However, she did have some self-preservation thoughts on her mind before she opened her mouth. So she looked Zane straight in the face and said, “Now, if I tell you everything my butt is no longer in danger. Correct?”
“Sorry, sweetheart, that is not something I can promise. What I can promise is that I will be fair about whether I tattoo your bottom or not.”
“Zane, I know the story and it is not fair if you spank me. I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Great, but if you do not tell me the story, it is an absolute bottom warming session. If you divulge well, you might get out of it. That is the best I can do, Shanna. Take it or leave it.”
“I feel like I am taking it or leaving it a lot around you, Zane,” Shanna softened her words with a wry smile. “Okay.”
Shanna then proceeded to give Zane the story from getting up to go to the bathroom to when he had come up behind her and she had freaked out.
Zane sat and thought for a few moments after she was through telling the story. She could tell that he was thinking, and putting things in perspective and possibly storing some of his anger away. She contemplated saying something to him to add to the story, but then stopped because it would not make any difference. It would not have added any value to her story and it might even hurt his reaction to what Jamie had done.
“And he was purple. He must have been afraid of something and that was why I somehow smelled fear. Fear must be purple, not people, because I see it when I am working a lot.”
“So where was your phone, babe?”
“My phone?” Shanna looked stunned by the question and then shrugged her shoulders. “In my car, maybe, I think, I’m not exactly sure. Why?” Shanna lifted up in the seat to check her pockets again but came up empty.
“Because one of the reasons why you carry a cell phone is not because you want to call people all day long or check your social media pages, because I know that is not the type of person you are. You carry a cell phone for safety. I am just trying to figure out if you had your cell phone to call and just were unable to do it or you did not think about using it. Or if you did not have it at all because I tried to call it but it went to voice mail.”
“Oh. Well, it is not in my pocket, so I did not have it with me. You know, now that you mention it, I think I left it with Colton, Missy, and everyone else on the ground next to them. I mean, Zane, I was just going to the bathroom. Who expects to be intercepted on their way to the ladies room?”
“Well, obviously you did not. And I understand why you might not think that you needed to take your phone.”
As Shanna was beginning to follow his train of thought, she jumped in quickly, “Right, no one would figure that anything would happen between there and the bathroom. Not in this little town, and not when everybody was still around. You can’t hold that against me, Zane, anybody would have made that same mistake.”
“Maybe, but not everyone is mine, you are mine, and what is mine needs to stay safe. That is ten, baby.”
“What? No, wait, that is not fair. Zane! We never talked about carrying a cell phone so you can’t hold that against me. It was an honest mistake and not one that I would ever repeat again. Can’t we just say that it was a lesson learned and be done?”
“And that is four thigh thumps for arguing. My recommendation, take it if you want to, is to be quiet as your mouth is going on writing those checks again that I figure your bottom is cringing over right about now. Now, did he hurt you? Tell me the honest truth.”
There was that same look again, the one that no one would dare defy. Shanna had been already in enough trouble, she was not going to challenge him, not on something little like that. The hurt, the sadness still in his eyes that told her how much she hurt him by making him force the story out of her.
“Not really. Well he did grab my arm, and it did hurt a little, but I hurt him a lot more than he hurt me.”
Shanna got a big grin on her face and did the motions of the volleyball player to accentuate her statement.
Zane grimaced and cringed at the same time not even wanting to imagine what that must have felt like. He did admire that she took that initiative and knew just what to do to get away from Jamie, who obviously had had too much to drink and was out of control. The men who were around the building are what worried Zane more than Jamie did. He got the same take on it that Shanna had. If she had gotten around the building, nothing good would have come from that interaction.
“Let me see.”
Zane leaned over and carefully examined Shanna’s arm, and if she were put on the stand, she would swear that Zane growled when he examined her arm. Hearing him do that gave her a little giddy feeling like this was her protector and there was no denying his role in her life or her role in his. Zane reached over and kissed gently every place that a finger mark was on her arm, and his evening shadow of a beard gave her a little scrubbing feeling that warmed her heart and liquefied her nether regions. The low moan that slipped out before she could suppress it brought a licentiously hungry smile to Zane’s face. He reached over and lightly kissed her lips before pulling back and putting some distance between them.
“Sorry, I was sidetracked. Did he have his hand over your mouth?”
“No, why would you think that?”
“Just asking. So why didn’t you scream?”
“Why would I scream? It didn’t seem as though I was in danger, not until the absolute end, and then I was too far away to do anything. No one would have heard me.”
“Baby, why didn’t you just run or yell right away?”
“Because I didn’t think there was a problem. He was going to take me to a house that was for rent and I was going to talk to Kerry, the owner.”
“Kerry? Davis? Sweetheart Kerry doesn’t own a house she rents herself. That is Sandra’s sister.”
“Oh. How am I supposed to know that, Zane? You know, a couple months ago when I first got here, I was suspicious of everyone and everything. Now, after I have been here a little bit, I am beginning to fall back into that old habit of trust what people tell you. Isn’t that what you’ve been complaining about all this time, that I keep thinking I am still in the city? So, I don’t think you can get protective just because I did something that I consider country.”
“And that is another round.”
“What? You have to be kidding me. You cannot get mad at me, and especially you cannot smack me, just because I was doing what you told me I needed to do more of, trust people.”
“What I said, and what you heard me say, was that you needed to trust me more. That when someone did friendly things for you, you needed to believe that what they were doing was being nice. They were not looking for something else from you.”
“And I thought that Jamie was just being nice because he heard that I wanted to move into town closer to the clinic. I did not read into it that there were going to be any problems. I just trusted that he was doing it to be nice.”
“Sweetheart, you know who Jamie is and you know what his habits are. Hell, you just stitched up the guy he worked over the other day. You are too smart for me to believe that you thought that he was going to tool you down the road to show you something. Or to talk to someone after eight, on Memorial Day after a big community party. Nothing good would come from that exchange. No, you owe me another ten for safety.”
“Ugh. I don’t like you at all right now. I thought the phone was safety. You can’t do safety twice. I think you need to just take me back to my car. I am done here.”
“No, we are going nowhere until we are through taking care of business.”
“I just said I was through. Take me back to my car. The evening is ruined anyway.”
Zane shook his head and smiled. “One more area that I need to cover with you.”
“Well, get on with it. I can’t imagine there is another area that you have not already decided the outcome of, but go right ahead and ask.”
Zane chuckled before sobering his expression and continued
with a stern voice, “Why didn’t you tell me in the parking lot that this had happened? And,” he added with bottom warming promise, “the truth better be all that comes out of your mouth, little girl.”
“Now that is an easy question. I did not want you to make a big deal out of it. Like this. I was embarrassed. It was over and I didn’t mean to cause any trouble, and cause Jamie any trouble. It just seems like Jamie has a rough life. I am not saying he should drink or anything like that, but I just wanted to forget about everything and enjoy the rest of the evening. This, by the way, is over now, thank you very much. If you hadn't over-reacted about everything, we could have at least enjoyed some of the music and relaxed a little bit.
“Me? You figure to blame me for everything that has happened here tonight. Really? Oh, sweetheart, that is not a road you want to walk down, I can promise you. It looks like your mouth is about to pick up the pen again, you might think about your words.”
“I can’t worry about you getting upset over everything that I do. I can’t measure everything by your standards. I have the right to be an adult.”
Shanna was about to do more complaining, which she felt she had a right to do, but she had already learned the hard way that Zane did not take backtalk well. It was useless anyway, especially when he had already decided the outcome.
“Okay, Zane I will concede. Hell, I will concede to everything. I will concede that I didn't trust you enough not to cause a big row so I didn’t tell you although you proved me right. I will concede that I could have screamed or taken off when I first ran into Jamie. But in my defense, even looking back now, I did not see any danger at that time. I can say that I was too trusting of someone that I knew was not always trustworthy. I know that you think trust should be easy if you haven’t done anything to lose it. The deal is you don’t take into consideration that sometimes people have become wary of those around them. Finally, I concede that I did not bring my cell phone, although, in my defense, it was the first time I have been without my cell phone in years. And I know that you have me up to thirty licks already…”
“That last bit about the trust factor made forty, ten was for back talk.”
“Okay, forty, and I’m not even going to say anything about it because it will not make any difference. I am already going to have a blazing butt. Nevertheless, Zane, had you ever taken into consideration that maybe I do not want you to smack my ass? That I let you because you are important to me? Had it ever occurred to you that maybe we could come up with a better way to handle some of these issues? Or that it communicates a mixed message? One that says ‘I care enough to keep you safe’ and ‘I am bigger than you so what I say goes.'”
Zanith Gideon was rarely at a loss for words, but he found he was now, as he looked at the woman that he had grown to love. He knew he needed to fix this with her and it was going to be delicate. He knew how he was, but he wondered if he had become overzealous because she was so accommodating. He intended her to be with him until the end of time and to be over the top was damaging to their relationship. He needed to get it under control and quit acting like a man who loved meat and after years without it, when he was offered it from henceforth, he over ate. She was right and he needed to tell her so.
“Well, I had not really considered it much, no. However, I can see you are right. I am sorry that I have been overly eager to respond to things with only one answer. I would be willing to entertain your ideas on how to get the lesson seated in your mind so that we do not have to repeat it again. My goal is that you stay safe, happy and healthy. Looks like I am not doing so well on any of these, am I? So what are your suggestions?”
“We could just talk about it and decide these were ill advised choices and just that I was not going to do them again. Is that not what grownups do?”
“Yes. We could try that. Do you remember a little while back, that amnesty day?” Shanna nodded. “Did not work out as well as you thought it was going to and that I had hoped it would. You still didn’t trust me enough to tell me you had this happen to you. I had to drag it out of you. We repeated some of those same problems here today, so I don’t think that it works to do nothing. Talking doesn’t always seem to work for you, and that is okay because not spanking for safety does not always work for me either.”
“I guess that means I am not getting out of this at all? Not any of them?”
Zane’s face lit with a grin because he knew that meant she was giving in to him. She was accepting his authority, acceding his response to the things that she did, to those things she should not have done. It signified she trusted him to do the right thing, she trusted him with their relationship. She was giving into his discipline. That, above anything else, meant a lot to Zane. That meant he was more than halfway there in his goal to make her his forever.
He hadn’t thought about that until recently, since he came back from his land trip at the first of the month. However, it is almost all he could think about these days. Not having her forever was not acceptable. He had expected it to take a lot longer to get to this point. However, even now he had to tread very carefully. It is the turtle that wins the race and win he intended to do.
For now, he decided to heat up his lady’s bottom, on a modified level. He could not spank trust into her. It was something that he earned and he needed to make it so she could not ever doubt him. But the rest, well she earned those lessons and he was going to make sure she got them. Her safety was never optional. Then he would get her to her car so she could get a good night’s sleep. He had a lot to plan, but for tonight, he could give in where it came to the strokes, as he didn’t have the heart for forty anymore. A few that counted would be enough.
“Zane, please, can we just go home and then you can do this tomorrow?” Shanna punctuated her sentence with a huge yawn.
“I am going to get you for safety, but nothing else, baby, because I am a man of my word, but trust is something I earn and you believe. I can’t force you to place your trust in me. However, when I am sure I have earned it, you will give it. Now, you need to stay here tonight. You are too tired to drive home.”
“No, my parents would expire from the scandal. I really need to go back to the house. Compromise?”
Zane reached over to re-buckle her in and decided that daylight would be better anyway to accomplish his purpose, so he said with a grin, “Okay, compromise. What is your requested negotiation?”
“Can you follow me home?” Seeing that Zane was not comfortable with that idea, she rushed on. “Okay, how about you take me to the house and I’ll get my dad to drop me off tomorrow and I will pick up my car then?”
Shanna presented him with her best pleading face and Zane laughed out loud. When this woman finally figured out that she had the ultimate power over him and in this relationship, he was going to be in a world of hurt. For now, he could appear to be granting her a small request because she had done so well. Grant it he did, to the accompaniment of Shanna’s kisses and squeals. He wondered how long she would be so easy to please. A long time, please Lord, a very long time.
“Compromise accepted. I will drive you home, but I’ll come back for you later in the day, how about late morning, and we will spend the day together?”
“Yes, please. I like the way you compromise. Thank you.”
Zane started the pickup with as much of a warning as a statement.
“I hope you remember that tomorrow when it is time to pay the piper, because I am not going to forget that we have unfinished business from tonight.”
Zane knew that while she was excited tonight to get out of retribution, that tomorrow when it was time to pay she would not be as easy to deal with. He knew he needed to get home and get some sleep himself. Tomorrow was going to be a red-letter day because he was going to spend it with his gorgeous lady. This was just part of learning how to be together and teaching Shanna what it was like to be his. Zane was learning what it was like to be her man. He wondered if he should begin taking his vitamins now because his energy le
vel was indeed being challenged on certain days.
He smiled to himself and he would not have it any other way. This woman was his and he intended to have her until the end of time. The challenge, however, was going to be getting Shanna to agree with what her heart already knew, and that was that she could not do without him any more than he could do without her. Not for the first time did he curse the man who she was married to first that caused her such great pain at the end of just a short interval. She was young and he had a lot of time to help her figure things out so he had great confidence things would turn out just fine.
The next morning, hand poised over her hot squirming bareness, already pink from his loving lesson, he was proud of how she did her best to take her punishment. She had said how hard her sleep had come last night and how restless she had been because of her guilt. Women and their guilt were the best assistance to a man who needed to teach a lesson. It paved the way for a man to impress upon his woman safety and protection, encourage trust, and add more glue to the loving relationship they had.
The woman was his and it was becoming a mantra for Zane. He hoped he could get her to begin chanting the same mantra. If it took him the rest of his days, this woman would accept he was the one for her and believe she was the one for him. Now, to finish this bottom blistering so they could get on with the day. He enjoyed the feeling as his hand came down firmly and rhythmically on her upturned bottom. Shanna squealed, begged, cried and shamelessly ground her mons into his manhood already erect for her. In a final thought before finishing the deed that made his wanton woman moan, he decided, I could so get comfortable with this way of talking.
Chapter Eight
With the clinic running smoothly, Shanna found more time to get to know Zane’s family. His brothers, Brandt and Cache, were married to sweet women, Jessie and Rhonda, but his elder sister, Joey, was single, worked the ranch and was quite a woman with numbers. Joey’s boyfriend, Connor, was a rancher himself and it seemed to Shanna that he was cut from the same cloth as Zanith Gideon, flannel lined burlap.
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