Her Knight In Faded Denim Read online

  "Marissa Jean Hamilton!" her sister exclaimed, sounding uncomfortably – for the both of them – like their mother. She also looked thoroughly shocked, although she'd' have sworn that she was past being so at anything her sister said. Leave it to Rissa to top herself.

  Not that Rissa was the kind of woman who slept around. She most distinctly wasn't. She just never got tired of shocking her somewhat sheltered sister. Usually, her first connection with any man she became involved with was cerebral. She had little tolerance for fools, and second to that was someone with no sense of humor. Mr. Perkins had yet to register on either of those scales as far as she was concerned. But this time, it wasn't her brain involved, but somewhere much lower and much more bothersome.

  She certainly wasn't feeling any kind of emotional connection with the good sheriff, besides annoyance. Unfortunately, it seemed that, at least in his case, it was an aphrodisiac.

  In the end, it had been her brother-in-law, over her sister's vociferous objections, whom she could blame for her current predicament, since he instigated their first date.

  She made a mental note to call and cuss him out as soon as she was able.

  But by the look on Dodge's face, it was going to be quite some time before she could make Sonny pay. It was going to be one of those nights, where he was even more insatiable than usual and wore her out during her spanking, and then again, when he made love to her, wildly, aggressively, but always with an eye towards his considerable strength and what she knew he considered her delicacy.

  Rissa had always taken umbrage at his assessment of her physical capability and pointed out that, measured up against him, pretty much anyone would be weaker!

  But it was a bad attitude, along with using the "no" word much too often, as far as he was concerned. That was exactly what – besides Sonny's original well-intentioned interference that had brought them together in the first place – had gotten her into this specific position, or rather, the depressingly familiar position she knew she'd be assuming in about five seconds, or less, if the look on his face was any way to judge.

  And it definitely was.

  He'd crossed the short distance between them almost before she'd noticed, and well before she could react, relieving her of the paddle she'd been tasked with bringing him – which she knew he would now consider she hadn't done, even though it was right there in his hand, for cripe's sake.

  But she hadn't given it to him. He was nothing, if not a stickler for rules – especially those that applied to her.

  One booted foot found its way onto the lower step of the staircase she'd just sauntered slowly down, seconds before her stomach met with the sinewy strength of his thigh, although she felt somewhat precariously balanced, which he intended. He knew, from previous experience, that her feet wouldn't touch the ground in this position. She also knew that she was as safe under his authority as any baby was in his mother's arms – maybe safer, because few mothers had black belts in several forms of martial arts and had lived through Seal training in another life.

  But that didn't keep her safe from his discipline one iota, and the way his broad palm bit into her bottom was evidence of that. Neither did she have the safe haven of panties, as he'd disallowed them when he was in residence. No underwear of any kind while he was home.

  Hell, no clothes, most of the time, although he'd not made that an official rule.

  Yet.

  The consistent, radiating sting he delivered to that very sensitive area, though, was more than enough for her to stop worrying about whether or not she landed on her head and start worrying about how she was going to make it through this impromptu spanking. Not to mention, the worse one she knew she was going to get with that blasted paddle not long afterwards!

  Oh, dear God, his hand spankings hurt! Having never really trusted any other man with her secret desires and never having had a finger laid on her as a child, she had been – and continued to be – entirely unprepared for how much it just plain hurt, especially when the administrator was at least twice her size, and then some, and quite expert at the art. He covered all of her, stem to stern, judiciously applying a quick layer of swats while holding her unable to defend herself.

  That was one of the reasons why she hated this position with a passion. At least when he spanked her on his enormous bed, she had the advantage of its support and could easily kick up and hit his hand.

  Once. She'd only ever done that once – besides the one other time she'd kicked him, and that wasn't during a punishment. And he'd made quite sure that she would never do it again. Ever.

  But she could have, if she'd wanted to.

  But she didn't have that luxury from this position. Hell, she didn't think she'd been limber enough as a college student to kick his hand while over his knee like that, and she was no co-ed anymore.

  Her hands were equally useless, since she'd had another vicious lesson about not grabbing onto his leg while draped ignominiously over his tree trunk thigh. Well, the severity of that particular lesson probably had more to do with the fact that she'd dug into him with her nails.

  That had definitely been a very bad miscalculation on her part, even worse than kicking his hand.

  Rissa wasn't at all eager to repeat either of those lessons, so her hands – which, like her feet, were well above the ground due to those obscenely long legs of his – continued to flail the air futilely as he drove this particular lesson home on her defenseless rear.

  "When I give you an order, Marissa Jean, I intend that you obey it – and that doesn't mean standing brattily at the bottom of the stairs twirling your paddle until I take it from you, now, does it?"

  Marissa grimaced. Why was it that scolding her brought out the chatterbox in him? He was so quiet, usually, that she thought he was mad at her when he wasn't. But lecturing her on her behavior seemed to bring out the wordiness in him that she'd really just as soon he'd kept hidden.

  Not that she ever had a choice. He lectured her freely, whenever the mood struck him. With her, it was a fairly chronic impulse, and he tended not to worry much about where they were or whom they were with when he did it, either. If he felt she needed to be reminded of just who she was and how he expected her to behave, he let loose. She was the sole focus of his attention, and everyone else could go to hell as far as he was concerned.

  "And you know that I expect that you will answer my questions, too, Marissa," he reminded, adding extra sharp swats to emphasize each word as he chided her for not responding to him quickly enough for his taste.

  "Yes, Sir!" she practically screamed. Then just as loudly, "No, Sir, I mean!"

  She knew he was grinning at her mistake even without looking at him, the bastard.

  "So what could you do in the future to avoid getting yourself a thorough spanking even before you're going to get a thorough paddling, hmm?"

  Her bottom was on fire just as sure as if he had taken a blowtorch to it. She couldn't – and didn't much want to – wrap her head around the fact that this was just the beginning.

  "Obey quickly," she answered breathlessly, in the milliseconds between sound smacks.

  "Exactly. I think another twenty good, hard spanks ought to help you remember that rule."

  Although she knew that protesting would do her no good, she could no more stop herself from yelling about her pronounced sentence and its swift commencement than she could extricate herself from her current situation.

  And "no" wasn't a word he took kindly to in any situation, but most especially during a punishment, so all she could do was to let out a long, low wail that ended in a, "pleeeeeaaassse."

  He had told her that she could beg and plead as much as she wanted to – unless he had expressly forbid it for that punishment – and she tended to take full advantage of his leniency. He'd once told her audaciously that she was almost as loud while being punished as she was during sex.

  Rissa hadn't been sure whether that was a compliment at the time, and she still wasn't. She finally decided she didn'
t really want to know. It wasn't something she could control – like many things in this relationship, she had rapidly discovered– in either case, so it didn't really matter.

  When he had delivered the last tremendous swat, he kept her in position for a long moment before allowing her to get up, which she also hated. That practice definitely reinforced just who was in control in this relationship. She was completely submissive to him, having been most expertly chastised, yet he demanded just that inch more from her.

  Dodge didn't want her thinking she could just get up and run away from him after a spanking. That was not acceptable behavior. So she had learned not to attempt to get up until he told her she could.

  And when that time came – after an interminable wait with the fire he'd set in her seat licking flames all over her backside and into other, much more delicate areas, to her great embarrassment – she also knew that he had better not catch her reaching back to rub her butt, no matter how badly it stung.

  That tendency had earned her a session with the cane that she was even less eager to repeat than any of the other multitudinous lessons he'd taught her.

  When he finally helped her up – chivalrous to the end, she thought, gritting her teeth as she tried unsuccessfully not to suck in her breath as the sizzle in her butt increased a thousand fold as she stood.

  Of course, in being as gentlemanly as he was, he took a firm hold of her upper arm to steady her, but also, she knew, to remind her of his presence, although his gentle grip with the same hand that had roasted her rump was quite a stark contrast.

  That was another of the things that had always sent a fissure of lightning straight to her crotch. How he could be so dominant and controlling one moment yet remain excruciatingly attentive to her feelings – except the ones generated by his discipline, of course. He'd been that way since they'd met and showed no signs of letting up, on either end of the spectrum.

  Rissa wasn't sure whether that was a good thing or not. Especially when he bent her over the back of his couch, holding her securely in place by nothing more than the fingertips of his left hand on the small of her back. The unyielding clear paddle – holes neatly drilled up and down it like dots on a domino – held up against her butt in clear warning, although he hadn't yet applied it to her.

  She knew a damn sight better than to try to get up, too, dammit, despite the ample provocation.

  "But –" When she was coherent and not weeping and wailing from his smacks, it had become a reasonable synonym for the "no" she'd been denied; and she was just waiting for him to catch on to that.

  "That's another word you can add to the verboten list while you're being punished, Marissa."

  Blast! Sometimes, it was as if he read what little mind she had left!

  "So why do you find yourself here, hmm? Tell me exactly what it was that you did, and when you finish, you're going to get the paddling of your life."

  Damn Sonny, for getting her into this!

  He was another man who was wrong, wrong, wrong!

  Chapter 3

  She didn't want to think about what she'd done, because she knew that it wasn't just one incident. In fact, if someone had twisted her arm, she would have to admit that he had been much more than patient with her, considering that she'd awakened in a horrible mood and it had gone downhill from there.

  Truth be told, it was the day or so before she was expecting her period, and on those particular days, there should have been a mandatory warning sign above her head about approaching at your own risk. She awoke late for an interview – which was all his fault, of course, since he'd kept her up until all hours doing unspeakable things to her body.

  So, from the moment she jumped out of bed, she was already in hot water with him for running around like a maniac with Tourette's. Not one printable word passed her lips until after he'd handed her the first cup of coffee, downstairs, just as she was about to leave.

  "Bless you," she said prayerfully, accepting it and taking a sip with a level of reverence usually reserved for the communion cup. "I've got to go." She smooched him loudly on the lips, desperately wishing she had time for more, then whirled to run out the door.

  Unfortunately, she only made it as far as the bottom of the steps before she realized that she had no vehicle. He'd picked her up at her sister's house the night before, damn it!

  Luckily, Dodge was already way ahead of her, passing her from behind with a sharp swat to her bottom that would be a harbinger of her current situation, saying wryly, "Need a ride?"

  Although she knew the situation didn't warrant it, Rissa was shaking with frustration and just about ready to explode all over someone or something. And that was likely to be Dodge, unfortunately, since he was the closest person to her at the time.

  After lifting her into the truck, as had become his custom, Dodge got them onto the road and automatically adjusted all of the climate controls to their different tastes – he was always hot; she was always cold – without her having to say a word.

  Then he reached over and took her hand, wrenching it away from how she was hugging herself as she slumped in her seat, already figuring that she wasn't going to get this job, either.

  "Take a couple of deep breaths and remember what you told me already—if they don't hire you, it's their loss."

  She smiled wanly at him, not really interested in a pep talk. Murder, yes. Pep talk, no.

  He kissed her, long and lingering, when he dropped her off, and he was there when she came out, not long enough later, at all.

  "Do you have another interview today?"

  He asked, already knowing better than to ask about how the interview had gone just by the expression on her face. "No."

  "Why don't I just bring you back to my place, then? You can lounge around all day in one of my shirts and relax or nap."

  "I am not going to nap," she interrupted more sharply than she had intended, glaring at him.

  Dodge hadn't said a word, but his lips tightened warningly at her tone. "Well, just relax then, and I'll pick you up for dinner." He did love how she looked in one of his t-shirts, though, and that picture stayed with him for the rest of the day.

  "I don't want to hang around your house waiting for you to come home like some fifties house frau." She was dangerously close to yelling. "There are things I could be doing at Sophie's. Take me there!"

  Dodge grimaced, but he surprised her and did as she asked. When they arrived in Sophie and Sonny's driveway, though, he reached across the cab of his big truck and brought her up against him, ignoring her protests as if she wasn't making any, tightening his arms around her until her only possible move was to get closer to him.

  Then he kissed her, again not taking "no" for an answer then, either, although she behaved churlishly and refused to kiss him back.

  "I understand that this is already not your day, Marissa," he cautioned low against her temple. "But you need to do something to straighten out your attitude or I'll do it for you." She found her chin tipped up so that she had no choice but to look him in the eye, and he did not look amused. "Am I making myself perfectly clear?"

  Dodge watched her clench her teeth, practically grinding them together, but she nodded. He didn't, however, let her go quite that easily. "I should give you a good attitude adjustment right here and now, though, shouldn't I?"

  "No, you shouldn't!" she fairly screeched, trying to move away from him but completely unable to do so.

  He merely contracted his arms and brought them even more tightly together. "Well, I sincerely hope – for your sake, as well as mine – that your day gets better from here, Shorty, considering that you've already gotten yourself into a passel of trouble this morning that I'm going to address with you later." He let that promise sink in a bit, hoping it might help her get control of herself. "Regardless, I'll pick you up at six to take you out to dinner. Maybe that'll help cheer you up." Her outrage at his promise of retribution was palpable, but he ignored it and began to pepper her face with tiny kisses while she sq
uirmed in his arms as if she couldn't possibly bear another smooch from him.

  Dodge finally allowed her to go, only because he knew he should be heading into his own job. Otherwise, she would probably have already been over his lap, and he didn't much care who the hell saw it.

  Rissa wasn't at all sure that dinner tonight was a good idea, either, since she was apparently already in trouble, but it would be nice to see him again.

  Maybe.

  On the other hand, any contact with him while she was in this mood was probably only going to add to the spanking he had already decided she had earned. Therefore, perhaps, it would be a good idea just to avoid him today…or until she got over her crankiness, which, with the way she was feeling today might be some time around menopause…

  He called her several times that day, just to check up on her, and long about two in the afternoon, a huge bouquet of lavender roses was delivered to her door. The card read simply, "Mood, schmood. I love you."

  Although she adored the sentiment – and the roses – she knew that neither of them would get her out of the sentence he'd already decreed for her.

  And dinner that night had only made things worse. Even though he took her to her favorite restaurant, she was still in a foul state of mind. They had been together for long enough now that he knew how she was just before her period, and sometimes, he had stared longingly at the bulletproof jackets and helmets that hung in the supply room at the sheriff's office, but he figured she'd be insulted if he arrived to take her out wearing one. But it never failed to surprise Dodge just how much of a change her personality underwent while hormones raged – and reigned – through her body. Rissa was a driven person – someone who accomplished things, with little patience for those who preferred to mull over their options for several decades before acting. But she was also smart, funny and almost too empathetic, sometimes, and not usually anywhere near this changeable, disposition wise.