said, waggling a finger at her. “I think you and Savage still have a relationship.”
She rolled her eyes dramatically and pointed towards the stucco wall nearby. “I have a closer relationship with that wall than I do with Savage.”
He smirked. “You want me to believe that so badly, don't you?” He leaned back in his chair. “I asked you earlier what you thought I did. Now I'm going to tell you. I get the truth out of people,” he said, his voice soft but oh so chilling. “Some people give up their secrets eagerly, others need a little persuasion, but I always find the truth. Always.” His look was more than piercing, it was a look designed to shred her soul from the inside out. Zora wanted to look somewhere else, anywhere else, but she forced herself to hold his gaze. As he looked into her, he allowed her to look into him and what she saw behind the debonair charm and pleasant conversation was darkness and ruthlessness beyond anything she'd ever seen before. Even Savage looked warmer in his rages than this man did. This man was reptilian. He made her feel cold.
They stared at one another silently locked in an ocular stand-off until the waitress interrupted them by asking if they wanted dessert. Zora watched Tex's face change in an instant, the darkness in his gaze masked by the perfect emulation of good natured humor as he asked for a menu.
She pushed her chair back. “I'm going to the bathroom.”
“Don't be long.” He was smiling, but she only heard a threat. He didn't mean 'don't be long', he meant 'don't try to run away'. He knew she was going to try to escape but he couldn't stop her, not in front of the waitress and all the nice patrons with their nice clothes.
Zora made her way to the ladies room quickly and was relieved to see that there was a window, a nice big window not two feet above the ground. Committing to her plan, she wasted no time shimmying out of it and dropping into the bushes outside.
From the bushes she scampered across to the building next door. She didn't know what it was, but a window was propped open. Considering it a hint from fate, she climbed in that window and shut it behind her quickly and quietly. Only then did she turn around to see what private space she'd invaded.
It turned out to be a small hardware store, a mom and pop affair. A window covered with a blind faced towards the restaurant so she sneaked over to it and peeked out. As she'd suspected, Tex was already looking for her. He was standing outside the bathroom window, looking around vaguely. He didn't seem annoyed or even surprised, he had an almost serene expression as he started walking around the front of the restaurant, presumably to try and find her. With her heart pounding, Zora slid down the wall and crawled behind the counter. She'd escaped. Just like that. A little giggle of glee burst from her lips. The big bad man had been foiled!
Then she heard something that made her heart sink. The door of the store was being unlocked. She scuttled back to the window she'd come through, but Tex was already stepping through the front door. It was too dark for her to see his face, but she could see the silhouetted outline of his body as he made a tutting noise. She thought it was too dark for him to see her, but he didn't seem to need to see her, he seemed to be able to sense her.
“Oh Zora, I did tell you to behave yourself, didn't I?” He came walking down an aisle towards the spot where she was crouched, paralyzed with a stupid fear that did not serve her in any way. In the dark he seemed larger, scarier. He reached for something on one of the racks and put it behind his back as he approached. “I'm going to have to punish you for running away.”
“No!” She wished she could hide the note of panic, but her voice was quivering too much to control.
“Yes,” he said, sounding almost sorrowful. “I told you I can't have you running off.”
“Don't touch me,” she said as he came closer.
“I'm going to touch you,” he promised. “I'm going to touch you a great deal.”
“What are you going to do to me?” Her eyes were wide and her heart was pounding. She'd not put anything past the man and visions of terrible fates danced before her eyes, threatening to push her back into hysteria. Then he pulled his arm out from behind his back and she saw what he'd picked off the shelves. It was a thick leather strip eight inches long and almost three inches wide. Something used for wrastling cattle, or bundling cats or something.
“I think a thrashing would do you a world of good, Zora Matthews.”
A burst of laughter was probably not what he'd expected from her, but after fearing the worst, finding out that he intended to corporally punish her was a great relief. “Oh god. I thought you were going to hurt me,” she said, still giggling bubbly nervous giggles.
“It is going to hurt,” he promised. “And when I'm done, I think you'll be able to find it in yourself to do as you're told. Now come with me and don't you dare make any more of a scene than you already have.” He took her by the arm and picked her up from the spot on the floor where she had been cowering. He marched her out the front door of the hardware store and back to the car where he didn't even bother shackling her again. “We're going to go to a hotel, and you're going to learn about discipline,” he informed her as he got in the driver's side.
“Good luck with that,” Zora muttered under her breath, crossing her arms over her chest. If Tex thought he could smack her into submission, he had another thing coming.
“Oh I don't need luck, Ms Matthews,” Tex growled. “You're going to be very cooperative very soon.”
Chapter Three
Stuck in the car, Zora regarded Tex out of the corner of her eye. He looked grim, but she doubted that he would do very much. It was easy enough to threaten someone with an implement, but carrying a threat through, that was a different story. He'd barely lifted a finger when she'd shot bullets right at his face, surely he wouldn't start getting all slappy over an attempt at escape?
Half an hour later, Tex ushered her into a well-appointed hotel room. From dinner by the sea side to five star accommodations, he was doing kidnapping right. “Nice,” Zora said, a touch of misplaced sarcasm in her tone. The room was nice, from the neutral carpets and bedspreads, to the wood paneled mini bar her eyes were drawn to almost instinctively.
“Let's get this out of the way,” Tex said, sitting down on the edge of the bed. “Come here.” He looked at her with a serious expression, but the earlier coldness was gone from his gaze and Zora found herself no longer quite so afraid of him.
She laughed in his face. “Are you mental? I'm not going to help you hit me.”
“It will be a lot easier on you if you do.”
“It would be a lot easier on me if I gave you what you wanted in general, but that's not going to happen is it?”
A slow smile sprea
d over his face, making his mustache slide up and tickle the underside of his well shaped nose. “This is true.” He stood up and made his way over to the small briefcase he'd brought up to the room. Zora watched as he unsnapped it and took out a roll of dark rope. “We'll do it the hard way then,” he said with a gleam in his eye.
“What do you think you're doing with that?” She asked the question even though it was plain to see what he was doing with that, he was planning to truss her up like a chicken. “I'll scream,” she threatened.
“No you won't.” He moved forward and caught her around the waist. She opened her mouth to scream but he was ready with a gag in the form of a large rope knot. He slid it neatly into her mouth, cutting her cry off. Then with able and practiced hands he wrapped the rope around her, tying her quickly and professionally.
Feeling her limbs bound, she panicked almost immediately, but he was quick to soothe her with calming words. “Settle down young lady,” he said, rubbing her lower back comfortingly. “The sooner we get this done, the sooner it is over.”
Something in his voice took the edge off her panic. She was still very much afraid, but she managed to get her breathing under control as he lifted her off the ground and held her over his lap as he finished binding her.
A couple of minutes later Zora was tied neatly in place over a plush arm chair, her pantied bottom raised over one arm, her upper body supported by the other. “Terribly sorry to have to restrain you so much,” Tex said in a growly drawl as he checked to make sure her bonds were secure. “But I can't have you screaming and alerting people, can I?”
Zora made a muffled, incomprehensible reply.
“Let's get this out of the way,” he said, picking the leather strap up and moving around the side of the chair. “This is because you disobeyed me,” he said, his voice coming from behind her as he carried the opening stages of the punishment out with a surprising amount of ceremony. “I told you not to try to run away and you did just that at your earliest convenience. For doing so, you're going to be strapped until I'm satisfied you've learned your lesson.”
Zora rolled her eyes. She almost wished he'd just get on with it. Being secured in the undignified position was getting very old, very fast.
She changed her mind as soon as she felt him drape the thick strap over her cheeks. He drew it back and the next thing she knew there was a loud CRACK as he bought it down across her bottom. For a long moment Zora felt nothing, then a deep burning heat set into her backside. Just as the heat reached its peak, another crack of the belt landed across her rear, sending another punitive shock wave through her tender flesh.
It hurt, but even worse than the physical pain was the way it reminded her of Savage. No man before him had spanked her and now, with every stinging slap of the leather across her panties, she remembered him. Why wasn't he coming? Why wasn't he saving her?
Tex did not speak during the punishment. He lashed the leather back and forth, contacting her backside first on the back of the leather, then on the front. Zora was unable to move, unable to squirm and any cries she made her muffled by the thick gag. She did not cry. There were no tears, no matter how much her bottom hurt.
Finally, a good thirty or forty strokes later, Tex let up on her. She felt him loosen her bonds, then he removed the gag. He knelt down and made eye contact with her. “No more running away, do we understand one another?”
“Yeah,” Zora muttered, her jaw hurt almost as much as her ass did and her emotions were in a tumult. It had been a very strange spanking. Tex had not given her any quarter, but there was no malice in his demeanor either. He seemed like a man focused on results, not revenge. Apparently satisfied with the effects of the punishment, he helped her up from the chair and assisted her over to the bed, where she collapsed face down on the coverlet.
“You're an interesting woman, Zora Matthews,” he said, seating himself near the mini bar. “Most women would be in hysterics by now. I can only conclude,” he said, reaching into the depths of the little fridge. “That you've experienced that type of punishment before.”
“Or maybe you hit like a girl.” The insult was out of her mouth before she caught it, a bratty reflex she couldn't control.
He merely chuckled. “The state of your backside says otherwise, I think.”
She relaxed, relieved that he didn't seem to intend to hit her anymore. He was looking at her steadily though. “I'm beginning to wonder about you,” he said at length. “No great concern about being kidnapped, no surprise at having your backside tanned.” He shook his head and reached for a little bottle of whiskey, which made Zora lick her lips and whimper just a little. She'd murder for a drink.
“Maybe I'm just a bit mental,” she said, rubbing her bottom as surreptitiously as she could. She was still in her panties, though it would have been nice to cover herself, the idea of working her jeans back over her hips was not appealing and Tex was not being lascivious in any way. He'd given her the most matter of fact punishment she'd ever experienced, a sore bottom, and nothing else.
“Maybe,” Tex allowed for the possibility. “Or maybe you're more than you're letting on.”
“Isn't everybody?” Zora was particularly pleased with that little bit of witty repartee.
“In some respects perhaps.”
Zora didn't say any more. She was starting to get worried about giving too much away. Tex was looking for Savage and he obviously didn't know anything about her aside from the fact that she'd been romantically linked to him. That meant Tex was a bad guy. Probably. The lines between good guys and bad guys had blurred a lot in the previous months.
“You don't look like military, and you don't act like it,” Tex was thinking aloud. “You lack discipline.”
“Right,” Zora agreed. “Like I've been trying to tell you. I'm not anyone and I don't have anything to do with Savage anymore. What do you want with him anyway?”
Tex looked at her under hooded lids. “I want to recruit him.”
Her own eyes widened in surprise at the unexpected honesty, or what she took for being honesty anyway. “You want to... recruit him... to what?”
“That's none of your concern.”
“As I'm sitting in a hotel room with strap marks across my ass, I think it is.”
“I can't tell you what I want him for, Ms Matthews. If I told you, I'd have to kill you.”
Zora rolled her eyes. He was trying to be so subtle and mysterious, but everything was becoming plain as day to her. “Let me guess, you're from some secret branch of the government. You're not military and you don't have connections with them, but you like what you see in Savage so you're hoping to find him. Only problem is, the military have been making him real hard to find over the past few months.”
“How do you know that?” Tex's eyes had narrowed. “Who do you work for?”
His reaction told her that she was on the money, or close to it anyway. “Who gives a shit who I work for? You really need another acronym to make you feel better?” She was bluffing, but she was doing a good job of it and Tex was being drawn in, she could tell.
“I like to know who I'm dealing with,” Tex said.
“Well so do I, but we so very rarely get what we want these days, do we?”
Tex chuckled. “I knew it was a good idea to pick you up.”
“Don't count your chickens too quickly, bucko,” Zora replied. She was enjoying having a little bit of power, it helped balance out the shame from being spanked.
He smiled into his drink. “You're fun. I see why he likes you so much.”
He still didn't believe her about Savage. That was frustrating. “I haven't heard from him in forever. He doesn't like me. Why can't you get that through your thick skull?”
“Careful now,” Tex said. “Don't give me a reason to get the strap out again.”
Zora settled into pouty quietness. Tex seemed to be enjoying himself, which she didn't like. Any man who enjoyed imparting physical discipline was trouble. Especially for her.
&
nbsp; “You're very lucky I don't believe you,” he said, breaking the silence.
“What do you mean?”
He glanced at her, catching her eye. “If I truly thought you and Savage were over, your panties would have come down and your bottom would have been bare.”
Zora blushed. “So you're not violating me completely out of respect for him?”
“I'd like him to be on side when we meet,” Tex admitted. “Which shouldn't be too far away.”
“If any of that were true,” Zora said, trying not to give too much away. “Then don't you think he would be mad at you for strapping me at all?”
“I don't think so. You deserved it. You needed it. And obviously he's trained you to accept corporal punishment.”
“He has not!” Zora denied the charge hotly, even though she knew it was sort of true. Savage had conditioned her into thinking it was okay to be spanked, even though it was a very strange sort of a thing for one adult to do to another.
“Maybe I should spank you again for lying to me,” Tex said thoughtfully. “Maybe that would help.”
“It would not,” Zora replied quickly. Her bottom was still very hot and very sore, though there were a few residual tingles seeping between her thighs, producing a feeling that was very inappropriate indeed. Damn Tex for having spanked her, damn him for having reminded her what it felt like to be taken in hand. Damn him for making her horny. “I'm going to the bathroom,” she declared.
“Don't go leaping out the window, we're six stories up and I don't feel like scraping you off the pavement,” Tex said as a parting shot.
Giving him a dirty look on her way past, she went to the bathroom but she didn't go to the toilet, instead she leaned up a wall, stuck her hand down her panties and thought of Savage. It was hard though, time had faded her memory of him and she found it difficult to keep the image of his face in her head. Tex kept slipping into her fantasy and eventually it wasn't just one man who fueled the fire of her arousal, but two. Rubbing her clit for all she was worth, Zora tried not to make any noise as she imagined it was Savage who spanked her, then Tex. To her immense frustration, climax evaded her. Eventually, after several minutes of being close but unable to go over the edge she washed her hands and stomped out of the bathroom in a foul mood.