They all began to pack up their papers and Frank turned round to Megan, wiping the shimmer of sweat of his face with the back of his hand and said, “So, Meggy, you’ll be joining me for dinner then this evening?”
Megan gulped back the automatic, panicked refusal that came to her lips and, flustered, began, “Uh— well— that’s really nice of you Frank, but, that is—.”
“Oh, come on now, Meggy,” he interrupted, “We’ve got a lot to talk about after all this legal chat today. I’m sure you’re going to have to give me the – what’s the word – oh yes- “debrief”,” he said with a lewd wink at her, “of what the next steps are.”
Luke cut in smoothly, “Actually, Mr Ramone, it would be very helpful if Megan and I spent a couple of hours following up on the legal points this evening so that we can then make a start on progressing matters for you and Michael.”
“But,” Megan protested. “Really”
He ignored her and turned to Michael, “That is, of course, if that works for you Michael? Did you need to speak to me about anything else this evening?”
“No no, not at all,” Michael responded. “I’m going to get back home and see what mayhem the girls have managed to work up today. Let’s catch up tomorrow instead.”
“Really,” Megan protested hotly, “it’s not a problem. Frank, if you’d like to have a follow-up meeting now, then I’m sure Luke and I can congregate again tomorrow morning.”
“Actually, I unfortunately have a meeting tomorrow morning, Megan, so if we want to make progress it would be much better if we could do it right away. That is, of course, unless you have other plans or engagements that you need to get to?” Luke’s tone was steady but there was an implicit warning in his eyes that she didn’t know how to read and even though her anger was mounting at his peremptory manner, she was confused.
“My evening is free, but it depends on what Frank wants to do,” she responded frostily. “Frank?”
“Yes, of course,” Luke didn’t give Ramone a chance to respond immediately. “Frank, would you mind very much if Megan and I used the time to discuss the legal formalities so that we can then progress things more smoothly for you?”
“Humph. Well— if it’s really necessary,” Ramone blustered.
“Great. That’s settled then,” Luke said, not giving Megan the opportunity to interrupt again and cutting Frank off, “Megan and I will come up with an action plan this evening and we can speak to you and Michael tomorrow about next steps.”
Megan could see that Frank Ramone looked distinctly annoyed but also that he didn’t want to create a scene in front of the other men and he reluctantly agreed that Luke’s plan was probably fine. With another swipe at the beads of sweat piling up on his brow, Ramone muttered his goodbyes and, with a final swig of coffee, stalked out.
Michael and Luke exchanged a knowing look at each other and, wishing both Megan and Luke a pleasant evening, Michael followed Frank out the door.
As soon as the door was shut and they were alone, Megan turned on Luke angrily and exclaimed, “What the hell are you doing! That’s my client you’ve just insulted and effectively thrown out.”
The look on Luke’s face resembled what could only be described as thunder. “Ramone’s insulted! You’re kidding, aren’t you?” Angry incredulity was evident in his voice.
“After the way he treated you for the last few hours, don’t tell me you’re actually defending the man? He may be your client, but he’s little more than an animal. The way he was sizing you up all afternoon was appalling. Is Delaney aware of what he’s like?” he asked, referring to her boss David Delaney.
Megan’s anger - both at him and the situation she’d been placed in by her boss – overflowed, “That’s none of your fucking business,” she reacted hotly. “I’m his lawyer and I have a duty to my client to make sure that he gets the best possible legal representation and that includes meeting with him as and when required. You, of all people, should know how it works. “
“You should watch your language, young lady,” he interrupted. “I know you’ve probably been put in an unacceptable situation with Ramone, but there’s no point hitting out at the people who are trying to help you.”
“Help?” she exclaimed. “I didn’t see you doing much to help. In fact, all I saw was you deliberately interfering with my client and undermining me. If Frank wants to talk confidentially to me about the purchase of the company then it’s his right. In case you’ve forgotten, you’re acting for the other party in this deal and have no right to interfere with the legal representation of my client!”
Luke was towering over her and despite her anger, she knew her treacherous body was responding to his proximity; she could feel her nipples tightening and pressing insistently against the thin cream silk of her blouse. That knowledge heightened her anger, although this time it was directed more at herself and her body’s reactions than at the man looming over her.
He reached out to her and grasped her shoulder authoritatively, “You really need to calm down and see sense.” He uttered the words that made her see red and, without thinking about what she was doing, she swung her arm up to slap him hard across the cheek. Except that he didn’t give her hand the chance to connect. His other arm rose up with swiftly, with a lightning reflex and grasped her hand before it was even half way through the air, his eyes now glittering with barely restrained fury.
“I’ve really had enough of this,” he bit out. “I’ve watched you sit in that chair all afternoon pretending not to notice that Ramone was salivating over you, watched you shudder every time he tried to paw you and now when I find a way for you to avoid having to spend the evening in the man’s company, you tell me I’m undermining you and hit out at me?” he questioned disbelievingly.
Before she could comprehend what was happening, he’d steered her over to the nearby chair she had recently vacated, sat down and, in one smooth manoeuvre, pulled her down across his lap.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” she struggled wildly, pushing against him as best she could with her fists, but to no avail.
He grimaced. “I like you Megan. I liked you from the moment you walked through the door this afternoon, but there’s no way I’m going to let you make excuses for Ramone or avoid the issue. And I also won’t have you try to raise your fist to me – there are other men out there who would react in a very different way to that kind of provocation and you could find yourself in a situation you can’t handle. You need to learn to be more careful.”
With those words and with her still struggling face down over his knee, he pulled up the demure black skirt she had been wearing and sucked in his breath when he saw the lacy black briefs that she had chosen that morning. His hand hovered over them, but he knew he couldn’t remove them. Not this time. She was on the edge of melting down already and he didn’t want to go too fast, too soon with her. Next time, perhaps. He knew from what he’d seen so far of her that there would certainly be a next time with this tiny spitfire of a woman. He couldn’t believe that he’d had to sit back and watch her try to ignore Ramone’s obvious sleaze all afternoon, knowing that he couldn’t be seen actively to interfere in their professional relationship.
He rarely reacted to a woman the way he had reacted to her when she had entered the room that afternoon. He’d had to sit back down almost immediately in order to hide the erection straining at his trousers. He was like a teenager, he thought wryly. Not that that was going to stop him. He knew that he had a naturally dominant personality and that extended to his relationships. He wasn’t chauvinistic by any stretch of the imagination. On the contrary, he went out of his way to make sure that at his law firm women were treated equally in all respects and were given every opportunity to progress in their careers, offering free child care and flexible working to all his employees. However, he wouldn’t stand for disrespect from anyone, man, woman or child and he certainly had no tolerance for the lack of self-protective instincts that Megan was demonstrating
. Suffice to say, he knew he was old-fashioned in his approach to the women he cared for. He was honest enough with himself to know that even though he barely knew Megan, he wanted very much to spend time with her and get to know her much better.
With that thought, he turned his attention back to Megan’s delightful derriere that was now visibly quivering over his lap even while her legs continued to kick out at him angrily.
“You wouldn’t dare,” she protested hotly. “You have no right to do this.”
“I have every right to do this,” he pronounced. “It appears that my god children aren’t the only ones in need of a little reminder about safety and responsibility.”
“Safety?” she squawked, “I’ve been safe all day! Here! In your fucking office!”
“With language like that you’re only making it worse for yourself,” he rebuked mildly, “and as for safety, you think agreeing to go off on your own for dinner with Ramone would really have been putting your safety first?”
“I know what I’m doing. I’m not some little girl.”
“Unfortunately your actions haven’t really supported that, have they now?”
And with that he brought his hand down sharply, with an audible thwack, on her bottom.
“OWWW,” she cried out, “Stop it, that hurts, you brute.”
He didn’t stop at all. Instead, he brought his hand down again and again and again, spanking her bottom as she squirmed on his lap, her lacy panties offering her little protection from the sting of his palm on her buttocks.
“It’s supposed to hurt, Megan,” he said softly, his voice a contrast to the sharp sting of his hand. “If it didn’t hurt, you wouldn’t remember this lesson.”
“Owww, owww,” she cried out. Nobody, not even her parents, had ever spanked her in her life and she couldn’t believe the fire his hand was lighting over her poor bottom.
Five, six, seven, eight times he brought his hand down and each time she wailed louder. After ten of his firm spanks, her wails began to turn to sobs, but her legs stopped kicking out and she lay across his lap accepting the punishment docilely.
After fifteen sharp spanks, he stopped and pulled her up from his lap and into his arms, as she buried her head in his shoulder and hiccupped, her tears subsiding. He gently stroked her back and waited for her trembling to ease. The spanking really hadn’t been that hard, but he could tell that she had never been in that position – literally – before and she was overwhelmed by the experience. He didn’t regret it. There was no excuse for her lack of common sense with Ramone, or for her trying to hit him. He did, however, wonder anxiously if he had gone too quickly with her. At least, he thought, she was letting him comfort her.
She sniffed again into his shoulder, but the trembling had stopped. He tried to raise her head from his shoulder, but she resisted.
“Megan?” he questioned and reached round with one hand to raise her chin up to him, forcing her to look at him. But she refused to raise her eyes to his, her cheeks now the same pink colour that he imagined was decorating her bottom.
“Megan,” he said again, firmly. “Look at me.”
Slowly she raised her head and met his eyes shyly. Her face was blotchy and stained from her tears and she was consumed with embarrassment that this man, practically a stranger, but who, against her better judgment, she felt so attracted to, had put her over his knee and spanked her as if she were a child. Yet she felt calmer than she had all week; the inner turmoil she’d felt over Ramone’s unsubtle hints and advances had melted away.
“I... um... I,” she stammered, not sure really what to do or say.
He took the decision out of her hands. “Did you drive here?” he asked gently, continuing to tilt her chin upwards to him, not letting her look away.
“No,” she hiccupped again. “I don’t drive. I walked over from our offices.”
“Okay,” he said. “Do you need to go back to your office tonight for anything?”
“Well, no, I don’t think so,” she answered, confused by the reason behind his question.
“Good. In that case, I’ll drive you home. My car is downstairs and we can take the back stairs to the car park.” He smiled ruefully and caught at a stray strand of her long dark hair that had escaped its pins and tucked it back behind her ear, “You still look beautiful, but perhaps not in a state where you want to be running into the receptionists.”
Megan jerked her head up, startled by his reference to her being beautiful. This was the man who had just spanked her, but he was paying her compliments and wanting to drive her home! Her mind was spinning.
With a gulp, Megan looked down and realised to her shame that her skirt was still caught up round her waist and her blouse, now rumpled and creased beyond repair, had tugged free from the band of her skirt. She struggled up and, as he let her escape his embrace, quickly tried to repair the worst of the damage.
“No, no,” she hurriedly said, “I’m fine, I can make my own way home,” her eyes frantically scanning the room to find where her hand bag and papers had ended up.
He frowned, his eyes stern. “I don’t think so,” he said bluntly. “We have things to talk about Megan and there’s no point putting them off. We can have that discussion in a restaurant if you would rather, but I thought given the last half an hour you’d be more comfortable at home.”
Megan realised with a jolt that he wasn’t just offering to drive her home, he was still intending to spend the evening with her talking about the Ramone deal!
“Really, I’m not sure we need to have that discussion tonight. Frank didn’t seem in a hurry for anything. We can talk whenever you’re done with your meetings tomorrow.”
“Megan,” he said softly as he took her hand, his firm tone making her look back up at him, “I don’t just want to discuss Ramone. I hope you felt the same attraction between us that I did this afternoon. I’d like to spend some time with you unconnected to Ramone or Michael. And besides,” he added, “we should also talk about what just happened.”
She gulped, not knowing how to respond. She knew her breasts were still pushing insistently against her blouse, knew he could see it and also realised that he could probably feel her pulse racing in her wrist. There was no point in denying the obvious. But she was off-balance, nervous and had no idea how she should, or could, react to him.
She began to protest, but it sounded feeble even to her own ears and within minutes Megan found herself being escorted down the stairs of the office with him, being gently bundled up into his car and giving him directions to her apartment.
CHAPTER 2
He parked in her allocated parking bay in the secure underground car park of her apartment block. Megan didn’t have a car, so the bay was usually empty unless one of her sisters was using it for convenience instead of trying to find a precious parking space on the streets of central London.
Before she’d even had time to undo her seatbelt, Luke had walked round to the passenger seat and opened the car door for her, offering her his hand to help her out. Somewhat grudgingly, she took his hand.
During the short journey back to her apartment, they’d said very little. Luke seemed comfortable with the silence, but her nerves were jumbled and she didn’t trust herself to say anything. Her stinging bottom still served as a reminder of where her tongue had gotten her earlier and her brain was utterly befuddled at what had just happened. All she could think about was the shock that he had actually spanked her. No one had ever raised a hand to her before, not as a child and certainly not as an adult, but he was behaving as if it were entirely normal and didn’t even seem fazed by events. Aside from an approving comment about the security of the underground car park when he’d pulled into her building he’d made no effort to break the silence, even though her nerves were jangling loudly enough that she was sure he could hear them!
She punched in the security code for the building and, as he opened the door for her, she turned and began to protest again that there was no need for them to cont
inue with this tonight, but his withering look had her slamming her lips back together before she had even finished her sentence.
When they approached the door of her apartment Megan began to hunt around in her handbag for her keys. After a few seconds of worry on her part, she found them and saw that he was holding his hand out for her to give them to him. She looked at him quizzically.
“I know it may seem old fashioned to you, but I was brought up to make sure that women got home safely.”
That took her aback, visibly. Not one of her ex-boyfriends had gone to any such lengths to make sure she was okay. Well, she told herself, there were only two of them, so she supposed she didn’t exactly have a huge amount of experience and she knew that she’d always picked men with whom she knew she could get away with blue murder if she’d wanted. True, they weren’t the kind of men who excited her, or to whom she was instinctively drawn, but they were non-threatening and easy going, if a little insipid at times.
She sighed. Luke was neither non-threatening nor insipid. He represented everything that she was attracted to in a man, but also all those things that were dangerous for her. He was old-fashioned, domineering and commanding. Although her body was instinctively drawn to all those characteristics, her mind told her it was a mistake and that she should run away from it as quickly as she could. She was a well-educated professional woman, ambitious and career driven. She’d worked her way up the career ladder by proving to everyone that she could work twice as hard as her male contemporaries. She deliberately hadn’t let herself be swayed from her goals by relationships that would show her up to be anything less than the single minded career woman she wanted to portray herself as and if that meant squashing her body’s desires, ignoring the cravings that she satisfied only through the stack of old fashioned romance novels that were piled up by her bed, then so be it.
Megan's Story, A Bentley Sisters Novel Page 2