by Maren Smith
Heaving a sigh of relief, she pressed her breasts up toward his hands. “What are you spanking me for this time, Sir?”
“To thank you for trusting me.” He kissed her neck, nibbling his way across the back of her neck to the other side. “To reward you for obeying me.” His right hand slid down her soapy belly and between her thighs. “To show you what I can give you every day for the rest of your life if you’ll agree to be mine. My girl, my partner, my submissive who still likes to occasionally top from the bottom.”
She laughed so hard her body shook, sending more water splashing out of the tub. “You caught that, huh?”
“Everything.” He turned her to her side and kissed her deeply. “I’ll always catch you.”
“About that.” Grace stroked his shoulder and gave him a hug. “After all our chats and all we shared in the garden this week, I thought maybe I should tell you what I actually do for a living. Don’t freak out.”
“As long as you’re not an exotic dancer or prostitute, I’ll be fine. No one gets to see your luscious body but me.” He growled.
“I’m a therapist. Mostly women, but I also do couples.”
“Now that makes perfect sense.” His chest rumbled with laughter as he pulled her more tightly against him.
“So you’re not worried I’ll psychoanalyze you every day?”
“The way I figure it, you’ve been doing that all week naturally. We make a good team. Just don’t forget who wears the belt in this relationship.”
She melted against him, her ear pressed against his firm chest listening to the rapid heartbeat. “You okay? Your heart’s going almost as fast as when we went to the Dungeon.”
“Well, I found one more thing that makes me kinda anxious. I want to show it to you.”
“What’s that?”
He lifted her hand into the air and placed a small piece of cool metal in her palm. Her own heartbeat raced as she closed her hand around the round piece of jewelry, slipping her pointer finger over the hole. Smooth on the outside, with something engraved in the center, the edges were thin. It was pretty huge, and her thumb fit loosely in it.
“My mother gave it to me when I joined the Army. It says, Trust. That means trust my instincts and those around me. Love. Love means to love myself and allow others to love me. Truth. That means to be honest with myself even when it hurts to acknowledge.” His hand squeezed gently around her hand holding the ring. “I lost sight of everything she taught me. I was filled with anger, fear, resentment, insecurities. I hid the ring away in the bottom of my duffel bag, knowing I wasn’t worthy of wearing it.”
Tears filled her eyes as she listened to the words that filled the room, and she turned to hug him as hard as she could. “The ring has made its way back out of your duffel.”
“Yeah, because I finally feel worthy of it again. Who would have known that all it took for me to truly see again, was to look through the eyes of a beautiful woman who sees everything? You, Grace. You opened my eyes. You saved me with your bravery, your talent, your amazing brain and compassion, your heart. I knew before the roof, you were the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. But the roof just solidified things for me. You’re the only woman who can help me see myself the way my mother’s gift tells me I can be, how she saw me, how I saw me until the desert. You see me how I want to be. And through your eyes, I see something pretty damn good.” He leaned closer and pulled her so her cheek was touching his. “Live with me. I was just going to offer you this on a necklace. Cook Connie offered to make some sort of noodle ring for you, but I thought you might prefer the real thing. But you don’t have to answer yet. I know I still have some stuff to work through, and hell, I probably really scared you last night. I can continue to sleep in a separate bed until I work past the nightmares.”
“Would you shut up for just a second?” Grace felt the corners of her mouth turn up into the widest grin she’d ever had. “You asked me to be with you and promised me a great spanking and some awesome sex, then you started backpedaling like you’re afraid of me or something. If you’d close your eyes and mouth and just use your other senses, you’d already know what my answer is.”
His low chuckle vibrated against her belly. “Have I told you how much I love your sass?”
“You can show me later. Now, hush. Eyes closed.” She gently ran her fingertips from his eyebrows down over his closed lids and pressed his head down to her chest. “What do you see this way?”
Chris took a deep breath, then released and pressed the side of his face closer to her torso. “Your heartbeat is strong, steady, not fast at all. Maybe one per second.”
“I run sixty to seventy-five beats per minute when I’m relaxed. How’s the rest of my body feel to you?”
He took long, leisurely strokes up and down her body for a minute before giving her a light nip on her ear. “Well, except for when my fingers get down near your sweet pussy, your whole body seems like jelly. Not in a fat way. Sorry.”
She giggled, and he continued.
“Like you’re cool and relaxed, kind of like how I get right as I’m drifting into sleep. I’d say you don’t have an ounce of the anxious energy that I have right now.”
“That’s because I already know my answer. I knew it from the moment we met. Corny and it sounds like a cheesy romance, but it’s true. I knew you were the Dom for me. Then when I got to know you, my heart knew you were the man for me. It just took my head a bit longer to catch up. I’ve been thinking about adding to my practice. So far, I’ve only really worked with people going through trauma like blindness, sickness, going deaf—ways to overcome each thing by utilizing other strengths.”
“But you’ve got some mad natural skill with PTSD and grumpy soldiers.”
“Yeah, I think you’re right. So, is your question still available for an answer?”
“If you’re feeling up to it. We did have a pretty stressful day; I don’t want to push you too hard. You have all the time in the world.”
“If I tell you to shut up again, are you going to spank me?”
He growled and pulled her barely out of the water and gave her a quick smack on her right cheek. “What do you think, little girl?”
“Good. In that case, shut your mouth. Spank me, take me, be my partner. In that order, if possible.”
A second later, water sloshed everywhere as Chris lifted her into his arms and carried her out of the bathroom. He laid her on her tummy and placed her feet on the floor at the edge of the bed. “Stay right there while I find my favorite belt. Leather on a wet ass is going to make you scream, baby.” His large palms caressed her globes, and she moaned into the comforter. “I’m going to have to do a lot of training with you for this whole topping from the bottom thing.”
She squealed when he gave her a sharp smack. “But you forgot one thing.” She turned her head and pretended to pout up at him. “I’m a princess.”
“You’re a naughty princess.”
“I’m your princess. Forever. Please mark me as yours, Sir.”
“I love you, princess.”
When the first stroke of the leather kissed her bottom, she hissed in pleasure and raised herself up for more. Her Dom, her lover, her protector. He was the most amazing man she’d ever met, and she couldn’t wait to come up with more ways to see him.
The End
Katherine Deane
Katherine Deane is a multi-published, top 100 romantic and BDSM author and romantic at heart. She loves cheese, red wine, chocolate, and snuggling up with her daughters’ kittens while reading a good book.
When not reading, or writing, you can find her knitting, sewing, crafting, or doing pretty much anything to keep her hands busy. She has taken over the dining room AKA craft room, much to her husband’s dismay. In one of her books, an energetic “craftaholic” would find herself over her husband’s knee for losing an important document in a pile of bi-cone crystals and mod podge. Her real life, and the people in them, give her plenty of ideas to work wit
h.
Katherine has dubbed herself the queen of cheese. Not only is she a former Midwestern Cheese Head; she also loves to incorporate it into her books.
In her opinion, all romance deserves at least one cheesy scene that makes you cry.
You can catch up with her at:
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Don’t miss these great titles by Katherine Deane and Blushing Books!
12 Naughty Days of Christmas 2016
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Kate Richards
Kate Richards divides her time between Los Angeles and the High Sierras. She would gladly spend all her days in the mountains, but she’d miss the beach…and her very supportive husband’s commute would be three hundred miles. Wherever she is, she loves to explore all different kinds of relationships in her stories. She doesn’t believe one-size-fits-all, and whether her characters live BDSM, ménage, GLBT, spanking, or any other kind of lifestyle, it’s the love, the joy in one another, that counts.
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Don’t miss these exciting titles by Kate Richards and Blushing Books!
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Epilogue
Witness Protection Program
Master Marshall stood in the Castle courtyard, staring up at the crumbling remains of what used to be a good portion of his third floor. Jackson stood to his right, burly arms folded across his equally burly chest. Sam was on his left, long hair pulled back in his signature ponytail. All three were dressed in civilian clothes; jeans and t-shirts, and almost mirror-image brown steel-toed boots. Together, they surveyed the damage.
The windows had all been blown out, or at least all the windows on this side of the building. Some second-floor windows had too, especially those located directly under the bomb’s blast area. Broken stone blocks lay scattered where they’d fallen in the courtyard. Most of the debris, however, was still on the third floor. The cleanup crew had done the best they could, once local police had declared the place safe. Unfortunately, local police were more interested in making sure there were no other bombs. John Goodson, the local building code inspector, had a completely different agenda, and because of him all work had been forced to stop. So, there the rubble remained, stacked up in the hallways, alongside the broken furniture and doors, while the whole of Marshall’s Castle was declared unstable and unsafe for occupancy.
“Are you ready for this?” Sam finally asked.
“No,” Marshall answered honestly. He was pretty sure once Goodson got finished posing for pictures from the few journalists who had been allowed on the property and finally gave the signal to the wrecking crew now gathered on the other side of the drawbridge, Marshall was going to feel it like a physical wound when they tore this place down. The whole Castle. Oh, the outlying buildings would be spared, and so would the wall, portcullis and moat. But the Castle, this place that had been his home for six beautiful years, would be gone.
As if reading his mind, Jackson said, “It’s been a good six years.”
Both Marshall and Sam nodded.
“Just look what it’s given us,” he continued anyway. “I’ve got a wife and a daughter.” He paused, then tipped his head with what could almost be mistaken for a rueful tsk. “Another one on the way.”
Both Marshall and Sam looked at him. It was Sam who laughed first. “You know what causes that, right?”
A slow smile tugged at his mouth, but Jackson merely tsked and shook his head again. “I don’t see me stopping that any time soon.” He cast a knowing look to his fellow master. “The point is, I wouldn’t have any of them if I’d never come here.”
“I wouldn’t have Hannah,” Sam agreed.
Marshall said nothing, but his gaze tracked left, across the courtyard and over the grassy field beyond, where the stable and pony shed stood empty for the first time since opening. He found the red-checkered blanket where Kaylee was sitting on a comfortable chair that Grimsley had provided for her. Little Jackson, their newborn son, was nursing at her breast while she laughed at something Eden must have said. Her arm still in a cast, her face still faintly bruised, Eden was lucky Grimsley had allowed her out of the temporary apartment he’d had to get in Granger. Then again, it being Granger, that was probably why Grimsley hadn’t dared leave her behind.
Where was he, anyway?
There. Marshall spotted him at the folding tables where guests fresh off the buses used to check in. Since there were no guests, that was where Grimsley had set up the refreshment tables for the demolition crew and he was now snapping orders to the handful of employed submissives around him, organizing how the ice chests full of sandwiches and drinks should be set up. He too was in civilian clothes. They were neat and tidy and, quite possibly, meticulously ironed fresh that morning, but still, he looked strange in jeans and without his ever-present switch. Then again, everybody milling about the periphery of the cordoned-off construction zone and on the grass looked strange. There might not be any guests to attend to, but every single one of his employees had shown up as if for work today, and all of them had done so in civilian clothes.
Following the direction of his stare, Jackson leaned in a little closer. Even knowing there was no chance he might be overhead, he lowered his voice as he said, “Did you ever think he would—”
“No,” Marshall and Sam replied, shaking their heads in unison.
“And with—”
“Yeah.” They both nodded, too.
The three men watched as the stoic Master Butler gathered two sandwiches from a cooler by the wall, plus two bottles of iced tea, and headed out across the grass. Were he to be asked, Marshall was almost positive that Grimsley would have stifled his annoyance long enough to snap that nursing mothers had enough to worry about without having to get their own refreshments. Marshall wasn’t fooled. Kaylee might be a convenient excuse, but it wasn’t for her that Grimsley was soiling the bottoms of his shoes in that trek across the lawn.
“I have never seen him dote on anyone like he does her,” Sam said. “Is it guilt, do you think?”
“Not a chance,” Marshall scoffed. “Guilt would have got her flowers at the hospital and maybe a card once she got out of it. He hasn’t left her side for three weeks. No, this is something different.”
“Happened awful quick, don’t you think?” Jackson asked, but even he had to roll his eyes when his fellow masters leveled pointed looks at him. “Yeah, yeah. I know. Pot calling the kettle, and all that.”
“Did you hear what he told her when she refused the chair he set out for her and said instead that she could help with the drinks?”
“Penalty forty-three,” Sam and Jackson said together.
“Whatever that means,” Jackson muttered.
“It means she’d better enjoy all the sitting she can, while she can, because whatever else is happening between them, he’s keeping track. As soon as that cast comes off and her ribs and back heal, I’m pretty sure her sitting days will be over. No, this is definitely something different,” Marshall said again, this time with certainty. “Besides, she’s been in his bed practically since the day they met, and he never takes anyone to his bed.”
“Looks like the strutting part of today’s event has ended,” Sam said, redirecting everyone’s attention back to the building inspector, who strode far enough into the courtyard to be sure Marshall had an unobstructed view of him giving the demolition crew the go-ahead to begin.
“So.” Jackson cleared his throat and rolled his massive shoulders, trying to brace himself for the inevitable pain as men with jackhammers and wheelbarrows started toward the Castle. “How far are you planning to let him take this?”
A corner of Marshall’s mouth curled. “I’ve already given the foreman the Cease and Desist the judge signed last night over supper, copies of all the necessary building permits, the remodeling plans, and that nice letter Mayor Alder wrote to Goodson, letting him know he can start looking for employment elsewhere, effective immediately. Don’t worry,” the Master of the Masters said. “The bomb killed any chance we have of letting the Castle stand, but they’ve promised to take her down gently and save as much of the original stone and architecture as possible. We will rebuild.”
“Where?”
“Exactly where she stands right now. Only bigger.” Across the courtyard, Goodson flashed the masters a smug smile, one that Marshall was only too happy to return. “Ready, gentlemen?”
Jackson chuckled. Hooking the corners of his mouth with fingers from both hands, Sam belted out a loud whistle. Every Castle employee, be they Doms or subs, stopped what they were doing and put on their white or yellow hardhats.
Goodson lost his smile.
Marshall’s grew teeth. “All right, then. Let’s get to work.”
Please Pardon Our Mess While We Rebuild
The (Definitely Not Yet) End