Page 51 of Fearless
“I don’t trust him!”
“He’s not going to hurt her.”
“He’s hurting her now!”
“No, he’s not. He’s handling this. Let him handle it.”
Let him handle it. No more powerful words existed in a dominant’s repertoire. He was going to handle it, all right. Letting go of Kitty’s hair and neck, he seized her by the waist instead. He yanked her up even as he dropped to his knee, pinning her hips in tight against his side, and then he paddled the hell out of her. He spared neither his hand nor her backside. A dom who never spanked for punishment, he didn’t bother with a warmup. He simply spanked her, with all the strength of his arm and in a way she was sure to feel right through the seat of her jeans.
Because, of all the things he thought of when he thought of her, ‘burden’ didn’t make the list. It wasn’t a burden he was chasing in his truck, first to Cooktown and then all the way to Cairns International. It wasn’t a burden he couldn’t wait to take home with him again, and hold all night long, if only she would let him. And that was the problem with spanking, frankly, because no matter how hard or fast his hand clapped over every bucking, squirming inch of her ass, no matter how fast he took her from squeaks and gasps to desperately muffled cries of growing distress, no matter how fast even that he broke through Ethen’s ‘hold still’ training to the point she actually snapped a hand back, palm up in defense of a bottom that had to be smarting at least as much as his hand—no matter how much he spanked her, it didn’t get any of the important things said.
Like:
“You’re not a bloody burden, damn it,” he said through his teeth, grabbing her wayward arm and pinning it in the iron grip of his other hand. While he was paused anyway, he fumbled under her stomach until he got the fastenings of her pants open. Two quick yanks bared her bright pink bottom completely, and thank God for it, because her jeans were killing his hand.
Kitty sucked a yelping breath when he started up again, the sound crisper now, the steady assault of his hand flattened the summits of each cheek, deepening the flush to a hot cherry red as the conversation continued with: “You are free to leave at any time, but you have the decency and respect for me to tell me so!”
“Please! I’m sorry!” she broke down wailing.
“You went to Ethen?” Noah paused to shake out his smarting hand. “You’d best hang on for this one, love, because this right here is going to be the beauty of the lot. You will never—”
Someone tapped his shoulder and Noah glanced up to find Jaxson offering him a small wooden paddle, the size and shape of a hairbrush, with a long handle contoured to better fit the palm.
“From the dom in the side booth,” Jaxson said. “On the off chance you’d like to borrow it.”
“Oh.” Taking the paddle, Noah followed the club owner’s nod to a shadow figure, who offered a commiserating wave from across the bar. “Tell him thanks, mate.”
Hugging her hips, Noah let Kitty have it. He ignored her kicks, cries, and escalating shrieks, he ignored everything except the use of the safeword she never once gave him and the condition of her bottom, which he took as close to overripe strawberry as he dared. It was only when she went limp and he decided she couldn’t bear anymore, that he finally stopped. Dropping the hairbrush, he dragged her up until she had no choice but to look at him. She was a mess—her dark hair in the tangled process of escaping its hair tie, her face wet and almost as red as her bottom. No one had ever looked half as beautiful as his naughty kitten, staring up at him through a sheen of tears and remorse, with her pants around her knees and her sore bottom hugged in rueful hands.
“Well,” he said softly. “Do you feel loved, sweetheart?”
Her shoulders jerked and her face crumpled all over again. Kitty launched herself at him, hugging his neck and burrowing into his answering embrace. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”
He’d crossed a lot of ‘nevers’ off his list since he’d met Kitty. Sitting down in the middle of a bar to cuddle a sobbing woman on his lap was one of the most natural ones. He rocked her, caressing her hair and kissing her forehead until the storm had passed.
“Did you think I cared?” he whispered once she was reduced to ragged sniffles and hiccups. Sliding his hand from her hip to her belly, he let his palm rest upon her baby bump. “Or worse, Kitty love, did you think I wouldn’t care?”
She lay against him, weary and hoarse from crying, both shaking her head and shrugging. “I was just really tired of making messes for everyone else to clean up.”
He caressed both her and the baby both. “This isn’t a mess to me. It’s not a burden. Had I considered it one, I never would have asked you to stay with me.”
“You didn’t know about the baby when I first came.”
“I’m not talking about when you first came. I’m talking about when I told you I wanted you.”
She started to pull away, but he switched his grip from her stomach to her chin. Eye-to-eye and nose-to-nose, he didn’t let her escape so much as an inch.
“I’m not rich,” he said, giving her chin a gentle shake. “I don’t need much to make me happy—my home, my land, two good hands to make a living with, and someone worth coming home to. I’ve lived on my own for a very long time, but I had no idea how quiet the house was until I came home to find it empty. I want you with me, Kitty, but I don’t want to force you if that’s not what you want too.”
When he let go of her chin, she burrowed back into his chest, hiding her face from him again. As if he couldn’t read her body every bit as clearly as her eyes. Her hands on the side of his neck were petting, caressing, unable to hold still in near desperate need to keep touching him.
“I didn’t want to leave,” she finally confessed. “But I couldn’t see how to stay. And then, once I was here, all I wanted was to go back.” She sniffled, her body tensing all over again. “Aren’t you afraid?”
“Of what?”
“That it’ll be hard? That it won’t work?” She swiped a new-falling tear from her cheek. “That you’ll be cleaning up my messes for the rest of your life?”
Craning his neck, he silenced her fears with a tender kiss upon her forehead. “Only thing that scares me, love, is the thought of going home alone. Compared to that, I’m damned near fearless.”
