Promises Kept Read online

  Chapter III

  She was the sexiest, most attractive woman he'd ever met. How she'd gotten there from the pesky youngster who had yapped at his heels every chance she got, he didn't quite know. But long about the time she turned sixteen, he began to consciously distance himself from her because he'd been alarmed to realize that he didn't think he could really be trusted to be around her, and he knew she was much too young for him. Even at eighteen and completely legal, she was still too young for him.

  The ten years between them had weighed heavily on his mind, and he had done his best to step back and give her time to grow up, despite the fact that what he wanted to do most – to his own deep surprise – was to lock her in his bedroom for several years, and he wasn't even sure if that would be long enough.

  None of the women he'd dated – and there had been a reasonable amount – had ever really measured up to the combustible combination that he knew deep down they would be together.

  As she'd grown and matured after high school, and they inevitably ran into each other during the summer or on a break from school, he became more and more aware of her, and that the restrictions of age no longer applied. Yet, she wasn't the type of woman he could become involved with casually, and he knew it. She was the marrying type, a condition that he had – so far in his life – assiduously avoided. If there was anyone that he would consider taking the plunge with, though, it would have to be Anna Kenner.

  But lately, acutely aware of just how tenuous their finances were becoming, he knew he didn't want to saddle her with what was looking like a losing proposition that was going to have him drowning in debt for the next decade. He adamantly refused to declare bankruptcy. He would liquidate the ranch to pay off his bills before that happened, if it came to that, but he would not let so much as one of his suppliers – who all had hard working men like himself behind them, men he'd known forever and was friends with – go without being paid. It was unthinkable.

  But he shoved all of that to one side in favor of indulging himself – just a bit, just this once. To Remy, there were very few sights better than that of a woman – anyone but his sister - draped over his lap, at the point just before the spanking started. He'd had the pleasure of spanking a few women in his lifetime, a pursuit that he had very carefully kept completely separate from the corrections he occasionally had to provide for his sister.

  Here, though, was the incredibly potent marriage of the two – as he'd known it would be – in the way that Anna was poised, her body stiff with anticipation, waiting for the inevitable to begin. He wanted her with every fiber in his body, and there was no doubt that he was going to thoroughly enjoy spanking her. Yet there was also the possibility that she might have really injured or maimed herself trying to mow the lawn in what might as well have been bare feet. And there was no way he could stand the idea of Anna being hurt in any way, shape or form, so he intended to teach her that safety came first – whether she was living with him or not. And once he'd taken this step and given her a full spanking, there was no going back to just making pointed comments and raising his eyebrow at her. Whether she knew it or not – or, quite frankly, wanted it or not – she had herself a devoted disciplinarian – especially since she was now conveniently at hand - and he intended to ensure that each of them experienced their parts in that equation to the fullest.

  He allowed himself the excruciating pleasure of running his hand from the fullest rise of her buttocks to the backs of her knees, just above where he'd deliberately hung up her panties, then realized he needed to get down to business before he lost control entirely and gave her much more than just the spanking she expected, not that she was objecting to what he was doing. But then, to her mind, at least she wasn't being spanked.

  And he was dead right. Anna was dreading the moment when the spanking began, and once it had started, she realized that she hadn't been wary enough! Quickly she came face to face with the fact that the occasional swat he'd given her since she'd moved in – and even the five or so fiery cracks he'd administered while she was in this position - were nothing like the reality of feeling that hard arm across her while the man who had haunted all of her wicked dreams and fantasies for all of her life applied swat after distressingly stinging swat to her bare rear.

  It only took an embarrassingly short amount, too, before she began struggle again, with much more conviction as he continued to work his way methodically up and down her backside, leaving handprint after handprint in a patchwork pattern everywhere his palm smacked her skin.

  "Remy, stop! It hurts! Please!" As soon as the words were out of her mouth – which she had promised herself she wouldn't stoop to, regardless of what he did – she regretted them, because she knew deep in her heart that nothing she said or did was going to deter him from his goal, and she didn't want to sound weak. But once she started, she couldn't seem to stop, especially since he most definitely wasn't. In fact, her pleas only seemed to harden his resolve, and, worse than that, inspired him to begin to spank harder and faster than he had been. Before she knew it, she wasn't pleading, she was crying, and then out and out sobbing, yet still he showed not one sign that he was going to stop any time soon.

  She couldn't help it. Begging seemed to have become a vocation for her all of a sudden, however antithetical that was to her usual personality. But it appeared that being upended over this obscenely sexy man's lap and spanked like a five-year-old sent her usual strong personality into hiding. "Please, Remy! Stop!"

  To her complete amazement, he did, but only to adjust her so that he could put a heavy leg over legs that she hadn't even realized had been furiously kicking the entire time, so much so that she'd managed to completely divest herself of the underwear he'd so boldly lowered earlier.

  Once he had her adjusted the way he wanted her to be, Remy stated in a voice that Anna was becoming uncomfortably familiar with, "I know you've not been spanked before. And as far as I'm concerned, your Mother did you a grave disservice in not taking you more in hand."

  Anna opened her mouth to defend her beloved mother, trying to rear up to meet his eyes for a full battle, but his hand on the small of her back halted that pursuit in its tracks.

  "Not that your mother wasn't fabulous, she was. But she let you get away with entirely too much. And I do not intend to continue that trend, Anna. And one of the first" – his palm rose and fell heavily in a tremendous smack that had Anna heartily wishing that she'd just kept her big mouth shut - "things you need to realize" – another burning imprint of his hand found its way to the upper most crest of her bottom – "about being spanked is that you" – he emphasized the word with another searing swat – "are not in charge here."

  As he continued to lecture her, he also continued to spank her, delivering each deliberate smack with a force that he knew would have her hard pressed to listen to his words for the distraction of the burning in her butt, but he also knew that the words weren't necessarily as important as his tone of voice and how he handled her physically.

  "I am in charge, and I will most certainly be keeping a much closer eye – and hand – on you than your mother did. I wouldn't be the least surprised to find you here several times a week, especially at first."

  If she could have, Anna would have issued an indignant yelp at that pronouncement, but she couldn't. There was very little on her mind other than the necessity of getting him to stop what he was doing as soon as possible, and since there was apparently precious little she could do to accomplish that, she had no choice but to surrender to him and to his loving discipline.

  For now, anyway.

  Remy felt it, that moment when she stopped fighting and accepted her fate, and he was very careful not to allow himself to stop then, although the urge to comfort her almost overwhelmed him. But he knew that she needed just that extra bit that would let her know that, even with her full surrender, she was still not in control of this situation.

  She was so far gone that he didn't even think she noticed much when he finally
stopped spanking her, at least until he gathered her to him, taking care not to force her to sit on her well seared backside, but instead draping her over him in his arms and holding her closely enough that she could lean into him and he was cradling her against him like a baby. He found himself entirely unable to resist the urging of his heart, which had him rocking her slowly and pressing kisses to the tear soaked fine hair at her temple.

  Remy knew that she was too overcome to make any kind of protest at all. She had drifted into that well spanked headspace that brought a surprisingly wonderful calm after the storm. Anna continued to hiccough sobs for a long while, but she didn't utter one word of the normally expected indignant protest about the fact she was being held tightly to his chest while she lay there, completely bare from the waist down – and he wasn't about to point that out to her. She had barely moved a muscle since he'd ended the spanking, and, indeed, he thought she might well have gone to sleep.

  Knowing that was probably the best thing for her – and what he would have encouraged her to do after a thorough chastisement like that – Remy stood with her in his arms and carried her down the hall to her bedroom, then changed his mind and put her in his own room on the spur of the moment, where he placed her with the utmost care on her side on his bed.

  But when he turned to leave, he was amazed to find that her small hand shot out and grabbed him, lacing her slim fingers with his and tugging, telling him without words that she wanted him to stay.

  Remy wasn't about to decline such an offer, despite his inner turmoil about it. It was what he'd desperately wanted to do, but was completely torn, not really sure that they should venture down that road despite the fact he'd been at attention since he'd swung her up into his arms in the yard. He wanted her fiercely, but honestly didn't think that this was the best time to become involved with any woman, much less one for whom he had had feelings for quite some time.

  But he'd been holding himself back for so long, suppressing longings that often had him tied up in knots as she flitted in and out of his world, that he figured he'd deserved a bit of pure, unadulterated bliss, which was what he knew would result from her lying in his arms, whether or not they did anything more intimate.

  So he joined her on the bed, stretching himself out and cuddling her close with an arm around her shoulders. She settled against his side as if she slept that way every night, murmuring fussily as he adjusted his position, only to settle immediately once he began to stroke her back and press surprisingly dainty kisses along her hair line.

  "You should go to sleep, sweetheart," he whispered against the bridge of her nose.

  Her response was to clutch at him more tightly, as if she worried that he might slip away from her somehow.

  He chuckled softly. "I'm not going anywhere, honey. You'd have to pry me out of this bed with a crowbar right now." His hands had a will entirely of their own, and he was of a mind to let them wander a bit, as long as she didn't object.

  But before he did, he saw her shiver a little, and tucked the two of them under his covers as she clung to him like a limpet. He was amazed that she hadn't raised a ruckus, considering that she was still bare bottomed, but apparently she couldn't be bothered noticing that right now, and besides, he was quite sure she wasn't going to be in any hurry to cover that blazing skin with much of anything right now.

  He intended to cover as much of it as he could with his own hands, though, and set about doing just that. Remy couldn't prevent what ended up being a reverent sigh as he allowed himself the freedom to touch her for the first time, starting with his hand in that mass of almost unworldly beautiful gold blonde hair, letting its delicate silk strands sift through his big rough fingers before they moved on to even more interesting territory, claiming her delicate collarbone and narrow shoulders, down the outside of the arm he could easily reach. He let his guitar string callused fingertips raise goose bumps in their wake as they barely glided over the taut points of her breasts, feeling himself swell even further – unbelievably - at what that meant about how she was feeling.

  She was obviously excited, and he was curious to find out just how much. Could she be one of those rare women whose mouths said "no no" during a spanking, but whose body wept at the painful attentions?

  He could only hope.

  But he didn't rush to find out the answer, not wanting to startle her out of her reverie or cheat himself out of the chance to luxuriate in this first, intimate knowledge of her body. The curtains were drawn, and the room was invitingly dark. He moved the bedclothes just a bit away from her, keeping a cautious eye out for whether she was chilled or not, although the signs of her desires and of being cold were very much the same.

  His eyes drank in what they could as they adjusted to the lack of light, and as his hands continued to claim every inch of her that he could without causing her distress. He consciously skirted her most private area, preferring instead to follow the uppermost curve of her hip, keeping his fingers well away from her roasted flesh to travel boldly down the outside of her thigh, then even more audaciously up the inside, again not touching her where she was most a woman even though she managed to surprise him as he glided over that sensitive area by moaning slightly and arching towards his hand, as if inviting him to explore further.

  But he wanted to keep things slow. "No, sweetie. Not quite yet," he whispered. Remy decided, though, that he wanted to do away with the shirt she was wearing, and he allowed his hands to settle on her ribcage and work their way up, fully discovering what he had already suspected – a pleasant surprise that she was braless as each of his palms was filled to overflowing with a high, firm breast.

  He could have sworn he heard her sigh contentedly as his palms settled over those pebbled peaks, but it could just have been a trick that his fevered mind played on him.

  Looking at the pink t-shirt that was bunched at his wrists, he decided to relieve her of it entirely, pulling it up and over her head as carefully as he could, wanting to disturb her as little as possible, but keeping the comforter around her to keep her from becoming chilled again. And to his utmost delight, once it was off and thrown onto the floor somewhere, she collapsed back to exactly the spot he'd had her, in all of her nude glory, as if she didn't really realize that she was lying beside him with out a stitch of clothing on.

  His mouth watered, but his fingers won out, reverently tracing the slope of each breast to find its engorged nipple, their tips surrounding the sensitive bud and squeezing just slightly, tentatively, every cell in his body attuned to her response.

  And he couldn't have asked for more as she arched herself into his touch, moaning languorously as she did so.

  Anna felt as if she was in a dream. She had been floating on a wave of unprecedented bliss since the spanking had ended. She felt as if she was in a dream - a wonderfully sensuous dream that echoed the ones she'd had about her best friend's brother over the years. She knew what was going on around her, but couldn't quite summon the will to care much beyond the most basic of responses.

  At least, that was, until his palms settled on her bare breasts, and his fingers began flicking her nipples incessantly. She could no more prevent the unrecognizable moan that bubbled out of her mouth from the very back of her throat than she could stop the sun from setting in a few hours.

  Or him from arousing her, apparently. Everything he did, even just his breath on her skin, sent her senses into overload. If he kept up doing much more of the way he was expertly playing with her breasts, she was going to cum right then and there, and she felt completely helpless about that, too.

  And recognizing that helplessness only seemed to ratchet up her excitement.

  She wondered lazily if he would stop if she asked, but didn't want to take the chance that he actually might, so she stayed quiet and reveled in his glorious attention.

  She'd worry about it tomorrow. Right now, all she wanted was more of him and the sensual havoc he was wreaking on her body.

  But his dominance apparently extend
ed to that, too. She should have known. As much as she writhed and moaned uninhibitedly at his sometimes less than tender ministrations, he moved at his own slow, deliberate pace, mirroring the way he had spanked her. And, much like when he had laid down his law on her bottom there didn't seem to be anything she could do to escape this, either.

  Not that she was trying very hard to, but she wasn't used to being so blatantly expected to submit to another's will – to his will, which she knew would be particularly unyielding and stubborn.

  When his fingers reached their ultimate goal, though, she found herself entirely unable to form a coherent thought. Her entire body had turned into one big erogenous zone, and the bold, thick fingers that had claimed her most delicate area were insistent and insidious, sending waves of throbbing pleasure out to every inch of her, enslaving her with their lure as surely as if he had clapped her in irons.

  Remy pressed his forehead to hers, adoring the soft mewling sounds she was making as he stroked her. They went directly to his cock as if they were connected by invisible strings. "You're very slippery, Anna. Much more so than you should be just from the meanderings of my fingers these past few minutes."

  Had it only been minutes? It had seemed like hours of sensual torture to her.

  "I think being spanked definitely turned you on, and that's a good thing. Because I'm going to be spanking you frequently from now on."

  She didn't want to respond to what he'd said. He might get the wrong idea that she was agreeing with him and she wasn't. That the rest of her was traitorous and oozed its tribute all over his hand as his voice rumbled in her ear and his fingers had their way with her, had nothing to do with it.

  And it was only heightened when he pressed his lips to her ear and whispered, "I want you to cum now, Anna. Right now." At the same time, he reached around with his other hand to cup a still flaming bottom cheek, forcing her to press even harder against his fingers in order to avoid his painful touch. "Oh, sweetie, I am going to spank you every chance I get, and then I'm going to bring you off. Just because I know I can, and because I know that it probably embarrasses the hell out of you that you get so turned on by being disciplined by me."