CHAPTER 27
Valerie
I moved to the stove on autopilot, my body performing the motions of a good wife while my mind spun in tighter and tighter circles. I carved the chicken with hands that shook only slightly—I’d gotten better at hiding the trembling, or maybe I’d just gotten used to trembling—and arranged it on a plate alongside the roasted potatoes and green beans. I brought the plate to the table and set it before Chris, leaning past his shoulder the way I’d seen my mother do countless times while serving my father.
The position put my bare breast inches from his face. I felt the warmth of his breath against my nipple and nearly dropped the plate.
“Beautiful,” Chris said, and I didn’t know if he meant the food or my breast or both. He picked up his fork and knife and began to eat with the methodical appreciation of a man who’d spent the day doing physical labor. “The rosemary is perfect. You’re becoming an excellent cook, Val.”
“Thank you, sir,” I whispered, standing beside his chair with my hands clasped in front of me, unsure what to do with myself. I felt like a… like a servant. Like asexualservant.
Like a concubine in some historical drama, standing bare-breasted beside her master’s table, waiting to be told what to do next. Like the naughtiest, most wanton version of a traditional wife that had ever existed—one who served dinner in nothing but backless panties, her soon-to-be-punished bottom on display, her nipples hard in the kitchen air, a brand-new handmade paddle hanging on the pantry wall as a shameful promise.
“You may eat, sweetheart,” Chris said, looking up at me as he cut another piece of chicken. “Have a seat.”
I shook my head. The thought of sitting down across from my husband—my bare bottom on the wooden chair, my breasts exposed over the cloth napkins and wedding-present dishes—while trying to eat roasted potatoes as if this were a normal dinner was so absurd it almost made me laugh. My stomach was a tight knot of anticipation and terror and that dark, shameful arousal that had taken up permanent residence between my legs. I couldn’t have swallowed a bite if my life depended on it.
“I’m not hungry, sir,” I said, chewing on my lower lip. “Not right now.”
Chris nodded, as if this were just what he’d expected. “Go ahead and clean up when I’m done, then. Put the leftovers in the fridge.” He took another bite, chewing thoughtfully. “I’m sure we’ll both be hungry later.”
The casual certainty in his voice—later, as if what was coming was just another part of the evening’s schedule, as natural asdinner and dishes—made my knees go weak. I gripped the back of the nearest chair to steady myself.
Chris finished his meal with unhurried enjoyment, pausing to compliment the green beans and the crispness of the potato skin. I stood beside him the entire time, acutely aware of every inch of my exposed body, of the cool air on my bare bottom, of the paddle gleaming on the pantry wall in my peripheral vision. When he set his fork down and pushed his plate forward, he looked up at me.
“That was delicious. Thank you, sweetheart.” He stood from the table, and his hand found the bare curve of my waist as he passed me—a casual, possessive touch that sent electricity racing across my skin. “When you’ve finished cleaning up, bring me the paddle. I’ll be in the living room.”
Then he was gone. His footsteps moved down the hallway, and I stood alone in the kitchen, nearly naked, with a sink full of dishes and a paddle on the wall. The knowledge of what was coming settled over me like a weight.
I cleaned up in a daze. Scraped the plates. Wrapped the leftover chicken in foil and put it in the fridge alongside the potatoes and green beans. Washed the dishes by hand because the rhythmic motion of it—soap, rinse, dry, stack—gave my trembling hands something to do besides shake. I wiped down the counters. I folded the dish towel and hung it on its hook.
I was stalling, and I knew it. I felt my forehead crease as I stood drying my hands much too long on a soft dishtowel that seemed to comfort me a bit. With a helpless little noise in my throat, I made myself stop.
The paddle felt strangely warm under my fingers when I lifted it from its hook. Warmer than I’d expected, as if the wood itself held some residual heat from Chris’s hands—from the hours he must have spent shaping it, sanding it, perfecting the curve of the handle and the flat of the face. It was heavier than it looked, too. Solid. The kind of weight that would carry real force behind a swing. Another of those tiny, mortifying noises rose from my chest to my lips.
I carried the horrid thing to the living room the way a girl in a fairytale might carry a poisoned apple. My hands trembled. Then my heart started to race when I saw Chris sitting in his armchair.
The sight of him stopped me in the doorway. He’d changed. The work clothes were gone. In place of the dusty jeans and flannel, Chris wore a black bathrobe. Just a robe—belted loosely at the waist, the collar open to show the broad plane of his chest, his bare legs visible below the hem. Nothing else. No T-shirt peeking from the neckline. No hint of boxers or briefs beneath the dark fabric. Just skin and the robe and the quiet, devastating authority of a man who had prepared himself for what he intended to do.
My eyes went wide. The understanding hit me like a physical force—a wave of heat that started in my belly and radiated outward until my fingertips tingled and my knees threatened to buckle. My husband must be naked under that robe. He had readied himself. Prepared to enjoy me exactly as he wished, whenever the mood struck him, with nothing between his body and mine but a single knot of terrycloth.
Chris’s gaze dropped to the paddle in my trembling hands, then rose to my face. He didn’t smile. The look he gave me wassomething beyond a smile—something deeper, more solemn, like a man meditating on a promise he fully intended to keep.
“Bring me your paddle,” he said.
Mypaddle.Oh, God.
For a moment I thought I would run. I pictured myself darting to the door, getting it open, running into the woods and… and throwingmypaddle down a well, or something. Burying it. Finding a bog to sink it in.
Then I realized I had started to wobble toward Chris, who had stood up, his hands in front of him to receive the implement with which he would correct my naughtiness. My tummy kept doing flips, and I felt my need leaking into the gusset of the mortifying panties, but my feet kept moving until I had laid the awful wooden thing on my husband’s palms.
To my panicked confusion, he raised it until it rose just under my chin.
“Kiss it, Valerie.”
My jaw slackened and a little whimper emerged from my chest. I felt my head start to shake though I hadn’t consciously wanted to move it.
“No,” I whispered. “Please… sir? I… please…”
