Page 11 of Ranch Rules

She swallowed hard. He was starting to make her regret the fuss she’d put up, but she supposed that was the point. “Can’t you—”

Thomas pressed his hand down on her back and delivered a swift, sound smack to each of her buttocks in turn. Now that her bottom was completely bare the sound was fuller, and the pain was more intense than she’d thought possible. Her question was forgotten as a howl of protest took its place. “Those didn’t count. Now, over the desk.”

Glaring at him, Natalie resisted the urge to rub her cheeks—she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction! Besides which, she somehow knew it wouldn’t be allowed—and walked toward the desk as quickly as her bunched-up clothing would allow. Once she was there, she hesitated for just a moment, considering the best way to do this. Tidiness was in her blood, and the idea of disheveling Nate’s papers bothered her, even if he deserved much worse.

Propping her hands on the edge, she slowly draped her body over the wood, trying to keep herself upright as not to disturb anything.

“Lean down further,” Thomas instructed.

She couldn’t help but regret making him angry as she complied. And she had a feeling that she would rue it even more in a moment.

“Good. Stick your butt out, toward me. Yes, like that. Now, this is going to hurt—a lot.”

Natalie cringed at his pronouncement. She couldn’t believe she found herself in this position, bare-assed and awaiting the stingy attention of a man she didn’t even know. If she could turn back time, she would have gone straight for a spa and invented some story for the partners. What she wouldn’t give for a time machine!

“You are to stay in position, just like this, no matter how much it hurts. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

A swift, hard crack landed on her bottom.

“Yow!” She craned her neck back to look at him.

He tsked his tongue at her. “I s’pect it’s going to be my job to teach you manners as well. When I ask you a question while you’re bein’ disciplined, you may answer with either ‘yes, sir’ or ‘no, sir’ though I suggest you pick carefully. Understood?”

Lip quivering as her bottom bloomed with heat, Natalie nodded.

Another swift, hard smack landed on top of the first. “I reckon you require more than one lesson. I said, do you understand?”

Feeling like an idiot not to have realized sooner, she squeaked out a hurried, “Yes, sir!”

“There. That’s better.” Then his hand was on her sore cheek, and though she flinched away from his touch, he did not spank her again. Instead, his hand merely rested there, the heat of his flesh pressed into the growing heat of her spanked rear.

She should be horrified by such close contact with a stranger. She should demand he stop at once, but something held her tongue. For one thing, she didn’t want the spanking to continue, and she had no doubt that it wasn’t over yet. For another, despite the horrifying circumstance she found herself in, she couldn’t deny that he was attractive and that his hand felt nice.

“You stay in position or I’ll have to get somethin’ harder than my hand to help you remember. Understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“There. That’s a good girl.”

There were those two words again. Why did they make her feel like smiling even when they came from this unreasonable brute? It didn’t make sense, but then again, nothing about this day did.

The spanking of her poor, defenseless bottom resumed right away and in earnest. She had thought his large hand paddling her tender skin hurt more than she’d ever thought possible, but he was delivering the spanks with more force than before, making her jolt forward over the desk each time his hand collided with her backside. Natalie realized that as sore as she had thought she was before, she hadn’t had a clue. The smacks were slow, measured, but landed with more oomph. Before another five had fallen, she found herself crying out with each new assault on her quickly reddening rump.

Smack!He delivered a swinging scorcher.

“Ow!”

Smack!Another hard spank landed on the other cheek.

“Ouch!”

She didn’t know how much more of this she could take. The pain spreading over her cheeks was a blistering heat she had never experienced before, and had no doubt she never wanted to experience again.

Another thudding spank against her bare cheek jolted her forward. “Yeow! Please stop! Please! I promise it won’t happen again!”

“You’re right. It won’t.” An equally hard spank landed on the other cheek to complete his answer.

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