“Go ahead,” he urged.
She made her way hesitantly down the dark passage, pushed open the heavy door and gasped.
A rainbow of dancing light poured through a narrow window covered in a stained-glass pattern of glowing crystals. More brilliant crystals studded the walls and ceiling. Emerald green, yellow, amethyst, blue as pure as a tropical sea. Throwing their light on – surely those couldn’t be flowers?
Strange exotic blooms that glowed as well, in a riot of colors, filling the room with their fragrance. She took one step forward, stretching out a hand toward the nearest delicate blossom on the wall. Velvety smooth petals in a soft shade of apricot nestled in a cup of spring green foliage.
“It’s...it’s attached! It’s growing here. Right on the wall.”
Haldor stepped in after her. “They all are.” He stretched out an arm. “Only a few right now. But you’re good with plants. You can grow more. All year round. Even in the dead of winter. I’m told some of them even have healing properties. Maybe they’ll prove useful in your work with Ingrid.”
“But where did all this come from?”
“Remember that trip I took a few weeks back, when you stayed at the Palace? I went to Iridia, through the Portal. I’ve been stockpiling furs for months. Ever since I brought you here. I knew I wanted to do something special. I just didn’t know what.”
He waved a hand around the room. “I traded the furs for Iridian crystals and a handful of their special plants. The crystals give off enough heat to keep it warm in here and these plants grow only under their glow. Mind you, too much exposure to the crystals can be dangerous. That’s why I’ve put them here, at the end of a long stone passageway. You can’t stay in this room for days on end. But for a couple of hours at a time, on the dark winter days...I thought being surrounded with such beauty might make life here more bearable for you.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “This is incredible.”
“Just one more thing. Ingrid tells me this is the way they used to profess their love back on Earth.” Reaching into a pouch at his waist, he brought out a tiny parcel wrapped in a soft cloth. Another crystal, brilliant blue, set in a gold ring. “This one is safe to wear. All the time."
He dropped to one knee in front of her. “Selena Reston, will you be my wife? Will you share this home, bear our children, let me love and protect and cherish you for the rest of your life?”
She looked down at him. This proud Viking warrior, kneeling at her feet. He’d given her so much already. Security. Warmth. Joy. A life filled with passion such as she’d never known. Excitement and adventure she’d only dreamed of in her sterile existence back on Earth. And now – tenderness she’d never imagined he was capable of.
“Haldor, from the first moment I met you, you’ve filled my soul with Light.” She stretched her arms out. “And now you’ve filled our home with it as well. I would be honored to be your wife. And bear our children. And let you love and protect and cherish me – as I will love and cherish you, all the days of our lives.”
He stood and swept her in his arms. His kiss started out soft and gentle, but it grew. She felt his hunger building, sending that wild thrill surging through her. He captured her mouth in a fierce possession that demanded her complete surrender.
He stopped long enough to draw her down onto a strategically-placed pile of furs on the floor that she hadn’t noticed when they walked into the room.
“We’ll wed on the Spring Solstice,” he announced in a tone that brooked no disagreement. “But I plan to start on the children right now.”
“Yes, my Lord.” She lowered her eyes demurely. “May I have permission to speak first, sir?”
He fell into character, as she hoped he would. “You have my leave. Speak,” he replied, the stern note that made her pussy clench back in his voice.
She got on her knees. “I’ve been very good today; doing everything you’ve told me to do. I would ask...no, I beg that you begin our life together in this new home by giving me the spanking I deserve, my Lord.”
Without waiting for an answer, she bent over with her head resting on the soft furs and pulled her skirt up to the waist, revealing her naked bottom.
“Since you’ve begged me, I will do my duty as head of this household.”
His hand roamed over her bare cheeks. He delivered the first spicy smack, then dipped his finger into her pussy to find her already wet. She moaned.
He smacked her again, just hard enough to send a stab of lust through her. Then he sat up and pulled her over his lap. His cock already hard, straining against the rough fabric of his trousers.
“Oh, it’s a needy wench I have here! Prepare yourself, woman. And don’t you dare move. Or this spanking is going to last a very long time.”
Selena turned her head and met his eyes. Then, with a saucy grin, she wiggled provocatively on his lap.
About Kallista Dane
Kallista Dane is a #1 Bestselling author in Sci-Fi Erotica and a Top Ten Amazon bestseller in multiple genres, including BDSM, Western, Contemporary and Romantic Erotica. She loves to write about strong, independent women and the hot Alpha males who appear in their lives to deliver a spanking when they expect it least and need it the most.
Kallista is happily married to her own erotic Knight, who provides her with endless cups of Cowboy Coffee when she's writing and lots of inspiration for her next naughty scene when she's not.
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Stepping It Up (Rod and Cane Society 7) by Cara Bristol
Chapter One
Ariel’s stomach fluttered as she stepped up to the porch of her parents’ house. Work. Early morning meeting. Wish I could stay longer. She planned her exit before slipping inside. She was a mere forty-five minutes late, but the party was in full swing. As if she’d been waiting, Trudy, her stepmom, made a beeline. “Ariel!” Her face wreathed in a smile as she hugged her. “I’m so glad you came!”
“I wouldn’t miss the big bash,” she lied. She would have preferred a private pity party over her stepmom’s annual Valentine’s Day get-together, but she’d skipped too many family affairs and couldn’t disappoint her parents again.
She kissed her stepmom and gave her an awkward one-arm hug while balancing a dish of deli potato salad. Her heart thudded against her ribs. Is he here? She scanned the crowded living room.
“Here, let me have that.” Her stepmom relieved her of the bowl. “I don’t take anything for granted. You’re all so busy.”
If anyone had an excuse to be absent, her stepbrother, Hunter, did. He lived the farthest away, with a four-hour drive, but Ariel was the biggest offender, having missed more family events than both her siblings combined.
Her stepmother embraced her again. “I’m just so glad to have all my children with me.”
All my children. Her mouth went dry. “Reagan and Hunter are here already?”
“Reagan’s in the kitchen. I saw Hunter a moment ago. He’s with Sienna.”
Out of the crowd, her stepbrother materialized, his arm decorated by Sienna, dressed to the nines in a low-cut slinky dress and shoes to make a hooker proud. Were they dating again? The idea churned her stomach, but she forced a smile and hugged him. The brief contact with his hard-muscled chest had her inhaling his scent and then cursing herself for doing so.
“Good to see you, kiddo.” His voice slid over her like warm honey.
“I hate it when you call me that—hello, Sienna.” She nodded at the other woman.
“Hello.”
“I know.” Hunter grinned.
Sienna smirked. “I forget,” she said, peering up at him. “How much younger is your little sister?”
Ariel ground her teeth. She’d never liked Sienna. She was all wrong for Hunter.
Would you ever admit a woman could be right for him? Probably not, but Sienna definitely wasn’t it.
“Seven years,” Trudy answered for him. “Hunter was seventeen, Reagan eleven, and Ariel ten when Jake and I marr
ied.”
“You guys are like the Brady Bunch,” Sienna said.
Trudy laughed. “But with half the number of kids.”
The comparison had been made before. Following the death of his wife when Ariel was a baby, Jacob Peyton had played Mr. Mom until he met Trudy Willows, a widow with two children. They had married and blended two families. There had never been his kids or her kids; both parents had treated all the children as their own. In eleven-year-old Reagan, Ariel had found a sister and a best friend.
In teenaged Hunter, she’d worshipped a hero. He’d been a high school senior. To her ten-year-old self, he’d been so grown-up, so mature she’d developed a major case of puppy love. She’d followed him around, soaking up every word, every gesture, every casual affectionate instance when he called her “kiddo” and ruffled her hair.
People had found it cute the way she’d crushed on her older stepbrother. He’d been good-natured and indulgent, letting her tag along, smiling instead of grimacing. Her world came to a crashing halt the night of his prom. She’d locked herself in her room and cried buckets, vowing to never reveal her feelings again.
Everyone assumed she’d gotten over her crush. But she hadn’t. Her infatuation had gotten stronger, matured.
Now twenty-five, she loved him still. The hurt from prom night hadn’t receded but deepened every time she encountered him with a woman, every time she saw him, every time he treated her with brotherly affection, because it reinforced what could never be.
Although they were no more related than two strangers, to him, to their parents, to his many girlfriends, he was her older brother.
One day, he would ask one of those girlfriends to be his wife. At thirty-two, Hunter wouldn’t remain a bachelor forever, and, when he married, it would kill her.
So Ariel stayed away, returning only when her supply of excuses ran out.
“I’ll put this in the kitchen and let you kids talk,” Trudy said. “Sienna, could you give me a hand?”
“Sure, Mom.” Sienna gave Hunter’s arm a squeeze and trotted after Trudy.
Trudy was such a warm and loving person, all their friends called her Mom, but it set Ariel’s teeth on edge when Sienna did it.
Please, god. Not Sienna. Anybody but Sienna.
Hunter watched them go and then turned to Ariel. His caramel eyes, flecked with emerald, changed color with his moods. More brown when he was calm, more greenish when his emotions were stirred. If anyone would know, she would. She’d spent hours studying him, recording every nuance in her teenage diary. Perhaps only Jane Goodall who’d studied chimpanzees in Africa had logged more hours of observation.
“So, how have you been?” He cupped her elbow and drew her into the living room, away from the foyer. He smelled so good, and his touch burned her skin even after he’d released her.
I’m so pathetic. But how could anyone resist him? As a teenager, Hunter been handsome. As a man, he was sex on two legs. His features had matured and hardened. The lines fanning out from his eyes, the determination in his jaw, the darkness no amount of shaving could eliminate, caused her panties to dampen. “Fine. Busy. How about you?” she replied, proud of her steady, level voice.
“Good.”
“Good.” Good that he was good. They sounded like two strangers who’d met at a bus stop. Would they discuss the weather next?
Looks like rain.
Good, we need it. She almost choked.
“You here by yourself?” He glanced around the room.
Twist the knife, why don’t you? “Yes, just me.”
“I heard through the grapevine you were seeing somebody. Mike...”
“Mark,” she corrected. “We broke up.”
“I’m sorry.”
She shrugged one shoulder. “My decision.”
“Really? Why?”
Because he wasn’t you. She dated, had had a couple of extended relationships, but every guy shared the same deal-breaker personality flaw. They weren’t him. Nice guys all. Boring, but decent, and they deserved better than a woman who craved what she couldn’t have.
She couldn’t look at him, turned her head to focus on the living room sofa.
Thwack! Ow! Ow! I promise I won’t do that again.
The first life-altering moment had occurred when her dad had married Trudy; the second had happened on that couch, currently occupied by two cousins and an aunt.
Hunter had lived at home during college. One night during his last year of engineering school, Ariel and Reagan had been invited to a sleepover while their parents were away. Ariel hadn’t been feeling well, so their friend’s mother had driven her home.
A slapping noise and a cry had led her to tiptoe to the living room to investigate. On that sofa, Hunter had been spanking his girlfriend du jour. Her bottom had been bare, her jeans and panties around her knees; his hand had been broad, fast, as it rained slaps against her exposed backside. What had struck her most, though, was his expression. Determined. Stern. Scary, sexy.
Adolescent concepts of romance had evaporated, and, deep in her core, heat ignited, melting her from the inside out. Jealousy and longing for things she’d never considered, never knew existed, flooded her body. She’d spied on the entire spanking and its aftermath, when he’d cradled his weeping girlfriend and murmured sweet nothings. When they began to kiss, she’d slipped away, unable to watch that.
The incident had given birth to new fantasies that tormented her nights and colored them rosy and wanton. In her imaginings, with her hand inside her panties, she was the one writhing on his lap, being chided for being disrespectful, naughty. Yes, Hunter, I’m soooo naughty.
“It’s personal,” she said, unwilling to discuss her love life or lack thereof. She didn’t ask him about Sienna, didn’t want to know if they were back together, if he took down her panties and spanked her.
Red and white helium-filled balloons floated around the living room, further decorated with hearts. A huge bouquet of red roses, a gift from Jake to Trudy, rested on the coffee table and perfumed the air. So romantic.
Be My Valentine. She’d slipped a card under Hunter’s bedroom door the first year they became a family, and he’d given her one in return. A bear hugging a heart. I wuv you beary much.
She had to get over him. She couldn’t spend her life pining away, avoiding her family for fear she’d see him. Maybe it would be better if he did marry. Maybe that would hammer through her thick head and aching heart that She. Did. Not. Have. A. Future. With. Him.
“It usually is. Personal, I mean,” he said. “I’m glad you came. I hoped I’d see you. I skipped another party to be here.”
Her stomach fluttered with the surge of pleasure she always got at the slightest bit of attention. He’s being nice. Brotherly. “I’m honored,” she responded with the right amount of coolness and snark. She patted herself on the back for a great achievement. “What was your other party?”
For a moment, she thought she saw discomfort flit across his face, but then his gaze bored into hers, as bold as ever. “A Valentine’s Day dance for an organization I belong to—the Rod and Cane Society.”
“Is it like a fin and feather club?” Hunter had always been athletic, had played football in high school, but he’d gravitated toward outdoor sports like fishing, hiking, and camping.
“It’s a...leadership organization for men who practice domestic—”
“There you are!” Reagan ran over and grabbed her. “Mom said you’d arrived.”
Ariel hugged her sister with genuine, uncomplicated affection. Their relationship had always been close, easy. “Where are the rug rats tonight?” she asked. Only a year older, Reagan had been married for four years and had three children, a set of toddler twin boys and a baby girl one year old.
“Home with the sitter. I’ve already checked on them three times. Drew says if I call again, he’ll confiscate my cell phone.”
“You can use mine.”
“I knew I could count on you.” Reagan grinned.
<
br /> “Like old times,” Ariel responded with a smile. She and her stepsister had been co-conspirators in many adolescent hijinks. Reagan had been the ringleader, Ariel her eager accomplice.
Reagan turned to Hunter. “Mom told me you have big news.” She arched her eyebrows. “Well?”
“You’ll have to wait with everyone else.”
“You! You’re worse than Drew.” Reagan scowled.
“Speaking of which, why don’t you go torment that hapless husband you managed to harpoon?”
“You want me to leave. I can take a hint,” Reagan said.
“Not easily.” Hunter snorted.
“I need to finish in the kitchen, help Mom put out the rest of the food anyway.”
“Oh, I can help,” Ariel said, feeling guilty. She should have been assisting, too.
“That’s all right,” Reagan said. “We’ve got more than enough hands. Aunt Zoe and Aunt Cindy are there.” She made a face behind Hunter’s back. “And Sienna.” As quickly as she’d swept in, she whirled away, leaving Ariel alone with Hunter.
They exchanged a glance of amusement. Reagan had always been a whirling dervish who tested the boundaries. Quiet, reserved Ariel had followed along, covered for her. I’m almost sure I heard her come in before curfew, Dad.
Hunter’s gaze turned serious. “Aren’t you going to ask me?”
“Ask you?”
“About my big announcement.”
It probably involved his work. Just because she didn’t visit as often as she should, didn’t mean she was disconnected from the grapevine. Hunter had talked about opening his own engineering firm for ages.
Ariel shook her head. “No. It’s your announcement. I’ll let you share it your way.”
A glint of approval lit his eyes. Damn it all. That’s all it took to melt her insides. One glance. One gesture. A casual compliment.
And then, without warning, without reason, he reached for her hand. From the sparks that ignited, it appeared her nervous system was shorting out. He stroked the top with his thumb, and she gaped. “About what I was saying earlier,” Hunter began. “About the Rod and Cane Society. They’re an organization for men—and women—who practice domestic discipline.”
Bound, Spanked and Loved: Fourteen Kinky Valentine's Day Stories Page 46