Cowboy Welcome

by Alyssa Bailey

  Shanna had lowered her head and nodded. “Yes, sir. I guess I better call back Sandra and fix that too.”

  “Yeah, I imagine you want to do that as well, but that brings up another issue. I’m glad you enjoyed visiting Sandra, but I am not real happy for you to spend a lot of time with her.”

  “She told me that you two dated for a while. She was kind of interested in you today.”

  “And that is why I am not excited about you getting too friendly. She tells everyone we dated, but we never did. I showed her around campus and helped her settle in some, but other than an occasional game or something in the beginning, we didn’t even have the same friends. We never dated.”

  “What? She is positive you did.”

  “Yep, she even told me we did, but we didn’t. So, maybe steering clear would be a good thing.”

  “Huh. I guess I’ll at least verify what she says.”

  “Good idea, especially if it has something to do with me or us. And now, about that trust issue and the fact that you had a big attitude with me without giving me the opportunity to fix it.”

  “I explained that already, but you spanked me right out in the middle of everybody and you said you were never going to do that.” Zane could hear the accusation and what Shanna was undoubtedly thinking was righteous indignation, but he knew it was just bratting. “So I imagine I have already had punishment enough.”

  Zane had to work hard to keep the grin from his face. Yep, she was in pure brat mode.

  “Well, I can see how you might think that, but you are wrong. You had that big attitude with me outside after what you had done inside the diner and you know that was wrong. Those few swats on your butt, while you were fully clothed outside the diner, were the minimum just to be able to get in the car with you. I was so angry that I was not sure we were going to make it here before I stopped and did another round. You were raised better than that, sunshine.”

  That hit home. Zane was right. She was raised better than that. She was better than that. He expected better from her. It clicked. Lesson learned.

  “I know.” Zane knew he had her and it was time to come in for the kill.

  She looked into his black as coal eyes and realized that the sensation on her face was her tears overflowing. She also felt herself dampen in her girlie bits, and the zing from her tummy to her sex trove was electrical and undeniable. Zane laying down the law was arousing her, what was wrong with her?

  Zane’s manner had changed to one of a man with a mission. He stood Shanna up in between his legs and reached for the button of her blue jeans when Shanna’s hand quickly covered his to stay his movements.

  “Sorry, sunshine, this is on the bare.” Shanna looked at him again, assessing if there was a way she could change the outcome and saw there wasn’t. If she were truthful, she would have been disappointed if there were. She didn’t want to explore the thoughts now, but she needed him to be as good as his word. She needed him to define the boundaries and then keep her within them. It was necessary for her to learn to trust him and relax in his control. That was a feeling she wasn’t going to explore right now either.

  He waited until Shanna removed her hand and let him complete the unsnapping and unzipping. He then brought down her blue jeans before settling her across his oaken thighs. Shanna had heard of men’s legs described as oaken but not until this exact moment did she truly understand what that really meant. This was not comfortable and she had already begun to feel the effects of this punishment. She felt the familiar clenching of her stomach and profound anticipation of what was coming. Once he had her settled in the position he wanted her in, he felt a shiver that rode up Shanna’s back. He knew it was not cold since it was hot today. He knew it must be her anticipation of the spanking and he loved it. She was so responsive, so right for him and it made him grin.

  Shanna’s tummy was doing its somersaults and clenching routine, double time. In the last two weeks, she knew how familiar that routine had become. She merely needed to think about Zane. If she walked into a room that he was in or saw someone that even looked like him from a distance it made her salivate. If she would hear his voice, her stomach did that strange dance. Even now, when she knew she was about to get her backside blistered her heart was racing. Her stomach was flopping and she was getting wet in places no one should get wet when about to get spanked. But she knew it had everything to do with his touch, his smell, his voice, even the way he carried himself. Any of these was things that could physiologically change Shanna in thirty seconds or less. It gave him power. It was scary.

  She was afraid of that power and didn’t know if she could release her hold on her own power enough, but right here and right now, she had no choice. She also knew it was her. She had longed for this exact action and reaction to take place between her and a man she cared for. One who cared for her enough to make her accountable. One who would do just what Zane was about to do. He was holding her to a standard. His standard.

  Zane began to rub Shanna’s well-rounded bottom with relish. He smoothed his calloused hands over the globes that he was about to change the color of and gazed in wonder. Zane had had girlfriends before, but Shanna was more than his girlfriend. This was his woman and the stakes were much higher. He needed to keep her in check, but more importantly, he needed to love her and show her more than he had ever shown another woman how much she meant to him.

  Zane knew this was one of those ways. He used spanking to reassure her that he loved her, cherished her. He hadn’t spoken the words, but he knew they were true. He also knew she wasn’t ready to admit her feelings yet, but he would continue to use this as one method to show Shanna how special she was to him. How meaningful it was to him that she did well. He knew he had to be consistent, careful not to spook her. He would never have had a clue how damned hard it was to not just take things over. But he had control. He could woo her patiently. He would control only in areas of complete necessity and allow her to release to him as she could.

  Shanna felt the change in Zane when he quit rubbing her bottom thoughtfully and was preparing to come crashing down on it in less than thoughtful movements. Shanna tensed as he skimmed her panties down her thighs to rest above her jeans.

  “Relax, baby, it will not hurt so much. You need this and I need to give it to you. Once we are done here, it’s over. Except for your apologies, it is over. You understand?” He waited for her nod. “You ready?”

  Zane waited until Shanna again nodded and because it was her first bare bottom spanking with him, he started slow and then increased the tempo. At first, Shanna lay quietly because his hand was dialed down and these were not more than warm-ups, but as Zane began to increase the rhythm and the strength of the slaps, Shanna started to wiggle.

  “Zane, all right, that hurts. Stop, now, please stop.”

  “Hush, baby we’re just getting going. You can handle this. Stop wiggling, relax, and just let it happen.”

  Zane followed his comments with a rain of swats that covered her whole bottom before he moved to her upper thighs. Shanna’s response was immediate.

  “Dammit, Zane that hurts. Stop it. That is enough. I get it. I am sorry. I promise I won’t do that again. I will ask you first before I react. I trust you, I promise, just stop!

  Zane stopped to spread her legs slightly so that he could reach her inner thighs. As he laid four teeth grinding swats on her inner thighs, he said, “and that little word, my dear, just cost you four more in an attention-getting spot. A lady rarely swears and my lady never swears at me. Understood?”

  “Yes, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

  “I know, baby. This is a hard one because it is your first real spanking with me. This spanking establishes the rules of which there are not many. You show respect to others and me as I expect others to respect you as I do. Speak as a lady, not as a cowboy on a Saturday night drunk. Trust me and come to me to fight your battles for you, if you have conflicts that need to be handled. But under no circumstances do you fight me becau
se that, sugar, is a battle you will never win.”

  Zane placed another quick four where her sweet spot was, making the lesson stick.

  “All right, sunshine, lesson over. No, don’t get up yet. Give your cute ass a chance to calm down, give yourself a chance to settle down. Just let me soothe you for a few minutes before you sit up.” The only response Shanna could give was to nod her head. As Zane rubbed the insulted areas of her anatomy, Shanna began to calm down, settle her breathing, and get control of her tears, and that is when she noticed the pain in her backside intensifying.

  “Good Lord, Zane, my butt hurts. You spanked me hard. I don’t think I like this. I don’t think I want to do this anymore.” Shanna’s voice got some strength in it as she began to try to sit up on Zane’s lap.

  “Hold on, hon. I’ll help you up, but if this is your attitude, I think I didn’t finish the job. I don’t believe you want me to think that, do you? I was hoping to have spanked the sass out of you, at least for today. But if I get the indication I didn’t get that quite done, I am a man who finishes a job and will need to go back at it.”

  Zane’s tone and body language told Shanna that her mouth that already written way too many of those bottom paying checks, so she quickly just closed her mouth.

  “All right then. Up you go.” Zane reached up and helped Shanna upright, staying her with his steady hand before allowing her to replace her panties and jeans. He tried to stifle a smile as she tried to hide her hiss of surprise at the irritation the material brought to her skin. Then he brought her down on his lap and she leaned onto his broad chest, laid her head on his shoulder and snuggled.

  “Zane, I really am sorry.”

  “I know, baby, it is over now.”

  “Except for that apology. Zane, what if she doesn’t take it from me?”

  “Oh, sweetie, she will. Missy is a generous girl and her husband is a good man. Believe me, it would get around just as fast as your behavior did if she did not accept your apology and let me tell you her husband would not put up with that, and she knows it.”

  “But I don’t want her to accept my apology because she is afraid her husband’s going to be angry with her if she doesn’t. I want her to accept the apology because I mean it and she wants to because she believes it. And I would like to have a few female friends around here. I can tell you once everyone understands that we are together there aren’t going to be too many women who want to give me the time of day.” Zane just chuckled.

  Pulling back to the front of the diner and watching Zane get out of the car and pocket the keys caused Shanna a stomach jump of a different type. Zane was her man and he expected her to go in and apologize. He was right and she was going to do that, but that did not mean that it was going to be easy. She needed to take a deep breath, let it slowly out, and calm her nerves.

  Watching Shanna the whole way back to town, Zane watched the emotions flit across her face as she worked through her apology in her head. This woman was a bigger package than he had been given before and he wanted to do this right. The way he felt told him that he was in deep and getting deeper by the day. He could just hear her voice and his sidekick stood at attention so dramatically that it was embarrassing. He could command ranch hands, bulls, cattle, even his own responses, except in this one area, damn if his member didn’t rule him. And Shanna ruled his member. He shuddered to think how he could control things when they eventually made love. He hoped he didn’t embarrass himself.

  Zane helped Shanna out of the car, placed an encouraging and body-igniting kiss on her lips, and walked in the door with her tucked under his arm. Missy stopped in the middle of the diner floor.

  Zane reached down, kissed Shanna on the temple, and spoke in her ear. “I’m going to go and have a seat in that corner booth. You come over when you are done.”

  Shanna nodded and took strength from the final back rub Zane gave her before he went and sat down. Looking ahead, she gave a tentative smile to Missy, who warily watched Shanna.

  “When you have a chance, Missy, do you think we could talk for a moment?”

  “Sure, sure, let me drop these burgers off and I’ll be right back.”

  True to her word, Missy walked back and Shanna apologized in her normal voice, in the middle of the diner, just as Zane had told her to do. She begged Missy to please forgive her because she really needed friends and she would love it if Missy would be her friend if she were up to the challenge that is.

  Missy hugged Shanna. “You bet, girl. I would be happy to be your friend. I appreciate what you just did. Plenty of people would not have even cared.” She leaned in to whisper so no one else could hear, “I hope Zane wasn’t too hard on you.”

  Shanna laughed and as she unconsciously reached back to her battle-worn bottom, she whispered back, “Well, I survived it, anyway.” Both women laughed.

  “Well, we usually do even when we don’t think we will.”

  “Wait,” Shanna whispered again, “your husband, he doesn’t...I mean, you don’t get…you know…”

  “You are cute, you know that. Yes, I get, ‘you know’ when my man is not happy with me enough to do something about it. Anyway, he loves me and I sure love him. If you just got ‘you know’ from Zane, then you are more than a passing fancy. You are going to see more of the ground up close and personal from now on until you figure what gets to him and what doesn’t.”

  “Ugh. I am getting that message loud and clear.”

  They both laughed.

  Chapter Six

  Shanna had the clinic ready to open, but a shipment of equipment was delayed. Until it arrived, she decided to have an open house to fill in the additional lag time. She wanted the community to come in and get comfortable, to get familiar with the clinic and the staff, which consisted of Shanna and Janet, the office manager. Janet was from the community and while Shanna was from the area, she had not been living there almost nine years.

  For the three days before the clinic was actually supposed to open, Shanna invited anyone who wanted to, to come in and check it out. Therefore, for the week before the clinic opened everyone and his brother stopped Shanna and told her that they would be coming by and when they would be coming. She hoped they did not think she was going to remember everyone and their times that they had appointed for themselves because she certainly would not be able to do that. She thought it was cute that they were making it known and that it was a courtesy that they already have the time picked out. That is just how it was around there.

  Shanna had not seen Zane since the weekend after their incident at the diner and he had not called even once in the last couple of days. Shanna decided that she could call him and had reconciled the idea that it would not be thought of as chasing or hounding because she had already caught him. Practicing butt preservation, she knew he would rather she call than get mad at him for not calling her. Been there, done that. She wondered if he was working hard or maybe he just needed a breather after the ‘diner incident’. Two days seemed a long time after the daily calls he had made after the diner incident.

  She wanted to show Zane she had learned her lesson not to assume things, but she had been busy, too. She had been working hard during the day, tweaking things at the clinic and falling into bed at night. They hadn’t talked in two days, but she had to begin to admit that it was two days longer than her heart and soul was comfortable waiting. She missed him. It was nothing normally, but they had been inseparable except for that one big incident that she came out on the raw end of the deal. She thought he has usually called me by now. Reminding her of what started her on this train of thought and having learned that lesson the hard way, she picked up her phone to check the messages. Zane had not called her nor had she missed any calls. Shanna flipped through to find Zane’s number because she had not memorized it yet and punched it in to help her remember it sooner. She felt the familiar flip-flop tummy dance as she expected him to pick up the phone, but as the ringing continued and no Zane, she hung up the phone, leaving no
message.

  Shanna put a note in her window and said she had walked over to the diner and locked the front door. Then she went over to have a seat to get a cold Coke and some conversation with Missy. She and Missy had become good friends since the incident in the diner. Zane had said that Missy’s husband, Colton, and he were old friends and suggested that they go out together sometime soon.

  “Hey, Shanna, where is that hunky man of yours? I have not seen him in a few days,” teased Missy.

  “I wish I could tell you. I have not seen or heard from him myself. I have been busy though, so he might have come by to try to see me and I was off doing something. Who knows?”

  “Well, Colton gave me a shotgun he wanted me to give over to Zane when he came in, but Zane has not been in. You think you could run me over there so that I could drop it off to him, and then it is out of the diner. It bothers me with it here.”

  “Sure, I just have to go back over to the clinic and change the sign in the window. That is one thing I am happy about being back home, leave a sign and people understand and patiently wait on you. Signs would never have worked in the city. If I put a sign in my clinic window in the middle of the afternoon, people would be up in arms. But here, if I have to make a run I throw a sign in the window and they just sit outside and wait.”

  Signage corrected with her cell phone listed, Missy and Shanna climbed into Shanna’s car and turned on the air. They cranked up the music that had become more country in the last month and took off over the railroad track towards the ranch. Missy had never been to the ranch and so she was appropriately impressed as they were pulling up the drive in the front of the house with the magnitude of it all.

  “Oh my goodness. Is this where he lives? This is an unbelievable place, Shanna.”

  “Impressive, I know, huh? Actually, this is his parents’ house and Zane still lives here because he is not married. He has a piece of land off to the side of his parents’ property that if he gets married, he will build a house and live there. But until then, yep, this is where he lives.”