"Because you care about me."
His sigh sounded relieved. "Exactly. And I do. I love you as a friend, and much more than that now. I'm not sure what to call it, but I do know that my love for you has grown and changed, even just in the short time we've been together romantically, and I could not bear it if anything happened to you. And I have to be able to trust you to do as I tell you—whether I'm here or not."
With that, I was firmly but gently arranged over his lap, my robe first pushed up, then removed altogether as he tipped me towards the floor then put a leg over both of mine to hold me in place.
"Are you relatively comfortable, for the moment? Do you need a pillow or anything? Legs okay—I'm not too heavy for them?" he asked solicitously.
I should have said no, but I couldn't think he'd be any too patient with stalling tactics.
My voice was small when I answered, "Yes."
I felt him stroke his right hand down the length of my back, and it felt really good.
But then it ended up on the crest of my behind, and I knew that was not going to be good for much longer.
"I want you to try to remember while you're being spanked, that I'm doing this because that's how much I love you."
As if I could remember anything while he was spanking me!
And he knew how to do it, too. He didn't just smack me mindlessly for a period of time. It was almost the same technique he used in making love to me—trying different rhythms, listening to how I responded to it and adjusting what he did accordingly.
I really wished—especially after just the first few smacks—that he was making love to me instead.
I tried harder than I'd ever tried to do most things not to cry, but there was no way to resist it. Every spank hurt. It wasn't agony, but it wasn't thoroughly unpleasant, enough so that I could feel my cheeks growing wet when I didn't want them to, and long before I would have thought it was acceptable to do so.
There was no being brave here, as much as I wanted to, and, apparently, I'm a bit of a wimp.
He knew what he was doing—knew what to look for.
And he concentrated most of his swats right where it would hurt the most—where the last of my behind met the beginnings of my thighs—where it was sure to hurt every time I sat down for the maximum amount of time afterwards.
Eventually, I began to flail my right hand. My left was useless except to hit him on the back, and that was like slapping a brick wall. I knew because I'd already tried it. But my right hand was free, so I began to swing it wildly back, over my butt, trying to disrupt the endless litany of smacks.
I should have known better than to do that. It worked once, twice—I actually hit his hand, and the slap ended up being much lighter than I knew he intended it to be. That third time, though, was no charm for me, because he simply caught my wrist in his free hand and used his hold to twist it well up my back.
"Deck, no!"
The tears came more rapidly now that I had lost my one and only defense against him, and, as if he knew that was what I was thinking, he increased both the tempo and the heft behind each one of them.
No amount of jerking or trying to flop or twist or cry or yelp had any effect whatsoever.
By the time he stopped, I was exhausted, I could tell my face was swollen from crying, and there was a dark splotch of tears on the carpet directly beneath my head.
I would have gladly stormed away from him, but he wouldn't allow it. Instead, he held me close, rocking me like a baby, rubbing my back and whispering how much he cared for me. How much he loved me.
Deck dried my eyes, handing me a tissue with which to blow my nose, holding me for several more long moments before saying, "I'd love to keep you right here in my arms—aftercare is such an important thing and I don't want to shortchange you, especially not your first time, but do you really want to see your hairdresser?"
If it hadn't been such a bitch to get an appointment with Joanne, I would have forgone it, gladly, to spend the rest of the weekend in his arms, where I was surprised to find that I still wanted to be, even after that.
"Yes, I won't be able to see her for months if I don't go now, between her being booked and my work life."
Deck nodded, reluctantly, against my hair. "I understand. Let's get dressed and go."
He had his suitcases with him, so he had clothes to change into, and I donned a pair of jeans—hissing loudly as I pulled them up over my bum—and a pretty lavender blouse that matched my bra and panty set.
I saw him contemplating me as I dressed. He was done before I was. I was falling behind, but I had to take a little longer than usual with my makeup to try to hide the traces of tears, at which I was only somewhat successful.
Although I was still confused about how I felt about being spanked by him, I certainly did like his manners, which seemed just that much more touching to me, for some reason, although I was loathe to attribute that to having just been disciplined by him.
He had no hesitation at all about going into the beauty shop with me, unlike even Andre, who would have gone to the restaurant we were meeting at for lunch and waited for me there rather than join a hen party. But Deck strolled in with me and took a seat, surrounded by women who were waiting to be helped or were under dryers or waiting for their color to set.
Joanne was ready for me as soon as we came in, and her chair was aways from where Deck was sitting, although I could see—from all of the various reflections of all of the strategically placed mirrors around the place—that every female eye in the place had been glued to him from the moment we'd entered.
Not that I could blame them in the least. He was in his mid-late-forties, and yet he still had a full head of dark brown hair. He had classical good looks—kind of an amalgamation of Cary Grant, Christopher Reeve, and Michael Fassbender, with a bit of Errol Flynn thrown in for good measure. His eyes were a clear chocolate brown, his face free of all but laugh lines, with a strong jaw and full lips. He was six-two or so, tall and broad. You could clearly see the play of muscles beneath his shirt whenever he moved.
I could hear my breath coming faster, and I knew my panties were wet—despite the fire he'd set in my bum.
Apparently, they weren't the only ones who were attracted to him.
So, I watched him covertly as Joanne went to work, all of that bristling masculinity of his sticking out like a sore thumb in this haven of femininity.
He picked up a magazine—Oprah! or Redbook or Good Housekeeping or something like that—and read the entire time, never acknowledging even the smallest bit of all of that female attention, never even looking up except to flick his eyes to me, as if to reassure himself that I hadn't run out the back, I guess.
And when the seats grew full and an elderly woman came in to wait for her appointment, he got up immediately and gave her his chair, doing the same later on with a woman who was heavily pregnant, leaning, then, doing his best to keep himself mostly out of the way. Although not out of the line of sight of all of those wet pantied women—against a wall, still reading whatever magazine he'd started with, and not moving until Joanne set me loose and I walked up to him.
When he lifted his head to look at me, he put the magazine down on the table nearest him without even checking to see if there was one there. His eyes were glued to me, nodding with approval and pronouncing, "It's a gorgeous cut. It had gotten long enough to pull out some of the curl, but it's sprung right back. You look beautiful. I'm a lucky man to have you on my arm."
Of course, there was a chorus of, "Ahs," at that.
I don't think I'd ever noticed how much female attention he got until now—of course, I hadn't been involved with him, either, until recently. On having noticed it, I was suffused with a strong feeling of pride, mixed with a hefty dose of jealousy, and I wasn't sure how I felt about that, never really having been jealous before.
Unfortunately for him, I had not quite had the oblivious time that he had, since sitting in that chair, which looked as if it was luxuriously pad
ded but I had discovered was woefully inadequate in that area. It had only served to aggravate the storm that he had stirred in my bottom.
I was thankful that he was far enough away that he hadn't heard Joanne commenting on how fidgety I was, asking me if I had ants in my pants, as if we were both in fourth grade.
I think I would have preferred the ants.
So, I was considerably less impressed with him than the rest of the women in the salon.
Still, he did escort me to the counter, where Joanne met me and I could both pay and schedule my next visit.
While I was fishing my debit card out of my purse, Decker already had his wallet out and handed her his, smooth as butter.
"Stop that!" I chided. "I can pay for my own hair!"
Even Joanne wasn't immune to his charms, apparently, because she ran his card through before I could ask her not to. "Oh, Gem, let him pay, for crying out loud. That's what men are for!" She grinned. "They gotta serve some purpose in life, don't they?"
Joanne was recently divorced, and I knew all that bitterness would come in handy sometime!
"Yeah, well," I said ungraciously.
Deck just smiled obsequiously and signed the slip, then took a hundred-dollar bill out of his wallet as he tucked his card back in and gave it to Joanne. "Excellent work. I wouldn't have thought she could have looked any better than when I brought her in here, but she does. Thank you."
I could see the money signs in Joanne's eyes, and I knew I had lost her as an ally, too.
"Thank you, air," she said, looking at him with the same dreamy eyes as everyone else was—including the men.
He flashed his gorgeous smile at her, saying, "You're welcome." Then he opened the door for me and offered me his elbow, asking, "Where to next, my love?"
I didn't wait until we were out of the salon to lay into him. Luckily, I had located my wallet, and I tried to hand him a wad of my own money, but he refused to take it.
"You can buy us lunch," he said, waving the money away as we walked to his car.
"Where are we going to get a three-hundred-dollar lunch in this town?" I almost yelled.
But we were at his car, and he opened my door for me, handing me in—but not until he'd slyly squeezed my butt, making me yelp. "Someone whose bottom is as sore as I think it is shouldn't be arguing with me."
When he took his place behind the wheel, he asked, "Where should we lunch? I'm hungry. Watching you get all dolled up works up an appetite."
I frowned, still miffed about him paying for my haircut. "Are you sure it wasn't the beautician?" I asked pointedly.
But my dig didn't work.
Decker turned the car on and leaned over towards me, turning my head until I faced him. "Oh, spanking you definitely stirred all kinds of hungers in me. I was just trying to be circumspect. But I sure did like watching you get your hair cut for some reason, too. And I do like the results."
"Humph." As soon as he let me go, I went back to diligently staring out the window.
"Don't pout, honey. It's not at all becoming in children, and it's even less so in adults."
I blew a big, loud raspberry that spattered all over my window, and somehow, that made me feel much better, although I have no idea why.
Chapter 6
I did pay for lunch, with a glare at him when he faked trying to reach for the bill. It didn't come anywhere near to three hundred dollars, especially since all we did was go to everyone's favorite joint in town and have some of the best burgers ever, mine sloppy with cheddar cheese, onion strings and homemade barbecue sauce.
Decker ordered the mushroom burger, and we shared a loaf of onion strings. At least then, when he kissed me, he wouldn't notice them on my breath.
Having been fed, I felt better, even about him paying for my haircut. I was, of course, vowing to myself that I wasn't going to let him pay for anything else for me, ever, but I decided I wasn't going to worry about it, because I was on vacation.
And then things took a downhill turn.
One of my least favorite people in the world showed up at Decker's elbow, looking like she'd walked off the pages of Vogue, even though she lived here, in this little podunk town like the rest of us.
Taryn Campono was Jane Decker's older sister, but only by a few years. I had met her before and remained unimpressed, but Decker seemed to get along with her fine, and I knew he kept in touch with her, perhaps because he didn't want to lose contact with the family.
I don't know. I couldn't understand why anyone would want to hang around Taryn. She was horribly stuck up. No one was ever good enough for her. Especially not me.
She was one of those people who, if she determined you weren't going to be of any worth to her, looked right through you as if you weren't there—and you weren't, to her.
I watched as she positioned herself next to him, not even bothering to say hello to me. All of her concentration was on the man in front of her. She wanted him—there was no doubt about it. But, for some reason, the usually astute Decker couldn't see it. He thought she was just being friendly and sympathetic since Jane had died. I pointed out to him that she hadn't given him the time of day while he was married to her, but he didn't seem to think that was any reason to be suspicious of her now. Why were really smart men really stupid about women, sometimes?
Despite all of the ogling the women in the salon had done, I hadn't felt threatened by any of them. But Taryn Campono terrified me. I knew she could take him from me—she had a pull—a hold on him that I would never have. She had years of shared memories with him that I didn't have. And she had the advantage that he couldn't—or wouldn't—see her coming.
He wasn't even doing anything to discourage the way she was draping herself all over him, and I gave him the benefit of the doubt that he didn't see her behavior as inappropriate because he didn't see her that way—as a sexual being. He saw her as his beloved sister-in-law, nothing more.
I hoped, anyway.
And it surprised me just how fervently I hoped that that was all it was the entire time they were conversing—without me, of course.
As soon as she left—after making plans to get together in the near future, which I knew that Taryn wasn't about to let him forget about—though, he apologized profusely to me for having ignored me.
"Taryn's just one of those people who gets you all involved in conversation and you can't see anyone but her."
"Yeah, I know the kind of selfish-assed bitch you're talking about," I replied, picking at the onion strings when I wasn't really hungry, but needed comfort.
Decker sighed heavily. "I wish the two of you could get along. She's part of Jane's family and she's important to me."
I folded my hands in front of me. "I'm not the one who never bothered to say a word to me while practically sitting in your lap."
He gave me a small smile. "Is that jealousy I detect?"
"No, it's annoyance that you're so steadfastly blind to what she's really like. Let's go. I still have to pick up my car."
He dropped me off at my mechanic's, after telling me that he had something of his own to do and that he'd meet me back at the house.
When I got home, I kind of fell apart. My butt hurt, I had itchy hairs down my shirt from the cut, and for some reason, I had let Taryn get further under my skin than she usually did—probably because of the changes that had happened in my relationship with Decker, which no one knew about yet.
And I knew that when she found out about them, I was probably going to have a fight on my hands, one that I could very well lose. Although I knew I was probably worrying about nothing, I inevitably took my anxiety to the worst possible degree and began wondering how I could possibly stand another loss like Andre. Which only made me feel worse, because I had thought I'd never compare the way I felt about him to anyone else, ever.
So I ended up peeling off my clothes and going to stand in my shower, giving in to tears under the hot spray, ending up facing the corner with my face in my hands. I jumped when the curtai
n was pulled aside, but it was just Deck. I hadn't heard him over the sound of the shower or my own crying.
At first, I felt like I needed to apologize for sobbing in the shower, but Decker wouldn't let me. He turned off the water and helped me out of the shower, then dried me and put me into a pair of warm pajamas he must've found at the back of my dresser drawer, because I rarely wore much more than a t-shirt and panties, but they felt good around me at this moment, as did his arms.
I figured he was going to take me to bed, but instead, he installed us on the couch and me on his lap and just held me, and it seemed for a while that I would never stop crying—to him, too, I'm sure.
But I did—finally. I felt his lips against the top of my head. "Did that help you to feel better?"
I sighed, feeling wiped. "I don't even know."
"Well, you cry on me any time you need to. I understand just how this kind of thing can be when you've been alone for a while, and when you were so in love with the one you lost."
Yeah, that was definitely a part of it, but it was far from all of it—although I didn't bother to correct him. The details didn't really matter at this point. I was just sad, which really sucked, since I should have been elated to have all this free time to spend with him.
Deck was amazing for the rest of the night. He took complete care of me—barely letting my feet touch the floor, except to go to the bathroom. He made sure there was a box of Kleenex close at hand, generously dispensing the horrible treats I'd bought for myself—tubes of Pringles, bowls of peanut M&Ms, those tiny, individual Rolos and Kit Kats, which I liked to eat together, as well as soda, which I rarely drank anymore.
He even let me finish Orphan Black, finally, and didn't make a peep when I transitioned that directly into my recently discovered obsession with Jessica Jones.
In fact, when he wasn't waiting on me hand and foot, he simply held me, leaning back against the corner of the couch and letting me sit between his legs and lean back against him, although I ended up turning onto my side and curling myself up against him, still between his legs.
Ready for Love Page 7