Without any fanfare, he delivered a second penalty swat to her left cheek. She’d hoped the angle would impede his strength, but if it did, she couldn’t tell. Giving up on staying quiet, Kip howled. The initial blow shocked her skin. She waited, but instead of easing off, the pain intensified and grew more fierce.
“Now we can get started on your original five,” Trace said. “I want to make sure you understand why you are over my knee, getting your butt blistered like the naughty girl you are. Number one is because you are keeping important secrets from Daddy.” He smacked her right cheek again, somehow managing to find anew place to set ablaze. How could it keep hurting more and more?
Kip almost made the same mistake, but at the last second, she dug her fingernails into Trace’s jeans. Clenching her teeth, she blinked away the tears burning her eyes.
A new thought crossed her mind, temporarily distracting her. If he knew she was keeping secrets, did he know what her secret was? That could be deadly. She tried to remember when she could have said anything other than she had to leave.
Whack!
Trace pressed on through her protests. “Two is because you ran away instead of talking to me about your problem, so I could help you solve it. You don’t want to tell me? Fine. Say that instead of risking your life by running around a ranch at three o’clock in the morning with snow drifts everywhere. Do I make myself clear?”
She panicked. She still had three more swats to go. Three whole swats. That was too many. She wasn’t sure she’d survive.
On swat three, she lost her grip on the rules. Again. Without her permission, in a brave but ultimately futile act of valor, Kip’s right hand swung back, sacrificing itself for the sake of her buttocks.
Luckily, Trace anticipated the move, grabbing her hand before it could reach its target and holding it tightly to her hip. “I’m going to hold on to this for you for safekeeping,” he said, as if her were pocketing her keys. “You’ll thank me later.”
She had a bad feeling about that. It meant things would get worse. Kip panicked all over again.
Trace didn’t break stride as he delivered the swats. “Three,” he said.Smack!“Because you know you should talk to someone about whatever you’re dealing with, and four because it’s pure stubbornness that’s stopping you.”Smack!
Hot tears streamed silently down her face. They stung her nose and blurred her vision. Her bottom was going to be useless forsitting the rest of her life. That was okay for tending bar and waitressing, but what if she had to be a secretary again? Five swats was way too many.
But was he right? Was she just being stubborn? A small part of her wondered if she was. If she’d ever met anyone who could help her confront her past, it was Trace Daniels.
“Five,” Trace said.Smack!It was the hardest swat yet. “Because you’ve been lying to me by omission since the day I met you, and don’t tolerate liars.’ At his words, she broke down completely. She was done.
The sting still gnawed at her bare skin, a greedy little beast with teeth, and just as it finally loosened its jaws, the burn surged in. It was hot and relentless, with a deep, pulsing throb that refused to be ignored.
“Ow,” she moaned, as he sat her back on his lap. "How could five swats hurt that much?"
“Seven,” he corrected her. “And it was meant to hurt. Now, let’s go back to the bedroom. You will take off those pajamas, and I’ll put you to bed. I want you naked so I can sleep knowing you won’t run again. Although by the time I’m done here, that shouldn’t be a problem. Once we’re in bed, we’ll talk about what you came up with, and then you'll go to sleep. I need you to be well-rested for what I have planned tomorrow.”
CHAPTER 9
Trace sat on the loveseat in front of the fire with Kip cuddled in his lap, but her body was tense, and she had a restlessness he’d hoped the emotional release of her spanking would have eased. Still, restless or not, he wanted nothing more than to end every day like this for the rest of his life.
Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out the gift he’d made for her months ago. He took out his pocketknife and started carving on the blank side. “Let’s talk about rules, Foxy.”
She scrunched her nose. “I don’t like rules, Daddy. I don’t need them.”
He nodded and kept carving. “I’ve heard people say that before. Did you know, a long time ago, Wyoming made it illegal to have fences?”
“No. What does that have to do with rules?”
“Well, it turns out rules are a lot like fences.”
He grinned at the confused suspicion on her face. “How does that work?” she asked.
“Take our ranch. We have fences. Do you feel hemmed in?”
“No. I never even see them.”
“That’s because our fences are placed properly. They aren’t meant to keep people in. They’re meant to keep danger out. They’re like castle walls. Enemies couldn’t easily reach the castle because they got caught trying to breach the wall. Their purpose was to keep people safe. When the right rules are in the right place, that’s what rules do too.”
“I…I never thought about it that way.”
Most Littles don’t, Foxy. That’s why they have Daddies and Mommies. We keep the fences as far away as we can while still protecting our little ones.
