by Delta James
“Okay, well, people will be waiting for you.”
Ruth withdrew and left Sierra to change. She really wasn’t a dress and heels kind of girl. She’d grown up as the only child of an Idaho rancher. She could ride, rope, and shoot better than most men. She’d been moving cattle and learning the business of ranching from the time she was old enough to read a ledger.
Sierra put on a pair of black jeans and a black lace, poet style blouse. She went to tuck her jeans into a pair of black boots and spied the red ones at the back of her closet. Her father had laughed when she’d purchased the candy apple red lizard-skin boots. The boots had become an inside joke between them. Whenever she wanted her dad to laugh or remind him that she was a grownup, she’d wear them. He’d smile, acknowledging that her message was received. The boots and her love of the wild horses were her only rebellions; her father had never understood either but accepted them nonetheless. But today, she didn’t want to be a grownup; today she pulled on the black ostrich-skin boots. Sierra put on a squash blossom necklace and earrings her father had given her for her sixteenth birthday and a concho belt riding low on her hips.
She looked strong, capable, and powerful. Appearances could be deceiving. Sierra took a deep breath, opened the door to her room, and headed downstairs to her guests.
* * *
The house was full. Ryder saw that at some point the old man had allowed Sierra to remodel and update the ranch house. It was open, spacious, and airy. The colors were a mix of neutrals with saturated earth tones. He smiled. She’d always had a flair for color and style.
He looked up to see her descending the staircase. A casual observer or someone who didn’t know her well would have thought she was in total control. Ryder wasn’t that man. He knew her all too well. Her control and composure were in tight check. He reminded himself that he needed to watch over her; that was the promise he had made her father shortly before he died.
Ryder smiled. There was a part of him that thought he might enjoy the ensuing fireworks when the will was read. Sierra was not going to be happy… not happy at all. On the other hand, he’d always hated to see her upset, but John Morgan was a persuasive man and he’d brought Ryder around to his way of thinking. Ryder believed that having any portion of the massive Flying M would be more than what was left of Crooked Creek by the time his own father passed away.
The fact was that prior to Ryder’s return, the general feeling in the ranching community was that his family’s homestead would most likely have to be broken up and sold to pay off his father’s massive debt. Ryder had been working hard to get his family’s Crooked Creek ranch back on sound financial footing. But he had hedged his bet, he invested some of his money in other business dealings in the local area. He tried to convince himself that it was because they were sound business deals, but deep down he knew that it was because he wanted another shot at Sierra and the only way he was going to get it was if he was here.
Andy greeted Ryder, handing him a beer. “Think your father will show up?”
“Not sure if he’s back yet. He was dropping off the latest ex-wife somewhere back East. I let him know John had died and he said he might try to get home, but I would have expected him for the funeral.”
“Everybody says you’re bringing Crooked Creek back. Think you can really turn it around?”
“As long as I can keep my father separated from the money. Every time I get it almost back to solvency, he raids the bank account and then just runs through the money. If and when he ever passes, I figure I should be able to salvage at least the original homestead. I’ll be doing good if I can keep the rest of it from becoming a bunch of mini-mansions.”
“Best grazing land is between your original homestead and the Flying M. That’s the part I’d try to keep. Or Sierra might be interested in it. But then again…”
“It’s not what people, or Sierra for that matter, thought.”
“But you left with Debbie.”
“I didn’t leave with Debbie and now I’m back. Have been here for over a year. And this time I’m not leaving. I mean to take what always should have been mine.”
Ryder walked away and headed into the crowd of people who had come to say goodbye. John Morgan had been a hard man, but fair. A man whose word was gold and who believed in giving back more than he’d been given. But he’d also been a man who wanted to control everything… including what would happen after his inevitable death. Ryder knew that John wanted to ensure that the Flying M would continue.
The story was that John Morgan and Ryder’s father had pushed their children into a relationship. It had seemed like a good idea; both families were long-time Idaho ranchers whose roots traced back to the mid-1800s. The Flying M had thrived and prospered; the Malones’ Crooked Creek ranch had managed to stay on an even course until Ryder’s father started going through wives like most ranchers went through saddle blankets. Each one had been more expensive than the last.
The young couple had seemed destined to be together. Sierra had been in love with Ryder forever. She’d followed him around like a devoted puppy from the time they were kids. Ryder had been a young man bent on sewing a lot of wild oats. But once Sierra came of age, Ryder had scooped her up and they had been together ever since. The bad boy ranch kid had become an upstanding citizen overnight—hard working and seemingly devoted to Sierra. Many felt it was a smart move on Ryder’s part. With the way his father was mismanaging the family ranch and spending money faster than he earned it, there was no guarantee there’d be anything left of the Crooked Creek ranch for Ryder to inherit. At least married to Sierra, he could remain one of the most prominent ranchers of the west. But then without a word to anyone, Ryder had upped and left just weeks before the wedding. Word had spread that Sierra had caught him with an ex-girlfriend.
John Morgan’s daughter had a temper and wasn’t afraid to let it have free rein. Having found Ryder with his ex-girlfriend half-naked and wrapped around him, she’d run out of the barn she found them in, grabbed her great-grandfather’s antique shotgun out of her truck, and blown a hole through the windshield of Ryder’s truck. The story was she’d sprayed gravel everywhere when she peeled out and headed for home. A significant amount of time had passed before Ryder had been able to catch up with her at the Flying M and tried to make her understand what she’d seen.
The Flying M had basically been deserted that night. There had been an after roundup dinner and dance at the local Grange. Everyone had been there. There were those who felt that had John been home, he might have been able to help the young couple work through whatever had really happened. Some were quick to believe that Ryder hadn’t changed at all and Sierra had just caught him for the first time. Others, and there were more of those than not, thought there was more to the story. That Ryder had seemed to settle down and been a steadying influence on the volatile Sierra. But they reminded themselves it really was none of their business so didn’t pry.
Ryder had relived the scene over and over in his mind. At first, he had tried to lay all of the blame on Sierra’s temper. But as he’d matured and began to examine his own actions, he had to admit that he could have handled it much differently and much better.
Ryder had followed Sierra once he was able to do so. He tried to confront her on the front porch of the Flying M. Sierra had flung open the door as he stepped up on the porch, carrying the same shotgun with which she had destroyed his windshield. When Ryder closed his eyes, he could still feel and hear everything.
“Damn it, Sierra. You put that gun down and listen to me.”
“Fuck you! No, wait, you already did that with Debbie. I don’t like leftovers.”
It was obvious that Sierra was furious. What he hadn’t realized was that his perceived act of betrayal had devastated her. Her hero worship of him had been easy to spot. She’d tagged along on all of his adventures when they were kids. What he’d not realized was that her feelings had begun to change once she started to appreciate the differences in their genders.
Ryder had no way of knowing that he’d become the focus of all her fantasies.
Realizing that it would be easy for her to misinterpret what she’d seen, Ryder tried to get a rein on his own temper. He took a deep breath. “Babe, it’s not what you think. I can explain.”
Sierra brought the antique shotgun up to bear and literally blew the cowboy hat off his head. Ryder knew she was an excellent marksman, but as angry as she was, she could have killed him.
“You nasty-tempered she-cat! Do you know how much damage you did to my truck?”
“Not enough?” she sniped.
Sierra may have been a blonde, but she had the temper of a redhead. More than one boy had found out the hard way that when Sierra said no, not only did she mean it, but she could back it up.
Smiling, she continued, “Less than I just did to your hat! Get the hell off the Flying M.” She lowered the barrel of the gun, took off her engagement ring, and threw it in his face. “And take your fucking ring with you. I never want to see you again.”
Ryder was as strong-willed as the woman with whom he thought he would spend the rest of his life. His instinct told him to get the gun away from her and kiss her until she couldn’t see straight. That was tempered by a relationship philosophy he had recently come across on the internet.
The websites he’d discovered talked frankly about men in this day and age resuming their place as head of the household and taking their partner in hand and enforcing their dominance through loving discipline. That discipline usually included the judicious use of spanking one’s partner when she had misbehaved. Ryder knew that Sierra had never had any boundaries or structure in the way she was raised. He had started to swat her ass playfully and discovered that not only did he like it, but she seemed to respond well to it. But one of the tenets of that philosophy was that the dominant partner needed to be able to control his own temper and emotions and ensure that he was spanking his woman for the right reason. Ryder was pretty damn sure that leveling a shotgun at him and throwing her engagement ring at him qualified.
“All right, Sierra, that’s enough.” He leaned down and picked up the ring. “You put that gun down and put your ring back on.”
“No.”
“You are going to listen to me whether you like it or not.”
“The hell I will. Get off my land!” Sierra went through the door with Ryder hot on her heels. Ryder followed her through the door, determined to talk to her. When she headed for the gun case to get two more shells, he sprinted across the room and grabbed the gun. “No!” she screamed as she tried to wrestle it back.
“Sierra, baby, please listen to me. I didn’t touch Debbie.”
She shoved him. “Really? And I suppose she just ripped her clothes off and tried to force you? Jesus, Ryder, I know I don’t have your experience but even I’m not that stupid.”
Ryder was finding it more difficult to retain control of his own emotions than he had thought it would be. But, he needed to put an end to this and he needed her to learn that she couldn’t just jump to the worst conclusion and throw a temper tantrum. He grinned as he realized a light bulb had just gone off for him. Suddenly, he completely understood the taken in hand philosophy and why it worked. More than that, he knew it would work for him and Sierra.
Sierra’s ability to throw a tantrum was second to none. He knew for them to have a long, happy, and healthy marriage, she would need to learn that behaving like that was not acceptable. A kind of eerie calm had come over Ryder. Sierra was about to learn that throwing a tantrum or leveling a gun at him would earn her a trip over his knee for a punishment spanking. He grabbed her by the arm and put the gun back in the rack. When she couldn’t pry his hand loose, she leaned down and bit his hand. When he let her go, she made a run for it.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” he said as he caught up with her. “You apologize to me.”
“Apologize to you? I didn’t cheat on you.”
“And I didn’t cheat on you. You know me better than that. I haven’t so much as looked at another girl since we started dating.”
“So, what? You’re telling me you closed your eyes and that’s supposed to make it all better?”
“Sierra, I haven’t been with anybody since we started going out.”
“That’s because I gave it up so easily. And just kept giving and giving. I guess I thought if I never turned you down, you wouldn’t have a need to fuck anybody else.”
“I didn’t fuck Debbie!”
“Bullshit!”
Ryder had been so intent on getting her to listen, he hadn’t realized that he put himself in a very vulnerable position. He learned the error of his ways quickly as Sierra’s knee connected with his balls. She tried to get away, but he held fast.
“Christ, Sierra! That’s it, I warned you what I’d do to you if you ever lost your temper and went for my balls again! I have tried to talk to you; tried to be reasonable; even tried to see things from your point of view, but I’ve had it.”
A few weeks after they first got engaged, Ryder had prevented her from going to Canada to help a group of rescuers break into a slaughter yard and steal a group of mustangs. In typical Sierra fashion, she’d lost her temper and when she saw an opening she’d tried to kick him in the nuts. She hadn’t succeeded but he’d warned her never to try it again or she’d find herself face down over his knee getting a spanking. Ryder often swatted her behind, but he’d never tried to actually spank her.
Ryder dragged Sierra over to the couch, sat down on it, and pulled her across his lap. He started swatting her jean-clad rump.
“Knock it off, you bastard.” Being face down over his knee had been more embarrassing than it had been painful.
“No. I told you if you ever went for my nuts again, I’d paddle your behind and I mean to do it.”
He continued to spank her but soon realized he was doing as much damage to his hand as he was to her backside. He reached under her and ripped open her fly so he could get her jeans pulled down. He stripped both her jeans and her red lace panties down to her knees and smiled. While he certainly enjoyed her tits and legs, there was something truly spectacular about Sierra’s ass. And when she was working cattle and it was framed in a pair of chaps, it was the stuff of every rancher’s fantasy.
He meant to show her a side of himself she’d never seen. He meant to introduce her to his dominant streak and teach her that she would no longer be allowed to have her way in all things. Surprisingly, he could feel her nipples start to pucker. He wondered if that pool of desire he had tapped into so many times was starting to pool between her legs. This time when his hand connected with the right globe of her bottom, the resulting thwacking sound was loud, but more than that, he knew it hurt.
“Ouch,” she screeched.
Ryder grinned and proceeded to cover her entire bottom with well-aimed blows. It was the first time he’d ever spanked a girl for anything other than play. Watching Sierra’s backside turn from ivory with a sprinkling of freckles to a rosy hue to a deeper red as she struggled to get away was both satisfying and arousing. He found that the sense of calm that had claimed him before he took her over his knee had blossomed into a feeling of well-being and understanding that this was exactly what they both needed. He needed to be able to deal with her temper and tantrums and teach her that she would behave. And she needed to be able to count on him to supply the structure and discipline he realized she’d needed for far too long.
It seemed as though Sierra couldn’t believe that he was actually peppering her backside with hard swats that had nothing to do with play. He was pissed, but in control. He could sense that the arousal she’d felt when he first started had continued to increase despite the fact that her ass was becoming increasingly heated and painful. He knew that at this point her ass had to be on fire and that sitting, and especially riding, was going to be painful for a few days.
Ryder was surprised at how hard he was getting. His cock was swollen inside his jeans and his balls had begun to ache wi
th something not caused by her knee. Her angry cries and curses were now tempered with more aroused moans and sighs. She was still struggling, but he could feel her trying to instinctively rub herself against the rough texture of his jeans. He stopped momentarily and slipped his hand between her legs. The grin became an ear-to-ear smile; it seemed Sierra was as turned on as he.
“That’s better, isn’t it, baby? Wouldn’t you rather I stroke your pussy than spank your butt?” Ryder said in a tone that Sierra recognized was no longer angry but highly aroused.
“You bastard. Let me up,” she said a bit desperately.
Ryder could hear the arousal in her voice, but knew she was trying to convince them both that she was angry. He knew her well enough to know that technically she could have him arrested for assault for giving her a spanking. He also knew that Sierra would never have him arrested. Her pride would never let her admit to anyone that he had put her over his knee and spanked her bottom like a misbehaving child. And she would try to deny, even to herself, that the whole experience had left her wanting.
“Stop it, Ryder. You can’t do this to me.”
“I can and I will. You’ve needed a spanking probably for as long as I can remember and starting tonight I’m going to make sure you get one whenever you need it. So, no, I won’t let you up. I’m going to keep spanking you until I think you’ve learned your lesson about jumping to conclusions and about accusing me of cheating on you.”
With that he went back to administering her punishment. He had to suppress his amusement in the way that she seemed to careen between wanting to derive some kind of sexual satisfaction and trying to get away from him.
“Ryder, please stop. It hurts.”
“Yeah? So did that knee to my balls.”
“I’m sorry, babe. Want me to kiss it and make it all better?” she said in a sultry tone.
Ryder grinned. He’d read that some people who practiced the being taken in hand lifestyle became very aroused even during punishment sessions. The thought was that it wasn’t the giving or receiving of pain that fueled the arousal, but rather the show of dominance and the understanding of each person’s role in the relationship. Ryder felt that, all in all, this first trip over his knee had been an outstanding success.