She nodded, desperately hoping he would let her up.
He did, slowly relaxing his grip on her wrist until she was able to pull free. Pushing against his thigh, she tried to stand, but he allowed her up only far enough to pull her down again, this time to sit upon the strong thighs he’d just punished her over. She swiped at her eyes, staring in shock down at her hands where she gripped them tight in her lap.
“Look at me,” he said. He seemed awfully calm for a man who had just spanked her, and hard.
Sniffling, she obeyed. Just looking at him made the tears start up again. “B-but I c-can d-do it m-myself!” she sobbed, covering her face with both hand so he couldn’t see how ugly she was when she cried. She was so embarrassed. What grown person cried over something as insignificant as a spanking?
Except it had hurt so much. There’d been nothing insignificant about what he’d just done, and she didn’t understand.
“Look at me,” he said again.
Embarrassed, she did.
“Did you see how close you were to hitting yourself in the leg with the head of the axe?” he asked.
She shook her head, although she was smart enough not to mention how closely she’d come to it a moment before he’d come charging around the side of the cabin with violence on his mind.
“What if you’d hit yourself?”
She felt the single drum of his fingers on the side of her hip when she said, “It’s not very sharp. I checked.”
His jaw ticced. “Get up.”
Afraid she might get spanked again, Stace reluctantly obeyed. Pulling and twisting at her fingers, she stood in front of him, backing up when he pointed for her to, and watched as he picked up the axe. Putting his spare hand on her shoulder, he nudged her well back before shouldering the axe and facing the log.
She might not know the first thing about chopping wood, but it obvious from the way he ponied up to her chopping block that he did. He checked where she was one last time, and then swung so hard and so fast that it split her log directly in half in one stroke. He then held the axe up for her to see. “You still think this won’t cut?”
She wrung her fingers, her ass burning furiously. “No, Sir.”
“Do you have any doubt in your mind right now that had you hit your leg with the point, you’d would now be lying on the ground with your leg half off and less than two minutes until you bled out?”
She raised her eyes, watching him uncertainly. “Actually, as strong as the body’s determination is to live no matter what...”
He held up a staying finger. “It is so very important to your future sitting abilities that you not finish that train of thought.”
“Yes, Sir.”
He pointed behind her and she backed all the way up until her shoulders bumped the curved wall of the log cabin. Sniffling, she watched as he used the blade of the axe to pick up one half of the log he’d split in two. He chopped it, not like he had the first cut, but into thin, precise kindling strips. After doing the same to the other half, he told her, “Take it into the house and meet me on the other side. Turn on all the lights and open the curtains too. We’re going to need it once the sun goes down.”
She winced. “Um...”
In the process of gathering the kindling off the ground, Brock stopped. He was frowning even before he met her gaze. “Please don’t tell me the power company never showed up.”
“I could, but I’d be lying.” Her wince became a cringe when he sighed and then stood up.
“Okay,” he said mildly. “Plan B.”
She blinked. “What’s that?”
“I’ll take this to the wood-bin. You grab the baby and an overnight bag. You’re sleeping at my house until this one is habitable. Water, gas, electricity, heat, and at least as much furniture as a kid fresh out of college.” He held up a finger, stopping her before she could do more than open her mouth. “If the next words out of your mouth are ‘I can do it’ instead of ‘Yes, Sir’, you aren’t just going over my knee again. Little girl, I’ll bare your butt first and you won’t sit all weekend. Is that what you want?”
Stace stared at him, her mouth still open, her tummy a mess of tangled wires that had just pulled so tight that all she could feel was the quivering of each reverberating knot. The time to believably protest came and went. Her hands ducked behind her, covering her still hot and throbbing bottom, finding spots of tenderness where the belt had left welt lines. No one in their sane mind could possibly ever want another spanking. Not like the one he’d just given her. So why was that stern look of his making her insides flutter, and why did the low throb pulse in her flesh seem to be moving, traveling deeper in between her legs until each maddening throb echoed in her own needy clit.
Her nipples pulsed too, stiffening into tight peaks that rubbed against the inside of her shirt like the calloused pad of a man’s thumb. Circling and stroking, caressing the jutting tips of her breasts until, for just a moment, it was like she really could feel his hand under her shirt.
She shivered, then shivered again as that look on his face changed. She’d been silent too long, and now he had realized why.
Way, way too late, Stace managed a strained huff of a laugh. “No, of course not. Who’d want that?”
