Page 60 of Dirty Discipline, Vol. 1

He holds her tight against him, stroking her back lightly to try to help calm her. He looks up over Hallie’s head that is tucked neatly beneath his chin and sees three pairs of eyes taking in the picture of Hallie and Troy in this intimate embrace. If he was worried Uncle Adam was going to kick his ass, he would have been dead wrong. When his eyes meet the older uncle’s, Troy sees nothing but approval from Hallie’s uncle. Shifting his gaze to his sister, he sees approving tears in her eyes, too.

He might be in a little trouble here.

Hallie stays in his arms for a few more heavenly minutes while the rest of the room visits. When she pulls away from him to finally look into his eyes, the depth of emotion in her eyes would have knocked him on his ass were he standing. He has to remind himself they are not alone.

“Are you feeling better now?”

She nods her head, afraid to speak. Her eyes are red rimmed from crying. He can smell her lip-gloss and longs to capture her lips in another kiss like the night before, but suspects that is best not done with an audience.

Traci breaks into their private connection by shoving cards in envelopes into both Troy and Hallie’s laps. “All right you two. Time for you to open my gift to each of you. I had already planned on getting this for Troy, but then Hallie started talking about this too last week so I thought it would actually be a great gift to give to both of you.”

That hint confuses Troy. “Well, you have my attention now. I can’t wait to see what you have cooked up here, Trace. You open yours first, Hallie.”

Traci replies. “No! You both need to open at the same time.”

Hallie and Troy’s eyes meet, and they silently communicate the plan. Together, they open their envelopes and pull out the thick packet of information. Troy recognizes it immediately. Hallie is taking longer to figure it out. The gift itself is awesome, but the fact that his sister has given Hallie the same gift is the best part in Troy’s humble opinion.

Hallie finally asks. “What is it?” She turns her eyes to Troy and not Traci.

“I love to ski. We grew up in Colorado and I was on a ski team for several years. Unless I’m mistaken, Traci got me a weekend package at one of my favorite ski resorts, Copper Mountain. She knows how much I missed skiing when I lived out east.”

He looks at is sister. “This is awesome, Trace. Thank you so much. This is the perfect gift to get me back in the groove being home in Colorado.”

Hallie is looking at Traci now. “But why did you get me this too? You obviously weren’t listening. The story I told you about skiing was about how much I suck at it and how the one and only time I’d gone, my friends who promised to teach me had taken me to the top of a big mountain and then left me there to figure out how to get myself down the mountain. I hated every single minute of skiing. I would never go again. Not in a million years.”

Troy can hear real panic in her voice and tries to calm her. He’s glad she’s stayed on his lap so he can rub her back lightly. “Hey… it’s okay. It sounds like you just went with the wrong people is all. If they left you at the top to fend for yourself with no training, then they’re not real friends.”

“Still…”

Hallie is looking down at the packet in her hands and he can feel real fear as she trembles. He tries to reassure her. “I bet if you’d take some lessons and start out on the bunny slopes until you got your confidence up, you’d learn to like it. It’s awesome being out in the mountains, close to nature. Just you against the mountain.”

Troy suspects Hallie is holding it together, trying not to make Traci feel bad about not liking her gift, but looking up to see Traci’s face, Troy knows immediately his sister did this on purpose. While Hallie sits oblivious to the others in the room, Troy scans the room to find Adam and Gina smiling knowingly.

They’ve been setup by a room full of matchmakers.

Apparently, he forgot to send the memo outlining the twenty reasons why falling for Hallie Boudreaux was a bad idea to the other occupants of the room.

Troy has a brief moment of anger at being manipulated, but it fades quickly at the possibility of spending a weekend at Copper Mountain with Hallie. Ironically, it’s not the skiing he’s looking most forward to. He’s pretty sure he’s projected his less-than-gentlemanly thoughts to his face because he sees Adam’s frown.

Okay, get your mind out of the gutter, Jackson.

“Hallie, look at me.” When she doesn’t comply, he adds a gentle, “Please.”

When she turns, he feels her fear. He links his open hand with hers while he continues to stroke her lower back gently. “Okay, here’s the deal. I’d be honored if you would trust me enough to let me take you skiing and I promise you, we’ll start out with me giving you lessons and work up to small practice runs and bunny hills. I will never leave your side. Not even for one minute. I’ll push you a little bit, but never past what I think you can do and if you really want to stop, we will.” She was listening and he can see her softening. “The question is. Do you trust me enough to let me teach you to ski?”

They may be talking about skiing, but there are so many other important implications riding on Hallie’s answer to this question. Trust. It’s what every successful relationship comes down to. Without it, nothing else really matters. If Hallie can trust him to guide her through her fear of skiing, maybe there would be hope he could guide her through her fear of other things… like spanking.

The second the thought hits him, he looks up to see his sister’s approving nod. She may guard Hallie’s private conversations carefully as her therapist, but he can see as Hallie’s friend, Traci is doing her best to help her new friend overcome some of her fears and build her confidence.

Troy doesn’t have time to reflect for long because Hallie has turned in his lap to face him.

Her ass wiggling against his cock, pressing it into his jeans is the best kind of slow torture.

“You promise me. You won’t leave me on my own. Not even for one minute?”

“I promise, although people may look at me funny if I follow you into the ladies’ room when you need to pee.”

Her blush is sweet. In some ways Hallie is so worldly for a twenty-three-year-old, but there are moments, like this, that she seems so young… vulnerable. He’s not sure which side of Hallie he likes more.

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