Page 20 of Something Has To Give

“I’ll be okay,” she said. She looked at the hairbrush, turning it over in her hands again. After a moment, she held it out to him. “Do you want to spank me now?”

“No!” The word blurted out of him before he could stop either it or the wave of startled laughter that followed. Had he the chance to think about it, he would have tried harder to catch himself. She could so easily have misinterpreted that laugh as being directed at her rather than the situation.

“Why are you laughing?” She glared at him. “You have no trouble spanking me when you think I need it, but ifIthink I need it, then it’s funny? What kind of misogynistic bullshit is that?”

“For someone who has hated every spanking I’ve yet given her,” Quint promptly countered, “I’m surprised you’re asking for one now.”

“I stole your house. Am I not allowed to feel bad about that?”

“You didn’t steal it. You just lived here for a while.”

“You’ve been threatening to evict me all week and now you suddenly don’t care?”

“Of course I care. But maybe I’m getting used to you. Maybe the idea of living here alone isn’t as appealing as I thought it would be.” He offered her a wan smile. “Maybe I’m wondering if this house isn’t big enough to share.”

Something that looked a lot like hope sparked to life in the very backs of her eyes. It dimmed in the time it took her to blink. “What kind of strings come attached to that?”

He almost laughed again. Almost. “Elsie, I want you to sleep with me because youwantto sleep with me. If you can’t saythat to me right now, I’m going back downstairs tonight and tomorrow we’ll make up a bed for you in one of the other rooms.”

She rubbed her fingers. “I’m not whoring myself out for a house,” she finally said. “I’d like to think I have just enough self-respect not to do that.”

He added his own somber nod to that, fighting back his smile and a shake of his head. “I’d like to think so too.”

She tried to hand him the hairbrush again. “Please spank me.”

It was everything he could do not to withdraw. He didn’t want to spank her. Well, okay. Maybe if it was something sexy and playful, he could probably be pulled into enjoying the hell out of that kind of spanking. But not disciplinary. Not for punishment. That wasn’t the mood he was in.

She continued to hold the hairbrush out until he gave in and took it. He set it on the bed beside his thigh.

“Why?” he asked, no longer smiling.

Another one-shouldered shrug was all she gave him. “Why not?”

“Because I don’t spank for why not. That’s an indefinite reason and grown women should never be spanked for indefinite reasons. Every spanking I’ve given you has been for a very definite reason and I’m not going to break that record now.”

She blinked twice more, stubbornly looking down at her knees while her eyes grew watery. “How about because I feel bad, because I want to start over, and because you can’t start over unless you make amends first?”

“So this is for atonement?”

“Does that make it all right?”

Oddly enough…yeah, it did.

He’d spanked her twice—three times if one counted those few swats he’d given her out in the snow—and in none of those instances had she ever gone bottom-up with anything approaching meekness or compliance. But when he took herarm, Elsie rolled right over and braced her hands upon his left thigh. He saw her breasts rise in apprehensive little hitches as she lowered herself into position, wiggling her hips and legs as she tried to find a measure of comfort like this.

“Will you h-hold my hand?” she begged, reaching her right hand back into the empty air behind her hip.

Spanking her was not what he wanted to be doing right now, but that…that was almost too cute to resist. Quint took her hand in his, tucking it up against her side as he wrapped his arm around her waist. If left up to him, he’d have told her she had nothing to atone for. Yeah, he hadn’t expected her to be here when he’d come home and yeah, she’d definitely been something of a pain in his ass since then. But listening to the misfortune that had brought her here made a difference. And he wasn’t lying when he’d said he didn’t particularly want to live here alone. He’d never been the sort to hold grudges either. Truth be told, she really was growing on him. Maybe they could share the house, build some kind of working relationship—just him and her, a smattering of chickens, those cussed, rotten goats…honey bees…whatever else she had growing out there in the unknown wilds of his property…

But all working relationships were built on a system of give and take. And for this one to find some stability, something told Quint that Elsie needed this atonement.

She stiffened, her free hand clutching at his thigh when he raised the hem of her nightshirt and folded it over onto the small of her back. Her breath caught, doing that hitching thing all over again when he hooked his fingers into the backs of her panties and skinned them all the way down to her knees. Just like she had been when he had her face-down on the kitchen floor, he had her bottom completely bare. Unlike that time in the kitchen, this time he couldn’t help noticing how sexy, round and wobbly in all the right places she was. He would have loved to caress her,to cup her bottom and squeeze, but that kind of slippery slope could only lead to his forgetting about the spanking entirely and just rolling her under him on the bed.

Elsie squirmed, lifting up a little in an effort to look under her. “D-do you have an erection?”

He spanked her, his hand catching first one pale nether cheek and then the other, bringing an instant blush rising to the surface of her naked skin and promptly redirecting her concerns to matters far less embarrassing for him.

He took a firm but gentle approach to it, checking the downward strokes of his arm, spanking slow but steady and giving plenty of time for the sting of each slap to fully sink in. But right from the very start, Elsie seemed to have trouble enduring it. Quint couldn’t begin to count all the times he’d taken a firm hand, or belt to Maydeen’s errant backside. In retrospect, spanking her probably hadn’t been a good idea. But Elsie was different. She gasped, cringed, and clenched her bottom in anticipation of each fresh smack, making the globes of her soft, round ass jump under his palm. If she had any idea just how much each wiggle exposed all her beautiful, feminine, and hitherto hidden charms, for his viewing pleasure, she might have worked harder at holding still. But she didn’t know and he certainly wasn’t going to tell her, and so with every new crack of his hand, she would toss her head and writhe, twisting her bottom first one way and then the other, lifting up as if trying to meet his hand, only to cringe back down again—two blushing buttons jamming helplessly together to avoid a hurt they could not escape.

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