“It’s not meant to be funny. It’s meant to be punishment. Now are you going to hold still or do I need to get a rope?”
“A rope?” Peyton squeaked. The squeak was because Tex had just yanked his drawers down, leaving him bare-assed, but not in a fun way. The next slap landed squarely on his naked right ass cheek.“You have no right—”
“Should’ve read that contract.”Tex smacked him again, Peyton’s peremptory flinch causing the blow to land on his thigh instead of on the fleshier part of his ass. “You signed up for this, Peyton, and I intend to deliver it.”
“I didn’t sign up forthis. I signed up for discipline.”
“Uh huh.” Tex hit him harder.
The blows were falling steadily now—one to the left, one to the right—each one on-target as long as he didn’t wriggle too much. His ass felt like it was glowing red, and it was definitely hanging out where anyone who wandered into the barn would see it. He hadn’t minded the prospect of being caught getting fucked by the handsome, muscular cowboy, but getting caught having the bejeebus beat out of his backside like he was a misbehaving schoolboy was another matter.
“I’ll sue you to hell,” he threatened.
“Contract,” Tex reminded him without pausing his assault. “And anyway, you won’t. Because you never follow through on anything.”
That smarted worse than the blows. Because Tex was right. Even if he had legal standing to sue, and maybe he didn’t—had he really given them permission to spank him?—he wouldn’t ever get around to doing it.
“Listen,” he bargained. The spanking had been almost funny at first—demeaning, but not physically unbearable. But every subsequent blow raised the fire higher. He could feel Tex’s handprint like a brand, could imagine it glowing like a brand too, white-hot before it faded to red. “I’m leaving. I quit. The contract isn’t valid if I quit.”
“You don’t get to quit this time, Peyton. The only way out of this is to go through it. Now are you going to stop thrashing around and take this like a man, or do I have to put you over my knee?”
Tex loosened the hold he’d been using to keep Peyton’s chest anchored to the bale of hay, which Peyton took as an invitation to leave. He dashed for the door but only managed a single step before tripping over his pants and crashing face first to the floor.
God, he was such a failure. He couldn’t even quit properly. Everything hit him at once. Exhaustion, pain, self-loathing, and that other thing—the one Tex had pointed out earlier as the root of all his problems. Fear.
Suddenly he was crying. Bawling like a newborn calf, his face planted on the straw-strewn floor and his pants around his knees. Tex lifted him to his feet and dusted him off, then sat on the bale of hay over which Peyton had so recently been bent and pulled him into his lap.
“I like seeing you cry, little cowboy.”
“Why?” Peyton asked between sobs. Obviously the man was a horrible, cruel sadist.
“Because for the first time since I met you, you’re taking something seriously. Laughter’s all right in its place, but you use it as a defense mechanism to hide what’s really going on inside you. So go on and have a good cry. That’s an honest emotion. You didn’t perform your best today. You let me down, and now you’re paying the price for it. Those are things worth crying over.”
Peyton cried harder, wetting Tex’s shirt with tears and snot. He wished he’d mucked out all the stalls like Tex had wanted him to. He wished his ass didn’t hurt. But most of all, he wished he wasn’t a quitter.
“How about we fix it, shall we?”
Peyton nodded against Tex’s chest. That would be nice, to fix something.
“Over my knee, then.”
Peyton’s eyes flew open. Over Tex’s knee meant… meant more spanking. Meant more pain and embarrassment. He tensed, prepared to run again, his mouth slack as he searched for the word no.
“You’re going to finish this, Peyton. I intend to make sure of it. The only part that’s up to you is how you take it. Either like it’s the first step toward a new life or like it’s one more thing you tried to duck out of.”
Peyton didn’t see how Tex could make him do it. He really didn’t. Tex had a couple of inches on him and a lot of pounds—all of which was muscle—but if he made a break for it, if he seriously fought to get out of the barn, Tex wouldn’t be able to keep him there, not without doing more damage than any contract would cover. But if he were the type to fight his way out of a barn, he wouldn’t be in this position to begin with.
Could Tex be right about what he needed? Could accepting his punishment with grace and courage be the start of a new way to approach life?
His lower lip trembled, but he gave Tex the nod. Racked with fear—fear of pain, fear he wouldn’t be able to finish what he was about to start, fear it wouldn’t change anything even if he did—he draped his upper body across Tex’s legs. When Tex tugged his shorts lower he realized he’d foolishly arranged himself so his bare ass faced the barn door, but it was too late to protest now. Tex had already started whaling on him.
The first slap sparked fire across his ass, reigniting the coals that’d been smoldering there. He screwed up his eyes and balled his hands into fists, trying not to yell this time. But the spanking kept going and going, and the conflict inside him rose higher and higher.
He should stick this out. He’d said he would, so he should. But he couldn’t, he couldn’t. It was too hard, too horrible. He was a grown man with his ass up and his head down and his feet flailing around while another grown man made handprints on him. It was humiliating and horrible and it hurt so bad and he was going to quit, he knew it. But instead of quitting, he started crying. Tears turned his mouth salty as his breath came heavy and wet from between parted lips.
“That’s it,” Tex said, pausing a moment to stroke more gently over his ass. Even that hurt, but it hurt in a sweet way—this moment of pride and reprieve. “You’re almost there, Peyton. Take a little more for me, okay?”
And suddenly he knew he could. He was going to survive this, as awful as it was. And by accepting it, embracing it—conquering it—he came to sort of like it. The sharp smack of Tex’s palm against the bouncing flesh of his ass had a rhythmic pulse like music. Tex’s hand was hot, as hot as his ass, and Tex’s thighs were warm and hard under his stomach.
