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Constance stumbled after him as he dragged her into the barn, the interior of which was lit only by what light remained of the setting sun. He didn't bother to close the doors, but marched her to the first hay bale that he saw. Her panic grew and she dug in her legs, pulling back and away from him as he sat down, presenting her with a very capable lap. 116
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He stopped her budding struggles with a very terse, "I guarantee what you're going to get from me right now will be one of the hardest spankings you've ever had in your life. You do not want to compound your punishment by fighting me." Constance hesitated, and he took advantage of her uncertainty by pulling her firmly down over his lap. Her skirts came up, over her back and head, muffling her startled cry of protest. "Wait!" But he didn't wait. In fact, she felt his fingers hook in the back of her bloomers, untying the laces and yanking them down the backs of her legs to her knees. She gasped as her bottom was bared completely. But when she snapped a hand back to catch hold of her falling cover, he only caught her wrist and pinned it up against the small of her back.
"A man wouldn't take the time to spank a woman he didn't love," Judd told her as he hefted her hips, bringing her bottom right up over his left thigh and dropping her nose that much closer to the straw covered ground.
"Judd!" Panic seized her and she quickly braced her free hand against the ground to keep from falling. As if he would let her go long enough to fall. Oh no, when Judd scissored her legs between his own, his thighs clamping down like a vise above her knees, severely limiting her abilities to kick and struggle, Constance knew she was well and truly captured. All she could do was wiggle her feet in the dirt and her bottom tensed with dread. He was going to spank her, and there was nothing in the world that she could do about it. "Judd, please!"
Whack!
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His open palm came down on her right buttock with shocking strength. For the first time, Constance felt the full and unrestrained strength. For the first time in her life, she knew what a very real disciplinary spanking was.
"No-o!" she wailed, but like preventing a flood from pouring through a broken damn, stopping Judd at this point was impossible.
Hard, fast, and furious, he paddled her bottom for what felt like an eternity. He attacked first one side and then the other, right to left, top to bottom, every vulnerable inch of bare bottom flesh from the top of her buttock's crack all the way down to the middle of her thighs was given its due of discipline. Constance had no way to withstand it. She cried out and then she just plain cried, her toes digging futility into the dirt. She wrenched at her captured wrist, but he didn't let go. In the end, all she could do was flop over his knees like a beached fish, wiggling and thrashing, trying to roll off his knees, anything just to flee the awful, burning hurt of his relentless hand.
And as if the spanking wasn't enough, with every swat he scolded her, slapping the lesson home within her mind just as relentlessly as he slapped it home through her bottom.
"Everyone gets angry with the ones they love," he said over her helpless shrieks. "But when you get angry with me, we are going to talk about it like adults and reconcile the situation. But if you want to get mad just so you can punish me by holding a grudge, you're going to get a dose of this every single time!"
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Constance's sobs escalated in pitch as he walloped her bottom with such fervor that every inch of her buttocks and thighs was left in burning agony.
"Are you done with this senseless jealousy?" he demanded.
"Yes!" she wailed. "Please, stop! Please!"
"The only woman I want to kiss is you. Do you believe that?"
"YES!" Constance threw her head back, sobbing for all she was worth as his iron-hard hand attacked the very seat of her buttocks, right where she could not help but have to sit later on. Right now, however, sitting was the last thing on her mind.
The sharp WHAP! CRACK! SMACK! of his palm as it bounced off her swollen, throbbing bottom was coming as fast as his arm could rise and fall, the sound echoing through the barn like the popping of Chinese firecrackers. And there was no end in sight. Oh God, what if he meant to do this forever?
"Please, Judd," her words garbled as she sucked and gasped at the air, hardly able to breathe for weeping.
"Please!"
"You are the only woman I want," Judd told her. Suddenly the spanking stopped, but only long enough for him to shake out his stinging palm. "The only woman I will ever want, Constance. But you seem bound and determined not to believe it. So, if this is the only way I can get through to you..."
Constance wailed as his arm tightened around her waist, giving her only a split second's warning to brace herself 119
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before the onslaught began all over again just as hard and as fast as before.
"Then this is exactly what you're going to get!" Constance broke. She drooped over his knee, without the strength to do anything more than accept what discipline he gave her. She was crying too hard even to beg him to stop. She couldn't think. Her whole world had narrowed down to each impact of his hand and the exploding agony it imparted again and again and again.
Until suddenly it was over.
That his hand had ceased to fall at first did not register within her. Her nether cheeks stung and burned hotter and hotter, the hurt seeming to intensify without the added punishment of further blows. Judd refused to release her; Constance could not even reach back and rub.
"Do you believe I'm not going anywhere now?" Judd asked, sounding almost tired.
The ground beneath her face was wet with tears as Constance nodded her head. "Yes, yes! Puh-please, n-no mmore!" Judd let go of her legs first and then her hands. But instead of standing up, Constance sagged the rest of the way to the ground. She didn't even bother to cover herself first; that would have involved more thinking that she was capable of. Right now, all that she was was focused on the pulsating heat and pain that literally was consuming her from behind. Cupping her bottom in gentle hands, all she could do was cry as he pulled her into the cradle of his arms. 120
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Constance sobbed her remorse against the warmth of his chest, his shirt soaking up her tears, until she simply was too worn out to cry any more. The tears dwindled into hiccups and breathy gasps, and her red and swollen eyes hurt too much to open.
After the longest stretch of silence, Judd whispered,
"Constance, honey. Are you asleep?"
"My head hurts," she whispered back, her voice ragged and hoarse from all her wailing and shrieking.
"I'm sorry for that," he murmured, brushing the damp strands of her blonde hair back from her tear streaked face. He pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead.
She sniffled. "My bottom hurts, too." She couldn't quite bite back the peevishness when she said that, and Judd pulled back to give her a stern look. "You deserved that."
She wisely let it go. "I know."
His big hands rubbed her back, stroking her hair and dislodging bits of straw that had gotten tangled in her tresses as she'd flailed upon his knee. Many long minutes passed and the sun was almost completely gone before Judd gave her a nudge. "Come on, woman. I'd best get you home before your pa and his gun come looking for you."
"Oh," Constance groaned as she climbed to her feet. She gave her bottom another rueful rub, the very thought of having to sit in her saddle almost making her want to cry all over again. Unfortunately, home was too far away to try walking and she had no choice but to bend down to gather her bloomers. She pulled them slowly up her legs, hissing a 121
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pained breath through her teeth as the cloth scraped the backs of her throbbing thighs and he
r ever more tender and aching buttocks. "Oh, if I didn't think it'd be such a scandal, I'd take them off!"
Judd tried not to smile. "Go ahead if it'll make it more bearable, but I'm not going to promise not to peek." Constance smacked his arm, only half playfully, but both suddenly stopped when they heard a twig snap near the open barn doors. They spun around and Constance quickly dropped the hem of her dress, but not before Buster and Cullen appeared in the entryway. Whether Buster actually saw the dress above her waist or whether he'd only seen the swish of her skirts as they fell back around her legs, Constance didn't know, but the look that darkened her father's grizzled old features did not bode well for anybody. Particularly not when Buster hefted the gun in his hands and pointed it right at Judd.
"You son of bitch," he rasped. "You had your wicked way with my baby girl!"
"Now wait a minute," Judd held up his hands placatingly, but he froze stiffly when the old man hauled the rifle right up to his shoulder and locked his aim at a point right between Judd's eyes.
"You make one move, boy, and I'll take your head clean off your shoulders."
At her back, Judd didn't move a muscle. He didn't even breathe.
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was, she knew she made a very laughable shield. "Wait, papa, please! This ... this isn't as bad as it looks!" Buster cocked his rifle. "Cullen," he said, without taking his eyes off of Judd. "Go and fetch the pastor."
"Papa, nothing happened," Constance protested.
"Don't you tell me that!" Buster snapped at her. "You think I ain't never had a girl in a barn before? I know what goes on in the hay when there ain't no lights on."
"We didn't do anything wrong," she said.
"Sir," Judd said, clearing his throat. "I did not disrespect your daughter. I was teaching her a lesson." Buster snorted, his eyes narrowing. "Yeah. I'll just bet you were." He gestured with his rifle. "She's got straw in her hair."
Constance blinked and reached up to touch her hair, a flush of embarrassment heating her face as she touched several grassy strands. It didn't quite rival the heat in her bottom, but it was close. "But, papa..." she said weakly. "It—
It's not what you think."
"He had yer skirts up, too," Buster growled again, not taking his narrowed eyes off of Judd. "That part of the lesson, too? If I heft them skirts up, am I gonna find more straw in her underwear?"
Constance flushed even brighter. She didn't move. She didn't have to. She hadn't had a chance to fasten her bloomers back into place and she could already feel them sliding down her legs.
"Well," her father demanded. "Heft 'em up, girl. Let's see the straw."
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Clearing her throat, Constance obediently raised the lower half of her skirts to her knees. She closed her eyes when she felt her bloomers slide all the way down to her ankles. Her face colored even darker.
Buster only sniffed. "Mm hm. Just what I thought. I weren't born yesterday, ya know."
"Dare I look?" Judd ducked down to whisper near her ear.
"I didn't have time to tie my bloomers," she confessed, lowering her dress to hide her fallen underwear.
"Well," she more heard than saw his sheepish smile. "I did promise you a wedding to remember."
And it certainly was that. Their shotgun ceremony—held the minute Pastor Garris arrived, right there in the middle of MacGregor's barely lit barn—was talked about in Longview for years. Not a one of the Henry's cared any less about the gossip than Buster did. Constance was married, that was the important thing. One down; two left to go. Already his house was quieter.
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Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN