by Gray Gardner
She groaned. Why she had agreed to this, she’d never know. She had the feeling he could talk her into doing a lot of things, though.
Conditional Love
“I’m not going to hurt you!” Connor shouted, grabbing his head and pacing his living room in frustration. This was starting to get really exasperating. His patience was waning.
He had been trying to devise a way to get Burton to become less skittish but after a couple of days nothing seemed to be working. He was pulling out old psych books from WestPoint and even calling old buddies who specialized in trauma, and nothing even made a dent. She still cowered away from him when he raised his voice, and came close to fainting if he ever raised his arms in a semi-threatening way.
Once he reached out to brush a piece of hair out of her face and she flinched so wildly that she fell out of her chair. It would have worried him a lot more if she hadn’t been able to laugh at herself. She was really becoming quite the enigma.
“Burton,” Connor sighed, finally falling back onto a soft chair. “I’m trying to acclimate you to a life where…things will just be different. Violent. You’re going to be like a slave.”
She studied him for a moment before she relaxed her stance. Her dark red hair fell out from behind her ears, revealing a little shiny copper in the sunlight that beamed through the window behind her. She knew he was just trying to help. She wanted his help. She just had to make herself accept it.
“I’m trying to help you survive,” he replied. “Every day is an exercise to prepare you for this operation. Eubanks and Payne sent Ferguson with some files about what you need to expect and how I can help you before they come to get you…”
“Ferguson gave you files?” she frowned, forgetting to argue that she was in fact not going anywhere with Eubanks and Payne. Ferguson had extensive information on her. A person could argue that he knew her better than anyone. She didn’t want Connor to find out about her that way. The whole situation was so frustrating.
Connor grunted as he stood up and walked towards her. “Yes. A lot of it explains why you are the way you…are. Like why you’re so scared.”
“It says that in there?” she asked, cheeks flushing. “Who wrote it? Ferguson? That god damned fucking cunt faced little shit….”
Connor let out a short laugh before trying to give her a serious look. God, he could spend the rest of his life with this vivacious, beautiful, hilarious woman. Focus!
“N-no,” he grinned, shaking his head. “He got it from your journal entries from high school…”
If he thought he’d hit a button earlier, he’d definitely found it this time.
“My what?” she roared, staring at him incredulously as she held her hands out and waited for him to reaffirm what he’d just said. No. No no no no no no….
Connor realized he had struck a chord with her. Her short breaths and irate expression made him carefully calculate what he was going to say next.
“I haven’t read them yet…”
She screeched in ferocity before leaping over him and trying to scramble to his office to the brown box full of her information that he wouldn’t let her touch. Had she known her freaking journal was amongst those papers she would have burned it long ago. As it was, she had to get her hands on it before Connor read it.
“Burton!” he called, grabbing her as she tried to leave the living room and get into his office. He held her as she struggled, wondering how they’d gone from cuddling and talking and exploring each other to a cage match in his tiny house.
Her “I’m a Pepper” t-shirt was twisted around her back and all of his veins were popping out of his neck. “Stop!”
“You stop!” he ordered.
She rotated around a couple of times until she felt his grip loosen, then dashed down the hallway. She couldn’t believe Ferguson had given him everything. Her journal from high school was very detailed and very private. Insanely private.
Her parents had encouraged her to keep one since she was a descendant of someone historically significant, something about posterity and whatever. It was a way for them to preserve their heritage through her. For her, though, it turned into a project to help her release frustration; frustration about being a teenager, and about her family. Being a Burton was anything but easy. She had to keep that journal away from Connor. No one should be in the mind of a seventeen-year-old girl, let alone a seventeen-year-old Baylor Burton.
“Where is it?” she demanded to know, falling to her knees on the carpeted office floor and throwing the lids off of the brown boxes surrounding the desk.
Connor ran into the room and grabbed her arm, pulling her to her feet as she struggled to grip the boxes and dragging her out of the office. Papers flew through the air and trailed behind them as he walked back out into the living room and pinned her against the wall by her shoulders. He leaned over and looked her in the eye.
“Burton, I am not disappointed. I don’t think you’re a failure. But I am very angry. Do you understand?” he asked, waiting on edge for her next move. This would be critical. It took everything he had not to yell at her.
She breathed heavily as she looked down at his hands holding her and then his face. He looked very angry. The veins in his neck were popping out. She was glad to hear that he wasn’t disappointed, though.
“H-how much of my journal have you seen?” she quietly asked.
Connor sighed in relief and loosened his grip on her. She didn’t break into a cold sweat and pass out. She still had a terrified look on her face, but this was still progress.
At last, progress. He didn’t want to blow it and send her into an emotional spiral
again. Something did come to mind, though.
Gwinn. He’d explained about his relationship with his girlfriend over drinks one time. He’d used words like ‘dominant’ and ‘submissive’ in ways that had made Connor a little uncomfortable when it came to women, but a little light bulb had gone off above his head as he thought back.
Maybe she needed something like that before she could fully commit to the assignment the government was forcing down her throat. Maybe all she needed was to submit to him.
“Ok, kid, I’ll tell you what,” he said.
Her glare pierced right through him so his resolve remained strong. She could be defiant, for sure. Cute, but defiant. He tamped down the way it turned him on and focused on the task at hand.
He sat right in the middle of his large sofa and looked over at her.
“You went into my office today after I told you not to.”
“That’s my stuff in there!” she shouted, contemplating another mad dash back there to pour through the papers and find her journal.
“I told you not to look at it because of what’s happening right now. I wanted to show it to you at the right time. You need to see it, you need to work through it, I know that,” he gently stated, leaning back and watching as she twisted her fingers around one another and pressed her lips together in thought.
God damn it, he was right and she hated it. She wished he didn’t look so damned comfortable on that enormous couch, either. She felt like she was flailing in the wind.
He noticed.
“Why don’t we go to the beach and relax a little bit,” he suggested, releasing her from his stare. “It’ll be a good place for us to talk and get some fresh air…we’ve been in here for over 2 days now. It’s time for a change of scenery and a beer.”
She raised her brow as she looked at him, studying him to see if this was real or another exercise, and then said, “Okay. Let me get my sweater.”
“First, though, you need to understand what you’ll be facing when you’re under…”
“I understand, Connor. I’m not an idiot. And…well…I guess maybe I do want to help those kids,” she sighed, looking so sweet as she looked down at her bare feet. Sweet but brave. The best combination in his eyes.
“Good, and I know you do, Baylor. You’re a good person. Maybe one of the best people I’ve ever met.
”
“Really?” she asked, a tone of sarcasm in her voice. She also had her hands on her hips. Adorable.
“You’ve got to get over this fear of losing your power…you can’t just thrash around and grasp at control if you think you’re losing it,” he stated, leaning back and resting his arms wide on the back of the couch. “That’s why you’re going to do what I say right now and put yourself over my lap.”
She sputtered out a quick laugh and rolled her eyes.
“No thanks, Captain,” she replied with false sweetness, though the quick mental image of him holding her across his lap made her toes tingle.
“I’m not going to do it for you,” he added, still leaning back and looking calm, though everything rested on this moment. If she could do it, submit to it, then maybe she stood a chance of making it through what the CIA had planned for her. He watched intently as she shifted from side to side.
“I can’t do that,” she softly replied, feeling a little panicked but able to swallow it down. He wasn’t raising a hand to slap across her face or ripping his belt through the loops to crack down on her back.
“Come stand here first,” he gently ordered, pointing the side of his right leg. When she complied his cock stirred, but he had to get through the next part first. Down boy.
Baylor had no idea why she’d obeyed. Her body just…moved to his side. She couldn’t look him in the eye, though.
“Pull those jeans down,” he said, still not moving, even when she stepped back and blushed. He had to clench his fists once to fight the urge to wrap his arms around her.
“No,” she squeaked, backing into an arm chair. This was going too far. Just…just too far.
“It’s going to get easier,” he tried to reassure her. He held his relaxed pose using every muscle he had. At the moment he really wanted to just grab her over his shoulder and toss her on his bed.
Her face flushed even more as her eyes widened.
“You’re going to do it more than once?” she shrieked.
“Until you get used to submitting to authority…yes.”
He let her shake her head and pace the room. She mumbled epithets about him and cursed a thousand curses on his person before eventually ending back up next to his right leg.
“And the end game of this…exercise?” she asked through her teeth. Christ, he looked so damned pleased with himself.
“You already have my respect,” he answered honestly. “I’m just hoping that it will make things easier on you when you go under for this assignment. You’ll know what to expect, what to anticipate, and how to react so as not to expose who you really are: a badass chick who’s about to bring down an international slave ring.”
Burton gave a half-hearted smile at his confidence in her. She rubbed her ear, bounced back and forth from one foot to another, and then finally looked down at his long muscular legs.
“You’ll get rewarded for being a good girl,” he softly added, waiting tensely as his cock forgot all decency and pushed up at his jeans. His teeth almost went through his lip as her little hands went to her jeans and unbuttoned them.
She gave the waist band a slow shimmy down to her hips and then stopped. That was far enough, damn it…but she was intrigued by this promised reward. As gracefully as possible, she leaned over and tried to find an easy way to get her stomach comfortably over his large thighs with her legs trapped by her blue jeans.
Connor couldn’t wait one second longer. He pulled her down with his left arm curling around her back and waist, pinning her to the couch so that her round, luscious ass was forced high over his legs.
“You broke into my office,” he said, suffusing each word with a loud smack on her pink lace panties. He cleared his throat and tried to remain as professional as possible, whatever that meant at this point. “You wrecked my filing system and threw papers everywhere. That will not happen again.”
“Yes sir,” she replied through her teeth, eyes clenched shut. Okay, it was embarrassing, but it didn’t really hurt that much.
He paused at her quick response, a little surprised. Then he sighed and slowly reached for the waistband of her panties, pulling them down just below the pronounced curve of her backside. He actually groaned as he fought the urge to lean over and kiss each pink stained cheek. He raised his hand but paused at the sound of her voice.
“Please don’t,” he heard her whimper as she stiffened over his lap. Christ, he wanted to hold her and protect her, not spank her when she was being so good about it. He popped his neck and continued with the knowledge that this actually was helping her.
“Bad little girls who break into my office will get their bare bottoms spanked every time, Baylor. Do you understand?” He gave up on trying to be a tough guy and let his fingertips trail up and down over her backside.
“Yes sir,” she whimpered, tears rolling down her face in shame. The feeling of humiliation was overwhelming her senses save one: the arousal at the slow, gentle fingers she felt rubbing circles on her ass. It felt so good. Too good. And her ass didn’t really hurt at all.
Connor flipped her onto her back, trying not to show the shock he felt at finding tears on her pink cheeks. He leaned over and carefully thumbed off each one, kissing wherever her skin had dried.
“Such a good girl, Baylor,” he moaned, loving how her eyes slowly shut and she looked relaxed and content. For once. “Now you get to come.”
He quickly slid to the floor, ripped her jeans and underwear off, and hooked her legs over his shoulder. He didn’t tease her very long as he kissed down the inside of her lean, soft thigh, mostly from his own need. She was almost completely waxed, with soft lips opening up to him as he ran his tongue along them.
Burton tried to hold in her squeals of surprise every time he did something, but the truth was the damned man just kept surprising her. The spanking. The underwear being slid down. His erection at her side. The feeling of vulnerability as she waited for his hand to smack her upended ass every time. The look of remorse on his face when he saw her tears. The look of delight on his face when he spread her legs over his shoulders and began kissing her where she hadn’t been kissed in a long time.
“Fuck,” she grit through her teeth, watching his short haired blondish-brown head twist around between her legs as the orgasm swiftly approached. His tongue was soft and wet licking her up and down, and hard when it darted in and out of her.
“Not yet, Sweetheart,” he replied in a low voice, glancing up at her. He almost came in his pants watching her squeeze her eyes shut and throw her head back. He thought she was absolute perfection as he shoved his pants halfway down his thighs and pulled her down to straddle him as he knelt on the floor.
“This changes everything baby,” he grit through his teeth, trying not to ram into her as hard as he wanted and instead lowering her onto him at an agonizingly slow pace.
“Yes,” she almost sang, kissing him as he cradled her back and her head.
“I’m going to fuck you long and hard,” he growled into her ear, feeling her legs wrap around him and pull him closer as he said it. He moved faster in response.
She couldn’t believe they’d gotten to that point. Earlier she’d been feeling so rotten and in a hot minute she was getting her brain humped right out of her head.
“Just like when I spank you, baby. Long and hard,” he grunted, emphasizing each adjective with a hard thrust into her body. Her inner walls gripping his cock even tighter surprised him and when she came seconds later he knew he’d found a solution. His head fell back as he gripped a hand under her ass and came loudly. A solution? Sure, but now he had an even bigger problem.
He was falling for her.
He zipped up his navy Patagonia and glanced over as she pulled on her white cable knit hoodie. They slipped on their tennis shoes at the back door and jumped into his Hummer, heading for the wet, cool breezes on the beach.
“I think it’s time we read this,” Connor said, as they sat on a patch of grass and watched the small
waves crash against the rocks below them. She was leaning on his shoulder, legs curled under her as the wind blew her hair back.
Burton glanced over and saw the dark green book in his hand. It was her journal. She hadn’t pulled it out since she’d written her last entry, which was right before she’d first met the CIA agents and Scotland Yard detectives and everyone else. Her beer hissed as she popped it open and took a big swig, still staring at the beaten up book in Connor’s hand. It was filled with so many bad memories.
“I can’t believe John… Agent Ferguson had it,” she softly said, taking another sip. “And you’ve read it?”
“Maybe revisiting these memories will help you,” Connor said, pulling a beer for himself out of the cooler he was leaning against. He leaned his head down and kissed her forehead. “Trust me, Kid. No one blames you for acting the way you have. Your life has been anything but easy.”
She turned her head from him and looked at the greenish blue water. Going back to that time in her life wouldn’t solve much. What was done was done. Connor seemed to really care, though, and since he’d studied psych in grad school he had some idea of what he was doing.
She looked back and him and drank her beer, giving a nod. She would regret this later. She sometimes felt her whole life was regret, though. She waited as her stomach turned.
He opened it up to the first book marked page and cleared his throat.
June 1, Junior Year, Hamilton High School
Today was the worst day of my pathetic life. It all culminated in a misunderstanding of cataclysmic proportion, but it began just as horribly as it ended.
7:01 am - My life is pathetic because I spend the majority of it studying and trying my hardest to get perfect grades. This wouldn’t be so bad if it meant that I had a lot of friends in my advanced classes. It doesn’t. All of my friends are in the regular classes, leaving me to deal with the geeky boys who won’t let girls into their Nerd Clubs, the spaz girls who won’t talk to me because I have a symmetrical face and boys don’t flee at the sight of me, and the teachers who don’t respect me because my mother dresses me in designer clothes. My life sucks. I knew it sucked for sure at 7:01 when my friend Jessica called and said they were spending the day at the mall because it appears that in the regular classes perfect attendance excuses you from having to take your final exams. I had to go to school because my life sucks.